I've been home for more than a week now...

A more simple description of my returning-home-reaction that I think will be more widely helpful:

At first everything's as if you never said goodbye.
Because this home that you've returned to is where your roots are.

And then everything starts looking different, shaded by where you actually WERE for the last year.
Because where you were became the home where you grew and bloomed in new ways.

I find that while the pressures of being an SM are no longer on me, I don't want to kick up my feet - emotionally - and go back to the way I lived life before.  It's work to practice unselfishness and extra thoughtfulness, but the payoff of peace from trusting God is preferable to the endless and fruitless work of fending off anxiety that comes from being "justifiably" selfish and trying to once again take control.

I want to keep alive and keep tending what only began to bloom in England.  It may seem tricky to do since now I'm back in the states, but you know how it can happen for me ... and for whichever SM is reading this?

Because it's MY heart I brought back with me from England.  Not someone else's.
Everything changed, but it's my heart I brought back.

AND.

The same God who never left me while I was nauseous with nerves flying to England, who never left me while I was scared and stiff learning how to serve correctly, who never left me while I made mistakes, grew, fussed & flailed, was broken down and finally settled down - the same wonderful Jesus is still with me now.

When you eventually fly home, all the changes can be kept.
All the lessons learned preserved.

The pressure that reminded you to turn to God as often as you did isn't there anymore, but while you're still feeling phantom pain of your old restraints' absence, see now as a time to turn to God just as much out of love, not just need.  Out of desire for more, out of hunger for new, out of belief in the miracles God can do.  And how about out of gratitude???

Your journey is still with God, but the challenge ... the opportunity is what's new.

Did you tap into new riches of God while you were gone?  Are you still at your SM post and still in the midst (or last stretches) of this season of service?  When it's over and when you go home, it's not the end.  Not if you ask Jesus to show you how and follow His lead...
I promise.