Getting what you ask for, or not.

We've been here four months now. I was thinking about what I prayed for on waiting to come out here. I had asked only a few things that I felt were absolutely necessary if we (or I) was going to be settled.

Because my #1 concern was thinking I needed people around me and perhaps being lonely I prayed:

• for a home that was in a big town within walking distance of shops and a gym.
• for neighbours surrounding me so that I could have "over-the-wall" conversations.
• for a spiritual home - but different. I didn't know HOW I wanted it to be different. But different.

God in his infinite wisdom chose to give me none of the above.

• There is not a shop AT ALL in our village, never mind a gym. I need to take a bus to get to either.
• I have neighbours on either side of me that in the 4 months we have been here, we have laid our eyes on once. I have no neighbours in front or behind me. In fact, I have forest.
• Church in its "normal format" - nothing fresh or new. (Same procedure as every year, James)

I wonder how much more isolated and far away from my requests I could have gotten.  Yet, the strangest thing has happened. I am not lonely. Not even a little bit.

I love looking out at the trees and the sky -every day the scenery appears different. I go for runs or walks with the dogs through forest trails and stumble across caves, rivers with quaint bridges and castle ruins.  One day the forest is green, then the leaves are orange and red, and soon the trees are merely ghostly shadows.

On the bus, I have begun to recognise people and we greet and attempt to make conversation, and have even met up socially. God can bring people together on a bus as much as over a wall.

I feel like I am getting to know a part of myself I didn't know I was. I may never have known that I can live in such a minute community.My desire to be around people has little to do with need and more to do with want. I just enjoy company!

We have found a spiritual home, (not nearly as epic as our Cpt spiritual home). However, yesterday I went to the first of their "Bible Studies"... I have found that perhaps the Sunday meetings are the same format as I am used to, but the group is filled with women from various countries and I found that THIS IS FRESH. Each one of us, although sharing the same faith, appear to walk it out and express it in so many different ways based on our culture. It's exactly what I love. Variety. Conversation.

I feel as though I have the best of both worlds. I have the lovely quiet of our home and surroundings and the beginnings of added friendships..

Sometimes God doesn't give us what we ask for because he knows exactly what we need.

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