What I Left Behind

On June 24, 2012 I said one of the deepest goodbyes my heart has ever known. Some days it feels like that day was just a foggy dream and yet other days the memory is crystal clear and the pain still has the ability to pierce my heart. I remember the tender moments of waiting for them to call my flight while in the van with my few remaining friends. Final embraces and the long walk to the small airplane. I was not crying because I had run out of tears. The safety instruction seemed to take an eternity. Until the plane got to the end of the strip and with increasing speed raced forward and I watched desperately as I saw my friends wave goodbye from the hanger and all of a sudden they were little ants. My heart caught and my lungs got that tight feeling making it hard to breath because reality took over my body. The plane circled around our small missionary center and I took in every scene one last moment, as memories from a sweet sweet childhood spent there flooded my mind. I grasped the yearbook in my hands that was filled with kind notes and special signatures and as I opened the first page, tears began to waterfall. Fortunately the small plane was so loud that my tears could not be heard. I remember leaving for furlough once as a young girl and a high school graduate was on the plane with us. She sobbed so loud that my heart broke for her. In that moment of tears, that long held memory made sense and I wanted to telle-port back in time and tell her, it's okay, I know how you feel.
That day on the plane I watched what seemed to be my whole world fade away. Saying goodbye was deeper than missing my friends, because there is always reunions and Skype. Saying goodbye was not necessarily that I will never ever see that place again (though possibly). It was saying goodbye to that season of life that I will never get back. Even if I was to return to PNG, and even if my friends go with me, it wouldn't be the same. Home will never be home again, because to me home was not a place but a state of being. It was growing up in a small community, discovering the world along side my missionary kid friends, it was the simplicity of life and quiet Sunday afternoon walks. It was what I considered stress and business, but nothing like life on this side. It was innocence, comfort and adventure. It was the memories worth keeping and the ones that I would rather move on from.
It was a 15 year investment that shaped the deepest parts of my being. On that plane I didn't realize that the next couple years would be spent untangling the complexity of being an MK and figuring out how deep that place had touched me. But I think in that moment I knew everything I needed to know. I knew that my heart hurt, and that was okay. I knew that my life was changed but I don't think I could have handled knowing the fullness of reality. And by the true grace of God, I knew that my life was far from over. While I grieved deeply the closing of this chapter, I held to hope that there was so much more for me to come.
And I can say, sitting here, that even though my heart is restless and I would give a whole lot to be back in that place for just a moment, God's hope does not disappoint and there really is so much more then I could have ever ask, dream or imagine.
I've grieved many times everything that I had to leave behind that day. And I have learned that grieving is okay, as long as you don't let yourself get lost in it.