The word home-sickness
was coined in 1798 to describe
one’s feelings of near depression
when they are away from home.
So then, what did you leave
behind at home
that makes you feel
this way?
The family room, the back yard,
the home cooked meals at the dinner table,
the fast food runs your mother introduced
to you while she pursued her masters?
There is no medication
for this and there is
no know methods
or preventatives for
such an emotion.
In fact, we don't even know
when it will "hit" us.
It just comes in our mind like
a river and soon we
are swimming in the flood.
Before tonight, I thought
Home sickness for me
is a result of separation
from my parents and siblings,
But more importantly,
the environment we create
when we are together.
The world, or the views of
the world may deem homesickness
as a character flaw,
as a sign of weakness.
But how could this be, and why
would other people be so worried about
the emotions we are feeling, especially
if they didn't involve them.
So homesickness can be directly
related to people that we love.
To love those around you and
recognize the absence thereof
does not resonate with me as being weak,
yet it is a bond that has been stretched
cross-country and for some,
even to the heavens.
I believe that homesickness
is not a singular syndrome, meaning
an illness or disorder
rather, a means unto an ends.
In Philosophy, the term
means to an end refers to
any action (the means) that the
sole purpose of it is to
achieve something else (an end).
So how is homesickness a
means to an end....?
And as I was reading
The Book of Mormon this evening,
I suffered an unrelated experience.
Or was it unrelated.
I became homesick.
All the sudden I was swimming
in the flood of thoughts and
desires to be married, to
be a wife and a mother.
There was nothing in the
Book of Mormon that
I was reading that could
have clearly taken my mind to
entertain these thoughts,
except the fact,
that The Book Of Mormon
is all about families.
I was humbled
in that thought alone.
A wise man wrote a book once,
it was about transitional phrases
that all humans will go through.
“It's like being between Trapezes.”
(William Bridges)
Yes, I felt this way, just someone
in between.
Yes, I was suffering
all the signs
and symptons
of homesickness;
you know the ones:
sad, lonely, hungry.
Just kidding, I don't think
hunger is a sign of homesickness.
You see how I can crack a joke and
still smile through this homesickness??
It's been brought to my attention,
that the things and people I am most homesick
for in my life, actually do not exist.
At least not yet,
or I do not recognize
their existence.
I am feeling these
emotions of homesickness
as I thought about my desires to raise
children. To be a happy mother.
To be a good wife and
even a fun girlfriend.
None of these titles
define me....yet..
or currently..
Then why do I feel
the Phantom pain for them.
And then it hit me,
it is in my nature to want
these things and my potential
to become it, is the driving force
of the choices I make,
this homesickness is a reminder
of things that can become.
The phantom pain is
there to awaken me to
the reality that God
sees me in this light too.
While I served a mission in Arizona.
I was invited to eat dinner with a family.
The father was a doctor, a sugeron.
Before he learned about The
Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-Day Saints,
he had an experience
that would later lead him to
the restored gospel and truth.
He was with a patient, that had lost a limb.
Yes, his arm was gone.
Yet, he complained of the pain
in the arm.... that was not attached to his body any longer.
In that moment, he knew
that a body was not just a body,
that a spirit was real as well,
and perhaps the two of them combined
was really a human soul.
So by definition we know that
Phantom pain sensations are described
as perceptions that an individual experiences
relating to a limb or an organ
that is not physically part of the body.
As I am making these connections,
peace comes into my mind,
that my opportunity to
fulfill these roles,
has not happened yet,
but they will.
And if I continue
to suffer these phantom pains
of homesickness,
they will serve as a reminder,
what want I want,
and who the Lord needs me to be.
And the pursuit where both of those
paths will cross and become one.
