Home

When you think of home, where do you think of? Most of you probably either think of where you live right now or your parents' house or town. For me, that answer has become complicated.

I didn't spend my childhood moving around, unlike most of my military neighbors. I was born in Fairfax and my family has been in Northern Virginia ever since, moving into the same house they/we live in now when I finished preschool. But the majority of the last seven years since high school has been elsewhere. Most has been in Farmville. On top of that, I'm pretty certain that over the last four years I have spent more time in China than at 'home.' So I hope you understand when I say that the answer has become complicated. I feel really weird referring to my mom's house as 'my' house. Yes, it's where I grew up and where I can always come back to, but I haven't really lived there for years. And I have no part in owning it.

Home isn't what it used to be. It used to be the only place I had a connection to. Now it's scattered. Scattered amongst people and places. To help explain this I'm going to borrow a poem written by my friend Rebecca:

In Tribute

This is a tribute to all the MK's and TCK's. To everyone who has struggled with the knowledge that no matter where you go you'll always be missing a time, a place, a friend, a memory.

There are no goodbyes, only see-you-laters
But sometimes later seems to take forever
Seems like it will never arrive

There are no true farewells, only til-we-meet-agains
But meeting again can be even harder
When there's parting at the end

There are no permanent partings, only temporary leaves
But even temporary can be tough
And the parted friends will grieve

Because with every place you come to
There's a place you leave behind
And for every friend you meet
There's another in your mind

Now I'm about to add another place and more people to the list. I think that's definitely playing a role in why I've suddenly gotten nervous. Many people seem to be under the impression that moving around all the time doesn't bother me. That's not true. While I do love exploring, meeting new people, and seeing new places, I also long to have a place to call my own, to sink my roots into and call home with a consistent group of people around me. The time for that just hasn't happened yet, so I have to remind myself that I'll never be truly home until the day I meet Jesus. And in the meanwhile, I'm following the Lord's leading. If He wants me in another city or country right now, then that's the way it is and it'll be better than anything I can dream up for myself.

"But we are citizens of heaven, where the Lord Jesus Christ lives..."
-Philippians 3:20

"Don't let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me.
There is more than enough room in my Father's home.
If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you?
When everything is ready, I will come and get you,
so that you will always be with me where I am."
-John 14:1-3

With a citizenship in heaven, it doesn't matter if I buy a house and take up permanent residence, never having to move my stuff again, something will still be off. And that will be the imperfection in the world, waiting to be redeemed. Waiting for restoration. Waiting for the return of the King who brings completion.

"... we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen.
For the things we see now will soon be gone,
but the things we cannot see will last forever."
-2 Corinthians 4:18

"For we know that when this earthly tent we live in is taken down
(that is, when we die and leave this earthly body),
we will have a house in heaven,
an eternal body made for us by God himself and not by human hands.
We grow weary in our present bodies,
and we long to put on our heavenly bodies like new clothing...
we know that as long as we live in these bodies we are not at home with the Lord."
-2 Corinthians 5:1-2, 6

We'll never be truly at home until that happens, so there's really no point in wasting time longing for a permanent residence here. Not that a permanent residence is a bad thing. It just doesn't complete you or me and longing for it distracts us from the present. C. S. Lewis puts it this way in The Screwtape Letters (keep in mind this is from the point of view of an experienced demon writing advice to his novice demon nephew, so for example, the Enemy = God):

"It is far better to make them live in the Future... thought about the Future inflames hope and fear. Also, it is unknown to them, so that in making them think about it we make them think of unrealities. In a word, the Future is, of all things, the thing least like eternity. It is the most completely temporal part of time - for the Past is frozen and no longer flows, and the Present is all lit up with eternal rays... Hence the encouragement we have given to all those schemes of thought such as Creative Evolution, Scientific Humanism, or Communism, which fix men's affections on the Future, on the very core of temporality. Hence nearly all vices are rooted in the future. Gratitude looks to the past and love to the present; fear, avarice, lust and ambition look ahead... To be sure, the Enemy wants men to think of the Future too - just so much as is necessary for the now planning the acts of justice or charity which will probably be their duty tomorrow. The duty of planning the morrow's work is today's duty; though its material is borrowed from the future, the duty, like all duties, is in the Present. This is now straw splitting. He does not want men to give the Future their hearts, to place their treasure in it. We do. His ideal is a man who, having worked all day for the good of posterity (if that is his vocation), washes his mind of the whole subject, commits the issue to Heaven, and returns at once to the patience or gratitude demanded by the moment that is passing over him. But we want a man hag-ridden by the Future - haunted by visions of an imminent heaven or hell upon earth - ready to break the Enemy's commands in the present if by so doing we make him think he can attain the one or avert the other... We want a whole race perpetually in pursuit of the rainbow's end, never honest, nor kind, nor happy now, but always using as mere fuel wherewith to heap the altar of the future every real gift which is offered them in the Present."
-p. 76-78

For the next nine months London is home. Eventually I'll have to make a decision about next year. Perhaps I'll be settling down. Perhaps not. There are a world of possibilities, but I can't fix my hopes and happiness on future treasures or homes that may or may not happen. I can, however, know that I have a God that will never abandoned me, is with me wherever I go, and has given me this wonderful opportunity for a new adventure that I can enjoy in the present.

"Now listen, daughter, don't miss a word:
forget your country, put your home behind you.
Be here - the king is wild for you.
Since he's your lord, adore him."
-Psalms 45:10-12