Home is where the heart is...
I hear this quote all the time and for those of us who have our heart in two places, home is hard to identify. I sometimes fear that people think that I have forgotten Tennessee or where I came from or the friends that ingrained themselves in my life for the first 25 years of my life. This post is an honest post but will hopefully reflect a heart that is learning that my home is in no physical place but a Person.
More recently, I have truly been missing Tennessee. I miss my family, my friends, the mountains, cars on the open highways. I miss Southern accents, sweet tea, fireflies, UT football. I miss bake sales, campfires, Dollywood, lakes. I miss slowing down, porch swings, mowing lawns, Rocky Top. I miss familiar. I miss my roots.
The misnomer I've been feeding myself is that it is not ok to miss Tennessee. Tennessee is where I grew up. Its what shaped me in to who I am. Its where I met Jesus. Its where my family is. Its where I met some of my absolute best friends in the whole world. Tennessee isn't a bad place. Its home.
This feeling of missing home has come more recently from missing out on big events in friends lives. I hate missing weddings. I have yet to hold my cousin's new baby. I am missing seeing people grow up, go to school, get married, have kids. I miss being in people's lives, living every day with them.
While desiring to be in people's lives isn't a bad thing, dwelling in the past and not enjoying the here and now is. Missing TN so much has caused me to step back and detach from my here and now. I am starting to see all the ways I don't fit in here. People here have families, a past, history, roots. Its hard to not feel like an outsider sometimes.
Up until this point, this post seems very bleak. Hard to see the light in this post. But wait! There comes a moment when I stop believing the lies that I keep telling myself and listen to my Home. How truly blessed am I that I have not one but two places I can call home? I have 2 sets of people in my life that love me and speak truth in to me? I am known by 2 groups of people. I tend to look at all the big events I am missing out on but fail to see the day-to-day miracles happening all around me. And how selfish of me to think the world should stop since I moved away.
NY is my new home. There are people here that have changed, shaped, challenged, and loved me in ways I never knew before. Ways I might never had known if I had stayed in TN. I love both places. More than anything. The people in both places have my heart. And even those who have scattered themselves out to NJ, Boston, and even England. How blessed am I?
My true citizenship though was never meant to be TN or NY or CA or Paris. "But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ." -Philippians 3:20. This longing in my heart is normal. Its supposed to be here. My heart was never meant to be satisfied with TN or NY. My heart was meant to be satisfied in heaven, in the presence of the Creator of the universe. So while there are glimpses of heaven here on earth in relationships and people, our heart's full satisfaction is found in Christ, in Heaven.
My prayer for all of us is this- Love well where you are. Love those here and now. But don't ignore those who love you but aren't in your every day life. Pray for those who are far away. Pray for those who are missing family. Pray that those in your life would know that Home is a person and a place not here on earth. Our longings shouldn't be ignored but should cause us to be kingdom-minded.
(Disclaimer: I didn't write this to make anyone in TN or NYC feel bad or in some way guilty. I hope it encourages you to love others and pray for others.)
