Reflections From The Mission Field: The World is Thy Ship and not Thy Home

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I walked into my room, shut and locked the door, flopped on my bed, and began to cry. After my grandparents had experienced a few different emergencies at their home in Michigan, my parents had decided we were going to move up there, from Florida, to help them. While I was all for the idea of helping my grandparents, I didn't want to leave my home. Michigan did not have my theatre group, my parish, my homeschool co-op, my youth group, or my friends. I was scared to start again somewhere new in the middle of high school.
 What would people think of me? 
What if I couldn't find a youth group like the one I was in now? 
What was I supposed to do if I couldn't find a new theatre or homeschool group to join?
 How would I make friends?
 As much as I wanted answers to these questions, one question stuck in the forefront of my mind, why was God allowing us to go through this time of hardship. As I lie in bed contemplating this, I weighed the options. Was God trying to test my faith? Surely He was trying to test my love. What could He be trying to teach me? I looked up at the wall beside my bed, and through tears I saw a wooden sign a friend had gifted me for Christmas just a few months prior. Burned into the wood was the quote "The world is thy ship and not thy home." It was as if I had just read it for the first time. Suddenly I felt something touch my heart. Maybe God was testing my faith. Maybe He was teaching me how to love. Maybe He was trying to strengthen my virtue. But, maybe He was also trying to make me remember that this world is not my home. Maybe in this season of great discomfort and pain was to remind me that I was not always going to be comfortable with the different changes in my life. "You were not made for comfort; you were made for greatness." 
I am now living in Michigan and while it has been difficult to be away from my friends, parish, and extracurricular activities, I am constantly reminded of this experience. This world is only our ship, our way of getting to Heaven, our one true home.  

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