Home

 At any given point of life, there are probably hundreds of people on the planet who, if given the opportunity, you would come to love. Some people never get the chance to travel and meet most of them. They live in their small corner of the world and reach their capacity to love at a young age. They love the few they know, they love their life. They are content with what they know. Their life, in this aspect, is simple. They simply love where they are and who they know.  

Then there are some, those of us who are blessed to travel. To travel is to love. To love new people, new places and new realities. The hard part of loving so much more of the world is that, you can only be in one part of it at a time. The world is vast, and my love for new parts of it grows every time I set foot on a plane,  but that love is double-sided. Yes, it is sweet and soul-thrilling but it can also be heart wrenching and painful to love so much. To have so many people who bring home to your soul. 

I am of the belief that home is not one place but hundreds of places. Home is people, it is those who bring a calming sense of welcome and joy. Home is all of them, at the same time, and if you are one of the few who are blessed to have a life such as mine, then you know that to have such a home is to be homesick. In order to fall completely in love with a place, a church or a person, you must create more room in your heart, thus growing your sense of home and growing that sense of loss just a little bit. 

An adventurer is always going to be homesick. Even if they don’t say it, show it or realize it, it is there. It must be. It has to become a part of you in order for you to experience new things. The traveler realizes, that with every new place, new person, new location they love, there are hundreds more for them to see, experience and love. True, you won’t love them all, there will always be some that won’t hold the same level of charm, or sense of home for you, but there will be so many that do. Part of the challenge of living this way is learning to hold home inside of you. 

Christ can be your sense of stability where there is none. Christ can bring home to your soul when you can’t find it. The one, single, never changing constant in my life has been the sense of peace, joy and calm that Christ can bring and center my life on. No matter where I travel, who I meet, who I love, who becomes part of my home, Christ is the one who never leaves me. Even when I am the one constantly leaving place after place and meeting people I love only to leave them, Christ is the one who can center my life. He gives guidance and balance to my teetering emotions. 

Part of what makes this life I am called to challenging, is the growing sense of homesickness. As your home becomes more places and more people, that’s even more to miss. But as I get older, the old saying holds more and more true in my heart: it is better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.