Embrace the Emptiness
By Mary Frances Miller, Global Encounters Alumni
Coming home from a mission trip can feel like the ice bucket challenge. How on earth am I supposed to go back to normal life after the things I’ve just experienced? The people I met changed my life. The children I taught exploded my heart. The beauty and disaster I saw around me shattered everything I thought I knew about the world.I don’t want to go back to normal. My ‘normal’ life no longer satisfies me because my heart, like the Grinch’s, has grown to ten times its previous size. But, now that I’m no longer with the ones my heart expanded to accommodate, I feel a profound sense of loss. A startling emptiness. How can I preserve the beauty of my broken heart that now beats more closely with Christ’s? How can my feelings of loss, sadness, and frustration with life at home be dealt with? How do I not get frustrated by answering the same question asked over and over by well-intentioned people? God, what am I supposed to do with all of this?Embrace it. My mission field is wherever I am. My ministry is to the person in front of me at any given moment. My mission trip didn’t end once I stepped off the plane that brought me home. The people at home are just as deserving of the same amount of energy, focus, prayer, and attention I gave 
to the lessons I taught, and the relationships I had with my teammates, translators, and the children on my team.I need to nap.I need to pray.I need to love.But mostly nap.My only chance of surviving this is to lean into the emptiness and find Christ within it. If my heart is breaking, His broke first.Remember I am not alone. I am not the first person to feel this way, nor will I be the last.This world, whether I’m in a foreign country or my own backyard, is not my home.
“How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of the messenger who brings good news, the good news of peace and salvation...good news that will cause great joy for all people...for this world is not our permanent home; we are looking forward to a home yet to come.”
(Isaiah 52:7a, Luke 2:10b, Hebrews 13:14)
Mary Frances has gone on several GE trips, most recently to Southeast Asia in 2015. She is now going to school to learn Spanish and hopes to use it in the future to set captives free in Christ. Some of her favorite things include coffee, knitting, squishing adorable children, and playing in the snow!