Broken-hearted

I've never felt so uncomfortable in my own skin. I feel like I don't know who I am, who I was or who everyone wants me to be. I'm guessing this is just another stage of culture shock, but quite frankly, it's horrible. I'm all over the gamut with emotions - somedays happy and loving everyone... others I'm depressed and think that no one cares about people suffering in other countries... then I'm angry, defensive and confused... Then I wonder if it would've been easier to not have seen what I did or experienced the things I did. I just want things to go back to normal - I don't want to feel like a foreigner in my own country. I don't want to feel responsible for my actions and realize that how I spend my money affects my family in Nicaragua. I want to be able to have a conversation with my friends without having to define every word they say because that's how my mind works now. I want to go back to when I was happy and conformed and everyone understood me and we all had everything in common.

But then I know I'd miss out on 2 incredible families who I love very dearly. I wouldn't understand that there is always one more side to a story. I wouldn't admit that there where questions I had that I ignored because they just "couldn't be answered." I wouldn't have been able to see how hard my mom works and what an incredible person she is. I wouldn't be able to learn spanish well enough to have a conversation with my Guatemalan hygienist about Guatemala and what she experienced there. I wouldn't have seen what incredible potential there was for change in my life that could affect change in other countries.

All of me is frustrated, confused and wanting to run away. I suppose I'm realizing that the life I had was good but this can be good to. But it is going to be different. I may lose some things, but I know I will gain others. I was reading about love a bit ago, and what caught my eye is that love always trusts, hopes and perseveres. So, since I want my life to be a life of love, I will continue to trust, hope and persevere.

One of my LASP professors/friends sent me an article on hope. My favorite sentence she hi-lited was the following - one I'd like to keep in mind:

"I am totally confident not that the world will get better, but that we should not give up the game before all the cards have been played. The metaphor is deliberate; life is a gamble. Not to play is to foreclose any chance of winning. To play, to act, is to create at least a possibility of changing the world."

I'll just try to keep playing my cards... Maybe God will lead me in a direction. Maybe God will watch me find a direction. Maybe He'll change my heart and mind to believe things other than I do now. Maybe He'll watch me search till I find what I'm looking for. I don't know yet. I have a few things figured out, but for now I will press on in the journey - however hard it might get. Hopefully my responses will all be loving. Sometimes I will fail, but hopefully I will learn to keep playing my cards and never fold when I'm discouraged.