Storing and Stirring

With head and heart still spinning from recent events, it’s been hard to find my bearings.

One minute things feel settled as the normalities of parenting small boys plough on, but the next minute emotions mixed with exhaustion throw me back into that sense of standing on shifting ground, angsting over the uncertainties and unknowns.

As a Christian, my bearings aren’t based on my emotions or even my circumstances. It’s Jesus and his words, his truth, his reality that anchor me. I know that, and yet it’s hard to read my bible, to hear that truth, to believe it when we’re being thrown from one feeling to another.

And so I’m thankful for what feels like a storehouse of truth in my head, gathered over recent weeks and months over the pond. Each week punctuated by opportunities to mull on these realities – Fridays with a friend in Micah, Wednesdays with a bible study group in Nehemiah and Sundays spent hearing 1 Thessalonians at church. Rich times. And equipping times for my here and now.

A privileged few months of feasting on scripture. Replenishing my ‘storehouse’ for this rollercoaster ride that we’re on.

While I’m thankful for feasts, I’m also thankful for people speaking truth to us now – not quite feasts but meaty snacks. Those texts, the emails, the conversations where life-giving words stir up and remind me of gospel realities.

I still struggle with that feeling of being at a loss, of being at the mercy of my emotions and what I can see in front of me.

But more often than not, I feel myself anchored. Tethered to the truths of the gospel. The realities of eternal, unchanging things. Certainties and knowns that don’t buckle as hard circumstances hit.