In a few short hours, I'll be heading to the airport to begin my 24+ hour journey back to America. It has been a long, short, amazing, fulfilling 6 weeks, and I can't believe they're over.
I miss my friends and family back home, but Kenya feels like home, too. Home is Beaver, Pennsylvania, and Fairfax, Virginia, and Kiserian, Kenya. Home is where my biological family is, and home is where my friends-who've-become-family are. Home is all of these places, but home is none of these places. I'll never feel whole because I'll never have all of the pieces of my heart in the same place at once. At least on this side of eternity.
God promises us that he's preparing a place for us--my passport says my citizenship is in America, but God says my citizenship is in heaven. I'm a stranger in a strange land no matter where I am on this earth. In the Old Testament, the Jewish people spent a lot of time in exile from Israel. They were forced from the Promised Land into Babylon, where they never felt at home, either. They would write psalms to remember their true home:
"By the rivers of Babylon we sat down and wept
when we remembered Zion...
How can we sing the songs of the Lord while in a foreign land?
If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
may my right hand forget its skill.
May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth
if I do not remember you,
if I do not consider Jerusalem my highest joy."
-Psalm 137:1, 4-6 (NIV)
Though I long for Kenya while I'm in America, and I long for America while I'm in Kenya, that longing should pale in comparison with the longing I should feel for my true home. And my true home in heaven is where I'll finally be able to visit with my family from all over the world at the same time in the presence of Jesus, and THEN I'll finally feel whole. But until then, I'll be spending a lot of time crying in airports, longing to feel whole.
Until I die, I'll sing these songs
On the shores of Babylon
Still looking for a home in a world where I belong
Where the weak are finally strong
Where the righteous right the wrongs
Still looking for a home in a world where I belong
-Switchfoot, "Where I Belong"
