I love Austin. I love my house and my family. I love laying on my couch watching a movie with my mom and dad. I love that there hasn’t been a second since I’ve been home that people haven’t been over. I love my mom’s cookies or brownies and my tia’s homemade salsa. I love Brentwood and the family that church has been to me for almost 20 years. I love that there are already bluebonnets on the green green side of the highway. I love that the rain cleared up today and I got to enjoy the real Austin weather that I know and love. I love Austin Stone. I love how I can go to that church with hundreds of college kids and praise my Jesus without holding anything back. I love walking out of Austin Stone and seeing downtown all lit up. I love downtown Austin. I love my home. I love it. I wouldn’t live anywhere else.
Before spring break, life at ACU was crazy. I was stressed out from school work and so ready to get home. And now I’m home and I love it. But I miss ACU. I miss my friends and I miss dorm life. I miss the atmosphere of the campus center and bean. I miss chapel and just the fun of college.
I miss Harding and my small group of friends there. I miss spending 24/7 with my HIZ family. I miss the relationships that are so deep, the people that truly care about my life and understand how I feel, and the simplicity of life when we lived together for 3 months.
I also miss Africa. Oh my goodness, I’d do anything to be there. I would get on a plane literally this second, by myself, with no returning flight, and go. I don’t care where I’d go or for how long, as long as I was going back to Africa. I want to walk into Haven 3 and have Matt, Bennett, and Nathan run up to me; I know I’d fall to the ground with tears in my eyes while I held them and laughed at those crazy crazy boys. I want to wrap my sweet Cathy up and never let her go. I want to sing in Tonga and wear chitenges. I want to smell that dirty smell of the beautiful, joyful Zambian people.
I wish I could be a hundred places at once. I wish I could be surrounded by everyone I know at the same time. I wish I could be here today and there the next. But I cant. God created us to be so adaptable. We talk about getting out of our comfort zone, but that “uncomfortable” place quickly becomes so comfortable. We so quickly begin to feel “at home.” Austin is my home, but I have a home and family in many different places on the Earth. Yes I miss Africa, Harding, ACU, Austin…but what a blessing that is. How blessed am I that I have people around the world that are my friends and that I miss?
“This world is not my home. I’m just a passing through.” I’m realizing more and more how so very true that song is. This world is not my home. I believe we’re made to long for the places and people that we aren’t with. I believe we’re made to wish we were somewhere else. One of my favorite songs says “maybe the reason for the world is to make us long for home.” There’s only one place where we can be with everyone we know at the same time and not miss another place….heaven. Heaven is our home. How can someone not have that longing to be there? How can someone not feel so desperate to get there and not long for home again? Goodness… I cant imagine the day when everyone I know is together in the presence of God. We get to bask in the glory of our all mighty Savior. We get to live together for eternity. How beautiful is that going to be? The more places I go, the more people I meet, the more and more I miss something…the more I long for heaven. Because there, and only there, am I able to fill every longing I have. There, and only there, am I finally able to stand hand in hand with people from Africa, ACU, Harding, and Austin and worship our one and only Creator.
