"Heart-lag"

I just returned from a 10-day mission trip to Albania. I had never traveled more than three time zones away from home, so I never really had the opportunity to experience true “jet-lag.” I know there are a variety of jet-lag experiences that vary from person to person, so going into the trip I was rather curious as to what mine would be like.Anyone who knows me well knows that I’m pretty flexible when it comes to bedtimes. It’s not unlike me to go to bed around midnight one night, 2 AM the next, 11:30 PM the following night, and then pull an all-nighter to get something done that I had fallen behind on (usually a sermon). Although it is arguably not the best lifestyle I could be living, I think it contributed to my overall smooth experience in adjusting to the different time zones I traveled through during this trip. So far, my experience with jet-lag has been somewhere between slim and none. That’s pretty cool.

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What I am suffering from is “heart-lag.” Jet-lag has to do with certain bodily and lifestyle rhythms being thrown off kilter. What I’m calling “heart-lag” has to do with emotional rhythms becoming temporarily unstable while one adjust to their reentry into everyday, normal life. Jet-lag is caused by traversing a long distance in a short period of time. Heart-lag is caused by growing incredibly close to people in a relatively short period of time. It happens when one’s heart must leave a location physically before it is ready to do so emotionally.Symptoms? There are several. My attention span tends to hit a temporary low during heart-lag. At any given time there can be a face, a voice, a story, a line, even a smell that silences me and takes me down a mental and emotional rabbit trail that is hard to find my way out of at times.Emotional fatigue is another symptom I experience. I feel as if I’m riding a mood swing set as I go back and forth from happy to sad, from excited to discouraged, from laughing to holding back tears. It’s exhausting.I’ve also found myself to be irritable at times. I think it’s more internal for me so I don’t think I really show it, but you’d be better off asking Sarah. It’s weird.It’s something that affects not only the traveler, but those closest to him as well. I laugh and wrestle with the boys on the living room floor when I suddenly think of someone or something. I hold my love close as we fall asleep at night, but she falls asleep long before I do as I find myself mentally watching an endless movie reel of faces, situations, stories, and memories. Sleep isn’t restful, but just an intermission. I usually lay awake when I rise the next morning, watching the movie from where I last left off.

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I think heart-lag is something that is fairly unique to Christians. I’ve never heard of someone returning after a business trip and struggling with dueling emotions, some of which are glad to be home with family and friends, others of which are pining for colleagues halfway around the globe. Christians have the unique ability to grow closer to one another in a short period of time than non-Christians do because we have the most important things in life in common. We’ve both been recipients of unmerited favor by the grace of God. We’re both poor beggars who don’t know not one another, but know where and how to be filled by He who called Himself the “Bread of Life” (cf. John 6:35). Am I really meeting a stranger for the first time, or am I being introduced to a sibling I never knew I had?Just like there are things one can do while traveling to minimize the symptoms of jet-lag, there are also steps one can take in life that significantly reduce the effects of heart-lag. Lord-willing, I’ll write about these in my next posting. They probably would work and make for easier reentry into everyday life, but there’s a cost involved that causes me to think it not really worth it. In this case, I think the safer road can be one of the more dangerous ones to traverse. I know that may not make much sense at first glance, so I look forward to sharing a bit more in detail at a later time.

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“As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you. You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you. These things I command you, that you love one another.”

John 15:9-17

Much love,

~ Peter