I have been living a pretty charmed life these days. A trip to Ohio to see all of my Ohio family that I could see and now a trip to North Carolina to catch up with family and friends. It is what I love the most—being with family and friends and just living in the moment.
One thing that I loved was being able to go to church on Sunday to the church that Chris and I and the boys attended for almost 9 years when we lived in North Carolina. It was at this church, Fair View UMC in Mount Mourne, North Carolina, that we made some of the closest friends in our lives. The life that we have lived has found us living apart from our extended family and having a church family was very important.
Both of our boys were confirmed at this church. Chris and I both held a multitude of positions there—taught Disciple Bible Study, led Stephen Ministry, served on committee after committee, sang in the choir and spend many hours both in the building and doing work outside the church walls. My best friends still go to this church. It was truly a great place to be.
Churches are definitely not always the perfect place where there are no arguments or drama. I suspect that sometimes churches can harbor more drama than even the most conflict oriented workplaces . Fair View was no exception. We got drawn into drama occasionally but came out of it stronger people and maybe, perhaps, years later—more tolerant. Sometimes that just takes time.
Being in this church recently reminded me of going home. With the life that we have lived it has not always been easy to define home. Home has never really been a physical place for me. Growing up the daughter of a preacher meant that we lived in parsonages over the years and until my daddy held a staff position with the conference we lived in houses that belonged to the church. That meant a lot of things but we were always grateful for the roof over our heads and all that the congregations did to make those dwellings feel like home for us.
The definition of home as defined by Webster’s Dictionary is as follows:
the place where one lives permanently, especially as a member of a family or household.
I am wondering now if I will ever have a real home because I can not imagine ever living anywhere permanently. It is not how my life has ever been lived. I suspect that I will have have to modify this definition for my own life—-being able to visit places like Fair View where the warm feelings and memories made give me that inner peace and feeling of home is probably about as good as it is going to get for me.
When you think of home—what do YOU think of? Is it a place? Is it a feeling? Is it elusive or is it something that you can immediately pinpoint? Please leave a comment and let me know!