Home

I use the word ‘home’ differently than before. Not only does it now apply to more than one place, but it takes on a whole new meaning.  Had you asked me four months ago where my home is I would have told you about my family and the house I grew up in, in San Jose, CA.  This answer would have been sufficient and true.  However, now my answer to where my home is would be significantly different. I will always have a home with my parents, siblings and the house I’ve known my whole life, but my ‘home’ has expanded beyond the four walls of one house and stretched all across this country. 

Life post Summit Semester looks unnervingly like life pre Summit Semester.  I have picked up right where I left off with, work, friends, family everything.  The biggest thing that has changed is the hardest thing to see. Me. I so easily fit right back into my life here that it is very easy to nearly forget about the time I spent in Pagosa Springs. This is not to say I don’t enjoy being back. I do. It has been wonderful to see friends and family again and to apply what I have learned over the past three months to my life. Let’s just say it takes definite intentionality to do the latter.  When people ask me about my time at Summit Semester my mind tends to go blank. It is like there are no words that can accurately describe the experience I had, the ways I’ve grown and the family I’ve made in the thirty second answer they want from me.  Words just don’t seem powerful enough.

As I said in my parting words to my fellow classmates, only God could bring me to a place I have never been and make it feel like home, with people I had never met and have them feel life family. I cling to those words like a life vest, as they serve to buoy me up when the sadness of leaving my home and family of Summit Semester threatens to overwhelm me.  In other words GOD was faithful to bring me to such a wonderful place, and will be faithful to give me the strength and grace to make the transition back to my [other] home as well.

As I feel like I am straddling the fence between two beloved homes, I continue to think about this quote by Oliver Wendell Holmes, “Where we love is home, home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts."   And it is true- my feet are here, but my heart is there.