not bound to culture or nation

There is a certain stress that comes with living in a different country.  It has nothing to do with liking or not liking the place.  It's the air, the cars, the laws, the interactions, the signs, the stores, the schools, the home.  It's the fact that light switches are outside the bathrooms instead of inside the bathrooms.  Bomb checks at shopping mall parking garages being routine.  It's small markets, gated communities, broken sidewalks, gypsies and refugees.  It's what makes the place exciting and it's what builds some stress inside.

I didn't realize this right away.  I started noticing it when I made American friends, how I felt relaxed - I hadn't realized how hard I worked to be understood. I realized it when I visited America.  I thought it was my parents couch - but its more than that - it's knowing what to expect, I suppose.  Knowing that the park won't have glass or stray dogs in it.  Knowing the stuff on the shelves in the supermarket.  It's eating oatmeal and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with my pops, and my mom driving to shopping malls and her hair dresser.

I don't mind it, but it has made me 1) appreciate the stress my husband lived under in America, even more, and 2) have a lot of empathy for foreigners in America, and why we congregate near to "our kind".

I have a friend moving to America soon - and her excitement seems to be revealing lots of repressed desires to be home and her eagerness to leave here.  I'm trying to concious about aknowledging my own tensions - but I've always known this is part of how I've been made - with the grace to be able to be far away but not feel far away.  I'm sure this is how God intended it - that we identify with Christ, not with a nation, family, color, etc.  That He fills this need to be loved and belong.  That this understanding is what frees us from longings that don't actually fulfill our needs.  I am aware of this.
But not because I'm a big person, but rather because I know I am loved.  At home and here.

I just don't want to take this for granted.