' "I will bring you home again...For I know the plans I have for you." Declares the Lord. " They are good plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope." In those days, when you pray, I will listen. If you look for me wholeheartedly you WILL find Me. I WILL be found by you. " Declares the Lord. ' Jer. 29:10c-13. A promise is a promise, is what I have always been taught from early childhood. And one of the major promises I learned about when I was a child, was the significance of a rainbow.
Gods true promise that He is continually inlove with his children, and He would never flood the earth again. In my situation this week while whitnessing a completely miraculous rainbow, Jesus was whispering me a new promise...
As many of you already know, I have been struggling, and wrestling with the idea, and decision whether I were to return to England after my Christmas holiday or if my term here would finish in December, and I would return home for 'good'.
My friends, I have never felt so stretched and so stressed over a decision in my life. I am not the best decision maker in the world in the first place...choosing what I will eat for breakfast is enough for me to ponder for a while...but choosing my life plan? Making a decision which would in turn impact more people than myself was enough for me to want to run and hide in a burrough in our garden.
For MONTHS I have been praying, and searching for the right decision. Maybe I wasn't truly searching for Gods response...because looking back now, He was saying 'Alli, come home, come home'. But maybe I wasn't ready for that answer...or maybe I was just being blind, or stubborn. But God truly made his point clear. I didn't open my eyes, or ears to his response until this week.
I am coming home. Canada...Alli Lee Churchill is returning to your costal tides, hills, cold winters (yes cold) and my golden room in my attic.
This monday past, I finally realized with many signs from Christ that I should 'turn in my resignation' and prepare myself for returning home. The moment I said, 'I think I am going home' (to our gardner Scott) it felt right. I felt no regret...I felt peace! I felt content! Jesus is good. Amen?
Once I knew in that moment I was talking to Scott I was going home, I knew that I needed to talk to Sarah. But I was SO nervous to actually tell her I was leaving. So I saved it for an hour or two...preparing my words... Then the kids, Sarah and I were all in the tv. room (looking out over the valley) sitting and talking and I knew that I needed to say something. SO I told her I had made my decision. She was completely supportive of my decision. (whoooof. thank goodness) She said that I needed to do what was best for me, and she knew she couldnt keep me here forever but she was sad to see me go. SO we talked for a few minutes about it. But then I looked up, out the window and saw a FULL rainbow! Full in every way! Its colours were vibrant and every colour was visible. Full in the fact that you could see both ends to the rainbow at once. FULL in Promises making me feel absolutely content and comforted that I had made the right decision. The miraculous thing about this rainbow though was that it came out of absolutely no where. There was no rain. There was no sun! It was just an ordinarily cloudy day over the valley. But A rainbow showed up. brilliance.
Thank you to everyone who has been praying for me to make my decision. It was greatly needed and greatly appreciated. I am content and completely at peace with returing to Canada in December and who knows what will come up in my life in the near future...but all I know, right now is that God is good. He keeps hold of His promises. AND I am in the palm of his hand.
To GOD be the glory, for ever and ever amen.
...SO secure.
-alli.
