I had another chance to speak last month. I had free reign to speak at a service primarily aimed at young adults so I picked the theme, "When God is silent"
You'll find it here.
I was home in Ireland for a bit last month. It's weird no matter how far away I get from there or how settled I become elsewhere I always find myself referring to it as home.
A friend who lives away and has done for a long time once described how going home was difficult and I understood to a degree but I think this visit I realised that it actually gets harder.
You may have heard it said about certain friends that no matter how long it's been since you've seen them that you just pick up where you left off and it's great.
I have many such friends but it's the other ones that I realised when I was home that I was losing touch with which is hard.
Other friends, and they're no less friends for it need more time. It's just a people thing. Some folks are just wired different. They need an evening, an afternoon, a cup of tea or a meal and then the story begins again, the journey flows.
This is the hard thing really. I just found that over 2 years down the line that there were so many people I have missed out on seeing all the times I was home and so many people I'd only grabbed minutes with and I know there's a story I'm missing out on, I know I'm losing out.
It's saddest really because there's really nothing you can do about it other than accept it. I found it quite tough to be in a place where there was so much I wanted to do, so many people I wanted to reconnect with but absolutely no time to do it. In a way, it's easy to feel like you've short changed everybody and when you've chosen to go see one person it's at the expense of others.
In a way I kind of felt it scriptural where it said about a man being a slave to two masters. He will hate one and love the other.
It's not that I feel a slave to anywhere or that I hate anywhere but it's a tricky one. When I live somewhere I settle. I put down roots for the time I'm there and I guess I just felt a tension as my heart pulled in two directions. Knowing that England was now home, that my wife, our house, our friends and our life was here it was difficult to walk away.
It's good to be back here, good to be in the place where I belong for now. Good to unpack and just be.
Accepting how things are doesn't mean forgetting, it does mean you still make the phone calls, still try to keep in touch, still share your journey as best you can but realise that although some people fade from the picture they're never really gone and to learn to be thankful for any time you may actually get with them instead of mourning that there can't be more.
