Change...

This may be a weird post…just to give you a heads up.  I’ve never really discussed it with people, but I assume we all know what it’s like to be comforted by a smell…or the opposite.  So…I’ll assume that this won’t seem toooo crazy…  and if it does…then you probably know me well enough to just look past that :)  

Sometimes the weirdest things make me emotional…last night I was getting into bed to finally go to sleep (ok…it was actually this morning around 4 am) and when I inhaled…the smell of my pillows and sheets was familiar and comforting.  That was the first time this has happened since moving…and it made me cry. 

You know how, when you sleep in a hotel or in an unfamiliar place, the bed just doesn’t smell like yours (or feel like yours) and you notice it?  Well I notice a lot…but where I lay my head at night has always been a sensitive issue for me.  I do not (in all caps) like to sleep in any bed but my own and I typically have a very difficult time sleeping in a new place.   God has definitely helped me in that area during this transition…but for the first 2-3 weeks I would get into bed and my first thought would be that this didn’t smell like my bed.  The couple of weeks after that I guess I kind of forgot about that…as I got used to this new bed…but last night was the first time that this smelled like “my bed” and it brought some emotions up.

I haven’t really felt “homesick” through all this…maybe it’s coming but just hasn’t reached me yet.  I don’t know.  I have missed specific people…I have looked forward to talking to them…well – I guess if I think back to the time that I didn’t have internet and was unable to communicate with the ones I am closest to back home…that was difficult at times and I did have some sadness towards the end of those two weeks.  But something happened when I realized that my bed smelled like “home” – all the sudden I was overcome with emotion and I started crying.  Why? 

I don’t know, I don’t understand it.  I wish I could understand all the wonderful (and sometimes terrifying) things that our brains do…and why things make me feel the way they do.  All I know is I suddenly felt almost…guilty…that I haven’t missed home more.  It was weird.  But there was also an excitement with it…and a joy!  Because even though this has felt like home from the start, it is really beginning to be home in those small ways that only the subconscious really notices.  Like in the fact that my bed smells like…my bed.  I would like to add a disclaimer here…it’s not because my sheets aren’t washed.  We have a house mama, her name is Flora and she is amazing and so sweet and she washes my sheets every Monday. :)

And…like everything else…it has my mind thinking of deeper things.  (I’m just a super-duper deep person ya know)  Like how life changes all around us and sometimes we don’t even notice until all the small changes add up into a big life altering change…and how that can happen in good ways or bad.  I have lately (in the past year) experienced several of those “moments” where I look around and realize that all these little changes…mostly ones that I was consciously trying to make…have resulted in a big change.  That feeling of being at the edge of something big…and knowing that my life is changing forever and I am being a part of making that happen...instead of just watching it happen.  That is a good feeling, and I can think of at least three times over the past year that I have had that feeling…and I could see my life changing like a tapestry being woven and the pattern being altered in the middle. 

Then there is another feeling, just as amazing…but the feeling of a huge change coming that you know God is bringing…but you don’t know what it is…you just know that you are walking with God and as a result of having given him your life…you will partner with him in whatever change is coming your way.  I have felt that one twice over the past year…and the last one brought me here to where I am sitting now…in a living room in Tanzania.  With the windows open and a fan going, and a cup of tea with milk (which I love now…that’s a small change) hearing all the outside sounds and feeling the breeze getting cooler with every passing hour. 

I am so thankful in this moment for all the changes…big and small…that have brought my life forward out of some very dark places.  I am so thankful for the opportunity to partner with my father in heaven and make decisions about my life…thankful that I know I can rely on him for all my needs, even the ones I don’t know about.  I am just so very thankful for the life that I have and the chance to be living life right now!  I think, sometimes, that because of the darkness that used to envelope my life…the light seems so much brighter.   Life is definitely bright…and I’m loving it!!! 
 

And all this started with my sheets smelling like home :)  love how the brain works ;)