God is Home

Roughly forty-eight hours after my high school graduation I left home to spend my first summer at camp. From that moment on, home would never be the same, even though I didn’t yet know it.

Growing up, home was my house in Olympia, WA. It was the place I lived with my parents, my brother, our dog who didn’t know his name, and our very feisty cat. It was the place where we gathered for meals and where I laid my head at night. It was the only home I had ever known.

So, in some sense, my understanding of home simply grew. I was at home at camp. I was at home on Whitworth’s campus. But then, in between my freshman and sophomore years of college my parents moved from Olympia to Vancouver, WA. And suddenly, I didn’t really know what was home was.

It didn’t help that I got lost the first time I drove myself to this new “home.”

Over the years I have called Spokane, WA, Coeur d’Alene, ID, Princeton, NJ, Atlanta, GA, and most recently, Lewistown, MT home.

But it’s also strange, because home has become more than just the place I presently reside. I no longer live at camp, yet returning to camp feels like returning home.

There’s the old saying, “Home is where the heart is.” And I think to some extent that is true. Except our hearts can also be in many places at once.

So, I have come to define home more as the places where I feel safe and secure. The places where I get to be most myself. But I think there is even more to it.

Craig Barnes, author and former president of Princeton Theological Seminary writes, “[Home] isn’t so much a geographical place as it is a place in the heart of God where we were created to dwell. When you find that home, all the other places of life start to make sense again.”

The psalms reflect on this idea of home saying, “Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.”

God is Home. The place where we are invited to dwell. To be. To find ourselves.

Barnes goes on to write, “Home is the place where we were created to live from eternity and for eternity – with our true Family of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”

And maybe that’s what we all long for.

Grace and peace,

Kimmy