home.

Okay. It’s time to get vulnerable. Let’s talk about missing home.

During my first semester of college I didn’t really miss home. I think it was because I was caught up in the new experiences and people that I was meeting. However, once Christmas break came around, things changed. After a month of being around my [awesome] family, I realized that 4 months without seeing them was going to be rough-really rough. So I trekked back to college, more than 1,000 miles away. I began the countdown to the day my mom would come pick me up during the layover of my flight. Once I got back to school, the work commenced and friendships continued, however, home was still distant.

According to Google, which we know to be ever reliable (sarcasm included), homesickness is defined as:

“the distress or impairment caused by an actual or anticipated separation from home. Its cognitive hallmark is preoccupying thoughts of home and attachment objects.”

Now I’m not really sure how true this definition was for me, but I do know what I envision when I think of being homesick. It’s the aching feeling in your soul where you just want to see your family again-to laugh with them. Etc.

Quick side note, I’m not usually this way. Actually, I’m a really independent person. I never thought I’d be homesick during college. I love my family, but I also love new places and being able to meet new people. In fact, there have been times where I zone out about my family and reaching out to them. I guess that’s why being homesick sort of surprised me.

But now this post is getting depressing, and I didn’t want it to go there.

So let’s go to a different place-a place where God provided. Sure, this semester was full of counting down the days I got to go home, but it was also full of times where God taught me things when I felt distant.

The first was that my home is not a place-at least not on earth. Although I am a proud [perhaps to a fault] native of Minnesota, and I love my family, and my friends, God has taught me that after all of these things He is my home. Sometimes this is hard to grasp and I fight to accept it. I want something tangible to call my home-I want comfort. God pushes me to show me that He is always with me. To be cliché, He is my home.

I also believe that through learning this God is preparing me for something. I definitely don’t think that I’ll be able to be with my family for 100% of my life. That thought kinda sucks, but I also thirst for adventure and to be able to do something “big” for God. I think that this is just one of those things that God uses to challenge us to lean on Him and surrender our feelings to Him because at the end of the day God knows what’s going on and will weave it into our story that He has written.

Another of those things was His provision. I cannot begin to express the amount of gratitude I feel for those who made college feel a bit more like home. Families taking me in over breaks, friends being there for rough days, and just people to laugh with made home seem to shift a bit in my mind. I learned that although God pushes us to learn new things, He provides for those times where we may feel weak.

So here’s a quick post to remind us that God’s challenges are preparation for something in the future. In the midst of hardship, God provides. And finally, there will be a day when the hardships end and we are home with Him.

"Join together in following my example, brothers and sisters, and just as you have us as a model, keep your eyes on those who live as we do. For, as I have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body."

Philippians 3:17-21 (NIV)