Feeling Like Home

Walking into our house one Sunday after church, I smelled the roast cooking in the oven, and thought to myself “ah, nothing like coming home!” As lightbulb moments go, it was a bright illumination over a simple thing. Our house – our first one to own – had become home.

When I was growing up, we moved several times. I remember the feeling of walking through the vacant rooms as boxes began to line the walls. It felt empty and unfamiliar. As our things got unpacked and put into place, at some point, someone would say “It’s starting to feel like home now.”

As my own little family grew, we turned houses into homes each time we moved too. I began to realize that what made it home were the feelings that home prompted, which boiled down to these three for me.

Safety – Home was always a safe place for me. Whether running in from the storm or a chasing dog or a brain breaking day at work, home was my safe shelter. My heart breaks for people who cannot associate home with safety.

Familiarity – Home gives me that familiar feeling. Home is set up in a way that supports our lives. It has beauty, but is functional and livable. It’s orderly, because order gives me a feeling of calm. It only takes a few things to give me this basic familiarity. When I traveled on frequent business, I had a routine for unpacking and setting up my hotel room to make it home for the week. I have also created the familiarity of home in our tiny motorhome with much less stuff.

Comfort – Home brings me comfort. My comfort begins with the thermostat set on the ‘right’ temperature. Sitting down in my recliner with my morning dark roast coffee starts my day in comfort.  My favorite music playing in the kitchen oozes comfort. The smell of a candle stacks up more in the comfort column. Ending the day in comfort, I curl up on a good mattress with my neck supported by an ergonomic pillow and clutching my little hug pillow.

I love the sense of home with its safety, familiarity and comfort. Yet my spirit yearns for another home. The one I will move to last. Jesus talked about it.

           

            There is more than enough room in my Father’s home. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am. [John 14:2-3]

I know my home here doesn’t compare to the safety, familiarity, and comfort that I will experience in my heavenly Father’s home. The safety record will be perfect. No more meanness or disasters on the nightly news. The familiarity will be immediate. Not because I’ve seen heaven before. But because His Spirit that lives in me now will permeate every corner. The comfort will be incomparable to anything we know here. No more pain or sorrow. And if we have coffee and pillows in heaven, I’m sure they will have 5-star reviews. I know it will feel like home!