Article March 7, 1988 Issue

Where is home?

It has been said that "home is where the heart is." Where can our hearts find the permanent peace and happiness we long for?

Nelle O. Sprowls

A Number of years ago if someone had asked me where my home was, I would probably have just given a house number on a certain street in a city. That was when we bought the nicest house that we could afford in an area that was convenient to my husband's business and also near good schools and shopping centers. That was when home was mainly a place to dust, prepare the family's meals, keep everybody clean and pressed, with comfortable beds to sleep in. But since then I've come to see that there's a vital metaphysical answer to the question "Where is home?" Let me explain.

As much as I loved our new place, I had a feeling of inadequacy about home. Surely there was something more to it than pleasant surroundings. In the brief spaces between caring for the house, the family, and managing my own career, I knew that I was missing some opportunities to establish a more satisfying sense of home. Of course, it's well known that "a house does not make a home," as the saying goes. It is the love, the caring, that make a home. But I needed an even deeper view of the heart of home, of its underlying basic meaning.

Since I was a student of Christian Science, it was natural for me to turn to the Bible for guidance. There I found some wonderful passages dealing with home. For instance, a psalm declares, "Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations."^{Ps. 90:1.} And the Apostle Paul tells the Athenians, "In him [God] we live, and move, and have our being."^{Acts 17:28.} And Christ Jesus' promise is to all his followers, in all time: "In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you."^{John 14:2.} This last quotation was most helpful to me. I saw that the place prepared by the Christ has to be wholly spiritual, the kingdom of God where His spiritual sons and daughters, you and I as we really are, securely dwell.