I love my little copper cup that Averie gave me as an engagement gift, some nine months ago now. It feels like I’ve been drinking from it my whole life. It’s a beautiful cup: sleek, shiny rim and top half intersecting the dull and tarnished bottom half like sunlight breaking through rain clouds after a storm. And right in the middle, cut almost in half, is the simple design of a camping tent with the inscription scrawled above it: THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME. Even the imperfection of the apostrophe looks like a shooting star, though I’m sure it’s just a scratch. I love my perfect cup; there’s not another one like it.

My cup reminds me of war and peace, pain and joy. It seems to me a perfect personification of the tension that exists inside the human heart every day.

I know that Heaven is my home and my Earthly dwelling is only temporary, but inside my heart I build up this tent and live inside it, insulating myself from the Home I’m destined for. My cup reminds me where I belong.

I grow accustomed to the feelings of sadness, anger, and bitterness, resigning myself to them. Out of fear, I choose apathy over hope. My cup reminds me of the truth.

I feel the war waging around me and within me and I grow disheartened, wondering if good really does prevail over evil. My cup reminds me that it does.

Copper is such a beautiful metal in all its forms, for it wears its imperfections like a badge of honor, the way boys proudly flaunt their scars. It isn’t afraid of aging or of the tarnish that comes from hard work, it simply becomes more beautiful. Its patina reminds me what it is and where it has been. That is what I want to be to others: a reminder.

Remember to breathe.

Remember who you are.

Remember what you’re made for.

Remember to drink more water.

Remember to dream.

Remember to hope.

Remember that Jesus will return and make us a new home.

Remember, there’s no place like home.