Home

Home:

1. one’s place of residence

            2. the social unit formed by a family living together

3. a familiar or usual setting

Tonight I will tuck my children in to bed in this house for the last time. Our home.

When we first entered this home, it was just the two of us…Chris and me. We were full of hope, full of dreams, ready for new beginnings. Nine years later, we are a family of 5. Three fresh, sparkling new lives have emerged in this home. Thirty new fingers and thirty new toes. Three bright faces that didn’t exist just a few short years ago. They have called this place home – the only home they’ve ever known. Their first home. And tomorrow we will say goodbye, walk out the door, and leave the key behind. Someone else will call this place home, another young couple who is full of hope, full of dreams, ready for new beginnings.

We are ready to move on. We’re excited about our next house…about having space to spread out. But as I sit here in this familiar room and look around, the memories come crashing all around me.  Most are beautiful, some are painful. Our first wedding anniversary, when we decided it would be gross to eat the dried out piece of wedding cake we had stored in the freezer. Arguments about furniture, money, and the best method of loading the dishwasher. Walking through the front door and collapsing in bed a few hours after finishing my first full marathon. Celebrating the day Chris finished his intern year. The first positive pregnancy test.  Coming home from the hospital and finding our living room decorated with streamers  to welcome our baby girl. Accidentally locking myself out of the house when our 3-week old baby was alone inside. Chris falling asleep post-call on the living room floor.  Midnight strolls through the hallway to calm a crying baby. Coming home from Thanksgiving to discover our house had flooded from a leaking faucet. The bathroom where I realized we were losing our second baby to a miscarriage. Learning to crawl, first steps, first words.  A year and a half of negative pregnancy tests. Tears of joy and relief when there was finally a second pink line. More first steps and first words. Lots of bubble baths in the hall bathroom. The couch where I laid down and wept after what felt like a devastating diagnosis.  Pancakes on Saturday mornings, sometimes shaped like bunnies. Dancing in the living room and soccer in the back yard. All 3 kids somehow finding their way to our bed for early morning snuggle parties. Temper tantrums that seemed to last forever. Play-doh on the carpet and black crayon on the walls.  Doors slamming. Feet stomping. Lots of yelling, pouting, crying, and giggling. A lot of LIFE has happened in this home.

Growing up as a military child, I never lived in the same house for more than a couple years. No place in my life has ever felt more like home than these walls, these rooms, this house. Part of me doesn’t want to let it go, to relinquish what’s comfortable and familiar. By most definitions, this house is my home…my place of residence and a familiar setting. Our new house doesn’t feel so familiar. It feels foreign and intimidating. The new house is fancy. It has wainscoting galore, crown molding, tons of granite and tile, and deluxe Kitchen Aid double convection ovens. I’m not such a fancy person. I don't know how to use even one convection oven. But none of that matters because I’m clinging to the second definition of home: the social unit formed by a family living together. These four people I live with, they are my home. They are where I belong. We’ll take our memories with us, both the beautiful and the painful. We’ll take them to our new, fancy home that still feels foreign and intimidating. We’ll hold those memories tightly, and soon they will grow and blend in to new memories. More pancakes on Saturday morning. More temper tantrums. A baby who has yet to take his first steps. More early morning snuggle parties with all 5 of us piled in bed together.  More Play-doh on the brand new carpet. More soccer in the new back yard. More yelling, more dancing, more crying, and more giggling. We have lots more LIVING left to do…in a new house with new walls, new rooms, new memories waiting to be made.  A new HOME.

So goodbye, house. Thank you for sheltering us and providing us with a safe place to belong. We are praying for the new owners. We’re praying that this house will provide them with the same safety that it provided us. We’re praying that this house will continue to be filled with life, love, lots of giggling and snuggling, and the huge presence of Jesus. We’re praying the same thing for our new house…our new home.

And I’m praying that someday I will figure out how to use those fancy new double convection ovens...