They say “Home is where the heart is.” Who are “they”? What does this statement really mean?

Lately the concept of “Home” has felt unobtainable. There hasn’t been one place that has felt like home since July. For about 28 years home has been with my person. He made me feel safe, he loved me, he encouraged me, he challenged me, and he made space for me to be myself. Then poof, that safe space is gone and I am left without my home. 

While Jason was in the ICU we moved. It was one of those jello mold moments. Mainly because all the moving elves made sure we were set up, decorated and ready to go in just a couple of days and most of this activity happened around me. The new place has been a blessing. It has been a place of refuge, a place of healing, a place where there were no memories of living with him; and yet at the same time it has never truly felt like home. It has felt empty and void of all the things you would say “Home” is.

So, in an effort to find home again, I decided to find my place. My place of peace, my place of safety, my place to build my new home. Also, I am tired of lugging grocery bags and my pup Willa-Dean up and down the stairs. But packing and preparing to move has been difficult. I keep stalling on the packing of all the boxes. I keep stalling on going through all of the drawers, bookshelves, cabinets, and closets because there are small reminders behind every drawer, bin, door, and shelf of the “home” I used to have. 

Going through everything is necessary because the new place is smaller. This means going through all the things we brought over thinking Jason would join us after he was released from the hospital. This means deciding what to keep, what to store and what to give away. I am not sure I was quite ready for this step. I am not sure anyone who has lost someone is ever ready for this part of the grieving process. But this is where I am, deep in the great sort. 

There is a song by Blake Shelton called “Home”. The lyrics speak about just wanting to go home. There is a part that says, 

“May be surrounded by a million people. 

I still feel all alone. 

I wanna go home. 

Oh, I miss you, you know.” 

This is how I have felt. I have felt like I have been misplaced. I have felt lost and at the same time like I am fighting to navigate my way back onto the road map for my life. I have felt purposeless and at the same time I feel like God is directing my steps in a purposeful direction. Most of all I have felt like I have been walking around with half of myself missing…and it is missing. Jason was my better half.

So, how do you find home? How do you find joy when deep sorrow is all that seems to be present? Joy and sorrow cannot exist without each other. They are at the opposite ends of the emotional spectrum from each other. If you eliminate one, you eliminate the other. For example I have many memories of Jason and I over the 28 years we were together. Each one brings joy and yet also sorrow because we are no longer making memories together. Also, I am walking through my grief journey daily. This brings moments of deep sorrow and tears and yet I still have space to be joyful and celebrate the new things in my life! 

So how do you find joy? Joy is an act of faith. Faith requires endurance, therefore joy requires endurance.This means that it is a daily choice to choose joy over sorrow. Does this mean that there will not be times of great sadness? No, it means that while the pain seems overwhelming, if practiced, joy comes in and overwhelms the pain. It does not eliminate or erase the pain. So when you are in the throes of grief or loss you will endure, you will find faith and joy even while experiencing sorrow. I know God has a purpose and a plan for my life. I am doing my best to seek Him daily to make sure I am moving in the direction that He wants me to go.

Now, I am in my new place. Fewer items and less square footage. First floor apartment and more windows to let in natural light. Close to a dog park and not having to pay tolls. Choosing some new furniture and decor to make it feel more like me…just me. All of these things are good and exciting. As I sit in my new place and write I feel a change. It happened as I packed and traveled over the holiday but I am just noticing it for myself. I feel more settled. I am beginning to feel home.

Does this mean that I am “getting over” Jason? No. I am not sure I will ever “get over” that loss. But it doesn’t mean that I will stop living. It means that as I move forward in what God is asking me to do I am taking him and his memory with me. I am choosing to live. I am choosing to tell my story and talk about the difficult things and how God continues to show up in hopes that someone else may be encouraged to choose to live and choose joy. So today as you seek the Father and what He has for you, I am certain that you will find your place that feels like home. It is in the loving arms of my Heavenly Father where I have finally found my home.

“For this reason also, since the day we heard this, we haven’t stopped praying for you. We are asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, so that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him, bearing fruit in every good work and growing in the knowledge of God. May you be strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for all endurance and patience, with joy giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the saints] inheritance in the light. He has rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son He loves. We have redemption, the forgiveness of sins, in Him.”

Colossians 1:9-11