Me Only | Only Me

Last week we hosted the Torchbearers International Staff conference - where 300 staff from all our centres meet together to share what's going on where they live and enjoy a bit of a holiday and some teaching too. Its like the Torchbearer version of the olympics...only happens every four years n everything...except without sport. This is the third one I've been to and the one I've enjoyed the most so far. It was great to see some old friends and make one or two new ones, and I also really enjoyed hearing Charles Price preach again. It was busy and tiring, but encouraging and inspiring and definitely worthwhile. Now that excitement and activity have ended. This week feels something of a contrast. After 300 people last week there are only 40 this. Something I never seem to get used to is the sense of loss when people leave - it always takes some time to recover. Yesterday Julie and I put Andrew on a train and waved him off, not knowing when we'd see each other again. And while I fought back the tears at the time, I'm sure the real loss won't properly reveal itself for a while, and when it does it will be marked and no doubt painful. Yesterday I also came across this quote:

"Rubble is the ground on which our deepest friendships are built. If you haven't already, you will lose someone you can't live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and you never completely get over the loss of a deeply beloved person. But this is also good news. The person lives forever, in your broken heart that doesn't seal back up. And you come through, and you learn to dance with the banged up heart. You dance to the absurdities of life; you dance to the minuet of old friendships." - Anne Lamott

I'm not big on dancing, which will be no surprise to anyone, but I think I agree. I do wonder though if my sense of loss is due to a lack of contentment with myself, or if not due to, then maybe heightened by. Like when friends go, it leaves me alone with myself without distractions, or maybe being with others forces me to think about something/someone more than myself, and that's quite nice, until it stops. Of course it could just be a reminder that we're made for relationship, community and while we find and enjoy it with friends, family and even international coworkers, we ultimately only know true satisfaction with the One who made us this way, who knows us and meets us as 'deep calls to deep'. - psalm 42