[et_pb_section bb_built=”1″ fullwidth=”on” _builder_version=”3.0.47″][et_pb_fullwidth_header title=”Happiness is Foreign to Me” subhead=”May 2, 2018 | Happiness” background_layout=”dark” background_overlay_color=”rgba(38,38,38,0.32)” _builder_version=”3.0.92″ background_image=”https://truestoryproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Happiness-is-Foreign-to-Me-1.jpg” custom_padding=”200px||200px|” text_orientation=”left” header_fullscreen=”off” header_scroll_down=”off” image_orientation=”center” content_orientation=”center” custom_button_two=”off” button_two_icon_placement=”right” custom_button_one=”off” button_one_icon_placement=”right” /][/et_pb_section][et_pb_section bb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”3.0.47″][et_pb_row _builder_version=”3.0.92″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” custom_padding=”||1px|”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.0.92″ background_layout=”light”]
“Because I’m happy…” Pharrell Williams
[dropcap]B[/dropcap]ut perhaps you’re not. Perhaps you are not feeling like a cheerful, little yellow minion, perhaps you were happy before you were ripped from one world, home and culture into another. It seemed like a good idea at the time – travel is fun and you learn from a world of experiences, don’t you? Perhaps it was study, or a calling, or a job that took you from one continent to the next. Or perhaps it was not your choice at all; your family chose, your workplace chose, or your world disappeared and you had to flee. For whatever reason your world and culture is behind you many miles away, it’s more than ‘just a plane ride’ away; it’s nearly impossible to reach. This is what we call being a foreigner or immigrant. In one small journey a few days, a few miles, a few trains, planes, and boats and one life drops away and another begins. Back ‘home’ you were understood, you understood, everything was familiar, the world needed no explanation you could just enjoy it. Suddenly all the props of usual happinesses are knocked away and you stand alone, family, friends, hobbies and pursuits – gone!
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You suddenly discover immigrant invisibility. You are no longer seen for who you are or judged on your own merits. Everyone who sees you comes with a full set of pre-conceptions based on your national identity. Your old achievements may mean nothing in your new setting your intelligence and ability is judged by your grammar rather than your IQ or abilities. You feel invisible, no longer seen as a person but a label. Trust me, I understand it took more than a year before anyone in my new village called me by any other name than ‘foreigner’. Another year and they called me my job titles, mother or teacher. At long last the new identity became more comfortable and a few friends discovered my first name!
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Homesickness.
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You are not alone! This was always the case for the ‘foreigner’ and any of us can become a foreigner at any time. All it takes is a journey. The Welsh have a good word for the grief of homesickness – the hiraeth. This concept doesn’t translate well into English it encompasses the depth of longing, missing and nostalgia. The old world takes on an ethereal glow not realistic but to the mind’s eye real. The longing is deep. In Romanian, an old Eastern European language, to miss is a noun. The missing almost as its own entity, a person. A companion to many foreigners, the missing, the hiraeth.
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So how do you find happiness in homesickness? The Bible has an understanding of foreigners. May I just address those readers who are at home and have the opportunity to welcome foreigners? The Bible was unique in that foreigners had the opportunity to be treated as equals. “When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.” (Lev 19:33-34 ESV) God takes the treatment of the foreigner very seriously, “Then I will draw near to you for judgment. I will be a swift witness against …those who thrust aside the sojourner [foreigner], and do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts.”
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Malachi 3:5 Strong words! (See also Lev 24:22, Jer 22:3, Deut 27:19) The Lord watches over the foreigner and instructs His people to provide and care for foreigners. (Lev 23:22, Ps 146:9, Heb 13:2) We see a new way to welcome the foreigner as part of the Christian family in the New Testament. In Christ we are all equal, “For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him.” (Rom 10:12 KJV) “There is neither Greek nor Jew… Barbarian, Scythian (your nationality here), bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all.” (Col 3:11 KJV) Let us try to see past the label and just be friends, be patient, understand past the differences and try to learn about their world. You may find a friend in Christ, which is a more real and lasting citizenship than any shared passport. Remember Jesus said, “I was a stranger and you welcomed me.” (Matt 25:35 ESV)
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So, is happiness past homesickness even possible? Put another way can we feel strange and a stranger no longer? Let’s start with the most important things. Christ – be sure of your identity in Him. Christ is the constant where ever we are. As believers we are all foreigners, citizens of another land, strange and misunderstood in this land. Remember the allegory of Pilgrim’s Progress? Our Saviour saved us from sin and fit us for a land to come. The great examples of believers in the Bible, “…acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.” (Heb 11:13-16) Let us live life looking not just at the temporal things here but keeping our minds on the eternal perspective. True happiness is found in real and spiritual things all other things are temporal and by definition cannot last.
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The antidote to homesickness.
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There are practical things you can do to find happiness cross-culturally. There are things you can to do help this new place to become home. Be brave. Keep exploring, keep meeting people, form friendships and try to avoid isolation. Enjoy meeting with other ‘strangers’ from your home country and other international friends, but don’t let that become your only context. Keep learning about your new context, keep learning language, culture, push past the frustrations (Why do they keep doing things this way here? Can’t they see it’s rude? Can’t they see there’s a better way?!). Try to learn the why – why is this normal here? Understating cultural values can really help you see why people do and say and live in a certain way. Learn to appreciate a new cultures’ values, priorities and methods of relating with each other within that society. Keep praying – you may not yet feel happy but you can feel peace. One day this new context can become home.
Paul gave us the key to happiness in another country, in another context, even sometimes in what feels like another world. He wrote in Philippians, “I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.” (Phil 4:11 ESV) Contentment is learning to be happy with what there is in any situation. Happiness is an elusive feeling, lost in its own pursuit, contentment is a choice that breeds deep soul-happiness. In practical cross-cultural terms it is learning to enjoy what I have available to enjoy in this context rather than spending my time longing for what is not available here. Shakespeare, the great wordsmith, taught his kings the need for contentment in the words of King Henry the IV,
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“My crown is in my heart, not on my head;
Not decked with diamonds and Indian stones,
Nor to be seen: my crown is called content:
A crown it is that seldom kings enjoy.”
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God has brought you to this place now. Enjoy the good things where you are. Seek within the deep and spiritual gratefulness for the good things we can enjoy and the fathomless spiritual blessings always available even in the hardest times. Paul puts it another way in his letter he told the Philippians to think about things that were true, honourable, just, pure, lovely, “whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” (Phil 4:8 ESV). You can choose where your mind dwells, and the soil in which your thoughts and heart grows.
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Think positively of the culture you are in and the place the Lord has placed you at this time. Meditate on the good and wholesome things in the Bible and rejoice in the beautiful aspects of His creation in the area where you live. David looked up at the stars in the desert, in the mountains he looked to the hills, in the streets he looked toward the Almighty. (Ps 8, Ps 121, Ps 122) Look up when your heart is down, cultivate a heart of thankfulness and you will find your joy deep in the Lord. This place and these troubles are only for a time we seek a higher destination. Look up. Our Lord Jesus was a stranger in a strange land – he knows our troubles (Heb 4:15). Cast all your cares on Him for He cares for you. (1Pet 5:7) The ultimate foreigner and immigrant is your Saviour and your Friend, look up to Him.
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