going home

Emotions of enormous proportions were rising up in me last night. Matt and I were driving home after some errands, and I was thinking about our impending trip across the ocean as I gazed out the window. I couldn't help but feel, as I thought about returning to Thailand after an almost 19-month absence, that I was going home. I don't know quite why the thought was striking me so forcefully, so suddenly; but there it was, overwhelming me enough to cause tears in the corners of my eyes--the thought that in less than 3 weeks, I would be going home. Perhaps you've felt this feeling also--a feeling that doesn't quite compare to anything else in the world--that your heart will soon be where it belongs, or where it always has been, even if you've physically been elsewhere.

The months that I've been stateside have been…. overwhelming. So much has happened since flying back from Thailand on December 17, 2012, and I honestly don't think I've processed a lot of it. I arrived back to a "normal" American life, which I wasn't quite sure how to handle, and then life took about 27 sharp turns that I wasn't expecting, but I charged into them anyway. Now here I am--19 months later--married, stepping into new positions at work that I never envisioned, trying to figure out how to be a wife, an employee, a witness for Christ and His Kingdom, and live without the 4 women who have been my closest friends all my life. It's been…. challenging. And though I've had friends to help me through the changes, they've all happened so quickly that I don't think I've really worked through them. So then times happen like the one yesterday, when I finally take a moment to think about something in my life, and it hits me in a way I certainly didn't expect.

I have a feeling that the two weeks I will be in Thailand will be very emotional ones for me, so I would appreciate your prayers as I prepare. Pray for me that I actually would prepare my heart, because lately there hasn't been much of preparing anything except for dinner and rubrics. That probably makes no sense to you, but it's what consumes my life right now, and I'd like to get beyond it.

God is my shepherd. I won't be wanting.