The Long Trek Home…
“Wake up! Wake up!” That seems to
be the only thing I can think about as the days go by. It seems as
though I’m waiting for reality to finally hit, and as it does, I hate
it all the more. I had 8 months of people telling me to let go of my
expectations, only to fly home filled with them and watch them fall.
I’ve begun to step into a place that no
longer feels like home. But, then again, no place feels like home
anymore. I feel like my sense of belonging has been stripped from me.
I wake up every morning wondering what’s next. For once I wish I
could just be. I wish I could stand in one place and not have to
worry about holding onto the past, walking in the present, or
stepping into the future.
I miss the people that became family
over the last 8 months. The people that walked the journey with me.
The people I laughed and shed tears with. I miss the people who were
willing to call things for what they were. The people who were all
in. The people who daily counted the cost! I miss the people who
lived life with me no matter how hard it was, and who didn’t back
down from the calling God had on their lives. I miss Bryan, Lila,
Jess, and Katie. I miss all those Novas people that I had the
privilege of being with in Mexico. I miss all those leaders that were
there to guide us without spoon feeding us. I miss authenticity. I
miss community!
To all of those reading this that live
around me, I’m not judging you guys, or saying that you don’t hold
these qualities. This is just where I’m at, so I ask you to
understand me in this. Most people ask me how I feel, and the answer
“Okay, bittersweet I guess.” is usually what comes out. The truth
is, is that it’s hard to stay in a place you want to run away from,
and actually believe that God has you there for a purpose. So, that’s
me at the moment. No one ever told me re-entry would be easy. I
guess, for once, I just NEVER EXPECTED to feel the way I do. To feel
so broken and dependent.
I guess, in the end, all these things
are just another step in the walk; another step towards heaven, the only place that’s become home for some of us.
Jon
hey bro i know how you feel, but just keep asking God what he wants, and trust that he will take care of you and let you feel his loving arms wrapped around you. just because we arent around doesnt mean we are gone forever, we are family…the season may have moved on, but we are always connected by God, and our expirience, and memories.
“How strange that we cannot love time. It spoils our loveliest moments. Nothing quite comes up to expectations because of it. We alone: animals, so far as we can see, are unaware of time, untroubled. Time is their natural environment. Why do we sense that it is not ours? C. S. Lewis…asked how it was that I, as a product of a materialistic universe, was not at home there. “Do fish complain of the sea for being wet? Or if they did, would that fact itself not strongly suggest that they had not always been, or would not always be, purely aquatic creatures?” Then, if we complain of time and take such joy in the seemingly timeless moment, what does that suggest? It suggests that we have not always been or will not always be purely temporal creatures. It suggest that we were created for eternity. Not only are we harried by time, we seem unable, despite a thousand generations, even to get used to it. We are always amazed at it – how fast it goes, how slowly it goes, how much of it is gone. Where, we cry, has the time gone? We aren’t adapted to it, not at home in it. If that is so, it may appear as a proof, or at least a powerful suggestion, that eternity exists and is our home.” – Sheldon Vanauken
C.S. Lewis said, “Die before you die. There is no chance after.” He also said:
“These things – the beauty, the memory of our own past – are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself, they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.”
I think these dead guys understood.