I never had to think of this question before I came to college. If someone had asked me where I consider my home to be before I came to college, that would have been easy for me to answer, because it was in St. Joseph, MO. It was at the same address that my family has lived at since I was 3. I never had been away from home for more than a week. I would never have considered the question of where my home was to be anything more than someone asking me for my address. I always knew where my home was.
But when I came to college, I realized that I had to reconsider that question. Did home change since I went to college? Was Columbia, MO my home now that I went to school there? Certainly most of my friends changed. Certainly I had a new address, a new place that I came back to more than I did in St. Joseph. It suddenly occurred to me that when you attend school or even if you work straight out of high school, you are beginning a new life. If you leave your hometown, then you are living in a new place in order to begin your own life. Gone are the preconceptions of the old life you lived, and in this new location is a place where you carve out a new life in that city either permanently, or until you move on to the next destination.
I always found the transition back home during breaks to be awkward, because I didn't know where my home was. Was it in St. Joseph in my old life with my family or was it in Columbia with my new life and new community? I felt trapped in a tug of war between the people who had loved and cared for me for almost twenty years and the new identity and the new life that I was making for myself at college. To complicate this notion further, I spent 6 months of college in Estes, Park Colorado, and another 3 months of college in London, England where I woke up daily and lived my own separate life that was vastly different in each of these unique locations. I made friends everywhere, and I had good reasons to stay in all of these places. Which left me pondering this simple question: Where is home?
Okay, so where am I going with this? Well, I wanted to talk about this topic because its a topic that haunts me. Today I realized that in the span of one year I have lived in four different cities. For a kid who grew up in the same house for 16 years, that's a lot of moving. I attended school in Columbia, went out to Colorado for my church's leadership training program, flew to London to study abroad, and then lived back with the family in St. Joseph, then finished up school in Columbia again. In the span of one year I have felt the deepest love and the greatest joy, seen the most breathtaking, beautiful sights and have had the most incredible moments of my life, while on the other hand I've never been more alone and empty, never been more challenged, never been more pushed to trust my God given instincts, trust my self, and trust those closest to me. Through all of these ups and downs, and through all of these locations, I have felt the inklings of home without being fully convinced that my home lies with any of these places. I want to believe my home lies in one of these places, but even as I say that, I'm considering even more new places to make my home now that I have my Bachelor's degree, knowing that none of these options or even these new places I'm considering are the answer.
What do I mean? Think back to the definitions of home that I mentioned at the beginning. What do you think of when you hear the word home? Last month I truly learned for the first time what it meant to be home. I learned a definition of home that I will never forget, one that stands strong through every test you put it through, one that is stronger than any bond you ever forge with any human being, stronger than any foundation you place the other ideas of "home" upon.
This idea? The radical, life-changing notion that God is our home.
To be continued...
No comments:
Post a Comment