A "homesick" TCK

I don't remember a lot about my childhood without the photographs and videos, but there are some things I remember. I remember fighting and making up with Devon while playing Barbies on the sidewalk. I remember making jello with my mom. I remember dancing around the living room to what ever music my dad had playing on the stereo. I remember making forts in the basement and sitting in them while playing games on the Play Station 1 with Janalyn and Travis. And I remember a lot of moments with my cousins Lexi and Ali. I wish I could more clearly remember a lot more than I do, but I feel like God has definitely picked out certain memories for me to remember because He knew that before I turned 9, I would no longer be making those same memories. He knew from the moment I entered the world that these would be precious moments to me.

 I remember my parents telling me we're moving to Indonesia and I said something along the lines of "What's Indonesia??" I had no idea what else was out there in the world. I lived in my own little world on 229 Sioux Ct. and thought nothing of countries that were on the opposite side of the equator. I'm kind of glad that I didn't know I would be moving to Indonesia until a few months before we moved. I think if I had lived in a mindset of "I'm leaving here someday," I may not have taken the time to make those memories or feel like that was "home". The last time I really felt like I had a home was probably the years building up to moving to Indonesia.

I have spent almost nine years of my life living in Indonesia. I don't know what I would call "home" or even if I could define the term home in a way that I can 100% agree with. But I saw this quote this morning, and it really captured how I feel.

"We are homesick for a place we have never seen and have never been...but are aching to go." - Jill Scifres

I love this place, the people, the community, and so much about it. I don't want to leave, but at the same time I'm itching to get to somewhere new. I've been accepted to Asbury, and I feel like I have a life waiting for me in America.  America is a country that I feel like a foreigner in, even though my passport claims otherwise. I'm homesick for a place I have never been, and I am aching to go. But, isn't that how Christians should feel about Heaven, too?

We're all foreigners here on Earth, no matter what we try to prove to ourselves or others. None of us were made for this place. Being a Third Culture Kid with no place to comfortably call "home," this has been a big thing for me (though I don't think on it nearly enough). We should feel homesick for Heaven - a place we've never seen and never been - and be aching to go! That is where we will finally feel at home. That is where we will no longer ache for any other place. We will be satisfied in Him.

Fellow TCKs, hang in there.