home sweet home.

i'm a part of a group of bloggers writing about this concept of home today.
to see who else is talkin' about it, go here.

to some, home may mean an address. to others, a memory. or some sort of combination of places, people, and experiences that come together to form the feeling of home in our hearts.

but honestly, for me, it feels very undefined.

sure, i've had some great addresses over the years. hermitage and howell wood trail in duluth. 1111 south milledge and 105 southview drive (still my favorite to say) in athens. i've even had summer homes -- weeks at my camp in the north georgia mountains, summer beach projects in college in clearwater, florida. but those are all just places to me. a place where i got my mail. a place where i had a key.

and then there's the memories. while i do have some sweet memories from childhood, i wouldn't call those years the most warm and fuzzy ever. and as i've moved away and become more independent, home becomes less and less the place i grew up and more and more the places i'm growing.

so that brings me to nashville.
i'm so grateful for the home that God provided for me here -- a place to call my own, to invite others into, to host parties and prayer nights. i love creating a welcoming, warm environment and making people feel "at home". {here's 100 words i wrote last year about my home in nashville}
but then there's this restlessness within me that desires to be nomadic. i don't want to be so comfortable that i can't just get up and leave. there are so many places i want to go and see and experience. i want to be both in the biggest of cities here in the US and then in the furthest parts of the rural areas overseas. i feel just as much at home in a cab in downtown chicago as i do in a hut in uganda.

{ok, so home is still unclear.}

i think something i grasped pretty early on in my walk with the Lord was the idea that this world is not my home. c.s. lewis says it this way -- "if i find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that i was made for another world."

this song by shawn mcdonald (appropriately titled "home") describes my feelings well... that no where on this earth can ever truly be home. and the brokenness and deceit that exist just make me crave better days. and, thankfully, those better days are coming. rescue is coming. and we will eternally be at rest. at peace. at home.

so in the meantime, i will fight to find meaning and a sense of belonging in each moment, each place. because for me, today, home is right where i am.

"home is not where you live, but where they understand you"
christian morgenstern