and it's over...

is it inevitable to reach the end of a year like the one i've just had, and wish you could go back and squeeze even more out of it? like you've wasted parts of it somehow? despite how much you loved (almost) every moment anyway?

i'm now back home in middlesbrough, it's been just over a week since i came back, and, in all honesty, i'm really struggling. i knew it would be hard being wrenched out of a situation you loved, surrounded by people you adore, in which you've grown uncomfortably comfortable (a.k.a it wasn't easy or actually 'comfortable' pursay, but it was stretching, challenging, and you really felt you were going in a positive direction)... but not quite this hard.

i went into kbc in september thinking "this is great, i get to let out the worst of me, get my life sorted out AND have a 'bit of a laugh', with a group of people i won't ever see again after it's all over!" sweet! now it IS over, i don't really feel the benefits of that anymore. i miss all those people i let see my worst. whom i became vulnerable with, and who became vulnerable with me. whom i shared some of the most spectacular and memorable moments with in my life (so far, of course). those i had not just a 'bit of a laugh' with, but times when i laughed so much i cried and felt like my head was about to explode.

don't get me wrong, i know God has SO much planned for us all, me included, even starting next year when i move to Manchester, but everytime i think back on the past year, i can't help that painfully happy nostalgia overtaking my common sense and sometimes even my faith in God Almighty. What if that was the best year of my life? What if all those promises God made to me during the year don't become reality? What if i spend the next few weeks, months or years, simply digressing back to the darkness that insecurity, mistrust and sin bring?

God did so much in me this year. Broke me free from so many chains, lifted my head, sealed my forehead with His mark of daughtership and told me He is never going to let me go. If you want to pray for me, and everyone else that has just left KBC (there's even a list of names I made aggges ago to help you, which I may update now, cos they were simply first impressions), please pray that we will now learn how to put all the theology we learned this year into practise. that we'll find (or create) community where we are now (or are going to be) and that any ditches we feel to be in, now the craziness and excitement of KBC has finished, will be ones we can see the other side of, we can see out of, because we know God's promised He'll get us out, teaching us much through it. they can't (and won't) last forever. that we'll keep remembering, and building upon everything He taught us this year in both our hearts and minds, looking to Him for wisdom and discernment, continuing to love each other and those we meet everyday.

blessings upon your heads.