this is a hurting place.

my heart is craving words, my brain desperately trying to engage again. to breathe some life into this place that feels so hopeless.

life becomes too much to comprehend. too much to focus my thoughts and put words onto paper, and im missing the freedom in creativity. ive written so little in so long, that i hardly know where to begin. my humble musings on life have all of a sudden become overblown by reality.

who could have known life could be so painful. im looking into darkness, not knowing where god is in this, or how to even begin to try and find him amidst this mess.

...like babies in their mothers' wombs, and we look almost into darkness, and all we can do is trust that we are held and carried, and that we are known.

Im lost and im broken and im home

Belonging is a circle that embraces everything;

if we reject it, we damage our nature.

The word 'belonging' holds together

the two fundamental aspects of life: Being and Longing,

the longing of our Being

and the being of our Longing.

[i stole this from somewhere. i cant remember where. but i hope they dont mind]

this place is becoming like home...

5 weeks ago i hated this place for having to be in my life...

but its growing on me... Im waiting for my train to come to take me home at the end of a very slow and extremely fast 11 weeks...

I havent really got much to say,

but it felt like a good way to use the few hours that i have empty today. So the end of the first term of my new adventure is over, and its been possibly the strangest experiance so far, in good and bad ways. I didnt expect it to be so hard, but i never expected to be sad to leave...

and its only for christmas...

Ive adjusted to my new home, its surroundings, its people, the familiar walk that i take every day that my feet can do while im still asleep. i thought that was only something that was possibly at home. apparently not...

It's a strange feeling not knowing where home is. maybe you can have more than one.

i think i will.

I hope the next 4 weeks go as fast and slow as the past 11 have.

I dont like it here, but i love it here,

undoubtedly, unequivocally, unabashadly yes.

Heaven in Ordinary

Its a big girl world now... and everyday, i wish i was small...

you know when you're little, and christmas is this magical thing, thats perfect and beautiful.
and then when you get a little older you lose that magic.

you realise that its just a day in a year, which can be rather stressful, and theres no santa [not that i ever believed in him] and that a tree is just a tree, and that you dont really need anymore presents, and its not so magical and perfect....

Family is a little like that.
when you're little you have this perfect view of your family.
in a sense it revolves around you.
your parents are, just your parents. thats who they are, their job, their life.... to be your parents. and even your view of the wider family.
my memories of family are when everyone used to get together at chrismtas or fireworks, and there was laughter and people and it was magical. like christmas.

And then you get a little older, and you realise that actually the wider famileis have other things to do, and big family gatherings was only really for the benefit of the children and the elderly. and once they're gone, theres no real need for it. no one really wants to. really has the time to. and that your family isnt so perfect. they have flaws, and they get annoying after a while, and that your parents have lives outside of you.
they're people. with things about them you dont know about....

And all of a sudden you change, to an equally respected adult, from a daughter.
and it breaks the relationship. you can't be both.

you're not the 'dad' ive known all my life anymore, youre a guy with your own life with flaws. with secrets, things i dont know anything about in it.
it takes away the perfect, flawless, magical, parent/child relationship
and i still kinda need that...

I’d like to sleep for one more hour or two… hour or two…

Sometimes life gets so hectic that you forget where youre going.
What you're actually here to do. What you want to do. What you're excited about doing.
You just get reeled into the business of things going on,
that you lose the excitement for them,
you just jump from one thing to the next
because there's no time to stop and consider any other direction to go.

Time is precious.
i have no where near enough time to do the things i'd like to do.
the things i need to do.
the things i ought to do.

and so we go on, with all this time piling up on a back order of things to be done that we dont have time to do.

Maybe this is an opportunity to give new years hopes a go.
What do i want to do?

Id love to be more excited about our youthgroups, rather than get to every friday evening exhausted and thinking how lovely it'd be to take a night off.

I'd love to be more excited about our cell group. and actually go to it for once.

I'd love to have time to read more. and not take four months to get through one book. and maybe make a positive inpact on my 'to read' pile rather than it growing at a quicker rate than im reading.

I'd love to have time to go for coffee [tea] with more people. any people.

I'd love to have time to visit people. Ireland. Bristol. Nottingham. Farringdon...

I'd love to remember to write to people more often. letters are like golddust. i should send the four letters that ive started writing to polly.

I'd love to have more time to spend with people that matter, so that i can enjoy working without feeling like i'd rather be with them.

I'd love to be able to take some time for myself, some time for god, some time to think, some time to be fed.
beacuse its hard to give out when youre not taking in.

I'd love to be able to get through a day without feeling tired. to be able to have a lie in at least once a week. or at least not to feel constantly in need of one.

I'd like to sleep for one more hour or two... hour or two...

i want to enjoy my life without it rushing past so quickly that you dont see it disapearing.
I want my time back.
I want my vision back please.

it couldnt be anymore beautiful

The one thing i can remember doing as a child,
to make my mother cry, was when, after an argument,
i declared "you dont love me"...

I have never really completely felt, that God is for me. I know he's real, dont get me wrong, i see him every day, in people around me, in my work, in my relationships, in the world. I know for a fact, that God is real, he's alive, hes truth...

but i dont know him. personally. intimately. i dont feel, like i have his love. i dont know it. i dont feel it, i havent experianced it, i dont feel as if i qualify for it. its just not for me. and thats fine.
i can accept that, beacuse its availiable for everybody else...

And yet. if anyone were to tell me they felt like that, id be appalled. shocked. i'd correct them immediately. God's love is availiable for everybody. God is love. God=Love. Love=God. Get it?!

...If there is anything i have done to make God cry, it's to say
"you dont love me"...

When i was 6, i truly felt like my mother didnt love me. how could she. if she did, she'd have let me wear that dress! But she did love me. of course she did. How could she not... But i didnt feel it, no matter how much she threw it at me, i didnt know it. no matter how much she showered me with it. i didnt experiance it.

Somewhere in me i still dont quite believe it. i still cant quite believe that God's love is for me.
Jesus heals the broken, he reaches out to the hurt. the unloved. the homeless. the hungry.

My life, is pretty much perfect. i dont think i could ask for much more. i have no deep hidden emotional trauma. no bottled up pain. i am loved. i have, so many homes. and i am spoilt for choice with enough food to feed a small third world country.

How can God reach out to me when i dont need healing? not that i am, in any way perfect, but i dont feel able to ask for anything more than ive got. I havent experianced God's healing, for ive never felt the need to be healed. I havent known Gods never ending grace and forgiveness in places no one else will forgive me, for i am surrounded and loved by so many forgiving people.

I dont feel worthy of Gods love. i dont qualify. im not broken enough to be healed. i dont have enough baggage to be replaced with love... And yet, i need it. oh, so, much.

Where some cry out "You dont love me, where are you in my suffering and brokenness"
I cry out "You dont love me. you have no need. no reason. why would you!?"

And that. is the beauty, of God's love.

you love, and yet you have, no reason.

It couldnt be, anymore beautiful.

I am on the path to understanding, to experiance, to knowledge.
I'm not there yet, but i know where im heading....