Today feels like a good time to take stock of stuff. I've been working at One25 for a year now, I've lived in Bristol for a little longer than that and I've been living in the dream house/hippie commune/18Th century vicarage for 7 months now. In many ways, I'm living the dream (my dream, in any case). Maybe you're catching me on a good day (and today IS a good day, it's beautiful and autumnal outside, I feel good about myself and the world and my house is temporarily peaceful and quiet and still). There are still days where I feel like I can't handle the life I've chosen (or the life that's chosen me)- I've hit the year mark for working in a residential mothers and babies unit for women exiting street sex work and coming off heroin and crack and I see why people kept telling me that there's a shelf life for working in a residential setting. It gets in your head. It's hard sometimes living my life in a communal way- sometimes I want to read my book and listen to music and be alone but it doesn't always work like that. And sometimes my home life is suspiciously close to my work life. There are days when I think that if I hear one more traumatic story first hand about violence or rape or abuse or sadness, i will start crying and never stop. Or I think I will stop feeling anything anymore and I'm not sure which one is worse. And sometimes I'm astounded by how much I want to run away- to Vienna or Stockholm or Tennessee. or even London. Somewhere where I can buy back in to trying to be indie and cool.
But mostly these days, I think I am pretty happy with where I am and what my life is like. (Gosh, this sounds very self satisfied and smug, doesn't it? Apologies). And the last few days, a little thought has been creeping in to my head and a voice somewhere has been talking about starting to feel comfortable and settled. Which is nice, really. And for so long, I was finding my new life here so madly challenging that I needed lots of support and encouragement (of which I am very grateful for, thank you friends), it seems nice to stand still a little bit and enjoy things. I manage okay at work (I mean, it's still hard but I'm not TERRIBLE at it anymore), I live in an amazing house and we have kids knocking on our door and a baby running around and people coming to stay for some extra love and TLC and youth group is gathering kids weekly and we started a girls group and these girls come every week and learn about cool stuff like respecting themselves and looking after each other and I am a vegetarian now and I've got my finances more in order and my regular giving and friends here and people to hang out with and......suddenly, it feels like I'm not taking quite so many risks anymore.
A friend has just given up his lovely, successful life here and sold his stuff off and moved to another country to work with sex workers and drug addicts because he met Jesus and it seemed like he should actually take Jesus seriously about what He said in the Bible. And at Church they're talking about building your foundations on Him and not getting seduced by the world. And my manager at work just quit her job because she felt God calling her in to something new. And I keep thinking about risks and adventure and new things and how I feel closest to God when I'm scared and I can't do this alone and when I'm close to the lonely and the sad and the dispossessed. And I don't want to be stuck here- happy and comfortable and self-satisfied because I'm giving a BIT of my money away and I'm kind of opening my home and I did what God asked me a YEAR ago. I don't want to stop. i don't want to stand still. I want to keep stripping it away and getting closer to God.
So, come on! What next? Thank you for loving me and comforting me when this was hard but don't let me rest here. Challenge me! C'mon, challenge me! What else is God saying? It's not about DOING stuff, I know. But I feel reckless and excited because I feel like God wants more and more and that we shouldn't stop because we feel like we've given enough of ourselves away. And the seasons keep changing and it's Autumn already and a year has passed and I feel ike the rich young man saying "yes, I've done that, like you asked...what else?". So...challenge me; talk to me about God, about risks, about taking things a step further, about making irrational decisions and doing the mental, weird things that God calls us to do to redistribute wealth and make flowers from concrete and dancing from crying and insane dreams where there was once only mediocrity and staying still.
