Coming Home
Homecoming. We use this word now and then. To describe a spirit week in high school or college, full of school pride, football games, sparkly dresses, kings and queens.
We use it to talk about soldiers, serving overseas, and making the journey back from war.
Or about the story of a prodigal son, who rebelled and ran far away. Whose shame kept him at a distance. But who was immediately welcomed back home with open, loving arms, covered fully in grace.
I spent the last two weeks traveling to the other side of the world — my first time in Asia. A long-awaited trip.
This trip to Hong Kong was a homecoming for my husband. A trip back to his roots. Back to the first place he ever knew as home. A small apartment, on the third floor of a pink-tiled building. In a village on the outskirts of a city, more vast and dense, than any we’d find here in the States — even The Big Apple.
Banquets and gatherings were planned for our arrival — crispy pork, steamed fish, abalone, noodles, and bao buns — just to name a few of the Chinese dishes we devoured. But this homecoming brought much more than celebration feasts and satisfied stomachs.
This homecoming brought a flood of memories for my husband. Familiar scents. Familiar sounds. Sights he had only been able to, until now, revisit in his dreams. It brought back his native tongue. Hands that held him in his youth. Mannerisms that reappear only in this culture, in this city, in this place.
This homecoming painted a picture of his past, which better painted the present. Shading in the details for me of the journey he and his family have taken to get from there to here. The sacrifices, the risks, the growth. The people, the process, and the hope found along the way.
To watch him come home made me realize the things he had left. Because in fact, to come home means you must have left. Had to say yes to something else — yes to something that took you away in the first place.
It’s okay to go away, to say yes, and make a new home for yourself somewhere. Whether that’s making yourself at home in a new city, in a new job, a new community, a new passion, or a new culture.
But, no matter where you go, there’s something deeply rich in coming back home. Back to your roots. Back to your past. Whether the purpose is to find healing, hope, vision, restoration, or just revisit sweet memories — there is always something waiting for you in the homecoming.
Some of you may be in need of a homecoming. In need of a trip back to your physical home. Back to your family, your past friendships, or relationships. Maybe you need a homecoming back to yourself — back to those parts of you that you’ve forgotten or lost along the way.
Today may you find the courage or hope needed to take the journey back home — in whatever or wherever that might be.
