Right Here, Right Now, Without Regrets

Someone called me a wanderer the other day, and although it was a joke there is some truth to it. As I write, it is Spring Break, and I have spent the week at three different homes consecutively. It does not seem strange to me until I compare it with other people's breaks where they go home... and do whatever it is people do when they go to that place. 

When people learn of my background as a missionary kid they often feel compelled to ask me where my home is and, invariably, I respond with something polite. "Oh, well, I don't exactly have a home" or "College has really been like a home for me." These are said blithely, though, more for the sake of the other person. What I really want to do is laugh and cry and shrug helplessly before saying, "If I knew where or what home was don't you think I'd be there?"

From the perspective of someone who loves sounds, the word "home" is lovely to say. When spoken properly, the long "o" meets the "m" in a warm sound, and the silent "e" at the end causes the lips to part. In effect, saying "home" can put someone that much closer to smiling. As a musician and a writer, I love this word simply because it is pleasant and easy to say.

However, clearly there is something deeper to my reaction. A broad definition of this word is "a dwelling place used as a permanent residence for an individual or family." I do not have this. I have not had this for a long time. I have only a memory of the one I left behind in Brasil when I graduated. From the perspective of someone who loves meanings and the deeper nature of words, then, the word "home" is harder to love because it is something that constantly eludes me. In the words of Sam Kelly, "You will never chase again/The sunlight through the leaves/ And you will never find/ Your way home." When I think about the word "home", I think about never being able to find my way back.

I am not alone in my confusion. I hear this longing in my siblings' voices and in see it in my MK friends' faces and actions. We try to be brave. We insert ourselves into families and in time become surrogate members, and it helps, but then that one song comes on and the ache is there again. Or I think I'm past it, really past it, and suddenly I have a real conversation after weeks of shallowness and I suddenly remember having a home meant I could come back to a house where I was challenged, fed, and loved. Home was the one place I could run to and hide if I needed. More often than not, that seems like a dream.

The fact is, I am angry when I think about home. Angry because I thought I would get over this desire for one. Angry because other people have what I so desperately want and yet they take it for granted. Angry because no matter how many times I try to change my definition to include where I am at right now, no matter how many times I keep reminding myself that my true home is in Heaven with God, no matter how many times I tell myself to ''just get over it'' I still feel saudades, the homesickness. The ache for what I had and for all the people I have ever loved never fully departs. Likewise, the anger I feel about not having a home is still there. Sometimes, when I'm out driving with friends and I feel the saudades coming on I want to shout, "Why? Why can't I stop feeling this way?"

There is the temptation to wallow in this grief, to assume that I am special and different from everyone else. I am not, though. I am still an ordinary person, even if my experiences are not average. The commandment "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself" still applies to me. And Jesus has promised to be with me. That is truth, and my grief still exists in the face of it.  I used to think that in order to be a good Christ follower I had to ignore all of the frustration and anger I felt and still feel about not having a home, about always being away from my family, about always feeling and taking on everyone else's sadness. I don't. But wallowing in it is not the way to go. The commandment is to love others as I would love myself. For me, the girl who still longs for home, that means helping others feel at home when they are with me. That means hugging them the way my Mom hugs me, and looking after them when they are sick. That means letting them into my house and listening to them until 1 in the morning, and crying with them when classes and life and the relationships we thought would work don't. That means praying for them before I go to sleep. I must love and obey the God who has given me this life, even if I do not understand it and especially when I do not understand Him. There is no "but" in obedience, and there are rarely explanations for our lives on this side of Heaven. I know that He is faithful. I hold fast to the promise that not having a home can be part of His continuing a good work in me.

I am a wanderer. I don't know where I belong except for right here, right now, without regrets.