Your home is a pleasant place from which you draw happiness.

Prior to the reunion of us with our apartment, Jeff came across the saying above. He had been to the apartment one day during the construction to work in the shop. He grabbed some Chinese take-out and ate it standing up in our kitchen. As he was eating he surveyed our apartment: all of our belongings huddled in the middle of each room, plastic tarps covering it all, and construction workers listening to Spanish radio at full blast. When he finished his meal he cracked open the fortune cookie and the paper fell out with this post's title printed upon it. Neither of us have ever experienced a fortune cookie being so very wrong. He found it so ironic it promptly went up on the refrigerator. I noticed it the day I asked our landlord to arrange the cleaning of our kitchen linoleum, only to hear him answer, "if this floor was so dirty before you came, why did you sign off on the state of the apartment?" Jeff and I are both at our wits ends with these guys who lord our apartment over us. Renting from an institution of higher learning actually did have its perks as every place we've ever lived before now had that description. Long gone are the days when I reported a broken blind slat, to have it replaced later in the afternoon. We are both praying for patience and an ability to think outside of our own needs. It is hard though, when the person who has caused so much difficulty and disruption in our lives is the one who is unwilling to clean the dirty floor he owns.

Dictionary.com identifies a home as a place where one's domestic affections are centered, a house, apartment, or other shelter that is the usual residence of a person, family, or household. It does not identify a home outside of a place. I tend to disagree. When I am with people I love, those persons who care for me in the best and worst of times, those with whom I share affection, I am home. In this light, today's post title could not be more true. Each day I was living in a hotel I found myself at home when with Jeff, Sophia, church friends, seminary friends, or on the phone with family. Thanks to all who provided "home" for us while we were homeless.