Four Days.

It's winding down towards the end of the year - and doing so rather quickly. It's now less than four weeks until Christmas. *shivers* December is tomorrow. Or is when I'm writing this, anyway. It's....yeah.

I've been getting a bit emotional about the end of this year, because it's when a lot of things are winding down for me. Well, pretty much everything, really. I'm finishing up my lease at the place I'm staying. I'm finishing up my work at BOE. I'm finishing up with my internship, and even finishing up at my church. I mentioned it briefly as part of this post a while back.
Essentially, God's asked me to do two things. Firstly, finishing up and leaving basically everything that I know, everything that I'm familiar and comfortable with, and going somewhere new. Hard part is, I've got no idea where that 'somewhere new' is. (Reminds me a bit of the story of Abraham.) So the second part is taking a week or two at the end of this year/start of next year as a retreat, rest and re-focus time, using that as an opportunity to talk to God about what he wants me to be focussing on in this next season of life - however long that happens to be, whether it's a year, a few years, or some more general things that I can focus on for most of my life going forward. I don't really know. It's all a bit up in the air at the moment! And kinda super-scary.

But it's also really sad, particularly in finishing up at church. I've been there for most of my life now, and it's been like a second home for me. Particularly considering I've been there longer than in any house! It's something I've been involved in in so many different ways - music, sound, creative bits and pieces, communion, even preaching now and then. And yeah, there have been ups and downs, but that's true of any family :)
But yeah. I realised the other day that there were only four weeks left until Christmas - and then I did a bit of a double take. Because Christmas Day will be the last service I have at church. So that means that I've essentially got four days - four Sundays - with those friends left, until I don't know what. That's a bit - crazy. Particularly because these are really the closest friends I have, and the friends I've really grown up with and known for the longest time. So it's strange to think that soon, I'll be leaving to go who knows where. Yeah.

There have been some incredible memories I've had in that place. From Oasis, to Dinomight, to SWORD, to the camps we've been on, to playing songs with Alan's sermons, to Youth Group, to the Creative Team, to the internship this year. And all the incredible people - some of which have moved on to other places, some that are still around, some that have only recently moved in. You are what makes these times and this place special, and it's going to be you guys that are so hard for me to leave. But thankfully, the internet makes the world a smaller place, and I'm always only a message away :) So do say hi now and then. I'd like that.

I don't know what next year is going to look like. I really have no clue. But I do know that God is taking me on an adventure. That he's going to be testing me and stretching me in ways that he hasn't before. And you know what?
I think I'm quite ready for another adventure.