DECEMBER 29, 2022
When I talk about the word “home,” what comes to mind? The structure we live in? The people inside? The décor, style, and way of life it reveals about me? The safety or refuge it offers from the world around? Or what about the privacy I find there, as I am able to go inside, relax and be a version of me I may not usually be when I am out and in public?
There are at least three levels to what I consider “home.” Each layer illuminates “intimacy” in a deeper and more meaningful way. That is appropriate, because the word “intimacy” comes from the Latin word “intimus.” That word in Latin means “inner” or “innermost” and naturally describes what is really beneath the surface if given the chance to know it (https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-intimacy-in-a-relationship).
I walk in the front door of my house and enter into an open room designed for connecting, sharing, dining and gathering. It is an intimate place. When I invite company over, it is in this place we sit and visit, eat a meal or play a game together. It is where we get to know each other and pray together. It is the part of the house that undergoes a thorough cleaning before company arrives and the part that gets the messiest while they are here. To be invited here requires a certain level of trust, for it involves an invitation in to “my world” where my life is lived on a daily basis with the people and things I value tremendously. It is also in this room where I spend time with my family. My children gather there to laugh and cry, to work and to play. They are casual here, and they spend time here with the understanding that others are welcome to draw close to them and be with them in life. This is my home.
Beyond the open rooms within my front door is my most private place in my home – my bedroom. It is here that I stay with my husband and where I dwell in the seclusion of my own space even away from my children. It is a shared space though. The compromise of sleep and comfort, cleanliness and early morning routines are melded together with another person – and not just any person, but with the man I love and choose to live my life with. Intimacy is constantly discovered in this room. Prayers before bed, the raw reality of messy hair and morning breath – these are kept (hopefully) nestled behind the doors of our bedroom, safe to be known mostly by each other and certainly with ourselves as we live life each day. This is a place much deeper within my home.
Still the deepest place within my home isn’t a room or beyond a door. It isn’t a place at all, and it isn’t with anyone around me. The deepest place is the intimacy within me- between me and My Savior Jesus Christ. This is my forever home! No building, no room, no other person can fill it. None can control it or defile it. If all else fails, if all else is lost, the dwelling place in me for the Life of God will endure! It will live forever and it will remain faithfully. It is this deepest place of intimacy that is paramount to all others. Here God speaks to me. (It is still so incredible to think that He would do so!) Here He lives with me. Here He promises His Presence and
His love to remain. He keeps His promises. Here He hears my thoughts, the beautiful, the ugly, the messy, all of it. I can't choose what He gets to see. Nothing is withheld from Him here. Here He knows me completely – even if I don’t acknowledge it or want it. Entirely beyond the veil of appearance and presumption, I have a home I live in with my Savior.
This is what Home means to me. Home is the experience of intimacy in my life. It is the collective life of what matters most to me and the person I really am inside. It is the sharing of that life with others. It is the inseparable bond of that life with the Lord. This is home. This is truly home.
The Journey Begins ... Part 2
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