We all have different expectations when we start a new chapter in life. Whether it's a small change, like a getting your haircut, or a huge one, like moving away, deviating from normal comfortable life is scary and hard.

The biggest example of this for me was coming to college. I'm sure any college student or senior in High School awaiting the big move knows what I mean. The anticipation is HUGE. You start the countdown months in advance. You look at countless pictures of your future school google images. You visit every-other-weekend. Nothing has ever seemed quite as exciting as starting the next big chapter in the story of your life.

But here’s what no one tells you. It isn’t that fun.

Not at first, at least. And maybe for some people, change IS normal, and picking up your whole life and moving it to a different state is no big deal. But for me, it was the farthest thing from normal.

Maybe you can relate. I went to the same school for 12 years (that’s a dang long time) with a lot of the same people. I went to the same church since I was a baby and being there felt like home. I had always lived in the same room of the same house in the same amazing town for my entire life.

I think it’s safe to say, change was foreign to me.

Long story short, I got to college, and it wasn’t what I expected. I wished so badly I could turn back that countdown clock and be back at home with my friends and my family in the only place I had ever called home. I felt like I was in some foreign land that I would never belong in and this whole new chapter thing was WAY overrated.

And then, I blinked.

At least, it feels like it was that fast. I blinked, and this scary foreign place became a second home. I blinked, and strangers became family. I blinked, and the coffee shop down the street became my go-to spot.

I could drive down these streets with my eyes closed. (I won’t. That would be super dangerous. But you get my point.)

It wasn’t easy. It wasn’t by my own doing. But one day I just stopped fighting the change. I realized “home” doesn’t have to be a geographic location. Home is in the company we keep and the attitude we start each day with. Home is in having the assurance that the Lord will use you no matter where you are.

Home is in knowing with full confidence that this, wherever this is for you, is EXACTLY where you are meant to be. Home is in learning how to be truly content, because it’s not a place or even a group of people that makes us whole, it’s the love of our sweet Jesus that covers us no matter where we go.

So, I’m not so afraid of change anymore. Because no matter where I go, my home is found in the One who goes before me.