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Hey everyone, I am sorry this poor blog has been neglected so badly lately.  Other than the occasional What I Wore Wednesday, this blog has not had a real update in months, and a true heart post in almost a year!  Well, all of that is changing with this post.  I am hoping to do a series of posts of things God has been teaching me over this past year, ever since Kenya.  Some of them He began to teach me while in Kenya, and others are much more recent.  I have truly been missing this though, writing is a source of release for me, and while writing in my diary definitely helps me sort through the things I experience and feel, writing on the blog about different things helps me sort through them in a different way.  I have missed this special sorting I get when I am forced to try to write out my thoughts in a coherent piece for my readers to be able to understand.  Often in the process, I find I understand it better myself, whereas in my diary, I just release everything at once without trying to make it coherent and in an orderly way.  It just comes out naturally.  Both ways are so helpful, but I have been a little lopsided in missing the blog side.  :)

I want to start this post with an honest statement, I went to bed crying last night.  Yeah, my life isn't just full of fun and laughter and smiles.  Oh yes, if you know me, you know that I absolutely LOVE to smile, but sometimes, especially in this past year, I need to cry.  Ever since I have been little, I have viewed tears as a sign of weakness and fought them off at all costs, but ever since Kenya, I can't always hold them back.  I am slowly learning, that they aren't a sign of weakness, they are God's gift and can be such a welcome relief from all of the stress and emotions of life.  Sometimes it is just necessary to let go and cry.  I am still not good at this, if I was, I would not have been crying a months worth of tears I have been swallowing until last night when I finally couldn't hold them in any longer.  I am so glad I finally let them out though because all of the emotion I had been bottling up inside of me was getting unhealthy, to the point that I almost couldn't function through anything without being on the verge of tears.  You know what I'm talking about, when there is this undercurrent of restlessness and sadness inside of you that colors everything you do in a not good way.  I had reached this point.  My emotions were so strong and coming to the surface at anything, both happy and sad, that I wasn't even sure any longer what the root of them was, until I cried.

While crying, I found I was crying for home.  The only thing is, I no longer know where home is.  They say home is where the heart is, which really is true, but how do you know where home is when your heart is scattered over the whole world?  I still desperately love my home here in the U.S., but even while I am here, my heart cries for Kenya and the Philippines.  Kenya especially.  Oh, how I miss Kenya and I can't wait to be able to return!  It is so confusing though, because when I was in the Philippines this summer I found myself missing Kenya and America.  Now that I am back in America I find myself missing Kenya and the Philippines, and I know that if I were to be in Kenya I would probably be missing America and the Philippines.  How is it possible to have home in so many places all at once? 

In many ways, it makes me smile when I realize this even as I want to cry yet again for the waves of homesickness that wash over me, because, you see, this summer the book of the Bible that God led me to and that I just can't get enough of is 1 Peter.  I LOVE 1 Peter, in the first few verses Peter calls us something that makes me want to smile, "God's elect, strangers in the world."  Strangers in the world, truly, that is what we all are, isn't it?  While we always hear of how heaven is our home and how we don't belong to this world, it can be so easy to forget sometimes when we get settled in and find "home" here.  Now, I am beginning to realize more and more just how much heaven truly is home and I really am just passing through this earth, just a stranger here on my way to home.  I long for home in a whole new way than ever before, because finally when I do get to go home, to heaven, all of these places I love here that I consider pieces of home that are scattered so far apart will finally all be pieced together.  It's not necessarily the places that I love as so much the people in them.  I miss my Mama Lucy and sister Shiela and all of the children in Kenya.  I miss little Elaine, Judith and Mary Grace and all of the kids I met in the Philippines.  When I am overseas I miss my family and friends here in the states.  Yet, in heaven, there will be no more missing, no more tears missing the people on the other side of the world!  Instead, we will all be together in one place, finally and forever home.  I truly long for the day I can go home.

Blessings,
Mikala (a.k.a. Michelle)