Where is home?

We all desire home, a place where we can go back and feel we belong. We desire a place where someone has put our photo up and can’t wait to see us. Yet sometimes it isn’t the old family homestead, for there is no embrace.

God has put this aching desire for home in all our hearts. It is like that homing beacon for an airplane, or that instinctive place where a bird migrates. And we too can find belonging.

God says, “See, I have written your name on the palms of my hands.” (Isaiah 49:16) He embraces us. He adores our quirks. He has our photo up, for “your names are written in heaven.” (Luke 10:20) He loves us.

God is our home and we will always have a place where we belong.

Photo by Wonderlane on Unsplash

Where do you belong?

People often ask me, “Where is home for you? Is there a place you feel like you belong?”

“Home isn’t a place for me,” I say. “I grew up with refugee parents who could never settle. Derek and I have moved a number of times. Home is about the people I love, where I am loved. It’s about where I feel safe.”

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Yet, loved ones move on and my ‘home’ dwindles away. Suddenly I feel unsafe. But God steps in. The Bible says, “Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, ‘He is my refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust.” (Psalm 91:1-2)

God is my home. I belong with him.


Photo by Kevin Gent on Unsplash

Where is home?

I grew up in one country, but spoke another language. Now I live somewhere else. People sometimes ask me which place I call home.

“Home is where my pillow is,” I usually say, but it is much more than that. When I watch films I cry when lost people suddenly find they belong, when runaways return back to loving arms, Une jeune femme en quilibre sur des rails avec des valises la mainwhen estranged families rediscover each other. In real life I too sometimes want to be found.

God said, “I have loved you with an everlasting love. I have drawn you with loving-kindness. I will build you up again.” (Jeremiah 31:3) God opens his arms. He loves right now. No matter where we are in this world, we are home.