Longing for “home”, a.k.a. feeling a bit homesick

We’re into our last months here in the US before we launch on our new ministry assignment and next missionary adventure.  And I find myself longing for “home”.  What/where is home, exactly?  Is it here in the US, my “country of my passport” home?  Or is it Belgium, where we lived out an amazing 11+ years of life and ministry, our newlywed home which is, technically no longer our home but the place that we feel most connected to as “home”?  Is it our new “home”, which we don’t even know where that will be in Malmö, Sweden ~ though we do know when Sweden will become our new “home”, when we arrive on 28 June 2017.

Each Sunday, as we’ve gotten around to speak with our ministry partners, both old and brand new partner churches and individuals, we’ve been sharing a video about the church and ministry in Antwerp.  The faces, the stories, the memories…..that’s more of a “home” than any place that I’m living in at the moment.

When I watch the video, or look at pictures from Antwerp, I find myself longing not so much for our home there, but the things and people that make “home” for me.  I wear the pearls from a friend’s homeland so that I feel closer to her.  Or change my laptop screen photo to a scene that reminds me of home. Funny enough, those photos on my laptop are never of my house(s) that I’ve inhabited over the years, but always of people or a specific memory.  At the moment, my laptop screen photo is a lovely memory of candles that have been painted by a former refugee friend in Belgium that were lovingly shared with the refugee women who were an every so important part of the place that I call “home”.

This is my current laptop screen page ~ beautiful artwork by a beautiful friend

When confused, or wanting to know something, the internet always has something to offer, so I looked up the word “home” in an Oxford Dictionary online.  Here were a couple of suggestions for defining home:

The place where one lives permanently, especially as a member of a family or household

A place where something flourishes, is most typically found, or from which it originates

A place where an object is kept

All three definitions apply, and I suppose it’s like anything else in life, a combination of the 3 definitions that works best for me to describe home.  “The place where one lives permanently” doesn’t really work for me/us, since we move every 4 years or so.  But I like the second part of that definition, “especially as a member of a family or household”. 

So here’s my attempt at combining the definitions to describe “home” for me:

The place where you live as a member of a family or household, where your things are kept, and most definitely the place where you flourish!

I guess the deeper reflection for me today is that, as a follower of Jesus, I’m really longing for my eternal home with Jesus in heaven.  But since I’m still very much alive, and trying to be the best Jesus follower that I can be while I’m here on earth, I get to struggle, like all of us, with my understanding of “home”…..the place where we Iive, love, work and flourish!