It’s a desecration. To type about it, to haphazardly post it on social media, to minimise it for Facebook to see. At least that’s what it feels like to try and write a blog post about my first few days in Newcastle, Australia– and this week before my DTS begins.
I’m tucked into the corner of a black leather couch, tangled in coat and red wool scarf, MacBook Pro on lap. Glancing up? I see the stainless steel of the cafe’s espresso machine, metal chairs encircling empty lunch tables, and through the glass doors– yes, cars whizzing down the left sides of Mayfield streets. Happy chatter bounces back and forth between Hanna and I writing blog posts, us hiding behind our laptops and headphones but really just wanting to laugh together. Not much writing is going on, not until the music is turned up and I fall into this reverie of finally realising I am here.
Why don’t I feel like writing about it all? Isn’t it incredible? Shouldn’t I let everyone know how I am feeling, what’s going on?
Oh, have you ever felt like this? It’s as if I’ve waded into a pool of perfect contentment, and don’t dare make a move lest I disturb this weighty, tangible peace that rests ever so deeply in me. Often I write blog posts to process struggles or to make the future I hope for seem real, more attainable. Beautiful lessons emerge as I tell my stories, and I long to share them with you all. But what happens when the dreams I have been blogging about for so long become, well… reality?
I dare not disturb it. I lean against the black leather couch at the YWAM Newcastle cafe– and there’s no way I can communicate in one post the full depth of my journey to get here. It’s difficult to show you my breathless happiness to just be here, to finally be here, and not be going anywhere soon (you could say three months of lecture phase is soon, but after two-week trips over the years, it’s amazing!). Yes, I am doing DTS soon and that is a whole other can of worms, but right now? I’m just completely content to be right where I am.
And that’s a bizarre place for me to be in– for I don’t know if I’ve ever felt this way in the full extent I do now. In no way does this depreciate my love for Hawaii or most recently, New Zealand (somewhere that I always wanted to live)– rather, both have been a beautiful, precious part of my journey with Jesus.
But there’s been a bend in the road. And it’s so weird to finally be back, to stay, in a place I’ve wanted to be in for a very long time– not just visiting but doing DTS, living life in the community that has always made a place for me.
This means that my approach to blogging is a little bit different today. Often I’m tucked away in my room, late at night, typing out my heart and wishing I could hop an airplane and be somewhere else. I mean, I rarely admitted to myself this was the case, but let’s just say that writing could be a form of escapism for me. Yet “escapism” is more negative than I need to be. Instead? Blogging was more like a way to let God speak to me about my heart’s desires and hold on to hope that He was saying the best is yet to come. Yet– what happens when I feel like I am now in the best that was yet to come? I mean, obviously not everything is perfect…
But I am pretty flippin’ happy right now.
That’s why this blog post is shorter than my usual, too. Friends laughing on the couches next to me, staff walking past saying hello (“So, DTS, hey?”), Andrea Marie piano through my head phones and my family to go home to. Well, writing about this hasn’t been too bad after all. Actually, it’s been quite pleasant– far from a desecration. However, your screen is not where your dreams come true. And that’s what’s so surreal– I am so satisfied to close the lid of my laptop and stumble happily into reality.
And what has Jesus has been whispering the past two weeks?
This is not a dream, Kayla.
This is real life.
I like that.
Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
-Ephesians 3:20-21 (ESV)
Photos: Views from the ANZAC Memorial Bridge, June 2015. Newcastle, NSW, Australia.
