When thirteen-year-old Lydia's father announces they're leaving their cozy Wisconsin parsonage for Israel in just forty days, her world turns upside down. What follows is an extraordinary pilgrimage that spans continents and decades of reflection, a journey of displacement, identity, and the discovery of divine calling in the most unexpected places.
Written in memoir format and based on personal experiences and diary excerpts, Lydia tells her story of how she went from a reluctant pilgrim running away from the Holy Land to Missouri's Ozarks, to a teenager who dedicated her life to serving the Lord in the Middle East and beyond.
Her story and poetry speak to anyone who has ever felt like a stranger: Third Culture Kids navigating between worlds, ministry families facing cross-cultural moves, men and women wrestling with belonging and purpose, seniors who want to reignite their passion for God, and teens grappling with confusion about identity and purpose.
Lydia takes you on a journey to Jerusalem, living in a Jewish neighborhood, attending an Arab school in East Jerusalem, then moving to the Israeli-Lebanese border. She joins a hockey team, then a speed skating team. Rockets fly overhead while her father works in South Lebanon with Christian radio. As the only believer in Jesus among her friends, she grapples with how to live set apart for God. But as tensions build, she runs away to the Ozarks to live with her Grandma and experience a normal American high school life. During that time, she comes face to face with her dreams and God's dreams. She has a destiny set before her, but will she choose the comfort of American life, or will she return to the Galilean Hills that changed her?
This is the raw testimony of a "Stranger Lovely" learning that belonging comes not from fitting in, but from knowing the One she belongs to. As one who has moved between many places, she discovers a single constant: the mystical presence of God. He opens to her the language of the Song of Songs and reveals that He wants her for a Bride, drawing her into deeper intimacy through poetry and divine love. This is the true story of a teenager who begins her journey and slowly finds the Lover of her soul. This is the early journey. Part two is coming, as the mountains of spices await Lydia's return.
Readers from teenagers to senior citizens have praised this memoir for its universal themes of displacement, identity, and finding home in God's purposes.
