Go, Live and Become

A Sudden Wave of Homesickness

So here I am again. Sitting in my son’s dark room trying to get him to go back to sleep. I am forced to leave everything I was doing behind and enter some quiet time. Success at last?

He’s managed to fall back asleep, but every time I try to get up he starts crying.

So I just sit here.

I listen to Dutch worship music and start to feel nostalgic. It will soon be eight years since I left my beloved country the Netherlands. I never knew though that my leaving would be so final. I never really got a chance to say a proper goodbye. I wish I had known. It feels as a loss, as if something has been taken away from me.

But maybe it was for the better, because I am not sure if I would have been able to set foot on the ship taking me to the North of England if I had known I would never again move back home.

I read somewhere that in missing a place, in feelings of homesickness, in a way you are the closest to that place you will ever be. To put it simply: I never knew what my home meant to me until I left it. I never appreciated everything I had until I moved away from it.

I sometimes wish I had enjoyed all those simple and little things I took for granted a bit more. Riding my bike to town, sitting in a full church singing hymns and psalms while it is dark outside, going to the outdoor swimming pool, drinking a cup of coffee and eating cake with my family, the train journeys, my favourite shops, the food, knowing everyone that lived in our street, all the precious friendships I built over the years,…

Don’t get me wrong, I feel enormously blessed with where God has put me, with the life I live, the experiences I have been through, the family I have been given… My time in England has changed me as a person and every day I am grateful for how my life has been enriched and broadened and my view of the world has become so much fuller and complete.

I also thank God for this feeling of homesickness that pops up every now and then. It keeps me sharp and forces me to always go back to God. In Him I find my real home. He is the one that always provides and because I once left my home I can no longer take things for granted. He gave me a home once, and then He gave me a home again and I trust there will always be a home for me, wherever I go…