On Coming Home

This post was inspired by Dee Hilyer and his blog "From the Hill"

"He was born in the summer of his thrity-seventh year,

Coming home to a place he'd never been before."

          John Denver, Rocky Mountain High

In May 1982 I came home to a place I'd never been before. I was fresh out of the Army with a new job. My wife and I had settled on a house. The household goods had not yet been delivered. We -- me, my wife, and our four kids -- spent the weekend after settlement cleaning and relocating a few possessions from our apartment to our new house. With no beds -- they were with our household goods -- we slept that night on the floor. 

After eighteen previous addresses, I was done moving. I wanted a home. I wanted to be part of a community, and I wanted to be part of a church.

It rained cats and dogs that weekend. We retrieved the local advertiser's tabloid from beneath the bushes and dried it off in the oven. It listed four churches of our faith. We decided to try the one at the top of the list first. If it wasn't right, we had three additional possibilities. 

In the morning it was still raining. In spite of the rain we got everybody up, washed, fed, dressed, out the door, into the car, and headed to church. 

We walked through the front door and it was like coming home. The ushers greeted us, asked our name and noticed we were new. Then, they asked a lady of our age to show my wife the way to the nursery for our two youngest. The boys and I took a seat near the back and my wife joined us.

The preacher strode forward and opened his greetings with the words "Weather like this sure shows who the faithful are!" and suddenly, I was home.

After the service, the lady sitting in front of us turned around, said "I don't know you," and introduced herself and her husband. That afternoon, another lady came by, welcomed us, sat on our packing boxes, visited, and answered our questions about the community, where things were, and if their was youth soccer.

In a place we had never been before among friends we had yet to meet, we were home.

That was 34 years and seven preachers ago. The kids are now grown with children of their own. We remain at home. In the words of the song we are

"Home, where my thought's escaping,

Home, where my music's playing,

Home, where my love lies waiting silently for me."

Home. It's not where you grew up. 

Home. It's people.

Home. It's a state of mind.

Home. It's a beautiful thing.

Have you ever arrived somewhere new and known you were home?