HELLO! It is moi. Yes. Finally just finishing up what I started…
This blog!
I just read through all my posts, and feel as though this blog needs a Final Blog Post. Yup. F.B.P. Official. Since my last time blogging, I have thought of things to write… yet I haven’t sat down and written. Truth be told, I haven’t thought of writing here for some years now. (YEARS. Can you believe how fast YEARS go by?) It’s true they go quicker the older we get…
Anyway… So I’m still me. The same me: making mistakes, trying again, and making more mistakes.
And at times such as this, I’m still wondering what to do with my life. Shall I keep going in this direction? Should I change direction?? Hm hm hm hm hm hm??? Funnily the same subject I pondered in my last blog post – which is kinda why I feel I can finally pick up from where I left off all those months go…
Having just spent a week in France, gripped by nostalgia, I feel like running back to Franceland. Currently on my way to visit Wales, I also feel open to new opportunities.
Yet I also understand that in everything God is above and in control, growing me where He wishes me to and placing me where He needs me to.
It’s funny that feeling. Being at a crossroads. Which way to go?
The last time I felt at a crossroads was when I left Lille. At the time I felt super sad about leaving, yet now I can finally say I am grateful to God that I did.
Once moved back to the UK, I was offered a job as a Teaching Assistant. (I think I’ve mentioned it in my blog post from years ago…)
Well yep, after nearly 4 school years, I’m still a TA!
I hadn’t planned on being a TA.
Yet, God has placed me in a school, mostly Muslim, where I feel comfortable to learn about their faith and share my own.
God has placed me in a warm friendly environment, where I have felt comfortable to grow in confidence and learn structures which I feel I lacked when working in France.
God has placed me in a school where the children and staff come from different countries and a majority speak English as a second language or speak a second language – a quality which God knows I love. I love to mix with and meet people from other cultures and countries.
He could have placed me in a very English-y school. Yet I praise Him for placing me in a school filled with faith, culture and language, where I have had opportunities to pray with colleagues and even had to learn how to say the children’s names, as I did in France.
Despite the challenges, I love how God placed me in an environment He knew I would grow to love, with colleagues I can confide in and children I feel blessed to teach.
In my first year in England, God gave me grace upon grace, in that I didn’t have to wait too long to get a job and also in that a previous French housemate moved to England to work in the exact same town as me! AMAZING or what!
Enjoying these blessings, however, does not mean that I don’t think about what’s next for me… which brings me back to my at-a-crossroads mentality. (Which I guess is a feeling familiar to us all at some point in our lives…)
Currently, I find myself feeling excited at new opportunities… In other words:
- Watching how quickly the years fly and
- Getting freaked out in the process and
- Questioning my life choices
THEREFORE I find myself reminding myself that God is my dwelling place – He is in control. I can see how He has been in control these past few years – while I’ve not had a clue what I’ve been doing – and He ALWAYS HAS BEEN in control, since I was a speck in my father’s eye…
Therefore………. even in periods of uncertainty I can rejoice and thank God for His unfailing faithfulness.
I am grateful for:
– God’s guiding me to volunteer in an English club in the South of France in the summer of 2013 as on the train I…
– Chatted with train man behind sandwich bar about teaching English opportunities in Lille and was given the company name of my (then) future job…so I
– Took the job interview and had the courage to take the leap to go Lille in 2014 where I…
– Lived with amazing sisters in Christ who I can still call sisters today! And one of them…
– Also lived 30 minutes from me as I settled back into the UK, where I…
– Got another job working in another friendly and culturally rich environment where I..
– Have learnt more about how perceived trials are actual blessings and great learning curves in disguise! ;))
These past few years, as any year, have not been without their testing times. However as I look back over the years, I can only see God’s hand, timing and grace.
And so as I reflect on God’s faithfulness and perfect ways, I feel like it’s a good place to press the ‘Stop’ button on this blog.
Despite everything, in everything, we have a God close to us, willing to fight with us our daily struggles, equipping us, growing us and teaching us to trust more in His faithfulness.
Blindly, one more step along the world I go… and He is with me every step.
One more step along the world we go…and He is with us every step.
One more step along the world I go,
One more step along the world I go;
From the old things to the new,
Keep me travelling along with you:
And it’s from the old I travel to the new;
Keep me travelling along with you.
Round the corners of the world I turn,
More and more about the world I learn;
All the new things that I see
You’ll be looking at along with me.
And it’s from the old I travel to the new;
Keep me travelling along with you.
As I travel through the bad and good,
Keep me travelling the way I should.
Where I see no way to go,
You’ll be telling me the way, I know.
And it’s from the old I travel to the new;
Keep me travelling along with you.
Give me courage when the world is rough,
Keep me loving though the world is tough;
Leap and sing in all I do,
Keep me travelling along with you:
And it’s from the old I travel to the new;
Keep me travelling along with you.
You are older than the world can be,
You are younger than the life in me;
Ever old and ever new,
Keep me travelling along with you:
And it’s from the old I travel to the new;
Keep me travelling along with you.
christinasribena 