Home

I’ve learned a lot the past few years about roots.  I speak and write about it often.  If you try to keep one foot in the last place, you’ll never learn and grow in the new place.  You have to put down roots; plant yourself. 

When we first moved to DC, I worked hard not to repeat past mistakes.  I moved quickly to embrace my new home.  I didn’t drag my feet.  I got busy and got planted.  I led my family to do the same. You don’t hear me say that I miss “home;” I’m very careful with my words.  I was raised in Oklahoma.  I grew into the woman I am in Texas.  DC is my home.

But I learned a profound lesson about Home today.  Home is your happy place.  It’s the place where you can go and be totally yourself and that’s ok.  Home is where people love you not for anything you’ve done but just because you’re you.  Home is where you are nurtured.  Home is what fills you up when you’re empty.  Home is lotion on dry skin.  Home is where you laugh until it hurts.  Home is where you can be completely silent and be completely heard.

You can’t get so comfortable in one that you won’t embrace the other, but it’s ok for your heart to rest in more than one home.  You don’t have to love the home that grew you less to put down roots in the home that you’ve been called to build. 

This place – Texas, Fellowship Church, the comfort of my friends who know me better than family – this is Home.

The place where I’m rooted – DC, with David and Brynna, where God called me to be His light –is also Home.

I thought that loving one meant letting go of the other.  I learned that loving both means no matter where I am…I’m home.