Some Things I'm Learning

Alright, alright, I admit it. After all my traveling to different countries and being away at University, etc. I am finally, maybe for the first time, experiencing...

homesickness

I honestly never thought it would happen to me. I mean, when I am away from home I usually realize some things that I really appreciate about where I come from. But apart from that I have always been too busy with where I am away from home to be too homesick.

But, as always, God has come and met me in the midst of my very first bout of homesickness--just like He always does, and like I never quite expect Him to (if I'm honest). For instance, as I have been missing home, God has been confronting me with questions about my life and about my idea of "home."

I led a devotion for the staff here about a week ago, and the topic that I felt like I should share came out of one of my biggest "fears" in life: settling down and living in one place for "the rest of my life." Recently, God's prompting to me has come out of Nehemiah's story in the Bible. How his city was in destruction. People were broken. The city wall was broken. And Nehemiah's first response to all this news of brokenness was to sit down and to weep before God. As I thought about my fear of staying an undetermined amount of time in one place I thought that maybe a deeper fear I have is that then I would see the broken places. See beyond the surface of the drug scene in Santa Cruz. Begin to see the individual lives that are falling apart. See a city that I love without my rose tinted lenses of being a continent away and longing to be home. There's a lot more in Nehemiah's story that is speaking to me right now (if you want to hear more email me for the sake of this already really long blog). And through it all, God is asking me if I am willing to go somewhere (home or not) and stay put for a while. He is asking me if I, like Nehemiah, am willing to see the broken places and to mourn over them--with Him. And, like Nehemiah, if I am willing to take my sorrows over that place and move to action in an effort to restore that place.

Part of me says, "yes! I would love to move back home and to really get connected there, lay down some roots and see how God will use me. I am willing!" While another part says, "I love Santa Cruz, but my heart is beating more for the poor areas of the world." Still another part says, "I would love to move back home--as long as I can still wear the rose colored glasses and not get too close to the brokenness." So, God is speaking to me about home. And, I think He will continue to reveal things to me while I am here in Austria. And, to be honest, it has been hard being here. Nothing like what I did in Mexico. I loved the ministry there, and feel disconnected from the ministry here. But even in that God is revealing things to me. Like, what types of ministry I don't want to do long term. While I am thankful for the direction, I have also been asking Him why He has me here so long though when I seem to know already that this ministry is not the one for me... I guess we'll see!

One more cool way God has worked recently: the other day I was feeling a bit down and just asked God if He would send me a friend. I was on the campus here and thought that maybe I'd see a student sitting outside or a staff member to chat with. But nobody was really around. So I came in to my computer and got on facebook. Then, not a minute after I was on facebook, one of my really close lifelong friends got on and sent me a message. I was excited to hear from him, but didn't think anything of it until the end of our conversation when I remembered my prayer and told him that I had prayed for a friend and God had given me him. Then, this friend of mine told me that about 5 minutes before we talked he had prayed the same prayer! I think this is so incredible and awesome how God works in such small, but significant ways. And I was only thinking of myself when I prayed for a friend. But God used the situation to show that He is caring very specifically for me and for this friend of mine. To me it was a real blessing too, because God could have given me a conversation with a student here who I don't know that well. We could have talked about the weather. Or about a recent lecture. Which would have been good and an answer to prayer still the same. But God always chooses something better than I can think. He gave me a friend that knows me well. A friend that knows where I come from (healing the homesickness).

Cliff notes version of this blog entry and of my status in Austria:

God is good and so much bigger than I can begin to understand.