Last night after a long day of driving, we pulled into home. It’s been five weeks of living on the road, visiting parks, waking up in a tent or in a hotel room, and then wondering what grand adventure waits before us.

[featured-image single_newwindow=”false”]Phil LaBelle, 2017.[/featured-image]

But those adventures now lie behind. We’ve explored and hiked and saw family and friends and did so many other things it’s too much to account for in a blog post.

And perhaps the best adventure of all is coming home.

The house smelled a little funky; it needs a thorough cleaning and to be lived in again. My Christmas cactus—not watered for a good month—has grown immensely, showing me once more it’s really just a good introvert needing space. I know that home isn’t necessarily a physical place; it’s the place where we can feel most fully ourselves and a place to be loved.

It’s in going away that we remember these things.

I’m a little slow at recognizing this, and I’ll get to be reminded again in a few days as I head out with Noah to hike to the top of Africa, but today I see it as I sit in the early morning back in my study at home. And I know that the home I really long for sits at the end of the age, when we’ll all be most fully the people we have always been called to be and we’ll be reunited with those who’ve gone before us and we’ll know we are immensely and fully loved just for who we are.

Until that time I’ll cherish the moments when the truth of that comes flooding in. When home and all it entails snatches away my breath, and I feel the beauty and love. And I’ll be grateful, like today, grateful for a home to come back to that gives me a glimpse me of the true home I’m longing for.