As I sat on my bed in Bali, reflecting over the last year, I had a true peace about coming home. I figured I had done all of this before when I studied abroad in college, reentry was not really going to be a problem for me.
I wish 2 weeks ago me could see me now. I may look ok on the outside, but the inside is a true mess. Most days I can’t tell you which way is up, because my heart is pulled in so many different directions, my mind is trying to make sense of all that is happening around me, and my body doesn’t know what to do with not constantly being on the go. This jumbled up mess is not what I was expecting.
You don’t begin to realize until the end of the race that all of the big decisions for the year were made for you, and you were always being told what to do next. There was little thought needed as to what your actions were going to be for the next day or next week. It was oddly refreshing to take that much time off of planning meals, ministry steps, and deciding how to get from point A to point B. But now I sit at home and take 5 minutes to pick out what type of coffee I’m going to brew for the day.
I am trying to figure out how to make decisions for myself again. I have the whole day stretching before me and I don’t know what to do with my time. I feel lost; my days are no longer full of activity and joyful craziness, but having to make decisions that get me off of Netflix and into the real world. And some days I just don’t want to get out of my bed and face the unfamiliar world around me.
After 11 months, familiar is rutted dirt roads with motos flying by. It’s taking cold showers and hoping the power doesn’t go out. Familiar is not understanding what the people around me are saying but conversing in smiles and hand gestures. Familiar is meeting and loving on people who are struggling to provide for their families, but know that their family is the most important thing they will ever possess. The American Dream is no longer familiar. The idea that helping your neighbors is seasonal is unfamiliar now. My mind is busy trying to take what I’ve spent 11 months becoming familiar with and make sense of it all in an environment that was once so comfortable but now seems foreign.
What I have realized in the last two weeks though, is that my mess isn’t something I have to deal with on my own. God has met me in my mess everyday. If it wasn’t for my best friend and constant companion by my side, I would be an even bigger mess. I would be a blubbering mess who would never leave my bed or be able to understand how the thing that I have always dreamed of could possibly be over. But Jesus meets me in the times when I am crying huge, ugly tears, and when I forget what I have done for the last year.
The peace that I had at debrief is still there, but only because I have been seeking it daily. On my own I would be more of a mess than I am now (which is saying something). That’s what is amazing about God, he has kept his promises to me. He said that he would never leave me, and he hasn’t. He traveled the countless miles from the other side of the world with me, and has taken up residence with me in Michigan. I don’t know what tomorrow holds for me, and I don’t know how God is going to keep connecting the dots in my life, but I know God will go with me and always be there to help me through my mess.
