A New Year, A New Decade

I know its the last day of the old year but I am wondering what is coming. I've had this sense of expectation but with intrepidation for a few days now, then this morning have been up since before 6am and found that my daughter was awake too, and my husband was sort of awake. It was like that night before Christmas feel. Its odd
So I got up and have been reading as God has led and have read Jeremiah 34 (where they Hebrews repent and release their brethren they've enslaved and they change their minds) and Revelation 12 (the woman giving birth and the dragon coming to try to kill her and God protecting her and her offspring). And I wonder what God is saying through all this and all I can write in my journal is "the world is changing".
I've checked the news pages and there is nothing significant, not like the Tsunami of Boxing day 2004 or the Twin Towers, but I just get that feel of that, of something coming that we don't expect, that we didn't really see coming, that will change people's worlds.
I wanted to blog it so that I have it in writing and also in the hope of some feedback from anyone who reads this.
So I am praying for an safe new year for us and and for us who "see" things to be vigilant and praying so that the unexpected does not happen and that we follow what God wants and do not relent.


Wow! Talk about getting confirmation - check out http://3generations.eu/blog/?p=1840&cpage=1#comment-1810 2010 from Paul Leader on Martin Scott's blog
And there is a post from Sharon Stone that I want to read in more detail too, which seems to be saying similar things. Probably to be found on her website though I got it from EmergeWales email.
Glad I wrote what I did first!!

Jesus come unexpectantly

I am reading in some wonderful Christmas letters from some great out-there people and the reoccurring theme is that Christmas is the time when Jesus came unexpectedly and that is what we should be looking for not just for this season of December but for every part of the year. Interestingly this must be something God is wanting to say to me because I also read it in "Honey cakes and Silence" by Rowan Williams, Arch Bishop of Canterbury.
So I've set off with looking for Jesus coming unexpectedly as I go around. Monday the weather was snow but no ice. A quick thank you to God. But then it got better! On our river for the 3 years I've been living here there has been a lone Canadian goose. Well Monday morning I could hear him honking and really going for it. When I saw him on the river there was another Canadian goose with him and it was like, yes for him Christmas had come. He'd got the best present ever, a mate to be with and wasn't he letting the rest of us know about it. I was then spoiled to see a robin washing in the snow on the path in front of me. Hey why am I not so delight that Jesus has come to be honking like crazy like that goose? Why do I stay quiet? Perhaps I have forgotten how great He is and how much I need Him?

There is so much stuff we have forgotten about the Christmas story, so much about Western life that we have got complacent about, so much we expect "them" to sort out, and forget about all those other places there "they" mean terror.
I'm praying regularly with Open Doors monthly prayer letter and that brings me back to things about how lazy we are here about getting excited by Jesus. You know we can shouting it from the roof tops, honk like crazy like my goose, without getting into trouble, and yet there are people in certain countries who are going out where they could get killed telling other about Jesus, being bold enough to follow Him when it could mean death.
I am hoping to spend some time reflecting on how I can really get my head round just how great it is to have that total, forever companion in Jesus

Hey and I love the way God takes my fingers when I type. I did want to do a whole thing on some of the historical things of Christmas as I did with the 25th Dec last time and wanted to do with Carols, Shepherd, etc but He had other plans. Maybe too these blogs and what He uses to talk to me :>

Christmas

I often wonder if as Western Christians we have missed that mark and often in teaching other cultures how to evangelise help them to miss it too. I've been having interesting discussions with friends and family over this so thought I would share.

The reason we celebrate the birth of Jesus now here in Britain, now of course across the world, is that the Celtic Christians knew about the solstice festival and the feast of the sun on 25th December as the sun started its journey back up into the sky and the days started getting longer and saw that this perfectly showed about how Jesus came to give peace and rest and reflection, as the sun went lower in the sky, but that He was the true light and the true giver of hope, warmth, life and purpose and so taught and showed the pagans this. They saw it all so clearly and grabbed at the True God with both hands because the Celtic Christians had showed them something in their culture that showed God.
So often Christians get embarrassed about Christmas being at solstice and get in a muddle with it all. Yes it has become a materialistic festival and we do need to redeem that but the Celtic Christians use it to show that God is in everything.

The other thing was the whole story of the Glory of God coming down. We sing it in some amazing carols which actually where many still need healing from school assemblies we miss the awesomeness of them.
I listened to a talk about the Glory of God coming down but it was done, as so many churches at that this time of year do - in a twee please everyone sort of way. I sometimes think we see the Glory of God and the awesomeness of the Christmas story as a bit of an embarrassment we are not quite sure what to do with. Instead of seeing it as a time to celebrate in even bigger amounts than we should do each Sunday we decide its time to open doors to those who haven't yet encountered Jesus but then we don't want to offend so we down play things and those who have come see gentle Jesus meek and mild rather than awesome Jesus who came to die for us.
My daughter had a great discussion with college friends wondering why there were so many songs that were given to depict this gentle baby and yet there seemed to be so few that dealt with His death and the fact that He conquered death.
In fact that was the reason the Celtic Christians got so much notice from the pagans of their time because it was a festival that showed that the death of winter had been beaten, and they just showed that Jesus was the one who did that

Oh I could go on about the significance of Shepherd and wise men but I will save that till another time as I have Christmas cards to email. :>

Unity of Purpose

Christmas is coming and the blogging is slowing down. My head is just so full of stuff - food, present, planning. Its all a bit topsy-turvy this year too as Ben is working full time with the RSPCA so has this Thurs off, which we are seeing my mum, next Tues off which we are seeing Ian's parents, then Christmas day off from the RSPCA but has been asked to do 5hrs in the hotel he works part time in, then is off 27th and we are walking with Ian's sister and her partner, then has New Year's eve off of which he will be going out! All very confusing for a family that has often spent time just on its own, almost going to ground! And interesting when unity seems to be so on my heart at the moment.

In fact I keep looking more and more at the whole thing of unity. Ian is quoting things that the Romans said about the Celts, that they were a strong race but so busy fighting amongst each other, not having any unity, that they were very easy to beat.
With home education being under attack by this present government I have seen very diverse people coming together, unity to fight a cause, and being willing to compromise on so many things to win the fight for freedom to educate our children at home the way each parent sees fit.
I have been praying in this prayer network we have felt led to start on line with our town and have been fascinated how people cannot see how important unity is. With Christmas approaching each congregation is doing its own Christmas service on the same day at the same time! What could happen if they united? It just feels like if as Christians we could stop being like the Celtic tribes and fighting for our territory and become more like the home educators and be willing to see the common cause - which again is freedom with life to the full on top - and be willing to unite and fight for it.

Is this what Church should be like?

I know this is an oldish song by Faithless but I heard it on the radio this morning and it made me think - Do people see our congregations like this or not? And if not then why not? and how are we going to make them more like this?

This is my church
This is where I heal my hurts
This is my church
This is where I heal my hurts
This is my church
This is where I heal my hurts

It's a natural grace
Of watching young life shape
It's in minor keys
Solutions and remedies
Enemies becoming friends
When bitterness ends

This is my church (2x)
This is where I heal my hurts
For tonight
"GOD IS A DJ."

This is my church
This is where I heal my hurts

I hope when I meet someone in at my church then I can help them reach God and let Him heal their hurts :)

I Stand at the Crossroads

I have been meaning to write on this for a while but things have got in the way, as they do. 2 or 3 Sundays back we were in Bath and Paul spoke on Jeremiah 6:16 “Stand at the Crossroads and look.....and find the Ancient ways....and walk in the good ways”
It is always interesting to me how sometimes the message that is given disappears out of my head so quickly and yet other times it just stays and stays. This one was most obviously a word in season. But it is interesting how hard even those are to put in place. 
Ok so we can get all caught up in what are the ancient ways, which we did have an interesting supper conversation with friends about, but what has really struck me is this “Stand” and “Look”. In this modern fast paced world just standing and looking is really hard work. And it was said that the “stand” in this passage is an active standing, of being still with God and taking stock. It is not a passive word here. And the word “Look” in this passage is not just to take a quick glance but is to be actively looking around weighing up the situation. It is about having bold and open eyes to see what God wants you to see, but again it is for now just looking, just seeing. Oh, how hard that is to see so much and not go off and do something about it. It is about looking and then not just going but of seeing what the ancient ways of God are in this situation, of waiting until those ways appear, of walking only in the good and right ways God wants one to walk in. So often we see the things that need to be done, we often even see the good ways to walk in but so often still we move to soon.
This is all very much a message for me when I see my teenagers going off into the world to conquer it and I wanting to know what is the next part of my journey, and because I am a seer, a visionary, prophetic, I see so much and yet I have to wait.
My notes at the end of this talk were “I need to be bold enough to continue with stopping and taking stock and not be afraid of not being busy. I need to work in His timing”, which is all so hard when so many people say “so what are you doing now?” I need to be bold and say “waiting on God” no matter how silly I think that may sound.
Actually I have realised that when I was in Ywam and we didn’t move till we felt God say yes, and that was a whole team of us, it was much easier to say “I am waiting for God to tell me” or “I’ll pray about that” before committing to something, but when everyone appears to be doing, when everyone appears to be full on and busy, not stopping to wait on God, or at least not saying the words, then it is so much harder!!

Focus

Where one's focus is that is where one puts one's energies!

I have found it very interesting over the last few days as to what people find important and how when they get really fixed on something they expect everyone else to be too and can get quite irate when people are not on the same campaign as they are.
Though they can be forgiving if the person is dedicated totally to another campaign but woe betide one not to fixated on some sort of campaign.
The ones I have seen of late, and they are all wonderful people and I do wish I could do it, are those home educators who have really put all their energies into making sure their MPs know about this very controlling report by Mr Badman - yes this is really his name - which sets out to put state control on home education, and which the government it trying to slide through hiding under another bill that looks ok. And then there are those great people who are cycling, catching trains, etc to London for 5th of Dec and even cycling or using public transport to get to Copenhagen for 13th December to promote that total deep need for something to change in the way we are destroying our planet. Of other people I know who are going all out to make Human Traffiking in the news, raising money by driving in a Land Rover to somewhere in deepest Africa, and producing information to make this a know thing, very similar to William Wilberforce and stopping slavery 200 years ago.
As you can see I see these causes and many others as very amazing, commendable, need someone to do something about.
But I like many people in this county see all these things as important and in need of change. How are we to know where to put our energies in prayer and in action?
I had a great time at a 24/7 Prayer regional networking day but all that did was give me even more things I would love to be doing if only...........

Justice part 2

I think what I found so hard about the program "Spooks" and I do wonder how true to life it is - is that our taxes are being used, our government agency MI6 and the American equivalent, are being used to protect these rich and powerful people from people who are wanting to being their crimes to the public attention. And that those who want to show people some of the horrors of what goes on to get what we think we want are seen as subversive, violent radicals.
Interesting how radicals is so often used as a derogatory term for someone not a compliment. I am sure as Christians we are meant to be the most radical of radicals. I am sure Jesus was. Do you remember the poster of Jesus like Che Guevara? Talk about causing controversy!!!
I want to be a Jesus radical. Not someone who goes around killing those who do wrong to our fellow humans and to our planet, but exposing them and just showing what does go on so we can get the comforts we have. And also what goes on for other Christians who really do know what enduring suffering for Christ means.
I'll get there some how. Just waiting to see which door He will open for me

Justice

Here are some thoughts I had from last Sunday's meeting. We were at our old congregation as Tabi is still on the production team rota. I am not sure if these thoughts are related to anything that was said or just where God has me at the mo.

Jesus call is to justice to all. A part of the ancient ways is to protect the widows and orphans and the poor and needy. How can I do that? When Jesus comes back to will He find His people wanting because we thought more of cheap i-pods, clothes, food, etc, of having enough, rather than really looking and caring for those who don't have enough?
I watched "Spooks" on Saturday night on iplayer and on it the 8 most powerful people in the world who control the majority of the world's wealth get kidnapped and tried. A lot of what they showed was true of what goes on with multinationals, about villages being destroyed due to treatments works being put upstream of their water supply so we can get cheaper goods; wars being encouraged to keep the price of certain minerals down. And the guy who was funding this was a rich Russian guy who was actually saying that the status quo needed to change even though the way things were was easier for him to make money.
I could so understand where he was coming from and where the protester guy had got to. I know being judge, jury and executioner is wrong but there is such a mass of awful things out there and great organizations too where does one start?

So where should one start on the road to justice? How do we know what to buy? What to do? Where we should go?
It seems that there are at times these 2 extremes of either taking the law into one's own hands or of sitting back and just pretending it isn't going on. I think for me with this whole major change of no longer being needed so totally at home that I want to make sure this phase of my life is more impacting on the world than the phase before I had children. Oh how I wasted that bit.
I can't go and change the past but I can change the future but I want to change other people's futures as well as my own

Celebration

This quote really struck me this morning in Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster from Harvey Cox "modern man has been pressed so hard towards useful work and rational calculation he has all but forgotten the joy of ecstatic celebration....."
Foster then goes on to say how as Christians we justify ourselves into thinking we have joy because we got to a church service once or twice a week, do some bouncing and dancing and singing to worship songs and think we have ticked the joy box.
I remember reading about a prominent Jew who said he couldn't become a Christian because they always looks so dour whereas Jews will use any excuse to have a party. Just look at the history of some of their festivals. We can even turn Easter and Christmas into a bit of an embarrassing event that we don't quite know what to do with and then invite people along to.
Foster does not discount that we can have hard lives, that there are struggle and things we do have to deal with and that we must be careful not to get into false celebration and ignore the trials of life. But I look so often at the things we do have, the stuff that does on in our lives and I think that we are so blessed, so spoilt in this western world and yet I look around and see such miserable faces. My own included at times.
I really do want to take on board that "the joy of the Lord is my strength", that Jesus did die for me no matter what Robbie Williams says at the end of Bodies, and that because He died for me not only do I have an amazing eternal life to look forward to but I also have a life on this earth with the King of Kings to walk through it with me.
Oh Lord help me to get my head round this!

Banks!!!

Not so sure if this one is going to be too positive!

We are trying to do teenage budgeting, an interesting experience - as in teaching our teens to budget not budgeting our teens which could be interesting. Must think on that some more :)
We are not being helped greatly by the organisation they must keep all their wages in - namely the bank. Ok so it is the fault of the individual to overdraw but surely safeguards must be in place to help a new user of the bank. But no. Bank charges can be gathered up to about £150 a month, a statement is given at the beginning of the next month to let on about the said bank charges, but then the charges do not come out til the following month. So say charges run up in Sept do not come out the bank till November. And for someone who is struggling to budget this then just leads to another month of being overdrawn and being charged from it.
You can see how the banks manage to get all their nice healthy bonuses.

I did wonder whilst praying about this whole economic crash being God punishing for the way we treat money but mainly those who got hurt were people who'd been allowed to take on too big a mortgage, people struggling anyway and those in the developing world.
I changed ages ago to Reliance Bank, a Christian bank, because of its ethics with money but now I am getting the teenagers to change too just because they will get looked after a people not just a meal ticket!

No Dig Gardening

My friend has got me in on a newish thing from her organic market gardening boss - its called No Dig Gardening, so something like that. That is the principle anyway.
So on Weds I get a big pile of cow manure which I have to put on the designated space and then cover it with cardboard. At some point I think i also need to put on some compost from the recycling centre and again cover with cardboard and put stones on said cardboard to hold it down. Then by the spring I can start planting. It turns out this method means that the weeds don't come through because actually weeds, or at least the seeds of weeds, are encouraged to grow by the whole process of digging. Occasional ones do pop up but one just pulls them out. And also this method can be planted continuously for a whole season, then covered with compost again and then it all starts all over again.

We were talking about it all this morning as I was trying to plow through another Christian self help book (oh that sounds like a contradiction in terms - surly it is God how is meant to help us. Hey ho!),this time on finances. I must admit I think the guy who wrote it may have some issues.
But as with so many of these Christian inner healing books there is a lot about digging and weeding out things. Now I have done some inner healing stuff and know I have gained a lot from it but I do wonder if at times we dig too much.
I know with my garden if i put this manure over a huge thistle or nettles then they will poke through and I will have to pull them up first. In fact my friend has been working hard pulling things up, old plants, weeds, etc before she puts the manure down. I'm putting mine on grass so no big deal there.
But yes we do need to pull out the big weeds in our lives. But once we have covered ourselves with Jesus, the blood of Jesus, the Cross, and waited for a season then we can be ready to be planted and to produce a crop of 30, 60 even a 100 fold. But if we keep on digging once we have put Jesus on we rake up things that actually just by being covered with Him could've been killed.
I also think so often we bring people to know Jesus and then expect them to start producing straight away but like this method maybe it would be good for us all to wait for a season to just be covered and then we would be so much more effective.
Also with this method even though it produces so much more than the digging/weeding method it cannot keep going forever. There has to come a point where it is left to just lie under the compost, under the covering of Jesus.
Interestingly in a lot of the readings I am doing on mystics, Celts and other great leaders, they very much saw there lives as a rhythm of resting with Jesus, going out and being productive, resting with Jesus. And this resting was not something fitted into their schedule it was a real time out.
I wonder why we are so afraid to just take time out and rest under Jesus? I wonder just how much more productive we could be?

Mothering teenagers!!

I am having those dilemmas that I am caring parents have had over the years - how much to get go, how much to trust, how much of one's intuition does one run with and how much does one give to God. And actually the trust thing for me comes down to how much do I trust God with my children, who really are not children any more but becoming young adults who I want to release into the world just right. And also how do I put all my concerns into a positive blog. Not that one should be blindly positive but I do know that God cares for Ben and Tabi even more than I do. And I also know that some of my anxieties are that I am having to let go of them, having to find something that is not them to fill my life. For me being a single parent has brought me to a place with my 2 where I have probably been overly protective and also where we have been very close. I think we are still very close now but at times I feel sad that they have other people they are close to - which I also know is right and proper.
But this on Brian Heasley's (Ibizia) blog has really helped. It from a retreat he was on and the quote is by Henri Nouwen.

"Sometimes we have to "step over" our anger, our jealousy, or our feelings of rejection and move on. The temptation is to get stuck in our negative emotions, poking around in them as if we belong there. Then we become the "offended one", the "forgotten one", or the "discarded one". Yes, we can get attached to these negative identities and even take morbid pleasure in them. It might be good to have a look at these dark feelings and explore where they come from, but there comes a moment to step over them, leave them behind and travel on."

And I know it means more, much more, than coping with empty nest syndrome and trusting God with our children, but for me it is that whole thing of poking around with negative emotiosn that can be so tempting, to go into a place that is so unhealthy - either from imaging what they could be up to or from letting feelings of life not being as I envisioned, stuff like that. I need to give this all to God and let Him deal with it and not go poking around in it all.
And there will come a moment when they will travel on to wherever life has planned for them and my holding on to them will be no good for them or me.

and also what I like is that God can stick this in to someone else's life and it speaks to me so much, even if in a totally different way to what it was intend to!

Writing in the Sand by Thomas Moore

After a bit of facetious blog about John Eldridge's book yesterday which in places is very good about listening to God in fact, I have started an amazing book - Writing in the Sand by Thomas Moore, which is much more on my wavelength.
I am not sure what translation of the Bible this comes from but for me it sums up how I feel about my walk with Jesus -
From Matthew 10:7-8 "As you walk around let people know that the kingdom of heaven has come. Take care of the sick, waken the lifeless, get to the root of suffering and banish the demonic"
To me that is it in a nutshell and makes me know too that I can do this. Not everyone we pray for gets healed, but everyone we know who is sick needs someone to care for them. My heart really is to encourage and waken people to their dreams and to see them just live life to the full. Everyone I seem to know who is looking at the world keeps wanting to know what the root of suffering is and how we can deal with it - very much this is what I see in my daughter as she works towards her dream of being a human rights lawyer. In fact I can even see it in my son wanting to join the army. I truly can see there a desire to want to do something in his world and for now this is the only way he can see it.
Moore talks about how following Jesus isn't about trying to figure out what is right and wrong, good and evil, but of living life to the full. As Jesus said "I come to give life and life to abundance", and this is not in a hedonistic way. If we are living life to the full then we will be doing all the above and actually not doing things that are evil or bad. Ok so if we go down the hedonistic route then of course there is that danger of doing harmful, evil, wrong things but that is not what Moore means, what Jesus meant.
We have a great poem from Marianne Williamson in our bathroom that says about how if we life to our potential we actually encourage others to too. So if we could life the Jesus life to the full then that would just encourage others to want to follow Him too.
Today I think I understand what Francis of Assisi meant when he said "evangelize at all times and if necessary use words". But now I have to walk this out!

Book Suggestions!!

Oh the perfect morning! Everyone is out and I have had an hour eating breakfast and catching up on reading blogs. Brilliant! I love the tranquility of an empty house and, now with Ian working from home, I don't get it very often. Before he worked from home of course I was home schooling and so didn't get that space either. So this is like a little gift for me.

I also wonder how many people have been in this place? I have started to get to that age when one wakes in the night, some of it is because someone is moving around, or because I am thinking of things, but often it is just because. Anyway over the last few days I have been reading John Eldridge's Walking With God, which I borrowed from a friend who can only get to page 85 every time. Anyway I plugged on with it.
He is very into spiritual warfare and of how we must keep looking to what is going on in our lives and be prepared to take on those evil spirits, and that actually waking in the night is not just one of those things, or part of getting old, but is a demonic attack.
So there am I led away in the night and this thought that this is demonic comes to me. Oh yes he also says that we let these things in (something I do understand from having done spiritual warfare) and so we have to look for the opening in ourselves and also look to see what has been allowed into the house. Well here is me with 2 teenagers who go off out into the world and to be honest at the moment I am not sure how deep their walk with God is and how much "care" they take of what they bring home. And actually a husband who is more into working than looking for demons! So I am led awake trying to work out what has come into the house, and coming up with loads and loads and loads of things, of feeling condemned, of wondering where to start - a bit like when you've let the housework go on too long and it all needs doing at once - and fussing and panicking and trying to remember what was said in the book. Oh a mess!
Eventually I just gave the whole lot to God and let Him deal with it. Not quite what the book said, but very much the only way to get a good night's sleep.

I just wonder though how often the enemy isn't actually attacking us but is using things that say he could be to attack us. Oh my was the thing that I "let into the house" actually John Eldridge's book :)

Blogging and relationships

I have been meaning to write something ever since I got back from retreat over a week ago but relationships keep getting in the way.
Today its Tabi who's up early to chat, yesterday was bumping into a friend and using up the 20 mins I had spare to chat, the day before was talking on MSN to a friend in distress, and leading to that has been helping to sort out the living room as I'd got Ian a bigger desk from Freecycle and I've had to be moving everything else in the whole house, or so it seems, around to get the new desk in just right place and everything else to find homes. Again serving and relationship with my husband.
Oh yes I do have some "deep" things I'd like to put on here but I do think relationship are much more important :)

Coming into Maturity

At the moment many of my friends and myself are saying how much we preferred it when our children were younger and we were more in control, could make all the decisions and even if they answered back we just made them go anyway, even if they kicked and screamed a bit. Ok this could be a bit of a rose-tinted glasses but its how we feel.

Anyway I was pondering this one someone said about how when one hears something from God one should take it to someone more mature and let them ok it. Now I have heard this before and also seen leaders question something because they didn't get it. I am also seeing friends with their teenagers very much holding on to that control, pushing them in a certain direction, still holding control. I am also seeing it with my own on not being willing to take on financial control of their lives and not wanting to mature in that area, and of how I so want to keep control.
Someone at the 24/7 conference said about how we can only teach and show and disciple but be willing to let them make mistakes rather than control them so they don't make mistakes.
But I wonder how often to keep church things going we do not let people mature properly, we keep them always having to check things out and if it doesn't fit with what the leader says then they are told either not to do it, or that it wasn't of God, or they didn't hear properly. So that in the end we have a church full of people who do not step out.
Perhaps both with our children and our spiritual children we do need to stand back a bit and be there, as I think often God is, to pick up the pieces. Actually this is interesting that God does not control us, gives us total free will and then Jesus came and died for us to restore us to God, and even when we accept Jesus still we are free to come and go as we want, and yet still God is always there for us - no control and always will to restore us and pick up the pieces.

Learning to walk in the presence of God

I was working on it before the 24-7 conference, the whole thing of being in the Presence of God, but after that weekend I have been more aware of things and, not working harder at it but desiring it more and more.
I am also reading my way through Richard Foster's Celebration on Disciplines which again is all about practically how we can learn to be in the presence of God; spiritual disciplines which help to get us there. Amazing how it is when God brings things together like that :)
One of the big things I've noticed, that helps to cut through the whole procrastinating, is having a desire to be in the presence of God. Its like God honors that desire but also having that desire moves one closer, or to more of an awareness of being in the presence of God.
One of the big things I have noticed is I have gone back to how I was in Ywam days when the things of God would just flow from me. Like I wouldn't have to wonder how to drop God into a conversation I was just hanging out with Him so much that He was a friend I talked about. I have been noticing again that I just drop Him into conversation, not in a "I hope people here this and want to follow Jesus" sort of way but just because I can't help talking about Him or the things we've been up to together. I have even been being able to drop in Bible verses to friends who aren't Christians, again not from a wanting them to know Him place but because what they have emailed me, a quote or something, has triggered in me something God and I have been looking at and so I just share it back, like I would anything I got from one friend to share with another.
It is like God has become more real to me as I have desired more and more to get into that special place with Him
and also as Richard Foster says in the discipline of simplicity that we need to be seeing God, experiencing God in everything, so I have able to see Him today in a guy who was selling his stuff to move to US and to hear his story, a little girl and her dad in the local shop, and in our postman and listening to his story of concerns about this latest postal dispute.
Desiring and working towards being in the Presence of God has really made my world bigger and deeper and richer

Community

I went out last night with some home ed friends and realised that even though these are really lovely friends, some of whom will stand the test of time, I am no longer part of their community. Very much the common theme is home ed. I am no longer part of that. I am part of the teen in college crowd, but there is now crowd for this as it is not meant to be the only thing you do. I know in home ed many of the mums now do other things but very much the focus is home ed. Whereas I do not know any of the other mums who are part of Tabi's class, and would almost be seen as strange if I tried to get in touch with them. It is not done.
Again it is looking though at what makes a community.
At our family prayer time this week Ben was very bold and asked us to prayer about why he feels so compelled to join the Royal Marines, or in fact any other one of the armed forces. Ian, Tabi and I all got that what he wants it a crowd, a brotherhood, who are a team, are working together for the small goal and purpose and will watch each other backs.
To a point this is what we had in the home ed community - working towards a common goal, and even though we were spread across the country, we did watch each others backs. In fact just recently someone has been struck off a home ed e-list for publishing an article in a leading newspaper dissing a certain aspect of home education. It was almost like even if you don't agree you don't publish that. In the public eye you all stick together. I did try to explain this to Ian who, not being part of that community, didn't get it.
So again as I look to find this community and to try to encourage it here where we live by trying to start an e-list based prayer community leading to regular physical prayer events, I need to keep revising what community is. And it seems to be not just friends and liking each other but much more than. It is finding that common goal, being a team and working together, and having a common purpose underlying everything.
Interestingly I think this is why I love the 24-7 community because there is that whole thing of working towards a common goal, and it is not a closed community.
Will keep praying that God can make it work here.

Woman with the blood

I'm still working through Mark imagining myself into all the stories and today was struck by the way Jesus makes a big thing about the woman with the issue of blood touching Him and then goes on to heal Jaruis' daughter.
We've often hear that Jesus did this so that the woman would know and He could be personal with her. But I think too that He was proving a point. If someone touched a woman during her menstrual cycle, as well as the woman already being unclean, the person who touched her would be unclean too and so not allowed into the temple. And I would presume by not getting into the temple one couldn't be used by God.
So Jesus makes sure everyone knows that He, a rabbi, has been touched by a woman who was bleeding, then He goes on to touch a dead girl and bring her back to life.
Talk about going against so much of the Pharisaical laws. And yet He still says He comes to fulfill the law and not to destroy it!!

Imtimacy

The recurring theme from the weekend, and from so much of what we are hearing outside of the regular church messages, is about intimacy with God, and it is amazing how some people are so scared of this!
There was the challenge of "would you go if all your dreams came true but the presence of God was not with you?" from Pete Greig. And then being reminded by Ian Nicholson about how we need that intimacy with God, that really the only way we can stay in the presence of God is if we stay intimate with Him.
In sharing some of this with other people they have become very anti in their response. It is like this whole thing of just being close to God, rather than doing the stuff, really challenges people.
And it was interesting to see it worked out in some friends of ours with their marriage and how actually their main struggles are just about communicating honestly and trusting each other, both of which really bottom line to being not afraid of being intimate with each other.
Seek 1st the Kingdom of God then all these things will be added to you. When we know God is in charge, when we know that no matter what He wants the best for us, when we know that what He gives us we can hold loosely, then we know we are on the road to putting Him and His Kingdom first, and are learning to walk intimately with Him.
Why the fear in doing that? I wonder if it comes back to that Protestant work ethic and we are afraid that if we don't do then people will think we are struggling with our Christian walk, or whether it is that fear that if we really get into being with God He'll make us change our ways?

Quick overview of the 24/7 conference

Wow what a great weekend. There is loads I want to say but will go over my notes soon and put some stuff up. The teaching as always was excellent and practical and relevant.
What I love is that there are no heroes in this. One is listening to guys in hoodies who are doing the stuff not just talking about it.
Some of my highlights were when we were in a talk about mentoring and discipling and one of those being discipled had a word and shared it and finished off by saying "and we will pray for you" without talking to the leader. It was just that trust and total outworking of team stuff that really struck me. And also that Tabi got so much from the justice discussion and feels inspired that she isn't the only one who feels that way, and has been offered trips to Romford, UK and Finland to connect with people on a similar journey to her.
As well as great conversations and a great small group leader who really connected us all. And Amsterdam, even though dirtier than I remember, which is happening with lots of the cities I go to with Ian now, still had that charm for me.
And we came back to Ben having a full time job even though it is only temporary,
though how temporary he doesn't know. This came about after he got the verse about "ask, seek and knock" and then went and prayed and asked! (A long week in a family....)

Loads more to follow soon

A Week is a Long Time...........

I know the phrase is "a week is a long time in politics" but for me this week has been a long week in a family!
We have dealt with one pushing for independence then once granted not really wanting to fly in it. And now much more connected to others, driving towards the expected goal. The other going through relationship hassles and getting all angsty and now it looks like it is all over he is really happy, though still with major money hassles and no job, but not much more positive and motivated. Interesting how a loving relationship seemed to consume and drain him. And the big one having gone through his own middle age teenage angst and come through it.
Me I feel like I have been taken through it and back again, not trusted God as much as I ought to have done - hence not much blogging as it is hard to do a Positive blog when you don't feel positive, but now I am back again feeling more trusting that God actually did have it all sorted, that the hassles in the grand scheme of things are only small. And being reminded of a picture I had years and years ago of hanging on to God by my finger tips. Sometimes its like that but that is because in whatever sphere of life we are in sometimes a week can be a long time!

Am off to 24/7 Prayer conference in Amsterdam for this weekend - Thurs to Sun - feeling a bit of a fraud about going as we really want to do a prayer space in this town but nothing is opening as yet. Really going to hope to have some cool teaching, connect with some people, and just see...
Again it is back to trusting that this is what God wanted for us so He who is faithful will do it - a quote from 1 Thessalonians 5 somewhere
Hopefully will be blogging on things from the conference next week.

Paraplegic man

I have been doing some meditating and putting myself into the story of the paralyzed man who's friends lower him through the roof to see Jesus. What has got stuck in my head is the part where Jesus says "Your sins are forgiven". This is the only time, I think, He ever forgives sins before a healing. In fact there is the story later on of the blind man and when the disciples ask if it was the man or his parents who had sinned Jesus said "Neither".
I wonder what sins this man had committed that were connected with not being able to walk? I know there are preachers/healers who can do lots of damage to someone by giving blanket statements of what infirmities are caused by what sins, of which I am sure there is some truth in it. Even those who do not believe in God the way Christians do know that people need to forgive others or they will have certain sicknesses to deal with.
But I also wonder how the man felt with it publicly being acknowledged that he couldn't walk because of some sin he had committed. I wonder too what it was that he couldn't walk. Where these friends from childhood who had stood by him when he became infirm? Had he always been like it and it was a generational sin?
His friend were amazing people to stand by him too. I knew of a guy who, interestingly had been messing with a shotgun and shot his brother's eye out and then later on had a diving accident and was paralyzed from the neck downwards. But he was the rudest, demanding person I knew and was running his family ragged and his friends had all stopped coming round because all this guy did was moan about how he couldn't do things. Interestingly it was the same paralysis as Joni Erikson Strada!!
But I just feel there was still something in this young man in the Bible story that kept his friends there. I wonder to get healing from all sorts of things do we need to just keep some sort of hope that keeps people being will to take us to Jesus? Or should we be looking for those people who are so bitter and angry with where they are and loving on them to get them to a place where Jesus can heal and forgive them?

Protected Only by the Love of Their Families

I've taken this title from Sally Coleman's Eternal Echos blog as it feels very appropriate to carry on the thoughts about family, especially after the week we've had here.
Tabi started at a local college 3 weeks ago and we are going through the transitions of new life, new boundaries and how it all works out. Both her and I handled an situation really badly at the beginning of the week and are learning and growing through it all. Learning new areas of trust, how to show trust and how to behave so you are trusted - on both sides, how to communicate, how to put in safeguards and how to work together for a situation where everyone feels heard and safe.
And it is all about realizing that she is no longer a child, though still not an adult and that the protection of the love of her family, and of course the love for Ben too, who at 18 is also going through his own stuff. But because no matter what mistakes we make these two young people are surrounded by the love of their family - namely myself and growing more so Ian, their stepdad.
After having conversations with various police officers, parents, college tutors, etc I can see how live has changed for our young people. Yes it is great that they do have laws in place to protect them too, but often this then confuses the whole role of family, what the parents feel they can and cannot do. Again it gives the whole rights without responsibilities. And yet, I feel when the protection of the children comes from the love of their families - and in the context Sally uses it is the Jewish families of Jesus' day so it was extended family - there is a chance for the children to develop responsibilities for their future too.
And yes I do think we need things in place for those children who do not have loving caring supportive families, but not so that the parents of those who are cared for feel disempowered.

Family part 2

Also I want to explore some more about how we don't fully understand what Paul means by family because we didn't live family lives like this

So Simon was wiling to live with his wife, his mother-in-law and his younger brother and support them all and teach his brother the family trade. There is something in this interconnectedness of family that we really do not get now at all, which is why I think that when various congregations talk about the church being a family we all sort of get hurt by it.
Back when Paul was teaching on church being family it was this whole interconnected supportiveness of each other just because we were brothers and sisters in Christ, that I believe he meant. But because in natural families we do not do this now and so very rarely do we do this in our congregations. Not from lack of trying but just because life is so much more different. We do not live in the same towns we were born in, we do not follow the same trades as our parents, we do not know even our neighbours at times. But then to try to recreate that in a congregational setting where again people have mostly driven to go, even in small towns they can live over a mile away which to just be sharing lives is hard work.
But I think too it is trying to go into something that we don't know how to because we have not seen it in real life and we do not quite look at the maker's instructions.
I wonder why - and I think it is because it will take time, will mean we will have to give a bit of ourselves and, knowing as a parent there is a lot of giving and sometimes very little return. In fact I'd say that just for living in a family. And the closer we live with people the more it exposes our weaknesses and really we are a bit scared of that.
Perhaps we need to stop refering to the collectivity of Christians as family but find a word, a phrase that works better. Yes I know we are all brothers and sisters in Christ but the collective term Family doesnt seem to work like it use to

Family

I am doing this whole thing of meditating on stories in the Bible - working through Mark's gospel and just becoming one with the stories, as best one can.
I have got stuck in Mark chapter one! It is that whole thing of Jesus calling Simon and Andrew and then He goes to their house after preaching in the synagogue.
Now this is what my translation says that He goes to the house of Simon and Andrew and heals Simon's mother-in-law. Ok great story.
Well these are the thoughts that I have had - if Simon was married why was Andrew living with him? They wouldn't have done the flat sharing that goes on nowadays with brothers but would stay at home until they married, and then often an extra room was built on the house for the married couple of live in, but that would be of the father of the groom's house. So does this mean that Simon and Andrew's parents were dead? That Simon was the older brother supporting his much younger brother? And why was his mother-in-law living there? Did it mean his wife's father was dead and that there was no other family to look after her? and once Jesus heals her it is the mother-in-law who gets on and sorts out a meal. Why hadn't Simon's wife been doing this already? also the mother-in-law must've been really sick because she didn't make it to the synagogue. Was Simon's wife heavily pregnant which is why her mother is taking charge of preparing food? Had Simon's wife died after he had taken in his mother-in-law to look after? And if he was a responsible man who looks after his younger brother and mother-in-law and a probably wife with maybe children, wasn't this then just totally amazing that he left all that to follow Jesus? In fact there must've been so much trust there in the fact that Jesus had called him, someone who was not academic enough to stay on in education and was learning a trade, but who Jesus could see so much in.
We too need to know that Jesus can see in our hearts and that it is Him who calls us. There was nothing these guys did to follow Jesus apart from obey Him when He said come.
Jesus says Come, am I willing to give up everything?

Oh and also I want to explore some more about how we don't fully understand what Paul means by family because we didn't live family lives like this - wait for part 2

Doing two things at once!!

Rule number one - when blogging do not be typing to friend and dealing with teenager just in from college at same time, as well as helping husband plan work schedule

Thank you Joanna for noticing. What I did mean to say was that we need to be secure in God's love for us so that we can give it way, but to always know that we are growing and changing and moving closer and that we will not be secure, totally, this side of heaven. Oh if we waited till we were secure in ourselves then either we would never do anything, or we'd be so cock-sure about things that we'd be horrendous to others.
It is all about loving, giving out, getting closer to God. Jesus said about being like streams of living water, which means they are always flowing.

I will try to remember my brain is getting older and when it maybe use to be able to do more than one thing at a time now it cant! Esp when each one of the other people needed/wanted my full attention. And with my friend because she is on the West coast of America and has a one year old baby we don't often get time to chat.
Thanks again Joanna

Love

But in the end it comes back down to Love. We are called to love God with everything we have, and then to love others as we love ourselves. Of which the whole basis revolves round knowing how much God loves us then we are comfortable in that love and then knowing who we are so that when we love others it is from a basis of not needing their love because we know we are made the way God planned, even if its different from someone else, and even if we still have to tidy up a bit round the edges. But this we know that because God loves us so much and so totally unconditionally He will help us with this. So when we go to other people we do not need them to give us anything. But also we do not need to justify who we are.
But I think the only way we can get there is if we study and find out totally who Jesus is and why He came to earth - not letting someone else tell us through sermons and books, etc - and what God is really saying, and the only way we can really do this is to do some really proper Bible study for ourselves both with study aids and with us and the Holy Spirit. Interestingly all of which will take time and effort.
And also as I was reading recently we can only be interdependent, which is where we should be aiming for if we are truly independent and know who we are and what we stand for.
So often we put the cart before the horse and try to love other before we even like ourselves, and we try to love ourselves before we have accepted how much God loves us. Let's try and turn it around - find out how much God loves us, then really get into loving Him, then get secure with ourselves because of that unconditional love and then go and give this all away to others, because then we really would have something to give away

Its all my fault - reflections on parenting!

Back to the things that came from Greenbelt -

Tabi went off to the youth things, hoping to catch up with people and hear some good things on justice issues. Well that was not to be and after going to hopefully do some acting in what she expect to be very powerful, which according to her was not, she gave up.
We finished up though seeing Matt talk about horror stories in the Bible and what we tell our children. If you look at some of the stories we read to our children and what the Bible says they are horrendous, but we sanitize them and make them easy both to read and for a child to listen to.
I wonder if become a Christian after a very pessimistic past and at an older age has made me want my kids not to miss out, or whether at times I am just naive and think if God says it then they can read it. Anyway we did all the Children's Bible story books but when Tabi was about 6 we had a very wet camping holiday in Wales and she spent her money on a version of the Bible that was very much a no holes barred one, but written in simple enough language for her to read. I have also always let my kids read what they feel they are ready to rather than "age appropriate" and have then used it as a chance to talk about various things. But she sat in the back of the car reading this Bible going "they lied to us in Sunday school", "oh they never told us that bit" and so on.
Because of this and because of being homeschooled we have always worked to where they are and what I think they need to hear at the time. And what it has produced is 2 young people who find a lot of what they get fed in church youth groups very tame Interestingly Matt's take on this was that often those leading the youth groups have never really read into the Bible stories, do not like what they see and so ignore it, come from church backgrounds where there are people who don't certain things in the Bible and so skip them out, and so they, these youth leaders, just carry on from where they have been taught. He even gave an example of an intern (he never gave the age) who did not know the story of Deborah.
The trouble is now that actually Ben has got to a point where he wont read his Bible because he wants to conform with his group, whereas Tabi wont join a group but still reads her Bible.

The reason for the title of this blog is that I always said that being a single mum for 10 years and home schooling too that my 2 would only ever have me to blame for things. I have also often been their youth leader or Sunday school teacher too, and Ben did tell me I was the best youth leader he has ever had. Some compliment indeed!
Now I have to just hold my breath and see where they go with what God and I have placed in them!

Do try to check out Matt's talk on his blog which is on the side about films with Biblical themes.

Persepectives

Again off the Greenbelt theme but this seemed too good to leave -

Tabi, my daughter, has started college after being home schooled for the whole of her life.
Lyle, my friend's son, has started college but on a different course after being in regular school the whole of his life.

Tabi's course is 16hrs of lessons plus breaks - Mon from 9-4.30, Tues 9-12.30. Weds and Thurs 9-14.45 - Her comment on Thurs "I'm tired as I am now in full time education!"
Lyle's course is 21hrs of lessons plus breaks - Mon, Thurs and Fri 9-4.30, Tues 9-12.30 and Weds off - His comment "hey this is so much less time at college than when I was at school. and wow all day Weds off!"
Tabi is having trouble trying to have time to eat her lunch as lunch break is only 45 mins.
Lyle is loving now having 45mins to eat his lunch instead of just the 30 he had at school
Tabi finds it interesting that there is only 30 mins break in the morning and then 15 in the afternoon to get between lessons.
Lyle thinks it is amazing to get 30mins break in the morning and then 15 to get between lessons in the afternoon instead of no break between starting school and the 30 mins lunch and having to rush from on class to the next with no time inbetween.

It made me wonder how often we look at life as fair or unfair from our known paradigm rather than from what it really is.
In fact there was a very funny comment on "Mock the Week" a news satire program we watch on bbc iplayer, where they were going on about some hassle in the UK and one of the comedians said "oh yes in Africa they all worry about the UK and how hard life is, that in the UK they only get their wheelie bins emptied once every 2 weeks!" Perspective!

Being called by Jesus

This is off the Greenbelt tack, though I will come back to it as I have a couple of other posts I want to write, but have felt a great lack of creativity due to dealing the a teenager! Oh the joys of that. Not sure which one of us is finding it hardest, Ben or I??

I have started on meditation, as in Biblical meditation, and am going to work through the book of Mark and "get involved with the stories", so really that whole thing of reading, becoming a character in the story and then as Richard Foster suggests in "Celebrations of Disciplines" just sitting with Jesus at the end and sharing some thoughts.
Well today was the calling of Simon, Andrew, James and John. I realised as I got into really thinking of what things were like that this was a busy fishing port. It was not just these 4 young men who were there. It would've been crowded; there would've been a market there, lots of people. And yet Jesus only called these 4 young men at this moment to follow Him.
I have heard from someone else (and I think it might to Jonathon!) that there are many that are called but few that are chosen. Along the lines of many people are drawn to Jesus because God's heart is to save the whole world, but there are few that are called to be true close following disciples; few that are willing to leave everything to follow Him 100%.
During the story I felt like I was being challenged to be one of those totally called to be a disciple and to give up everything. Could I really give up my livelihood for something/someone I don't know where it will take me?
I have done this before when I joined Ywam, but it was like this time Jesus was saying was I willing to this with a husband, a safe comfortable home, and during the time when He has set for me to supervise 2 teenagers flying the nest.
I hope I am ready and I hope I do Him proud.

What was it Ezekiel said "Here I am Lord!"?

Israel/Palestine

Now this one isn't about the Bible but about the stance that was taken to the Israelite "security wall" which has basically cut Bethlehem off from the rest of the world and taken into into premature poverty. Now I know this is wrong and that the UN and all sorts have condemned this. But I also know that the whole Middle East and in particular Israel is an emotive topic.
I have 2 dear friends I would love to introduce and who, until they spoke about Israel would agree on so much and yet would probably never speak to each other again once Israel, present day situation, got a mention.
Now like I say I know its awful situation but in the light of what else is happening in the world there are a lot more things going on that could unite the church rather than divide it.
People have very differing views about how we should look at Israel. Are they still God's chosen? Has The Church replaced Israel as God's chosen? What does it all mean?
I did feel when there were lots of other issues that we could be really putting some effort into - North Korea, many places in Africa, etc this was another controversy!

More on the infallibility of the Bible

(Hopefully a discussion will carry on! Look at comments from the last entry!)

I want to carry on this theme - then maybe I could stop writing these blogs in my head in bed when I should be asleep. Oh well better than worrying about the family :)

To me it seems interesting that it is the things we don't understand in the Bible that people seem happy to say may not be of God. The discussion of which I quoted Andy Varley carried on with someone saying what she didn't like and then going on say how we must remember that these books were written by different people in different cultures and we must look at the cultures - which I do agree with - and then we can pick out what is relevant to us to today.
I am all for the looking at the culture in which something was written but I still think we need to say that this is what God was saying/is saying and then go from there. Not this was was then and well we can just dismiss it.

One of the biggies, which did also come up at Greenbelt, was all the killing which goes on in the Old Testament. I've got another post on what we teach our children to follow up on this. But we all know of people who wont read the Old Testament because they cannot see God in this. In fact Ship of Fools, when reading out verses like that that they didn't like were adding "and this is supposed to be the word of God".
I don't know this side of heaven if we will ever understand why God seemed to order total genocide. I know there are loads of theories that have been discussed but really I'm not sure we know.
In fact when we try to work it out we have to remember what God said to Job when he questioned why He was allowing him to suffer.

I am going to stick my neck out though and say that a thought I have had is that Yes God did order this. Well it says so in the Bible so He must've. But in fact it was not that the Israelites were going to be tempted by the people - who apparently if we do look at the histories were seriously depraved - but that actually there was so much sin in the Israelite's hearts that even with the corrupt people groups totally gone still the land could not be clean because of what was in their hearts.
When doing major spiritual warfare we were always told to make sure our hearts were cleaned so that nothing we were warfaring with would have a foothold for us. I think the land was so corrupted by the sin of the previous people and there was a foothold in the Israelite's hearts that things just hooked in.
Then in the New Testament Jesus actually tells the story of the wheat and the tares saying that sometimes we just have to let the good grow with the evil as we can destroy one as much as the other, which to me is saying that with unclean hearts we can do more damage trying to bring out judgment on the world.

Some how we have to let God teach us what He is saying not just say that some of this is really not of God and that a mistake was made when the Bible came together!

The Infallibility of the Bible

I think one of the things I found hardest to bear was to hear speakers questioning the infallibility of the Bible, especially over things like women and homosexuals.

Now I am very much not a quiet woman who sits in the background but do believe what the Bible says about wives submitting to their husbands, and have watched some really impressive woman who I know do so much more when they do it under the covering of their husbands. Hey God put it there for a reason!!

And when it came to what the Bible says about homosexuals then very much it was in the wrong. Now I do not think we should go back to condemning homosexuals and stoning them. Hardly a love and grace thing and one thing Jesus was clear on was that we are to love our neighbour as our selves. (Amazing talk on this by Simon Neal today at Bath City Chuch that I am plugging everywhere. Check out www.bathcitychurch.org.uk and find this Sunday's streaming!)
We are to love and we are to be there and we are to be Jesus to everyone. Hey you cant take that out of the Bible. But I do wonder if we ok same sex relationships, which then means they start living and sleeping together what do we say to our highly charged hetrosexual teens, who very much are committed to each other - at that moment. How can it be ok for same sexes to be sleeping together and not opposite sexes??
Interestingly Carla came up with a good point on this - that we nowadays see sex as a human right, to be had whenever we want, with no restraint, no self control, and if we cannot have it the way we like best when we want it then we are being repressed!!

The Bible has to be the true living word of God, all of it, even the bits we don't like. I've got more to say on the bits we seem to not like later but I will leave this for now, quoting from a discussion forum I follow from Andy Varley:
"I think belief that the bible is the "living word" or God doesn;t come from tangible proff though archeology will confirm some details of bible statements such as location of towns etc. Instead knowing the bible is infallible is about first coming to know God. In simple terms you wouldn;t be lost and unable to encounter God if all the bibles in the whole world were somehow lost and couldn;t be found. So, knowing God then gives you some kind of an idea of His nature, His will, His values and the bible is a good offering of examples of these things. I think at the risk fo sounding contraversial I'd say that the bible could well be challenged in worldly terms and without a relationship with God, truly encountering Him, honestly listening and hearing Him (in which ever way you do) then you'd be at risk of turning it all into an academic exercise about whether the bible is a good read or not. Let's face it, if we do believe in God, the star maker, galaxy shaper, the one who rides the wind etc etc then a bunch of men meeting several hundred years ago to choose which books to include int he modern bible isn;t really going to be much of a challeneg to Him is it??? I think there's more to this than meets the eye. God is an interesting fellow not least because of the way He gets things done."

Ok long quote but says what I want to say and so why waste it!

Quick Greenbelt Review

The best bit for me was the Bubbles. There was a bubble stall selling all sorts of different bubble making things and every time one walked past the bubbles just made everyone smile.
For a first time Greenbelt-er it was just amazing how big it is. We walked miles and miles. I must say there was very little in the way of speakers, etc that really grabbed me, though we did get to see 2 great ones by chance. I found that some of it seems to be challenging for the sole purpose of being challenging. There was a lot about dissing the Bible and head knowledge stuff and very little on relationship with God. There are a few things I will expand on over the next few days when I have more time and headspace. Ben is job hunting so needs the computer and I am on catch up.
How is that there is always so much to do when you have been away
Also very much finding life at home more tiring that life at a festival on a campsite. As Carla says its that simpler life!!

Greenbelt

I've been a bit quiet of late. Lots of stuff in my head but no real outlet. I think I am waiting for Tabi to get to college so I have 8hrs at least free every day to think and blog and do some study. Lots of study planned.

But as so many of those I follow on blogs are off to Greenbelt I felt I ought to just say I am going too. Though whether I shall be brave enough to say Hi to those I know via blog, and those I've met in passing at conferences who knows. But I have some real friends I know I will catch up with and enjoy.
As this is mine and Tabi's first ever Greenbelt we are not sure what we are letting ourselves in for but I am sure I will come back with loads and loads to blog on. Just looking at who is coming that I sort of know I know it will challenge my thinking.
I do find it odd though that I have avoided this festival for years because as a new Christian I was told that this was not a good place to go if one's faith wasn't that strong. And yet now I am taking Tabi because she is challenging so many things about the established church, and wants so much more. And the thing is with the joy of the internet I now know that many of those coming will challenge her walk with God.
You know we are so blessed by the good things on the internet that no more do we have to just believe what someone older than us, who may not have even visited these things says, we can read what others think and say, check out the blogs of speakers and make much more informed decisions.
Ok so I know there is also a lot of bad stuff and confussing stuff out there but let's honour what is there and do our best maybe to flood cyberspace with the amazingness of God!!

Community Building

A very interesting one the other day whilst taking about our town and praying with a friend – she was saying that there is a possibility that a church at the top of the hill on a crossroads in our town, and one in a neighbouring town that is on a roundabout may both stop being places of Christian worship. We both felt very sad about this, very upset, and were not sure why as we are not really into buildings.

I have since taken this away to chew it over and wonder whether as well as community leaders and networkers do we also need a place to gather? I know we could use homes, but again we do need people who are willing to open their homes; we need to be willing to open our homes. But if we are not at that point, or want to invite a diverse group of people, or want somewhere where people can just drop in is it wrong to have a building?

As I write this I reminded of stories from 24/7 network of people drawn to their Boiler rooms and th things that happen there. Yes it is great that The Church is leaving the building to go do mission but I wonder if we do still need places where people can come to

Thomas Merton on Following God's call

I liked this prayer by Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk of the 20th century, and his prayer about following God's path -

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going,
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end
Nor do I really know myself,
and the fact that I think I am following Your will
does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please You does in fact please You.
And I hope that I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will not do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this You will lead me by the right road,
though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore I will trust You always, though I may seem
to be lost in the shadow of death,
I will not fear, for You are ever with me,
and You will never leave me to face my perils alone.

Spider Webs

Thank you Joanna for your comment, in fact for all your comments, but I wanted to respond to the last one on The Journey.
I so agree that there is not one specific way. In fact years ago when I was in Belfast just as my marriage was splitting up I asked my vicar about paths and directions as I was feeling, at that point, like I had lost all mine, and he said that he felt life was like a spider's web. We all have a place where we should be heading but nothing is in straight lines and there will be many junctions along the way that will take us off in a different direction but ultimately, so long as our hearts are seeking God and His will then we will get to where we need to be and will have some cool adventures along the way.
In fact really, even though I do believe what the Bible says about God having planned in some cool things for us all to do, and that we do have a purpose in His grand plan, that in the end the main thing is that we keep our hearts fixed on Him and hold on to those things that are dearest to Him and not to us - like repentance, forgiveness, loving Him with all we have and loving our neighbours as ourselves.
I will enjoy the journey and that at times spider-web likeness of it all :)

The Journey

It has been an interesting one just of late! But then life is a journey and I think, for me, especially, I need to start getting use to it. For what feels like one of the first times ever I have realized I was on a wrong road, had been side-tracked due to pressures of making sure everyone else is ok, money is fine, etc, etc. On the Sophia Network Jenny talks of how women do put themselves last and this is true. But I have realised that to be true to my family, to my daughter and my son, honest to my husband, I need to start keeping on the path God has set for me.
You know when I took that wrong turn, it was like when you do it in the car, and everything just felt wrong. I struggled to put my finger on it because others too were saying that this must be the right path because of..... (and they listed their reasons). Which also got me thinking as to how often when someone asks what we think we got to our own life view rather than God's.
I have managed to do a major U turn and I am back going towards the road I think I was on. I need now to, instead of rushing ahead and doing I need to be praying and thinking. So much has changed so suddenly that it was easy to get swept along. And, as I read in Steve Chalke's Apprentice book we so often fill our lives with being busy so that we don't have time to think.
Hey I have been blessed by a husband who has totally taken on board me and my children and sometimes in my being grateful I try to over-compensate instead of trusting him too.
I need to go back and reread what I have written about discipling and community and see, firstly now who/what/where my community is now I am no longer a home schooling mum and find out how I connect into there, and also look and listen to who it is that He has me discipling and how I do that.
Interestingly with the discipling those I thought I would just carry on supporting have all just been too busy to see me so I think God is saying something there too.
But for me now its a time to trust in Him and He has a plan and also thinks I am great, and stay on the journey He has me on.
But isn't it great that we have a God who is ok with us making mistakes and can help us do major U turns?

Wallander

This is a must watch TV detective program on BBC 4, which we see on bbc.co.uk/iplayer. It is Swedish with subtitles but that does not seem to detract from the program.
Every murder always seems to be something rising up from someone's past, some wrong they have done, and someone from that, generally a child who's mother has been killed or someone wrongly imprisoned. seeking revenge. It always keeps me awake at night thinking of the whole thing of 'should people get what they deserve' and 'how much easier live would be for all concerned if one side forgave and/or the other side repented'.
The person who has sort revenge either gets arrested or comes to a sticky end and very much I feel that the program is saying 'there is a better way'.
So how do I take this out to a world, at times even a Christian world, that wants revenge - even if it is in a subtle way. (Check out Stuff Christians like's Praying bad things will happen..... blog to expand on that thought!)

Community!

I have been meaning to blog this for a while, but life has been busy. I am coming to terms with working in the cafe and fitting in everything else but it does mean I don't get time for everything.

Lesley and I were chatting about the home ed community and how it seems, in our area, to be on an ebb and were talking about good time and about how to revive it. Strange for me as with Tabi going into college and me working this is no longer my community, which got me thinking about who/what/where my community was now, but that is a different thought.

But what I realised was, from our conversation, from seeing the community network in our street, from Ian reporting back on a talk he'd been to about some of the since demolished areas around us, and from listening to friends in a church talking of community groups is that it actually takes a lot of organizing and at least two key people who want to see this community work.
In our street there are at least 2 women who work really hard to make sure events happen, who invite people round, etc. In the beginnings of our home ed community there were 2 or 3 of us who really did lots of phone calls and made sure things happened. Most have moved on or have got part time jobs, which of course limits the time they can put into something like home ed. With my church friends I hear them often moaning about how they have to do lots of the ground work and then people come on board.
I think if one can see they key people, the networks and stay close them community can grow. Or if we want community then we have to be willing to put in lots of time emailing, phoning, making sure there is something to come to, making people feel welcome and helping them to then own the group, but firstly it is making them feel wanted and welcome.
I know we could say everyone should be doing this but I think as well as being unrealistic it is also not everyone's gifting and I think too that community should be where everyone can play their role and feel safe. So for those who are called to be the community leaders they really do need to understand what their role is and not expect it to be easy. I think too they also probably need a vision or what they want - whether this be home ed, church or whatever

Discipling

Whilst we were on holiday Ian and Ben went walking all the way up a mountain to a glazier. Not as easy as that sentence was to write. Ian has had experience of this and so when the going got tough he would hold out a walking pole to Ben so he could cross a waterfall without fear. Ian said afterwards that there were times when he was scared but he didn't tell Ben as that wouldn't have been a help.
What a wonderful opportunity to be able to disciple Ben in things he knows!
Ian has also noticed that when he took a friend climbing Ben was telling Peter the things that he, Ben, had learned from Ian. Again a wonderful example of discipling.
But this discipling was a long slow process, not at the time getting much reward. But even though Ian has done this, when I complimented him on doing something so rare he replied that he had had this happen at school. Though in the end it transpired that this had been in a group setting not one on one.
I think we so often see doing anything with anyone as something that we do in groups, at times the larger the better, transmitting information and hoping that some of it goes somewhere, which at times it does. But actually doing groups is much more rewarding than one on one discipling because, for one people notice when you are 'leading a group', but see it as either just 'hanging out' or something else not so rewarding.
How can we take the Great Commision and either reduce it to a group thing or even say 'its not my calling' when it is one of the commands Jesus left us with. In fact most of what Jesus gave us was lifestyle but this was a command! But how come we have missed the point, or said it is too hard?
I cannot remember who it was, but I think it was Henri Nouwen who said if we all discipled one person for one year, then they discipled one person for a year, and they discipled one person for a year, and during this multiplication everyone is discipling for a year in next to no time we could win a whole nation to Jesus, not just as converts but as radical followers of Jesus.

The World Isn't All It Seems

Life in our modern world seems to be a mass of illusions! Tabi is on board with a modelling agency and we keep finding out from their info that even those happy kids you see at Legoland, etc are all Models Direct, paid to look happy and it will take a whole day to do the shots!
Then I discovered last week that someone who writes articles for a teenage girl's Christian magazine is not a Christian and most of the girls interview aren't either, she just sticks in that they go to church if they do but the articles are not written around their faith. Oh so what do our Christian girls need??
I wonder now how much of the world is just a series of falseness. Perhaps we all need to get in touch with Him who is Truth and get The Truth out to the world!

Kamran and Suzy Yaraei

Had a great evening last night at Bath City church being part of what Suzi and Kamran were doing. The worship was awesome, though Suzi does seem to be a bit calmer not being with the Morning Star band, but still wild in The Spirit.
Kamran's message was just so awesome and made so much sense. It was like that key that I feel I have been looking for for a long time and have touched on but not thought I had got it as no one else seemed to be really saying it.
It was about knowing the desire of God's heart - and the number one desire of God’s heart is that we just love Him. And it really expanded into how if we spend time with ourselves working out why we love God so much and then letting Him this, then we will just flow with that love of God and people will not call us Christians but lovers of Jesus and will come to us then to ask about the one we love to much and why we love Him. To me that just is so so simple.
I don’t want to be a Christian just doing good deeds but I want people to know about this awesome person who I just want to hang out with. Though I did get to noticing as we discussed it after that for some they do want to be doing for God and want to show Him as someone we can do good things for or even with. And yes that is so very true and He does have amazing plans for us to work out on this earth, but the first and greatest commandement it this – to love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, strength, everything you have in fact – and only after that can we love others, and that will be as ourselves because we will just be buzzing with that total love of God.
Awesome!

Nancy

Whilst we were away on holiday my friend Nancy lost her fight with cancer. It has been a few days now since we found out and I have had long chats with God about it all.
I found it so hard though that He didn't work a miracle. Hundreds of people were praying for her and she had so much faith, often sending out emails and blogging about how God would heal her, quoting Bible verses, etc. She very much kept a lot of the rest of us going through this and now she's gone.
Why does God not heal everyone?
Tabi said that we serve a jealous God and that He really wants us to be with Him in heaven. Oh you can see why Jesus said that we had to enter heaven like a child. I know Tabi is 15 now and has some of the cynicism that teenagers have but she still has that honest innocent trust in God that we all should have. Basically He is God and He decides how long our life span is and when He is going to take us.
The great thing to know is that Nancy did seize the day and did speak into many people's lives, sometimes to the point of being infuriating but she was always loving and giving to others. And very much she was in a place to go meet with God.
For me I want to now do all He has planned for me, to live life in His fullness totally knowing what He wants for me to do and then doing it. But also being prepared to go to live with Him whenever He calls time!
So even now she's gone Nancy still hassles me and gets me to that place of prayer with Him.

A Will Self Quote

Will Self (journalist) wrote this in an article in last week's Big Issue after trying to do a satirical act to get based around who runs the newspapers -

".....For them, news is a kind of manna shed by the heavenly screen, while opinion is merely the margarine spread on this unleavened daily bread. Who the god or gods responsible for disseminating this stuff is of little interest to the majority - because after all, if you don't like/believe what one website is putting out, you can simply click to the next."

But it made me think that actually we could substitute a lot of other words for "news", like 'church', 'marriage', etc and rewrite it a wee bit. We seem to live in a culture now where we let things just happen and if we don't like them, well we just switch over, change relationships, move to something that "speaks our language" better. Gone seem to be the days when we push and challenge, keep our leaders accountable, keep each other accountable.

He goes on to say that we have all become consumers which I think is often what we expect to happen in every aspect of our lives!

He does say some other things that I very much disagree with, but this did speak to me.

Also check out Stuff Christians Like blog about Grumbling and Let's Put The Kettle On blog about Famine and Michael. Well worth a read.

Blaze

Last Sunday I did my last Blaze group. This is helping with the 11-14 year olds at the congregation we will be leaving in a month to do more in our local town. Going to a place 8 miles away was great, in fact fantastic at times, for a while, till God started pulling on the strings to tug us to our town.
Ian has been living here for 10 years. Ben, Tabi and I have only been here just over 2, since we got married and moved over. Ian felt the pull to be more involved in the Christian scene here just before we started dating, and we just felt that for a while we needed to be somewhere bigger to get ourselves sorted as a family, which is what, with God's help we have done.
We have made some great friends and some, hopefully that will continue. In fact because I struggled find a small group that God was letting me settle in, most of our friends from this congregation are people we have met outside of the whole meetings set up, which is cool.
It has been an interesting year helping with Blaze and has come with its good times and its challenges, as everything does. But it felt on Sunday like I had stayed too long, that maybe I should've moved on at the end of last term. Because it was my last time, but still 3 weeks till the end of term, it got forgotten too that I was going.
But really I think for me my feelings were that sometimes we do things to honour others, like giving a whole term's notice, when God was really saying that we should follow Him quicker. Again though with this it is hard to sometimes do this and obey God and also honour our leaders and not hurt them.
So it was a bit of a sad, poignant time.
Our last Sunday is 2nd Aug, which will be a strange time. We have picked that as it is the day when all of us finish on the rotas we are on. We feel that we will step into the new place for us slowly in Aug, but officially in Sept!
And with all the changes, from Ben working and no longer at college, Tabi stopping home school and going to college, me getting a job, it is all a time of gradual change into some major things!

Work!

Today I am off for a trial for a job I have been offered. It is not quite what I expected but I can see God's hand all over it.
Firstly I wasn't expecting to get something until the end of Aug when Tabi starts college, but also I wanted something world changing. What I am doing today is working in a cafe! But the way it came about can only be God.
When our new Avon Cosmetics lady started calling I felt I had to buy things regularly so that I could get to know her. Then last time we got chatting about things and I mentioned about Tabi going to college and about looking for a job. She works part time in this cafe and said that there was a job possibly going but it hadn't been advertised but she would chat with the owners when she next saw them. Anyway she pops in to say they want to see me for an informal chat and see what we think of each other. The conversation was amazing! We talked about home school and they liked my stance, even though they were teachers. Then asked what Ben and Tabi were going to be doing and when I said about Tabi wanting to be a lawyer it turned out their son was a really high flying one, but they were impressed that I knew about which exams she should be doing. It was like I passed the interview by not really talking about the job.
So its like I know its God, and another friend has said she feels excited for me, but really what I was expecting was something in the caring professions. I feel a bit flat, as well as nervous about this morning.
I suppose this is what happens when you put God in charge!!

Education?

I have just been reading "Living at the Crossroads" by Goheen and Batholomew and as a home schooler just love this quote from a book called 'The End of Education' by Postman -

"if we no longer agree on the end(the goal or purpose) for education, it may be that we have reached the end (the termination) of education.....education cannot proceed without serving some god.......Without meaning learning has no purpose. Without purpose schools are houses of detention not attention."

Goheen and Bartholomew go on to say, "the lack of conscious reflection on the goal or purpose of education leads us to accept by default those purposes, those 'gods' that have been shaped by a culture in crisis."

Helping Each Other?

I want to continue the "Street Boys" theme but have so much in my head at the mo that I need to put this up

On Sunday at church there were baptisms. One lady was so profoundly prophetic it left me in tears.
She was oldish and her legs just didn't work properly any more. Anyway there are steps up to the cute pool and then a plastic chair to climb in on. All very precarious for the able bodied.
Anyway the usual - she is left to walk to the steps herself, but what happens is once on the first step she is stuck and cannot go on, so 2 women come either side of her to help her up and the congregation just seems to stop breathing. I think we were all praying her up. Every time she climbed another step there was a cheer and clapping. More clapping and cheering as she got in the pool and then the same thing as she came back down again. This lady did not get baptized alone!

But for me I saw it as what we should all really be doing for each other. When we make that commitment to move on in our Christian walk we should not be moving out alone, and not even just into the hands of 2 leaders we hardly know. It should be a joint church thing. We should all be praying for each other, all rooting for each other, all just there for each other, praying, cheering when we get it, praying some more when we are struggling.
But so often we don't do this. We are not there for each other. We do leave it to the leaders to be doing the stuff. And the interesting things was the 2 youngish men who were leaders and "doing the dunking" seemed not sure what they should be doing. And again I feel that was what God wanted to say - why should we expect people who are put in positions of leadership to do all the praying, cheering, encouraging, esp when, as seemed like this, they didn't quite know what was going on.
It goes back to that thing that we are all connected and should be know how to support each other.
Let's stop leaving it to those in named positions!

Oh and do look at Joanna's post on "Street Boys" as I think it gives us all something to pray about, talk about.

Street Boys

I have just finished reading "Street Boys" by Tim Pritchard, a true story of gangs in London and it really got me thinking. (I did a good blog in my head in the middle of the night but it seems to have disappated a wee bit)
It stuck me as it has often stuck me, how often in this world those who try to sort things out, who send in the money, are generally people from a privileged position. They understand the system, have been educated, have basically been empowered. These lads were not saying so much that it wasn't their fault but just that what they saw around them were people in designer clothes with gold jewelry making lots of money dealing drugs, and these were the only role models they saw. They didn't see how one became any other type of profession. Most of them had no fathers, some had mothers who were in and out of prison. But it was interesting how, as they grew up, these guys were sorry for what they had done, and were trying hard to be an example to the younger boys so that they would not go that way.
I wonder how often, even as Christians, we see these latest figures about young people carrying knives and we make our own judgments, when actually we do not know these people.
And really we need to get involved with them long term, as those in Manchester are doing with the Eden Project and others are doing in this country, but I wonder how often we are more willing in our churches to send money abroad and ignore this country. And also of how often we are to send teams in to "do good" but then we go home again, we feel sorry for these people but we don't see them as equal to us and want to empower them, rather we want to be kind to these poor people. Though there are often wonder how often that is our attitude to the starving, the unclothed, etc. We do not want to get to know them as really people but as people we can do good to, be good Christians with.
The trouble is I feel all this frustration and yet I do not know where to go with it! And as I was planning this last night I felt God saying that He wanted me to empower His church to go - but at times that seems like such a cop-out.
Again I ask myself the question - who are the poorest people I know? Do I really know any really poor people? not sure poor in money terms but poor in empowerment?

Who Stops Your Power?

God has been teaching me something very interesting lately. Over the past few weeks the electricity in our house has got more and more weird with lights flickering like it was a haunted house, clocks gaining speed and no single clock in the house telling the right time, and all sorts of weird things.
In the end last Weds all the electricity went off, not a fuse or trip switch was blown, and then by doing nothing it came back on about 15 mins later.
So Thurs we called a friend and got the number of her tame electrician and phone him. He appeared about 5.30 and couldn't find a thing wrong though had some theories, but was very clear that it was not our fault, nothing was wrong with any of the electricity in our house. So we called out the national electricity providers, in the case Southern Electric. First they sent a sort of electrical paramedic guy who said we needed the men with the ladder, so they duly arrived.
Anyway it was discovered that it was nothing to do with us at all, but our electricity comes from a box on our neighbour's house, goes down thick cables firstly into her house, then out of there and into our house. And what had happened was that the out-terminal which would then take electricity to our house was corroded and so we didn't get a free flow. That has since been fixed and we now have lights that are brighter than ever and clocks that tell the same time!!

But what God said to me is sometimes the reason we cannot go at full power this Him is that the person we are connected to has got a bit corroded and needs some help; that so often we forget, esp in this individualistic world we live in here in the west what it means to be part of The Body of Christ. Oh yes we talk about it but in an abstract way that was never mean to be, when in fact we are all so connected that when one of those who feed into us are not totally sorted then it effects us.
But also what can be our tendency if and when we do see this is to go tell them and sort them out!!! But what He is saying to me through this is that firstly we should be checking our own house is in order, which we do through prayer and checking with Him, and then we call Him in as He is the only one who knows totally how to handle the power that is needed to change people, to clean their connections up, which can only be done through prayer and then leaving Him to it. If we had tried to touch those cables we would've died the power was so great.
I believe He was saying to me that too often we don't understand the awesomeness of His power and we treat it lightly rather than treating it with the respect it all deserves.

Last Times

How often do we celebrate the last time we do something? How often does it pass us by?
This all started with something Ian had been discussing with other climbing instructors but feel it was a bit of a God prompt.
Since him coming home with that things have changed greatly in our lives what with Tabi deciding to go to college so home ed has come to an abrupt end, to Ben deciding not to continue with college and get a job - sort of making him grown up, or at least in the tax paying world. Added to that the fact that Ian and I are being more and more drawn into things here in our town from hooking up more and more with a congregation here to him getting work with people in our town. But have we remembered that last time things.
Oh every time we go on holiday the 4 of us Ian and I at least look at it as though this could be the last time both Ben and Tabi want to come with us. In fact even trips surfing and birthdays together can be looked at often as "this could be the last one". In fact Ben is talking of going skiing for his birthday next year. But even though we wondered on the last one if that was the last we were actually afraid to voice it, like with the holidays because even though it could be the last we sort of hope it won't be.
There are things with Tabi suddenly deciding to go to college that we will never be able to acknowledge that they were the last of ... like the social group meeting which stopped suddenly as once we didn't have the car, then she got involved with helping with this riding stable, and now we just aren't going; the indoor swimming pool trips which change to an outdoor pool around May time which of course at the time we planned to go back to; the debating which finished about 6 weeks ago and couldn't fit in one this month due to people starting to have holidays; this isn't home school related but I realized I missed that last time I read a story to my kids; - though there are many other things that as yet are not the last times but we always, I feel, need to be holding each moment as if it was the last time, treasuring it.
Oh we could be melancholy but that would be so wrong. We need to rejoice and be glad and just cherish each precious moment, and possible even with our teens cherish those aggressive pushes for independence that so hurt but are so important.
I am going to try to learn to cherish each moment and really live each day in that Glory that God means us to - that fullness of life that Jesus spoke of.