Home

Home is a situational term to me. And a fabulous Michael Bublé song.

After being in Honduras for a month I begin to reference my house as "home." It's a beautiful thing really. There was a house here with a woman and her daughter. Now there's a home with mi mama and Paola.

I have many homes. Pella, first and foremost, because that's where I spent a majority of my adolescence. Calvin because I live, study, work, and eat there (although I do eat better in Iowa). And now I believe in a few short months I could call Honduras one of my homes.

Home to me is more than a building with people, love, and food on the inside. What makes a house different than a home is what you leave there. The more I invest myself in a new place and culture the more I leave some of me here. When I say goodbye to this home, bits and pieces of my life will be scattered throughout. 

What puzzles me about my own definition of home is that it's ad hoc. Sure, I know that Pella will be my city of refuge for years to come, but where does the line draw between that home and the other? If I am constantly moving, changing, and adapting to my present "home" where can I find some permanency? Do I need to? Is being cosmopolitan better?

This lack of a permanent home can lead to wandering and "soul searching" - if you will. Without a firm sense of identification in a constant there will always be another place, time, or destination. My constant: the fact that I am a beloved child of God. That's how I am able to define many places as my home without feeling like a nomad or incomplete. 

I have this theory that home has to do with identification. It's where you leave yourself for future reference. When I return to Pella I know who I am there. My identity has been shaped and refined. When I return to Calvin, I'm still learning about myself. It's the internal battle of incorporating my past and my present. In either case I look back on events, places, people, or memories which give me a sense of belonging. I begin to identify with what's most relevant and comfortable.

This does leaves me confused though. I began writing this with the intention of ending with a slightly predictable conclusion of roughly "my home is home, but my eternal home is heaven." This is true. What I am searching for here is the constant in my definitions of home. The only thing crossing my mind is how God met me at each. 

It really is a beautiful thing.