S’mores indoors

When you can’t make a fire outside, you have to improvise!!

Got to see Izzi again after 9 months...yet being with her felt like no time had passed at all! She is a great friend. She’s a humanist, but takes such an interest in the things that matter most to me, namely my faith. And she asks great questions. One she asked today, was if I felt closer to God having taken this year out. I said that it’s like with most relationships - sometimes I “feel” close to Him, other times I don’t. Thankfully our faith is based on more than our feelings!

Yet I still want so badly to feel close to God. Recently He’s been asking me, what does that look like? What does it look like to know someone, to feel close to them?

Maybe to know what their heart loves and hates, what makes it rejoice and what makes it grieve. To see the world more and more how they do, to be comfortable in their company without needing to do anything. To enjoy the process of getting to know them, a process that will not be finished in this lifetime, and one that is meant to be delighted in rather than rushed. One that will be missed altogether if it is rushed. Learning their personality and their passions, asking questions and really listening to their answer. To take an interest and trust their interest. To be honest and open and vulnerable with someone and still have faith that they will love you, and to be able to receive that love from them. Love that is not jeopardised by failure. To grow in knowing and understanding them, not just understanding in theory but aligning my own thoughts and desires with theirs, growing in actual likeness where right. And to be known and understood. To share memories together, to rest in the present moment together, and to dream together.
I think that’s what I mean when I say I want to be close to God.

Gratefuls:

- for this wonderful friend, and to be able to spend the next 2 years with her. Conversations about shared passions like mental health, and different views like faith. Seeing her lovely parents again!
- living in this time and place, where I don’t have to worry about safety or the next meal for myself or the people I love. God help us to know how to use that privilege, to help those who don’t have it right now.
- listening to a sermon on Philippians, that God knew I needed to hear. The relief in forgiveness, and the hope in knowing that God has not finished yet.
- a really nice conversation with Paul before bed.