coughs and plans

Missing my plane, coming home 24 hours later than planned, and going straight back to work after 12 days travelling around Scotland did its share to exhaust my already a little weary body. The adrenaline junkie has crashed. But it's worth the coughing, fever and exhaustion; what would life be without week long adrenaline rushes?

So I was standing in Hemköp packing the groceries I'd just bought for an old lady at work, when I looked up and saw my best friend since age eight standing there. Maybe hadn't surprised me as much if not for the fact that she currently was living up north with her Dad, and I hadn't seen her for months.

If God wants she is coming with me on the Camino. She is The Swedish Girl beyond imagination. Blond hair, blue eyes, with a beautiful, slim and very feminine body. Absolutely stunning. If I didn't love her as a sister I would hate her guts... But I do love her, and she is in many ways an amazing woman and friend. I find it hilarious that she actually has an education in Swedish Massage, which sounds like a joke to go with her hair colour, but I know I won't complain if she does join me on this straineous walk.

We are praying for money. I am willing to go without it, trusting God to provide. But I am aware of the necessity to own enough of it to be able to get to France, with hiking boots and a backpack containing important items, and get home again if needed. I have just enough to get there, maybe not back but who cares, but Mirja will need some more to be able to go. Please God? I would so wish for her to get this experience, she needs your love so bad? I'll pay all I can for her, but you know, I erh, can't get her very far...

Being a pilgrim feels slightly surreal in ones childhood home. It must be somewhat like the feeling of being the brain surgeon who just got told by his Mum to do the dishes, but with more freedom; just passing through, moving on... But it hurts.

There is obviously two kinds of pain. The pain of not following the calling God placed on ones life. And the pain of all the sacrifices when following it...

I wish I was strong enough to love my parents not in words and tongue, but in action and truth; but I'm moving on. I am not the person I wish to be when I'm at home. I just never cease to hope for the day when the love I receive from God, will change the way the people closest to me look at life.

But why is it so hard to pass it on to the people closest to me?

If I leave on the 7th of September as the vague plan is, I have less than three weeks to figure that one out...