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My favorite TV channel is HGTV. One of my favorite shows is Fixer Upper. On this show a couple, Chip and Joanna Gaines, remodel houses for their clients. When they reveal to the people their new home, Chip almost always says, “Welcome home!” Recently I have been thinking a lot about the word “home.” I was on a trip when it took me 2 ½ days to fly home. First there was ice in the city I was trying to leave. Then there was ice in the city where I had to change planes. Then the flight was cancelled for lack of a pilot. I finally made it home! Another trip I was on, we drove 13 hours, almost nonstop, so we could get home in order to beat the snow. What we don’t go through to get home! What makes home so special? What makes a home a home? Is it the people who are waiting there for us? Is it our own bed? Is it all that is familiar? Is it all the mementos and special things we put into it? I have been hearing the word “home” often recently. I am sure I had heard it just as much before, but it has stood out to me lately. I hear it and I keep wondering: What is the home that we are longing and searching for? The African-American community has a homegoing service for those who have died. It seems to me that is what it is all about. Ultimately the home that we are searching for is our home with our loving God. That is what we are made for. That is what we live for. Life may not be easy at times but, for me, it is worth it to reach that final destination, that final home for which we are all striving.

– Blog entry by Sister Ann Clark