I'm Not From Here

By Amy Pavlovik

I’m not from here. A couple of days ago I was shopping in the market, and the cauliflower salesman asked me, “You’re not from here, are you?”

            “I live here,” I said. “But I’m not from here.”

            “Where are you from?”

            “America.” I often get these questions.

            “But you’re married to one of ours?”

            “Yes,” I answered. I’m not from here. I know it.

            I am glad to be getting more comfortable with the local language. I’m glad to understand the currency, and things like how much tomatoes ought to cost. I’m glad to know where the shops are around town, and to be able to buy our food. I’ve made friends here.

But I’m not from here. I don’t expect things to be the same when I go out. I don’t expect to buy peanut butter or tofu, and I expect some communication difficulties from time to time. That’s all right. My friends are understanding, because they know I’m not from here. I’ve gotten used to the beans and peppers. I love the roasted pepper spread. We made some ourselves this year. But I don’t serve bread with every meal. That’s all right. We do it differently in America.

People will say, “I knew you weren’t from here!” when they meet me. I just smile. I know I look different. That’s not because I’m from America. In America, I suppose they could say the same thing about me. Maybe I’m not from there either.

            Sometimes I feel like a real foreigner. But that’s all right too; it’s good for me. My real home isn’t Macedonia, and it isn’t America either. I’m traveling to a better country, and my travels have taken me through a few countries in this world. But in reality, while one place is more familiar and beloved than others, no country is really, truly home. I’m not from here, and I admit it.

My Heavenly Father is in heaven. My real, eternal home is there. I’m part of the heavenly family. In that country they do things differently than people do on this earth. So I’m different, because I’m a foreigner. That’s all right; I don’t mind being different.

I’m glad that my Heavenly Father has given me a comfortable roof to shelter under during my sojourn on earth. He has given me warm blankets, clothes, and food to eat. I speak the language that other people on earth speak. We shop together; we buy the same food. We visit each other. And yet we’re foreigners; I to them, and they to me. Sometimes we have communication difficulties, in a way. They don’t understand why we are so different from each other, I think.

I know I am to be a perpetual foreigner. I know I will never really fit into this world, and as time gets later, I fit in even less. I’m going to a far country, and I’m trying to pattern after the way they do things there, even if it means I’ll always be a stranger on this earth.

The Bible says, “Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek the LORD: look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged.” Isaiah 51:1.  Where do you come from? Are you cut out of the world’s material? Or have you experienced the new birth? If you have, this world is not your home. It is not your destination. Your home is heaven, and that is your nationality, your citizenship, and your goal. You follow the ways and customs of your homeland, and thus, you are very different from those whose home is earth. You aren’t interested in settling down and getting too comfortable on this earth, for as the song says, you’re just passing through.

I’m not from here. Where are you from?

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