Today it hit me… the dreaded feeling of homesickness.
It's hard being away from people that you love, friends, family, normalcy (relatively speaking). It's hard to see babies grow up before your eyes only in pictures. To see friends grow old, get married, have babies, change jobs, move away without actually being there and experiencing everything. To not be around for Thanksgiving or Christmas or birthdays or anniversaries AND to see people go on celebrating them regardless is hard. Anyone who says otherwise is a liar.
*Meredith: Change; we don’t like it, we fear it, but we can't stop it from coming. We either adapt to change, or we get left behind. And it hurts to grow, anybody who tells you it doesn’t is lying. But here's the truth: The more things change, the more they stay the same.*
Change hurts but what wonderful lessons God is teaching me and those around me, both here and back home. I have friends whose children pray for me whenever they think about me – "Hi" Reena & Alia! I miss you both and love you very much! – There are families & people that I remember to lift up in prayer thanks to bracelets around my ankles. It's beautiful to see how God is working in the lives of people that I love. Even though I'm not there.
In the gospels, Jesus repeatedly says "whoever loves father or mother (sister, brother, cousin, friends, aunts, blood or in the Christian family) more than me is not worthy, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it" [Matthew 10:34-39 & "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple" [Luke 14:26&27].
The moral of this story: If I love Jesus, then I cannot love my family or friends. Thinking of home is not a terrible thing, remembering people is good and talking to them is also good. It's when that gets in the way of praising, loving, glorifying and focusing on God that it's not good. Christ puts us in relationships with others for a reason: community is a good thing, a great thing even. But, my relationship with Christ has to be the most important thing, overshadowing my love for family and friends.
It is hard being away.
Some days are harder than others.
Looking at pictures is the hardest part of being away.
But I choose Jesus.
I choose to follow him above all else, to the point of leaving my family and friends for a year to do so.
And this is just the beginning.
Radical christianity comes with a price.
A price that I am willing to pay, as hard as it will be.
Here's the thing… this, life, it's not about me.
It's never been about me though I like to make it seem it is.
All I do, all I am, all I was created to do,
it's all.about. Jesus.
All of it.
My life is to be lived for Him, to bring HIM glory.
Not myself.
"All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another." – Anatole France
So, I must hate my family in the most basic way. That means I refuse to choose you over Christ. It's not easy. It's a daily choice to die to myself, to die to all that I once held (and still hold) dear. To die to my desires and wants. Desires like being with my family, seeing those I love grow up.
