I’ve been home for about two weeks. Like home-home. In my house. With my parents and brother and dogs and guinea pig. One of the main things people ask is, “Isn’t it great to be home?” As if this place is worth being missed, which it is. As if I was gone for 11 entire months, which I was. As if I hadn’t seen my family in person or hugged my best friend in forever, which I hadn’t. And me not having the heart to lie just answers with, “…..It’s weird.”
There’s been a lot of emotion going on in my heart. It could be hormonal (I would say, “Thanks Eve,” but I’m a feminist). Or it could be that though this place is home, it really isn’t. Because home is a community tent shared with five other people in the middle of a village in Doma. Home is a sweaty orphanage with crazy kids crawling all over me and placing stickers all over my face. Home is a café in Uzhogorod where I sit and talk about the endlessness of God with friends. Home is a little girl with dark brown skin not caring if my hands are sweaty. Home is where Vesi laughs at the times to come because she is clothed in dignity even when her pants are falling off and she is strong even if she can’t stand on her own. Home is where the porridge never stops flowing and the kids never stop running to meet the big red van that holds so much more hope than just food.
I would lie if I told you that I didn’t already feel the pull of comfort and complacency. The thought of, Well it wouldn’t be so bad to not lead that trip… or Well what if I don’t have to go back to school. It would be okay to just find a job that doesn’t require so much…
Would following the call God has placed on our lives be worth it if it were easy?
Would our purposes be as noble if they were not terrifying?
A few days before our team headed to final debrief a speaker at church spoke on Psalm 27. I’ve been meditating on it ever since. And when I say meditate, I really mean I looked at it once, wrote a bunch of notes from this dude’s sermon and haven’t picked it back up until today. But I’m meditating on it today.
Because I’m afraid. I’m afraid to get comfortable. I’m afraid that coming home-home means staying home-home instead of seeking after the house of the Lord. It’s there that David didn’t ask for the cause of his fear to be taken away but for God to be the source of his contentment. It’s there that he begged God for answers and God instead of giving him what he wanted said, “Seek my face.” It’s there that made Asia, Africa, and Europe feel more like home than Lake County ever did. It’s there that I continue to see His goodness in the land of the living.
So here is to coming home. A home that is not so much a place but a state of being. Where the rooms resound with the echo of my voice as I scream, “Your face, Lord, do I seek!”
