Chasing the Sunset

My heart feels full lately. Lots of new experiences, fulfilling events that fill me with wonder and delight at God's goodness and faithfulness in my life and the lives of people around me. I have seen prayers answered, lavish generosity poured out, faith like a child's, healing granted, laughter and love and tears. All of these things dance in my head, and I have been looking for how to express them in blog-sized pieces.

But tonight, the other side of things came into play. The side where I feel like an outsider, wondering how long I have to be here before people stop needing to explain things to me. Wishing I could sit on the porch with a drink and the company of my parents after a long day of work. Chasing the sunset.

I live in the city of León. While it's a beautiful city, it has a lot of tall buildings. As I was coming home in the late afternoon light, reflecting on the conversation I had just had with several pastoral couples in Chinandega, the sky was alight with color and the breeze was cool. I had to see the sunset. I put down my bag and took off on my bicycle, headed west.

My eyes feasted on the blazing orange in the clouds above me. Hardly paying attention to the other things around me, I focused on the heavens and tried to find higher ground so I could see above the buildings. To no avail. The sun set without me. The sky's fire went out. Disappointed, feeling like I should head home so I could go to church, I turned around.

The view to the east was powerful too, though. Dark storm clouds piled high (Lord, please send us rain. We are in a drought and need it badly), the fading light highlighting just enough to see their majesty.

Sometimes, we are looking so hard for something, we miss the other views around us. I'm not saying that those moments where we long for "home," for going back to the way things were, for seeing the beauty of the sun hit the horizon, they won't necessarily go away ever. And it's okay to grieve what once was. But there are new views, new loves, new homes. May we ever be pilgrims with broken hearts as we live on earth, chasing after the Son because only He can truly show us glory.