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I came across this interesting tree the other morning. I was immediately transported back to my childhood and one of my favorite boyhood books, “My Side of the Mountain”. It was about a boy who went off by himself to live in the woods and to find everything he needed provided by nature. I don’t recall how many times I read that book in my elementary school years, but it was plenty. As I recall, he made his home in a tree that had a natural door, much like this one. I dreamed of following in his footsteps and doing the same in the woods behind my house. I never did.

Home comes in all kinds of versions. Opulent mansions. Simple cabins. Modest middle-sized houses. Some people have the amazing ability to create home even when they are without a physical home. There are heroes who keep family together through tough transitions and the hardest of times. They commit to staying connected. They love one another. They are accountable to each other as they lift up the heart of what it means to have a home, to be a home. In a way, regardless of our address, we carry home with us and within us.

The apostle Paul writes, “For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.”

One of the songs I loved as a boy in church started out like this: “This world is not my home, I’m just a passing through. My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue. The angels beckon me from heaven’s open door and I don’t feel at home in this world anymore.” We can feel at home with the people with whom we share love and care. We can feel at home with the people who share the same struggles and challenges. We can feel at home with the people who hold fast to the same hope. We can feel at home with the people who create home wherever they go through compassion and kindness and grace.

We can be those people for each other because we know that, ultimately, our home is with God. Whatever that looks like, however that happens, we trust that home is always both already with us and yet waiting for us. Our home is as sure as God’s presence because God’s presence is our home.

Peace.