Faith

In writing today’s blog post I find it hard to know where to aim my thoughts.  With so much going on in the world I feel at times like my ‘problems’ or ‘complaints’ are very much first world problems.  Problems created by my own choices and decisions that have been made out of insecurity, vulnerability and fear yet also made out of trust, love and desire.  Desire to want to share my heart and soul.  The core or who I am with someone who is willing and has the courage to do the same.  Yes, it’s takes courage to be in a relationship.  Damn straight!  Something that I realise I have been given bucket loads of or I wouldn’t have made it through the last 10 months.  I could not be more grateful. 

So I struggle with writing a post about life here in the western world where privilege and freedom are so much taken for granted, at least by me.  Children are being be-headed, families are living on mountain tops cut off from food and water supplies, the basic necessities of life, because of their faith.  Their life is unfathomable to me and should be unfathomable to them as well, but it’s not.

So how does this affect me?  How do I deal with my own ‘stuff’ in light of what is happening to others in the world and not get bogged down in self pity or not become absorbed by the sadness and weight of what the last 10 months have brought?

Faith…

I have no other answer nor do I want one.  It is that simple and it is enough for me.  My faith is ‘perfect’ as it is given to me but ‘imperfect’ by the time I live it out.  Gods desire is not for me to stumble or to be afraid but to rest in the faith he has given me, despite my circumstances.  I am not  one for sprouting cliches so please don’t read this as being that.  It is my true experience that faith has got me through.  I have been held.

The next step is just another one along the path I have chosen to take.  One in which I hope and pray that God continues to walk with me.  I am leaving behind everything I know to be familiar to embrace something completely new, foreign and filled with so many uncertainties.  It’s amazing how you can dream of something for so long and when it becomes a reality, it can look and feel so much different to what you thought or expected it to be.  All the positives suddenly become what ifs.  What if this doesn’t happen?  What if I don’t fit in?  What if I don’t find a new church home?  What if I don’t find a job?   What if I'm rejected?  What if I’m lonely…?

What if I stop being my own worst enemy and just have faith and realise it's not all about me?!

(I feel like I need to insert a joke here to lighten things up but I have never been good at remembering them so perhaps just pretend I told a beauty and laugh anyway ;) )

Friday is a big day, but no bigger than any other day.  I will get up, I will drive to my new home and I will embrace what God has provided for me.  The same as I do and have done for any other day.  Yes this is a bit different, it’s a new life, a new home but it’s still God’s provision and he is still with me.  I will be grateful and I will be filled with hope that God has it in hand and for my brothers and sisters who are being persecuted all over the world, I will pray and I will stand strong in honour of them and I will fight for them.

It’s not about my circumstances, it’s about my God.

J xx