Where can I call home?

My first memory of saying goodbye really isn't a memory at all. It exists within my mind, but as with most memories, will likely never present itself. It was leaving friends and family behind in the United States when I moved here at 9 months old. What you think would be the easiest goodbye in your lifetime, has one of the hardest long-term effects on your life. There is something lacking in your present: your past.

Whilst your family can describe other relatives, reminisce of times with friends, and remember the earliest events of your life, you try to retain some semblance of normality in a new country. Which, in fact, isn't even a new country at all. It is the only one your memories reside in. You cannot remember anything but the country you live in - Australia

Which makes for a tearful goodbye when you go on holidays America to visit family and friends: when you must leave the country that you have so yearned to call home, which you have always acknowledged as your own. One which you have identified as your origin, your birthplace.

Such is the cry of an third-culture kid (TCK). Saying goodbye to a culture you never really knew. Or saying hello to a culture of which you have forever identified yourself with. It's as if America is my pen-pal which I am finally bound to meet after 18 years of writing to it. It's as if she is my long lost parents whom I always loved, but never knew were still alive.

And for my Australian friends, these feelings may never have been so clearly expressed, but I don't think you will be surprised by them. Especially as I leave this country, as I have been talking about doing for years now.

What it's like in Australia

Australia hold my heart for many reasons. It's not really the hot, dry climate. It's not the bushfires, or the controlled burns on a hot day. It's not really the sand on feet after the beach, or the prickles on the grass, or the mosquitoes on a mild summer night. Neither is it the blowfish, or the flies, or the feel of cheep sunscreen on skin, or even those bad mergers on the freeway.

It's everything else that sparks so much joy. The sunset and sunrise on a clear-sky day. It's the family picnics in King's Park, or fireworks on Australia day. The beautiful clear water in Busselton, or the late-night Maccas runs with friends. It's the vibrant culture, and great food, and good coffee and Margaret River Chocolate factory. It's the hikes in nature, the smell of the bush after rain, the red dirt on hiking shoes, the dirty feet after only wearing thongs.

More importantly, its the good mates, the great friends, the loving family, and brilliant church family. And to Australia, I owe much, because it is Australia that has given me the good, the bad and the ugly. It is in Australia that I hold so many memories. And it is to God that I give the glory for the experiences he has blessed me with.

Many American friends will question my little introduction at the start: "Aynsley, you are totally Australian!". Many Aussie friends will also say "Aynsley, you're so American!". And you come to realise just what having two identities does to you. It doesn't just create a mixed accent, or a mixed identity. In fact, I don't really feel like they mix at all. Rather, I feel it's a bit like oil and water: they coexist, they do not mix. Which means that I am left fairly confused, and very estranged. My home is not Australia, but its not really America either. I'm left suspended in a substance that doesn't blend well, so I am left swapping between the two ingredients. Am I American, or am I Australian?

As a TCK, this strange substance of my identity rarely results in much comfort. Rather I am left feeling quite alienated from wherever I am based. I know that in two weeks, when I leave Australia, I am going to feel home-sick, and yet all at once, I will feel home. I will have this burdening loss, and such wonderful gain.

But in the midst of such oscillations, I can't help wishing for a greater feeling of comfort. If Australia isn't my home, and America is not bound to alleviate any trial, to where can I comfort such intolerable loss?

It is in this question that I find the great comforting answer: My future hope of Heaven as home is the only comfort to which a homeless orphan can crawl.

What it's like as a Christian

You see, as I say goodbye to all I've ever known, and hello to that which I have always called home, I must find no comfort in situation or circumstance which priorities the physical reality. I must incorporate my spiritual hope and certainty in my perspective. Home must be seen from a Biblical worldview. From this stance, I will see my earthly home as no comfort, but only that which God has reserved for me in Heaven.

"My home is in Heaven, I am just traveling through this world" ~ Billy Graham (American Evangelist)

Billy Graham (above) talks of his home being in Heaven and this earth being the journey. You see, all of us must find our true home with God. There is not greater father - head of the home - that God our father. There is no greater brother than Christ. There is no greater guide or teacher than the Holy Spirit. In God, we find perfection. In Christ, we are completed through his blood.

In Christ, we are the perfect bride of Christ. It is nothing we have done, but everything he has done. Right now, we find disappointment in our homes, but when we see God face to face, there will be no more disappointment.

2 Corinthians 5:1-10 talks about this future home with great hope:

"For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil." ~2 Corinthians 5:1-10

In this life, we are traveling towards a future reality of being with God in Heaven. But such travel is not passive. No, Paul points out that we need the Holy Spirit to give us courage; that we walk by faith and not sight; that we endeavor to please God (not for our salvation but to bring him glory); and in all of this, we are weary and burdened.

So in this life, we find no home. Every home is marred by sin. Every picture of home is met with disillusionment. We were created for God, who is everything that might complete our joy, our contentment. But we are separated by God. Sin has distorted the home, and even our view of it. And so my earthly home is disappointing.

However, disappointment comes naturally to any believer. It comes naturally to the TCK believer who doesn't find any comfort in their physical situation. It comes to the orphan who wishes for a father. It comes to the homeless without a home.

A few weeks ago, I came to the conclusion that my identity is a symbol for the one true God. I am made in the image of God, so how God designed me is to reflect him. In marriage, I represent the union of Christ with his church. In my femininity, I represent the hierarchy of the trinity: equal in nature, different in role. As a child of my parents, I represent my status as a Child of God. Everything relates back to God.

So if every relationship reflects God, everything messed up in my life must be completed by God. Sin messed me up, but God is the only solution. Where sin took a part, God will make the whole. Where sin removed the comfort and peace of my earthly home, God establishes a greater home with him in Heaven. Truly, our earthly home in the Garden of Eden was complete because God dwelt with man. Truly, our heavenly home will have the same reality. God is there, and so we are at peace.

So, where can I call home?

If God created my life as symbol or reflection of him, the slight comfort that any home might give us on earth, is a picture of the great home we have of Heaven. It's like worship and praise in church. It never fully satisfies, but it provides a picture of Heaven, when we spend eternity praising God, feeling complete in him.

Heaven is where I can call home. Earth is simply the place of this long burdensome journey. But it doesn't last forever. Indeed, it isn't that long. With my eyes fixed on eternity with God, I see my life on earth as a hurdle. And not a hurdle to be scared of, because he travels it with me.

Like the poem, footprints on the sand, we will see how God carried us the whole way. We can, on this earth, find comfort in the one God who saved us from our sin through Jesus Christ, and now transforms us to the image of his son.

As a third-culture kid, I might find not feel at home anywhere. But neither will you. Because our contentedness will never lie in the imperfect status of our homes here, but in the whole and complete home God has called us to with him.

Heaven is my home, earth is my journey and God is the focus of my life forever.