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It’s a tough reality to find yourself lost in the middle of your own life. In spite of our control-freak culture, it happens to the best of us. Sometimes it’s simply the result of a big move to another city, state, country. Or maybe a change in career or church or neighborhood. Empty nesters and retirees experience it, their homes and schedules suddenly absent the daily rigors of children or job. It’s expected, change is part of the plan. Even so, it leaves us feeling out of sorts. And the suddenness of it jars.
Other times, however, our lostness catches us by surprise. A layoff. Divorce. Conflict. Illness. Middle age. Criticism. A bad day. In a snap, the landscape of daily life changes. Who you thought you were and where you thought you’d be turn into fading memory.
Suddenly, you have no idea who you are, where you are, and how to find your way back home.
Several months ago, I stumbled on a movie during an international flight that gave metaphor to this angst:
I’m guessing you’ve never heard of it. Neither had I. It’s a Korean film with English subtitles that released in 2015. Not my typical movie choice, and I didn’t finish it. But the premise is compelling.
Woo-jin is a young man who leads a fairly ordinary life, except for one startling reality: Every day he wakes up in a different body. Male or female, child or adult. It changes every day. On the inside, he’s the same person, but the mirror reveals a stranger each morning. Worse, he never knows what’s coming.
This constant upheaval is eased by the single consistency in his day-to-day life: Yi-soo, the girl he loves. Yi-soo knows Woo-jin’s secret, but each new day they must find each other again.
This is just one of several body-swap movies over the past few decades. All of Me. Big. Freaky Friday. 13 Going on 30. The Hot Chick. The Change-Up. Being John Malkovich. Except for The Beauty Inside, each movie is a comedy, and rightly so. What’s more hilarious than a character attempting to navigate his old life in a new body? The audience laughs without risk because we know by the closing credits, everything will be restored back to “normal.”
Unfortunately, real life doesn’t wrap up quite so neatly.
Not to be melodramatic, but I know a thing or two about waking up in a body {and life} I don’t recognize. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve asked a doctor or friend or my husband the nagging question no one can answer:
How much longer until I’m back to normal? When is life going to feel “right” again?
Even now, more than two years later, I feel as if I’m still waiting for the comedic laughter and resolution, the moment when—POOF!—everything goes back to normal.
I’m not alone in my quest. Regardless of the differing details of your story, we all long for home.
That place where the sites and smells and sounds feel warm, familiar, and whisper of love.
Home is a place of belonging and safety, a place that doesn’t change and where we know we have a place that can’t be taken away. It’s our anchor and harbor, our shelter and refuge. We can embark on adventure, dare to take risks, because we know the safety of home sits behind and beneath, tethering us with its constancy and strength.
The problem is you and I search for home in the wrong places. We think it’s found in our families or achievements, our marriage or friendships or appearance. We want to wake up every morning to the same life. Then we’ll feel secure and safe and at home.
Problem is, life doesn’t cooperate.
Although we don’t experience Woo-jin’s daily extremes, real life is equally as unpredictable. The unexpected is inevitable. Thus, we need a home that isn’t anchored to externals, a place that won’t alter or fade or die.
Like Woo-jin, we have a Love that overcomes our lostness, too.
It’s a Love that overcomes obstacles and transcends change. It isn’t based on appearance or age, nor does it puff up with performance or fade with failure. This love existed before you could do a single thing to earn it, and it’s a Love that will remain long after you die.
God is the love that will never leave.
His is the love that will, every day, find you. Wherever you are.
It’s a love that does not—can not—change, even when you do. A love that will not leave and is never lost, even when you have zero idea who or where you are.
Your truest home isn’t a place, a position, a spouse or a family. Home is a Person. And His name is Jesus.
He’s the one with your name on His lips. And He has already moved heaven and earth to love you.
That means, no matter what you wake up to tomorrow morning, He will be with you. Right there. In the middle of the unrecognizable. Always.
Welcome home, friend. Welcome home.
[reminder]Have you ever felt lost in your own life? What makes you feel like you’ve come ‘home’ again? [/reminder]
So beautiful. Feeds my weary soul.
Thank you❤️.
With you, Pam. <3
Thank you for this post. I totally get this. Without going into details, life has been an upheaval for 3 very long years. I dont know what it will look like on the other side. What i do know is i struggle with yearnings for home and comfort. They are elusive. I must hope for good to come in this life.
Three years is a long time to endure upheaval, friend. I’m sorry for you’re struggle. But I KNOW you’re not alone. Much love. ~mc
Thanks for putting into words that which I have been struggling with! Trying to stay in the “trust” zone while realizing there is no promise of everything turning out ok takes pure determination. It makes me weary.
To answer your question….. Yes, I absolutely feel lost in my own life. (Empty nester here). The only thing that brings me back to center on the down days is to immerse myself in God’s Word. I read the Psalms and feel comforted. I read in Ephesians and feel God’s shield. I read John and “hear” Jesus’s words. I put my name in the verses and sense God leading me along my path. Thank you Michele for your words this morning!
Solid selections for those tough days. Thank you for sharing your process, Lisa. It helps the rest of us!
Absolutely I have felt that. What is the most frustrating aspect of it is that some of the “lostness” has resulted from my own pathetically bad decisions. They were totally preventable. The reality, however, is that we are a linear people, always moving forward, and never backward. What we have today is what we have. What is, is. It is wasted energy for me to fret over the past, or to worry about the future. I cannot change the past, and I cannot alter a future that is not yet a reality. But what I can do is be faithful with, and thankful for what is in my hands this moment, this day.
If I would have known how unrecognizable my life was going to become, I don’t think I could have faced it. To this day, I have flashes of memory about my prior life, and how I thought I’d be healthy and physically able to do all the things I was used to doing…you know…living a normal life. After a broken neck and two brain surgeries, the reality doesn’t match the fantasy. But I always remember a saying by Corrie Ten Boom…something her father told her. “You don’t get the ticket ’till you get on board [the train].” That might not be the exact words he used, but the message is clear. We don’t get the grace to go through these times of longing to be back home until we are actually living the reality of the struggle. I couldn’t have faced this in my imagination, but I am facing it with God’s mercies, which are renewed every morning. :o) And I know you are too!
Absolutely I use to wonder why I was here. But God meets you where you are at.
Blessings Robin
Michele, reading this again brought up something completely different! Yesterday I attended a small group in my church. Backstory: from the time I was in my twenties, I had a desire to lead women…through Bible study or a prayer group or something, Now as a therapist, my favorite clients are still the women who come to learn and grow. Okay, back to yesterday…second meeting of the small group. It is led by a woman half my age and is filled with mostly young women with small children and babies…a life season I am long past. I know I have a place there…mentoring younger women as the Bible says, but I also realized that my vision of what I had wanted to do is past. Life sometimes seems to have passed me by. So many things happened that made being a leader to women impossible over the years, and now, although t’s not too late, it may be time to pass the baton and cheerlead the younger ones so excited to move in leadership and ministry. So many things have changed! But like you said, Jesus never changes. He knew all along that this would not be my role. He has loved me through it all…mistakes and missteps, illness and injury. He has remained LOVE in my life. The one constant. Thank you for re-posting this one!