Hey Global Family.
I’m really sorry it has been so long. I checked the date from my last post and apparently it was all the way back in January. A lot has happened in that time (including me finishing my internship in July). A large part of why I’m writing this is to update those who were following my year as to what happened and what I will be doing next.
I guess I’ll start with perhaps the main reason as to why I stopped writing these posts. I made a post called “God and Anxiety” all the way back in last October, in which I shared a part of my story with anxiety and depression up until that point. To keep this part brief, what I’ll say is that depression came back with a vengeance. I’m not going to be sharing a whole lot about that on the internet at this stage in time, but for the sake of updating others what I will say is that when I wrote my “God and Anxiety” post I was writing from the perspective of someone who naively believed his darkest days were behind him. I was wrong.
However, please let me be clear, my year of interning in Harrogate was well and truly amazing, and the sheer amount of support I had from others was truly such a blessing and I would not have got through it without it. And God was so very much in my year, despite the hardship that came with it. God got me through one of my first adventures out in the big wide world post school. One of the things that I have taken away from this year is yes, a few more scars, but also a few more stories, many of which point to how awesome God is.
But the being made “unshakeable” was perhaps… not well put. When I wrote that last October, I thought God had made me unshakeable because of what I had been through. But it is not me that is unshakeable, it never has been, and God doesn’t expect me to be. God is unshakeable. To quote one of the best movies ever made, “Life is pain.” And that means we get shaken, we stumble, we fall, we get oh-so-very-much wrong. But God is unshakeable, and that’s what I can hold on to in the darkest times. Not my own strength, not believing that if I just knuckle down, if I just implement this coping strategy, if I just do this, if I just do that, that I’ll get through it. Because truthfully, Global Family, I wouldn’t have got through this year if that was the case. Don’t get me wrong, some of those things are important and helpful (some of them not). But it is not the strength of myself, but the beautiful juxtaposition that is strength that comes in surrender to our unshakeable God. Strength in surrender.
So, God keeps taking me deeper, and if this last year was for anything, it was for that. But I have a feeling that that is never going to stop. And quite frankly, I’m looking forward to it.
I do also wish to say thank you to everyone who became some of my absolute closest friends throughout this year before I move on to what I will be doing next. So many of you I consider as family now, and I honestly cannot thank you all enough, from my host family, my mentor and his family, the leader of the young adult’s group I was a part of, the head of the New Wine hub I was attached to, and particularly my line manager/vicar and my partner in crime throughout the year, the other intern at Kairos. Thank you all for absolutely everything you have done for me, and don’t you worry, you won’t be getting rid of me that easy, I’ll keep showing up.
I also want to quickly thank my family, simply because they are awesome. But the other group of people I really wish to thank are all those who have financially supported me throughout the year. I literally would not have been able to do the year without you. God bless you all and thank you again.
So then, what’s next for me? Well, I am off to university in less than a few weeks. I will be heading off to Durham to do a degree in Theology and Religion. I am very excited for this next adventure! I will likely do a Facebook post on this, but please do be praying for me as I start another journey.
I hope to still ocaisionally throw a post up on here, but I will have to wait and see. Might even do a cheeky bit of rebranding and change the name of the blog.
Until the next time wonderful Global Family, may you have Shalom in your Guts and God bless.