Cherish

The way things unfolded in the conversation held between me and a colleague over coffee yesterday all owe their foundation to things that have been happening in the last few months of my life. 

*Insert that rewind sound like you hear in movies during a voice over*

A couple of months ago I met with some friends down in Newcastle for a worship night in someone's home. We ended up talking about my life situation and how I felt stuck. One woman said "God's got you changing gears soon, you're going to walk in liberty." I felt assured but uncomfortable with that: "who says?!" - I had always been a little suss on people getting "messages" from God. I had steered clear of clairvoyants because I'd rather hear God talk directly to me in person or through His word than having specific message from other people. As we fleshed out my living situation in group conversation, they talked about how when we surrender to God, He uses the desires in our hearts for His glory. He says "delight in me, and I will give you the desires of your heart." (Psalm 37:4) My desire for loving people, for opening my home to people, for mentoring people, for conversation that leads to a lover for God - He wanted to remind me that the door is open, that I need only step through.

I decided to chase a dream and began making way in my life to flesh the dream out. I established times in the day where I would explore ideas - the only thing I wasn't allowed to do during these moments was think of limitations. I serve a limitless God! He owns the cattle on a thousand hills! He has the whole world in His hands! He wants me, as His child, to use my imagination like a child. 

When I unlocked the old jammed door in my heart for imagination and dreaming that I had wedged closed in the face of adversity and an apparent need for quiet safety (which I later found was not safety in God but in my own limitations), it was as though brightness entered. It was an act of faith. Of trust. 

Fast forward post-Christmas: I have a casual job serving gelato in the evenings to strangers, having the most fun conversations with customers and coming home sticky from the sweetness. I have reunited with an old acquaintance and enjoyed her company so much that upon feeling the Holy Spirit say "now is the time", I invited her to move in with me. By that afternoon we had a third housemate and had applied for a property. A week later we have been approved! The incredible providence of it all is that we've all individually been looking to seek a sanctuary space dedicated to God, ministry, and His kingdom. 

Sitting beside one of the girls a couple of days ago, she told me that in the last couple of years she has chosen a word for every year. Words like "focus", "boldness", and for this year "wholeness" - words that steer her focus. I vocally thought "I wonder what word could be mine for the year?" And it was in that moment that God  gently whispered "cherish." 

To cherish is to hold something dear, to keep something lovingly in mind, to care for and protect something loved. 

It was only the following day at coffee with my colleague *fast forward!* that I told him of this little conversation and how it was weighing on my mind. He is the gentlest spirit I think I know of in the school I work in. Always pops his head in and sweetly asks "are you okay, do you need anything....can I be of assistance?" So I knew bringing this topic up with him would result in some interesting and brilliant action plans.

"I guess I would like to cherish my family relationships more. Call my grandmothers, write to my family abroad. Enjoy more fun time with my mum..." I was rambling on about cherishing others.

He waited patiently and then simply stated: "it's interesting that you haven't mentioned yourself." 

It was like a mic drop moment, but silence sat softly between us.

Woah.

He was right. I hadn't. And in that moment I began vocally psychoanalysing why that might be. He looked amused as I rattled ways in which he was right and how I have put off cherishing myself in fear rather than in love. 

My challenge isn't just to cherish others more, but to cherish ME more. To spend time recognising my worth in the eyes of God, and to protect, nourish and hold myself dear. To keep myself lovingly in mind. To chard for and protect me as someone that I love.

And we come full circle. To the tumultuous end to 2018, to conversations throughout a span of a couple of months lining up like dominos in the hands of God. To a beginning to this year with no "resolutions" but simply a desire to do one thing: cherish.