Coming Home

I just looked in my diary and realised I came home a week earlier than I meant to. How did that happen? 

I think that maybe I was ready. I think my internal diary shouted over my written diary and told me that home was where I needed to be. I considered avoiding the now red alert furnace in the south. I've loved being able to spend time with family and friends and to feel safe and free to be exactly who I am. I have spent a lot of time over the last two and a half months processing and considering and thinking and waiting and reading and talking...... and being deeply loved. 

I've remembered how to laugh again, just laugh and not stop (that can be a problem, but it's a good problem!) and how good laughter is for us. I saw a photo of some of our church leaders in our new community kitchen garden (which is very exciting) and they were laughing and I wanted to be there to laugh with them. 

May there be so much more laughter. 

I've learnt how to completely rest and switch off. One of the best feelings at the beginning of my sabbatical was sitting down in my little retreat sanctuary and realising I had no demands on me. I could just be. I've struggled with retreating in the past because I haven't found that space, but now I've found it, I am hoping when I go through a season of demand, it won't be too hard to find again. I spent a lot of last week just being, sitting, reading, watching fish, and it was glorious. 

May we all find the time and space to simply be. 

I've been surrounded by people who know me well and have reminded me of who I am. I've been reminded many times that I am me and nobody else. I am the person who God created me to be. The minister that God calls me to be. I lead from who I am not who anybody thinks I am or expects me to be, and its in doing that I can be all I need to be. God chose me because he loves me and knows what is best for me. I am enough, and don't need to be something I am not. God chooses you because he loves you and he knows you better than even you do - he knows what he is doing. 

May we all know that we are enough. 

I've been climbing hills, both in real life (those cliffs on the south west path were steeper than I expected) and in my thinking. Someone said to me that the more you tackle the difficult hills, the quicker the recovery time afterwards and I found that to be true. I've had some difficult stuff to process, but I think I'm nearly there. 

May we all have the courage to face the hills. 

I've sat and asked myself the taxing questions and have had others do that for me. I've spent time with those who can pull even the most entangled stuff out of me and make it into something beautiful, bringing insight and wisdom so simply and straightforwardly into things I've not quite understood. I've discovered more of the kind of minister God is growing me to be. 

May we all be blessed with those who will help us untangle ourselves.

I've known more of what I've always known, that God loves me with an everlasting love. If I can learn to love even a smidgen of how he loves, I'll be getting something right. I've been reminded to seek God's Kingdom first and that's where I will learn how to love more deeply.

May we all know God's everlasting love.

I've been reminded that home is where I am called, it's where I feel pulled to, and whilst for a while I've been pulled away, I wonder if now, as my internal diary shouts louder than the ink of the pen with which I'd written my schedule down the direction of the pull has found its centre again. 

Sometimes you just know, you know.... 

Psalm 126 (The Message)

It seemed like a dream, too good to be true, when God returned Zion's exiles. We laughed, we sang, we couldn't believe our good fortune. We were the talk of the nations - "God was wonderful to them!". God was wonderful to us; we are one happy people. 

And now, God, do it again - bring rains to our drought-stricken lives. So those who planted their crops in despair will shout "Yes!" at the harvest, so those who went off with heavy hearts will come home laughing, with armloads of blessing"