It's weird that only a week ago I was up in the mountains of Newara Eliya. We've only been home for 3 days, but somehow the tea fields and elephants and little healing hearts already feel like a past life...
I was so adamant that this trip would be more than just a cool experience in my life, yet my gut reaction is to put it in it's own little compartment in the back of my mind to be accessed only when it is convenient... all in an effort to be present in the present. It's working, and it's almost too easy. The thought of diving back into all of the memories and emotions that filled my life just 4 days ago is overwhelming, yet I still want those weeks to invade my present and my future.
At the same time, I look at a picture or watch a video and suddenly, life in Sri Lanka seems more real than the life I've been thrown back into here in La Mirada. How do I reconcile being in two different worlds almost simultaneously? How do I function at full capacity when half of my heart is still over there?
And so begins my (least) favorite part about cross-cultural experiences... processing. If home is where the heart is, then, at least for the moment, I am homeless.
Perhaps not homeless, but too many homes for one heart to grasp. You are loved more than you know in more places than you think.
ReplyDeleteNow, you will bring some of Sri Lanka with you to La Mirada; the worship, the love, the people, and the power of God. You are changed, and that will be evident.
I know that coming back from an experience where you actively being used by God can feel like treading water when you were swimming, but remember, treading water is not stopping, it is just swimming in one place for awhile.
I pray for you that you will feel the love of God and those around you strongly while adjusting to being back, that you won't feel empty, but full to overflowing with what God has done and will do in the lives of those whom you have touched in Sri Lanka and in your own neighborhood.
I love you and am so glad you are back.
Mom