Homesickness while still at home

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men... Ecclesiates 3:11

Pre trip week. I KNOW those words stir up many images in the minds of mothers everywhere.

For me, the challenge of pre trip week includes an inexplicable need to nest, in addition to actually packing. I've heard I am not the only one. This need to nest multiples rapidly if I am leaving children at home. Which I am. In 5 days.

Phil, Hannah and I will be leaving for Uganda on Saturday. Peter, David and Cameron will be in the U.S., together and split up, in Murfreesboro, at the beach, and in Dallas visiting grandparents. I have been so excited about Africa for weeks..... and I still am.... but to be honest, yesterday I got homesick. And I'm still here.

I can remember seasons when my focus was so much on home. Be it because I had little ones here everyday all day, or because we had not yet had our hearts pricked by the the inspiration to go on these trips to other cultures, I remember when my EXTRA energies, my project and over and above the routine efforts were ALL geared toward home. Sometimes I miss that, sometimes I wish my heart were not pulled in directions which are worlds apart. But the fact is, a knowledge and a longing have been born in the hearts of our family, and it cannot be undone. Along side that longing is another, for all the loves of our hearts to be made right, in one home, without separation by miles, poverty, hunger, and disease. We look forward and long for that day, and we have every reason to hope.

And in the end, the end is

Oceans and oceans
Of love and love again
We'll see how the tears that have fallen
Were caught in the palms
Of the Giver of love and the Lover of all
And we'll look back on these tears as old tales

'Cause after the last tear falls
There is love

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