Home

Holly: Throughout my life my perceptions of things have changed.  Chalk it up to growing up, I suppose.  One of these things that have changed is my concept of home.  What is "home"?  What does it mean to be "home"?  Is it a place, people, or something even more than that?

As many of you know, Kelly and I moved to Berea in May of this year.  We spent a lot of our time here, college-related time, and we felt like Berea was the place we were supposed to be.  Considering the large amount of our time here Berea felt more like our home than our grassroots of southeastern Ohio.  Now, PLEASE do not misunderstand me.  I love my hometown.  I love that I was able to grow up there, and I love my family and best friend more than anything.  But when I would go home for holidays or breaks or whatnot, things just felt so....foreign.  Different.  I felt out of place, like I had missed so much from Athens and from my folks and best friend.  It just wasn't the same place anymore.  I wasn't the same person.  Because I had grown so used to cozy Berea, my school, and my church, it was strange to be away from that, even though I had spent the first 18 years of my life in this place.  Now, when I say I'm going home, it means I'm going to my 2-bedroom apartment in Berea.

But home for me is a lot more than just a place.  When my parents come to visit, that's home.  When I talk to my best friend on the phone, that's home.  When my cats come downstairs when I come in the door from work, that's home.  Home is watching an episode of Sherlock in the living room with Kelly and exclaiming in excitement how I picked something up that I had never noticed before.  Home is a cup of the flavor of the day at BC&T.  Home is opening your window and sensing that fall "smell" and feeling the breeze blow into your space.  Home is singing as loud as you can to that song on the radio when you're stuck at a red light.  Home is hugging that one friend you haven't seen in ages.

Take time to notice the "home" in your life, whether it's a place or not.

Kelly: On our daily walk tonight, I was talking to Holly that a lot of college students move back to where they came from after they graduate. Our brother did this. I have lots of friends who did this/are doing this. I was talking to Holly that this didn't even cross my mind after I graduated. Then she said to me: "I already moved back home. I moved here." Didn't really think about it that way. I remember being a first year student wondering how I would get used to this place called Berea, Kentucky. Now I can't imagine being apart from it. To be honest though, my perspective on home is a bit different than Holly's. Sometimes I sit and ask God how He picked here for me to be. How did He get me to fall in love with a place like Berea? Then it hit me.

To me, home in many cases is more the people than a place or a thing. I think people largely make a home a home. And for me, my Berea home and my attraction to it is largely where I go to church every Sunday. I see it as a home despite the division and sometimes negativity that has been seen/heard/read in a survey. Despite the fact that I read a comment that basically said college students can either just deal with the changes or shove off, it's still a home to me. Because in a home, you notice there are flaws, yet you don't define it by the few flaws. Positive memories and faces trump any negative comment in my book. When I think of a home, I think of family. A family. People who love one another, encourage one another, support one another and pray for one another. They don't hold grudges, or judge, belittle, or put down...not that anybody in my immediately family or my close friends do that. But families don't do that, or at least they shouldn't. That's why I love my church; it treats me like a family. Every Sunday (and Tuesday night) I am welcomed with open arms and loved by so many.

I'll close with this: on the way out of church today I got a comment from my pastor today saying how much he appreciated how Holly and I have openly loved his family. I was stricken mute by my overwhelming joy that I totally forgot to say I only give such love because I myself have been given the exact same love by not only his family but so many others at BBC. I am blessed to have that church as my family. And my home.