Home.

One of my favorite things is when David's words in the Psalms correlates exactly to words of Jesus or Paul in the New Testament. Especially when it is words I need to be reminded of or some of my favorite themes. One of those themes is "Home."

What does home mean to you? What do you do when you are home? What do you feel? What is the best thing about being home? What is the worst? What do you expect at home? What do you look for in a home?

Home can be a very hard concept for me. For one thing, growing up "home" was not a place I looked forward to being. It was often scary, hard, and full of anger. At the same time, I was comfortable there and knew who I was. When I went to college - specifically my last year of college and beyond, home began to take on different meanings for me. Home was where I could relax. I could be completely myself and not feel like I needed to be "on" as I did most of the time when I was outside my home. There were even a few other friends' or families' houses that I became so comfortable in, I correlated them with "home." For me, home is a place where I completely fit. I know exactly how I fit, and I can relax because I know who I am.

 Growing up "home" was not a place I looked forward to being.

 Now I live across the world from what I previously considered home (and for the most part still do), the great state of Texas. The problem that I started running into towards the end of living in Texas was that there were things about America that all the sudden didn't quite "fit." I didn't feel comfortable or relaxed there. I felt confused about if I should be like everyone else I knew or met, and was a bit unsure why I wasn't like them. If I thought hard about it, I knew who I was even there, but it was hard. It wasn't relaxing or very peaceful.

China, as much as I love it, will never be home.

Here I am across the world, and it definitely doesn't feel like home either. Although I love it here and there are a lot of things about the culture that make sense to me and I like even better than the states, I don't fit.  All you have to do is look at me to see how different I am. Everyday I am reminded that I am SO white. The culture can frustrate me, and being out and about in the city is tiring. I don't know the language, and even if I ever become fluent, it will be my second language. China, as much as I love it, will never be home. But, neither will America.

I desire somewhere I fit. Somewhere I can rest and relax. Somewhere I can know who I am and the people I love dearly from so many different places can be next to me. I've yet to be in a place like this, but I long for it so much that I could almost say I miss it. I know this place must exist because of the deep desire in my heart to find it.

I long for it so much that I could almost say I miss it.

Today I read Psalm 69, which if I'm being honest, is a bit of a depressing Psalm, but a few parts really spoke to the deep desire in my soul for home.

"For it is for Your sake that I have borne reproach, that dishonor has covered my face. I have become a stranger to my brothers, an alien to my mother's sons. For zeal for Your house has consumed me... For God will save Zion and build up the cities of Judah and people shall dwell there and possess it; the offspring of His servants shall inherit it, and those who love His name shall dwell in it." Psalm 69: 7-9

Immediately Father brought to mind a few favorite scriptures to add to the beautiful words I read:

"And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name's sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life." Matthew 19:29

"These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city." Hebrews 11:13-16

For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.

I desperately miss my home. The one I know in Texas, and, even more so, the one I don't yet know with my Dad in heaven.

Would love to hear from you. Your thoughts on home, and any scriptures you may know or love about home. 

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