Desert Places

Clearing away the remains of our evening meal beckons, but now the kids are in bed I need to sit down for a while before I get round to it, to catch my breath, and gather my thoughts...

Living in a liminal space is hard at times, but rewarding too. Hard when we realise that we'll be back in Sheffield, in January, at the point where Susie's friends will be starting school - the point where Susie would have started school, but won't be. Hard when we're here to weigh whether this is where we are supposed to be for the next season of our lives, and the key people we need to process that with are away on holiday. Hard when we don't know where we'll be living even for this three months, let alone beyond...

Hard and rewarding blur together at points like this morning, when Jo had a cry at play group and in doing so gave permission for the other newly-arrived mums - from England, on the same flight as us; from Melbourne - to open up about being - inevitably [D2] - in the same "wobbly" place at this stage. And to recognise that they could help each other through [to D3]. Not incidentally, one of the God-pictures someone gave us before we came out here was that, though there would be tears for us, flowers would bloom where each tear fell on the desert soil...

And then there are the out-and-out rewards. This afternoon we spent several lovely hours sitting in the back garden of one of our new friends, Amanda, whose welcome to us has been a special gift. Other people came and went the whole time we were there. I took photos of her garden, and portrait shots of her youngest child, and we downloaded them onto her laptop - a gift in return. As well as just being a wonderful, relaxed time, we also bounced around ideas for things we - us and Amanda - can envision pioneering here...Creativity is starting to stir - in thoughts alone this morning, with Jo after lunch, in Amanda's garden this afternoon...things we can't move on until Malcolm and Cheryl return from holiday, but...perhaps God is starting to show each of us why He has brought us to this place.

And that fills me with hope, and "faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." [Hebrews 11:1]