Start Date - 1 day and counting

After 4 hours of ticking things off my 'to pack' list, my room looks less like a bomb has hit it and more like it is full of varying sized bombs, waiting to explode. Their clock is primed for 24 hours time when I hope to arrive in Harpenden and settle in to my new home.

I'm slowly becoming excited about the move now, not that I am unsure about it or unhappy to be leaving home. I just have a habit to be looking forward always to 'the next thing' and not enjoying where I am. This summer has been such a gift from God, after much uncertainty about whether I would enjoying living back in Corfe Mullen.

After spending 6 months with YWAM, when I returned home in March I needed to decide where I would spend my summer; home with my family or in Winchester where I'd been at university and where many of my friends continued to live. In all honesty my preference was to return to Winchester and it actually got to the point where I had a job and a place to live before I settled on staying at home.
During this indecision I of course was praying for guidance and God, in his Fatherly love gave the choice over to me. Free-will is something I continue to be in awe of; that God would know the best choices for us to make and yet allows us to learn for ourselves, giving direction when we ask. In my gut I knew that remaining with my family was His best for me and although moving to Winchester wouldn't have been disobedient, I didn't see the fruit of staying at home until I had fully committed to it.
Getting back in contact with my old friends was fantastic though. I'd imagined there might be some sort of awkward social entrapment but God really blessed my relationships over the time we'd all been away at university or traveling and it was great to catch-up and fit back into one another's lives.
After moving around for the best part of 9 months with YWAM and being in India previous to this, my heart was becoming hard against new relationships. To develop new friendships and effectively maintain old ones, only to leave and begin again was a heart-breaking cycle that left me unwilling to form new or meaningful attachments. In retrospect I realise that living at home has allowed the kind of stability and continuity I was lacking and it will be hard to leave.