Last Sunday I did my last Blaze group. This is helping with the 11-14 year olds at the congregation we will be leaving in a month to do more in our local town. Going to a place 8 miles away was great, in fact fantastic at times, for a while, till God started pulling on the strings to tug us to our town.
Ian has been living here for 10 years. Ben, Tabi and I have only been here just over 2, since we got married and moved over. Ian felt the pull to be more involved in the Christian scene here just before we started dating, and we just felt that for a while we needed to be somewhere bigger to get ourselves sorted as a family, which is what, with God's help we have done.
We have made some great friends and some, hopefully that will continue. In fact because I struggled find a small group that God was letting me settle in, most of our friends from this congregation are people we have met outside of the whole meetings set up, which is cool.
It has been an interesting year helping with Blaze and has come with its good times and its challenges, as everything does. But it felt on Sunday like I had stayed too long, that maybe I should've moved on at the end of last term. Because it was my last time, but still 3 weeks till the end of term, it got forgotten too that I was going.
But really I think for me my feelings were that sometimes we do things to honour others, like giving a whole term's notice, when God was really saying that we should follow Him quicker. Again though with this it is hard to sometimes do this and obey God and also honour our leaders and not hurt them.
So it was a bit of a sad, poignant time.
Our last Sunday is 2nd Aug, which will be a strange time. We have picked that as it is the day when all of us finish on the rotas we are on. We feel that we will step into the new place for us slowly in Aug, but officially in Sept!
And with all the changes, from Ben working and no longer at college, Tabi stopping home school and going to college, me getting a job, it is all a time of gradual change into some major things!
Do you really think God was moving you quicker or were you just going through the moving process quicker in your head than happens in reality? I say that because I recognise the feelings when knowing I am going but having to play out the things that need to be done before we go. It is also such a strange time as you are somewhere physically but your heart is somewhere else and trying to honour those around you by still going and interacting is really hard - well that has been my experience and I have left three countries in the last 6 years in accordance with what I felt God was saying to me.
ReplyDeleteLeaving countries must be harder than leaving a congregation. It is hard to know which is which really - is it us moving slower than God or Him wanting the process to take longer so we can honour others.
ReplyDeletethanks for the insight! Interestingly I then got an email this week to ask if I could do one more Blaze session which actually will be the last one of term. I am free and both Ian and Tabi have to be in as they are on rotas so looks like I was premature. Maybe it wont feel so lonely or strange this time?