Somewhere Called Home
Boxes.
Plastic tubs.
Packing tape.
Small.
Medium.
Large.
The familiar sound of cardboard folding into place. Another roll of tape. Another box sealed shut.
This week, Amy has been packing up our house in Minnesota. I've been packing up the trailer I’ve been living in for the past year. We’re both getting ready to unpack it all again in Texas.
And it occurred to me… I've never once referred to the trailer as "home."
I've never said, "I'm headed home."
Without even realizing it… I've always said, "I'm headed back to the trailer."
How do you know when you’re home?
We say something "hits home.”
We invite people to "make yourself at home."
We celebrate being "home free."
Apparently, home has always meant more than an address.
A house gives us walls and windows. A place to store our stuff. And, man, do we know how to accumulate stuff!
But home?
It’s something more.
Home is where your shoulders finally relax, where you can be you, where someone is always glad you walked through the door.
Sometimes you feel at home within minutes. Sometimes it takes years. And sometimes... home has very little to do with the house.
In the next few weeks, Amy and I will begin unpacking boxes in a new house.
Dishes will find their cabinets.
Books their shelves.
Pictures their walls.
Little by little, the boxes will disappear.
Home, though, works differently.
We spend so much of our lives trying to find it. I suppose that's because, deep down, every one of us is looking for the same thing.
To be known.
To be welcomed.
To be loved.
To know we don't have to earn our place.
Maybe home isn't something we find.
Maybe… home is something that finds us.
Much love,
Pastor Gregg
