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./ 

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/