I have never felt as home-sick as I did in the months following the summer in North Carolina. I kept on thinking to myself: “This is ridiculous – I was only there for two months!” But the feeling persisted. I LOVE my Grahamstown family. I really do. I have spent 8 years amongst people I love, deeply respect, and for whom I would do just about anything. I have learnt so much from these amazing people – I have loved and fought for, and been loved and fought for by them; we have shared losses and victories together; laughed and cried. So leaving has not, but any means, been easy. And yet I felt this deep pull towards my new ‘farm family’; and a deep, ever-welling joy when I thought about the possibility of returning... because I had felt so at home there. I had felt like a fish thrown back into water, wondering why it had ever been out of it :o)
“The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing – to reach the Mountain, to find the place where all the beauty came from – my country, the place where I ought to have been born. Do you think it all meant nothing, all the longing? The longing for home? For indeed it now feels not like going, but like going back.” C.S. Lewis
I had one day when I just had this little melt-down moment. I was sitting on my bed, feeling so dang homesick. And then I came across a little promo video for Jonathan and Melissa’s new album... and I suddenly lost it. I burst into floods of tears, and sat there praying: “Pleeeaaaassse can I go back? I miss them all SO MUCH!” And so imagine my overwhelming shock and great joy when I received an email the next day informing me that I WAS in fact going back... this time for an 8 month internship, beginning January 15.
Then begin all the packing. And the stressing. And the wondering... “What is going to happen AFTER August 2012? What do I do with all my stuff until then? How can I possibly plan so far in advance?!” I felt crippled and overwhelmed by all that had to be done, and the impossible decisions I thought had to be made. But all the while, at the back of my head, I couldn’t shake the parable that Jesus told about the kingdom of heaven being like treasure hidden in a field – when a man found it, he returned home, “sold everything” he had, to buy the field... I tried to ignore that. But my dear friend Zola (who hears the Lord, and luckily is courageous in speaking out what she hears!) sent me a message that said something like: “I have a word for you. Actually two: ‘sell everything’.” Well. There we have it. That is exactly what I began doing. I figured – you can’t walk on water if you’re not willing to get out of the boat. Heck, you can’t walk on water with even one foot out the boat. It has to be both – all or nothing. And the more I sold – the more peace I felt. The toughest one was selling my car, Svetlana. What a personality she had! But she served me well... and she went down fighting too: she provided for my flights :o)
So here I am... nearly 26, no savings, no car, no furniture. Just plane tickets (and a ten-year visa, thank You Lord!) and a VERY exciting adventure ahead. And the certain knowledge that He will provide both the plan and the provision to walk it out :o)
Another thing I was grappling with throughout this time of packing and leaving was: why now? Why had I been in Grahamstown the number of years I had? Why not stay on? Or why hadn’t I left earlier? Why had I joined the church staff, only to leave it suddenly to take up this internship? Had I made a mistake? What was the plan? When suddenly it dawned on me... I have been in Grahamstown EIGHT years. And I’m going into an EIGHT month internship. Suddenly that number 8 seemed really significant. I’m not one for the “oooh, it’s a sign” theology, so I’m always tentative to ascribe meaning to random things... but this felt weighty for some reason. I knew that 7 was the number of completion and perfection, but I didn’t know what 8 meant. So I looked it up:
· 8 – the number of new beginnings
· The 8th day after birth is the day of circumcision – cutting off the old, and establishing a new covenant
· The 8th chapter of Genesis is the story of Noah – destroying the old, and God’s promise
· The 8th book of the bible is the story of Ruth – who leaves her people to join a new family
Clearly, God was speaking. This is a new start, a new beginning, a new day. And He has a really GOOD plan for it – and the absolutely most perfect timing too.
31 December 2011. It’s New Year’s Eve. What a year this has been! A year that stretched me, exhausted me, excited me, challenged me, and delivered me some of the greatest moments of joy I have yet experienced. And, looking back, every moment has been so perfectly orchestrated by the Master Composer. So I’m ending this year (and starting another) with a letter to Him.
My dear Papa
“I run, I run, I am gathered to thy heart.”
Alice Meynell
Thank you for this year. Thank you for every moment of it, every breath. Thank you for your un-ending provision and protection. Thank you for my Grahamstown family, and for 8 years of adventures with them. Thank you for my new family, and all the adventures that still lie ahead. But most of all... thank you for YOU. Thank you that you have never given up on me, never turned away from me, never forsaken me. Thank you for being so patient with me – for allowing me to return to your arms when I’ve wiggled my way out of them through my own stubbornness and stupidity. I’m sorry for being busy and distracted in all the moments I knew I should’ve just been still. I want 2012 to be full of even more moments where I just stop and breathe in your goodness and peace. I want to be more aware of your realness, of YOU breathing on the inside of me. All of Heaven, on the inside of me. Here I am again, with a heart more fully yours than the last time I gave it to you.
Abba, I belong to You.
