As the last days of summer drift away, Launch no longer hangs far-off in the distance, and I’m coming face-to-face with a new challenge: goodbye. I am beginning to say my final goodbyes to friends and family for the next year of my life—but I’m also experiencing something I didn’t quite expect. Though I still have 2 or so weeks until leaving home, already I’m beginning to feel distant from people I’m usually close with. It often feels like my farewell to home is something that is already looming over my head. It’s a struggle to stay present where I am when I know how soon I’m moving forward to the next season of life. More and more, I find myself feeling strangely ambivalent.
It’s the in-between of this season that’s most confusing, I think. The enthusiasm of letting go and moving into something new is coupled with a sort of sweet sorrow. I’m equally aware of my aloneness in leaving the life I know and also of the Lord’s nearness as I give all I have into his hands.
Above all, I think this ambivalence is an aching to belong.
It’s the awareness that there’s some part of me right now that isn’t fully understood by most people I know here at home; but also that I’m still waiting to be in a community where I really fit, if that makes sense. I have one foot in each world, and am waiting to really be “all in.”
Now before you get all worried about me, I’m not depressed or lonely or hurting. I’m holding tight to Jesus and savoring everything about the uniqueness of this season. It’s a really beautiful experience. In fact, the real reason I’m writing this isn’t actually about me.
I wanted to share what I’m feeling because over the last few years, I’ve come to believe that this unclear, nostalgic feeling which I’m encountering—more than just saying goodbye—is something vital to the human experience. Beyond just me and what I’m feeling, I think the emotion of ambivalence is really crucial to understand.
Because, let’s face it, we all know what it’s like to feel like we can’t really fit in. And with Autumn approaching, a lot of people are either leaving home for school or something like my trip right now, or watching others leave. The feeling of internal confusion and a desire to belong is pretty common at this time of year. But I’m convinced that the longing, the aching for something we just can’t quite seem to grasp, is really a glimpse of the Father’s heart and a taste of Heaven.
It’s the part of the Lord’s heart that motivates people to give away all they have and serve the poor.
It’s the experience that motivates so many artists to create. (This song is everything I’m trying to describe).
It’s what the apostle Paul was talking about when he wrote that “not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of the body” (Romans 8:23).
It’s what C. S. Lewis called joy, and what led him to the Lord and made him desire to write. He describes the experience well in “The Weight of Glory”: “At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendours we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumour that it will not always be so. Some day, God willing, we shall get in.”
Why is this at once such an indescribable, yet universal and tangible experience? Because, despite its brokenness, the world is awaiting something greater than our present experience. Our true destination is a place of total belonging. That’s the Father’s purpose for us; that’s what humanity is transformed into by Christ’s power. The Incarnation proves that the true destiny of mankind is to be joined to the Divine, God himself, in Jesus. Why else would we experience all this aching for the not-yet, for home, if not that part of us knew this was our final destination as humans—to finally find home, to belong, and to “with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, [be] transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18).
And so, along with so many who have walked this road before me, I take heart in knowing my future home is coming quickly, and will be so much more beautiful than I could ever dream on my own.
I’m learning to love the leaving.
