It Felt Like Home

As I walked into the house I immediately felt at home. Have you ever been to places like that? Have you been to someone else’s house and felt that? 

No, it was not the layout, the furniture, the decorations, all that stuff we put into our homes for comfort. It was not the wonderful hospitality of everything we needed, with extra blankets for warmth, supplies of shampoo and conditioner, bottled water and delicious food.

It was the warmth oozing from the walls, coming from the family that lived there. The walls, the air, the atmosphere had picked up how they were to look and feel from this family unit. 

If I had taken off my smelly sneakers, strewn my jacket over the back of a chair and laid my things out all over the dining room table I would not have felt awkward or frowned upon. I was at home. 

This word – home – was spoken to Bruce and I a week ago in a room in a motel by someone who came to visit us. 

We had never met before, never spoken, but this beautiful lady shared after sitting with Bruce and I for half an hour, “I have come home.” 

Oh, I felt so special. She had praised us with the best word she could have used. 

It was not our knowledge or anything we said. It was what radiated out of us. The love and safety of Our Lord dwelling within us. 

So too in this family, especially from Mum and Dad. This love and acceptance radiated from them. Their welcome, their love and generosity were breathable. 

After being and sharing with these beautiful people even only for a few minutes, I felt like I had found a sanctuary. A place where I was safe, where I could be myself but way more than that – a place where God dwelt.

As described in the Old Testament, the sanctuary was the Holy of Holy’s, the inner sanctum where only the priests were allowed to enter. This dwelling place was holy. This is where the people of God would come and worship. 

Then Jesus, the Son of God, came to Earth and extended this dwelling place of God. He told us in Ephesians…

in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling-place for God.

Ephesians 2:22 NRSV

And in 2 Corinthians… 

For we are the temple of the living God; as God said,

‘I will live in them and walk among them,
    and I will be their God,
    and they shall be my people.

2 Corinthians 6:16

Jesus dwelt within us if we invited Him in. 

Nowadays, in many of our churches, there is a sanctuary, a holy place, the Blessed tabernacle where God dwells. This is our place of worship but not our only place to worship. 

That is why I felt at home, safe in this couple’s house. Jesus Christ was dwelling here. Within them. 

I felt like I had come home! 

May my house “feel” like this. 

And not the building but where I go, walk, work, play. 

May I bring Jesus who dwells within me to everyone I meet and may they” feel, sense” this safe home, this sanctuary, the presence of God. And then desire that this same God would dwell within them. 

So, thank you for opening your house to Bruce and I and making us immediately feel at home! 

May I do that to everyone I meet. 

Big internet hugs! 

Thank you.

May these jottings from my journal inspire you to believe in and fall in love with Christ- the hope of the world, as stated in Jeremiah 17:7, ‘Blessed is the man who believes and trusts in and relies on the Lord and whose hope and confident expectation is the Lord!’

Love

Rosemary

Every week groups of ladies meet together to chat about the things I raise in my weekly blog post and to chat about life in general. We call these ‘Heart Connect’ groups.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

What does home feel like to you?

Where have you felt like home away from home? Was it a place or the people who dwelt there?

How do you want your home to feel?