HOME

Home! Just what is home? Is home where you were born? Is home where you grew up? Is home where you live now? Is home where your parents are - or were? What qualifies as home?

Much has been written on this simple four letter word. "Home is where the heart is" - "This world is not my home, (I'm just a passing through)" - "I'll be home for Christmas" which ends with: "if only in my dreams."

The word generates a warm fuzzy feeling - most of the time anyway. But what is home? a simple ranch style house? a bungalow built in yesteryears? a trailer? a cabin? a mansion with more rooms than you know what to do with? a cardboard box that once held an appliance? Maybe even a car? Is it anywhere you live? Is it with family? Is it by yourself? Is it with friends, even?

It can be any combination of these. I don't have some epiphinal answer. But I do think that love has a lot to do with what home is. We live in a new (to us) house this Christmas. There are no memories associated with it from the past years, no memories of raising kids here, or of visiting grandparents and other relatives. But to me it is home - it is where we have chosen to live. It's where we are right now.

Chrismas is so asociated with 'Home' - and yesterday is usually spent with family in the home of one of them. But yesterday, I didn't spend it at home. My husband had to work, & none of our kids were here except one. So my daughter, M., and I went to spend the afternoon and evening in someone else's home. We had a wonderful time. We cooked, (beans and cornbread), we ate, we played, we listened to music, we watched TV, we visited, and we went looking at christmas lights after it got dark -again not a typical Christmas day, in many ways. But we were with friends - christian friends, so they really are family...on a more important plane.

About 11 pm we came back to my house - my home - blessed for a wonderful day remembering the birth of our saviour and fellowship with friends, ...in their home. This may not be the answer to the question(s) with which we started. Maybe home IS where the heart is. Home is where you're loved, where you feel safe, where you feel comfortable and wanted. It may not be inside the house where you live - it may be in someone else's. The material with which your home is built is not what is important, either. It's how you feel inside. Inside that home and inside your heart.

Whatever you call home now, remember no matter what kind of home it is, it is temporary. Someday we will be in a 'home' that will never break down, never betray us, never let in robbers or theives, and never cause us to be sick, if we have embraced that babe in Bethlehem as our Saviour. You have a home waiting for you that is permanent and better than any home ever built on earth. But that depends on what you have done about the babe in the manger.

If you haven't done anything about Jesus, you, too, have a home waiting for you - the worse you could ever imagine. It's really not called a home, but it is a real place. However, I hope that you have a home that is bright and fair, waiting for you to arrive. That's why Jesus came at Christmas - so you could live with Him in His house. He tells us He has gone to prepare that home for us. He has plenty of room for you.

Well, we hear "I'll be home for Christmas" this time of year. I was home for Christmas and I hope, wherever you were, you were home - for now.