Where is "Home"

This is something I've been thinking about more lately. 

Today I went on a walk with a girl who was born and raised in Tucson. As we were talking, I was telling her where I grew up and the other places I had lived.  As we talked, I realized that I don't really identify any of those places I have lived as "home." Home for me is in Tucson. A year ago home for me was in Yakima. As a child home was in Buckley. I don't fully understand why God has given me this perspective in life, but I am convinced there is eternal purpose when I fully live out this perspective that home is wherever God has placed me.  

I used to long for home.  Shortly after Luke and I got married and moved away from our childhood homes, I often would cry out of a genuine longing to get back home.....soon.  For at least the first two years of marriage living away from home, I was sure we would move back home as soon as I graduated from college.  I was homesick! About 4 years into marriage, and 1 year into ministry I had a unique God moment during one of these homesick episodes.  I audibly heard God say, "I have you right where you are supposed to be." Ever since that encounter with the living God, I have not dwelled on living anywhere but where I am.  He removed that from me as it was a burden I could no longer bear on my own.  It is the only time I have heard God audibly speak, and I recently realized that He had more planned than us.  He was preparing me way in advance for moving away from Yakima, the place we called home for 12 years.

When I speak with others who identify with a past home, they talk about when they will be able to move back home or when they we be able to visit back home.  I realize not everyone shares my perspective, but when I talk about our upcoming trip to Washington, I find myself not saying I'm going back home but simply saying we are going to visit friends and family. We are blessed to have friends and family in many places that we have called home in the past.

When I allowed God to show me that our home is wherever He has placed us, and truly embraced that, I believe God gave me the ability to live more fully in the present.  And through living in the present, God also gave me a unique perspective of the future.  There is a reason God told Lot's wife not to look back!  We weren't made to live in the past!

I don't know where others call home, or where they long to be, but I know for me God has placed our family in Tucson. This is my home. My home in a desert.  And I hope it will be my home for many years to come.   However, I also find great comfort and encouragement in knowing earth is not my permanent home but my temporary home. For each of us will one day find ourselves no longer in this world, no longer in the place we call home.  I want to remind myself and all of you to always fully engage in your present place. To fully involve ourselves in the cities that we call home. To do everything God has called us to do in our places, because we never know when God will call us to our eternal home.

"For this world is not our permanent home; we are looking forward to a home yet to come." Hebrew 13:14 NLT