Not ready for goodbye

I cannot believe that a week from today I will be boarding my flight home to America. My time here has been so sweet and cherished, and I am sad to be saying goodbye to it all in just one short week. I am going to miss so many things about this place that has become my home away from home. I am going to miss my new family and all the hugs and love I constantly receive from the sweetest kids in the world. I am going to miss waking up to the sound of voices praising the Lord right outside the bedroom door for morning devotions at 5:00 am every morning. I am going to miss late night talks around the fire with the older boys in Chongwe before snuggling into bed and having pillow talk while falling asleep with the girls. I am going to miss running around in the dirt with kids hanging on my arms and legs. I am going to miss the way Mama Anna gives me the biggest hug in the world and says “My Daughter” each time she sees me throughout the day. To put it simply, I am going to miss my life out here. As the time has drawn nearer for me to leave this place and all of these people I have fallen so deeply in love with, my heart can’t help but ache at the thought. I am not ready to go. I don’t think I will ever be fully ready to go. My heart longs for more time with these kids each moment I spend with them, and the thought of leaving them behind in a week brings my heart so much pain. In working through these emotions, however, I have been reminded of where the Lord has called me. While I would stay here above returning to the States in a heartbeat, the Lord has called me home for a new season. A new and final semester of school with new and exciting adventures and challenges that lay ahead. I am unsure of what these next few months will hold for me, and sometimes even question why the Lord would expose my heart and allow me to fall so in love with a place only to be stripped away for the next season of my life. But I am again reminded, His ways are not mine. This life is not my own. And I will choose to follow wherever the Lord leads me, in whatever season that may be. My heart longs to one day soon be back here, playing in the dirt again with these kids, but I cannot be sure of anything at this point. While I would love to promise both myself and these kids that I will be back one day soon, that would not be fair. I must choose to follow the Lord’s call on my life and right now that is to return home. I am choosing to enjoy this last week to the fullest, hopeful to return one day soon, but opening my hands to the Lord and His call on the rest of my life.