Homesickness

“Our Father will refresh us with many pleasant inns on the journey, but he would not encourage us to mistake them for home.”
                                                          C.S. Lewis

I’ve been feeling homesick lately. It always seems to happen around this time of year. You’d think that the holidays would be the most difficult time to be away from home, but I’ve found that it’s the months following Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s that hit me hardest.

This homesickness is something that I have yet to fully understand, although I feel like God has recently given me some insight on the matter.

It’s a strange thing, because the feeling of homesickness doesn't go away when I’m “at home” in Ohio. There’s still always something missing. But what is it?

In Ohio I’ve got a big, amazing family, great friends, an awesome church, history, the privilege of enjoying four distinctly beautiful seasons, so many comforts, so many opportunities. Why shouldn’t I feel at home there?

Here in Costa Rica I really have no reason to feel so homesick either. I have been blessed to be able to meet and get to know so many wonderful people, many of whom have come to feel like family. I have an amazing boyfriend. I daily get to see the awesome works of God’s creation in ways that I would never see in Ohio. God’s allowed me to form a very small part of an effective ministry. Why shouldn’t I feel perfectly at home here?

Would anyone like to tell me?

Some might call it discontentment. Or maybe it’s just a “missionary problem”. Sometimes I feel like I’m just flat out crazy. Or maybe I’m not so crazy. Maybe this feeling is something normal, something people have been feeling for thousands of years.

"Each one of these people of faith died not yet having in hand what was promised, but still believing. How did they do it? They saw if way off in the distance, waved their greeting, and accepted the fact that they were transients in this world. People who live this way make it plain that they are looking for their true home. If they were homesick for the old country, they could have gone back any time they wanted. But they were after a far better country than that--heaven country. You can see why God is so proud of them, and has a city waiting for them."

                                                   Hebrews 11:13-16 MSG

Could this be something we’re all born with? Maybe whether we realize it or not, there’s something deeply ingrained in our souls that tells us there’s something more, something so much better than this.

Naturally we’re all looking for that unknown thing. We look for it in money, possessions, and power. We think we’ll find it when we finally have our “other half”. We search in seemingly good and fulfilling things like having a successful ministry, being active members in a good church, and surrounding ourselves with wholesome things and people. Well, let me be the first to tell you that it’s in none of those things. 

“They desire a better country…a heavenly one.”

I've come to the conclusion that this homesickness will be sticking around for a while (at least I hope it will!), and honestly I’m okay with that. But I know that someday it will end. Someday I’ll no longer be an exile in a strange land, but a permanent resident of that heavenly country. Someday I’ll be home. I long for that day, but if God still has me here then it must be for a good reason, and I fully intend to make the best of every moment that He allows me to walk this foreign land.