Struggle

I've been on American turf for about 21 days and I just can't keep what I want to say inside any longer. Every day someone asks me, "Are you glad to be home,do you wish you were back there?" I can't help but answer "ABSOLUTELY" to that, to both, I don't know. I love being home and seeing family and having everything I want and need at my fingertips, but I ache when I think of Uganda and what I left behind. Kids crying telling me not to go. How can I be fully content here and but have my heart seven thousand miles away? When I came home last year, it was a shock to adjust but I got over it. This time is much harder. One of my biggest struggles is finding God here again. He's here, I know He is, but He feels so much more tangible when you are desperate for Him. In America, we have everything we want and everything we need, so who needs God? That's how America is becoming. But in Uganda, they have nothing and so they want ALL of God. I need to get back to that state of desperation. Though finding desperation here is hard, it's doable.

My emotions are so conflicting and it's like I am on a roller coaster. I am so glad to be home, but I want to be back there. And when I am back there, I miss home. Why? Because this world is not my home and I keep trying to find a state of contentment somewhere on this earth, but everywhere you go, everything you do, becomes a routine, and it is never enough. I am starting to get back to my old routine before I left and it's almost been destroying me. I don't want routine. I hate routine. Being a missionary is messy. And hard. And depressing. And so worth it.  My biggest obstacle I am facing now that I am finally working again, is that God can use me here. Here in the everyday normalcy of my routine life, just like He did in the heart of Africa. He is the same God He is there as He is here. Unfortunately we don't get to see as much of Him because people are so independent and want nothing to do with Him and have no need for Him here like they do there.

So, how do I use what I learned from Him there, here. How do I get through my routine lifestyle being in America when I've seen God firsthand perform a healing in the depths of a village in Africa? How am I going to let that affect the way I live in America? That is my second biggest obstacle. Everyday remembering what He has done before and asking myself, "Ok, so now what?" How do I let that change my life everyday? If someone has these answers, please inform me. I am struggling.


Lauren