Home...

I read a sermon by Frederick Buechner today that really struck home with me (no pun intended - I didn't even realized I used the "h" word til I just reread that sentence...). He spoke about our longing for a place in which we feel secure, safe, sheltered; a place so familiar to us, there are no surprises, nothing but total comfort, a place we can truly be ourselves, hiding nothing. He described his own childhood home - his grandparents' rambling Victorian household, complete with rickety porch swings and a dusty piano used by no one. He went on to talk about how our hearts long for home, because in home, we find beauty and rest. And how, in the end, Christ is the true home we are seeking. Reminds me, of course, of another man who once said, Our hearts are restless, til they rest in You.

I myself am looking forward, very, very much, to spending six beautiful days home with my family in Chanute, KS. Chanute is a little town, home to 9,000 people, or fewer, quiet, filled with its own tension and stories that seem so important inside its boundaries, yet whose significance fades away as you drive down Highway 169 away from it. Yet it holds for me people more precious than words can describe - the people who bore me, raised me, taught me what life was meant to be, released me from the nest with their blessings on my restless wanderings through the world. Home means a rambling blue-and-white house, sleeping on a soft brown sofa warmed by sunshine coming in through the large front window, peeling tan stain on the back porch, time spent curled up next to my siblings in the chilly basement watching movies on a TV framed by shelves filled with hundreds of books, being wakened by the amplified croonings of my dad's fire-engine-red electric guitar.

It is funny that my idea of "home" has settled on this last house. My family did move rather frequently throughout my childhood, and my different stages of development are framed in memory by whatever house we happened to be living in at the time - four that I can remember, from birth to sixteen years old. All the houses have been in the same small town, so perhaps the variety isn't that much of a bother to my memory.

But even more than the physical reminders of home, are the emotions that home invokes in me - comfort, peace, total relaxation, letting go of worries or troubles, because here, of all places, I can allow myself to simply be. But, just as Buechner said, home is more than a physical location; for Christians, it is a Person. One who left His home, the most perfect place I can even begin to imagine, and sought to give that home to people who were broken, lost, full of strife, anger, and envy, totally incapable of experiencing his peace in any way.

Life is full of unexpected twists and turns; even now, when I look at my life, I'm at a place I never even dreamed I'd be a year ago. I have no idea where I'll even be living in 6 months, or if I'll still be here in the States in 5 years, what I'll be doing with my life in 10 years. God may call me to move halfway across the nation; or halfway across town. But if I don't recognize Christ as my home - the one constant Faithful One in my life, the one who gives me a Place to Be, the one who follows me through all the red herrings I throw out - if I fail to recognize Christ as my Home, I don't think I'll ever be happy, no matter if I'm living in the most gloriously remote jungle village in Africa, or a dirty urban inner city in America.

My heart is restless, til it rests in Him.