What is Home?

“Home is where the heart is.”

“Home is whenever I’m with you.”

“I’ll be home for Christmas.”

Home. What is it? How do you find it?

I recently was asked what I call home. When asked this we were living in the basement of one of our parents’ homes with many of our possessions stored in our van. We’ve lived in seven different places in four states in our five-and-half years of marriage. Where we are currently living (not the basement), we will only be for a couple months before our biggest move yet: to the other side of the world. We may or may not move to another dwelling stateside before that major move, and there will be a number of moves on that side of the world too.

Sometimes I think of ourselves as gypsies, roaming gnomes, or, more biblically, as wandering pilgrims.

Moving a lot can be unsettling and is always stressful. No matter how many times we do it, it’s always hard. With each uprooting we experience, I sense roots deepening in my longing for my eternal home.

That’s the home that I can sink my roots into deep and allow my heart to be fully attached. That’s the home that when reached will never change or involve another moving box or bag to be packed. The home where there are no more tears or goodbyes.

That’s the home we were made for. That’s the home my heart longs for. A benefit of being a pilgrim on this earth is a very tangible sense of a greater longing for this eternal home. But while I am still a pilgrim on this earth, I must walk by faith and follow the Shepherd who leads us weary pilgrims on the path of his choosing. I would not choose so many moves, but he has chosen them for us for his purposes and his glory. I will choose to be obedient until he finally calls me home.

“For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. For we must all appear before the judgement seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.”

2 Corinthians 5:1-10