Could it Be We’re All Just Homesick?

“Are you just a little homesick, honey?” my teacher asked. I was nervous and sad, and my stomach hurt, and I didn’t know why. But my veteran 5th-grade teacher had seen this before and quickly identified a case of “first day, middle school nerves.” Elementary school was a mile behind, not only in terms of physical distance but also in my mind. I’d been sweating bullets all summer, thinking about how I would fit in. Would I get picked on by the big kids? Did I have the right kind of clothes? How hard would the classes be? Would I even pass?

The Bermuda grass where I stood was sparse and brown, flattened by the herd of middle schoolers stampeding towards the lunchroom year after year. The grass hadn’t a chance, beat down day after day. Did I have a chance? I wondered. The bell for recess had just rung and reminded me of my mother’s words as she shoved me out the door that morning, “To make a friend, you must first be a friend”. “Okay”, I thought, “I’ll be a friend to someone”. I looked behind me to enlist the help of 2 friends from elementary school. They were also making this maiden voyage onto the playground’s blacktop, but they were nowhere to be found. Were they behind a shrub, waiting to see what would happen to me before they inched out? I was on my own. I stepped onto the gritty blacktop and scanned the horizon for someone needing a friend. Just beyond the basketball goals, I saw her. Standing alone, her stringy brown hair hung at her shoulders. Remnants of yesterday clung to the hem of her bell-bottom jeans that trailed the ground. Her eyes shrouded behind thick pop bottle glasses told me nothing. But it seemed this girl needed a friend, and I would be it. 

I marched up to her with confidence and a big smile. “Hi!” I chirped, fully expecting a warm response and a new lifelong friend. She said nothing, slowly looked me over for a minute, and then pressed her raggedy sneaker squarely on my new black and white striped Adidas. She looked down at me; I looked up at her. The sun blocking her head, left a ring of fire to light up her red hair. She sneered as she peered through the smudge on her glasses, “What ya gonna do about it, punk?” My skin prickled, and my heart dropped to my stomach with a thud. “What?” I thought, “How can she be so mean when I am so nice?” This girl is a bully.” It was clear I had misread her. I was stunned; I didn’t know if I should answer her first or go ahead and pee my pants. Before I could do either, she lifted her foot, spun around, and was gone.   Lessons learned that day: “Never judge a book by its cover”, “Always pack a second pair of underpants,” and “Not everyone wants to be your friend, punk“.” 

So, have you ever been homesick? Could it be that the deep ache you feel, the one you push aside, ignore, distract, deaden, is just homesickness? Have you a feeling that you can’t understand, a feeling you get when you stay still long enough to notice, the one you get but would rather not sit with, the feeling that causes you to work harder, play harder, try harder, sleep more, eat more, drink more, risk more, or protect more. 

Have you had that ache, gnawing in your stomach, that whistful feeling telling you that something isn’t quite right even though it is pretty much right…at least for this earth? It is strange to think that we can be in our very homes, with our families, pets, plants, or whatever, but we can still feel homesick. 

No matter how “perfect” life can be at times, we know “there must be more’ because we were made for more by our Creator. You already know from Genesis 3 about Adam and Eve living in perfection in the Garden of Eden and how the serpent suggested to them that they needed more, that they didn’t have it all, that they deserved more, and that God was holding out on them. They took the serpent’s bait and fell for the lie, gave into temptation, and that broke paradise. It broke paradise, created for Adam and Eve; it broke paradise for you and me where we were meant to live and to flourish. 

So now, for all of us, we have issues, the garden variety everyday issues and the big, “kick you in the gut’ issues. There are times when you can’t get ahead, “the thing” breaks again, when “password incorrect” pops up one too many times and now you are locked out for life it seems. There are times the bills keep piling up, the dream job you took turned out to be a nightmare, when your looks fade, or your spouse makes a trade, When your knees bag, your memory lags, when your stock plummets, when your kids take a wrong turn and never seem to learn, When someone you love dies and you still have to go on. Life just isn’t what you dreamt. We can go on and on about the imperfection, the really hard things, the unfair things, and the things that make us want to scream and curl up in a ball. We all want things to be better. We are humans, living as humans and with humans, in a state of imperfection. 

On this blacktop of life, when the grass has withered and the giants in the land tower over you, don’t take the serpent’s bait to give up and cower; be strong and courageous. God goes before you and behind you. He has made you for more than what you see going on right now. If you have invited Jesus to be King of your life, He will guide you.  You do not have to fix it for yourself.  Even on the days you are sure He has up and left, He is there.  He wants to walk with you side by side, day by day. For now, we each have a purpose. We can make a friend, be a friend, and smile at the days to come whether we get stepped on or not. Why? Because what we were made for is still coming. For now, we have beauty; we have hardship. We have both.  Sometimes, we have more than our share of one or the other. But one day soon, for the believer,  there will be an unbroken paradise where we will live, love, and be fully known.  One day, you will arrive and realize that you are finally home. 

Ecclesiastes 3:11 states, “He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”

James 4:14 states, “Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.”

Isaiah 43:2 When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.

2 Chronicles 16:9, “For the eyes of the Lord go to and fro throughout the whole earth, that He may strongly support those whose hearts are completely His.” 

Philippians 2:5-8, “In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross!” 

1. I photographed our son enjoying near perfection in Hawaii when he was 10. A decade later, he arrived home for real and is now fully known, loved, and living with Jesus in Heaven, in paradise, unbroken. ↩︎