Today, I begin a four-part series about the kinds of people that make up a great Home. There aren’t Bible verses for this, so don’t expect a sermon here. But God has used several avenues to change my life. One has been the Scriptures. Another has been prayer (including meditation, journaling, lectio divina, labyrinth walking, etc). And finally, the third part has been people.

So, for the next four days, I want to share about four kinds of people that have been able to make Home a reality in my life. I am not going to call one a Paul or a Timothy (famous faces from the Bible for the uninformed). But I am going to name faces and share stories of real people and real change.

Part 1 begins today with the fact that Home is real when you have a Taylor. Taylor Sprague is one of closest friends. We started college the same semester, lived down the fall from one another in an old dorm. Taylor is one of the guys that I would take a bullet for at a moment’s notice and the feeling is mutual. Today, Taylor and his wife, Joanna, live in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, where Taylor is a Resident Director for a men’s dorm at Geneva College. He and Joanna are incredibly creative and have started their own photography business. You can follow their work here.

Taylor and I met every week for four years of college. We drank A LOT of coffee (a lot of it free at the coffee shop where I worked at and a lot of it free at the Starbucks where Joanna worked at). We shared some HUGE confessions that cannot be shared here. We battled GIANTS in our lives like pride, arrogance, shame, bitterness, anger, and fear. Taylor is the kind of person that offers the kind of grace and space that makes it possible for vulnerability and transparency to result in God-produced transformation and restoration.

The reason you need a Taylor to make Home a reality is that unconditional love and acceptance change the way you live life. You can live with confidence and courage, when you know failure is not final (at least when it comes to that relationship). Many of us flee from people and relationships that require us to own up to the truth. If you have been running from Taylors in your life, stop running away and run towards them. They can make all the difference.

Thanks Taylor for making Home possible for me, when we were down the hall and now when we are 3,000 miles away. I love you bro.

-Savage