Home is wherever I'm with You.

I stepped off the plane today and the humidity blessed my dry skin with moisture that it hasn't felt in two years. The heat attacked my face in a love-punch way, one in which I might regret as more hot August days draw themselves out before the cool comes. But for today, I embraced the hostility.

I made the silly decision to take my contacts out on the plane in order to sleep without having them stick to my eyeballs. I didn't have my glasses. You can guess what this then entailed: Me, walking around blindly, trying to navigate my way out of the airport. At one point, I followed the crowd toward the restroom thinking it was Immigration. Had I not realized we were all going to the bathroom, I probably would have walked into the men's room unknowingly.

There's a metaphor in here for something, I'm sure--walking around blindly, following the crowds, etc, etc.

I saw my dad (though squinting to make out shapes) and felt my face contort even more and had this moment of "don't cry, Sarah, keep it together." I couldn't stop it. He wrapped me up and didn't let go and I didn't let go and didn't want to let go. For now, Jose Junco is the one man in this life who will protect me and love me despite my imperfections. What a picture of grace. Praise God for my dad, who loves me as God loves us.

I cried at random moments on my first day back in the Land of "You-can-have-it-all:" Hugging my mom, seeing a Latina Chic-Fil-A worker, sitting at On the Border, walking through a mall. I can't explain much right now. I just know that the "Welcome Home" and "You are back, great!" comments chalk up to more confusion for me; or perhaps, examined in another light, they provide an answer:

My earthly home isn't here. I'm not sure where it is. I think I'm learning that it's okay that I have roots and meaningful connections and pieces of my heart in various places with many people. Life is about the valleys and the mountains that God uses to refine us into the image of Christ, to have streams of living water flowing from within us. Maybe those valleys and the streams that run through them and climb into the mountain hilltops are shaped by the hand of a God who embraces vulnerability that comes with giving yourself away to others.

May my life always be about giving.