Home With Jesus
One question: What does home mean to you?
Hi, welcome to Joni and Friends; I’m Joni Eareckson Tada and living more than 3,000 miles from the home where I grew up; living in California where the culture is so, so very different from life on our Maryland farm, well, it’s made me think a lot about what home means, what it is, why we long for it so much. For instance, the fact is I’ve lived more years in Southern California than I did back east. You see, I moved to California when I was almost 30 years old. And here I am, in my 70s in the same house I moved into in 1979, here in California. That was more than 40 years ago. But you know what? In many ways, I think of Maryland still as my home. Part of it is because, culturally, I’m just not a Californian. Oh, sure, I know my way around the Golden State and it is so beautiful; Yosemite National Park, the Sierras, the rocky shoreline along the Pacific Ocean. But, as lovely as it is in California, even after 40 years, it doesn’t feel like home.
But, don’t let me paint the farm in Maryland as all “home sweet home.” I recall after I had been in the hospital for nearly two years, I was so longing to go home where my best memories filled every room of our house. But when they finally sent me home, that first night around our dining room table was miserable. My legs did not fit under the table, so my parents quickly had to remove hot casserole dishes while my sisters scurried to lift the table and place phonebooks under the table legs. Everybody had to shift things around, and I felt so embarrassed to be causing so much trouble. It didn’t feel like home. It felt awful. Yet, that night around the table was so sweet and so tender – it struck me how caring and supportive everybody was being; we were family. That first-time home in my wheelchair I guess I realized what home meant – it meant the heartfelt tenderness that a family experiences when everybody comes together to meet a need. Yep, that night was bittersweet. Bitter in that I did not quite fit; I had to be carried up the steps. My chair did not fit under the bathroom sink. And so much more. But it was all so sweet because of our togetherness. All the love and family support made dessert that night taste wonderful for us all. I was home in the best sense of the word!
So, let’s go back to California for a moment. Yes, I know the freeways; I like our house; I like the sunshine. But what makes it home is my husband Ken Tada. Because we could be anywhere – we could be traveling to Kansas or Ohio, North Carolina or overseas, and I feel at home. Because home is wherever Ken Tada is. Home is often in the backyard where he’s reading his fishing magazines. Watching him through the sliding glass door? Home is right out there, right where Ken is, watching him. Or when traveling, even a hotel room can feel like home, just because in the morning it smells like his shaving lotion. I smile, thinking that I’m home because I am where he is. You get the point, right? Home is where the people make it warm and welcoming.
So, what is your home? What do you call home? It isn’t so much a Place, is it; it’s about people. Especially if there is a need in the family where everyone has to come together and pull their weight, like when I first got out of the hospital. And there might be a similar need in your household. Fill it, would you? For in so doing, you will be making your house a home, at least until that glorious Day when we’ll all be called to heaven; not a place, but home in the best sense of the word: home with Jesus.