“But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Philippians 3:20).

I was a Turkish citizen for the first 37 years of my life. Then I chose to become an American citizen. Since I was a kid, I have always had an unusual affinity for foreigners to the degree of wanting to be one of them. I remember pretending to speak a foreign language with friends who also wanted to feel set apart from the rest of the other Turkish kids. I have memories of prayers under a blanket out in the corner of the balcony, endlessly repeating, “Make me someone else. Make me someone else.” I was almost chanting my desire into existence. I’m sure growing up in a dysfunctional family added to the urgency of my prayers. Being rescued from the grip of fear and delivered to the ecstasy of getting a new identity was the fuel behind my passion. I do not remember sharing this desire with those around me. It was a childish thought. I would just be mocked.

Nevertheless, the desire within me caused me to have dreams of speaking in a foreign language as a different person. I had heard of “Turkish German workers” visiting their families and speaking German here and there. Their kids spoke Turkish little or not at all. My knowledge of foreign tongues at a young age also included the medical volumes my father had in his study. In the 60s, the language of medicine in Europe was French. I remember looking at the words and trying to read and understand what they meant. I so longed to know a foreign language.

My dream started to come true when I started studying to be an English teacher. I reveled in the notion of finally speaking another tongue. I still lived in Turkey and spoke Turkish everywhere except at college. In the last year of college, I decided to apply for a Fulbright scholarship to come to the U. S. I was one of the 60 students in Turkey to get the privilege of studying in America. Maybe I could finally reach my lifelong dream.

I started living as a scholar at Carbondale, Illinois at age 23. I was speaking English full time, but I was still the same me inside: still haunted by the hurtful memories of the past and the wrong choices of the present. I realized I was the same wounded person.

It was not until I met Jesus and asked Him to be my Lord that I became a new person. He took away the filth and guilt and gave me a new identity: a child of God. Finally, at 34, I became that “someone else” I prayed for so earnestly at a young age.

Now, however, I know my real citizenship is in Heaven. My eternal home is with my Lord Jesus. This, I realize, is the root of that childish desire to become someone else. God put that desire in the heart and soul of that little girl, whom He knew would finally open her heart to Him. I was “chosen from before the creation of the world” and felt the pull of this new life. It took almost three decades to get here. Having spent the last 15 years in the love of Christ, I can confess the wait has been worthwhile.

God bless you and your loved ones!

Meryem Kennedy