Home

The word "home" ... I think it may mean something a little bit different to every one of us.  But, no matter what visions that it conjures up in your head, I can only imagine they are powerful.  I mean, really, just think of the phrases that come to mind ...

Sweet Home Alabama (OK, fess up, who else just had Reese Witherspoon's face pop into your head? Yeah, me too.)

A man's home is his castle

Home is where the heart is

Home sweet home

Home for Christmas...

And, maybe that one, combined with our current circumstances as a family and the season that has begun to come around again, is why I am so desperate for "home" lately.  Maybe I feel the need to put the Christmas tree in the same spot we do every year, hang the stockings in the same way (maybe even put up some PERMANENT hooks to hang them on EVERY year!), put up the nativity in the usual spot and be sure that the village is just the way it always is (until I convince Hubby to buy me just a few more pieces again this year).  But here, in this house we rent - although we have done all we can to make it a home, we still strive for the tradition that comes with "home".

And, as anyone in my family can attest to, I am a girl bent on tradition.

Traditions ... they're just a natural consequence of home.

That last Christmas in the last place we called HOME was perfection.  Sure, we had to dig out old forgotten toys and wrap them up for gifts (the kids had no idea - Sophie had never seen them and Hattie had only known them for a few weeks before the LAST time we had moved). Yes, we were in the midst of sorting through and packing up to move. And, no, we did not have ANY money for anything extra for mom & dad.  But it was sweet - sweet, because the tree was decorated just the way I liked it, the village upon the mantle sparkled, the nativity outside lit up just right and the house - as always - still smelled of the birthday cake we had just baked for Baby Jesus.

Yes, it was HOME.

And this will be our third Christmas spent without a true sense of home.

But, this year we can see a light at the end of the tunnel.  We have built our financial status back up, put our ducks back in their proverbial row and have learned that - at last - we can begin to make a home for ourselves again.  And so the search is on for a house to make into a "home". There is a little bit more time left on our lease here so we have just been "feeling the market out" ... at least that was the plan.  But, when you are desperate for a "home", that's easier said than done.  And, every time we see one we like, only to watch it be filed under that label of "pending", home feels just a bit further away.

This unknown is not for the faint of heart.

But then, I suppose, that is where faith comes in.  Because FAITH tells me that this world - this "unknown" - is not my home.  FAITH teaches me that this world is just a vapor when placed against the promise of eternity.  Just a blink of an eye - gone in a moment.

And, then, in that moment, we will truly be HOME.  And that HOME - that place in eternity that we were created for - that HOME will never end.

So, I guess I could choose to let the lost feeling in the unknown pull me down and drag me under.

Or, I could cling to the safety that comes with the Promise of my true HOME.

So, as long as I am here in this unknown, I will cling to the glimpses of the promise that He has given to see me through...

My husband - as long as I have him I can make a home anywhere.

My children - oh, the promise that I see in them.

His provision - we DO have a house to live in, even if it is not ours to create a "home" in.

Hope - hope that we will have a house to call "home" someday soon.

HIM - and the True Promise of our True HOME.

And, in that Promise, there is rest and peace and comfort and love ... all the things that "home" should mean.

HE is my HOME.