The Power of Home

I love creating home, and I proudly self-identify as a homemaker. I find great satisfaction in decorating our space with colorful cushions, an interesting wall hanging, or a vase of flowers. I am inspired by Magnolia Market and Martha Stewart, and the only game I play on my phone is Design Home, an interior decorating game. If I allowed myself, I could get lost on Pinterest for days. It is so fulfilling for me to prepare a place of beauty for others to enter and enjoy.

But more than the physical side of creating home, I love creating a space for family and friends that welcomes them in, offering them comfort, laughter, rest, and connection. I know that home is much more than the physical space we live in. Home is an atmosphere, an environment that has a huge influence on our lives. Home is more than just a place; home is a deep and powerful feeling. And whether we have had a good home experience or a bad one, we still understand the idea of home is meant to be one of safety, comfort, and acceptance.

Sometimes the things that are the most familiar to us are also the hardest to define. Dictionary definitions of home can leave you out in the cold. “The place where one lives permanently; a residence; the place in which one’s domestic affections are centered. “ At least the word “affections” shows up, but there is nothing warm and cozy about these definitions. Home is so much more than this. There is a connotative meaning to the word that goes far deeper than the standard definition. A feeling of home is created more through the experiences we have there than the address where it is found.

In its monthly response feature “Your Words,” Real Simple magazine once asked its readers, “What Does Home Mean to You?” https://www.realsimple.com/magazine-more/inside-magazine/your-words/home-meaning The responses varied: “a place you can feel comfortable cooking breakfast in your pyjamas;” “a place of love and comfort that always welcomes you with open arms – and perhaps a plate of freshly baked cookies;” “home means predictability in an uncertain world.” Some people wrote about home connecting them to a person – their mother, their spouse, their child – or even their dog. Others wrote about favorite foods, familiar smells, and comfortable beds. But the overarching message behind every response was that home was a good place to be, a safe place where you were free to be yourself, or as one reader put it, “A place where I can be 100 percent me.”

Isn’t that what we all want? To be free to be ourselves, feeling loved, accepted, and comfortable, even when we don’t have it all together and life isn’t going to plan. (Especially when life isn’t going to plan!) That is the true power of home, and it isn’t restricted to our house, apartment, or cottage. It isn’t even confined to a building. It is an atmosphere that we foster when we create spaces of inclusion, encouragement, acceptance, and love. It is an environment that represents the heart of God. If this is the true meaning of home, then home can transcend the walls of a house. Home is something we can carry with us out into the world.

I once witnessed an amazing example of home in a most unlikely place: on the sidelines of a high school soccer game. It was the championship game of a tournament, and both teams were “in it to win it.” The battle for the championship was well-fought, and the game was at a 0-0 tie at the end of regulation time, pushing it into overtime. Then at the beginning of the overtime period, a player skillfully moved the ball through the defense, passed it to a teammate who shot the ball past the goalie and scored the winning goal! As the winning fans cheered, I noticed a lone figure walking away from the field. It was the losing goalie, who grabbed his bag from the bench, left his teammates behind, and fled the scene of defeat. Once he left the playing field, he hunched over and started to cry.

I wasn’t the only one who saw this sad drama unfold. Next thing I knew, the dad of the player that had threaded the defense and set up the winning goal - the dad of a player on the opposing team - walked over to the distraught goalie. That dad bent over the young man and spoke in his ear. Then he helped him up, hugged him and continued speaking to him face to face. I wasn’t privy to what was said, but I just knew he was speaking words of encouragement into this young man. The dad was just being a dad, uplifting a kid and helping him believe in himself again. It was one of the most beautiful things I have ever witnessed, and it brings me to tears even as I write this. That is the power of home.

Another reader of Real Simple wrote that home is “where you are treated with dignity and respect and where you feel safe and deserving, even on the worst days.” Home is more than a place. It is something we can carry with us and draw others into. Creating home is about creating a space of safety, acceptance, and comfort around us that we share with others in the throes of daily life. And that is something we all can do, everyday, everywhere.

A Prayer

Thank You, Jesus, for making a home for me in the heart of God. With You, I can find peace, comfort, safety. With You, I can find myself. Please help me to remember that many of the people around me are also searching for a sense of home. Help me to be homemaker like You and invite others into relationship and belonging.

In Your Name, Amen.