On this day of love...

Lord give me the strength to trust you, the faith to put my future in Your hands,
Let people leave their 'commercial' valentines love and move ever closer to You,
Let my love for you shine through my actions so that more people may come to know the most nourishing love there is, Your love

Amen

I am not worthy

You came to speak truth in our hearts,
Repaid by Your land, You were pulled apart,
You knew what your mission was to cost
Your victory came when all appeared lost

Upon the cross, up high, You looked down
On people who placed on Your head, a thorn crown
Hatred and disappointment were Yours to bestow
But instead you speak of forgiveness that you want us to know

Broken and bleeding I see my sins on Your skin
Ugly and rotten, the price was paid by my kin
For as You died and cried out to our God
Your foot made the move and the first step it trod

For after Your pain and then Your slow death
You overcame and drew Your first breath
The breath of freedom and death overcome
The breath of victory, I am undone

All of this that You put Yourself through
All of this that You did, I am free by You
My sins are forgiven, I can live my life free
All of this You did, just for me

I am not worthy, yet neither should I be
This is Your gift to us, Your gift to me

Forgiveness is a door...

As ever I move in circles in my faith and healing...I sometimes think that this is a good thing - at least I am not staying still...but more and more God seems to have been saying that circles are no good either - at the end of the day they achieve the same as staying still, but expend much more energy. And I am getting tired.

When I am feeling lost and want to reconnect with God I listen to 'The Shack' on audiobook in the car, to and from work. Now I am aware that not all Christians have embraced this book and that there may be argument for it being simply a novel, but for me it is the way that I can see God's heart for me. It tells the story of a broken individual that spends a weekend with the Holy Trinity - it is ultimately the story of forgiveness...of himself and the people who have caused him so much pain.

It is the forgiveness that has always attracted me to the book (I have read/listened to it about 8 times). I see in it, my salvation - the way that I will, hopefully, be able to forgive those people that I still have hatred for, and myself.

One thing that has always perturbed me about forgiveness is how does it work? I don't mean the grace, mercy forgiveness thing - I mean on a practical level...how does my forgiveness help the person that I am forgiving? I wake up every day and start it with a sentence of forgiveness...I do this because that is all I can do. I realised that my hate was doing me more harm than it was them and thought that I had to make a cognitive decision to forgive in the hope that I will one day feel the forgiveness. But how does this make ANY difference? Is it a waste of energy?

This daily forgiveness is all well and good, and to a certain extent - is more than I felt capable of in the past, but now the problem is that I am getting frustrated that I am not yet feeling the forgiveness. This leads to me feeling negative about the whole process, 'what is the point of forgiving them? It isn't helping me and even if I do succeed - what will it actually achieve?' I find myself lacking the comfort that I got from the hatred and now fighting an internal fight about whether I should be putting in the effort (and it is a real effort EVERYDAY) to forgive in the first place.

All of this has been whirling around in my head of late and so whilst I was listening to the book today I allowed my mind to wonder and found that I had a picture in my mind. It was a door, one of the heavy oak doors from yesteryear that has big iron hinges and bolts on it. I was looking at it from a side view and could clearly see myself on one side, facing the door and the forgivee (as it were) with their back to the door on the other side. I had a key in my hand and put it into the lock on my side and turned it. I heard the definite 'clunk' of the lock moving but the door wouldn't open...this annoyed me. I then felt God giving me an explanation (*) that said something along the lines of 'Your job is to forgive and unlock the door from your side, that is all you can do. Forgiveness cannot be granted until the forgivee accepts it. You have no say in this, that is MY job...and your forgiveness will heal you now and wait until the other is ready for it. You are unlocking their door, but only they can open it.'

This poses several questions and ideas to me - which I will no doubt muse upon for a few days yet...but here are my initial thoughts:
1) The overwhelming feeling I got from this realisation is one of lightness from my percieved responsibility. It seems that I have been feeling more and more that the salvation of this person is somehow dependant upon ME!! Not only is this very egotistical and shameful, it is also very stressful...I was essentially feeling that if I didn't forgive them and actually MEAN it (which I don't always...yet) then that would reflect badly upon their salvation and on mine...that only I could save them and ultimately myself.
This is clearly a pile of poo - only God can save and He does so because He loves me, it is by His grace that I am saved, not by my action. Sounds silly but I am very glad to have been reminded of this!

2) My salvation is dependant upon my forgiveness. (This is not a direct contradiction to the above point I promise). By this I mean that I should spend time travelling down the road of forgiveness (even if it is painful and unknown - two of my least favourite things) because if I do not and presume to judge the other person and stay unforgiving, it is the same as saying that I do not need God, when I know that I do. I don't want to be the judge anymore, I want to give it over to God so that He can be. I can only truly do that by unlocking my side of the door.
My problem comes with how to do that and where to begin.

3) I have no choice but to forgive...I know this but I find it hard to accept...WHY??!! THIS IS SO FRUSTRATING!!!

4) The lack of control on the matter - that this person will not recieve my forgiveness until they are ready to repent, also annoys me and the reason makes me sound pathetic...it bothers me that it is THEIR choice whether to accept it or not. That they can choose to rebuff my advance to forgiveness when a part of me thinks they should be grateful for it...again this presumes that I am still not able to fully understand forgiveness and grace on an emovtive level. (Even I can see that this point is vulgar and focussed on me and not God.)

5) The flip side of this is that somewhere there is a door that has me on both sides. I am yet to forgive myself for many things and whereas I feel like I can probably unlock the forgiver side, I am not sure that I can unlock the forgivee side. Forgiving someone else flumoxes me - forgiving myself AND accepting it smacks of some weird sci-fi procedure.

So there it is, forgiveness is a door...now I have to find the key that unlocks it.

(*) I am still really uncertain about the God is talking to me thing...that is, I know it to be true, yet I can't describe why and the cynical part of me always thinks that I am making it up...but it is much more than a feeling - it is an understanding, a knowledge, a connection.

Anger...again...

Following on from my last post I have decided to muse upon the idea of anger. After my unexplained anger at the church service on Sunday I have been doing a lot of thinking...mainly because I remain angry.

The anger isn't an overwhelming 'I need to hit someone' anger in the slightest; it is a-knot-in-my-throat, agitated anger. The sort of anger that just bubbles in the background and pops to the foreground every now and again like a cameo actor. This is having the knock on effect of finding that I have a secondary anger - at the anger!! Talk about Catch 22.

So anyway, I have spoken to a couple of friends about it and they both assure me that it is a good thing and that being emotional is showing progress...etc...and although I know they are speaking the truth, I also feel like something that is unexplained and frustrating, holds me back rather than moves me forward.

One of the friends I have mentioned text me last night and said she had been reading a book which said 'Anger is the stimulus to action'. I quite like this idea but also find it confusing...let me explain...

Anger is an emotion that I did not feel for years, in fact for a majority of my teens I felt very little and other than the occasional emotional outbursts, when my body forced me to feel, I went along living life in a weird void. (I did not realise this at the time, and because I was a teenager no one really questioned it). This led me to some quite devestating actions, anorexia, bulimia (although I was rubbish at this and felt a failure because of it) and self harm (this I excelled at).
Now, although I may have a brief idea as to where this stemmed from, I still don't fully understand what I was feeling at this time because I wasn't...well...feeling - if you catch my drift. Cue frustration and disconnection with myself.

As an adult I can surmise that I was probably feeling anger - especially in relation to self harm - and so it follows that the action that anger stimulated in me was a bad one. Although I'm not sure it was - self harm is often misunderstood and leads people to think you are either suicidal or crazy. My understanding is that a person self harms in order to LIVE not die...it is a coping mechanism...so in this instance anger has stimulated me into action - the action of trying to stay alive, at whatever cost.

Also, anger at someone has led me to push myself more and more to make something of myself so that what they told me doesn't come true...again anger is a stimulus to my action.

To return to the problem at hand. This newest bout of anger (I use the word bout because it feels a bit like an illness) seems unjustified as I didn't disagree with the sermon and it doesn't seem particularly stimulating, more paralysing. I am at a complete loss as to why I should be feeling this way - the reasons I gave in my last post still stand but I feel like they are not good enough for the level of anger I am feeling. So I am now battling with myself over the anger and the action that I want to take and feel frustrated that the anger would push me into an old tried and tested method that answers the problem in the immediate but not in the long term...

So as to anger being the 'stimulus to action', I agree but am not happy with the action I want to take.

Why did God push me to go to Church that Sunday when He knew I would end up angry and disillusioned? I have to trust that He has a plan in this - indeed the words that people had that day were all about God tying up lose ends, even if it felt like everything was unravelling...interesting...only just remembered that part...

I must try to trust in God more and leave go of my control freak ways that mean I need to know and understand why I am as I am...easier said than done.

Progress?

So, I decided that I haven't blogged recently (since April!!) and in a day that has been weird for a variety of reasons, I thought perhaps I should.

I have spent the best part of the last two hours reading my blog, reminding me of the person I was and who I am becoming. This has been enlightening, not least because I appear to have forgotten some of that which I have learnt! I also worry that I am more like the person of the first few posts than the latter.

Let me start with an update on my life...
Recently my two year relationship ended. It was for a variety of reasons...we had both changed and promises that had been made had been forgotten. Life had taken us in separate directions. This is sad for many reasons, including the fact that I take so long to trust and fell a little lost to the fact that I will have to go through all of that again.
On the whole though, I am ok with the change. I believe it is the right path to take and have fleeting moments of excitement when I think of a future that has not yet been written.
Regular readers will realise that this excitement is also a form of fear for me as I am a control freak who finds it very difficult to live hand to mouth!! However, I am doing my best. This situation has shown me how many friends I have and how important they are to me. I am thankful for that.

The upshot of this is that it has sent me into a bit of a spin emotionally and has started to drag up all the other stuff that i have managed to control for so long. I do not blame the relationship break up for this, I simply think that as I spend more time with myself and God, without the stresses and strains that had become a part of my life, I can hide less.

I have made quite good progress on my main hurdle in life and faith - FORGIVENESS - and am now at a point of saying I can forgive the person I once professed to hold a murderous hatred for. This is not in anyway a done and dusted deal. I still have to start everyday with a sentence that proclaims I have forgiven them...some days I believe it, others I don't - but I say it anyway because I know that my healing is dependent on it and I know that that is what God wants.

So all in all, I have been going along life and have felt pretty ok with things...until today. Last night I had a dream, and although I cannot remember much of it, I can remember that I had the chance to go to my old Church and that I felt incredibly excited by that, so much so that I woke up feeling the need to go. (This is astonishing for two reasons...firstly, there has been an extended break between me and my Church for reasons I won't go in to and secondly, someone asked me at 1.10am that morning whether they would see me in Church and I had quickly responded - no...)

Having not felt so prodded by God for so long I decided to do as I was bid - even though my family were not pleased - and to Church I went (not before texting a friend to be sure of support when i was there, mind!)

The sermon was on the old favourite - Grace with a side of forgiveness. I listened to the preach, which was full of the faith that I believe in and the ideas that I feel are so fundamental to a Christian and felt myself getting angrier and angrier...and I don't really know why!

Cue my musings on the matter. Like I have mentioned above, I am further down the road of forgiving others that I have ever been (although probably just through the garden gate in all honesty) but i am no further along in the battle to forgive myself.
The sermon said that to have God's grace I have to accept His forgiveness, which I believe that I have done but when I tackle the issue of forgiving myself I find that I am lacking. How can I accept God's forgiveness and trust in that if I am not able to forgive myself? The answer is I can't!
So I am angry on three accounts:
1) That I am in a position that means I have to forgive myself for past things in the
first place.
Anyone who knows my story seems to think that there is nothing to be forgiven for and
although this is good to hear and is probably what my heart needs to hear - it makes me even
more resentful that I feel like I should be in this position.
2) That I can't seem to forgive myself.
If anyone else was in this position I would be thinking that there was nothing to forgive and I
would be encouraging them to forgive themselves - so why on earth can I not??!! This is
frustrating because I cannot see a way forward on this one. Being told that God forgives me
does not help me to forgive me!
3) That this is keeping me distant from God
I want to be close to Him, especially at this time, and the anger and unforgiveness that is in
me is keeping me at a distance...it's like me saying 'I don't trust you God - your judgment is
not good enough - just because you say that I am forgiven, doesn't mean I am' This makes me
mad.

So now I need to focus on this issue - just another small hurdle then..............honestly life can be hard sometimes.

Chocolate or Church?

Today I went to Church. This is not unusual for a Christian on one of the most important days in the calendar, that is a given, what is strange (for me at least) is that I chose to go to Church rather than eat chocolate after a thirteen week extended lent, where I gave up..........chocolate!

I am not going to lie and say that Lent was easy - it wasn't, but then again that is the point - what is gained by giving up that which we will not miss? If that is the case then I have had a time of fasting from Brussel Sprouts, ginger, cinnamon, tripe...you get the picture! So when embarking on Lent this year I decided to extend it. I wanted a constant reminder of Jesus in my life. I decided that this year would be the year that I would put ALL my faith in Jesus, not just a little or 90%, but 100%. As ever this is a work in progress, but extending Lent was a good start.

Now I do not need chocolate, I am fortunate enough to have more food than I need available to me, but I do like it. I find that at times it is a good pick-me-up emotionally and physically. Without that I HAD to rely on God for my emotional and physical caffine shot. This has proved more joyous than I can imagine, as well as being a constant reminder of Jesus and His sacrifice for me.

So today I had a choice - Chocolate or Church. In the final weeks of my Lent I had looked forward to today as a break in my fast. I had looked forward, and spoke at length, about my plans to sit and gorge myself on chocolate for the first hour of my day. How I looked forward to waking this morning!! BUT, before I fell to sleep last night I felt God telling me to go to Church in the morning. I was not impressed...that did not fit in with my chocolate plans! So I decided (quite foolishly) to bargain with God and said 'I will not put my alarm on, if I am meant to go to Church then, God, you will wake me in time'. Needless to say that God took on the plans and woke me up at 7.30 - a full three hours before Church!

Even then I thought well, I need more sleep so I will go back to sleep and will wake up in good time if God wishes me to (!!). I was awake at 9.20 on the dot and could not sleep again...even then I wasn't sure whether I had the energy to get up or whether I should languish in bed a little longer. I was at the point of deciding that I should stay and ignore God's heart that I should go to Church, when I heard the words of Amazing Grace. The words that struck me were the lines:

T'was Grace that taught my heart to fear.
And Grace, my fears relieved.
How precious did that Grace appear
The hour I first believed.

I was reminded of the lightness in my soul when I first came to Christ and how I feel when connected with God - I feel that nothing can touch me and hurt me, my heart is full to overflowing. I knew then that I didn't HAVE to go to Church but that I WANTED to. I wanted to sing with my fellow believers, I wanted to be washed with the Holy Spirit, I wanted to show God how much I love Him and how thankful I am to His Son that He would die for me and my sins - that I could be loved so much.

So I decided that I should be putting Jesus first, that I should start the day with Him. Chocolate could wait - after all it seemed somewhat insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

Happy Easter everyone! Christ is Risen...how AMAZING is that?

Happy to be living in God's love

Just a short post to say that I am happy to be a child of God.

The end

No shoes for a day...support it!!

This is an excellent campaign and all it asks is that we shed our shoes for part of (or a whole) day in order to highlight that some children in the world do not have any shoes...highlighting poverty is always worth the effort...but only if it reminds those of us who have plenty that we do so through the grace of God.

Join me in spending the day without shoes...8th of April.

Be a moon and not a Sun...

Last night, whilst driving home from work after a late information evening, I looked up at the sky and saw a huge beautiful moon in a clear sky surrounded by many stars...and I had a startling revelation..........
The moon is beautiful only because it reflects the Sun's beauty...without the Sun the Moon is no longer its full self - it still exists but it lives in the dark, hidden from the lifegiving rays of the provider.
This is like many people. God is obviously the Sun - He gives life, shines in glory and provides us with the ability to live in light and not dark. People are the Moon...they are merely reflectors of God's glory - all that we are is magnified by God, His grace allows us to shine and be fulfilled.

The problem lies with people trying to be the Sun...as many do. They want to be the source of everything, they do not want to be reliant on something else for their glory and for their very being. These people are lost and end up trying to be like the Sun and not the moon and then end up failing at both and feeling that they do not belong...why do they do it?

The moon would not fulfil its purpose without the sun...we will not fulfil our purpose without God

An interesting revelation.............................................................I shall have to muse on this further...

How do we know what God's rules are?

This topic has always been a confusing one for me. As a teacher I am often asked 'How can we prove God is real?' My usual answer is that we can't but also, how can we prove that God doesn't exist? I find it hard to get some atheist pupils to understand that once you have experienced God's love and direction in your life it is hard not to believe. But when I am asked by some pupils how I know, as a Christian, what God's rules are I stumble because of two reasons:
1) The answer is obviously that the Bible is like the 'rule book' given to us by God through people in different times and places. This I believe to be part of the truth, but I have issues with the Bible as a complete piece of scripture. I will expand on this below
2) I am inclined to think, that although the Bible was God-breathed, that is, inspired by God (I do not, and have never, considered that God dictated the Bible word by word - again I will expand on this later) and is therefore very important, that God's word and direction through prayer should be considered as showing God's rules. If I need guidance, I pray, as I have been taught and advised by 'older' Christians in the past, and then I listen. It might take me to a place in the Bible, it may be that God answers through another person, or it may be that God answers in His silence. Either way when I think I have an answer, I pray about it again for reassurance. I think that sometimes people get too caught up in relying on the Bible and forgetting that God is alive and can be addressed personally. As far as I am concerned...that is what God wants, a living relationship with His people, not one based solely in the past.

Issues with the Bible as a piece of scripture
I am not going to pull the Bible apart here, as I believe that it is a very important document and as I have said above, I rely on it in many areas of my life.
My problem comes when I think of how the Bible as we know it today, was put together and how some books were included and some were left out by two Councils of men who decided what was 'Godly' and what was not. I am sure that they had stringent rules of what to look for and what not to look for and I am hopeful that there was a lot of prayer involved in the decisions that were finally made. However, a part of me worries that an important part may have been left out or that the men that were a part of the council had an agenda in what they chose to include, consciously or subconsciously.

Obviously, these doubts say more about me than they do about anything but they are there nonetheless. For example, I believe that Paul was a godly man who gave good advice, but it has always worried me that much of the Roman Catholic (amongst others) doctrine about leadership in the church, that is men can lead, women can't, is based on him and essentially his opinion. After all, he is just one man who, whether he meant to or not, wrote from his context. It is doubtful that he considered his words to have such exacting longevity and they would still be being applied today in a totally different time, place and culture. Or that his letters would make up a majority of the New Testament.

My second point about the Bible follows from the previous point. It is that someone, sometime decided to close the book; decided that enough had been written about God and Jesus. When they did this they were stopping God's word in a moment in history. They were leaving the application of those words in the early part of the first century and, for those who believe that the Bible is the infallible word of God to be taken as written, condemning them to try and fit the advice for a particular context into theirs.

*Please do not misunderstand me, I am not suggesting that the Bible is outdated and simply a history book, the point I am trying to make is that it should be open to the changing contexts in which it finds itself. Simply because God is fluid. Therefore, returning to the women in leadership argument, I think Christians should be aware of the context in which Paul was writing when he said that women should not be teachers, should be silent in church etc because there are a plethora of reasons that he may have said it, (including the fact that he may have actually meant women forever, in every context - I am open to that). The thing that concerns me most about religion as opposed to faith is that people do not question, they are told what to believe and what certain passages mean, blind acceptance is never good. I believe that there instead should be a culture of people learning to ask God for His guidance when reading the Bible. (This is one of the reasons that I am in favour of Alpha courses and the like, where people are actively encouraged to ask hard questions of God and the Bible)*

Why is this bothering me so much at the moment? I am not sure, I suppose I am readdressing a lot of things in my life. I am looking at what is most key and am aware that my faith is the most important thing to me. I feel closer to God now than I ever have. I am now at the point of understanding the idea of a constant companion, I now do not feel that I am alone. If I'm honest, I feel that I have opened my eyes for the first time and really seen the world in all it's glory. I now WANT to sing at the top of my voice during worship not because I think God will hear the loudest, but because I want Him to know how much I love Him and how thankful I am to Him. Bearing this in mind...I think I need to know that the thing that I am basing so much of my life on, is real to me...not that it says something because another person tells me it does, I want to be in charge of my relationship with God, strike that...I want God to be in charge of our relationship, not anyone else.

I have spent the last couple of weeks in limbo regarding my faith and my life and feel that I am coming out of the smoke, I am starting to see things clearer than I ever have, and I am excited and completely and utterly scared by it all.

*As a footnote...I am aware that the position that I am taking has it's flaws in that our own interpretation means that the Bible can be used for our own means and not God's. However, I am not proposing that we just read the Bible and think, what does that mean to me. I am asking that people give some air space to God in their reading and deliberation of the Bible and act on His advice. In the past I have prayed to God about something and really disliked the answer that I have been given but have had to follow it (albeit eventually in some cases!!) because God is a God that prods us when we need it.
Second footnote...The reason I do not like the 'God dictated it approach' is because my experience of it has been that people do not follow it properly, they interpret as much as the next one , only they try to make out that they don't. Everyone that reads a text, be it the Bible, or a novel, brings their own context to it, it is impossible not to. The problem comes when people do not realise this.*