It’s been just over three months since I got back from China. That trip was the first time I’d been out of the states since my junior year of college. (Entirely too long!!) And my first trip that wasn’t just traveling. It was traveling with purpose. I went because not going didn’t seem like an option.
Coming back home was nothing like I thought it would be & everything like my friends warned me it would be :) Endless questions. Processing that seems to simply spin me in circles. And an aching in my heart to go back. When I say I want, with everything that I am, to be here in Nashville doing exactly what I’m doing, & at the same time that I want, with everything that I am, to be “there”…somewhere on the other side of the world simply loving on people, I mean it. I know that may sound impossible, but it’s the best explanation I’ve got.
Being back home means living in the tension between here & there. Between community & justice. Between comfort & risk. It means loving what I get to do for a living my heart is breaking because I see the faces of those still in the darkness of unbelief flashing through my mind.
How does one live in this tension? What does that look like? I don’t know. I still ask myself that question every day. But in the meantime, I’ve learned to try and embrace it…most of the time. God gently refocuses me & reminds me that it’s not about me, about my processing, my time, my not understanding.
No, it’s all about Him. His plan. His time. His grace. His knowledge. His purpose. I’m learning that sometimes in order to prepare my heart for what He has next for me He may need to plant some questions..ignite some mystery. And if there’s anything tension does, it’s ignite mystery. A mystery that if I’m just willing to have a little patience, can be quite beautiful.
Have you learned to fight beauty in the mystery of tension?