No matter who you are, moving to a new place is never easy. Starting a new job, attempting to make new friends in a place that often doesn't have the friendliest people, finding your feet in a culture that you thought would be similar to yours since, after all, we were a colony, yet discover it to be quite different. Leaving behind so many things that you love-those special people who have the capacity to make you smile just by looking at you a certain way because they know you, the favourite coffee shop you frequented so often that customer's dogs listen to you better than to their owners, that beautiful rock on the top of the mountain that you sat numerous times to watch God's artwork displayed as He paints yet another glorious sunset.
Yet there is something painfully beautiful about moving to that new place. You get a fresh start, a new beginning. You can be whoever you want to be. You realize how much you love people back home, and how much they love and support you and your crazy wild dreams. You meet new people that even after such a short period of time you love so deeply, and they bring so much joy and laughter into your life. Some of these people already trust you and accept you so much into their lives that they even get a copy of their house key cut for you so you can come and go as you please. And you learn that regardless of where you go or what you do, God is always, always faithful. In spite of how challenging things may be, how stressed out you get about something that happened back home over 2000 miles away from you, how often you feel that you are alone in the world though you're surrounded by people simply because you just don't understand their culture, God is always there, a constant.
I've been reading The Church that Never Sleeps, which is about a church in L.A. that is open 24-hours a day, providing numerous services to people in the worst area of the city. In this book the pastor says in regards to the challenges he faced while starting the church, "In the middle of my difficult journey, I learned that God sends rays of hope along the way to keep you on the path. They might not be big rays, but the little rays that encourage you and enable you to go another day." For me it's not usually the big things in my life that touch me and keep me going, but rather the tiny bits of encouragement. It can be something as small as someone telling me that the card I gave them made their day, or a girl thanking me through tears for taking the time to be with her and make her feel worthwhile, or even someone special buying me a travel mug for my morning cup of coffee because my host family doesn't have to-go cups since people in England don't tend to take coffee "to go"...they actually take time to sit and enjoy it (which I'll admit is something Americans could learn to do more often). It's these moments in England that I value and treasure, knowing that God is in the midst of it all, and I'm filled with peace knowing I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be.
Peace.
