meeting place

life’s a funny thing. i just realised tonight how life can just alter completely due to one day…like the birth of a baby. it totally changes everything. wedding. job interview. moving away to uni. death. and just how much these things have impact on people around you too.

i was talking to my someone last week on the phone who i genuinely haven’t verbally talked to in about a year…or more! the odd text…but that’s been it. and i realised, i miss her voice in my life. and she isn’t the only voice i miss. people who i think back on who had a voice and had a say in my life, just barely don’t anymore. even people who i would have called a close friend.

i’m not sure i like this whole drifting thing. just drifting from being close to one person, and then another…wherever life drags you to be and the people around you in that. i was once told a friendship was for a time and season. i get times and seasons as it is biblical, but for people who have had a real impact, or been a support, or just carried a special place in your heart, is this a good enough answer to the apparent “drifting apart”? i guess i’m trying to figure if an ended or drifted friendship is something which glorifies God and makes Him smile. if it’s an unhealthy friendship, then i can see that it’s something God has. but if it’s a friendship which has been sharpening, like Proverbs 27:17 “As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend”, then, are we just taking a half-assed approach to friendships?

but then…life does get really busy, working full-time definitely limits things.  so how are friendships maintained over time?

hmmm. what does it really mean to be journeying with people? what does it mean to live in community with those around you? and how do these work with the changing pace and rhythm of life? i guess loneliness has it’s time, and as a friend of mine said a while ago, “it might be that we go through those lonely times so we appreciate the company better”.

“even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall” Isaiah 40:30

i’ve heard this story over and over…but never has it truly hit me until i watched this…

this is an incredible story…

“Greater love has no one than this,

that he lay down his life for his friends.”

- John 15:13

so i haven’t blogged in quite a while. with the lack of a working internet, i was just about getting on long enough to check my emails before it stopped working. but as of today, we have a working broadband…which is amazing.

i guess over the past few months i’ve been finding things quite tough. i’ve been struggling with some specific stuff but, i suppose just generally been finding life hard. i’ve been trying to take life less seriously in the regard of just chilling out about stuff more. but the more i sit in an office working, the more my mind continually wanders to others. i think about people whose lives are really tough – lack of food, no money, parents dead from aids or other illness or lack of care, homeless, orphans, alcoholics, drug addicts…how is what i’m doing day in and day out helping them? how is what i do making a difference? they need someone, they need God, and i just feel so helpless. i want my life to count. i want my life to share God’s love and hope with those who really find life so so hard. those little kids who just don’t know what being loved means. those teenagers whose initial reaction when they find life getting tough is drink, drugs or suicide. there is so many people in this world, even in this country, who need help. and i’m not sure where graphic design fits into this.

i know i love it. but i know i love people more. i know God’s given me it and wants to use it. but i know He wants to preach good news to the poor, bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives, release from darkness for the prisoners,to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion, to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. (isa 61)

something about these verses just grasp me. and since i bought Foy Vance’s album (which is awesome!!)…the two songs on that which have just made me think and i guess have really started to put growth on foundations lay through Worship Ireland are Gabriel and the Vagabond and Indiscriminate Acts of Kindness. both things talked about in both songs are so simple. speaking hope into one guy’s life, and giving a girl a room for the night even tho she couldn’t pay for it. around 100 people on our doorsteps will commit a misdemeanour just to get into prison for Christmas simply for a bed, heat, food and company. prison. why is this happening when church halls/churches/youth rooms/whatever else rooms lie empty?

i don’t know if i’m being unreasonable or thinking too much about this, i probably am, but something in me just aches for these people. for the Ali’s, Ra’s, Jerry and Kelly’s…i have no idea where they or anyone else i’ve met are or whether they are ok. but i’ve no idea how to help other than pray. but there’s still a big part of me while praying wonders if i can be the answer to my own prayers.

i know helping in masses is probably not reasonable, but within a classroom is, within a drop in centre is… “in small ways with big love”.

i don’t know, i guess i’ve just been spending a lot of time thinking about life and where i fit into it. i’m still searching and wondering. but it still rings true, i want earth to meet heaven through me.