Home

Home. Where my house is. Where my job is. Where my heart is.

People have many different definitions of what “home” is. I, personally, feel that I am a nomad who is doomed to be a nomad. My home is currently in Eastern North Carolina, and let me tell you, I love the ocean. I’d never been to the ocean on American soil before moving here. The enormity of it takes my breath away every time. But for my husband and I, even though we've grown to love certain aspects of life here... (how could we not? It's where we've spent our first year of marriage, after all) it's not fully "home" to us. We still find ourselves referring to our hometown as "home" every so often. I wonder how long that will last.

My future home is coming soon, but it is To Be Determined….. what else is new? I feel like my whole life is To Be Determined. But wait, that’s not true, my heart, the Spirit, whispers. My life has already been determined. “For I know the plans I have for you.”

But, but but… I want to be by my family. I want my friends. I want my comfortable, Northern, small town, beautiful home that I left behind. Even if I can’t be RIGHT THERE in Northern PA… I just want to be closer. Significantly closer.

Is this cowardly? Or is this just my heart’s natural cry?

And then there’s the fact, the undeniably true fact, that my home is wherever my husband is. And I know this fact is true. When he’s gone, I don’t feel fully home. I know this from years of dating him from 10,000 miles away, at the worst point.  I know with all my heart that anywhere I am with him, is home.

I just wish all the aspects of my definition of “home” could come together.

But.

Then again, I’m not the Sovereign One. Maybe that’s not what is supposed to happen now. Maybe I am learning the hard lesson of finding joy in all circumstances. And let me just say, I’m sick of hard lessons. Year 23 is a doozy already, for reasons I’ll write about soon, and sometimes I wonder how much more can be thrown at me, at us.

I guess we’ll see. In the meantime, I will do my very best (which is never enough by the way, so thank the Lord I don’t have to be enough) to find joy in these circumstances and in the circumstances to come.

Now that I’ve poured out my jumbled thoughts and musings --- What is home to you? Are you a fellow nomad like me? Something tells me there’s a lot of us out there.

xo,

Amanda