Getting HOME.

SO.. here I am back in Pittsburgh after a great weekend celebrating a dear friend in beautiful NC.
 So I drove and drove and passed many green hills and mountains and why is it that INSTANTLY when you travel south life just seems better!?
  Blame it on the sweet tea or the sweet accents. i . love. it. It is SO beautiful and the rolling hills and the trees. and the TREES! ahhhh...
 So, even though I love, love North Carolina and some day hope to return there... I have to say it felt pretty amazing to drive over a giant hill and then, right as you start to go down to the other side... you see a beautiful city of bridges- my city of bridges and my new home.
  I have had so many places called home and I was  thinking about this as i drove past beautiful green and fields of flowers and mountains with fog hanging in the valleys. And I realized that home has looked many different ways.
Once it was a house on a busy street with a kumquat tree in the back yard. It was a small apartment I shared with a friend for a summer. Home was a long country lane paved with river rocks and a nine foot security fence with shards of glass and razor wire on top. Home was a gas stove and a kitchen with windows that looked out into corn fields all around. Home was a donkey butt in my window. It was a small dorm room with twinkle lights and a ghetto air conditioner and friends in and out all the time. Now " home " is a city with lots of bridges and a third floor apartment in an old Victorian house with squeaky stairs and a stove from 1956.    Or is it? Because some how I am always feeling like I need to get back there or know where " home is". - Maybe this is because people love to ask.. where is HOME for you? ehhh errr PANIC. Emm umm. Sweaty palms.. uhh.. come up with an answer quick.. ahhhhh. Uhh. - Now, truth be told. This is what is going on inside my head. But it usually comes out as a composed vague answer that feels like a lie " Florida". ? " North Carolina"? ..... Or my new favorite answer " Well I moved here from...." <- Let me tell you people. That one is the winner!
   So on my drive I am eating a whole bag of ginger snaps, contemplating leaving my new home to travel to an old home and then all the sudden I was listening to this great Jon Foreman song that says " I'm not so sure that home is a place you can still get to by train". Mmm. and in my heart I know it to be true.
Because where is home?
  My true home is a place where tornadoes don't kill people. My real home is a place where fires don't burn down entire states. Home in my mind is a place that is free of young men killing each other with things made out of medal. 
It is the place where sickness and sorrow does not exist. Home is the place where hearts don't get broken and where people can't die. Home is the place where I will wake up and I will hear a strong and loving voice say to me, " the term is over, the holidays have begun. The dream is ended; THIS IS THE MORNING.".
And there will be light and good and love in every ounce of every day. And this is a place that I can't get to by train. 
  So until them my earthly home will be with these people I call family. With my generous and amazing husband who looks like Brad Pitt some times. And with the basil plant in my windowsill. And with all my girls. And His kingdom is coming. And all I can say is swing low.....