Article December 23, 2013 Issue

Your home, right here

Cheryl Ranson

This article was originally published in The Christian Science Monitor.

“Which place goes deepest inside you?” Listening to a TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) talk by travel writer Pico Iyer, I found my thought captured by this question. I love a lot of places! They’re places of real beauty—beaches, mountains, rivers, gardens. Or venues where I’ve spent happy times with family and friends. Or far-off travel destinations I can’t wait to visit again. But what goes deepest?

Good question. For many of us, it’s the place we call home. In fact, Mr. Iyer’s talk is all about defining home. Is it where we were born or raised? Lived longest? Love returning to? Have the most relatives or friends? Elements of all these enter into how home feels—warm, comforting, safe. But for me, the only lasting answer has come from looking to God, both for what home means and for a place to call home.

Years ago I felt trapped in the very home I’d grown up in. With a college degree and a year of teaching abroad under my belt, it was the last place I expected to be. And although it was filled with happy memories and two loving parents, it sure wasn’t where I wanted to spend the rest of my life! Yet the future stretched out with no options in sight.