Half-heartedly Home: Thoughts on heart, home, and hope.
I’ve been home for over three weeks now. I know, right? I can’t believe it either.
This is a hard post for me to write. All in all, this is not an incredibly happy post, so go ahead and lower your expectations. Right now, my time in Kazakhstan feels like a dream, like maybe it never happened. But then I look at my heart and try to feel it the way it felt when I lived in Taraz, and here at “home,” it’s just not all there anymore. Because, the thing is, I left a big part of my heart in that beautiful little Kazakh city, and ever since being home, I’ve been confused in trying to process and feel something about my time in Kazakhstan and this transition home. Maybe I’d describe it as unemotional, indifferent, numb. I think this is pretty normal way to feel when trying to digest the highs and lows of a year in a different place. Am I happy to be home for now? Sure am. But am I whole-heartedly home? Definitely not. Am I more than ready to head back to the ends of the earth? How’d you guess?
So. HOME:
Where is “home” really? I left my home in Kazakhstan to come to my home in West Michigan only to visit my home in Chicago. You know, they say “home is where the heart is.” My heart? It’s all over the world tonight. Kazakhstan, Michigan, Chicago—Home, Sweet Home. Anyway, regardless of where it is, MY HOME IS AWESOME.
And, HEART:
Fret not, friends. I have a heart. Sometimes, I think life would be easier with less of a heart—less of a heart to ache for my precious orphans without families, less to long for places and people I’ve left behind, less to break and split and shatter for the dear friends I have who have yet to make the best decision of their lives, friends who have yet to find the freedom found only in JC. But, having a whole heart—a heart that often hurts but just as often rejoices—reminds me of the urgency of the Word and of the need to spread love like wildfire. So, beat on little heart, beat like the insane, mysterious little organ you are. Beat like crazy for the lost, beat like mad for those who have yet to hear about the incredible freedom found in JC.
Finally, HOPE:
Hope of Hvn for those I had to leave in Kazakhstan…this is what brings me unexpectedly to tears, what keeps me awake at night, what occupies my mind during the day, what undoubtedly finds its way into the pryrs I’ve prayed constantly since returning 3 weeks ago—that G would find his way into the hearts and lives and families of every single person I left behind in Kazakhstan. FATHER, rule in their hearts, lay stake on their lives, give them joy and peace and happiness and a love that shines clearly of YOU.
Kazakhstan is the best thing I’ve ever done, the most challenging thing I’ve ever done, the most important thing I’ve ever done, the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done, the most knock-me-off-my-feet-and-open-my-eyes-and-change-my-life thing I’ve ever done.
This is how I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that G has called me back for a second year in Central Asia: HIS power has blown me OFF MY FEET.
And that’s what I’m still trying to process…that’s what I’m still trying to feel. So, I’ll get back to you.
Loving this verse right now:
“’I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory,’” says the [big guy upstairs]. Haggai 2:7
Amen, sista.
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