Belonging

It has been a strange old year...they say these things are sent to try us and they  certainly have and the last few weeks have really escalated !

However within this there have been real moments of blessing, Ive been to 5 Harvest assemblies, each different and each showing the huge gift of wanting to help those in need but also making me  feel like I belong there.

we've had our "fresh expression" groups meeting over breakfast and picnics and in those moments of sharing food I've felt like I'm in a place where I belong .

Ive spent two days on a training course, one that was engaging, was practical and made me think of so many situations in work and home where I could implement the teaching. Not only that but met some amazing council youth workers who wanted to connect and find ways of how we could work together...refreshing! In just 2 days I felt like I belong.

And yet theres the polar opposite, the times and places where you'd expect to belong, expect to feel welcome, expect to feel a part of something bigger...yet despite being in a group I feel so isolated and at times lonely.

It has really had me thinking...how many other people feel like this that we engage with, speak to, visit every single day? In this busy, crazy world that we live in we are so busy, so absorbed in the next thing that needs to be completed we miss what's going on around us...we miss living in the now!

So I'm trying to slow down a little, to appreciate the morning mist, the evening sun set, the new insights the kids suddenly come out with just at the moment I need to be elsewhere , I'm going to really stop and listen to the person at the school gate, in the supermarket queue, in Starbucks when waiting for my decaf soya latte!

And next time I rush past ( once off crutches!!!) or don't have time to answer that phone call or make space to pop over and see you...pull me up on it!!