Ah, to find home!

Home is where we feel safe and warm and content, perfectly at peace with our lot. Yet, so often in life we find we’re far from home, in anxiety-ridden situations, in dysfunctional relationships, at times in our families, in our churches, and not least in our workplaces. Circumstances such as these build our burden and destroy our peace.

Blur it right to the unbearable edge and we find we’re in toxic environments and potentially victims of abuse or, worse, provocateurs.

But this is about those serene times, chock full with hope and joy welling up to peace, where we truly feel home.

It’s the family that accepts you as you are while encouraging you on your goals of growth. It’s the family that requires little other than the commitment to love and to return that love. For children, it’s parents who model integrity and humility, who know how to be genuinely remorseful and who believe in the fairness of restorative justice. It’s parents who spend time with their children and who are characterised for their reliability, teaching their children the merits of taking appropriate responsibility — not too little or too much.

It’s the church where you’re loved and you’re free to love, to fail, and even to fall, because they’re redemptive in their mindset and that example rubs off on you. It’s where relationships are so committed that issues don’t divide; they’re the source of deeper discussions and mutual respect for differences.

It’s the workplace that is collaborative, where it’s not one false move and you’re out of here. (And I mean errors and mistakes and not crimes.) It’s the boss who believes in what you bring, in what you’re capable of, and encourages that performance from you so you both celebrate with the smile of victory. It’s the workplace where your contributions matter — and you know it.

There’s a common denominator in all this. Being at home means there’s no throwing the baby out with the bathwater. And I don’t mean that’s an excuse to prolong marriages where abuse runs rife or other toxic situations which potentially need to be ended. But it is about an innate belief in the relationship that bears the traits of faithfulness.

The remedy for life is not happiness, it’s to feel we are at home, safe in our environment, accepted for who we are, primed to thrive. These are the things that bring us peace.

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