Have you ever been in a room crowded full of people and felt like everything around you was moving in slow motion?

The loud music playing in the background becomes an echoey dull thud in the distance.

Then everything stands still and becomes silent.

(fade to black.)

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And for a moment you don’t know if you are dreaming or if you are still awake.

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I wonder if this what it feels like to be totally alone. To feel totally disconnected. From everyone and everything.

I wonder if Jesus ever felt like this. I wonder as He prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane when all this disciples lay sleeping only a stones throw away, how alone He must of felt. Oblivious to them the turmoil Jesus was feeling as He knew what lay ahead. That one close to Him would betray Him and that in turn would lead Him to His Destiny. It would lead Him to the sacrifice He made for all mankind.

Jesus was alone in the garden.

I find solace in knowing this.

I find solace in knowing that Jesus has been there, He has felt this, He was let down by those He loved. And yet He overcame. He knows what its like to ache to the very depths of His bones to the extent that blood perspired from His temples.

Sometimes I think we need those places. Those alone places. Those places where stripped back to nothingness, with no people, no things or places to be to occupy our mind, to have nothing but only space to reckon with God. Its these places where I wonder if I feel more human.

I had to grapple with this concept for a couple days. The aloneness. This feeling of disconnection. I had to tussle with these thoughts and feelings of “What is wrong with me?” till I came to the realisation that there is nothing wrong with me.

So I left the crowd and the noise, and walked myself out into the dark dim lamp lit street.

Theres something about Perth city in the still of the night. Maybe its a combination of the tall skyscrapers reflecting shades of neon lights and the still quiet of the street. No hustle and bustle. Just a quiet humming of streetlights casting its yellow hues.

So I drove. The refrains of “wherever you go I will follow you… ” by Everything But The Girl playing on the stereo. I wasn’t sure where I was going but I wanted to see the city. Speckles of people laughing as they littered out of restaurants onto street corners. I drove to all my favorite places. I drove past The Moon Cafe peering inside the front windows. Undecided if I should go inside alone, I kept driving.

As I drove down the freeway homeward bound, I thought about how I was feeling. The disconnection.

And I thought about how proberly more than anything it really just highlighted how much I truely am made in His image. That I was created to feel connection. And without this connection I was created for, I felt empty. I wonder if Jesus felt the same way as He knelt praying, sweating blood as those close to Him were asleep and oblivious.

Its a deep dry dull ache.

But this dull ache indicates a God created DNA. My genetic makeup for connection. It reminds me I was created to be connected to Him.

Bisa came into my room today, held my hand and told me how proud she is of me and to never forget it. That meant alot to me, I needed to hear that.

She said that for someone like me, who’s had no support, all alone without family in a strange country, who’s manage to put myself through uni, establish a career and continued to grow spiritually is a real inspiration and achievement. I guess never really thought what I had accomplished on my own growing up was that much of a big deal till I looked at some of my year 12′s. So young and awkward, I realised that was how old I was and what I was like when I left home. Now in hindsight it seems so young, but when I was 16 -17 I thought I knew everything. I learnt to be self dependant young.

Bisa made me think back to this, and I suppose I hadn’t really thought about my past in a long while. I guess I never really saw the point – I have moved on, I’m a different person and I can’t change it. I often still struggle to find an ‘appropriate’ answer for strangers when they ask me why I am in Perth without opening a Pandora’s box full of questions. But also in saying that, I have been too excited about the future to look anywhere else but forward!

Actually Jazmin made an interesting point during my singing lesson; she said that in singing all you can do is look forward. If you make a mistake when you sing (i.e. singing the wrong note, running out of air etc.) you can’t let it affect you. You just have to move on and sing the rest of the song well, because often when singing if we make a mistake in one part it can affect the rest of our singing. In our heads we are still thinking about what we did wrong and we are not focused on the notes we have to produce next. It affects everything.

I suppose when I think about my life thus far its been a crazy whirlwind of a journey. Looking back I can see God’s hand in all of it. The God destined connections, the relationships, my own growth and confidence in Him. The amazing thing is that I can still see Him orchestrating and moving in my life – even right now.

But in this very moment, I’m going through transition.

I’m returning to Hong Kong. I am returning (and I tentatively say this) ‘home‘.

Its weird. I can’t even articulate how I am feeling about going back. It feels like… a consolidation, a returning, a full circle, a reconciliation… It feels like stepping into a familiarity that isn’t familiar. Or a situation that should be familiar but in actuality, isn’t.

Its scary. Its drastic. I have to give up the job I love. I have to sell everything I own. Leave an awesome life changing church where I have already established myself in. I have to say goodbye to everyone and everything I know and love. I basically have to say goodbye to my beautiful life as I’ve know it for the past 8 years.

And… what I have signed myself up for is the unknown.

I have made an active decision to leave familiarity to a place where I have to start from scratch and re-establish myself again. To forge a way in a new job, make with new friends, in a new church, in a new city with a totally different pace of life and customs because I feel that God has put in my heart that relationship with family is in someway important to Him.

He’s been showing me I may be missing out something that is a part of me and I don’t even know it… but I have a feeling He wants to show me. He has opened this door and He has chosen to make a way for me. I am leaving because I feel that this is the right thing to do.

Of all the places I have lived – New Zealand, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Australia… and now once again, Hong Kong. Its a new chapter being written by Him in my Story.