today

you will place a crown upon my head.

Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him. James 1: 12

There’s something in me that I don’t understand. This tension between three worlds that I can’t bring myself to resolve. I have never done this before. I have never been in this place in life before. I have never felt so direction-less. However, I have also never had to trust God in this way before. A simple task, really…but yet such a challenge.While on outreach, I was frantically praying about my future, about making plans, about what I really wanted, about what God really wanted. I wasn’t sure. I sought after His heart, and as He always does, He blew me away with such directness and clarity. And God, in His wonderful mystery decided to not tell me what it was I should be doing in the future, but rather that He’ll lead me there, cleary and intentionally, and that I simply need to live day to day and trust Him. I need to wait. He has a place for me. He’s funny!

Well, here I am. Life moves so fast. Sometimes I wonder if I’m dreaming. Sometimes I think I am not really here. I have been in Alliston for 2 weeks tomorrow. That in itself blows my mind. I feel like just yesterday I was in Cambodia, sitting in a tuktuk driving down the crazy streets. Thinking about how fast time has been flying by lately makes me wonder where I’ll be next week, next month, next year, where I’ll be sitting and what I’ll be doing the next time I ask where the time has gone!? It’s such a strange feeling to not know at all where I’m heading.

A NOTE TO THE BLOG WORLD … I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I’M GOING TO DO!!!Ha! It actually makes me laugh. I was so sure of myself before and during DTS. I had my plans set out. I had my visions, my dreams, my mini goals, and look at me now. JEEPERS CREEPERS.

Man. God is just so good. Really. How the heck would I function without Him? I would be completely 100% insane right now. Hands down. I’ve been having little episodes of freaky nervousness. I don’t know where this is coming from. I guess I’ve been cooped up in my house for a while. But see, I’m so uninterested in being out. I would so rather be home, alone, in my own little space… I keep thinking over the way that my heart has been broken for injustice in the world. I don’t know what to do with it. But in seeing these things, in feeling this empathy and pain for the world, I understand more of God’s heart…more of how He feels…more of His compassion. And love that moves people.I have confidence that the Lord will take me where I need to be. I am keeping my eyes open, and my ears are willing to listen.

What I don’t know how to do is take everything I’ve learned over the last 6 months of my life and put it all into practice. I’m really aware of the ease of being “salt and light” in a world completely foreign to me…but when it comes to my own home, my own town, everything familiar, I have completely frozen.

I think that’s part of where this tension is coming from. My heart is for people, my heart is to see wholeness and restoration and love in the world like the love of Jesus. But I have suddenly been separated from the people and the community that I’ve been living out these things with for the past 6 months of my life. I have had support, love, encouragement, challenge, motivation, and have had the opportunity to partner with others in ‘communal’ and ‘missional’ living. But now, I’m here, in the town where I grew up, back in the house where I experienced my anxty teenage years, my issues, my comfortable and easy fire-less Christian life. It’s a strange phenomenon to be a different person in a place that’s the same as when I left. It’s more of a challenge than I expected it to be to be home and to face some of the strongholds that held me before I experienced the things that I have during my DTS.

None the less, I am learning heaps. I am learning something new everyday. Sometimes I wake up wondering if I ever learned anything at all. That’s a stupid thing to think. God has changed me inside and out, and I can feel it prevalently and consistently in my everyday life. It isn’t an emotional high, an exciting wind that sweeps past me and moves on. This is a foundation that is only beginning to be built, a fresh start, a reality. How I apply this legitimate newness to my life is what matters to me now, and is what determines the next steps of my life.

I feel like I have been truly honoured by God. The fact that He has taken the time to change me, to teach me, and to grow me, and to simply just be with me and love me like He has, is something that, when pride comes creeping along, keeps me humble and keeps me aware of the greatness of my God and the smallness of me. I feel like He has placed a crown upon my wee little head, like a father and his daughter playing dress up. And he calls me a princess even though he knows I’m just an average little girl.

I like the way He treats me… I like the way He loves.

ANYWAY! I suppose time will tell where I’ll be in the next little while, the next adventure I’ll embark on…what I’ll learn, who I’ll love, what I’ll see.I’m definitely learning how to embrace a change in pace. I’m learning how to move with the flow of where I am.

More later!!
xx jan