“When are you leaving?”
“When are you going to Spain?” “Aren’t you supposed to be in Europe or something?” “I thought you were in Spain?” - all variations on the same theme. Questions that make me feel like my current existence is simply wrong; I am not where I am supposed to be.
I seriously considering giving this post the title, “The Question I Hate the Most,” but thanks to my overly kind parents, “hate” is a word that isn't used in our household – and I am again living in that household. Please don’t read this as bitter sarcasm (it is true, I didn’t say “hate” growing up because of that house rule, but I have come to adopt the rule for myself as well); rather read some healthy and humorously-held irony. My home for the indefinite future is my parents' house – a house where “hate” is not used, and yet it is because I am living in this house that I am tempted to hate this particular question. For I would not be faced with the question if I were not living in the hate-free house. Ironic.
Now with that philosophical consideration aside, let me explain.
I seriously dislike and do dread receiving the question of when I am leaving for the field. No matter how lovingly the question is asked, no matter the genuine care and interest of the one who asks, it most often feels like an accusation. An accusation that I have done something wrong along the way because (1) I am not already on the field, and (2) I cannot give a pretty answer of a definite, near-future departure.
To all my kind friends who have asked me this question and now are wallowing in guilt – I do not hate you or hold any grievance against you. I understand that you ask this question out of care. Part of my heart is comforted when you ask because I do feel that you want to be with me in this journey. And it is because I too want you to be on the journey with me, that I want you to understand how this question is painful.
The first thing that comes to mind when this is asked is how I have wrestled with the question myself.
Living, sleeping and waking, eating and laughing, being and doing on Spanish soil has been the object of my mind since January. The milestones that mark my progress towards the realization of that dream have been ceaselessly monitored and worked towards. Unfortunately, more milestones have been added as soon as the ones I knew were completed. And that sent me into a bit of a panic when it first happened – I had mentally and emotionally prepared for a timeline that now is not reality; I had told others about this timeline and now it seems as though I deceived them; what in the world am I going to do if I am living at home for months?!
You can see how the question “When am I leaving?” became a constant and rather heated mental occupant. And so, I entered into battle against it, fighting to be content with an unknown departure. To be content with the time that I will live in my childhood home. To be content with the date I do arrive on the ground in Spain.
I am happy to report that I have seen a great degree of success in this battle. Much ground has been won and this is part of why it hurts to hear the question echoed from so many throughout my days. It is a reminder of the battle fought – and that it is not completely won.
Each morning I reengage, choosing to take my stance on the side of my God and to take my orders from His will. Combating the doubt with the fighting words: “There is purpose in my time here.” “There is intention in the timing of my arrival in Spain.” “There is ministry to be begun here, not just on the field.”
What’s more, I reached a point of being glad that I have this time at home. If you read my previous blog, you know how I struggled to come to terms with the sacrifice that is made in my transition overseas. A large portion of that sacrifice is leaving home, my family, and all that is comfortable and known; and so, I consider it a gift to have a bit more time at home.
This is where the second pain of the leaving question enters – once I leave, I know that I will never be the same and can never experience my home in the States as I have. Perhaps the largest sacrifice in the move to overseas missions is the sacrifice of myself. Once I live abroad, learning a new culture and coming to know and love people, I will be irreversibly changed. The all-American, Western-minded, naïve-from-a-lack-of-exposure Emily will no longer exist.
Now this is a good thing when I am in Spain seeking to live in that culture and to be able to share the gospel on a heart level. But it is also a scary thing for it means that upon my return to the States I will not be as American as I was. Spanish culture will be imprinted upon me in a way that I anticipate being beautiful but not necessarily comfortable.
Because it means I won’t fit. I cannot become a native Spaniard, nor will I remain American through and through. So, not only am I saying goodbye to dear friends and family when I leave, I am also saying goodbye to myself as I have known for the past 21 years.
All of this also flashes through my mind when I am asked about leaving. And the innate survival instinct of my heart scrambles against that change I know is coming, hoping to cling to American soil for as long as possible. I realize that I have some more time here before leaving and my heart relaxes, relieved to not be jumping into the loss of myself quite yet, but simultaneously to sparking the scramble, the leaving question raises this sensation of longing and being ready to go. Deeper than my desire to cling to myself is the desire to be in Spain and so my heart is left both relaxed and unsettled.
I do hope that in my explanation of why I dread this question I have thoroughly confused you for that would suggest that I’ve given an accurate explanation. Welcome to the conflicting, paradoxical state of my heart and mind.
Allow me to throw in one last consideration -
The only life I see ahead of myself is a life of indefinite belonging. Of never knowing how long I will be in one place or another, or even knowing what those places are. This too is why the question “When are you leaving?” hurts so. It is a question that I believe will become a constant companion whether it is spoken aloud or only posed internally. A question that I am not thrilled to be living with; actually, I am rather freaked out to live with it.
I highly value consistency and stability; belonging and being somewhere dependably; being faithful. So far, in my experience, those values are made manifest through physical presence, but I choose to believe that those things can still exist to a high degree in my life even if it takes a more nomadic style. My wrestling, then, turns to figuring out how this can be. How can I continue to value consistency, stability, dependability, and faithfulness when my life may never settle in one place or give me a long-term physical community to live among and to which I can belong?
Oh, it is a matter of where I place my true belonging. Do I belong with my birth family? Do I belong with the family I found in Colorado? Do I belong within the general U.S., the place of my citizenship? Do I belong in Spain, the nation to which I have been called?
I think the answer can be yes to all because my first place of belonging is with my God. Above my citizenship in the U.S., above any other earthly citizenship, I am a citizen of the kingdom of heaven. An everlasting kingdom in which I have an inheritance – how could I ever deny my belonging there? It is for this kingdom that I count any earthly belonging as loss and it is for this kingdom that I am saying goodbye to myself as I have known, so to see people of all nations also find their citizenship in this kingdom.
When I remember this, I am all too ready to get on a plane; but the fact remains that I don’t know when I’m leaving for Spain. Praise be to the God who does.