Came across a very beautifully written note that a friend wrote more than a year ago. Thank God I stumbled across it again - it’s helping me make sense of the past few months, and parts of it sounded out how I feel and have felt about exchange, and on exchange.
Word of this season: Transience.
Say a hurried goodbye home, hear the occasion exclamation of “Going away, again?!” But you go, because He has called you to.
Stay in a place for a day or two, explore the fun and exciting parts, but miss out on the mundane everyday, the raw and real. The changing colours of the sky as the sun sets reminds you of how beautiful things are sometimes fleeting, so you scramble to make the moment last by snapping a gazillion photos. Fall in love with a place, but you leave eventually because new places await, and you can’t stop just yet.
Meet new people from all over the world, hold interesting conversations for as long as your paths intersect on your respective travels. Leave no room for future contact, because chances are that you’ll never meet again (there is no point).
Send a message, maybe a photo or two home. Let them know that you’re safe, how you’re doing, what you’ve done, but there’s only so much that can be expressed in text. Leave out the times you were scared, or feeling less than awesome, and say a hurried goodbye just in case you’re holding them back from whatever they’re doing back home. Wish you could give a real hug, wish they were with you – that way they wouldn’t feel so distant and passively involved, and it wouldn’t feel so lonely at times. Wonder how things are back home, if you can somehow still be involved (prayer is the best way). Wonder how you’ll fit back home, if there will still be space for you in their lives; worry if you’re being a burden by texting from far away.
So you pack and unpack, learn how to travel lightly (sometimes not really physically, haha), sometimes use “But… I’m away” as a convenient excuse. Along the way, figure out who are the important people, and what are the important things that matter.
Realize that even as everything is a constant blur of change, God remains the same. His hand watches over, protects and blesses you, and under His wings you find refuge (Psalm 91:4). Relearn the importance of prayer, and giving thanks in all circumstances, clinging on to the solid rock in this constant change.
Of goodbyes and hellos.
You are, I am, but a transient traveller passing through. Sometimes you stay for a little longer, but this is ultimately not home yet.
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