Home is where our hope lies.

I figured it would be nothing but appropriate to begin this year with home because everything starts at home, and ironically enough, by the end of it all, we are just restlessly finding our way back home.

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You see, any time that I am away from home and I deal with any type of loneliness, difficulty, or stress, the mere thought of home would give me the strength to endure and persevere in the moment knowing that soon enough, I will be warm and snuggly on our broken-in couch basking in the perpetual aroma of Filipino dishes that fill every room of the house. That surely enough, I have a place where my books will remain faithful to the way that I stacked them before leaving; a place where almost every thing can just stay the same; where, at around sunset, the sunlight that floods my room somehow turns everything it touches to gold. Not to mention, a place of lock-less doors that make every room open for everyone else -- some may call lack of privacy, but I've grown accustomed to shared space -- a place that constantly reminds you that your life is best when shared with others. This is home.

Familiarity, a sense of belonging, and an unchanging setting seems to be what my restless and wandering self constantly longs for... which seems to be the complete opposite of what I'm putting it through right now: Different climate and landscapes, different faces all the time. Yet, it is only in the restlessness and the wandering that my heart is able to unravel the mystery that home really is. That I am finding out more and more what it is my heart really longs for. It's only in being away that I recognize what I've left behind; that what I leave behind has always been more than what I've always needed... but it can't be that way until I have left! In being away, you find that what you leave behind is what you've been searching for your whole life. I guess, we don't realize that each time we become better people, our presence will simply make any place we're in better, too. I don't know how or why, but it seems to just work this way. I don't know how or why, but God's timing, I'm sure, is responsible for majority of it.

I don't mean to use "God's time" as a cop out because I just can't understand. Hold that thought, actually, maybe it is my way of surrendering because it seems that it's never up to me alone. Nevertheless, I can't help, but place my trust in His timing as he has appointed a time for everything else in my life (and I am my own witness to pretty much seeing every single dream of mine come true in one way or another against all odds!) He has placed desires in our hearts and a time for them to be fulfilled; there's a time to be away to follow our path, and a time to bring it all back home. It's funny because you start out with dreams and aspirations that are centered completely on your self. Whether for selfish reasons or not, you soon realize that these goals you set for yourself are meant to be for the better of everyone else around you except for you. As soon as you leave, you're already beginning your way back home.

Against the backdrop of life and what it means, this small measure of homeward bound-ness is but a window to the greater longing for an even greater sense of home. This longing for home is but a spark of the bigger flame that burns for our final Home. Every feeling we feel here points us to the divine image of our Maker. He places such strong longing for familiarity, a sense of belonging, and something that will never change to give us hope, strength, and courage to persevere in our moments of sadness and weakness and being lost.

And God who has promised us this home knocks on our hearts to be His dwelling place while we find way our way back as to guide us on our way back to Him. As for now and for me, I can do anything, go anywhere, meet anyone as long as my heart can hope for home.

"You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you." - St. Augustine

+JMJ+