Part 1 of 2
Time is such an important thing. For healing, for moving on, for making real friends, for learning to love a new country or even learning to fall back in love with a country.
Let me set the scene…
You’ve been gone from you ‘home’ country for many years and you return. How long does it take for your former home to feel like home again?
I love that God puts people in your life who are meant to be there in that moment. Just recently I’ve reconnected with several missionary friends (thank you Perspectives – a class on missions that I have been taken). Several of us were chatting one week and the conversation went something like this …
Me: ‘How long have you been back?’
Them: Oh about 10 years now. It’s hard, but it gets easier. How long for you?’
Me: ‘Three years now. Still a rollercoaster sometimes, but every day seems to get easier. Who knew it would take so long?!’
Them: ‘I was talking to someone a few years back who served in Africa for 20 years. They said a switch flips after 5 years.’
Five years. Five years. wow. Such a short time and, yet, when you are going through it such a very. long. long. time.
Time is so relative.
livingoverseasandlovingit 
Phew! Now I don’t feel so bad about my 6 months and still not feeling at home! Time is a funny thing, it seems like so long when you’re going through something, but when you look back you realize in the grand scheme of things it wasn’t really so long after all. I guess we need to keep telling ourselves that at the time.
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It’s just hit the 5 year mark for me and I can honestly say…. that this is still not home. After battling with my emotions over the years I have found that changing my mind set on this subject has helped ‘a little’. ‘Home’ is my husband and kids. So as long as they are there, than I can get through this time away.
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