I've been struggling with this concept lately. {home} Such a simple word, one that we often throw around in casual conversation without giving much thought to its true implications. But after this past month, I've been forced to grapple with it, to wrestle with it, and to desperately long for it.
After almost four months in Costa Rica, I finally traveled back to my sweet Athens, the place that I've always called home, the place that has grown and shaped me more than anywhere else in the world. But after a short two weeks, it was time to leave again...then two weeks in Florida for Young Life training....then back to Costa Rica, to a new apartment on an unfamiliar side of the city. Honestly, when I got on the plane to San Jose on Sunday, I really wasn't sure whether I was going home or leaving home.
In reality, at this stage in my life, I don't really feel as if I have a home. I love Costa Rica, but I am an outsider here. A foreigner. A gringa. My hair and skin are too light. My Spanish is too slow. My dancing is too rigid (there's no hope for me in that area, I'm afraid). But as I traveled to Athens over Christmas break, I was hit in the face by the hard reality that my life isn't there anymore. To my utter horror, it seemed as though life had actually continued without me (?!). I know that I am missed by my family and friends there (at least, I think I am...), but life and time have moved on, as they have a tendency to do, and I am no longer a physical part of it.
I can't really say whether this realization has been depressing or freeing, perhaps it has been both, but I can say that it has forced me to raise a soul-wrenching question that still makes my eyes to bristle with tears...where, then, is home? Is home in Athens, where my family and friends live? Is home in the house with the tall ceilings and big windows where I spent most of my childhood? Could home be at the beautiful Lake Rabun, where my most cherished memories have been made? Or is home in Costa Rica, in this new apartment in this unfamiliar city that I love?
As humans, we have this natural, desperate desire to belong. If you really think about it, I believe that this desire actually drives most of our behaviors, beginning in our early years. We are naturally driven to be a part of something bigger than ourselves. to be accepted. to be included. to be loved. And it is this same drive within us that makes us want to have a home, a safe space, a place that we belong to and that belongs to us. Therefore, home, I think, signifies something much greater, much more profound, than a house or city or even a country; it signifies the realization of our deepest, most precious human desire to belong.
I think this is why it is so incredibly difficult when we feel as though we've lost this physical "home," this comforting place of love and belonging and inclusion and acceptance. That's the tension, the loss, and the grief that I've been living in during this past month. But as I sat down at my kitchen table today, sipping my overly-large cup of coffee and basking in the glorious sunlight that shone through my open window, I began to recognize what a rare gift it is to not belong to a physical place, to be a "nomad" of sorts. You see, I have the opportunity to fully experience something that not everyone gets the chance to really see or deeply feel: the reality that we don't ultimately belong to this world. We were made for something else, something greater. Home for us is not a physical place on earth; our true home is in Heaven, with our Father. And I say this confidently for the simple reason that Jesus Himself did not have a home in this world..."Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head" {Matthew 8:20}.
I have the joy and the privilege of experiencing this gift firsthand, to feel the tension of not fully belonging anywhere. And even though it doesn't always feel like a gift, and even though the feelings of pain and loss and hurt are still present, I believe we can rejoice in the fact that we do not find home in this world, for He has created for us a Home in Himself. So, let us go and "make our home with Him" {John 14:23}.
