'Almost There' or 'Three Sleeps to Go'

I'm looking around my room at all the photos and postcards and cuttings that have made it mine. This room has so much of me in it, the actors, the art, the photos. I'm trying to leave it as long as possible before I take them down because I know that once they're gone it really will feel like I'm leaving. I've cleared my room out. Well, I say cleared. The thing is that I've cleared the cupboards and drawers; all the out of sight stuff. I thought doing this would make it difficult to mess up my room in my last few weeks. How wrong I was. There is so much stuff on the floor, I really don't know where it all came from and certainly don't know where its all going to go!

 

Packing has been a bit of a nightmare as well, I seem to have way too many clothes. [do you think we added the 'e' into clothes because we didn't like sounding as if we were wearing 'cloths'?] Anyway. My whole point is that my leaving day is very close indeed and I don't really know what to do about it. This has been my focus for a very long time but now that it is almost upon me I don't know what to do with myself. To be honest I'm trusting God that it'll all just fall into place somehow! TTFN

Testimony to the Greatness of Fellow Ordinary Persons!

I would like to offer public gratitude to a few members of staff at work today. Without them I would have come home shaken, traumatised, worried and scared but with whom I came home with a 'new' fleece and a renewed esteem for my fellow human beings!
At work today, I was scammed (as were 2 other members of staff) by men who got money from my till by messing with my head over their change and right now I have no clue how they did it or how much they got away with. This ordeal could have been exceptionally traumatic, and it was for about 20 minutes while I squirmed and fretted inside not knowing how to tell anyone what had happened. However, as soon as the supervisors were informed and knew about the event I was comforted and reassured like I have never known! While I tried unsuccessfully not to show how shaken up I was; I was offered tissues, a cup of sweet tea for my nerves, a warm fleece, and numerous stories of how however many years ago so-and-so was scammed in the same way or how such-and-such got done for £200. I felt very loved and very cared for, even if slightly silly for being so worked up. But believe me, it is not nice to know that you have been harassed and bamboozled into giving away money that is not yours.
I would like to say thankyou to those people, and say that my memory of working for Sainsbury's will never be tarnished because of their care and comfort.
Praise God! x

Home (Part 2)

I decided to do this in two parts as it sort of separated itself into such.

The first time I ever visited Clarens. We drove into town and something in my spirit both soared and relaxed simultaneously. Having left Scotland about 9 years previously I had forgotten what the feeling of 'coming home' was like, but that is the only way I can describe my attachment to Clarens. I had come home. So this is why I feel in a sense of such limbo right now. Heightened since visiting my 'homeland'. Don't get me wrong, I love my family and I love our house and I love our church so much more than I can sometimes express! (Jubilee I feel so proud to be part of you!) But this place has never felt home. I feel more that sense of relaxation and safety when the car pulls into Peebles that I do when it pulls into Ferring and that was what happened in my spirit when we pulled into Clarens.

So if you ever wonder why I chose to give a year of my life to a church in a small town in rural South Africa, thats why. God has given me a place to feel at home and I believe he has done so because he wants that place to impact me while I ask Him to help me impact it.

As an aside, God has also confirmed it as the place to be because the Church is awesome, the people are awesome and well, to be honest God is awesome and I want to serve him, it wouldn't have mattered if he'd asked me to serve Jubilee in Worthing for a year, if it was part of His plan for me I would have done it and trusted there was a reason, even if I couldn't see it.

This quote, from 'The Last Battle' by C S Lewis, somehow contains everything that I mean when I talk about our home not being on earth and yet longing for a home on earth. Hopefully it will make sense to you to: (apologies for the length)

"You may have been in a room in which there was a window that looked out on a lovely bay of the sea...and in the wall of that room opposite to the window there may have been a looking glass... And the sea in the mirror...were in one sense just the same as the real ones: yet at the same time they were somehow different - deeper, more wonderful, more like places in a story: in a story you have never heard but very much want to know. The difference between the old Narnia and the new Narnia was like that. The new one was a deeper country: every rock and flower and blade of grass looked like is meant more... It was the unicorn who summed up what everyone was feeling... "I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it til now. The reason why we loved the old Narnia is that it sometimes looked a little like this."

I get goosebumps just typing that out, it releases me to know that my home is not on earth, that the place I belong, my 'real country' is in the new heavens and the new earth, but that I can feel safe in the knowledge that we can sometimes feel at home in places on this earth because they look a little like where we're going. I pray that in my life I can be an instrument for bringing the glory of God to all sorts of places and making them look a little like where we are headed.

I hope this makes sense like it does in my head! God Bless x

Home (Part 1)

Those of you who know me very closely, will probably know what kind of a subject 'home' is to me, and to those of you who don't, you're probably (if I get the words down right) about to find out. Of course, a trip to Scotland is bound to stir up feelings and ponderings about home and the ultimate question, where is home?

I was struck again by the unbearable beauty of the Borders and then taking the train from Edinburgh to Leuchars/ St Andrews) blew me away. As the train sped along the view out of the window was constantly changing from a stunning painting of a beach, to one of rolling green fields and hills. The bleak, raw beauty of Scotland never ceases to capture my heart, from the mottled hills to the grey stone of Edinburgh's buildings and cobbled streets. I love it all, yes, even in the rain! I only wish I could paint it, but will have to be content to 'paint with words'. I only hope this short paragraph has done it justice, the only thing I can say is visit, visit, visit!

So returning 'home' from where really feels like home is always a slight anti-climax. I am always reminded that really we are not meant to feel at home on earth because our real home is with God, but I think it is part of our humanity that we long for somewhere to feel like home. Its not sinful to wish that the place we live would feel like home, or to long for a place we have left - because it was home. I pray that God transforms that emotion and transfers it to His dwelling place. To slightly misquote a tweet from PJ Smyth: We must live is state of homesickness for the Kingdom of God. I only wish I found it easier to transfer my longing for an earthly home to a longing for a heavenly one.

His Story

Just got back from another incredible Impact Training. The Old Testament, the New Testament and Church History in three jam-packed days was right up my street, being the little history geek that I am! As we were going through pretty much the entire History of God's people I was reminded of what Stef Liston taught us one Newday. That History must always be referred to as HisStory. How awesome that we serve a God who holds the entirety of history in his hands!
He is the beginning and the end of everything. He knows everything that has ever happened and that ever will happen. He has always been and always will be.
AND
He wants to know me now. He wants to engage in my life now.
Ay-may-zing!

Nine WEEKS! or NINE weeks!

The scariest thing is that, at 24 weeks, I remember thinking: 'When it gets to under 10 weeks, thats when things are going to start going fast.' and then the next 15 weeks just evaporated, so if that was the 'slow' part, according to my theory, what are the next 9 weeks going to do. I feel like just sitting here I'm suddenly going to look at the calendar and it will be November and then a minute later it will be the 5th December and I'll have 1 solitary week left in the country.
Still, with all this time disappearing, I recall that it only feels like its disappeared after its gone. While I'm living it, right this minute 09:01 October 5th 2010, the excited bit of me is going: '9 weeks, what an AGE, all that waiting! Lets go NOW!'
Time is incapable of just happening normally. At work a 4 hour shift can fly by when a week earlier the same shift dragged and dragged and I felt I'd been there forever! So quite frankly, for all my worries/ excitement, I really don't know how the next 9 weeks are going to feel. But considering how the rest of the year has gone and continuing the trajectory of that pattern time is going to screw me over and do something really silly. Like go backwards.
To quote a guy who knows a bit about time:
"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly,timey-wimey... stuff."
And yes, before you scream, I know he's not real!

See you in nine weeks, or is it one? 

Being Blessed

"Praise God from whom all blessings flow!"

I began this post a couple of days ago and it is amazing how different your mood/outlook can be from one day to the next. I logged on today deciding that I would write a post called "Boredom and Apathy" however, I am so glad that this small beginning was waiting for me instead! "Praise God from whom all blessings flow!" Whenever we feel wobbly or low what we really need to do it not expound about how wobbly or low we are feeling, where would that get me?! Clearly the best idea is to focus on how great things are and how abundantly God provides for me!

(Ok, this is now the third time I have tried to get this post finished!)

I can now more than ever exclaim HOW GREAT IS OUR GOD and HOW ABUNDANT IS HIS BLESSING. This weekend I have been fundraising for South Africa and unbelievably and in spite of a serious lack of faith from me - though not in spite of a lack of effort I have to say - the donations have poured in and we have raised (we think, hoping my terrible counting is not too terrible) just over £400 from just old toys and cakes!

"Praise God from whom all blessings flow!"

Landscaping

Taking a train from Worthing to London is an interesting and relatively rewarding experience. There is no other place quite like a train for appreciating the English countryside. Personally, even when on a really enjoyable walk on the downs or in some other lovely green place, I never take stock about how green our country is. When on a train heading into a city however, suddenly I am forced to look around me and I found myself thinking, hey! This 'ain't half pretty! Then as the landscape transmogrifies into high rise flats and more and more railway lines come alongside ours, I start to marvel at the changing feel of a country. The history freak inside me starts mulling over the change forced by the Industrial Revolution and the changing face of British economics throughout the 19th Century.

Then you think, where does God come into this? Obviously, green English fields inspire thoughts of our beautiful and wonderful creation. God thinks about every leaf on every uneven hedge and causes every stalk of wheat to grow in our mismatched and patchwork farms. Amazing! But I also marvel at how God has watched over our industrial development and how he has guided mankind to the discovery of steam engines, railways, electricity and the motor car! He has watched over the growth of modern cities and the swarms of people the move in and out and around of them every day are beloved to him. Just like I am, sitting on this one train among thousands around the world. God is watching me travelling into this city that does not know me and He says to me "I know you Jo, and I love that you are enjoying all aspects of my creation. Even Victoria Station!"

AMEN!

"Change is inevitable - except from a vending machine."

Life Efficiency Tip no.17: You can load a dishwasher in the time it takes the kettle to boil.

I wish that when I have nothing to do I wouldn't just do nothing! If I have, as is the case, a wonderfully empty afternoon I wish that instead of sitting and flicking around iPlayer for a good two hours (and if I'm honest, it was more like three) I would do something productive or creative. It doesn't have to have a purpose, I'd quite like it not to actually, as long as it was something other than just lying and watching TV.

How do we deal with change? Some people hate change and so shy away from it as if it were a deadly disease. Some relish it and so seek out new ways to do things, new innovations. What about if your life has changed - inevitably - and you're not longing for the old life (anything but) however, you don't know quite what to do with yourself or where you stand now that nothing is how it was. OK that is an exaggeration, some things are the same. In fact, most things are exactly the same; God still loves me, my family still love me, I still live in the same place, like the same things as I did etc. But the essence of things have changed, life doesn't feel the same anymore. Having never left school before, I can't say whether this is normal.

I just want to do something creative and without purpose.

Oh and the tip at the top in not no.17, it's no.1. I don't as a habit think up tips for life efficiency - that would be too productive.