My heart is no longer in one single location. You could say “home is where the heart is,” but what if your heart is spread out amongst many different places in the world. These past eleven months have given me an entirely new meaning of the word “home.”
I look at the pictures of the many faces of those who have touched my life these past eleven months and I’m filled with a longing. The longing within me is to see, once more, those who have stolen pieces of my heart. The void is a reality within me as I feel the distance within my soul. It may seem crazy to have your heart stolen so quickly within the course of three weeks and constantly moving from place to place, but it happened.
Coming close to being one of the hardest parts of The World Race is having to say “hello” and then turning around so quickly only to say “goodbye.” It wasn’t easy month one and it sure isn’t any easier now, month eleven. While this is hard to experience while on the field and especially going home knowing that these people will not be there, I have to live in the eternal mindset of knowing I will see them again. I have to embrace the transition and live in the freedom of knowing my home isn’t in one geographical location.
Leaving for The World Race eleven months ago I never imagined that I would be claiming so many different places as home for a year. We talk about going home and how it is right around the corner (fourteen days!), but what if my home is no longer the place I left it eleven months ago. The house I lived in for the past four years is now occupied by another family, my childhood home no longer holds a room to call my own, and those I call family are spread out all over the South. I made my bed in twelve different places this past year and in the time span of a few short weeks I called those places home.
There is freedom though in having your heart in so many different places, even though it is hard when you are many so miles away from those places. I know I have kingdom connections all over the world though. If I were to leave tomorrow and head to Thailand, I know I would be welcomed by forty of the most loving girls I’ve ever met with open arms. Just as much as I am going to be received with open arms in a few short days by my family, I now know I can go all over the world and receive the same open arms by those who have taken pieces of my heart. “Home,” is now in the vast amount of geographical locations that I have temporally resided in this past year.
