My Heart

Sara is finally home! Yesterday I was getting dressed...had picked out my shirt, went to the laundry room to get my skirt, & saw my Swazi shirt. I really felt like I needed to wear it. So, I put it on instead & minutes later got a text from Sara saying she was home!

I know how hard it is to come home after having been with the same people for months - living together, serving together, worshiping together, praying together. The time that I've felt this ache the most was when I came home from San Antonio the summer after my freshman year. I'd been there for two & a half months doing children's ministry with 30 other summer missionaries. They had become my family. The kids I spent day after day with had become my kids. I remember sitting on the plane to come home & just crying thinking that nothing would ever be the same again. I was right. I'm not the same. I'm better.

My problem wasn't just that I was going to miss the kids. I was. But more so, I worried about them. When I was there, I knew they were okay. If nothing else, I was their advocate. I knew that they were eating at least once or twice a day. I knew that they were getting attention. That they were prayed for. That they were hugged. I knew that they were seeing what little bit of God's love that I could show them everyday.

Talking to Sara made me think about all this again. I still think about my kids all the time. I could still tell you all of their names. I still get letters from a few of them occasionally. And I still miss them terribly. I had to realize that by leaving, I was truly placing them in God's care & that that was way better than anything that I could ever do for them. I have to trust that He can love them better than I can, feed them better, teach them better.

So tonight as I was thinking about this, I imagined how it must have been for Jesus to go back to Heaven after He'd been on earth for some thirty years. Just as I was excited to go home, you know He was excited to go back to Heaven. I mean...it's Heaven. But it had to have been bittersweet. He was leaving a ministry that He'd invested in for His entire life. The human part of Him had to trust that His Father's plan was perfect.

"I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud & mire; he set my feet on a rock & gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see & fear & put their trust in the Lord."
-Psalm 40:1-3

"My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me."
-Psalm 63:8