Wanderer

This morning I found myself longing to sit outside with my tea on our porch as the sun came up over the red rock mountains. As a teacher, time is still measured in school years, and as this school year comes to a close, I find myself in a state of reflection. Just nine simultaneously-long-and-short months prior, we landed in this new home, disheveled and excited, grieving and anticipating all at the same time.

A wise, fellow expat friend once gave me advice to always put things on the walls in any new place, no matter how long I anticipated staying.

“If you don’t act like you’re staying in the way you set up your space,” she said, “your heart will never settle either. A wanderer you’ll be, always.”

I’ve taken this advice seriously. In our most recent move to our current host country, suitcase space was, of course, limited and valuable. Where there could have been space for a few more clothing items or other things we may need, I prioritized a few things that would remind me of the home I had made in Turkey: a painting by a local artist of a street in the old town area, postcards with watercolors of seemingly mundane things like Turkish pastries and minibuses, a wooden bowl painted with olive branches, and our Turkish teapot.

Home has been a confusing word for me, long before my first move overseas seven years ago.

As a child, I covered the walls of my bedroom with quotes and pictures. My whole world was that bedroom, that street, the yellow house with the green shutters and a tree swing out front. I was Alyssa of Oxford Drive. Home could never be anywhere else.

When my parents divorced during my twentieth year of life, they sold our house. The room covered in pictures belonged to someone else all of a sudden. I remember sitting with a friend by the lake on our university campus, crying.

“Tell me about your house,” she said. “I want to hear about it.”

I told her, through tearful eyes and snotty sobs, about the house my parents had just sold, and there was something healing about describing it to her. There was something even more healing about being asked about it.

It took time before I called Turkey home. It felt so comforting when I finally did. When I went back to the States for the first time after moving there, I couldn’t wait to be back in my apartment in Ankara.

Not long ago, I noticed that the home screen’s map widget on my phone now calls La Paz home. Months ago, it was confused, telling me it would take me at least a day of travel to get home any time I looked for directions. Even Maps adjusts to transition with some reluctance.

I find that I am now Alyssa of Oxford Drive and Upland and Ankara and La Paz, each place a part of who I am. I can’t seem to replace the old with the new but only to add to what once was. The math of home is not one that can be easily balanced or subtracted. Sometimes, I feel like a snail, trailing along the path with my home on my back, carrying it with me to wherever I am next.

This year has been a year of grieving for me. I’ve grieved home more than anything else. I’ve been reluctant to let my roots deepen into this new soil. In this grief, the Lord has reminded me that he is intimately familiar with what I’m experiencing.

Jesus was no stranger to the grief that comes with having lived many places. After leaving his heavenly home, he came to a new one here on earth, only to need to leave again. In his time on earth, Jesus was a TCK—born in Bethlehem, moving to Egypt for his toddler years, then to Nazareth where his parents were from, only to be a nomad during his years of ministry.

The Lord convicted me of my resistance this year as I avoided rooting myself where he has placed me for this time. Jesus lived a life where home would have never been one place, yet he still rooted himself among the people he was with. He had deep relationships with the disciples, his family, and those he ministered to, even knowing his time on earth was limited. What an example to follow, as people who often feel without a place.

While home may never again be a word that feels comfortable in my mouth, I am reminded that God calls me to put down roots wherever I am, to be present with the people I am surrounded by and the place I am in. His sovereignty has not forgotten my fragile, little heart that longs to belong. He has called me here for a purpose and for this time, however long it may be.

Today, home is not a place, but a person: Jesus. In all the seasons of my life, Jesus has remained the only consistent thing, and I know that I will always be able to call him home. He has made my heart able to expand. As I follow his lead, I find myself clinging to the things that remind me of his goodness, his mercy, his faithfulness. Yes, sometimes, there are places that serve this purpose, sometimes people, sometimes a glass of tea. What a gift it is to serve a God who gets it. He doesn’t call us out into the unknown without him. A wanderer I’ll always be, but he who calls wanders with me.

How has God been present in your variations of home? Where is God calling you to root yourself in this season?