🏠 Home appreciation post 🏠

Returning home for me has always facilitated much needed rest periods and created headspace for reflection. This post invites us to explore the concept of 'home' together, as I reflect on the various places I've called home for the last 6 years - including reflections on what home has come to mean for me.

Enjoy :)

Home base

Two things come to my mind first when considering what makes a place feel like home - familiarity and comfort. I'm blessed to say that I love my family home and those who live there. I love my hometown and the community I grew up in. I also love seeing how it's grown and changed over the years.

I think we can all relate to missing home when we're in a new place. In homesick moments, I've often craved familiarity over novelty, as well as comfort over challenge. During my first few years living away from my family home, things felt much easier whenever I decided to head back home for a while. Partly to escape the intensity of uni/studying/working, but also to enjoy the comfort and familiarity of a nostalgic environment and relationships with people who'd known me for ages - making things feel easier, comforting and even energising. 

So it makes sense that homesickness is usually more intense at the start of being in a new place. In this way, I find that the more I've gotten to know people away from home and build relationships further afield, the more I started to feel at home in new places. In this way, my concept of home has broadened over the years, consisting of people that make unfamiliar places feel more comfortable.

These home bases can come in so many different forms for different people, such as a friendship group or simply a safe place. Whilst my roots still remain with my main home base, I'm grateful for the new networks I've become connected to, which function as 'new homes' in their own right. 

New homes

Whilst many people get excited about moving to a new place, I've often found it overwhelming at first due to the constant need for adjustment - new people, places, ways-of-doing, language, food, culture, weather, learning styles, etcetcetc. Even within the same city, each new year has also brought new friendships and opportunities to develop - extending right up until my last few weeks before moving. This has taught me the benefit of investing time and energy into getting to know people, even when you're not sure how long you may be in a place. 

When first away from our main home base, we likely either spend a lot more time alone, or find that being around new people takes up a lot of energy. This is because getting to know new people requires us to invest time and energy. Not having your normal support system during this time can be difficult, especially when you're having a down day. This can be particularly difficult when you struggle to find community at first, or feel like you don't click with people straight away (which is an incredibly overwhelming experience). Although developing friendships is a whooole other topic, I've found it most helpful to have a balance of both social time and down time, where both are intentionally prioritised. Making effort to build connections with a variety of people is equally as important as allowing ourselves the grace and alone time we need to process and adjust. 

I also believe in the importance of upholding existing connections when in a new place. Being able to pick up the phone and talk to existing friends and family from home is so comforting and helpful in feeling more oriented and grounded - especially when it feels like everything is changing. This is a valuable investment, requiring intentional time out from the busy-ness and new-ness of everything else currently happening in your new place. 

Homeless at home

Home is deeply linked to identity and community. Feeling like an outsider in a space you should feel acknowledged/safe/accepted is a painful reality that I'm sure many of us can relate to. Whether it be a physical place, community or people group, the places we call home have a lot to do with how we see ourselves. 

As a British Nigerian, the topic of home often evokes a sense of duality in identity, where I exist somewhere along the spectrum at any given time - sometimes seen as 'too Black' for one environment vs 'too white' for another. These types of internal conflicts can be much more than skin-deep... They can lead to people feeling isolated from their communities, alongside destructive thoughts about their identity and even feeling like a stranger within their own body... The duality in identity concept is one that I've also experienced as a Christian. At times I have felt out of place in a world that conflicts with many of my core values and beliefs, but I've also struggled at times in church community to feel truly seen, understood and appreciated for who God made me to be. 

I'm proud of my heritage and I'm grateful for the nuances that He has blessed me with. The complexities of my lived experience have produced depth for developing a secure identity and learning to be authentically myself. I've found that overcoming challenges has also improved my ability to connect with others and advocate for inclusivity. 

Heavenly home

Home for me has taken on whole new meaning over the last few years, becoming more about the people I love most than the places I feel most physically comfortable. Ultimately, I think it's a feeling of being centered in safety and familiarity. This also reveals the temporary nature of earthly homes, since no place or person remains perfect or constant. Our desire to feel at home somewhere really stems from a desire to know God and to be known by Him. 

This means that when we know Jesus, we do not have to fear leaving our comfort zone for unfamiliar places or being misunderstood by others. He knows us deeply and remains faithful through every new situation we find ourselves in. I am looking forward to heaven being my ultimate home one day, but in the mean time, knowing God here and now means that I can always feel at home.  

 For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.

Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling,

because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked.

 For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.

 Now the one who has fashioned us for this very purpose is God, who has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.

2 Corinthians 5:1-5

Much love and God bless, 

Jem <3