Being on the World Race, we are obviously away from home, while also entering the lifelong homes of other people. This is a post describing my feelings about home- homesickness and feeling a sense of home while away.
My homesickness from the first couple weeks of the Race has slowly dwindled, but on our ride home from debrief, the feelings were returning. Even after an amazing week, and while we were on our way back to the ministry we love, it was still very easy to get caught up in what is happening at home- the neighborhood Oktoberfest party is that day, your friends got tickets to the Florida/Georgia game together, the cross country team has districts the next week.
Then something very surprising (at least to me) happened. As we were driving into Nsoko, Swaziland, and nearing the compound, I felt a sense of home. It was the feeling after a long road trip, and you get off on the exit for your house and get excited as you go down your road and get closer. I had that feeling entering the place we had stayed for one month, and had two more. God has made Swaziland feel like a home for me, even if it will be somewhere that I only live in for a couple months. Of course, this does not mean that every feeling of missing home will be gone forever, but it does mean that the things in the present have become more comfortable. I no longer feel like a kid at summer camp, but someone in my new home (that may happen to have 20 other bunk beds in it haha).
In the past month, my continual prayer has been to desire the comforts that only God provides. It is easy to cling to the comforts of the flesh, but it is bolder and more beneficial to drop those at the feet of God. One of my favorite passages in the Bible about our heavenly home is in 2 Corinthians 5:1-10. It emphasizes that our true home is eternal, not on Edgewood ave or in Swaziland. In verse 8, it reassures me that being at home with God is the best place that I could be, even if it means being many miles away from my parents and Chick-fil-a. My idea of home is shifting, but Jacksonville, Florida will always be the place that I call home.
“But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ…” -Philippians 3:20
