Nothing can tear us from
The grip of His mighty love
We’ve only glimpsed, His vast affection
Heard whispers of, His heart and passion
It’s pouring out…
Your love is deep, Your love is wide
And it covers us
Your love is fierce, Your love is strong
It is furious
Your love is sweet, Your love is wild
And it’s waking hearts to life
[Jeremy Riddle – Furious]
No one ever tells you the problem with going means feeling gone forever.
My body landed in America at the end of July, and though I’ve tried hard to beckon my heart back here, substantial pieces of my soul have stubbornly remained on the other side of the world, shouting back a resounding “No! We are here to stay.”
Someone should have told the 22 year old me sitting in the Orlando airport years ago, about to embark on a journey into the unknown in a foreign land, that this would happen. Why didn’t someone wipe away those tears of excitement and fear that fell so freely and tell me to take a moment and kiss the life I’d known and the person I’d been for so long goodbye? Someone should had told me I was never coming back…not really.
I loved my life before I left that first time. I love the journey the Lord has me on today. In reading a fellow re-entering missionary’s blog, it’s all beginning to click in my little, tired heart.
When I returned from the Race, I immediately jumped back into “normal” life. I had my teaching job and my family and my car and a new cell phone and all the conveniences of American life at my fingertips. This was supposed to make sense. This is how I had always lived, minus a few months on that beautiful continent of Africa.
I knew reentering would take time. Adjusting would be a process. There would be bad days and good days and I’d get through them just the same. I mean, I hadbeen around the world.
The buzzing in my ear, the dissonance, it would die down, wouldn’t it – given time? It would. Surely?
A part of me wants this to work, to be able to thrive in this life and to fit back in and be built and rooted somewhere. But the truth is, I don’t fit.
I have been trying SO hard to do the things I think I’m supposed to do. But I think I’ve finally had a revelation, one that will cease the striving.
A dearly trusted friend shared this vision with me a few weeks ago. She said she saw me wearing the most beautiful, dazzling, radiant cloak, woven of stories and heartaches, beauty and promises, adventures and countries and unknown languages – the faces I carry with me daily.
No wonder I don’t fit. No wonder there is so much grace for each moment of this. In this beautiful, sometimes lonely, season I’ve been given, I’m thankful that my Spirit has space to sit and process all of the things I didn’t even know I was carrying.
Thanks, Jesus. You are greater than my heart and You know everything.
And You’ll continue to prepare my heart for all of the places that I won’t fit, until I get home to heaven.
Hold on, to me as we go.
As we roll down this unfamiliar road.
And although this wave is stringing us along.
Just know you’re not alone,
Cause I’m going to make this place your home.
Settle down, it’ll all be clear.
Don’t pay no mind to the demons,
They fill you with fear.
The trouble it might drag you down.
If you get lost, you can always be found.
Just know you’re not alone,
Cause I’m going to make this place your home.
[Philip Phillips – Home]
