Denial

The inevitable is rapidly approaching. And I've been in denial.

How do you leave home, not knowing if or when you'll ever be back?

How do you leave family on the other side of the world, not knowing if or when you'll ever see them again?

It hurts. I don't know how else to describe it.

How can your heart be squeezed so much yet the tears just seem to puddle in the crevices of that squeezed heart rather than pouring out like you'd so like them to?

Up until this point, I've had the consolation of returning home once a month. But now I'm facing that final time home. I don't know when I'll be back. When I will ride public transportation through the city, gazing into the faces of lostness that God has burdened my heart for the last 2 years. When I will gaze on the beauty of the Indian Ocean with Krakatau in the background and beautiful clouds in the sky, all the while wondering how the people all around me could look at that and not seek hope in Him. When I will again feel the consuming dark spiritual oppression so thick that I feel like I could cut it with a knife. When I will laugh with my students who have become my friends. When I will hear about the harvest coming to these precious people.

I don't know. But what I do know is that I can trust Him.

He whispered to me this morning, "Rest in Me and rely on Me."

He told me I can say things like, "This sucks. This hurts. This is painful. I don't want to..." but that at the same time, I must remember that He's there, He's been there, He knows, He'll walk with me through it, and because of all of that, I can rejoice ALWAYS. Rejoicing seems a bit far from where I'm at right now, to be honest. But I can trust Him, and that is a beautiful thing. He is sovereign. He WILL bring the harvest to these people. He WILL continue to be my home, no matter where He takes me location-wise.

God, please hold my heart as I leave home. As you strip me of this temporary home, I pray you will make yourself become even more home to me than ever before.