Goodness Inventory 02
April 2025 - finding home
Home is where the heart is. You’ll always find your way back home. There’s no place like home. There’s no shortage of quippy sayings on home. If you’re looking for a quote that resonates with how you feel about home, you’ll find it.
The subject of home has been covered extensively. There probably isn’t much new to say on the topic. And yet, I can’t stop thinking about it.
April began in a place that was not home. Sam and I woke up in the sleepy town of Invergarry, in the Scottish Highlands. After a long day of stressful travel, Sam needed a break from the driver's seat, and I was more than happy to indulge in a mid-trip rest day at arguably our best accommodations of the trip—a quaint bed and breakfast with floral wallpaper, antique furniture, vintage bath fixtures, and sheep grazing just outside the dining room window.
Normally, I’m a stick-to-the-plans sort of gal. When I’m far from home, from comfort and normalcy, the one thing I can control is a schedule. I work hard to research sights, restaurants, and cafes that feel good. I dedicate time before every trip to know enough about how to get places, what to expect when we get there, and what our experience will feel, taste, and smell like, so that when it's time to hit our next stop, there’s no surprises.
Before this trip, I thought I was just a control freak with no hardwiring for flexibility. But there I was, throwing the itinerary out the window and embracing an unauthorized slow day at our cozy bed and breakfast. I was able to change plans with ease, joyfully even, when other times, throwing a wrench in the plans leaves me paralyzed, anxious, and unsure.
This time, it felt okay, safe even to make this choice. All because this little cottage in the middle of Scotland felt like home. No, it wasn’t full of toddlers or any of my things, but it just felt homey, idyllic. It felt like the kind of environment I try to create in my own home. Maybe it was the decor or the people, the hills scattered with homes, Sam and I dreamed of recreating someday. But this day to reset in a place that felt like home was a gift.
I don’t think home is a person; I’m happy with Sam wherever I am, but there is something about four walls and the stability and presence a home brings. There is technically no place like your exact home, but there I was experiencing the safety, rest, and comfort of home in a far-off place. I have found home is an experience. It is both a place and a feeling—a deep sense of belonging, comfort, and safety.
Home is resting in something secure. In many ways, as I travel, my itinerary is my lifeline because it creates a sense of home for me, comfort, and safety. Home is familiar, known, safe. I know what to expect from it. It’s how I know not to stub my toe on our poorly positioned bathroom door when I get up and zombie walk to the bathroom at 2 a.m.
If our trip to Scotland taught me anything, it's how integral home is to my inner life. I crave those feelings of safety, comfort, and security. It's why I give so much of my time and thought to our home, thinking about how to make it feel more welcoming, inviting, safe, and comfortable for those within its walls.
I devote days of my life to plans and projects, pouring resources into making our home feel like a warm embrace. I don’t think this is wrong. Home is an important part of helping life feel stable and safe. It allows us to host, rest, recharge, and go back out into the world refreshed.
I can’t help but wonder what would happen if I gave the same amount of thought and intentionality to cultivating a home for my soul.
In his book Practicing the Way, John Mark Comer discusses the idea of an emotional home. It's the idea that you have a habitual place where your mind wanders—the place where your mind goes at rest, where it finds comfort, and where it feels safe.. For some, it’s dreams of the future, to-do lists, or even anxiety. Our vices can become our emotional homes. Anxiety becomes the norm, and worrying about what is next becomes oddly comforting.
Comer makes the point that, as believers, as disciples of Jesus, we should find our emotional home in God. God becomes our home. The place we come back to. To be refreshed. To be renewed. To find safety, solace, comfort. By tapping into his strength and power, we can go out into the world and build his kingdom. Part of our calling is to train our minds to return again and again to the presence of God, making him our home.
Imagine the difference it would make in my life if I dedicated the same amount of time to establishing my emotional home in God as I do to my physical home or itineraries. I want to grow to be the person who rests in the presence of God. I want my mind to feel most safe and comfortable when it is dwelling on the goodness of God. So that maybe, even if the bed and breakfast wasn’t idyllic, I would be able to find an unshakable sense of home in God, wherever this life takes me.
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that I love about my home…
our bluetooth speaker
On days that are feeling particularly long or hard, I throw on a good jazzy playlist and play it throughout the house. It helps cut through the mundane and convince my mind I could be in a little cafe. It also doubles as our DJ booth for the kids to dance in the living room to techno Bluey, which is cute and drains them of energy, win-win.
the garden
I love how much Sam loves his garden. He has carefully crafted and planned out every inch of it and it has been truly so fun to see it thrive and watch our brown patch of dirt begin to speckle with green.
family photos in our room
This is controversial. Apparently photos of your kids in the bedroom is out. But I love waking up to our little wall of photos, it makes me smile. Both because the kids are cute, but also because the gallery rail we have makes me feel like I’m in a museum and I like that.
our rainfall shower
Need I say more?
the screened in porch
As a kid, I’d open up our back door to just the screen and sit next to it in a thunderstorm. I loved the sound of rain and rolling thunder, the smell, but not the experience of getting wet. I’ve always hoped we could find a home with a screened in or covered porch of some sort and when we got this house last November I couldn’t wait to drink a cup of hot coffee on a cool rainy morning. This spring has not disappointed!
