The House That Built Me

The True Meaning of Home

By Meghan Ryan Asbury

Growing up in the 1900s and early 2000s, I was raised on shows like Extreme Makeover Home Edition and Fixer Upper. I collected Pottery Barn Teen magazines and would circle everything I wanted. When I couldn’t get those things, I plotted to redesign the room I shared with my sister by rearranging all the furniture just so it would feel different. Something about changing my external space could change my internal state.

I also watched our beloved town go from miles of trees to miles of homes. We went from being one of five houses in the neighborhood to there being no more empty lots. Each new development promised to be bigger and better than the last. While it may not have been “legal,” we’d spend weekends checking out these under-construction homes as my parents looked for new inspiration for the future.

Even before the days of social media, that inward desire for “more” crept into me. I thought a bigger home in a better neighborhood would somehow make me more content. Before I ever knew what contentment actually meant, I was chasing something that made me feel like I had enough.

The wedding reception of Meghan Ryan and Lucas Asbury was held in the Ryans’ backyard. All wedding photos by Sydney Jeter, Sydney Faith Photo. Photos courtesy of the Ryan family.

It wasn’t until decades later that I realized contentment wouldn’t be found in another place to live. I found contentment in building a home where my feet were planted.

Post-college, I found myself searching for that familiar feeling. I looked for it in the cities I lived in, the roommates I had, and whether or not I was there long enough to hang curtains on the wall. Twenty-two roommates, eighteen houses, and three cities later, there’s still one place I can’t stop calling home.

My dad and grandpa built our house with their own hands in the early ’90s, long before there were other houses in the neighborhood—back before Scenic Highway 30-A was on the map and was still a sleepy little beach town. My parents only planned on staying a few years, but decades later, it’s still where they live.

It’s the house where my parents brought my youngest siblings home from the hospital. On the front porch, we’ve seen a lot of life: birthdays and skateboard ramps, Christmas cards and prom dates. The backyard used to have a trampoline and all my dad’s construction equipment.

On my wedding day, I spent the morning getting ready with my best friends and putting on my dress in my childhood bedroom. My first look with my dad and brothers happened on that same front porch where we documented so many other life moments. Then we ate, drank, and danced with all our people in the same backyard I grew up in.

I spent so many of my teen years wishing that house away because I thought some other house would fill me. Now, I ache to be in that little blue house by the beach.

At some level, we all long for that sense of home.

The Ryan family celebrating Meghan’s nuptials on the family porch: Patrick, Renee, Meghan, Jim, Abigail, and Micah

We want a safe place to run to when life feels too hard or a memory we wish we could bottle up and keep with us forever. We may not long for a physical place but rather a feeling. The feeling of being secure, innocent, light, and free.

Like anything in life, it can be tempting to go looking for it in all the wrong places. We think a certain zip code, square footage, or interior decor style will help us find it again. Home is not found by endlessly scrolling Zillow or comparing your space to someone else’s. Home can be found right here, right where you are. While we can build a physical home, we can also create the home our heart longs for.

I’ve learned to build a home in many places, turn roommates into family, and create memories that will outlast the address on the mailbox. It wasn’t because I filled it with the furniture I thrifted from Facebook Marketplace or the curtains I never could hang quite straight. It was because, like my parents before me, I opened the door and allowed other people to fill it.

I sent “front door is unlocked” texts and said, “Yes, let’s celebrate that here,” from birthday parties to baby showers to Super Bowl Sundays. It didn’t matter how many parking spots I had, if my plates matched, or if people had to sit on the floor. What mattered was people had a place to come and belong.

No matter where you are, how big your place is, or who you share it with, turn your physical space into a spot where others come to find rest. Open your doors. Invite people in.

These days, I still love flipping through magazines and appreciating the beautiful spaces people create. Instead of letting them make me feel like I don’t have enough, I use them like art—to inspire me to create. Making a home can be like creating art. Sometimes, it looks like drawing up plans and redesigning a room. Other times, it looks like taking the pieces you already have and reimagining how to use them.

But to me, making a home mostly looks like the memories you fill it with.

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Meghan Ryan Asbury is an author and speaker who is passionate about helping people find and live out their God-given callings. She’s worked in ministry both on college campuses and internationally, as well as with Proverbs 31 Ministries. When she’s not surrounded by friends, you can usually find her reading a book or doing something outdoors. A 30-A beach girl born and raised, she and her husband live in Nashville. Her first book, You Are Not Behind: Building a Life You Love Without Having Everything You Want, is available wherever books are sold. You can connect with her on Instagram @meghanryanasbury and at AlwaysMeghan.com.