The Land Between

The moment you receive news that alters the course or direction of your life’s journey, everything is different. What felt secure or at least felt normal is replaced with uncertainty.

The moment my husband said, “We are going back to the states and we’re not coming back to Mongolia,” I crumpled to the floor in the rented vacation condo and sobbed my eyes out. I knew there would be no convincing him that we should stay. I had just entered the LAND BETWEEN.

Maybe everyone has a transition like this one and it should not be ignore when we are writing our life story or capturing our story of culture. Jeff Manion says it well…

For many of us, the journey into the Land Between comes suddenly…In a sentence we are ripped from normality and find ourselves in a new world, as if thrown from a moving train…In our more confident, faith-filled moments, we know that we will regain our footing and find some kind of balance in the new normal, but for now we are simply and suddenly “between” and at a loss as to how to navigate the terrain…While some enter the land shockingly, others experience a gradual, almost imperceptible entry…not with a sudden cataclysmic conversation but the slow march of time.

Jeff Manion, The Land Between: Finding God in Difficult Transitions (Grand Rapids, MI : Zondervan, 2010), p. 17-18.

 


Read more about RE-ENTRY, the return to what used to be called “home”
Can you go HOME AGAIN?  Can CHANGING CULTURES kill you? You’re not in Kansas any more.

 

 

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About Lori

Ever since Lori Younker was a child, she’s been captivated by her international friendships. She is mesmerized by the power of short works to inspire true understanding of the cross-cultural experience and expands her writing skills in creative nonfiction, guiding others to do the same. These days she helps others capture their life history as well as their stories of faith.