Trees Behind - City Ahead

As of the night of August 31st, I am now a resident of Toronto.  Drivers licence address changed. Rent paid.  I guess that makes it official. 

I am now in Toronto.  Got rid of more stuff and most will be stored in Oshawa, thanks to a dear friend who has a basement there with lots of room.  She doesn't live in the house but is willing to take all my stuff down and stash it there! I'm so amazed at the people God has put in my life who are so supportive of me in when I need it most.  As a fiercely independent woman who has been on her own since graduating highschool 9 years ago, it's not always easy to ask for help.  I am constantly learning how to better live in community and be part of this amazing family linked by astounding grace that gives us all common ground with a common Love. I don't like to "inconvenience" people or presume on their kindness and availability.  Yet I know that I love to be there for others when they need me and true friends that have heart connections aren't in the relationship for convenience or what they can get.  Every relationship is another invitation to become a little less selfish and expand our hearts a little bit more.  An invitation to love better and see another through the eyes of Christ.  I have such a long way to go in learning this.  God keeps putting me in positions where I can't be totally independent.  (Darn it!) Where I need others and I need to ask for help sometimes.  Every time I ask for help it humbles me that much more and I am wowed at the grace and love others extend to me when I just can't do it alone.  If all of us independent folk are brutally honest, the truth is that none of us actually want to be on our own.  We live in a culture that glorifies self-sufficiency but, in the end, those who accomplish it are some of the most lonely people on earth. Often in the process of convincing themselves they don't need anyone, they've convinced everyone around them as well; people stop trying to reach out and these people do become as alone as they thought they wanted to be. Yet humans were never designed to be alone. Before we had all of the luxuries of this modern age, people were forced to work together to do daily life.  It meant that everyone was interdependent in a healthy way, everyone had their role in helping the family function smoothly as a whole.  I think it was a lot harder to be an eccentric recluse cat lady or a grumpy lonely hermit, though some still found ways I'm sure.  Today, it is so much easier to be lonely. In the sense of material luxuries, groceries being delivered to your home, tv to substitute real relationships and living for yourself, and the gazillion impersonal ways we can now communicate with one another instead of face to face.  People are so used to communicating through text, twitter, facebook, and email that they are often awkward or unsure of how to interact with people face to face.  I don't want those substitutions to rob me of the richness found in real in-person relationships, give and take. I realize that other people have giftings and characteristics I need in my life, and I have different ones they need in their lives!

I'm continuously amazed at how Jesus reveals Himself to me in the most unexpected places.  His thumbprints are all over my life and so often in the details and easily overlooked things.  That sale on the exact grocery item I needed when I decided to spontaneously shop for it at the nearest store.  The nudge that God gives me to talk to a coworker during break only to find out she was searching for guidance and advice on something specific that I can help her on while encouraging her to trust God with the whole situation!  Hearing how grateful she is and amazed that God answered her heart's  concerns with a stranger showing compassion.  The thought to ask a specific friend for help storing my things, and them being more than happy and able to do it!! All of these little graces are like kisses from my Father... as He smiles over me and reminds me, once again, that He's got my back.  As much as my life is often a whirlwind and not as organized as I would like it to be, when I am walking in obedience to what He has called me to, He has a marvellous way of working out all the little kinks and glitches along the way. My family knows that I often fly by the seat of my pants but even in that, God's got me by the suspenders attached to my pants. haha... that was a hilarious visual.  If only someone could paint that...

Oh the city.  The "Big Smoke" as I've heard some call it.  I will need grace for this season. An abundance of it! As a girl raised in Vancouver but spending summers in the remote northern BC town of Fort St James, I cultivated a love for the outdoors from a young age.  I learned that I feel much more at home in every sense when I'm on a trail in a forest with not another soul in sight or hearing distance.  When I'm exploring empty beaches with rugged waterlines and no cottages.  When I'm diving into the freshest cleanest lakes with nothing between my skin and the pure water... the elegance, purity, and beauty in swimming with no one around for miles and having total privacy to bask in the sun as you dry off on hot rocks only to dive back in at your whim.  Muskoka was a nice compromise to what I left behind in BC.  I will always be a BC girl till the day I die. Yet Muskoka offered trails, lakes, and much greenery to offer respite in times of just needing to get away and have nature time.  Those times feed my soul and refresh my spirit like nothing else.  I honestly wonder how I'll survive in the city without that.  All around there is pavement, highrises, constant traffic, construction, noise.  I must be intentional to scope out every park and be thankful I live close to one of the largest parks in Toronto (High Park)! I'm choosing to focus on all the positives of living here.  The exciting quirky little shops and restaurants I can explore. To appreciate the diversity and beauty found in the people here.  I am blessed to have so many invitations to different churches here... it might be a tug of war before I prayerfully decide which community of brothers and sisters I will intentionally plug into here.

Some of you might be wondering what in the world this "granola" is doing in the city. Hmm... I'm still wondering the same thing! In all honestly it was a very specific goal and reason for which I moved to the city: To get my BA in Psychology and then a Masters in Counselling.  While that is the goal, I have no idea how I'll take to university or if some other plan God has up His sleeve will hijack me along the way.  It's ok though, because I don't need to know all that right now.  I simply need to trust and follow.  Last year I was staffing YWAM Muskoka, then spent one month in LA, California as a live-in organic cook, errand runner, driver, and caregiver for a dear man battling stage 3 lung cancer.  His wife is someone I've become very close with and it was a blessing to be invited into their lives during such a dark time to serve and do whatever I could to help lighten the load.  After returning I knew I needed to get on the applying to schools thing but still had no idea which school to apply to.  I looked at various bible colleges but felt no pull in any direction. I met with my spiritual father for direction and heard the Holy Spirit drop such a clear word right over our heads as he was advising me to go to secular university ... I heard the Lord say "Listen to him!"  I felt arrested right there.  I knew I had to obey.  I knew it would mean leaving Muskoka and moving to the city.  I knew it would be a sacrifice in so many ways but also that God would open up so many new doors and opportunities that could only happen if I moved forward and followed His leading.  I want to open a "Wholeness Centre" that offers counsel and life coaching in every area.  Spiritual, emotional, mental, physical (fitness & self-care), and nutrition.  I've never heard of a clinic or place that offers all of this in one place.  I'm sure I'm not the first to think of this but everyone I talk to about it says that something like that is so needed!  Yet to open a place like this I know a degree will get me much farther.. kind of like the foundation for building this dream, if indeed God put it in my heart to do.  I want this place to be open to all ages and races, yet clearly Christ-centred with Holy Spirit-led inner healing.  To invite Jesus into those rooms and memories where people need healing, and facilitate people meeting with Jesus and hearing His truth and love spoken directly to their hearts and broken spirits.  Somehow I feel like being a part of starting safe houses or working with women and children rescued from sex trafficking will tie into this Wholeness Centre.  I don't fully know what it will look like.  Actually, I don't have a clue. Just ideas. I know I'll need an army to come alongside to make this vision/dream a reality.  I'll need counsellors, therapists, nutritionists, fitness people, pastors, and lovers of Jesus to join in making this happen.  I don't even know that I'll need to have completed my degree before this place opens... but to be licensed to counsel people myself I will need the degree.  We'll see if the degree (5-6 years) or the centre happen first.

So, here I am.  I went to orientation at Ryerson yesterday and was surrounded by hundreds of 18 year olds fresh out of highschool chatting non-stop about living on their own for the first time, getting credit cards, having bills, feeling like real "adults" ...the residence parties and chanting that goes on non-stop. I felt like a very large fish out of water. *gulp* It's a strange feeling to know oneself so well, to have a good deal of life experience and to know I am in a very different stage of life than all of these young adults, yet to be at the entry point of university at the same time as them.  In some ways it reminds me of highschool where I always felt older beyond my years and had a hard time relating to all the shallow gossip and trivial things my peers talked about.  I always was concerned with the deeper things, the heart underneath it all, the global issues I read about, and didn't go through the boy crazy phase which really set me apart, in that alone!  Now, I actually am older than all of them, and it is just as hard to relate.  I know I need to reach out and make friends.  I know I need to find study partners and not care about the age or maturity gap.  I know I can't do this university thing alone.  Or at least, it will be a better experience if I make some friends along the way!  It's just a matter of finding whatever common ground I can find and stepping outside of my comfort zone to engage people.  I can do this.  Though I know this is not the case, it's tempting to feel like I'm going backwards in life; like if I now tell people around my age and older that I just started university, they'll give me weird quizzical looks and say "Wow, why did you wait so long?!" Yet so far all I've had are congratulations. :) I heard some of the fresh out of highschool girls behind me in one line talking about some of the "older" first year students they saw in orientation... "like, what the heck are they doing here?" and had to smile inwardly at the judgemental comments they had about "old" people starting school now.  One guy was balding, apparently.  Little did they know they were standing behind one of those "old people".  I guess there are perks to being 27 but being constantly mistaken for 18-22, when based purely on my appearance. haha. I have to intentionally choose to not care about the million wrong ways I will be judged, labelled, and perceived as I venture on this new adventure as a mature student with no previous university or college.  All I know is that I am stepping out in obedience, and somewhere in the midst of that I will find unexpected joys as I also choose to be joyful in all things and grateful for all God has placed in front of me right now. Here. Now. Today. I always have a choice on how I pasture myself towards God, others, and my circumstances.  I choose to thank God for all the wonderful things before me in this new season, not dwelling on what I left behind. If anything, all of these young people are an opportunity for me to disciple and show them Christ.  There is a better way.

He has the big picture.  The wondrous expanse and complicated little weavings of His plan for my life is so beyond my comprehension that it really is in my best interest to be kept "in the dark" and to only see small sections of the path as I go.  In all honesty, if I had known all I would go through over the past five years, I can't say for sure that I still would have walked forward into it willingly.  Had I known the loneliness, pain, disappointment and loss I would experience, I probably would have run from His plan for me. Yet I can also say that I don't regret one day of it.  The joy, friendships, and wealth of experiences I've had in the midst of the pain have made it all worth it.  The growth could not have happened without the pain, the testing, and the humbling as the Lord was teaching me through it all.  More than ever, He has shown me my deep need for Him.  As I draw closer to Him, suddenly the city isn't so daunting.  The city savvy Vancouver raised girl in me feels confident to navigate this new concrete jungle, and I've already stopped and asked strangers for directions twice on my first day biking in the city.  When I don't know, I will ask and find out.  When I am going star city crazy I will run to a park and lay in the grass to re-ground myself.  I will find strategies and ways to not just "cope" in this new season, but to thrive and rejoice in it!

That being said, if any of you have lived in Toronto and have some tips for me, I'll gladly hear them. ;)

I am embracing this season, arms wide open for all You have for me Lord. Let the memory of ancient trees, deep forests, and mountain summits forever be in my senses, and let this new city life afford the occasional visit back to my wilderness roots. Amen.