The book's main character Gabriella, suffered abuse as a child, abandonment, sexual assault and many more travails but she eventually found happiness and love - I know it's a cliched and predictable ending but I loved it.
Years later, I have read many other books but this still resonates with me.
As I saw it online days ago, I told myself the road home is indeed long and I had underestimated what that journey would require of me. I never envisaged the cost of finding my way home.
You are probably wondering if I never had a home but I'm not referring to the place where you were born and raised. Home here, isn't a physical space that is filled with just people who are your kith and kin. It's a place where your voice finds expression, faith trumps your fears and your heart is safe, protected. A place with people whose loyalty you wouldn't have to question, they are one less puzzle to solve.
The journey however should begin with our nuclear family as most people who end up wandering do so because, they are not welcome amongst their relatives, so even when they are home their minds are elsewhere. But, the home should be a safe space. The place where your eccentricity, weirdness, otherness and weakness are tolerated.
The book 'The Long Road Home' is summarised as a story of hope, courage and love and I have learned that no meaningful life can be made without these three.
Without hope there would be no point in living, without courage we would never make any real progress and without love, we would be miserable creatures.
I have learned also that hope and courage can be acquired and instilled as we go through life but with love it is different. It isn't just something you acquire.
Worse still, there's a void in us that only love can fill and until that void is filled, we would never really be home.
It is why some people work so hard that even the demons in them die, but the void is still there.
I have met people who have had sex with people they can't even recall and they are courageous enough to admit that sometimes it's a result of loneliness. Knowing they are needed and irresistible in the moment makes them feel powerful even if temporarily. Some have given up on being truly loved and so they just have sex for the company.
What the world calls promiscuity is a coping mechanism.
Some people make more money than they can spend in their lifetime but still can't find a place to lay their head and feel peace.
We mask it with fame, drugs and accolades from people who would run if they knew the truth but what we really need is a safe space. Until that is found, we'd be always needing and seeking to fill the void in our hearts - with whomever, doing whatever.
I know this because I have been there too.
It reminds me of Samson whose story is told in the Bible, in the book of Judges.
Samson was strong, an undefeated champion who lost it all when he shared the secret of his strength with Delilah, the woman he loved.
A man who has many enemies knows he cannot trust just anybody so how did Samson become so vulnerable with a woman that he told her his deepest secret?
It is the simple fact that inspite of his strength, fame and influence, he too needed a safe space, a home.
The Bible says that when the Philistines came to capture Samson, he was asleep on Delilah's lap.
For a man of Samson's ilk to let down his guard and lay on a woman's lap, that woman must have made him feel safe. Safe enough that he let her clean the wounds sustained in his battles. Safe enough to let her run his bath and scrub the dirt off his body after a long day of war. Safe enough to let her feed him as he regaled her with tales of his exploits. Safe enough to lay still as she massaged his temples, his feet and body, each moan and gasp revealing his weakness. Safe enough to lay on her laps as she stroked his hair, discovering the soft spots in his body, and smothering him with kisses until he falls asleep - like a baby.
A man like Samson who gave nations sleepless nights, whom the nation Israel looked up to for deliverance would only become a baby in the arms of a woman he trusts absolutely, whose arms feel like home and in whose presence all his fears evaporate.
It is the prize he paid in the quest for home - a place where he wasn't a warrior or deliverer. A place where he was just a man.
The road home is indeed long and sometimes difficult.
Christ also epitomizes this difficulty when he told people to "go home" after he healed them. Like he did with the man possessed with so many demons that he cut himself and lived among tombs.
The journey home is not easy and while some arrive early others do not because they have to first offload the baggage life burdens them with. Baggage of secrets, unhealthy habits, negative mentalities and bruises from words spoken by the ones they trusted.
I have learned though that it really does take hope, courage and love.
Hope that what lies ahead is better than the past, courage to forge a new path and love that must begin with you.
You must love yourself enough to go through the discipline of unlearning old ways of thinking, doing and being. Then, opening up to new information that recalibrates your mind such that you act differently and attract new people and experiences.
The road home is long and if like me you are still on the journey, I pray that you do not faint.
May the words of your mouth and the meditations of your heart be acceptable in God's sight.
May you stand blameless and faultless before him, assured that if you have him, your journey though tumultuous, will be safe.
May you find fellowship with his sweet Holy Spirit.
But first, get up from whatever you are entangled in and just GO HOME!
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