What is a home by Kezia Clay-Downing

What is home?

Message by Kezia Clay-Downing

What is Home, is it a person, a place, a thing, or an idea? What is it about home that makes us feel comfortable and safe? What is it about home that provides us the confirmation that who we are is what we were made to be?

Who is home? What is home?

Is it a place of safety and security where no one can feel alone

Is it a sense of wholeness that no one can outgrow

Does it make you feel genuine in the purist way

Does it make you feel joy from the comforting nights to the exotic midday

What makes a home, a home? What makes it our safety net?

How can it be identified? Could it be a person, place, or pet?

To me, home is family and the love we share within

The unity, the strength, the bond that allows us to conquer and win

For others it is a place, a building where they are free to be themselves

Some say it is the city where they can place their talent on the streets and not the bookshelf

Home can be your favorite pet you have had since you were young

It could be your best friend turned sweetheart that made your heart strung

It could be the warm tea you drink to sooth your soul

Or your favorite cereal you put in your bowl

Home is a noun a person, place, or thing

It brings us comfort, makes us want to sing

This is so important only for your heart to steal

Allow me to stop rhyming, so I can bring you something real.

Home is you, who you are, what you carry, who you decide to be. It is your character, your nature, your value. How you treat others, loving them even if they do not love you back, forgiving them even when they do not deserve it. Respecting them even when they do not ask for it. Making the sacrifice even when you do not have to. Submitting yourself even when you do not want to. We might all share different colors and ideas, and we our hearts may beat a different drum but that is no excuse for us to brutalize, criticize and judge one another. Treating each other like dirt and for what reason.

We all have our share of hurt and pain but passing that same hurt to someone else will not resolve the issues that are developing on the inside and it what change anything. It will only add more weight to your situation, damaging the value you have because deep down you know what you did was not necessary. Home is your light shining for someone is whose been left in the dark too long, who needs your friendship, in need of a conversation, in need of a hug, in need of inspiration.

Home is love; it is what needs to be shared in this world. Love comes with strings. Forgiveness, Respect, Sacrifice, Submission, Patience, Kindness, Acceptance, Giving without expectation. These are the strings of love; this is what makes a house a home. If you cannot be this or obtain each of those strings, you are nothing but a homeless stranger praying for a home but will never receive one. If you think about, if God can give us all the strings of love and not regret a thing, who are we not to give those same strings to someone else.

And that is the problem, we do not love ourselves enough and that is the key to this problem. For us to love someone else and have them love us back, we must love ourselves. You must love yourself first. Know who you are, know what you are made of, know your worth, your value and never give it to anyone. Your value belongs to you sharing it with no one else. But for love to transcend beyond anything and everything, you first must start with you. Charity begins at home and home is you.