Amy Baik Lee and This Homeward Ache

This Homeward Ache started with a trail of moments of longing that Amy Baik Lee encountered while growing up and throughout her life. These moments, such as a song, a view, or a passage in a book, would strike her in a way that brought tears. She didn’t understand this longing, what she was feeling, or what she was experiencing until she came across Surprised by Joy by C.S. Lewis. In it, he detailed what sehnsucht (or longing) was. As an adult, when Baik Lee came into communities that knew and understood that same longing, she would have conversations with others and they would wonder together what a person was supposed to do with that longing. She soon realized how that sense of onging impacted all the different areas of her life, which prompted her to write This Homeward Ache.

According to Baik Lee’s personal website, “This Homeward Ache invites you to remember the times you’ve been deeply moved by a glimpse of something beyond the visible present—moments of Sehnsucht, saudade, hiraeth, galmang. Lee traces her own brushes with this longing, unfolding her discovery that it is designed to enrich and alter every area of our lives: our valleys of pain, our relationships with other people, and ultimately our reception of the love of God.

“If you’ve ever wondered how to keep going while holding on to the hope of the world to come, This Homeward Ache offers you courage, companionship, and a stirring sense of the scope of this journey home to Christ.”

Baik Lee is a member artist of the Anselm Society Arts Guild and a contributing writer at The Rabbit Room and The Cultivating Project. A rapt recipient of stories, she holds a Master of Arts in English from the University of Virginia. She works at a desk overlooking a small cottage garden in Colorado, usually surrounded by her husband’s woodworking projects, her two daughters’ drawings, and music that inevitably influences the tone of her words.

Baik Lee joins Inspiration Ministries’ John Farrell to discuss her latest book, This Homeward Ache, what “homeward longing” means to her, ways to embrace God’s promise of restoration and new creation, how we can steward our temporary homes here on earth, and much more. Watch the interview below and order your copy of This Homeward Ache: How Our Yearning for the Life to Come Spurs on Our Life Today.

Learn more about Ellen Vaughn at amybaiklee.com