If suddenly you were no longer an MK, what would you do? Who would you be?

For almost 10 years, I’ve been a “former MK” and it still hits me sometimes that I no longer live life as a missionary kid. When my family unexpectedly moved back to the US from the mission field, I was left wondering, “Now who am I?” For a while my identity stayed pretty much the same. To all my classmates, I was that girl from Sweden, and to everyone at church I was the pastor’s daughter. It wasn’t until I started college that I realized truly how different I was from all of my friends. One day, we were sitting at lunch in the Baptist Bible College cafeteria, and I watched as all my friends began to sing and dance to songs they had learned in Sunday School growing up. I was completely lost. They all stared at me in disbelief as I told them that I had never heard of those songs.

It was in that moment that I realized that I did not have a traditional American childhood. Most likely, there would be many things that I would never understand about my peers and there would definitely be things they would never understand about me (like why I always take my shoes off indoors or why I always put ketchup on my spaghetti). The mission field had molded and shaped me to be so unlike my American friends.

Suddenly, I was completely overwhelmed and lost in the feeling that I would never be fully known or fully understood. As a result of that, I thought that I would never be fully loved. It took me a long time to learn that those are not things that I should seek from people because they are things already given to me through Christ.

It’s likely that someday you will find yourself no longer an MK, or even back “home” where no one understands what it’s like to be a missionary. When this happens, there are three truths from God’s word that you can lean on.

1. You are fully known by God.

Psalm 139:1-2 says, “O Lord, thou has searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off.”

God’s omniscience (knowledge of everything) is amazing! God knows our every step and our every thought. He knows everything about us! This means he knows our thoughts of him, our struggles, and even our sinful thoughts. This may seem scary, but we know that not only does God know us, but he understands us!

2. You are fully understood by God.

In Hebrews 4:15 we read, “For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.”

Not only did Jesus experience the temptation of every sin that we encounter, but the Bible tells us that he was despised and rejected by men. At times we can feel “rejected” by others when they are unable to understand us for who we are and what we have experienced. Our comfort in these times stems from knowing that our Lord and Savior Jesus went through this same exact struggle.

 3. You are fully loved by God.

Ephesians 1:4-5 tells us that “…as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will”

God chose us as his treasured possession to be his children. Before the world was even created, the Creator set his love on us through his Son, Jesus Christ! There is no love more infinite than the love that God has set on us since before eternity, and we can have hope in the fact that we will one day experience this love in God’s very presence.

My hope and prayer is that the day that you are no longer an MK or return “home” to the place where you may not be understood, that you would rest on the truth that you are fully known, understood, and loved by a good and gracious God. Even in our struggles we can trust that “all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28).

-by Katie (Witte) Morton, MK from Sweden