redefining "home"

We have only been back in Israel for a month or so now, but for some reason this time it feels different. I suspect it is because we know we are here long term and the prospect of our next visit to the States is up in the air. I remember looking out the window of the airplane as the wheels went up in New York and thinking "we have no idea when we will come back to visit." It's a odd thought. It's not foreign to most of the people we work with, but it was new for us.

It is a part of redefining what "home" is. Of course home is with your loved one(s) or "where your heart is", but I still think that all of us have a geographical connection to the word. We connect "home" with where we are from, where we feel known.
On hard days, when we find ourselves missing home, the joke we play to make other other laugh is "what home?!" We have moved around so much in our marriage that "home" has sort of been lost. I suspect that on those days, we don't miss home at all, we just miss the convenience of it. Israel is a great many, wonderful things. Convenient, however, is not on the list of adjectives used to describe this country.

Our concept of "home" is one of the things, along with many others, that we are now learning to hold loosely and offer up to the Lord as a sacrifice. We find ourselves often asking Him to forgive us for clinging to what we know and asking Him to replace it with His truth, which is of course that our home isn't here on earth at all.

In the meantime, we will always miss the little conveniences of home (all things Target) and some of the luxuries of spacious living, but ultimately we still know we wouldn't change this new life for anything. We are redefining "home" and all that it entails.

My people will abide in a peaceful habitation, in secure dwellings, and in quiet resting places.

Isaish 32:18