Home means a lot of things to different people. To me, it's a place where you find unconditional love and acceptance. There are a number of places I've found that felt like home. This story is about a slightly different kind of place one might call home where I get to meet a slightly different version of a very special person many of you might have heard of.

Home
Copyright 2007 by Heather Rose Brown
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For an eternal moment, there was nothing. Eventually, I felt light, warmth, and love surround me. Strength, joy, and fulfillment filled my heart and radiated out to the tips of my -- well, I didn't seem to have fingers and toes anymore, but whatever I had now to replace them felt filled.

"Welcome home, child." The gentle, vaguely familiar voice seemed to come from everywhere.

It had been a long, long time since I was called a child, but somehow it felt right coming from the beautiful voice. What I was having trouble with was thinking of this amazing place as home, especially when I tried to compare it to the apartment building I had just left. "Where is home, and where are you?"

"Home is the place that calls out to your heart." As the voice spoke, it shifted until it gathered into a column of sparkling, rainbow colored lights. When the lights faded, I saw a figure in a long white dress which shimmered in the warm breeze that suddenly sprung up. With arms opening wide in welcome, the figure knelt down. "I am right here. Come to me, child."

My dress floated around my knees as I ran up a gently sloping hill through a field thick with wildflowers and leaped into the figures arms. Tears rolled down my cheeks as I was held tightly in an achingly familiar embrace. "Oh god ... I've missed you."

"I've missed you too." There was friendly teasing in the voice of the person holding me.

Slow realization dawned on me and I pulled back a little to look in the face of the person welcoming me home. "God?"

A grin stretched across an undeniably feminine face. "I was wondering how long it would take you to recognize me."

"But ... I thought you were a man."

God's hair color faded until it was snowy white and a mustache and long white beard grew out of - well, I'm not sure if his or her would work here - face. "Were you thinking of something like this?"

"Well, sorta." I held both hands to my mouth to stifle the giggles trying to escape when I saw an old man's head attached to a still feminine body.

God's hair returned to it's lustrous chestnut brown and I'm almost sure I heard a pop as the beard and mustache shriveled up and disappeared. She (that felt like the best pronoun to use here) pulled an arm from around my waist and tugged at my hands. "Dearest child, don't you dare hold that back. Your laughter is one of the many things I love about you."

As if my hands had been the only thing holding them back, giggles began bubbling up. To my surprise, God started started chuckling. Soon, we were both lying on our backs in the sweet smelling field of flowers, rolling around as the simple joy of laughter overtook us.

When we were able to catch our breaths and calm down, God wrapped an arm around my shoulders. I snuggled up close and watched puffy white clouds drift across an endless blue sky. Eventually, a thought started nagging me, but I tried to ignore it so I could savor the moment just a little bit longer.

God squeezed my shoulders. "Go ahead and ask your question."

I turned my head and looked into a face of pure, uncomplicated love. I took in a deep breath and pushed out the question I was dreading to ask. "Am I dead?"

She slowly shook her head. "No child. At least, not yet."

"What do you mean?"

God reached over and brushed a strand of hair from my face. "I mean you're in the middle of an epileptic seizure." She sat up and pulled me into her lap, turned me around until I was sitting sideways, then tilted my chin up until we were looking eye to eye. "Love, I'm going to ask you a question, and I need you to be completely honest when you answer."

"I ... I could never lie to you." The very idea made my heart ache.

She gave me a reassuring hug and kissed me on top of my head before pulling back to look at me again. "I know child, I know ... but there are times when you lie to yourself. This must not be one of those times."

Even though it was hard to admit, I knew what she said was true. "I promise to do my best to be as honest as I know how."

God's eyes seemed to be ready to spill over with tears as she looked down at me. "Child, why did you try to kill yourself?"

"Kill myself? I didn't-"

She covered my lips with a finger before I could finish my sentence. "Shhhh. I know you didn't try to kill yourself in any of the traditional ways, but you knew what would eventually happen when you stopped taking your medication."

I tried to hang my head, but God's hand slipped from my lips to my chin and tilted my face back up to meet hers. "I realize how hard answering my question is for you, but it's very important that you do so."

I searched deep down and tried to find an honest answer. "I guess, the medication just made me tired, and I was tired of feeling tired all the time."

Her eyes reached deep into me and I got just a taste of the beauty, power, and wonder of the person behind them. "You're doing very good. While what you said was truthful, there's more than the physical exhaustion, isn't there?"

I blinked a few times, but my eyes still burned as I tried to hold back tears. "Yes, there is more. I guess the whole world was starting to make me tired. All the wars, all the meanness and nastiness ... it made me embarrassed to call myself human." The pain from the awfulness of it all welled up inside me, choking off the rest of my words. I wrapped my arms around her ribs as far as they would go and soaked the shoulder of her dress with tears. For the longest time, God held me, rocking me gently as she stroked the back of my hair.

When I had gone from sobbing to just sniffling, I lifted my head from her shoulder and saw her cheeks were damp. "Oh no, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to make you cry."

God pulled a tissue from the box beside her, then blotted at my eyes and wiped at my runny nose. "I'm the one who should be apologizing. I should have never allowed you to accept that mission. I knew how difficult it would be for you to live in a male body. I tried to discourage you, but with the way you were so determined, I couldn't say no."

"Mission? What mission?"

"To teach people about love. I can see now I should have been firmer about keeping you here. If you'd like, you can abandon the mission and come back home."

"If I stay here, that would mean something happens during my seizure ... and I'd die?"

"Yes." There was too much finality in that softly spoken word.

I sat in the lap of God and thought long and hard. "That would hurt an awful lot of people if I never came back."

"That is very true, dear. You're special to a lot of people ... more than you realize. You're also very special to me."

I craned my neck up and kissed her cheek. "You're really special to me too ... but I need to go back."

"I know. You're such a stubborn child," God tousled my hair, "and I'm proud of you for it. Just remember to wear a coat when it's cold, look both ways before crossing the street, and always remember, whenever you're feeling homesick," she tapped at my breastbone with a slender finger, "I'll be right here."

"In my heart?"

I felt more than saw the warm smile as the field of flowers began to fade. "Dearest love, home is where the heart is."