What We Call Home
Has anyone seen that movie Castaway? Ya know, the one with Tom Hanks. He's like, stuck on an island for about 4 years and he has that volleyball named Wilson with a bloody (literally. not just being British here) hand print for it's face?
Well, I was just visiting my family in California recently and was watching that movie. And being in California was good for me. Gave me new perspective with the people and the scenery and everything. But that's not what is important. What is important is what I learned while I was there and what God revealed to me as I had watched this movie.
So, in Castaway, like I said, the main character gets stuck on an island for 4 years! He learns the ways of island life, makes his own food, while dealing with the hardships that come along with no human interaction. Being alone. He finds himself off the island by a miracle. Just as he is leaving the island, and heading out into the ocean, he looks back and the look on his face clearly reveals that he will in fact, miss the island. I mean, who couldn't? Maybe fear of the unknown was strewn across his face too. But living somewhere, and calling something home is what we, as humans, love to do. And leaving it is just as hard.
And me, you know me, just relating everything back to my own personal life, I thought about my mission. And I thought about how much I wanted to go home the first 12 weeks in Missouri. But then I made a home, I learned...I grew. I learned to appreciate the people I was around. I became a full person and disciple of Christ. The circumstances weren't as poor as a man stuck on an island, but I made sacrifices such as limited contact with family, food discomforts, schedule changes, and cultural circumstances.
When I returned home from my mission, I felt as if I were the main character of Castaway after he left the island, sticking to the crab he ate on the island and wanting to sleep on the floor flipping a light switch up and down to replace a natural fire. You make a place a home and it becomes apart of you. And soon, the place that you thought you would get over becomes the first place you want to return to.
But what the more compelling aspect to think about is his friend he made on the island, Wilson. I think the saddest part of the whole freakin' movie was to watch Wilson float away to the great ocean abyss. And watching Tom Hanks cry over a volleyball is an understatement of the meaning of this scene. It wouldn't be a home without a place, but more often, without a person.
And even now I'm already missing my visit to California and watching my dad come home from work or going to go drop off food to the kids with Luisa or playing games with my sister Tori, listening to her fantasize about the movie Trolls.
In the end, I'm still mad that Tom Hanks didn't get the girl. But sometimes reality hits you and that's just life. Coming home from a mission has been the hardest adjustment of my life. Nothing can replace the feeling of home I felt. And nothing will! But there's one home that won't change, and that is the home I belong to in Heaven. Where a Heavenly Father and a valiant brother Jesus Christ are always with me. So I have to move forward, with them. And in the words of Tom Hanks, "I know what I have to do now. I gotta keep BREATHING because tomorrow the sun will rise. Who knows what the TIDE could bring?"
Well, I was just visiting my family in California recently and was watching that movie. And being in California was good for me. Gave me new perspective with the people and the scenery and everything. But that's not what is important. What is important is what I learned while I was there and what God revealed to me as I had watched this movie.
So, in Castaway, like I said, the main character gets stuck on an island for 4 years! He learns the ways of island life, makes his own food, while dealing with the hardships that come along with no human interaction. Being alone. He finds himself off the island by a miracle. Just as he is leaving the island, and heading out into the ocean, he looks back and the look on his face clearly reveals that he will in fact, miss the island. I mean, who couldn't? Maybe fear of the unknown was strewn across his face too. But living somewhere, and calling something home is what we, as humans, love to do. And leaving it is just as hard.
And me, you know me, just relating everything back to my own personal life, I thought about my mission. And I thought about how much I wanted to go home the first 12 weeks in Missouri. But then I made a home, I learned...I grew. I learned to appreciate the people I was around. I became a full person and disciple of Christ. The circumstances weren't as poor as a man stuck on an island, but I made sacrifices such as limited contact with family, food discomforts, schedule changes, and cultural circumstances.
When I returned home from my mission, I felt as if I were the main character of Castaway after he left the island, sticking to the crab he ate on the island and wanting to sleep on the floor flipping a light switch up and down to replace a natural fire. You make a place a home and it becomes apart of you. And soon, the place that you thought you would get over becomes the first place you want to return to.
But what the more compelling aspect to think about is his friend he made on the island, Wilson. I think the saddest part of the whole freakin' movie was to watch Wilson float away to the great ocean abyss. And watching Tom Hanks cry over a volleyball is an understatement of the meaning of this scene. It wouldn't be a home without a place, but more often, without a person.
And even now I'm already missing my visit to California and watching my dad come home from work or going to go drop off food to the kids with Luisa or playing games with my sister Tori, listening to her fantasize about the movie Trolls.
In the end, I'm still mad that Tom Hanks didn't get the girl. But sometimes reality hits you and that's just life. Coming home from a mission has been the hardest adjustment of my life. Nothing can replace the feeling of home I felt. And nothing will! But there's one home that won't change, and that is the home I belong to in Heaven. Where a Heavenly Father and a valiant brother Jesus Christ are always with me. So I have to move forward, with them. And in the words of Tom Hanks, "I know what I have to do now. I gotta keep BREATHING because tomorrow the sun will rise. Who knows what the TIDE could bring?"
Xoxo Alicia
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