Between Worlds Quotes

“Missionary kids are called. But they are called to God Himself. After that, it’s anyone’s guess. After that it could be to a small town in England, a large city in North America, a tenured professorship at a university, a foreign service position with the state department. Rarely does our call look the same as that of our parents. Our journey often begins through the faith and calling of our parents, rooted in the past but grown and sustained through our own decisions of faith.”
― Marilyn R. Gardner, Between Worlds: Essays on Culture and Belonging

“Spiritual truths that we believed when we weren’t grieving are still true. They just don’t feel true. God doesn’t waste pain. Never. Part of me doesn’t want to say this because it has become clichéd. But it’s also truth. He doesn’t waste pain. He doesn’t waste grief. Period. Full stop. He meets us under whirring fans or beside oceans, in cold bedrooms or curled up on couches. He is as present at six as he will be at sixty. He speaks to us in our grief and in our pain. And he never, ever gives up on us, even when we give up on ourselves.”
― Marilyn R. Gardner, Between Worlds: Essays on Culture and Belonging

“Behind every third culture kid is a parent — a parent who wishes, hopes, and prays that they are doing the right thing.”
― Marilyn R. Gardner, Between Worlds: Essays on Culture and Belonging

“Ah, yes... but I have saudade. I have that longing for something that “does not and cannot exist.” I know that it cannot be. And on my good days, it is well hidden under the culture and costume of which I am now living. But on my more difficult days, it struggles to find voice only to find that explaining is too difficult.”
― Marilyn R. Gardner, Between Worlds: Essays on Culture and Belonging

“When pieces are lost, we struggle to find them again. When you move a lot it is easy to place your security in things, to begin to idolize place.  Where was God in all this? We had to learn that God was permanent despite our impermanence. We had to find God in the pieces, stepping out in faith that there would be a new community that could come along side us, that could help us put together the pieces. As a mom I had to learn that even all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put the pieces together. It had to be God. It has to be God.”
― Marilyn R. Gardner, Between Worlds: Essays on Culture and Belonging

“There was a time when we failed to understand that throughout history, God has used place. There was a time when we laughed at the thought that we had losses, we brushed away any grief. “That’s ridiculous,” we sniffed! Other’s have far more losses. Others are far worse off. But then we faced one too many moves and in the back of our minds, the whisper of losses began to shout. And then someone invented a name, a name with a thousand meanings and memories. We became third culture kids. And we learned that we were not alone, that there were so many like us. We learned it was okay to have a name. It did not label us as an infection; it gave credibility to who we were and how we had lived.We were real. We could relax and begin to thrive. We had a place and we had a name — those Edenic characteristics applauded by God in the Garden so long ago. With a name we could grow into the people God intended us to be. And so we did.”
― Marilyn R. Gardner, Between Worlds: Essays on Culture and Belonging

“The losses felt by those of us raised in a country that was different from that indicated on our passports can be heavy. To be sure, the gains are also real: the way we look at the world, the wonder of travel, our love of passports and places, our wish to defend parts of the world that we feel are misunderstood by those around us. But along with these come profound losses of people and place. For many of us, the only thing we feel we have left are our memories. We cannot go back to the place that was home. Either it does not exist, will not let us in, or danger and cost prohibit a casual trip to indulge the times of homesickness. In its place is memory. Our memories may be biased, or relayed in a way that would make our mothers say, “That’s not quite the way it happened,” but it is inalienably ours.”
― Marilyn R. Gardner, Between Worlds: Essays on Culture and Belonging

“In the hall of an old inn by the ocean is a sign that reads “Home is Where Our Story Begins.” For a third culture kid who questions the definition of home, this is both reassuring and sad. If home is where our story begins, what happens when we cannot go back? The word ‘story’ is the key. Third culture kids have stories. Their stories are detailed and vibrant. Stories of travel between worlds, of cross cultural relationships and connections, of grief and of loss, of goodbyes and hellos and more goodbyes. In Exodus God repeatedly tells the people of Israel to remember their story, to remember their beginning, to remember who they are. Later, exiled in Babylon, unable to return home, they were to remember their stories - stories of wonder and deliverance, of the power of God and His provision. They were to remember their beginnings.”
― Marilyn R. Gardner, Between Worlds: Essays on Culture and Belonging

“What happens when the third culture kid becomes an adult and settles in their passport country? For a time everything seems backwards and contrary. Few of us had the dreams of owning our own homes, or becoming “successful” as defined by middle-class America. Our parents had lived counter-culture and had passed that on to us. Nothing really prepared us for a life in suburbs or small towns of the Western hemisphere.”
― Marilyn Gardner, Between Worlds: Essays on Culture and Belonging

“For those who wear the third culture kid label and the Global Nomad tag proudly, the word ‘rooted’ is scary. For all we speak, ponder, and write of identity and crisis, for all we wistfully try to articulate what it means to belong, being ‘rooted’ can be terrifying. Here are some myths that I have believed about being rooted: being rooted means I’m from here. Being rooted means I can’t leave. Being rooted means I’m stuck. But perhaps being rooted gives strength. Perhaps being rooted doesn’t mean I give up who I am; perhaps it means that I securely use my past as a bridge to my present. Rooted means I grow strong, like the sunflowers that are growing high in our garden, faces raised to the sun.”
― Marilyn Gardner, Between Worlds: Essays on Culture and Belonging

“Every good story has a conflict. Never being fully part of any world is ours. This is what makes our stories and memories rich and worth hearing. We live between worlds, sometimes comfortable in one, sometimes in the other, but only truly comfortable in the space between. This is our conflict and the heart of our story.”
― Marilyn Gardner, Between Worlds: Essays on Culture and Belonging

“I read in Psalm 84: “Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage... They go from strength to strength until each appears before God in Zion.” In my journey, this Psalm makes “Home is where your suitcase is” a spiritual reality. The Psalmist says nothing about the concept, idea, or definition of home. But the Psalm speaks to the blessing of pilgrimage and the strength that comes with the journey.”
― Marilyn Gardner, Between Worlds: Essays on Culture and Belonging