“WHAT IS IT LIKE NOW THAT YOU’RE HOME!?”
One of the most common questions I’ve gotten in the month and a half I’ve been home, right along with how much weight I’ve lost, and what’s the weirdest food I’ve eaten. 6 weeks. That’s how long I’ve been home. Wow. In some ways it feels like it’s already been years, and in others, it feels like I just barely finished my first month of ministry and that it’s not time to be here yet.
The memories are so fresh. The emotions are real and raw. I step outside in the early mornings and I can still smell the fires and fresh chai of India, my face still feels the waking mist of Churchandpur, my ears still catch the faint echo of the roosters in Cambodia and Africa, my heart still quickens at the thought of the faces I’ve seen, the hands I’ve held, the children I’ve played with, and the souls I’ve fallen in love with. The ending of each month brings anticipation in my heart over the next month’s ministry, country, and people that currently won’t be there. Because my present moment is home.
How do you reconcile and mesh together the life of a year spent like that to home life? To be honest, I’m becoming more and more convinced that you don’t.
In preparation for coming home, I read articles about missionaries and their transitions. Blogs and tips of re-acclimating became my weekly candies I would indulge on as I prepared to end my final month on the race. I journaled about what it would look like for me to bring my experience home; my teams and I processed and prayed and grieved and prayed and celebrated and prayed some more about ending the race and returning home.
Some of my squadmates talked about how they anticipated a meltdown in Walmart, while others declared that they would have a full on dancing celebration in the cereal aisle (still waiting on that video JJ).
When I got home, nothing was how I thought. Personally, I anticipated tears and emotions, great quiet time, beautiful moments of reminiscing and storytelling while I went through videos and pictures. But when I got home, I slipped into sort of autopilot. I felt like I couldn’t access my feelings. I dove in to scheduling coffee dates and felt like I was thriving when I was sharing the race with people, but when I was home, it was just so….neutral.
Everything has been completely familiar…I mean… it’s home. Not much is different. I still know how to get places (for the most part), I know what my favorite food tastes like again, everything is startlingly familiar, and yet now, completely foreign at the same exact time.
My first “experience” back home was going to breakfast with my brother and best friend and being completely thrown off because for the first day in 11 months, no one cared that I was in the restaurant. For the first day in 11 months, I was in public, not being stared at, not being filmed or photographed, not being asked to come to someone’s house, or having my hair styled by a kid who was fascinated by the color. I wasn’t being gawked at, followed, or proposed to. No one. Cared. And that was extremely weird. I was invisible for the first time in 11 months, and further, I was able to go home after breakfast, walk to my room, shut the door, and be alone.
Imagine the Lord’s version of lasik eye surgery. After the surgery, you still see everything you did before, but it’s with a new clarity and a completely new perspective. The old is viewed with new.
I mean honestly, what do you even do with that on an emotional or spiritual level?
Some of the hardest things about being off of the race is having to figure out how to actively and intentionally live a life that deals with memories, feelings, and new ideals of this past year, but realizing that home life and this current season is in America. For the past year, we were cultivated and trained to live a life of abandon, flexibility, and ‘radical’ faith. Now, being home, I can binge watch netflix (for now) and I’m expected to be making plans, having answers, and beginning to set things in motion for the future in some way. How do you do that when for the last year, you didn’t even know where you were sleeping or what you were eating or your purpose for each day until you got to that moment of the day where you needed to figure it out? How do you honor your parents and their requests while still honoring the Lord and living out the radical new day to day kind of faith that brings you to his presence for your daily needs? I mean the kind of faith where you need him more than your next breath? How do you gel those two ideals together when you can totally provide for yourself every day now?
I’m not super sure I have the answers. But I’m realizing that the main key lies where it always has. Staying present in His presence.
That’s it folks.
Staying present in His presence is how we are called to live. At all costs, following him. Learning to allow our spirits to crave him, our hearts to thirst for him, and our beings to reply in worship to him, is where the key is for all of this.
It’s how we live here at home and it’s how believers live all around the world. The place where I am, the feelings I have, the perspectives I hold, and the dreams I think about might have all changed, but He. Is. Constant. His presence is where peace resides, His fellowship is where the world melts away, and His heart is where ours collide into its eternal calling.
I recently watched a video Francis Chan did on what our lives look like in the scheme of eternity. He held a long rope that seemingly stretched off stage and the part he held onto at the end that was showing was taped in red, but only for about 6 inches. For the 3 minutes of the video, he reminded believers that our lives on earth were not meant to only be in preparation for our lives here on earth. That 6 inches of red tape verses the endless feet of white rope that trailed behind was not what we were created for. We were created for eternity with our Creator (Ecclesiastes 3:11) and scripture is clear that we are to “fix our eyes not on what is seen but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Cor 4:18).
In the long scheme of eternity, this month (and the next few) of being at home is such a vapor. It will pass quicker than I can even watch it drift by. Do I struggle with missing the race? Absolutely. Do I wish I was riding everywhere in a tuk tuk and eating strange food before going out to meet new people? Definitely. But I realize that what I want the most, the things I miss and the hopes I have, are the *eternal things I experienced this past year. I want to continue living a life that defies my generation’s standards of radical, and I want to be a woman whose legacy is marked by the eternal things of a Heavenly Love that radically changed her own life. My heart craves, longs for, and cherishes the things that have eternal significance. Being home, has given me a unique perspective to realize this craving even deeper and to want to continue to live my life and make decisions based on that, and only that. That scripture from Ecclesiastes chapter 3 that says, “He has planted eternity in the hearts of man” has been a rhythmic whisper in the back of my mind, and my heart is now responding with a strong and resounding “YES! Let’s keep going!”
So what’s it like being home? It’s hard!!! Really stinking hard! But really stinking beautiful!!
Sometimes the only way I can release the pent up tears and emotion of what it feels like to leave the race is to watch emotional videos on youtube. It’s to listen to songs that get my mind in the place my heart is. And I’m ok with that. But ultimately, spending time in His presence is the only thing that gives my heart peace and purpose right now.
And if I’m being honest, it’s the only thing that has always done that.
Because of Him,
Rachel
P.S. One of my super cool squadmates did a project of “Before and After” pictures of our race. The first image was taken in the Kolkata airport just before we boarded our final flight to our very first country. The second image was taken in the Beijing airport just before we boarded our final flight home to the States. It’s truly an amazing project! *Shout out to travel day fashion*
