I once heard Dorothy say, “There’s no place like home.” After growing up in Kansas City, I grew tired of the yellow-brick road, the ruby slippers that skipped across it, and the countless shirts splattered with "Wizard of Oz" quotes. But really, there is no place like home. All it takes is moving a way for a little for your heart to tug you back to that one place. Most of the time, a big dose of home is just what the doctor, or Dorothy, ordered.
There’s no place like home, because there’s no place where you sink so perfectly into the couch, where you could walk around flawlessly in the pitch black, or where your head hits the pillow just right. There’s only one driveway where your dad took away the training wheels and only one kitchen where you “accidentally” forgot that Sharpies are permanent. Whether you moved throughout your youth or grew up in one house, home is not only a place -- it is a feeling. Where else can you so easily let your guard down, dance without a care in the world, and spread love to those so important to you? Home is a security blanket, open arms, and fuzzy slippers. Home is chocolate-chip cookies, lemonade stands, and backyard cookouts. Home is comfort, joy, and hospitality. Regardless of how you perceive home, home is irreplaceable and underappreciated.
Home isn’t a place you choose or a feeling you summon; home is simply given naturally to each of us. No matter where life may carry you, home will never stop pulling you back in. And every once in a while, we rely on home. We need a place where we can retreat in order to get our heads back in the game. A place where life is simpler. A place where love is abundant. We need home to call us there and show us what we’re made of. In order to recognize its value, we must hold little bits of home with us wherever we go and keep up with the people who people who make it what it is. Call you mom, your grandmother, or your aunt. Show your friends what your hometown looks like or talk to them about your sister’s new boyfriend.
Others’ homes carry just as much value as our own. Ask people what they serve at Thanksgiving dinner or what pick-up games they played as children, and sit back and watch as their expression is overcome with joy. Share stories of your own place or feeling and receive incredible insight from listening to others’ testimonies. Home gives each of us confidence, strength, and more love in our hearts, so who wouldn’t want to praise that place? Home is invaluable -- now get out there and thank those who make it just that.
