Day thirty eight - The butterfly effect

I had a lot of time to think overnight as I was lying awake in pain. I have actually been thinking for a couple of days about the butterfly effect. Not the butterfly flapping its wings and causing a hurricane, but the massive difference a small decision can make.

Initially I thought about my ministry moves in the Methodist church. In my first circuit I had no choice. It was a 5-year appointment and I had to move. Then the decision of other people to match me with a circuit on the Isle of Man - I didn’t want to go there and they didn’t want me. But the places I was interested in were all gone by the second round of stationing. And that’s how I found myself in Eastbourne planting a new church. But I curtailed the appointment after 4 years. My choice. They wanted me to stay so I was there 9 years. And I then wanted to stay. The URC ministers didn’t go to the circuit meeting where I didn’t get the necessary 75% vote (it was 71%), so because of their decision I had to move. They were very apologetic. But that meant the North of Scotland Mission Circuit was available and so I moved from the south coast to the north coast. But then I curtailed after 4 years and found myself in the same situation. Someone else decided to send me to a circuit I didn’t want to go to and who didn’t want me, so in the second round of stationing I found myself with no circuit I was interested in. But we wanted to go to Devon, so we found ourselves in the Bude & Holsworthy circuit. If I hadn’t curtailed it wouldn’t have been available the next year and who knows where we could have gone. It would have meant us moving in 2015 instead of 2014. Then I curtailed this one after 4 years and they did it again - sent me to Gornal & Sedgley circuit. They wanted me, but I didn’t want to live that close to Birmingham. So they did it again and sent me to Burnley & Pendle circuit. They wanted me; I didn’t want them. And so we went to Christchurch & Wimborne circuit. And after 4 years I curtailed again and we moved in 2022. We should have been moving in 2025. Because of my choices the years were out and the availability of circuits was different. Because of district chairs making decisions I didn’t like I lost out on opportunities.

My thoughts also went back to my early life: I may not have made it as far as birth if abortion had been legal in 1961. Or what if my mother had been maternal and decided to keep me? She was married a year after I was born, had a daughter the year after that and had a(nother) son the year after that. What would I be like growing up without a rejection complex and with the ability to make attachments? Would I still be me? Other people’s decisions! And what if I had been adopted by a different couple - a couple who wanted to adopt a baby for the right reasons (what are the right reasons, you may be asking). Would I be different?

I think about what Jesus said in Luke 10 about Chorazin and Bethsaida being judged more harshly than Tyre and Sidon. Firstly, different levels of judgment means different levels of sin. Secondly, Jesus knew that if He had gone to Tyre and Sidon they would have repented. He knew how the people would react if He had made the decision to go there. That tells me that He knows how the world (my world) would have been different if I hadn’t been born; if my mother hadn’t given me away; if someone else had adopted me; if I had decided not to leave the Nazarene church and join the Methodist ministry, and all those moves since. It’s good to know that He knows. I don’t know how many of my decisions were wrong, or how many of the decisions other people made about my life were wrong. I am who I am because of the way I have reacted to their decisions and to my decisions. I sometimes think I might have liked myself better if some other decision had been made. And maybe one day Jesus will sit me down, like He did in Luke 10 and tell me.

Look what happens when I lose a significant amount of sleep!💤