Now that I know...

Now that I know that at least 2 sweet people are reading this blog (thanks Ashley and Elise!!) I will post the thoughts I put down on paper when I was in a very pensive mood a couple of weeks ago....not doing homework. Here goes....

I'm not quite sure what this feeling is. No, it's not love, it has nothing to do with anyone but me. It's an internal yearning, to break out my passport and fly somewhere. Experience something new. It's almost surreal, this feeling. I've had it before, but only when I knew that what I was experiencing at that time of life was only temporary. Like when we would come to the States for vacation or furlough. I knew what was happening was only for a little bit, and that soon I would be returning to my normal life in Guatemala or Nicaragua. It's the same kind of feeling, too, that I would get when I was on the last drive to the airport knowing that that bit of highway was the last I'd see of the US for a while. This sensation is the one I've gotten the last few years a little while before I've been about to travel to Guatemala for a few weeks in the Summer or at Christmas. It's like a final taking in of what's around me so that I can remember everything when I want to return to that moment later on when I'm not liking my current situation. It's almost a feeling of freshness, of knowing that something will soon come to an end, but that something new will soon begin. I want to know if I'm the only one who has ever felt this way before, or if others get this sensation, too. Is it because my temporary life which is full of temporary chapters will soon become a life of permanence in one way or another? With this feeling, my mind has been flooded with small, random memories of moments in my life, but I feel like, for an instant I'm back in that place at that time doing that thing with that person. Am I not accepting my current circumstances? Am I wishing for a time gone by? Am I longing for something I used to have that I will never have again?

I know that soon this college chapter of my life will close and God will take me to a new place, surrounded by new people, experiencing new things. I'll never be that barefooted little blond girl running up and down the only road that cars could go on in that village on the side of a mountain in Guatemala. But that child will always be a part of who I am today, and will have a big impact on who I become. No one will ever know that sassy seventh-grader that I once was, claiming the attentions of many boys in Nicaragua. But the memory of those years will always stick out in my mind as the best in my life, for I did well in school and had lots of friends...until I became that "neutral" new girl in the school I wouldn't have wished to finish high-school at. The pain of the rejection I faced the final three years of my pre-college education will always haunt me and cause me to naturally not want to impose my company on anyone, though people normally enjoy it. I feel that because of that fear, I may not have lived my college life to the fullest socially, but I'm happy with the good friends I've had so far.

It may e the fear and uncertainty of the future that is what causes this sensation to come over me. It is definitely uncomfortable knowing that the soonest I might return to Guatemala is next Summer, and that this might just be the first 12 month period of my life when I have not used my passport for one reason or another. Knowing that the next time i do leave the country it will be for a mission trip to Honduras, and not even home to Guatemala, I'm not so sure how I feel about it. I mean, I love the Honduras trip, and I love serving and doing missions, but selfishly I want to return home to my house, my room, my bed...my youth. But my life will never be that way again. I'll never be back at that carefree place in my life where I can go people-watch in the park for hours on end thinking that moment will never end. Knowing that I need to savor every moment of everything I enjoy about my life is bittersweet. Why would I want to do something with the knowledge that this will be the last time I ever truly might experience this precious moment? Maybe God is trying to teach me something...maybe I should learn to search Scripture in light of the temporality of life. I know that my life is not my own, that Earth is not my home, but I also know that I have a purpose and that is to know honor Him in all I do, loving Him with every breath, knowing Him in light of all the situations I go through. Also, to make Him known to those with whom I come in contact. Living my life and enjoying it as something temporary, knowing that my place is in Heaven should cause me to strive for the enjoyment of what God has given me. After this, my life should, and will, never be the same.