Where the Heart Is

I can hardly believe that in a little over 2 weeks I will be back in the land of rainforests, sunshine, and all things tropical. I can’t think of this place that represents home to me without tears coming to my eyes and my heart heaving a little sigh.

There is a word that simply can’t be translated into English, and translators claim it is completely unique to the Portuguese language. “Saudades” – it is more than just missing – it’s missing something or someone so much that it physically hurts. It conveys nostalgia, memory, loss, and longing all at the same time. “Saudades” is the only word I can think of that even comes close to describing what comes over me when I think of home.

2.5 years is so much longer than I ever planned to be gone. My plans are always subject to change, and God had a few other ideas in mind for me these past 28 months. It’s hard to believe that on those days that homesickness threatens to overwhelm me, or when I would kill to get my hands on some authentic Brazilian food that all those times my plans were changed was for the better. On my more clear minded days though I have to acknowledge that it couldn’t have been any other way. The things that God has taught me through all the trail and heartache bound up in the past couple years have changed my life forever, and I have to believe they have changed me for the good.  I wouldn’t change it even if I had the chance. Funny how that works.

It’s been strange for me to see how much of my identity was bound up in the place I lived. I feel like over the past months and years God has slowly been stripping me of my identity in anything but Himself. It hurts, and at times it’s utterly confusing and frustrating. But the furnace is really the best place to be – because it’s only through fire that gold is refined – at least that’s what my Bible tells me. I used to refer to certain places I had been as ‘the furnace.’ I recognized them as places where God had dismantled yet another layer of me replacing is with Him.  Now I think the furnace grew wheels and follows me around. Life with Jesus is just one enormous refining process.

…but anyway back to what I was saying before. Lately I’m beginning to see a couple particular ways God’s been working. One of them is how it took two and a half years for God to help me realize my identity is not my Brasilian upbringing, really that’s not really my home.  When I’m there I know I’ll miss it here. And when I’m here I miss other places and people too.  If there’s one thing I feel like I’ve learned throughout this seemingly eternal wait to go home it’s that I will NEVER make it home on this earth.

“But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ”

I feel “saudades” for a place that I’ve never been. How is that possible? I’m not sure – but I know that heaven is where I belong and until I get there this urge to travel, to re visit the places I’ve been, to wander will never subside. Now there are other reasons I enjoy all those things too – don’t get me wrong, but I just have this embedded feeling in my soul that that thirst will only ever be quenched once I’m in heaven with my Savior. Why would I ever want to leave a place like that for somewhere else? I will be home.

It’s a long journey to get there – it’s been long already, and I don’t know how much road lies before me. But in the meantime I have life, and that abundantly (john 10:10). Recently my Daddy in heaven gave me something really special – a round trip ticket to the closest thing I have on earth to a home: Benevides, Para, Brazil. I didn’t expect this gift. In fact I wasn’t even planning on being able to return for at least another six months. But once again god knew better. He knew it was time. He knew I wouldn’t be able to take being gone any longer. He knew I would need a light at the end of the tunnel of this semester. He just knew, and He did something about it. I have the best Father in the universe.  I do a little happy dance inside when I think about the fact that of the 841 days between my departure and scheduled arrival there remain only 18. Eighteen. Dezoito. Tizennyolc. That’s it.

I can’t wait. Can you tell? I can’t wait to run barefoot in the downpour of Amazonian rain. I can’t wait to climb the trees in my backyard and eat those fruits that don’t even exist here. I can’t wait to speak the language only a handful here understand. I can’t wait to drive down those red dirt roads, turn the corner and see my house. I can’t wait to let the toads and crickets sing me to sleep at night. I can’t wait for the electricity to go out so I can run out side and see the stars look like all the pictures from my astronomy class. I can’t wait to climb the dunes at the beach with my family again.  Oh thank you Lord for giving me these memories, these experiences. Thank you for taking them away from me to give them back again, for however short a time. I can’t believe it’s actually happening, but it is, and it’s almost here.

Two weeks, four days and 19 hours to go till landing.