Some addresses have lasted for a few months, and others for several years.
I am a home-maker at heart. Ever since I was a little girl, I remember lining up my stuffed animals just right with cushions tucked and blankets arranged. Hanging pictures, creating ridiculous trinkets to cheer up a lonely corner or empty space. My greatest enemies: bare light bulbs dangling from the center of a room, and fluorescent lighting. My frugal side may embrace the IDEA of saving money per kilowatt... but my desire for ambience scorns it altogether when it come to fluorescent vs. incandescent. I delight in making cozy the space I inhabit. No matter what our home address, there has been joy in establishing a place for peace, rest, and comfort for my family.
But home is much more than the houses we live within. Or the street we live on. Home includes the people that we live with, among and for. I have countless treasured memories of the people I have known, beautiful family and friends scattered all over the four corners of the earth, and a tapestry of experiences whose fibers can be carefully traced to give hints as to where I come from and who I've become. When I think of how "home" has been defined for me over my life, there are a flood of colors, smells, faces, and landscapes.
There is beauty, growth and depth of character to be formed when transitioning from one home to another. I have had my share of opportunities to walk that out. And if it were true that Practice Makes Perfect, then I might have it easier by now. But truthfully, it does not get any easier to say goodbye to one home and to step into another.
It wasn't until I stumbled across this poem by Ruth Bell Graham and my heart swelled as I was filled with the KNOWING firsthand of this truth:
My home address:
Christ
In Him I dwell
Wherever else I be
As bird in the air
As branch on the vine
As tree in the soil
As fish in the sea
He is my home.
My business address?
HERE!
Little Piney Cove, London, Corinth,
Calcutta or Rome, Shang Hai or Paris.
My business address?
Wherever He puts me.
But He is my home.
