This place has been so good to me. New Zealand, The Crossing, all of it. I came here worn out and broken after a long two years of college and an ended relationship. To an extent I am still in that place, a place of healing and recovery, searching and questioning, but at the same time I am finding my voice, my heart, and heaps of grace and love.
Coming here, to this quite, peaceful, giant house on a tiny island in the South Pacific, has given me the chance to ask hard questions, to look at myself, my actions, my tendencies, and wonder why in the world I do some of the things I do day in and day out; what are the issue deep inside of me that my behavior is rooted to? Why do I run from certain situations? Why do my insecurities keep me from engaging and why are those insecurities there in the first place? In essence, being here has given me the space to look at myself and ask in where, what, and who does my identity lie. It has also given me the chance to seek out God, plain and simple.
For awhile, I feel like I’ve known God without knowing him. My mind is full with all sorts of knowledge about who God is, but I feel like my heart is longing for an encounter with the God I know is true, but seems to be have been clouded out with words instead of experience. Maybe that’s just the emotional, meaning-seeking side of me that’s talking, but I know at the depth of who I am that there is this huge desire to personally know God, fall in love with him, and be loved by him. Being here has given me the time to realize this longing and express it to a God who is not only faithful to show up in his perfect timing, but who can handle my desires for an encounter with Him. I already feel like he has come through.
So, while this place has certainly been good to me, the one who has ultimately been good to me is the Lord. I hate saying things like that because I feel like they come across as trite and cliché but that is the reality of my situation, of all of our situations. It is because of God’s goodness and grace that I am here this year; that I have the time and space to ask and process through these questions; that a day of “work” looks like being outside, leading worship or a Bible study, and hanging out with students; that I have the opportunity to live in and explore New Zealand. On a bigger picture, it is because of God’s grace that I am here, that any of us our here; that I am able to enjoy a beautiful sunset, a cup of coffee, or a good conversation; that we have the capacity to love, to feel love, or even feel at all; that the seasons change; that we wake up – we don’t deserve any of this yet God so willingly lavishes us and sustains us with his grace every moment we are alive.
It is in this that I am settled- that I have a God who loves me and is forever graceful towards me; yet, it is in this that I am longing – that I would fall more in and more in love with Him, and truly, on a heart and personal level, know Him and continually give more and more of myself to Him.
About a month ago, I was sitting on the front lawn of the school at dusk. The lawn faces westward and it is to the west that one foothill builds upon another foothill, gradually building up to the hundreds of peaks that make up the Southern Alps of New Zealand. As I sat and watched the dwarfed mountains swallow up the setting sun, causing the gliding clouds to be react by turning yellow, then orange, then red, I reflected on the time I had already spent in NZ and anticipated the many months ahead. In that passing moment I remember thinking - I needed this.
