around 5pm today, i got home.

home: saint louis, missouri. the place where i was born raised. the place where my family lives. where my parents work and my brothers play little league. where i went to school and where i haven't been in a long while. home.

but also today, around noon, i left home. 

home: a children's home. an orphanage. in miami, florida. 200 little faces of all different colors. daily worship. hugs. smiles. laughs. rice and beans. speaking spanish. daily beach trips. and some of my best friends.

today, i left home to go home.

and to tell you the truth...it didn't even phase me. 

it was sad, but it was normal.

mostly it just felt like life.

and then i realized, that's because it is my life.

over the past year, i have called at least 8 different places home:

my family's house in saint louis, missouri.

a tent at a boy's home in tegucigalpa, honduras.

a church in a small impoverished village called teupasenti.

a buddhist elementary school in a place called tak fa, thailand.

a tall building in phuket, one of the biggest red light district in the world.

a shack in the ghetto of cape town, south africa. 

a pastor's nice house with glass walls and hippos in the backyard.

and a little apartment on the campus of an orphanage in miami.

i'm used to moving. 

i'm used to change.

i'm used to being thrown somewhere and having to make it home.

Jesus made me that way for a reason.

and He reminded me of that today.

right now i'm in my own bed in my own room in my original home for the first time in months.

and i'm leaving again in about 8 hours.

i honestly don't even know what home is anymore.

everything is home and nothing is home. 

in matthew 8:20,  Jesus said,

"foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head."

psalm 91:1 says,

whoever dwells in the shelter of the most high will rest in the shadow of the almighty.

and these two verses sum up what Jesus has been teaching me about home.

home is not a place.

as men, as followers of Christ, we aren't guaranteed a physical home.

we're guaranteed that He is our home.

we're unsettled and moved and thrown around like He was,

so that we can be to others what He is to us,

home.

and as i stood there with every one of my 200 kids showering me with love before i left them today,

it all made sense.

i no longer had to wonder why they loved me so much,

what they saw in me.

they loved me so much because i had become their home,

what they saw in me was a home in Jesus.

a safe place.

exactly what they didn't have.

exactly what they needed.

Jesus is cool like that.

i may not have a home.

but i have a God who is my home.

a God who lives in me and allows me to be a home for others.

and i'd choose that over a physical home any day.