anew

And so here I am. Where I thought I wouldn't be, where I once said wasn't home, but now is. Isn't that what the journey is about? Little steps, one at a time, finally landing you at places you never thought to be. And here I have friends I never thought I'd have. Depth of relationships I that had only ever had in CF. Never in church! I thought... These kinds of things don't happen in church.
It seems sad, somehow, as I said to her, that in the almost-a-year that I left, she's been the only one to voluntarily seek my company personally. Excepting two wedding invites, confirmed before I pulled my disappearing stunt, of course. It seems sad, somehow, that after about a decade of growing up together (give or take a few years here and there, I guess) we still don't have anything much in common to talk about; our lives were never really shared, per se. And so we've drifted apart effortlessly, and funnily enough, it doesn't even feel like anything is missing. Shows you how deep those relationships were, huh? I guess every once in a while, I feel a pang of bitterness at how it might have turned out, if everything were different, but I guess I am who I am; nothing would be much different.
And so here I am. It took 4 months to decide, a month to dither. But, forms are submitted, along with a letter of transfer, and a tiny butterfly of nervousness. No glitches, I hope. Why should there be? But sometimes, me being me, I get anxious and start over-thinking. Funny, I haven't even been 'enrolled' (my brain died, I can't think of a better word) and they've been asking me if I would join the worship team (and trying to answer yes on my behalf) and straightaway all those niggling thoughts jump and overstretch themselves in a race to the finish. Will I, won't I? Because of this, that? But I will not think about it now. Let it sort itself out in its due course. Isn't that what this journey is about? A step at a time, led by Him who keeps us from falling.
And so.
It seems strange to be here, and yet, almost right.
Almost because I don't know anymore if anything is ever perfectly right. I give up on ever saying that this is the absolutely best and no other option place for me, because I don't think I'll ever know if it is. Maybe I don't need to know either.
So.

Letting go

Sometimes you look at their youthful fervency and wonder, what happened to me? How did I wake up four-and-twenty and jaded? But there is fire in their spirits, and it's a thin line to walk between channeling that fire to God and breaking their wings before flight.
It's a balm to the soul, sometimes, when I do the little I can, and get thanked for nothing. It's like hey, maybe I really did do something right after all. Maybe it's just enough for them that I be there, no matter how useless I feel.
And there - that exposes again that stupid need in me to feel as if I have done something, accomplished something, when over and over again God says there is no need. It's been done! All you have to do now is to come and surrender.
Like I told him, echoing the wise words of leaders past, (was it Tryphena? I forget)

don't you think that as much as you care for the cf (or isca in this case) that God cares even more?

No? And so it comes down again to the issue of letting go.
Let go, let God. It's fast becoming an overused cliche.
But it isn't easy letting go of the past. In some way or other, who we are is really a culmination of who we used to be. Our present 'now' wouldn't be the same if we hadn't gone through some of those painful experiences in the past. Yet sometimes the hardest parts of our pasts to let go aren't really the painful ones. Those we sometimes step out of easily, remembering that all our sin and shame has been taken away, redeemed, by Christ on the cross.
The greatest bugbears to give up are often our successes. It's our remembrances of what it used to be like that keeps us worrying and fretting over the future of our 'pet' youth groups or cfs, taking a healthy sense of ownership one step over into possessiveness. That's where pride steps in, saying, if I were there, I would be able to help direct this. I wouldn't have made those stupid mistakes, tolerated those attitudes, allowed those things to happen.
And yet sometimes we need to remember that if our season for it has passed, we must move on and hand the reins to those in position. And though we sometimes wince and think but that's not how it should be, we should always keep in mind that these experiences too will shape them to become who God wants them to be.
It may mean that things might get messy, but God has never called us to be perfect has he?
He's called us to be real.