The Longing

So, here I am chilling on my friends fancy couch, still unable to walk. I have my surgery next week. Now, let’s be honest about missions life a little bit…

   I am a 26 year old, single missionary, living in Laos. For the other missionaries who are single they have at least 10 years on me. Everyone else is either married, or a teenager of a family here. There isn’t even a single Lao girl that I know that is around my age. I really don’t feel like I fit here.

   On top of that with the language learning, cultural barriers, injury, etc., I really don’t feel like I fit or connect anywhere. I am only going into month three. It still feels like a whirlwind of emotions, pain and attack.

   As I was talking to my Mom on FaceTime and the Lord after that He started to help my realize how I am only content in circumstances that are easy for me. Where I fit and find my nitch. But, I am not usually content in the harder circumstances, so I get overwhelmed at the task at hand and I question why God makes my life so hard. I also start to wonder why I feel so much emotional pain during those times. Wondering why I feel pain so deeply sometimes and if I should get counseling. But, then I realized that it wasn’t emotional pain that was causing so much grief. It was a complete desire for the New Heaven and Earth. For the washing away of attacks from the enemy, the feelings of not belonging, or connecting, the desires to understand and be understood. No matter how much of a Godly church we have on earth, it is only a taste of the wedding day between God and His Church in the New Heaven and the New Earth. That also brought about the reminder that I have the power that flowed out of the Ark of the Covenant living inside of me. That I don’t have to be understood, supported, loved or sought after. My mission is to bring souls into a kingdom that will do just that for them for the rest of eternity. 

   Have you ever wondered if when you are grieving over pain, you are really just longing for your eternity to come?