I’ll warn you that this isn’t a blog with a big announcement where I tell you what’s next for me. It’s what’s going on after running the race and crossing the finish line. It’s the feelings and slight revelation that comes out of eight weeks living in limbo instead of a foreign country. I don’t know what I’m suppose to go do or where I’m suppose to be, just yet. So this isn’t about what’s next, it’s about what’s now.
On The Race, we hated being lumped into the tourist category. Because we aren’t really tourist. Tourists visit for a week or ten days, stay in a hotel with air-conditioning, and see the sights safely inside their “exploring a foreign country with all of the comforts of home” bubble. And we don’t get that lifestyle living off $11 a day. So once we go grocery shopping or manage to get the locals price for something, we’ve officially made that country our home. After a week, we’ve mastered public transportation. After two weeks, we’ve made friends at our favorite coffee shop, local church, and have a favorite taxi driver. After three weeks, we can’t imagine what a life without coming to this country would have been like. And after four weeks, ready or not, it’s time to travel to the next country.
I always thought I was pretty good at leaving each place. I had a strong grasp on the fact that God knew I would only be in Cambodia, Ethiopia, Nicaragua, or the other eight countries for only a month. Staying longer wouldn’t have been good anyways, because that wasn’t ever his plan. So I packed my pack 31 times in 11 months, and moved on. Sometimes with tears, sometimes without. I got really good at making 11 different countries my home that I never learned how to make Jesus my home.
So now I’m back, now I’m really home, but it doesn’t really feel like home. I know how to get around; driving a car is normal and I do remember what side of the road to drive on. My bag is unpacked, clean, and in my closet. I go back to my favorite coffee shops and run into familiar faces at Target. I know my address, what cereal to buy, and have no desire to sleep in a tent anytime soon.
But rather than staying, my instincts are to go, to find the next adventure, the next challenge to accomplish. I don’t want to sit and wait, because what happens if I get stuck sitting in a place I don’t like? But at the same time, I do want to sit and be in a place longer than a month. I want to plant myself somewhere and watch what fruit is produced when roots are planted firm in the ground. In Pensacola? Atlanta? Jacksonville?
I’ve spent some nights with my friends in my favorite not so little college town. In their living room is a sign that reads “Home is where Jesus is.” It’s cute and simple, and completely true. But also kinda silly, because the Spirit of the Living God lives inside of me; he’s made his home inside of me, which means that wherever I go, I am home, not just in a living room.
Just like I was wrong thinking that home is a place, roots don’t grow in a place. They grow deep, strong, and secure in a person. In a person who is fully God, and fully human, and knows exactly what awkward limbo feels like. It feels like discontentment, confusion, isolation, failure, purposeless, and wasted time. It feels like being stuck in the midst of it’s over and it hasn’t started yet.
So I fight the fight that even though lies sound true, that doesn’t make them true, that God doesn’t change just because my timezone does, that he is true to his word, not to my feelings and despite my feelings. I get to realize that God loves me just as much when I’m playing with children on the other side of the world as he does when I wake up in America confused and unemployed. Practically, it either looks like resting or job hunting or both depending on the day. But all of that time is truly wasted unless I realize that it doesn’t matter where I am or what I do, but I’m with Jesus, and he’s with me. Always.
“Lord, we confess our fear of trying new things, hard things, and scary things. We recognize how we sometimes despise the idea of staying where we are. May we be open to discovering home right here instead of wishing for something different. May we release our tight-hold on what could be and be willing to sit on a bench in our front yard in the midst of what is. Be our courage and wisdom as we discern when to stay, when to move, and what it means to bring you with us.” – Emily P Freeman, Simply Tuesday
