I start by asking: Where/what is home to you? A place, feeling or person?
I’ve heard many definitions and I’m sure I’ve yet to hear all of them. When leaving my parents’ house at the age of 17, I made the choice to call Goiania home, when I went to the USA for six months I choose to call Overland Park home. And so on forward no need to detail all the times I’ve packed my entire life, I think you get the idea.
Once, while visiting Araguaina I called somewhere else home, and that hurt my mother’s feelings, her response was: this is your home!
I’ve never wanted to hurt anyone but that was my way of knowing I’d be ok. Because even thought I was not born or raised, or had only one friend in that city, as long as it was home, in my heart I had a place there. I belonged there.
As I left USA yesterday, I didn’t feel sadness or anxiety because it had stopped feeling like home the week before training camp.
I felt homeless.
Even thought I had been living with my Aunt and Uncle, incredible couple that took me in and helped me so much as I got ready for this journey God has set in my heart. She would come sit with me in the kitchen so I wouldn’t eat alone, even when she had already eaten. It was an incredible time that I got to know them better.
But the last few weeks I let the idea that I was leaving shortly get to me, and decided to stop letting it be home, for an easier goodbye.
Which led me to started asking myself what will I do? When someone asks me where is home, will I answer Brazil? USA? What will I answer?
So as I packed I prayed for a solution, and as I stepped in Brazilian soil today, I knew it.
God has given me a solution to being happy when I move. HOME IS WHERE I AM, AS LONG AS GOD IS WITH ME. Will I miss my first home? Absolutely, I have my parents, family and friends there. Part of my heart is there, every place I’ve called home, has a part of me, but by having it as my home I was able to get twice as much back.
And I’m happy to tell you I am HOME, even happier to tell you God is giving me 11 new homes for the next year, with an amazing family of 20 to go with me.
AND I GET TO SEE MOMMY AND DADDY IN ABOUT 7 HOURS!!!!
God is amazing and he can do great things as long as you let him in.
