Hey guys! I’m gunna do something different for this blog. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll post a blog later about my adventures in Nepal, but for this blog I’m gunna talk about a place 7,841 miles from where I am now.
Being gone for 9 months was never something I thought would be hard. I am not someone who misses home. I went to sleep away camps every week out of the summer that I could, and when I got older I spent entire months away from home. Never once in any of those times away did I get home sick, or even miss home. I have always had the mind set of “Be where your feet are” (meaning you are focused on where you are and not where you aren’t) and that mindset has never bothered me.
Don’t get me wrong! I love my friends and my family and my town. But when I left I just enjoyed the time I spent in that place. I was so focused on where I was and the new experiences I was having and the new people I was meeting to ever get home sick. So I definitely guess you could say that I surprised myself when I was sitting on the roof of our compound, in India, crying because a song came on that reminded me of my friends.
I spent many nights in India staring at the stars and the one mountain (and when I say one I mean in the many miles we could see from the top of our 4 story compound there was nothing but farms and this one mountain that you could almost classify as a large hill) and found myself missing my blue ridge mountains. Missing the views from lookout points. Missing hiking parts of the App Trail with my friends or kayaking with my brother and dad. Missing late night jeep drives on the parkway and getting lost. More than just missing the feeling of home, I was missing the actual physical place of home and I couldn’t shake it. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was missing out.
All my friends were leaving for college,
my wildlife girls were starting high school,
my brother was starting his senior year,
my friends were rushing sororities and fraternities and going to football games.
All of which were things I was missing.
I had this plan of how my life was supposed to look and dropping everything and leaving the country for 9 months was never part of that, so, I took it to the Lord. I had to trust in him and in his plan for me more than ever. I prayed and prayed and dove into my Bible and prayed some more and I ended up finding my comfort in a story I have known since I was in Sunday school. The story of Abram. More specifically the verse, Genesis 12:1 “The LORD had said to Abram, “Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you.” The Lord spoke to Abram and he listened. He followed the Lords plan for him and the Lord rewarded him with all the promises he laid out before him.
I found comfort in confiding with the same people, who like me, felt called by the Lord to leave everything and follow him. Relying on them for support and build each other up. We do this by sharing pictures and telling stories. Keeping our lock screens and our home screens on our laptop and phones, pictures of family and friends. We keep them visible and alive so to not forget and to not miss.
Memories like driving down to Floyd with Hannah to take care of our teacher’s farm animals or her randomly coming over to watch a movie and have late night talks on my porch. Sitting on my front porch and having endless talks with Ashley while we were supposed to be doing homework or going to Kroger to get ice cream when we had a bad day. Dancing like idiots with Grace and laughing at cliché and over the top sad movies while eating ice cream out of the tub. Taking random adventure drives on the parkway with Holden and almost dying 3 times because he wouldn’t listen to directions. Filming a really bad cooking show with Leah and Cam and Grace for English where we made the worst Chicken Alfredo because we forgot to get enough cheese so we used cheese sticks. Watching Leah getting baptized. Midweek Manna dinners and sleepover with my friends from church I have known since I was in pre-k. Playing soccer in my grandma’s yard with my cousins, Alice and Cassie. Having bonding moments with my brother, Alex and keeping each other’s secrets from our parents… (shhhh…) or watching my little bro win states, not 24 hours after I graduated. Snuggling with my dog, Lola, in front of the fireplace with a huge cup of peppermint mocha coffee having a Harry Potter movie marathon with my mom in the middle of winter. Having a movie and dinner dates with my dad or him “forcing” us to watch movie classics like The Usual Suspects, Fargo, Caddy Shack, and Scarface that we ended up loving every time. These are the happy memories I have to hold onto for these months.
Now that I’ve been away for almost 2 months it has started to become “normal”. (Well as normal as living in a foreign country can be with people I only met 3 months ago) They are slowly but surely becoming my family. When put in the situation we are in you have to pour everything into the people around you in order to live in proper community with one another. And that’s what the Lord has been helping me do. He has been helping me redirect my mind to be more focused on “being where my feet are” but not in the since I once though. Now I know it means being where the Lord has placed my feet and not where I have. Resting in the truth that right now I am where he wants me to be. I have also learned its good to miss home and its good to have something be hard to say goodbye too because it means that there is something so sweet and loving about what you are leaving behind. I feel so blessed to come from a place and to have people that make it so hard to leave.
{Me, being mentally and spiritually where I’m supposed to be. oh yeah and check the Himalayas in the back ground.}
Lastly, I would just like to thank my church family. Before the race I knew the church as a body was a family but I never truly understood what that looked like till yall supported me in this journey. I felt so much love and comfort in knowing that where ever life takes me I still have a home at 2PC. I know I can’t address everyone individually in this but I want to thank you all for the financial support you have given me and the constant prayers and love you have given me as well. So thank you. I have been so blessed to grow up in the amazing church and this amazing community.
So I would just like to thank my friends and family and everyone who has helped me be able to be where the Lord wants me to be.
