Never at Home--Always at Home

We have been back in the US for over a month now.  After years of our absence, people greet us in different ways.  Some say, “Welcome back.”  Some say, “Great to see you.”  By far the most common however is “Welcome home.”

I always replay to the last one with a polite, “Thanks!  It’s great to be here,” because frankly, it is.  I have missed friends here, I have missed our townhome, and I have missed America.  She is a great country, and she seems to have done well in our absence.  It is great to be back!

Yet, there is a part of me that does not view America as my home anymore.  I have spent most of my adult life living in Europe.  I have not been on this side of the Atlantic for nearly four years.  It feels like a strange land to me, and in that regard it is no longer home.

In another sense however, it is very much home.  I have family who live in the area.  I own property here.  I have lifelong friends in the area.  I have memories, and stories from almost every block in the neighborhood where I live.  Just like Bulgaria.

In America, Sasha and I hang out with our neighbors, have people over for movies and games, are involved in our local church, teach Bible courses, invest in the lives of our co-workers, and love the people around us.  Just like in Bulgaria.

Wherever I am, a part of me is not at home and a part of me is.

The wonderful thing is that I have found a home in both places.  Though a part of me misses the mountains of Bulgaria, a part of me rejoices at once again enjoying the lakes of Minnesota.

It is an interesting life.  I am never at home, because I am always at home.

Mark 10:29-30

"Truly I tell you," Jesus replied, "no one who has left homes or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and for the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children, and fields--along with persecutions--and in the age to come eternal life."