Homesickness

Definition of terms...

"sickness" - unwellness, abnormal condition, disease, illness

"home" - hard to define, but I think of it as where I am loved most, and where I love to be

It's hard to define home these days. I mean, I spent the first 18 years of my life in one home, on one street, in one small little town in Wyoming. Then five of the last seven years in Michigan, but a break with two in Colorado. And Colorado is where most of my near family lives.

So when I feel homesick now, it's the strangest and most disorienting feeling. I long for something that I feel I'm unable to define or grasp, yet the longing remains. It's like a strange sensation of missing out on something, without being able to even truly feel sensible of what that something is. If that's not vague enough, then I haven't aptly described my feeling of homesickness. I want to be near my family, yet am utterly certain I live and am where I'm supposed to be.

My dad told me the other day on the phone, "Remember, this is not where you want to be.... but it is the path to take to get where you want to be." I think that's true. It's just such an odd balancing act of sacrifice and self-denial. On the one hand, family is the most important thing to me; on the other hand I have to give up being near them in order to pursue the calling of medicine. So I'm left feeling this murky sensation of floating, being confident my direction is right, but disoriented without my family there. Wow, that makes me sound so lost, doesn't it?! I know God is with me, no doubt about that. Yet even with wonderful people around (like my 'family' here in Michigan - the Olsons), I feel homesick. Maybe it's a longing for heaven. I don't know, but the feeling rolls over me like tides, and right now it's high tide.

Lecrae has a great rap song about feeling alien as a Christian in this world, called "A.L.I.E.N.S." 'Strangers in places, foreign in lands that we are in, call us peculiar but know that WE ARE ALIENS....' Good tune, check it out.

"A - A whole notha kind of folks, kinda slowBut we gotta go cause the world's so Ill

L - Livin' the life and livin' it rightAnd livin' for Christ and that's real in the field

I- Intelligent but irrelavent without ChristIt's nothing but another sin element

E- Eternal Purpose, without it this earth is dead and worthless

N- Never stop giving Him PropsGiving Him praise now until the end of our days

S- Seek Him and please Him and let the people know that they need Him

Aliens! New Creations, new free agents, ain't signed to sinWhat the world do, we don't doCause we wanna do what the Lord does; Christ within our systemListen our mission's the Great Commisssion, we come here to represent HimThat's why we call ourself Christianans, Ha, Let me spit another lineFor the Plumbline and the Frontline one time on the front lineskeep holdin' it down for all the pilgrimsAll over the world representing for the bloodline"