Welcome to Week 2 of

The Loft ~ A Wednesday Link-Up!

Come on up!

Graphic by Kerry Messer

#TheLoft

You will find my Week Two post and the linky tool at the bottom, but first, may I remind you how The Loft Link-Up works?

The Loft is a place for conversation, community, networking, and Christian growth.

Each week we provide a topic to start the conversation.Then, Wednesday morning at 5am EST, the link goes live, and for 5 glorious days you can link up your post on that week’s topic. The linky will close at 5pm EST on Monday.

Each week’s gathering will be much like a group of friends sitting around a table at a coffee shop having a chat about a specific topic. So it will be at The Loft. Please make sure the post you link-up pertains to the chosen topic of the week. We’ll have fun topics, serious topics, practical, soul-ful, holiday, and so, so much more…we can’t wait to get started! This is not only a great way to connect with others, it’s also a fun and easy way to establish a writing habit. If you aren’t a blogger, you are welcome to join in by leaving your comments in the comment section.

Listening is a lost art. Especially in the blogosphere where everyone wants to be heard. At The Loft, we know that listening is rewarding and rich… surprisingly so. Please do not link and run. For every link you leave, please visit at least two other links.

To Participate:

1. Be creative. Feel free to use words, photos, video, audio, your family pet, whatever, to communicate on the weekly topic.

2. Listen twice as much. If you leave one link, visit two.

3. Be a community. Include #TheLoft graphic and/or hashtag in your post and social media so we can find each other.

4. Write like Jesus would write. We are a Christian link-up. Offensive or inappropriate posts will be deleted. No questions asked.

5. Be pertinent. Our heart is to build community and intimacy, and our means to do that is to build each link-up around a single topic. Please make sure your post is on topic.

When you link up at The Loft, your link will appear on two blogs! We’d love for you to visit The Loft co-hosts and know who we are:

Leah
Ruth

Today’s Topic: “The Place I Call Home” (tell us about the place you call home…either where you currently live or where you grew up. What makes the place you call home unique and special to you? Pictures are a great way to share!)

June 17th Topic: “Picture Prompt”: (take a look at the picture and use it as a prompt for today’s post. What thoughts come to mind when you look at it? What emotions does it enliven? Get those creative juices flowing and share your thoughts on the picture.)

I hope you will plan to join us each week at The Loft

#TheLoft

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The Place I Call Home…

“Home Sweet Home”.

“Home Is Where The Heart Is”.

“There Is No Place Like Like Home”.

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I have a habit of referring to the place I grew up as the place I call home. In many ways, it is home.

My family are there. My childhood memories are clustered there. The house I grew up in is there. Some of my friends are still there.

A little market town in East Anglia. In the county of Norfolk. Flat roads. Rural idyll. Peace and quiet. Virtually nothing to do when you are a teenager. I still call it home and occasionally get ‘homesick’ for that familiar place.

It is a place to relax and spend time with the people I love when I get an opportunity to visit. It’s hard to get too and it is hundreds of miles away from where I currently live. I do miss and appreciate the quietness of country life compared to the hustle and bustle of the city-shoppers in Exeter which where I reside now.

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Not Quite Home – Exeter 

Exeter is lovely. I am discovering it bit by bit. But it is not yet home.

It has lovely cycle paths, a quay, a beautiful cathedral, many shops, great public transport… I hope to explore it more over the coming months, but it just isn’t ‘home’ for me yet.

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Home for me is wherever my husband is…

Joel lives with me here in Exeter. Thus, I have found home. We have made our little flat a home; a comfortable place to reside from the busyness of life. Bit by bit we are building memories. Memories that stay with us and create that sense of being at home. Cuddling on the sofa watching our favourite television series. Cooking together in our small, but cosy kitchen. Spending time together. Relaxing. Happy. Home.

We want our home to be a place of hospitality. Cooking meals for others. Inviting people over for coffee and sharing stories and encouragement. A place where our friends can be together and pray together. Our home is a place where the Lord is very much welcomed here. It is a place where we want others to meet with the Lord in fellowship together. We want our home to become a place of community for believers. We want those who do not believe in the risen Christ to encounter Him here because our home is filled with His love. This is what we hope for.

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A Heavenly Dwelling Place

Our home(s) on this earth are just temporary. We long for what it eternal; our eternal home with the Lord of heaven and earth.

For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.

So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. For we must all appear before the judgement seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil. (2 Corinthians 5:1-10 ESV)

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Now, it is time to LINK~UP. Please use the inLinkz tool and link up your post that introduces yourself to us.

Click on the image below to add your link!