The Chronicles of Packing - leaving too early

1 There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:
2 a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
3 a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
4 a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
5 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
6 a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
7 a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
8 a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

- Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

I'm so grateful to God that I didn't leave straight away in January, and that the UK university year only starts in October. I would've arrived burntout, sentimentally and emotionally broken, logistically inept, and would've probably struggled to settle in for months. The lovely thing about only leaving in September, 9 months after I received word that I'd gotten the Scholarship, is that I've had the gift of time. Time to recover from the last few years of madness, time to recover from the intellectual challenges of the last degree, time to spend and treasure moments spent with my friends and family, time to work on resting and exercising my foot and back (oh these persistent injuries), time to prepare myself mentally for the big shift ahead, time to just settle into myself again.

But now in these last weeks, time has become a burden. In my excitement for the adventures lying ahead, I wish I was there NOW. What I've become aware of is a faint drifting away of my heart and head into the future. I find myself in terms of my commitments, my thinking, my future, to have left already for England.

I remember saying to D at the end of last year, very honestly, that I'd probably not do much this year and in all probability, retreat from many of my friendships in an attempt to protect myself from losing people I love. Whack psychological thinking, eh. He just as honestly told me he thought that was quite cold-hearted. Fair, enough.

Fortunately, God has planned everything according to His schedule, not mine, and despite intention to withdraw, He knew that my time was still in South Africa, and that I still had to make contributions here to life here. He brought into my life many wonderful people and opportunities, to the point where in the last few months instead of cutting down on my friends, I have made more. [Even, random friends like the wonderful Miss L, who I met via Twitter. Kid you not. She's now one of my closest friends :)] I have been all the more richly blessed for following through on the doors God has opened up for me.

Through this all, in retrospect, God was reminding me that I am in a specific place at a specific time with specific people in a specific context. And if I am not wholly present in that space, then I am robbing people around me of my interaction, I am uncommitted to God's plan for me, I am not using opportunities to be a light to the world, and I am just wasting my time. I learnt this lesson in the broader change of a bit move overseas, but I wonder to myself how often I've done this in smaller contexts: at parties, at bible studies, during conversations.. where I have left already before my body leaves. If I am in one place, then I should be fully in one place :)

I mean this post to be an encouragement to think through your own 'spaces' that you're involved in, to investigate your attitudes to your commitments and your responsibilities, to see whether you are truly living out the belief that where you are right now is exactly where God wants you to be.

For me, I'd like to add the following to Ecclesiaste's list: there is a time to leave, and a time to stay.

And right now, I am still here.