Home Sweet Home

I have really been struggling with the concept of home for the past few years. I used to believe that your home was the place where your "stuff" was....not just possessions but also your family and friends. When I moved from the San Fernando Valley (CA) to Santa Cruz for college, I still referred to my parents' house as my "home". I did that until I got married in 2001....then, our first little apartment was "home". And that's how it was after that....wherever I lived with my husband and children was "home". And then we moved to Arizona. And since then, home has been more conceptual then textual. I still consider CA home. No specific place in CA, just CA in general. Los Angeles, Santa Cruz, San Luis Obispo, even the Bay area (where my husband grew up, but I have never lived there). I still feel strongly that CA is my home and I am on some extended (and quite honestly, painful) vacation (that I REALLY wish would END).

We spent last week "home" in CA and it occurred to me how easily I slide right back in with my friends and family there. As if the past (almost) 6 years hasn't gone by. And yet, here in AZ, I never feel at home. I never feel comfortable, like I can be myself; except when I am with my husband and kids in our residence. Not at school, not at church, not around the people I call my friends. I just don't feel like me here; I don't feel like I am on the same wavelength as the rest of the population. And I don't think I ever will. This has led to several bouts of depression since we moved here. And yes, I know that it is because my attitude needs to change and that there is nothing inherently wrong with Arizona itself. But, even through prayer and fasting, I still feel so bitter about being here and I still don't call this place home.

And then I got to thinking about what the Bible says about "home". It says that we are to live like foreigners here on earth (1 Peter 1:17). So maybe I shouldn't feel "at home" anywhere until I am in Heaven. Until I am in the holy presence of our Lord and Savior Christ Jesus. That makes sense to me. So why do we make such a big deal about "home"? About living in a certain city, "owning" a house, feeling "at home", etc? This is all just temporary after all. I am thinking the only way I am going to change my attitude about being in AZ is by focusing on the hereafter and stop trying to find a place to fit in here on Earth. Because, really, it is not my true home.