Six months ago I left my home to move to a place where I had never been, and I didn’t know a soul. Gradually as the days and weeks have passed this place has become far less of a strange wilderness to me, and has become a place where my heart has become alive and free in new ways…even to me, its hard to explain. It's a strange sensation, it’s not any one thing, it’s all things, it's a life of abundance …and it is truly remarkable.
My first weekend in London was perhaps the strangest and most unsettling 72 hours of my experience here. As one might imagine, a lot was going on and there was much uncertainty about the days ahead. Sunday morning, November 31st I walked through the doors of a church in South Kensington and felt at peace for the first time in London, my worries about being homeless, having no friends, no idea what my life would become all faded to nothing, the shadows disappeared. I returned later that evening for a second service, I had nothing better to do, and no place better to be. What’s miraculous to me is as I walked through the doors of that once strange building yesterday evening, I was greeted by friends, people who have come to know and love me, and whom I have come to love and know. As I sat on the floor of the sanctuary, somehow I was in a place no less mystery about my life than that first Sunday.
Over the past few weeks I’ve been in quite a strange place, as my life here in London suddenly found itself on unsteady ground until last week when I’ve received some resolution and clarity, that I will in fact be returning home in the coming weeks. As I’ve had plenty of time to ponder the notion of going back to the states, I’ve had this flood of mixed emotions about the whole thing; in total everything I feel is positive, but perhaps it's the direction that I’m heading that makes what I feel, feel so dismantled.
It’s so odd to be leaving a place I now consider home, to a return to a place that I consider home. It is strange now to leave friends and a life I love, to return to different friends and a different life I love. To have a life so full of goodness is quite overwhelming, to have nowhere to hide from people who care about me and people that I care about is kind of crazy, but how wonderful a blessing.
What’s funny is that when I came over to London there was this vast expanse of uncertainty that clouded my life, It wasn’t doubt or fear, it was by no means bad…it was just a wild and untamed future, full of possibility, full of the unknown. While things circumstantially have become more familiar on the ground here in the UK, I have somehow come to possess a new sense of wonder about my own life, and the possibilities of what I might do, and who I might become as a man. As I make steps towards returning home, I feel a new sense of wonder about an old place with which I have much history. And as he often does, God has revealed a new chapter in my life by concluding another…
While I am not certain as to what lays ahead, I am certain however it is the way forward. There is an ocean of thoughts and feelings swirling around, but that sea will be stilled with time, what’s great is that I’m full of good thoughts and good feelings, as I’m so overwhelmed to have so many amazing people in my life.
It will be bittersweet to head back home as I’ve grown so fond of the many great people who have become a part of my life here. I truly don’t believe that I will ever in my heart of hearts say goodbye to those I’ve met over the past 6 months, as they have shaped me in so many meaningful ways and I think I’ll carry the memories of this experience for years to come.
But for now it is onward to whatever lay in store, a great mystery unfolds…
CP
