We have traveled onto new roads and all our senses are heightened. They say it’s a new adventure! but we have our doubts.
Though the landscape has all the familiar elements – the ground below, the sky above – everything else is in the wrong place.
It smells different here.
This is unfamiliar and feels as though it will never be quite right.
Perhaps we are afraid to admit our own homesickness, especially if we chose this change.
We confess all the ways we are trying to deny our sadness and fear in our new surroundings.
Because deep down we long for a day of normal. Instead, all the normal things feel hard.
Perhaps this change isn’t such a big deal and we feel foolish to feel homesick at all.
Or maybe it’s all so dramatic that we still haven’t caught our breath.
Or maybe nothing on the outside has changed at all, but still we find ourselves crossing unfamiliar emotional waters and walking into caves so dark we can’t see our feet.
We long for familiar landmarks.
Ease our unnecessary guilt as we allow our emotions to rise to the surface.
Remind us how we have permission to feel however we feel – sad, reluctant, shocked, exhausted, scared, excited, or hopeful – but keep any guilt about our emotions far from us.
May we settle down in Your presence and listen for Your voice.
Around the world, we know so many have been displaced because of war and terror. The pain of homesickness is too much to bear as they fear not just for direction, but for their lives.
Be home for the homesick, we pray.
We’ll take any glimpse of Your hand that You’re willing to give, any assurance of Your presence that You’re willing to offer.
Work Your miracle among us as we learn to discover home right where we are because You’ve made Your home within us.
Help us to make peace with this new place even if we can’t find our way around, even if we don’t understand it, even as we still long for home.
And eventually, when things begin to feel familiar again, may we always carry a bit of homesickness in our hearts for the far kingdom where one day we will live with You forever.
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