Vol. 1 No. 5 — Nostalgic longing.

May 30, 2025

This is the fifth issue of a previous iteration of this newsletter. It was called Heart Stuff & Coffee. I’m adding all previous issues here to be part of the archive.

Fernweh is an ache for experiences never had and sensations never felt.

Sehnsucht roughly means an inconsolable yearning or wistful longing for something one cannot explain or does not know.

Hiraeth is an untranslatable Welsh word that describes a longing for a home, a place, or a feeling that no longer exists or never existed.

Saudade (Portuguese): a somewhat melancholic feeling of incompleteness; longing for something that might never return.

OK, I think maybe you get the point by now? We (all humans) are missing something. Have you ever had one of those feelings listed above? I have; So many times.

Just recently I had a moment in which I felt a sense of longing and a bit of nostalgia, but I could not articulate what for. As I gazed at the beautiful trees outside my window, my mind wandered to Sarah Mae’s book, Longing For Paris, in which she says that (I’m paraphrasing here) our longings and needs go much deeper than all the surface things we give our time and energy to — we long for heaven.

Christian or not, we were made for heaven and long to be with our Creator. C.S. Lewis said “If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.”

I realized God was with me in that moment (though He is always with me), reminding me only He can truly satisfy. I love that God met me there in that fleeting, mundane moment. He meets us where we are. Let’s rejoice in that! He is the God who draws near.