The History.
For years I had a blog called Made-To-Love. Just a chronicler of my life across most of my 20s. This is that. My history.
All seasons end
There are seasons in life, seasons of growth and change, seasons for rest, seasons for running harder than you every have before. Every season is different, with different shades and colours and sounds. The past six years have been one giant season full of a million microcosm. I leave this place knowing I am no longer the same person, no longer the girl who came. My opinions are stronger, my sense of self is deepened and my understanding of the world widened. I am no longer the same.Six years ago I boarded a plane after a night of vomiting and too many tears; fear and anxiety crippling me about a move I wanted to do, across a continent I didn’t really know. That girl has grown, and changed and lost some of her anxiety and fear.Now full of anticipation, expectancy and a little bit of confusion, I will board a plane in a month, no doubt with just as many tears and go back to the home on my passport.To explain or process six years in this place will no doubt take just as long, to fully see or understand the amount I have been impacted or things I have seen I have no idea where to begin.But for now there is a bitter sweetness in my mind at all times: this is the last time for this, or when shall I see this person again. There is beauty in a season ending, a finality of a chapter closed, a peace in the time to move on. For this is a place where a diverse family has grown and for this season I became part of it. For this season I was one with it. It will never stop being a part of me, never stop being something that shapes me, for this beauty village in this beautiful place will always be a home....It is two months since the above was written; the plane has been boarded - the ride home poetically similar to the first one. I've rested, moved and started a job, almost found a home and am wearing suit trousers and heels to work on an almost daily basis. I'm amazing at how life just moves forward. It has felt like each day has tumbled into another with no time to think. Tonight feels like one where I could sit and type out every process and every thought. But I am leaving it at this...The God I know and trust is larger and more faithful that I can every understand. His ways are wilder and better and beyond all my wildest dreams. This next season has started and all I wonder is what God has planned because I could not have fathomed all that happened in the last one.R./
With one ring on her finger, everything changes.
I've deleted this first sentence too many times because I do not know how to put into words how happy I am that you are here, with a ring on her left finger and a wedding coming in the late summer. It has been a privileged to live alongside you, to watch you grow in love with one another. I have clear memories of our first meeting, in a house in a vineyard, in a kitchen ready to feed 12, our minds filled with adventure and no idea we would still be here 5 years later; taking photos up the hill to celebrate the rest of your lives. You are too beautiful for words. Congratulations, and thanks for letting me take the photos!
R./
'Karen don't be sad'
you came for 21 days.
you inspired me to keep on going, you listened and talked and made me laugh until it hurt. Ladies, you are welcome: wherever I am, you are welcome, anytime. keep being incredible.
r/
2018
"it may look like i'm surrounded but i'm surrounded by you"
Those lyrics, those words of being surrounded have been traveling around my head on and off for the past week. They find themselves in the tiniest darkest back corners and then make themselves the center point of my main thoughts.There is something in the sentiment of being surrounded: once in a way that you cannot control, threatening and full of fear, and the second, full of love, and comfort, the surrounding of the warmest most perfect hug .The first is out of my control, scary, full of worries, and walls closing in. I see the world falling around me, weight on my shoulders, and all the fears rushing towards me..the second...Well that isn't in my control either but it is so full of freedom. Those types of people who bear hug you in the way that makes you collapse into their chest, and you know you are safe, secure, and protected. THAT. That is what it means when it sings "I'm surrounded by you".This possibly invisible barrier that means the weight and world and fear cannot penetrate through, that it will not reach you, will not overpower you, will not become who you are.I am surrounded by you God. Spirit. Son. I am surrounded by you.It is a new year, one pregnant with promise, newness and life. For me there are days now where is feels like I am surrounded, in that first way, the new year is a background thing that I haven't really recognised yet. But these lyrics that are making themselves at home in my thoughts scream out to me, "BUT I"M SURROUNDED BY YOU".Although this year is starting with a steep incline upwards, I know it won't last forever, that the year will be full of adventure, goodness, joy, freedom and laughter. The photos placed on my wall prove to me that I am surrounded by the King of Kings, and his beautiful children. And in those places comes all that I need. In those places comes all that we need.So welcome 2018, I'm 10 days late, but I'm sure there are many adventures to be had within you. I'm just learning how to live out those lyrics.R/
a letter to myself.
I found this post, one I wrote 4 years ago.
So I thought I would write a response, to the version of me then.
Who didn't really know just how many mountains she would jump off, or rivers she would sink deep into. Who hadn't really truly seen what it meant to live a life fully sold out for Jesus, or to live it. With the tears and the sweat and the 'your will, not mine's'
To the girl who thought the reality lived way beyond her expectations, it went further: it still is going further. You let the boxes grow back again, but when He ripped them apart, this time the space beyond was so much bigger. You've been lost and found so many times, wanted to give up and curl up and turn back time. But the expectations never seem to reach the reality. When you lift your head up, you can see the endlessness of His reality, where nothing is out of bounds, and no thing is impossible.
You've learnt now that boxes cannot contain things that are bigger than everything, and the energy of placing God in those boxes is more than when you see Him outside of them.
Your expectations then were blown away, but you seem to have forgotten about expectations and plans now, because you are beginning to grasp the gigantic nature of His plans, and the understand of the birds and flowers that each day is of its own.
You still adore the people, you're still in awe of how they push you and love you and challenge you to live....
But you are more in awe of Him, more in awe of His beauty, His adoration, His grace, His forgiveness, His faithfulness and His love.
You didn't expect to be here this long, to love here this long, to be at home here for this long. I am glad that you learnt to keep going, that you kept going, that you kept fighting.
You now, thanks you then, for your perseverance.
R/
i want to start again
I wrote this in April, but couldn't...wouldn't publish it...maybe it was to raw or to vulnerable at the time but now I want to. So here is a piece of my processing from April. When winter had just ended and I was tired. When I felt like a lot had gone wrong and I couldn't see past my own failings, and when all I wanted was to see how it would have been if I hadn't lost my focus on Jesus, on the one truth and light I know to be consistent and constant in life.......I want to start again...or rather I want to have enough time to sit and see all the things and times I missed because the clock moves too fast and the pace is doubled and I haven't had a moment to take a breath, except for when I do, and all I do is sleep.I want to start again, or maybe just sit and watch my life on video tape so I can see the moments that I forgot and remember the cups of tea, and pieces of cakes and fresh juicy pineapples I don't remember the taste of.I want to start again, but not forget the things I learnt before I fell, so that this time when I re-start I do not re-do the same mistaken steps, and maybe this time I will start again and keep on going, instead of falling and stumbling and failing.I want to start again, but really this time I want to see and hear and taste it all, and learn and jump over the trick-ropes that cut my legs from under me. I want to start again, with my eyes never leaving your face, and my feet never leaving your well trodden footprints.Because I know that if I start again with my eyes and feet firmly where you lead then maybe, just maybe I won't have to start again, again.......I did. Start again that is. But I couldn't watch back my life on video tape, but I read over the journals lining my bookshelf and I looked over the words underlined in my Bible. I made myself lift my eyes again, to see the Jesus I knew. I made myself re-read words I have read since I was a child, but this time I saw something else, something new, because God is good that way. I allowed myself time to see my own failings and see how to be better next time, how to choose better next time.Choosing. I have learnt that sometimes in just is a choice. A choice to make time, a choice to lift your head, a choice to learn and move on. Sometimes it is a choice to get out of bed to run, or to not watch TV but to read. I have learnt I have a choice, as crazy as that sounds, I have a choice to move forward, to learn, to become better, to focus, to rest.r/
tan lines and dirty soles
it's summer, the sandal tan lines on my feet prove it, as do the polaroids taken in hammocks and balconies, in lakes and at late night tire swing conversations.and the time of farewells for this blonde beauty as she travels back to the place called paradise and the place that sent her here in the beginning.it's the season of no shoes, and late night conversations, and new friends, and swimming in lakes that aren't that clean, and all the fresh vegetables and fruit you can find.a little update/ i try to promise there will be morer/
more to say
you said breath and life stood up
You have never ever given up You have never turned your back on us You said light, and light there was You created all that was, You said breath and life stood up, You are God and great above it all. You are more than we’ll ever know You give life and life to the full You have never ever given up.
soft snow flakes
[wpvideo HRxnSHOO] it snowed on christmas day.winter is here. the wood store is going low. the layers are adding up...5 long-sleeves today and counting. i am simultaneously loving the cosy evenings and dreaming of the sun-soaked spring days that are coming.r/
in the rear view mirror
You look different from this angle, through the rear view mirror as the '2016 turns to '2017 and the memories are all that I have to see.2016, you look different; different lines are showing now, different moments and revelations are showing their faces as I look back through the glass.You weren't easy to drive through, you gave me pot holes and unexpected turns and twists in the dark, but somehow looking back at you I can see the path driven clearer now.The turns and hills more in focus. The lessons and adventures and friendships are like crisp mountain outlines and clear horizon lines, created to be noticed and appreciated as I turn my head around and see where I've come from.Hindsight is a beautiful thing.R/
i hear the drums echoing tonight...
sammadde2
"it's going to take a lot to drag me away from you"
You have taught me more than I can express; you brought us all together under fairy lights with good coffee, food and the perfect dance party. Maybe the best reason to get on a plane, to celebrate the two of you.
R/
Let's jump into lakes
Has anyone ever asked you to jump into a lake when you don’t think it’s safe, or told you to close your eyes before they feed you some unknown thing, or asked you to ‘trust me, I know its going to be fine’?Has anyone every just taken you so far out of your comfort zone and all the things you feel safe and secure in and then shown you why it was a good idea to travel so far away. Why it was a good idea to trust them with it all?There is a surety in trusting someone. Knowing that someone has your back 100%, in so many ways that whatever crazy thing they ask of you, you know it will be fine. There is a surety in those relationships: I think that’s part of what I admire in the marriages of my parents, and my brother & sister-in-law (and so many others I know) this certainty in one another that means they trust the other would catch them if they fell blindfolded.I’m in my last week of a two-month break from my normalcy. I’ve spent the past two months traveling to see people, helping my parents pack up their home and generally trying to get my mind, heart, body and spirit rested. If I am honest with you I would say 98% of that time has been spent in avoidance of what I came home thinking I needed to process.When I boarded my flight to London in June I had these romantic ideas of coffee shops and endless notebooks full of my brain on paper, days spent in quiet processing of the past three years and all that I have seen. I wanted to delve deeper into theological questions and find solutions and answers to things that were plaguing my mind. That was what I thought I was jumping into.Those days and coffee shops didn’t happen. I didn’t seek them out and I avoided the idea of them. I instead spent time watching TV and reading novels, sleeping and becoming way to interested in made-for-tv Hallmark channel movies.And then on Thursday evening I had dinner with Becky; a sound solid friend who never fails to get to the heart of everything. She has the ability to draw out the inner thoughts of me that I didn’t know were there simply by asking me the right questions.As I answered her questions and thought about what she was saying I began to see that maybe I had been processing in the past two months. That while I was ignoring my usual focused, determined, coffee shop and moleskin idea of processing, my brain and heart were doing in for me.In this time away, in the simple act of doing something else and breathing a different rhythm I had begun to process the exact things I had wanted to when I left Romania.last night as I read back over the few journal entries from the past month I found this written and circled:"The surety of Gods call and goodness over the safe and secure and comfortable”I’ve never heard God say ‘trust me’ as much as he did this last year, and I’d never been so unsure if I could trust him.However there was something in this idea of being sure of his goodness and call… of trusting him the way Jeremiah does when all is going wrong and he declares that the idea of holding onto and stopping doing as God asks “… is like fire in my bones! I am worn out trying to hold it in! I can’t do it!”It’s like being asked to jump into a big dark lake, or being blindfolded and not knowing what is coming.You take a deep breath and trust the person, you jump and end up in the most beautiful lake you’ve ever been in, with the stars their brightest above you and the lake the freshest temperature. And you breath and you float and you are thankful they took you there, and asked you to jump.This summer I went into it with expectations of big things happening, of God changing everything. Leaving Romania for two months was stepping far away from my comfort zone. And it wasn’t until Becky and her beautiful perfect questioning that I saw that I was in the lake, the perfect one, staring at the stars and the biggest, brightest moon I’d seen in a while. The jump just looked so different from what I had thought it would.We have to be willing to jump, it doesn’t work if we don’t. We have to be willing to jump in friendships, relationships, work, life, growing up. We have to be willing to jump when it comes to God- whether we are deep in relationship with Him or not even sure He exists. Trust that he is going to catch us if we ever fall, and that when he asks us to jump or close our eyes then it will all be okay because He's got this.Because if we don’t jump, if we don’t trust then we get stuck: on the cliff edge, on the heather, comfortable but never knowing the reality of the beauty and experiences that lie beyond it.R/
those two tiny words
I don't want to pack. The task of laying out everything I need for two months on the floor, and then trying to fit it into a suitcase that only weighs 23kg is not something that makes me jump out of my bed and rush to do.How am I meant to know what to take for two months, how am I meant to know what will happen in that time? I'm writing mainly as a distraction from it all, the packing and the cleaning...but also because I have figured that I haven't written much in 2016. I haven't given time to it or made it a part of my life. I swore to myself that I would on January 1st - that writing would be something I did regularly. That it would be good for me. And then as with most things I promise myself I forgot and I got too busy with other things.I have been having this conversation with various people over the past few years about the word 'no'. The word which somehow kids seem to learn early and say all the time and then when we reach adulthood some of us forgot it exists. I'm often a yes person; 'yes' i will help you out, 'yes i will come to that event', 'yes of course i have time to do all of the jobs you are giving me'.It has lead to me not necessarily making wise decisions over the years. It has lead to me having experienced some form of burn-out, encountered panic attacks and generally being tired more often than rested.I fully believe that sometimes you have to say yes when you don't want to, or when it might be hard. But I also know that the word 'no' is just as important. Learning to say 'I'm sorry but I can't come' or 'I'm sorry but I don't have time to do that as well as all the other things'. Because when I say 'yes' all the time, and i don't think this only happens to me, my yes becomes a mess of tiredness and half done jobs or helping out, and seems to lead to disappointment, and broken promises.I mean Jesus said it best: "But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ For whatever is more than these is from the evil one." Matt 5:37It seems this isn't just a modern day problem, but something humanity has been struggling with for a while.But I think, very slowly I'm learning when to say yes and when to say no, and how to do it all in the best way. I should have said yes to more writing this year, yes to more of the words flowing out of my head than being stuck there for months swirling around. I should have said no to a lot of the things I have done and taken on. And right now I should say yes to packing, so I can fly back to England tomorrow.So if you know me and you start to hear the word 'no' more often, please encourage it, I'm sure in some ways it will lead to a more healthy way for us all to live.R/
*image from http://beautifuffle.tumblr.com/post/145521297441
candy coated unicorns are hard to find...
i took up running in February...okay so maybe jogging at a push, but consistently 3 times a week before work i have met up with the beautiful Tori and run around our little town.so when our friends suggested a 5k colour-run we signed up along with them. Queue a bus trip to Timisoara, a walk across the city, crazy dance music, tutu's, temporary tattoos and a crowded warm-up....5k later we are covered in chalky paint, sipping beers waiting to be told its time to throw the paint packs in the air and be covered all over again.it's worth doing, i promise...the tag-line as the happiest 5k might actually be true. We ended the day tired and happy, vowing to make this a tradition.
not until you look behind
It happens so quickly this time thing. The seasons change behind you as you move through day to day and suddenly it's 'how many weeks until you fly?' 'When are you coming back, are you coming back?' And 'how do we finish this well'.The summer crept up on me this year, somehow the endless blue skies didn't give it away. There have been fewer goodbyes (thank you Dumnezeu) and no thoughts of a summer alone in a house. This year has passed a bit like a dream, one dreamt a million times over which you only realise actually happened when you are looking behind you. The time moves on and on and somehow I'm here, planning time off to sleep and dream bigger, travel a bit and then return...hopefully with more fire in my belly and better language skills and dreams and plans a bit bigger and wider and higher than before. We sat on the balcony of the green/blue house the other day; Looking out at the view, praying for this time apart that we have before us... And I found myself being in awe that somehow I had become one of them. The ones who just stayed a bit longer, and suddenly in 3 months I'll be into the fourth year here... the one who is meant to know how it goes. Working with these people, I don't know how to explain it, it's beautiful, heart breakingly, joy bringingly beautiful. I've realised more than every now that change happens slowly and gently and often in a way you don't realise until you look behind you. I'm spending the week at Tauț, helping with cleaning and organising and making sure the visitors have what they need. It's a different type of work and it's the most beautiful place to be. R/
when the sun sets and it's just good people
I'm finding that friendships come in many forms, each as different and beautiful as the last. All so common and so rare, each teaching you something different about this world.R/
rushing waters
brain tired of thinking, simple tasks becoming mammoth mountains, and these words ringing in my ears....'if the world started with a ball of energy, and the only thing that existed before that was God, then surely He is the source of all energy...'home; candles, music, paints, bible, blank pages, and breathing it all in.trying to gain some of His majestic energy, His creator energy, resting in Him.and processing it all, here in this space, this tiny corner of the world wide web.r/