Home

The word "home" has been running around in my head lately.  Where is home?  Who is home?  Why am I feeling pulled in a thousand directions?  Is my new "home" really going to be Bolivia in just over a week?  How will this change my perception of "home" and the attachments to people and things I leave behind in the states?

I've always thought of "home" as a place.

Now, I don't think that's an accurate definition of "home" at all.

It feels strange calling the place I grew up near Chicago "home" when so much of my heart lies in the special moments and loved ones in my life in Indiana.  And I think of my family as more my "home" than my house itself.  My parents are talking about moving soon, and I really don't care.  I don't feel much attachment to the house...only to my family that I've lived with in that house.

I think a more accurate definition of "home" lies in the well known sentiment, "Home is where the heart is."  My heart lies with family, with friendships, with people I encounter.  Familiar places carry memories, but they don't hold our hearts. 

And people had it right with the phrase "Home away from home" in the sense that you can feel you're at "home" in multiple places because you have moments that tie your heart together with another's at different places and stages in your life. 

I've been learning about TCKs recenlty.  Third Culture Kids.  Kids who grew up somewhere different from their parents' passport country.  For TCKs, they don't define "home" as a place.  They are highly mobile and are expats (expatriates) from childhood.  They see "home" in terms of relationships.  Their home is not only not defined by a single place, but it's not defined by a culture, race, ethnicity, or language.  How awesome is that?!  I'll never be a TCK, but I will be an expat soon and I will lose my "mono-culturalism."  I will want to call Bolivia "home" and Chicago "home" and Indiana "home" and when I say I'm going "home" that could mean I'm going any of those places, because soon, I know, I will feel at "home" in all of them because my heart lies/will lie with the people in those places. 

Feeling at "home" in multiple places is a blessing, but it's also really hard when I just want everyone that I love in the same place...It's hard even now feeling split between Chicago and Indiana (and now the tons of places my good friends from Taylor and from high school have moved to!) let alone throwing Bolivia into the equation.  And I've heard from several people who have moved overseas that when they are in their "host" country, they long to be back in the U.S., and then when they come back to the U.S., they long to be back in their host country.  Am I setting myself up for that longing the rest of my life?  Maybe.  But then I remember my life is a sacrifice.  And ultimately, that I'll feel this way always, no matter where I go or don't go, because this world is not our true home.  We were "created for a place [we've] never known" sings Jon Foreman in his song "This is Home."  In that song, he talks about belonging and searching for a place of his own.  He sings, "I got my heart set on what happens next," meaning heaven.

I have no idea what heaven will be like, but I know it's real and it's coming.  (Been wanting to read the book "Heaven is Real"--has anyone read it?  It's a true story about a boy who temporarily is dead and is revived, and he actually glimpses heaven)  Anyway, I know that I'm created for a place that I've never known, and that we all are.  I think that makes so much sense when you reconcile that belief with the way that humans feel a much deeper connection to people than to a specific place, culture, ethnicity, race, or language.  The "familiar" doesn't make our home, but love that goes deeper than what we see and know--that is the one "language" we all speak and that makes up our sense of "home" as we wait for our heavenly home, where we will all be united with each other and with our Creator.  And I know only then will my longing cease.