“Home”: Untethered, Adopted, and Learning to Belong

Just a little head’s up, this blog post is a bit more personal….

I’ve always thought a lot about home—and wrestled with it. I was born in New York City. “New Yorker,” “American”—those labels once felt like bedrock. But when I moved to Canada at seven, the ground shifted. New country, new city, new language (French). And because my father had already rejected me at two, home was tangled up with acceptance. If what felt stable could be taken, how could any place be home?

My mom provided what she could, but her emotional availability wasn’t there. So the lost, rejected boy didn’t receive the comfort he craved. New city, new school, new potential for rejection—there was plenty of that. The word that still comes to mind is “untethered.” No moorings. Nothing constant.

We moved a few times in Quebec. I changed schools once—my choice—but the new friends rejected me. Later, I moved in with my future wife’s family. They were kind, but I still felt deeply homeless: not my house, not my space, no space to be me. That’s no reproach on anyone—just an honest report from the inside.

Maybe that’s why I chased belonging in religion. I tried being a good Catholic to find home. It helped, in part, but never fully.

We moved back to the U.S. for three years. Making my own way, building my identity, carving out a place—it finally felt like home. “I did this. I made this. I can do this.” But it was built on my own strength. Sand underfoot—spiritually and literally. And sand doesn’t hold. The home I loved washed away. We left. We moved back to Canada—all before I met Jesus.

Then I imploded my own life. I untethered myself. The person desperate for belonging destroyed the little stability he had. Evil is a strange thing. Sin devours. We can be so self-destructive.

There is one scene I won’t forget: dropping my kids off at their mom’s—the house I once lived in. I would stand at the threshold feeling like a monster, unfit to cross into a place of peace. The warm, familiar air would drift out to meet me, but I remained in the cold. It felt right, in a dark way, that someone so vile should stay outside. It reminded me of Genesis 3—Adam and Eve, sent out of the garden, away from holiness. Sin and the profane cannot sit comfortably in the presence of the holy.

But Jesus broke into that exile and called me home.

I remember sitting in a chair in a church I didn’t know, hearing about Jesus who invites us to come as we are and makes us new. Relief washed over me. I wouldn’t have had the words then, but I was being invited home. Scripture says God “predestined us for adoption… through Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 1:5). Adoption. Family. Belonging not earned, but given. From that day, I belonged to Jesus.

And belonging to Jesus redefines “home.”

“In a very biblical sense,” I wrote in my journal recently, “I am surrounded by the family of God—and I feel like home.” Scripture says I’m “no longer a stranger and alien, but… a fellow citizen with the saints and member of the household of God” (Ephesians 2:19). That’s not theory. It’s church life. It’s the smiles that greet me, the prayers that hold me, the shared table where grace is tasted and seen.

Two moments that changed my sense of home

A few years ago, we took our youngest to New York City to see where Dad is from (and because NYC is cool when you’re twelve). We spent the week exploring—sharing pieces of my old life. As we drove away at the end, something unexpected happened. The “New Yorker/American” identity that had tugged on me for decades just… let go. Not bitterness. Not disdain. More like a chapter concluded with a quiet click. I didn’t feel the need to go back and reclaim it. Montreal was home—at least for now.

The second moment unfolded over this past year. Restlessness rose like a tide. A dissatisfaction. A longing to be anywhere but here. Part of it is cultural dissonance—the feeling that my background doesn’t quite fit this province. Part of it is impostor syndrome. Add in the pull of adventure, children who live in other cities, and friends saying, “You should move here!”—and the promise of belonging elsewhere can be loud.

And yet I have a family I love and would never trade. A church I love just as much. I am accepted and loved. In a very real biblical sense, I am home among God’s people (Ephesians 2:19; Mark 10:29–30). Still—something tugs. Is it the flesh? The old hunger for novelty? Maybe. But on a recent flight home from seeing my son and granddaughter, the tug fell quiet and a sober clarity came: I will probably die in this province. Like it or not, this is my home—for now. If I want real satisfaction, I must look beyond geography.

The home beyond our homes

That realization pushed me toward a deeper, older truth: earth is not, ultimately, my home. I have a heavenly dwelling prepared for me by Jesus. He said, “In my Father’s house are many rooms… I go to prepare a place for you… I will come again and will take you to myself” (John 14:2–3). The ache I feel may be the homesickness of a son who belongs elsewhere.

“For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come” (Hebrews 13:14). “Our citizenship is in heaven” (Philippians 3:20). The patriarchs “desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one” (Hebrews 11:16). Maybe my dissatisfaction isn’t only sin; maybe it’s also the Spirit keeping me from settling for sand when a solid country is promised.

My wife and I may move one day. If we do, I’m sure pieces of the ache will travel with us. Because the ache isn’t just about place; it’s about Presence. My heart belongs to Jesus and is drawn toward the day when I will be with Him, whole and at rest. Until then, my call is not to numb the ache, but to let it sanctify my loves.

Practicing home here while longing for home there

So I pray for a holy satisfaction in Him. I ask for grace to receive the place He’s planted me for now, to love the people He’s given me, to be present. I ask to keep my eyes fixed on Christ and help others do the same. I ask to build homes that are honest about their tent-stakes: temporary, but meaningful—porches that welcome prodigals, tables that feed weary saints, rooms where prayers echo and forgiveness is practiced.

God “sets the lonely in families” (Psalm 68:6). He placed me in His. And in Christ, even when addresses change and accents don’t fit, I am not untethered anymore. I am adopted. I am wanted. I am home.

Until the day Home Himself returns, I’ll keep practicing belonging—right here—while my heart looks for the city that cannot be shaken.

“Now you are… members of the household of God.” (Ephesians 2:19)