Getting Lost and Eating Grapefruit

Yesterday I tried to go to church. I rang up a guy who's a friend of a friend and stumbled through the conversation until I got the times of the services and the road of the building, then I spent ages looking it up on various map-applications until it was finally time to head off. Except I got very lost and found myself cycling around in the sticks just outside of Parma. Thankfully the weather was warm and spring-like, so if I hadn't been rushing about trying to get to church, I might have actually enjoyed the cycle. It turns out that the church building is on the exact same road as the theatre I'm working at and I definitely didn't hear the guy on the phone properly because the morning meeting had been cancelled and replaced by an afternoon celebration at 17:00. It was pretty disheartening, because I've been craving fellowship for over a month now, but I hopped back on my bike and decided to find God in the beauty of the morning. I captured a thousand photographs in my mind, photographs that were completely sensual, photographs that evoked smells and touches entwined with a releasing spirit and a glorious freedom. I promise you that not one physical photograph could have captured the beauty that I saw and felt. It's moments like these when I realise how much this year abroad is changing me. The old me would have felt so frustrated and not being able to find a church, frustrated at her plans being changed at such a short notice and she would have carried that frustration around with her for days and days until it rotted all her joy away. The new me had an itchy-inside feeling for about five minutes before deciding to relax and find what I was looking for elsewhere, she even bought a grapefruit and sat eating it on a grey, housing estate by the supermarket. She then cycled home, hands sticky with red grapefruit juice, heart full of the wonder of God's creation and mind peaceful at the fact that my faith is not confined to a building or a church service, but to a lifestyle and a global community I call my family.