Yesterday I was cleaning out a bunch of papers from boxes that I had been too busy to go through when I moved home before leaving for the race. I’m still too busy, but since being home I’ve found that I cannot stand to have unwanted stuff around me anymore. I guess that’s what happens when you live out of a backpack for a year.
In one of the boxes there was a magazine I had saved for one reason or another. On the back was an ad for Compassion International. A beautiful little Indian girl was giving a woman a big hug and a kiss on the cheek, her yellow bracelets shining against her beautiful brown skin.
And my heart ached.
For hours. Actually, when I think about it, it’s still aching.
And I don’t know what to do with that.
I feel sometimes like I’ve scattered pieces of my heart across three continents. It’s so strange how people you might never meet again can become such a piece of you. Sometimes when I tell stories about the race, especially about people I met along the way, people will ask me, “Do you know how they’re doing now?”
And every time, I have to answer, “No, I don’t. I haven’t heard from them since we left that country.”
Being home has been strange, as I expected it would be. But I didn’t expect to feel so…not at home most of the time. I am thrilled to report that I have started working for South Dakota Public Broadcasting again. It’s such a blessing to be doing something that I enjoy for an organization that I love and people I adore. God is so good, and I’m excited to begin telling South Dakota stories again!
But sometimes, when I look at the map of the places I’ve gone, I tend to see all of the places I haven’t been instead. I’ve caught myself already planning for my possible next destinations.
My mom says I will have to marry rich in order to satisfy my insatiable hunger for travel. But it’s not just the travel I crave. It’s getting to walk through a portion of life, even a small one, with other human beings. People who have lived completely different lives than I have. But for one moment in time, sometimes only a day, creating a shared memory. A shared experience. Getting to step out of my life, and into theirs. Learning that there are billions of ways to live a life. And each of those lives are valuable. That’s what I crave. That, and letting them know how much Jesus loves them. Speaking and writing the words He puts on my heart.
Maybe I didn’t scatter my heart in eleven countries. Maybe I was born in the U.S. with pieces of my heart already planted across the world. And I’ve just spent the last year retrieving them, bit by bit. Maybe I can feel the ache because my heart is a little more whole than it was when I left a year ago. But I have a feeling there are so many more pieces to recover, and so many more places to recover them.
