Homesick for a Place That Has Never Been Home

According to my countdown, I have roughly 53 days until I am back in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

The days can't fly by fast enough.

I'm heading back for two weeks in September, meeting up with my dear friend, Kristen.  We will spend the first week roaming the Tetons and Yellowstone, making our way from Jackson on up to Bozeman, Montana.  I then put her on a plane back to the East Coast while I stick around another week and hang out in Idaho for a couple of days, and then back to Jackson for the duration.  I fell head over heels in love with that corner of the world, and I don't think a single day has gone by since I got back that I haven't thought about Wyoming.  It captivated me in such a compelling and profound way, maybe more so than any other place in the world I've been to.  And I've been to my fair share of places.  

Isn't it curious, the places we have maybe never been to, or have visited only once, yet they still manage to beckon to us some like sort of Siren from the pages of Odyssey?  

I felt that way about Kenya for the longest time.  This strange, inexplicable attraction to it, even as a child.  I didn't fully understand it - and still don't - why I felt such a pull to that country, why I felt such an urge to hop on a plane and fly halfway around the world.  After I made the first trip and came home, I couldn't get the country off my mind.  I thought about that place incessantly, and did so nearly every day until I returned two years later. I felt like every waking moment was filled with a deep longing to return some day.

I feel that way now about Wyoming.  Like a homesick feeling.

Only Wyoming has never been home.

I think we all have those places, those corners of the world where we just feel like we belong, like we're coming home even though we know it's not really our home and never has been.  Maybe for you it's the secret hiding place at the park down the way.  Maybe it's the coffee shop around the corner.  Maybe it's the far reaches of some country so remote that it takes you two days, four planes, one bus, and one canoe to get there.  Maybe it's your favorite aunt's kitchen table two states away.  Wherever it is, it's the one place where you feel settled, like a piece of you clicked into place, and no matter what's happening in the world, you know you are right where you should be.   

That tells me something.

What I feel for Wyoming - that homesick feeling for a place that has never been home to me - tells me that I'm not meant for this world.  It tells me there is something buried deep inside of me - in all of us, really - that pokes at my heart, saying, "Hey - don't get too comfortable.  You don't really belong here.  This was never meant to be your home."  I think the longing we have for the places that have never been home to us are indicators of a larger story being told, one that speaks of eternity.

In Sheldon Vanauken's book A Severe Mercy, he exchanged a series of letters with famed Christian theologian and apologist, C.S. Lewis.  They were discussing the concept of time, reflecting on this idea that we were not meant to call this earth home:

C.S. Lewis asked how it was that I, as a product of a materialistic universe, was not at home there. 'Do fish complain of the sea for being wet? Or if they did, would that fact itself not strongly suggest that they had not always been, or would not always be, purely aquatic creatures?' Then, if we can complain of time and take such joy in the seemingly timeless moment, what does that suggest? It suggests that we have not always been or will not always be purely temporal creatures. It suggests that we were created for eternity. Not only are we harried by time, we seem unable, despite a thousand generations, even to get used to it. We are always amazed by it - how fast it goes, how slowly it goes, how much of it is gone. Where, we cry, has the time gone? We aren't adapted to it, not at home in it. If that is so, it may appear as proof, or at least a powerful suggestion, that eternity exists and is our home.

Homesickness is ultimately the fingerprint of God, embedding a longing for heaven deep within us.  Ecclesiastes 3:11 says, "[God] has also set eternity in the human heart."  When we're homesick - whether it's for the home we've known our whole lives, or for a place that we've merely seen pictures of, heck, even if it's a place that we have never fully identified, we just know there's something in us that longs for this unidentifiable place - we need to acknowledge it's just a symptom of a deeper sentiment:  we don't belong here.

You better believe I'm going to keep counting down the days until I am back on a plane and winging my way back to Jackson.  My new favorite quote as of late is from John Muir, "The mountains are calling, and I must go."  Every time I look at pictures from Jackson, my spirit groans within me, I just want to be there already.

The mountains are calling, and I must go.  But I'll let the longing for those mountains serve as a reminder:  This has never been home.  And never will be.        

Dear Younger Me

I recently finished reading the book I Don't Wait Anymore by Grace Thornton.  It messed with me - and continues to do so - in all sorts of good ways.  I began following her blog years ago, after a friend of mine had sent me a link to a post of Grace's that went viral, which also is where she gets her book title.  It is hands-down one of the single greatest treatise I've ever read on singleness and reflects my own sentiments. 

In her book, Grace posed the question to a friend, "If you had the chance to go back, what would you tell yourself, the college girl from ten years ago who thought she knew what life was about?"

Her friend, Amy, responded, " 'If I could go back, I would say, ‘Amy, that pathway to holiness, that journey to truly deep faith is a lot narrower than you think. And it starts, continues, and ends with a definitive love for the Word of God. I want you to know that what you love now is not really the Word. What you love is what other people tell you about the Word.  You love emotion and worship songs and books about God and the social aspect of church in college. But you do not love his Word. Not yet. That takes discipline and study and sacrifice. But you’ll get it.'"

Me, on the left, ten years ago, while living in Russia

for a summer

Amy's story is my story. All these things I thought I knew when I was in college.  I thought I knew Jesus then.  I thought I knew his Word, knew his people, knew what community and church and prayer and following him meant. 

I am learning more and more every day that I have absolutely no stinkin' clue about any of those things. 

So, to the me ten years ago? I have a few words for you...
 
Dear younger me:

You think you know Jesus.  And you think it's enough to live on yesterday's manna.  You still haven't figured out yet how to eat that manna every day, to gather it fresh, like God had instructed the Israelites while they wandered around the desert.  And every day you wonder why you just can't seem to pull it all together, why you can't seem to live in victory.  You wear your self-sufficiency like a badge of honor.  But it's that badge of honor that is costing you a more intimate relationship with Jesus.  Your independent streak robs you of knowing what it's like to depend fully on Him.  You have made picking yourself up by your bootstraps your higher calling instead of forgetting both the straps and the boots and deciding that trusting Jesus is a holy calling.  This is not the Girl Scouts and Jesus doesn't give out merit badges for people who decide they don't need him.  That's what hell is for.        

You let your insecurities rule you, and more often than not you choose to believe the lies over the truth. You've got to do double-time to defeat the schemes of the Enemy.  Take captive every thought and give it over to Christ, time and time and time again.  Get up, and do it again the next day and every day thereafter.  The Enemy will never relent, so neither can you.  Don't live in the discouragement, and don't spend so much time dwelling on all the things you got wrong, or should have said or done differently.  Reliving the past and hitting the replay button in your mind isn't going to do you any good.  Accept the grace given to you.  I know, grace feels awfully scary and uncertain.  You feel the need to earn whatever it is you're seeking, and grace feels like a handout, like you're being let off the hook.  It's not.  It's the scandalous love of a Savior who has repeatedly said, "My grace is sufficient for you."  You prove nothing by believing you are above or beyond this free gift.  

And that boy you thought you loved?  Let him go, sooner rather than later.  And close the gap between expectations and reality.  Those expectations will get you in to trouble if you don't deal with them.  Trust me, you don't want to spend the next seven years of your life wondering if he's going to show up on your doorstep and tell you what an idiot he was for letting you go.  He's not going to do that.  And that's okay.  Jesus has a better story coming.      
   
Embrace the introvert in you.  But don't let it become the justification for not engaging in the world around you.  Take chances and pursue the people, the strangers, the neighbors, the family around you.  You have much to learn from others, and they each have a story to tell.  Take time to listen well to the stories being told around you that are going unspoken.

Be quick to deal with your sins and your pride and your self-righteousness.  They are ugly things, those things that go unconfessed.  It's just easier to deal with them right away rather than letting them take root and become numb to your own depravity. 

You fixate and worry about all of the wrong things.  Either Jesus is who he says he is, or he isn't.  Make it a conscious choice every day to believe Him.   

Lastly, get over yourself. Fix your eyes on Jesus and life will get a whole lot easier.

P.S. Those black Chinese mesh slippers you love? Do yourself a favor and go ahead and buy them in bulk.  You'll wander 6 different countries with them, so just stock up now.      

Oh, and dear future me:
You've got a thick head, so I'm pretty sure you're still going to be learning these lessons in 10 years.  See above.