For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a strange relationship and deep curiosity with “home”. For most of my formative years, home was a place that I came back to. My family would travel for 2-3 months at a time in our motorhome, which though providing many of the amenities of a house, including a bed, kitchen, and shower; it lacked the stability and permanence of home. Then we would come back to our home in Northeast Texas where we could collectively let out a sigh of relief — but only after we had thoroughly cleaned the dust and cobwebs out of our home. Home was not a place we lived; but a place that we visited.
What would it be like to have a forever home? This question was one that I would fantasize about as a child, while also feeling a bit ashamed because I was getting to live out the dream of many people. After all, I got to travel the USA in a fancy RV — going up North during the summer and to the South in the winter. Basically, I got to live a snowbird’s life while still having the vigor of youth.
Perhaps this is why ever since I moved out of my parent’s house to form my own home, I’ve always lived as if I would stay there forever. I hosted dinners; invested in my community; and formed traditions with friends who became family. I always longed for my home to be a space that could welcome in others. And even greater, why as I’ve grown in self-acceptance, that I’ve desired to be a safe and welcome person for people to feel at home with.
And yet, for one reason or another, home has remained a place that I visit instead of a place I reside. Sometimes those visits are extended and I begin to hope that this will be my forever home, only to find a stirring from within that leads me on. The longing for a forever home is perhaps one of the greatest aches of my heart.
But to find that forever home, I must know what I am really looking for. Am I simply looking a house that I can purchase so that I have a physical space to reside in? Am I looking for a special person or special people to build a home with? Am I looking for something more?
While my forever home might include a house, it’s so much more than just the ideal house in the perfect environment. I’ve stayed in luxurious houses that were void of the intangible but very real feeling of home. And I’ve been able to stay in bucolic settings; vibrant cities; and convenient suburbia— and find glimpses of home in each one of them.
And my forever home cannot just be centered upon the people that I love — for my time with them will come to an end, whether at the end of the dinner, the holiday, the season, or their life. Not only that, but perhaps due to my transitory life, my biological and chosen family are scattered throughout 10 different states and even if I wanted to, it would be humanly impossible to build a life that is in close proximity to all of them at the same time.
And so, I wonder, What if my forever home is not a place, or a person that I have to look for outside of myself, but rather it can be found way down deep within my soul? What if this striving, craning, and pining for home is a desire that can only be satisfied within myself, in the inner space where God resides?
Brene Brown, in her inspiring work, Braving the Wilderness, quotes Maya Angelou who says —
“You are only free when you realize you belong no place – you belong every place – no place at all. The price is high. The reward is great.”
Maya Angelou
When I first read this quote a few years ago, I didn’t grasp it. I was convinced that if I worked hard enough, I could find a place to belong. And to a large degree, I have found that. Some of the most amazing human beings alive have chosen me as their own and I’ve chosen them as my own. And yet, there are some parts of my journey that they will never be able to fully understand. There are some places that they cannot go with me.
In this season of my life, I am exploring what it looks like to foster space within my soul for me and God to dwell. I look at the life of Jesus and how he returned to his home through silence and solitude — through fostering union with His Father. He who had no earthly home was able to be at home everywhere while also understanding that his forever home was beyond earth. I want that freedom that Maya Angelous speaks of — that Jesus lived — so that my forever home cannot be destroyed by calamity or strife, but is found in Christ and He in me.
Perhaps my insatiable longing for a forever home is simply a seed of eternity that is planted within my soul. Perhaps my greatest ache keeps me alive to what is beyond this life. Perhaps I don’t have to search for a home. Perhaps I’m already at home.