Is there a word that evokes more emotion?  After much searching for the passion in my life, I realized I was surrounded by it the whole time.

Home is where the heart is.  It is wherever I get the privilege of living with the one I love and the children God has blessed us with.

Home is where your story begins.  It is the family in which I grew up with parents who loved and sacrificed for me, an aggravating little brother and spoiled rotten baby sister.

Home is leaving your father and mother and cleaving to your mate as the old King James Version of the Bible says in Mark 10:7.  It is making a new home whose bonds are stronger than those you had with your own family.  It is gaining a new family with as many quirks as mine but whose loyalty could never be doubted.

Home is the American Dream, a dream so deep within that financial planning had been my college major, a dream every family should have within their grasp.  It is the home that was the first and biggest goal of our marriage to save for and build.  It was bringing our newborn babies over its threshold. 

Keeping the home fires burning was doing my part both times my husband deployed to serve our beloved country.  It made the sacrifice more bearable to know I could do that for him.

I can’t achieve world peace but I can keep peace in my home.  It was the mantra by which I raised our girls during a time of uncertainty when Dad was at war.  It is doing what you can when you can’t do it all.

Home is the freedom and responsibility of being a citizen of the United States of America.  It is sweet tea and fried chicken.  It is the rolling hills and natural beauty of Kentucky.  It is the smell of honeysuckles in early summer.  It is the language and the drawl of Simpson County.  It is Woodburn Baptist Church. 

Home is my Dad’s mostly inappropriate, usually dead accurate, sometimes off-base opinions told in a way that only the poet laureate of Gold City could.  It is the recited from memory retelling for the 1,000^th time of “Three Doggies Promenade” at Grandma’s knee and having her beg my parents to just let me stay one more night.  It is wanting my Mama when I’m sick even if I’m grown.  It is my brother’s crackpot inventions that will one day make him a millionaire and my sister’s impersonations that show she is picking up where Dad left off with a little more grace.

Home is the smell of my husband in fresh t-shirt that makes me thank God again for sparing him on that August day in Afghanistan.  It is the sound of our girls giggling behind closed door and wondering what they are up to now.  It is the ever-present canine companion who is just ready to tag along for the day’s events.

Home is old friends, the kind of friend that walks in and opens your refrigerator to serve herself.  The kind that knows that the basement couch is the best place for naps, the kind that shows up just as she is to hang out, the kind I can call to bring some milk or pick me up when my battery is dead.  It is the lunch dates where we celebrate our husbands and children and vent the daily annoyances we don’t want to complain about at home.

Home is decorating for holidays and cooking for my family.  It is family traditions and favorite treats and lots and lots of back-scratching and snuggling.  It is endless card games and sitting on the back porch watching our girls chase their Daddy in a game of Ghost in the Graveyard.

Home is the dream of growing old with that man just to see what a cute little old man he is going to make.  It is the “sitting on the front porch, covered in grandchildren, saying “No” and “Stop that!”” that Shelby wished for in Steel Magnolias.

Home is the presence of the Lord.  The Bible tells us in 2 Corinthians 5:6-8 that we can be at home in the body since we know God by faith, but we can be confident that we will be present with Him in our heavenly home when we leave this bodily one.

Home is the memory of yesterday and the hope for today, tomorrow, and eternity.