“Make yourself at home.”

We hear those words as guests, often a little unsure of ourselves at first. We don’t want to overstep, to assume too much, to cross invisible lines. But something shifts when the invitation is sincere. Our shoulders drop. We breathe differently. We reach for a glass without asking, settle into a chair, and move about more freely. For some of us it can mean opening the fridge without feeling like we have crossed a boundary. For a moment, what is not ours begins to feel like it could be. Hospitality makes that possible.

Sometimes, when someone dies, we say, “They’ve gone home to be with Jesus.” It’s a gentle phrase, softer than the blunt finality of “they’re gone,” and far more alive than “rest in peace,” which can feel like an endless, dormancy. “Going home” carries something better. It suggests movement, belonging, and a return, not an ending.

Every so often, only a handful of times a year, I find myself missing home. Not my home now, though I love it and miss it too, if I am away too long. I mean something older, deeper. I miss the kind of nurturance and affirmation that first taught me who I was. It is as a subtle yearning, an emptiness, a longing that’s hard to name, but it is for the warmth that once held me without question.

My English grandfather spent his life at sea. A merchant officer, he circled the globe through the Suez and Panama Canals, into the ports of Europe, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, South America, and India. The world was his oyster. And yet, after every voyage, he returned home.

I’ve been out of pocket lately… I have been moving, traveling, staying in motion. There’s a certain energy in that kind of life, but after a while, something subtle begins to slip. Without realizing it, I start to feel untethered… slightly unmoored. Not lost, but not fully grounded either. Something calls me back home. 

I stood at the kitchen window on a bright, sparkling afternoon and saw Lark on the patio, quietly reading, while our two dogs joyfully romped across the yard behind her. Something in the scene settled me instantly. I felt free… content, grounded… safe… at home.

I stopped recently at the house where I grew up—and at first, I hardly recognized it.

What was once a pristine, newly built neighborhood now feels worn, a little tired, softened by time. The streets no longer gleam. The homes no longer sparkle. Yet beneath that weathering, I could still feel a sense of home. I visited there many years ago, and the owner was there. She invited me to see the house. It was amazing to relive my childhood in one amazing visit. This time, no one was at home, so I took the liberty to walk around some of “my yard.” And all that was home enveloped me again.