Home.  What is home?  Today I am pondering the encouragement of home, mostly because I don’t feel as though I have one.  Right now I have a house for sale in one state and am currently staying with family in a neighboring state as we make a transition.  Over the past few days, perhaps a week I felt almost “homeless”.  Now I am so very blessed to have a place for my family to stay.  But upon returning to the house we have for sale, I was shocked to find that it has lost the feeling of home to it.  It didn’t PEP me UP to be there.

One of the main traits that I think of when I consider what is a home is love and encouragement.  I wanted to seek out what others saw as traits of home so that I could know if I truly was homeless or if I had been depending upon something faulty.

Maya Angelou said, “The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.”

“Home is not where you live but where they understand you.” Christian Morgenstern

There’s such beauty in these words by Henry Van Dyke “Every house where love abides and friendship is a guest, is surely home, and home sweet home for there the heart can rest.”

Then there are these quotes by two of my favorite authors Emily Dickinson, “Where thou art – that – is Home,” and Jane Austen, “There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort.”

I often turn to the book of John when searching for love and encouragement to PEP UP myself.  In chapter 14 verse 23 it says “Jesus replied, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.”

What comfort is there to know that my home is with Jesus.  While I feel temporarily misplaced it is to serve as a reminder that even if I do have a house to call my home, it will have a limited time frame on it because Heaven is my home.  In Christ, we can all find a safe place where we are understood.  In Him our hearts can rest and be given true comfort.  The best part is that when Emily Dickinson says “where thou art” that is where God is too, where ever we are.

I pray that in this day, if you are feeling displaced, lacking understanding or safety, or just longing for comfort, that you find your Home in Jesus’ arms which are open wide for you.  May His love warm your heart with His hearth of abundance.