When it doesn't quite add up...

I love the Wizard of Oz...it's a classic Boxing Day movie that I never tire of watching. The clip is from the part of the film when Dorothy's world is quite literally turned upside down by a tornado. A friend of mine, Alison, shared this picture with me a few weeks ago. She said that what I am experiencing at the moment is like the bit in the film when the tornado has come and Dorothy just keeps seeing things whizz past her window - it's disorientating and that's how it feels for me at the moment. But, like in the film, there will be a suddenly moment when we will land with a bump! (But in London, not Oz hopefully...!)

I haven't blogged for a few weeks because I feel disorientated and am finding that hard. What do I mean? Well, for those who are following our story, you may recall that we had started packing up our house in anticipation of moving at the end of the summer holidays. The 'slight' issue with that was that we were waiting for God to provide us with somewhere to live.

So picture the scene...the summer holidays are drawing to a close, we pack our final box and we wait. Why? Because that was what we had felt God say to us. Packing felt crazy and hard, but we felt we were being obedient to God and that's more important than how we look to others. So what happened?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

The kids were due to start school in a few days time and no house came. No provision. Oh. Right then. Now what? House packed ready to move to London, kids going back to their old schools in Aylsham, church life at ACC starting again after the summer and we're not part of that, church life starting again after the summer at Rev Church and we're not part of that. Suddenly I have no 'context,' don't feel part of anything and that makes me feel disorientated. We're not here and yet not there. I have realised how much security I place in my routines, framework of life and how much I operate out of my context - I guess it's a good thing to be thrown onto God and having to find my security in Him and Him alone...though, I have to say it hasn't felt that good! But then, my faith is not based on how I feel but rather on who He is.

Half way through August, a friend of mine called Mike sent this to me;

'What came to mind as I prayed was Abraham called by God to set out not quite knowing the detail. He journeyed in 'tents' - God present in temporary surroundings with no permanent temple to start with. I just caught the sense that in your quest for somewhere to live there might be a 'tent' (not literally!) existence whilst you journey - so a temporary feeling around where you're living ahead of that which is permanent being prepared. The key thing is this has been done before by Abraham so not getting the full thing all at once does not reduce the rightness of the journey.'

I have to admit that whilst I felt encouraged by this, I wasn't entirely sure how it fitted or what it meant. However, when I re-read it just before the end of term and I looked around my house at all the boxes, our suitcases full of clothes, our beds dismantled and mattresses on the floor, I was struck by how temporary my current surroundings were feeling. What if our temporary feeling ahead of a permanent place being prepared was our actual house? Now I am a little nervous about trying to make words fit circumstances, but this seemed to. We felt we could live temporarily in our own home for 3 weeks, until we would need to unpack and accept that we need to 'live' back here properly. Why 3 weeks? Well, it's kinda silly really - we had felt that God had said we would move in Summer 2017 and British Summertime officially ends on 22nd September. Whilst I don't believe that God is constrained to our human timescales, for my own sanity, we needed to have a cut off point before we unpacked everything. And it's a first world problem, right? My temporary surroundings are my house with my stuff in my boxes. I have not had to leave my home in a war-torn country, I have not had my flat burn down with all my belongings, I have not had to leave my family behind in order to find work to pay off loan sharks. And I thank God for that. It's important to get some perspective.

So, how have the last couple of weeks been in the Green household?

Hard.

We have an enemy who loves to erode our confidence in God. These past couple of weeks have felt like a battle, with the enemy lobbing some grenades at us. We have a growing realisation that he doesn't want us to move to London and so tries to distract us, undermine answers to prayer, whisper lies and instill fear in us. I'm not going to lie, we have found it really tough and are coming to God every day through gritted teeth sometimes. I wish God would just swoop in (does God swoop?!!) and solve it all, but our character and how we journey seem far more important to God than our destination and that's just flippin' annoying. So, I am learning to be obedient to Him, to trust His voice above others, to hold onto the promises that He has made us despite the timing not being what I thought it would be. And the beautiful thing is that we are so together on this as a family now - our kids are amazing and have coped so well with the uncertainty. I asked Esther and Eli how desperate they felt at the start of the summer holidays to move to London, on a scale of 1-10. They both replied '1' - didn't want to leave friends and Aylsham. At the end of the summer holidays, I asked them the same question and they both replied '10' - absolutely desperate to move. Waiting makes us desperate.

I was chatting to Eli about it the other evening and trying to encourage him that we just need to wait for God to prepare a home for us. His reply; Mum, God has had all Summer to do that!

And so we wait.