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What is home? … A house? An apartment? A condo? A place of residence? The place you lay your head down at the end of day?

I have a confession. Many of you know this about me. Hampton Roads is not my favorite place in the world. It isn’t exactly where I want to reside forever. However it is…my home.

I love my home. So in a round-a-bout way I love where I live. Does it hold the physical features I long for? (snowy mountains)…. No. Is it a small town without traffic lights with long winding country roads lined with year long lasting fall foliage and picket fences separating farmlands and colorful maple trees?.... No. But I don’t really think any of this matters. It’s a minor inconvenience. I think “Home” is defined within your heart.

Why am I writing about this today? Because this weekend I truly felt like I was home.

Thursday night eating dinner with Erin’s family… annoying showing up late… making us wait… but then spending an hour laughing telling stories and watching stupid youtube videos at the restaurant….i feel home.

Friday night we had one of our most favorite people in the whole wide world come over as she was visiting from Lynchburg. Sitting around a sharing life stories together and reminiscing on past events….thats when I feel home.

Saturday evening a whole bunch of us met up at Chesapeake city park, packed picnic dinners, sat around for a couple hours in the beautiful sunshine waiting for the sun to fade to watch an outdoor viewing of “The Goonies”, having “boy time” taking my newly adopted nephews over to the play ground to watch them play, only to realize how much fun monkey bars and swings can be as a grown-up, sitting around in lawn chairs watching the movie with laughing, eating popcorn, unexpectedly freezing our butts off sharing blanks amongst eachother, watching my beautiful wife and all her friends laughing, dancing around, loving life, snapchatting eachother just to annoy me, and then telling everyone embarrassing stories about me…. I feel home.

Spending all Sunday morning at church services and bible studies fellowshipping amongst our life group. Spending lazy Sundays around the pool hanging out with friends, getting roped into playing pool tag with those crazy boys again, and then unexpected heart to hearts with people you care the most about…. So much so… that they made you wayyyy behind schedule trying to make dinner for my parents who were coming over, sitting around the living room watching Erin so happy and excited to show off her students “memories of the year” book her students made for her and listening to her tell stories while showing pictures from the yearbook, having my parents help us decide where to put next year’s Christmas tree… in June …. I feel home.

 So to answer the question posed at the start of this post… home is none of those.

Home is your family.

Home is your friends.

Home is your friends that have become family.

Home is Sunday afternoons by the pool

Home is Saturday nights at the drive-in

Home is your Church when you get upset that the service ends so soon.

Home is that moment you realize you found your “2AM” friends.

Home is sitting with your sife out front watching the sun set on a quiet evening dreaming of life

Home is your heart.

O.A.R. wrote a song titled “I feel home” and it’s is one of those songs that the words have always stuck with me. Go listen to it.