Tennesse feels like home.
Recently and in the past four years, I use “home” as a loose term.
Dallas was home for 17 years, Waco for 4, Houston for 2 summers, Italy for 4 weeks.
These are all places I learned to love and found community.
They’re places that enhanced strengths and challenged weaknesses I forgot to address, or exposed parts of myself I never knew I had.
To me, home is where mind and heart blend.
My mind rests its worries and falls asleep. My heart cherishes each moment and feels treasured.
Adventure and discovery excite me, so I die to seek and experience new places.
But location typically does not affect my well-being and inner peace.
People can and often do.
I see home in a friend’s eyes when she says, “I don’t want to workout, let’s eat ice cream.”
I feel home on a friend’s shoulder as I weep and confess insecurities.
I find home in a friend’s smile when he laughs at a joke.
No matter where I am, I crave home if I don’t have a support system or community around me.
The earth is vast and complex and full of treasures. I want to learn and know them all.
However many places I go, whenever I question my belonging on this earth, I return home to The Lord in a state of reflection and gratitude.
When I acknowledge Him, anxieties cease and joy spills forth.
God welcomes me and invites me to kick off my shoes, I’ve wandered pretty far, after all.
He asks me how my day was, listens to my words, smiles at the highs and frowns at the lows.
He offers fresh baked cookies, laughs at my jokes and I understand His stories that stretch and mold my perspective.
He doesn’t declare He is safe, I just know.
He doesn’t ask me to lay my head down, I just collapse on the couch.
He doesn’t need to be visually seen or audibly heard, my mind knows and my heart feels. He is home. And there’s no place like home.
If you say, “The Lord is my refuge,” and you make the Most High your dwelling, no harm will overtake you, no disaster will come near your tent. –Psalm 91:9-10, NIV
Laughter, Love & God 