At a recent retreat someone asked me where I am from, then quickly clarified, “where is your home?” Laughing I sang out my answer, “This world is not my home, I’m just a passing’ through.”

I’ve lived in so many places I sometimes think I could adapt to life anywhere while other times I wonder if I have ever been or ever will be at home.

Oh, I want to see him, look upon his face!
There to sing forever of his saving grace
On the streets of glory, left me lift my voice.
Cares all past, home at last, ever to rejoice!

Rufus H. Cornelius, 1916 Public Domain

The above lyrics are from the chorus of a favorite hymn. As a small child I’d sing it in the car with my family, and hoped we’d sing “home at last” while pulling into the driveway. I suppose I didn’t understand that the song was referring to heaven as home.

A recent trip to Phoenix and back helped make the house we’re remodeling feel more like home to me and I suspect the trip Doug and I are taking to Guatemala for Holy Week will help as well. But, to be honest, I don’t feel either more or less at home here than I did in Phoenix or than I do at my daughter’s house.

We’re still far away from the order and beauty desirable in the house we call home.

I often say of a particular friend who is a calm and peaceful man of prayer that he is “comfortable in his own skin”. Perhaps he is at home in his own body which he reverences as a temple to welcome the triune God.

May the chaos and beauty of my external surroundings point me toward my own heart where God dwells among conflicting thoughts and feelings. From him I receive the love I need to be at home wherever I go.