Being Home

"How is it, being back?" Many people asked me this question during my few months home this past summer -- my downtime bridging two years of teaching in Madrid. A quick and light reply of "great!" was always given. Sometimes, depending on whom I was talking to, I would provide more insight and confess that being home made me realize what I had been living without for the past year. That I had had more days of compromise than I had realized at the time. That, suddenly, once I was home, I felt like a cactus in the midst of a deluge. The moment I stepped off the plane, my soul was being restored and nourished.

Being home put me into what I call "sponge-mode", leading me to soak up and contain in my heart all the embraces, Sunday dinners, and conversations with loved ones. All those moments alone, driving slowly in my car with the windows down, talking to or, sometimes, just listening to God. Soaking in all those moments I felt the loving reassurance of being surrounded, once again, by people who know me (while, in Spain, the longest someone has known me is a year).

Everyday my mantra was "Never again will I take these things for granted." I volunteered to drive to the grocery store. I let the dog lick my face. I picked my sister up from school and drove her to art, hoping for a chat. I watched sunsets in a hammock by our pool, hands grasping a book to my chest, beaming as the sun sank away for a few, short hours. The day's end was never sad. I always knew the night held a different type of light, a net of stars cast for my wonderment. A moon to illuminate our farm until the sun reappeared. I took it all in, all the light, all the love. For two months, my heart soaked.

Then it was that dreaded day... a day of tearful goodbyes, a long, uncomfortable plane ride, and, as if by the hand of the executioner who flips the switch, it became a day of feeling absolute disconnect. I was no longer home. Later, on my way back to my apartment, I laid my head back and absorbed the metro's vibrations as I stared ahead at my reflection, consumed by the tunnel's darkness. I was back, and I felt utterly alone.

And that word -- "felt" -- is very important, I now understand. Because I wasn't.

I was never alone. I never am. And I never will be.

My heart's prayer for the past few years has been this: to let myself be romanced by God and to see Him in everything around me. In every person's eyes. In every leaf falling to the ground at my feet. That I might have an ever-present sense of wonder. To understand, more and more each day, that I am alive. I am held by Him.

After that seemingly-endless metro ride, I sat in a Starbucks half-listening to the dear friend who had met me at the airport, and I observed the hustle and bustle in the streets below. I hated it. I hated being back, I hated flippin' Starbucks because it was American but I wasn't in America, and I hated that all I wanted to do was cry in a dark, closed room. I hated that I suddenly wasn't enjoying life. So, I went back to my apartment with the full intention of soaking in my misery.

My flatmates had a different plan. I spent all day (since this day was longer than 24 hours) somehow awake, laughing and talking with friends, new and old. Way to mess up my plan!

The first few weeks continued to be rough, but my flatmates never failed to be that sunshine I was missing. At night, I sometimes sat on my tiny balcony and craned my neck, wishing for the twinkle of one star or a glimpse of the moon above the buildings and through the smog. Then I would know God loved me. That He hadn't forsaken me.

School started, and with that, my prayer -- my heart's desire -- was answered.

Do you understand the love of a child? Because I don't. It baffles me every day.

I'm bewildered every time I walk down the hall and a chorus of children call out my name. I'm still surprised when they fly up from their seats and run to me the second I've walked through the door. And they hug with no intention of letting me go. They are little cling-ons, tilting their heads back to grin up at me as they squeeze me tighter than before. I'm talkin' six year olds and sixth graders at the same time! Boys hugging me like they'd hug a mother. Older girls stroking my hair, telling me I'm lovely. An entire class of third graders who, each day, throw down their pencils to run and almost knock me down with their powerful embrace.

This love is amazing. It's so freely given and beautiful.

I see Christ all around me.

Sometimes, it makes me want to go into that dark, closed room, and cry until I understand it. Just let me understand this love, then I can go out and share it! Other times, it makes me so giddy, I feel like one of them. A carefree child.

Yesterday, while taking a group of third graders out of class to watch a video on the skeletal system, a girl slipped me a hoop of pink paper. "For you, teacher." The past week, the girls of 3B had discovered that zipping scissors down a ribbon of paper would make it curl. Soon, this mania had to be stopped. I assumed this rebel curl was one she had just made on the sly. When I started to pocket the paper, the girl cried out, "No, no! It's a, uh... anillo!" A ring. A ring that said, "Debon is beutiful." She watched with great satisfaction as I pulled it back out of my pocket and slipped it on my ring finger. Then she took my hand and led me back to the group. These children don't know how close I was to crying as I pointed out a model skeleton's femur and patella. My heart was swelling again, the Grinch scale being popped wide open. Boing!

What I'm coming to understand is, I'm always home, even when I'm not in my childhood home. I can be at home with Him, and know He is always sheltering me, even when I feel so far away from all I know and love. I understand now that I can be a sponge wherever I go because His love abounds, in me and around me. I may feel a certain way, but that doesn't mean it's my reality. He is always reminding me, I'm a new creation. His mercies are new every morning, and I can't even use up His daily portion. I'm not a cactus, storing a supply of love until the next rain. I have it within me, the wellspring of life (Proverbs 4:23).

It's so nice to be back, or rather, understand I never left. I never can.