I woke up this morning with a heavy heart; heavy with homesickness. Heavy, knowing that I will not see my family for over a year now…accepting this reality has caused my heart to ache with wistful memories of home. As tears of longing run down my face, I find myself countering these pangs of homesickness with earnest prayers of strength and refuge…ardently praying for the weight of my heart to be lifted.
And God gives me a verse within my fervent prayers…
“He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” – Revelations 21:4
A sense of peace washes over me…my heart aches a little less.
It’s interesting to be faced with this heavy-heart syndrome once again – to dig up old coping mechanisms in order to rid myself of this sludge-like emotion. Desperately trying to stuff it back in the corner it came from. Out of sight, out of mind, right?…
You see, I have a history of being a home-body….being homesick for my family is in my blood. I used to cry on my drives back to college because I didn’t want to leave my family. And I am not ashamed of my love for them! It’s a familiar yet slightly unwelcome knock at the door to my heart; instantly bringing me back to childhood memories, to my siblings, my parents, HOME; nostalgia at its finest.
And my heart aches.
Aches for a solution to this pain…maybe a band-aid for the heart should be the next invention for this world…
And yet another verse floats into my mind: “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” – Romans 8:18
Ok God, thanks for the reminder…I get it….
And then as if on cue, God directs my thoughts to the passage in the Bible where it speaks about the cost of following Jesus. In Luke 6:61-62 it says, “Still another said, ‘I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.’ Jesus replied, ‘No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.’” Ouch! That hit pretty close to home for me…above all else, my heart belongs to God and I never want to put anything before Him…not even my family. I do not want to inadvertently place my earthly family at a higher importance than my God.
So this band-aid idea? Does anyone have the intelligence to create one? Something to soothe the pain…anything? Once again, proving my spirit is flawed…reverting back to an earthly solution…to me being in control.
But then it hit me, convicting my heart of its weakness….I don’t need a band-aid made by this world to heal my pain…that band-aid would only cause more pain and destruction…I don’t need to drown out my sorrows by drinking, binge-eating, partying, keeping myself busy, stuffing the pain deeper into my heart, ignoring or denying the pain was ever there to begin with….that kind of band-aid would only cause more heartache.
What I really need is a Heavenly Band-aid. God will always be my constant healer and place of refuge. “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.” – Psalm 147:3. Even when I am at my worst and my heart is rebelling from the rest of my body, I know deep down, my heart can identify the remedy….God is the answer to all my pain. When I seek His face and desire everything that is of Him, he begins to soothe my spirit with His love. That is the solution to my homesickness….running to my Eternal Father, pouring out my soul and everything that I am to Him, and letting him fix it. Giving him all my brokenness, grief, and tender heart – saying I can’t fix it alone. Giving up the reigns to my heart and letting him take over, for I have no good apart from Him.
So I nail the coffin shut to all my earthly pains, the urge to fix them, and give the hammer to God….wiping my hands clean, and just resting in my Heavenly Father – my Safe Haven, my Comforter. And homesickness will ensue, but I know God’s solution far outweighs my solution to the pangs of reminiscent memories. So I take heart and am given joy in the suffering. For not only am I called to higher things, I am also his beloved child whom He loves to take care of.
“And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” – Philippians 4:7
“You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you.” – Isaiah 26:3
