A long silence

My silence is not because I have no words.  Rather, I have far too many.  I am overwhelmed with words and thoughts, visions and memories.  Welling up inside me are words of fear, joy, sadness, grief, rebuke, anger, loss, gladness, confusion, excitement, uncertainty.  I can’t begin to process through all of these thoughts and emotions.  I cannot think clearly.

Today marks a month of being back in the US.  I cannot believe that.  Ethiopia fills my heart and mind still–I burst with words in Amharic that I cannot say aloud.  I think and dream of friends and staff and patients–I worry how people are, I wonder what’s going on.  People here say, “Welcome home!  Aren’t you glad to be back?” and in the second before I respond I am frustrated that I usually cannot say what I really want to say, “I feel as though I just left my home.  This, this does not feel like home yet.  So it is hard to be here”.

I don’t want to be misunderstood here.  There IS much joy to being here, to reconnecting with family and friends, to enjoying cappuccino chunky chocolate frozen yogurt, to worshiping with my home church, to having a car again, to independence and the ease of getting whatever you decide you need/want.  I don’t want to throw out all these good things as I acknowledge that this place is hard right now.

I guess I thought that somehow I could morph these two worlds more easily.  But they are so incredibly separate.  It is not just the 10,000 miles and the ocean that separate them.  The whole way and focus of life is different.

It’s hard to come back and actually live through everything having changed.  I knew that people had gotten married or moved away or just moved on–but until now I haven’t had to live life with those changes being a present reality.  It’s particularly difficult to come back to a place that I used to belong in, used to have a niche in.  There are still people and things I love dearly here–but my place is gone.  I currently have no job, no home of my own, no knowledge of where I am moving . . . in short, life feels incredibly out of control.  Out of my control, that is.  When I think of stability, of belonging, the earthly place my thoughts go to is Addis Ababa.  I have a home, a job, friends, a community there–a place of belonging.  Now I’ve left that place physically, and I don’t doubt that for the next few years I am called to live in the US, to pursue grad school and grow in the gifts I have been given.  But daily I still have to emotionally and mentally sorrow for the loss of Ethiopia and choose to BE here in this new place of calling.

Even as I wrestle through all of these thoughts and emotions, I feel the heavy burden that in Ethiopia my friends and patients and brothers and sisters are struggling to eat and live.  How do I deal with that?  Now I can watch cable on a big screen . . . and Abeba’s hands are raw and aching from washing clothes all day just so her two little girls can eat.  I don’t know how to love Ethiopia and live here.

I want to burn the peppy re-entry books that make it sound like if you are just prepared for a few key struggles you’ll be ok as you adjust back to your home culture.  The truth is, this isn’t easy.  The truth is, I don’t WANT to live through the next days and weeks and months of uncertainty and turmoil.  The truth is, I just have to live through these days of readjustment.  The truth is, we weren’t made for this world.  The truth is, I’m never going to completely “belong” to a place until I reach heaven.

The truth is, my life isn’t about me.  It never was, it isn’t now, and it never will be.  And someday, all things will be made new.

Bind my wandering heart to Thee.

-Robert Robinson