Peru family.

One of the things God taught me about in Peru was this idea I have of family.

My idea, I have to admit, was very small. I struggled with loneliness, and I often ascribed these feelings to not being around family or friends who REALLY know me.

I left Peru last year in July trying to escape and find satisfaction in my blood-relatives. I returned to Peru with a heavy burden based on the knowledge that I was guilty of the aforementioned confession.

Through other events, God began to show me about family as he sees it:

Marta, my Peruvian friend, became my sister; her mother became a Peruvian mama. Caroline in Portugal and Susan in Africa were my soul sisters on different continents. Steph became my best friend during this time and loved me as her own family. The mother of a former roommate at UGA encouraged me and loved me from Georgia-there's a reason I always called her "Mama Freida."

Furthermore, the Americans I encountered in Peru took me into their own families, for which I am so grateful.

I was thinking about you all today, missing you. While I have my biological parents here and my girlfriends and other supporters and prayer warriors, I miss my Peru family:

I want to move back in with Rebekah and Michael and hear "Crocodinosaur" from Gabriel. I miss Jenny's laugh and John's jokes and Caleb's stories and Elijah's excitement over seeing me. I want the Rains boys's hugs and Kristi's hospitality. And I hate that I can't walk down the street to the Christy's house and have Mark climb into my lap.

While I lived away from my Stateside family and friends, you guys loved me and showed me what family is. God used you in my life and I am blessed by you. Whether you fed me, housed me, or just let me hang out with you and your kids, the time you gave me and allowed me to enter your homes was so precious, needed, and it beautifully illustrated how the body of Christ should work.

(Shout out also to Scott and Meghan Dillon, Amy and Christian Listro, and Randall and Susan Anderson and all your kids.)

Muchos abrazos y besos.

happy things.

This is a brief (or not-so-brief, whatever I feel like doing) list of things that make me happy these days. At the very least, they are attempts at making me happy.

1. Seeing my dogs and just laying with them on the floor.
2. Going on a walk and sweating so much that I detoured to an empty pool afterwards and jumped in.
3. Being blessed to have a car for a few months.
4. Visiting with old friends and telling stories and laughing a lot (or crying a lot).
5. Sitting in bookstores and reading to read.
6. Seeing old Journeyman friends. They just get it. I don't have to say much.
7. Unexpected rain showers.
8. Ray Lamontagne and David Gray live-in-concert.
9. Sitting with my sister.
10. Remembering Athens.
11. Making "The Salsa."
12. Discovering and re-discovering modern-day bards (Jon Foreman, Jorge Drexler, David Gray, Josh Ritter).
13. The late-setting sun.

A Metaphor.

I went to the wedding of two beautiful friends on Saturday: Lindsay and Noah had a worship service to celebrate their union. It was lovely.

A wedding is something God rejoices over because He created love. When two people commit to serve God together for the rest of their lives, the Son is glorified. The Father is glorified. The Spirit is glorified.

I was humbled to witness two people I deeply respect profess their love for Christ and for each other. As I sat and watched and worshipped with them, a thought came to mind that I've been wanting to write about for some time:

Christ runs after His people::

I want to be run after::

Pursued.

I'm pursued by Christ and I deserve to be pursued by a Godly man someday, just like I imagine Noah went after Lindsay; He went after her, he wanted to be wherever she was.

Ponder this:

Noah and Lindsay's wedding is a metaphor for the marriage of Christ and His people. Noah's pursuit of Lindsay is a metaphor for Christ pursuing each one of us.

Metaphors are intriguing things. You find them throughout life, sometimes screaming at you, sometimes hiding from you until you, having garnered more wisdom, unearth them.

This has happened to me. The unearthing.

I'm still digging them up, but they're mine to dig. I know others before me might have already discovered this particular metaphor; in my case, understanding has come.

Hairdressers, Quarterlife Crises, and Truth.

I went to get my haircut this week and had a lovely, albeit random, conversation with my friend Lorena, who has been making the Junco ladies look beautiful for the last nine years. She is a not-so-sassy (I would describe her as un-stereotypically chill) Latina of Mexican decent with a little girl and a husband named Carlos. They're pregnant with their second child, they work with the youth group at church, and they have been recently "discussing strongly" (I take this to mean fighting) the issue of child-rearing.

After my hair was perfectly shaped and sprayed, I hugged Lorena and we exchanged numbers, saying that I'd love to visit her church sometime (a positive thing considering I am without a church a right now). I left the salon and sat in my sister's car that I now periodically borrow (I'm without transportation currently) and came to the following realization:

My hairdresser, with the exception of my family, is the only "constant" in my life.

Let's start with a question, one I have for the masses: Is the PC term "hairdresser," "hairstylist," or "cut specialist" (or something else I am unaware of)? :)

Another question is one you might have for me: Why the extremely dramatic and semi-confusing statement about Lorena being your only "constant?" Let me explain...

People in life come and go. Friends you had when you were eight are probably not the friends you now have, except maybe in Facebook-land (which doesn't really count if you don't keep up with them), or if you grew up in a really small town.

I left college two years ago and proceeded to leave the country; I recently returned to a completely different world. My family is still around, but my friends are scattered and in different life situations (jobs, relationships, etc). I'm entering a "quarterlife crisis" that doesn't bode well for my already fragile state. (As I write the words "fragile state," I remember the Scripture that says to be "bold and courageous," and I'm trying. As I write "I'm trying," I remember that I should stop trying and just let go.)

I want to embrace the change. I'm trying to enjoy starting over because everyone tells me it's an exciting thing. But I have to admit: It's hard and it's scary. Good thing I know deep down in the part of my heart labeled "TRUTH" that God doesn't promise ease or happiness all the time.

Today I wanted to speak Spanish. I wanted to walk or take a taxi. I wanted all the white people to go away. I wanted salsa music and dancing. I can still have those things in North America, which is fine; I suppose my heart is just pulling me in various directions--North, South, East and West. I'm not sure where I'll end up, but I'm trying to remember that my home is what I make here with Christ.

I'm thankful I have Lorena as a "constant," among other people (my dentist, my doctor, and the cashier at Publix).

At least in all the movement around me, I can listen to salsa music with her, comment about how I'm tired of gringos now, and speak Spanish (although I'll have to learn Mexican slang now).

I'll make the transition in time.

Home is wherever I'm with You.

I stepped off the plane today and the humidity blessed my dry skin with moisture that it hasn't felt in two years. The heat attacked my face in a love-punch way, one in which I might regret as more hot August days draw themselves out before the cool comes. But for today, I embraced the hostility.

I made the silly decision to take my contacts out on the plane in order to sleep without having them stick to my eyeballs. I didn't have my glasses. You can guess what this then entailed: Me, walking around blindly, trying to navigate my way out of the airport. At one point, I followed the crowd toward the restroom thinking it was Immigration. Had I not realized we were all going to the bathroom, I probably would have walked into the men's room unknowingly.

There's a metaphor in here for something, I'm sure--walking around blindly, following the crowds, etc, etc.

I saw my dad (though squinting to make out shapes) and felt my face contort even more and had this moment of "don't cry, Sarah, keep it together." I couldn't stop it. He wrapped me up and didn't let go and I didn't let go and didn't want to let go. For now, Jose Junco is the one man in this life who will protect me and love me despite my imperfections. What a picture of grace. Praise God for my dad, who loves me as God loves us.

I cried at random moments on my first day back in the Land of "You-can-have-it-all:" Hugging my mom, seeing a Latina Chic-Fil-A worker, sitting at On the Border, walking through a mall. I can't explain much right now. I just know that the "Welcome Home" and "You are back, great!" comments chalk up to more confusion for me; or perhaps, examined in another light, they provide an answer:

My earthly home isn't here. I'm not sure where it is. I think I'm learning that it's okay that I have roots and meaningful connections and pieces of my heart in various places with many people. Life is about the valleys and the mountains that God uses to refine us into the image of Christ, to have streams of living water flowing from within us. Maybe those valleys and the streams that run through them and climb into the mountain hilltops are shaped by the hand of a God who embraces vulnerability that comes with giving yourself away to others.

May my life always be about giving.