Cutting the ties
Dear Ratia,
The day you’d been waiting for, praying for, was finally here, but suddenly, you wished it had never come. You didn’t want to leave home. You wanted a few more hours, maybe days or weeks, to spend with your family, but your time was up. At the airport, you couldn’t even look at your mum without shedding tears. You were going to be spending the next four years away from home, away from your family and friends. This was unfamiliar territory. Territory you’d prayed for, and wanted to embrace. But at that moment, what you wanted even more was to take it all back.
Leaving home was one of those decisions you always wished you never had to make. You were afraid. You didn’t want to leave your family, but you knew you had to. You were happy and sad at the same time. Happy that you were finally starting college, but sad that you had no idea when you’d be back home. Your parents were excited to see you leave. You didn’t understand why. Well, maybe you sort of did, but you didn’t want to accept it.
I can still see your face as you said goodbye. Walking away was one of the hardest things you’ve ever had to do.
Things at college aren’t much better. You deal with anxiety and homesickness. You don’t know how to make new friends or how to adjust to a foreign culture. And while the phone calls back home are a consolation, your busy schedule won’t allow you to keep them up. You struggle with feeling as though everyone you care about has forgotten about you.
No, the circumstances of your college experience won’t help you break through this mindset of fear and dislocation. Actually, nothing human or material will. But don’t despair. God does have an answer for you. He didn’t bring you all this way to leave you in this pit of despair.
Be patient. One Sunday after church, you’ll hear the message that your heart has been yearning for. It’s this simple thought: God is ever-present, so none of us can be forgotten. God is our Mother and Father, and that means that even though you feel like your family is far away from you, your true parent, God, is right there with you—wherever you are.
This message will be a lifeline to you. Cherish it. Work with it. It will free you from homesickness and allow you to be yourself—to be happy and to make friends. You’ll realize that you are never alone, and that no matter how far you are from “home,” God’s love is always surrounding you with His care and protection.
I can see you now, smiling as you walk to your room. Such a different person than the girl who left her family at the airport. You feel good. The fear and anxiety that seemed so crippling before are fading away. Your whole life is changing—opening up.
From this moment on you’ll make a choice—a choice based on the simple but profound idea from that Sunday afternoon. You don’t have to be sad anymore, Ratia. You’re making a different choice—to go forward with a smile in your heart because wherever you are, you are in God’s presence.
Love,
Ratia
Posted on Tuesday, July 10th, 2012 at 9:36 am | Follow responses with the RSS feedTopics: Family, Loneliness | Tags: homesick, homesickness, strength
Ratia, I just wanted to add in how much I loved reading your blog. You remind me that we are all “God’s nestlings,” safe in His arms, like this passage from Misc. 152: Thus founded upon the rock of Christ, when storm
and tempest beat against this sure foundation, you,
safely sheltered in the strong tower of hope, faith, and
Love, are God’s nestlings; and He will hide you in His
feathers till the storm has passed. Into His haven of
Soul there enters no element of earth to cast out angels,
to silence the right intuition which guides you safely
home.
Your story reminds us all that we carry our sense of home with us. I’ve loved knowing you this summer!
Thank you all for your wonderful thoughts and I am truly humbled. Thanks for sharing the quotes with me and I have found them to be really helpful when praying about this. Just like you Claire, many are times that I’ve isolated myself from my friends, mostly because I was fearful about it and I didn’t think they’d understand.
Mrs. Eddy writes, “we have nothing to fear when Love is at the helm of thought, but everything to enjoy on earth and in heaven.” Mis. 113:25. I have found this quote to be a big part of my daily practice and it has enabled me realize that I am surrounded by God’s love and friends who provide a good home for me no matter where I am. Therefore, all I have to do is embrace this love and enjoy it.
Thank you all.
This is really great. I’ve been really uncomfortable in new settings and longed to go “home.” Great message.
How tempting it is to fall back onto worry and doubt and fear. But your message is so clear. God is right there with you, wherever. That is so wonderful!
Thanks for sharing this, Ratia. What a powerful–and empowering!–lesson to have learned.
Gud!
Ratia, I love this. Sometimes it seems when we experience these feelings that they are unique to us individually, but reading this reminds me that this challenge doesn’t affect only me. An idea I’ve found helpful that Mrs. Eddy writes in Science and Health is: “Home is the dearest spot on earth, and it should be the center, though not the boundary, of the affections.” I’ve come to realize that when I’ve been too wrapped up in feeling homesick, it’s because I’ve been clinging too much to the idea that my home and the people I love there are confined to a single geographic location–and thus I’ve believed that the love and comfort I feel so strongly in my physical home can’t reach me elsewhere. Thus, I’ve felt isolated and lonely, not matter how many great and loving friends may have surrounded me in any given time or place. I’ve cut myself off because I didn’t fully understand what truly makes my home a home. However, I’ve come to learn that my first home was simply the first place where I learned to cherish and cultivate pure, unconditional love. I know understand that I can truly express and feel this same love expressed wherever I am, and I’ve lost that sense of homesickness because I’ve learned that infinite, ever-present Love and its infinite expression is what truly constitutes and defines my home. I’m so grateful because this sense of homesickness has really held me back in more aspects of my life than I realized–and I didn’t even recognize that it was a problem that needed to be addressed. I now feel that I can truly move on and live my fully, accomplishing all that I need to my utmost capacity, because this false, geographic sense of home can no longer inhibit me. Divine Love is truly everywhere and meets every human need where it needs to be met.
Thank you Katoto!!
You are never alone and God’s love is all around you. Asante sana for sharing.
Ratia,
This is lovely, thank you for sharing!!
A quote I find helpful when I’m struggling is “Happiness consists in being and in doing good; only what God gives, and what we give ourselves and others through His tenure, confers happiness”. Focusing on that, and on living my life to that standard helps ensure that I am happy and it so often spreads to those around me as well!
Dear Ratia,
Thank yoso much for sharing this beautiful letter.
much love,
Bente