Re-entry from a life-changing trip can be hard.
Hard… because the moment I walk through my door, my real life hat with all its responsibilities sits firmly on my head again. Carpools, dinner, kissing boo boos, parenting, and decision making…they don’t wait for jet lag to be gone to come flooding back over me.
It’s a flinging back into reality with little to no time for recovery from the emotional investments and drains of a trip that settled me square in the middle of a 7 hour time difference. It is beautiful to return home, but it doesn’t come without challenges.
We come home and life goes on…
And while I know that I am different returning home from the past 10 days in Uganda, there has to be at least some tangible remain in my thinking…a take-away, so to speak.
One of the beautiful things about a blogging and writing trip is also the thing that often proves to be one of the most difficult. To experience full investment in the moment… to analyze, and turn it around into a coherent and thoughtful post that invites people along (all within about 15 hours) is a stretching, but rewarding process.
Oftentimes in foreign travel, people return home and process for weeks and months to come, but on a writing trip, it is really different because we have to process at least a couple of solid nuggets every single day. We have to learn to extract the lessons and key thoughts, pray and study into them, and regurgitate the takeaways almost immediately.
It is super challenging, but also extremely rewarding to see God continue to give pieces of himself in this way every day.
I’ve been thinking, that I’d like to be more intentional about doing the same thing at home.
One of my BlogHope teammates said the other day that she wasn’t sure she would have time for the same type of thinking every day at home, and I found myself pondering more on the idea of daily nuggets.
For us in Africa, we were removed from household chores, carpools, work, friends, and family, so it’s easier to clear away the clutter to see into the lessons.
But, how much greater would it be for us to learn to seek those nuggets of growth in daily life? When monotonous repetition takes over and piles of laundry are endless, to train my mind to look for the takeaways of my day…to cultivate a mindset of noticing all of the individual moments and lessons, that combined, form a whole day.
I wonder how much more growth I can experience in not just my writing, but in my daily living, when I spend time thinking into the learning moments…the wrecking moments…the profound moments…and the repetitive moments of my life?
Re-entry can be hard, but I find myself wondering if what we miss so much when we come home is really about a loss of life-changing experience, or about the loss of time we spend engaging in our own heart’s learning process?
Wow, such great and profound words. Thank you for these today, I needed to hear them!!
Thanks for letting us into your process, here, Logan. Praying for you as you adjust to time changes and process so much, and work through all the beautiful mess of everyday life. Have you heard of the prayer of examen? The church fathers and mothers used this practice to center their hearts on what God was doing throughout their day, and lay it all down in gratitude. It’s been a gift to me in this season.
You can learn about it lots of places, but here’s one: http://gravitycenter.com/practice/examen/
Logan,
I started following your blog, tweets and instagram pics just a few days before your departure to Uganda. And in that short amount of time, I’ve had the wonderful opportunity to learn about you and your heart. Your blog posts from Uganda often left me with a knot in my throat, eyes overflowing and my heart aching but not in a bad way. I wanted to thank you for sharing your experience so thoughtfully, so passionately and completely transparent. You are one of those rare people that make other people want to be better. To do better. You’ve allowed me to see God’s grace and love for us in those difficult times that often are beyond our comprehension. That even though there’s tragedy and sadness around us, God is fighting hard to show His love to us.
As I read your latest blog post, I immediately thought, “Life as an Entree”. =)
Oh goodness, Logan. What a profound thought…to search out the nuggets in our days as diligently (and with the intent of sharing them) as we did in Uganda. How beautiful. I have a new prayer today. Thank you. I miss you, girl. I say it all the time…and mean it, too.
PS BEST PICTURE EVER!!!!!!