Flotsam

We went to a town we used to live in for six years last week. And it was the weirdest feeling. So comfortable, so natural. Parking, the swimming pool where the girls went for their swimming lessons, the town centre, the shops. It was as if we had never been away.. and I felt very emotional.

We walked around a little, and then went into Whittards as my wife wanted to buy a tea pot! I was overcome with emotion and could have cried my eyes out. Why was I so emotional? Because so much had happened there, I thought our lives were perfect when we first moved there. We'd been invited to join a church where the pastor was "going to give me a roadmap" to get me into full time ministry. I had two young girls (three and just born), a wonderful wife, a great family home to do up, a job earning money (saving to pay off mortgage in order to go into full time ministry on a low salary).. and a church we were could really get involved.

Alpha, nurture groups, youth events, prayer meetings and preaching. And that was just me.

Then fast forward four years and it all felt apart. The pastor hadn't told his elders about me, and in any case he had no power or ability to carry through on his promise. It all fell apart in a nasty way really - where he shouted and cursed me. I was devastated. I spent a long time checking my heart motives (just read A Tale of Three Kings by Edwards) to do that for you. Another church group came along and said they would support us in a plant. WE tried that but despite seeing over ten come to the Lord in the first year had to stop it as my wife wasn't well/didn't want to do it. We then knocked around whilst we worked out what to do and moved to the town we live in now six years ago.

The range of emotions were so strong though, so that when we arrived back home later that night I spent two hours plumbing the depths of my emotions. I cried. It was supposed to have been the perfect situation. We were living as a family in a great safe town near the beach. Church was full on for us. Everything matched my template I'd built from childhood - only for it to be crushed.

Crushed. And as I carried on thinking/feeling I realised that this was a repeat of my childhood. I'd be doing something, happy when my dad would come in and crush it. Was my dad still responsible? And as I pondered this I realised that what I really do is hold onto the things that come along in my life in order to allow them validate me in some way. Church. Work. Car. Fishing. Photos. I hold onto them in some almost obsessive way (all or nothing) - and use them to prove that I am something. I am worth something. It's as if the objects or doing acts in my life have been the definition of me.

My sister was in the Tsunami in Thialand and she explains how after being washed along by the tidal wave for hours, she was spent of all energy at every level. She was hanging onto a mattress as the water kept moving. Around her were destruction and death. A thai man was also holding onto the mattress when they heard a child crying/screaming. They looked at eachother, my sister knowing she could not move. The thai shrugged his shoulders and left the mattress. My sister was desolated once again, as just to have this stranger as a companion was something - but what could they do?

This image came back to my mind very powerfully. And I cried. Why? I'm not entirely sure. For my sister, sure, but also for me. It's as if that has been my life. I have been trying to hold onto things because I fear leaving them behind. Church. God. Work. Car. Pond. Anything. The flotsam of life.

Lord help me to let go of the flotsam, and to see that I am who I am because of the Great I AM WHO I AM. I have worth without the flotsam. Help me to let go, and to be truly free.