Weeping for snowstorms.

It's Monday night.  We've been back in Lupeni three days.  I'm pretty sure I've cried as many times.

Tonight, it was because I stumbled across something my aunt Teresa, a former missionary in Latin America, posted on Facebook: a post from an online community for people living abroad, this one about grief.  As the author writes, "[Eventually] you realize there are just some things Skype cannot fix. And you grieve, and your kids grieve.  Maybe.  But what if all these things happen again? And again.  You have another round of airport goodbyes, another holiday season with sand. Another Christmas with crying.  What if grieving gets old and annoying and time-consuming and exhausting? What if it becomes easier to just not grieve?  To not let others grieve?" (Jonathan Trotter, Outlawed Grief). 

The author goes on to encourage people to let it out -- to not be ashamed of their pain and sadness and tears, to not fear that their grief at saying goodbyes to loved ones and missing birthdays and not being able to just call means that somehow you don't love the place you're in, that you're not committed to " the mission," or that you don't really trust God.  These things just coexist.  The world is gray.  Trying to live in light of the Gospel is complicated.

Today, I wept at all the news of school cancellations and snowdrifts and baking parties and snowball fights in this giant US blizzard.  It feels stupid.  And I really am thankful for the sunshine and mid-30s temperatures in Lupeni, for the snowless sidewalks and the way these unexpected blessings keep our unheated apartment a wee bit warmer than it would otherwise be.  But I love snow.  I have always loved snow.  We went sledding with friends just before leaving the States, and it was one of the highlights of our six weeks back.  The memories of snow days and cozy times with family and crazy snow forts with my brother and sister are all flooding back as I hear the news of feet of white pummeling the place where I grew up -- and I can't help but lament the fact that we're not there for it.

Really, it's not the blizzard, and I know that -- it's the people, the sense of belonging, the longevity of relationships with family and friends in the States that I have always taken for granted.  I know that, too -- that if I stay in Lupeni for 5 years, like I did in Grand Rapids, I will develop a love for this place too.  If I know someone for over 20 years, like I have known my family, I will love them and ache with missing them too.  I know this.  I know we're young and new and babies to this community -- only a mere year in, such a short time.  I know that.  I'm doing my best to trust it.  But it still feels shitty and sad to leave the known and beloved behind.

Jack asked me, while I was snotting on his shoulder in tears, why I wanted to commit to coming here in the first place.  I snorted out the reasons slowly, trying to remember if they were real -- not just the good "right" answers I'm often so quick at.  And they're still true, at least mostly.  I'm maybe slightly disillusioned by working with FNO, less quick to think the work they do is the solution to the world's problems.  (That sounds like maturity and experience, though, really...)  My excitement about this endeavor as an adventure has worn off some (though I'm still excited about the exploring yet to do).  But I still want to develop real relationships with youth, relationships that matter, and learn from them and speak into their lives.  I still have relationships that matter to me here -- beautiful people who I want to care for well.  I still do feel like God is present here, and that this new place gives me a space and posture to hear from Him that I don't always find -- particularly now, in the time of tumultuous transition and grief.  When I remind myself of all those things, I calm down, and the snorts turn to sniffles.  We will be fine here.  We will even be happy here.  I trust those things.  I really do.

But the tears are still there, and that's okay.  It sucks to be far away.

Basically, to sum it up -- I used to think this quote was poetic and lovely in all sorts of wise and mystical ways.  Now I just think it's raw and painfully and beautifully, heart-wrenchingly true:

"You will never be fully at home again, because part of your heart will always be elsewhere.  That is the price you pay for the richness of knowing and loving people in more than one place."  (Miriam Adeney)