A Positive Blog

Need a new view of life

2011-11-11T10:49:00.000Z

Life is a funny old thing. The apostle Paul says we do the things we don't want to do and don't do the things we want to do. I know he means this in relation to sinning and pleasing God - as in sinning rather than pleasing God and how much more we do the later even though want to do the former.
I've just started university and have discovered how much easier it is to not do what I want. Yes there is the usual of facebooking, emailing or even blogging rather than doing assignments, but these lasts few days have made me realise how much easier it is to not do what you want. To do what you want involved changing the status quo and can upset those nearest to you.
Those nearest to you have got use to how you are, what you can achieve, and what you can do for them. But when you step out to do something you want, as I have been doing in the last year or so, then it messes everyone else up. No longer do I have the emotional energy to deal with everyone else's emotional stuff, or practical stuff. No longer do have the head space to even care that much to their little hassles.
"I'm scared of the dark" was important when I didn't have a history assignment to try to get into my head, or a writing assignment to try to figure out, but now even though it is something I would like to deal with I know I just don't have the head space.
And that is all it is. I no longer have the head space to deal with all the things that are important to the rest of the household and yet they still want me to, and actually I have tried to still be able to do that, which was wrong of me.
I have a choice today -- a series of choices in fact.
1. to let everything carry on as it is and feel angry and disappointed with myself for not being able to carry it all, and to think I'll get some super reward somewhere if I keep going - which won't happen because no one will notice.
2. I could quit and either stay home and be that housewife/mother that everyone expects, wants and needs, but then I would be frustrated.
3. Or I could say how I feel, put in some boundaries, refuse to do some things and hang the consequences.
But even as I write this I can see why we don't do what we want because setting boundaries, changing things, trying to explain how I feel, and sticking to it, is going to be much harder than doing nothing and just being there when everyone else needs supporting.

Yes Paul I can see why we don't do what we want and do do what we don't want.
I truth I want this degree, I want to change the world somehow, I want to be doing something that I can do till I go totally senile. And maybe through this I will be releasing others, but actually who cares whether I do or not. Let's be selfish and do something for me instead!

These Riots

2011-08-12T14:31:00.000+01:00

As everyone else is doing so I must put down my thoughts about these riots. I think everyone has looked at it from their stand point - especially these comments in the various papers about the causes, each paper giving a different reason depending on their political sociological background but this article here on youtube seems to say it all so much better than I can.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61eTtDkNjAc&feature=youtu.be

I started work in the youth service and what I have found is that we so often say "yes you have no hope" whereas this article, but two ex-gangsters who are now Christians who are actually teaching hope. And this is what we so need to do as youth workers. We can say there is a hope, there is a way to change your world, all is not lost. But instead we hand out free condoms so they can have sex without even the responsibility of buying the condoms!

What the young man who first speaks in this news-clip is repeated in a book I've just finished called "The Blood of Lambs" of a PLO terrorist who finds God. And its not that anyone gives either of these people the flat gospel message but in both cases Christians love on them. They give them the unconditional love that they have received from God. With that love these people went on to wanting to know more. And with the PLO guy had an amazing powerful encounter with God which changed him, with the ex London gangster a much more gentle meeting with God that has changed his life.

For me what has come out of this is that we need to be giving our young people more unconditional love but also more hope that they can do something for their worlds. Instead of giving free condoms we should be looking at their gifts and talents, what they can and cannot do, what their dreams are and how we can help them to help themselves make this come to pass.

Faith, Hope and Love - but the greatest of these is Love

Love Wins

2011-08-07T09:24:00.000+01:00

There has been lots of controversy over Rob Bell's "Love Wins" book, and some of it quite spiteful. I must say I found it an awesome book and as a friend who borrowed my copy texted me and said "why does it always surprise us that God is gracious and full of love. Great book to read and reminds us that so often upbringing, teaching, etc have caused us to forget that graciousness and love". Sums it all up really so this is going to be a short blog because of Beth's comment :-)
I've also been working through Fawn Parish's compilation called "Deeper Still" and Steve Hawthorne in an article taken from the "Perspectives" curriculum says so often we evangelize to either frighten people into believing in God so they go to heaven or so their lives will be better when in fact we should be bringing people to want to worship God here on this earth. "Now more than ever," Hawthorne says, "believers need to be nurtured into a jealousy for God's glory..." He talks of how Jesus never responded to the "naked need" but "deliberately recast His vision of the same lost crowds as something of greater value..of value to God"
This deals with the whole thought of whether Rob Bell is saying all roads lead to God and heaven or whether he is making evangelism irrelevant but actually saying that our desire, as Christians, should be to totally love God and then share that love so that others come to love and worship Him now on this earth.
As some very old, quite naff pop song of the 70's said "To know, know, know him is to love, love, love him and I do, and I do, and I do". OK so it was supposed to be a love song to a man but actually for us to God its true, if we know God we can do nothing else but love Him and worship Him, but so often as don't truly know Him!

Thomas

2011-07-28T12:15:00.000+01:00

It is very interesting that when the disciples are hesitant about going to see Lazarus, who is now dead, it is Thomas who seems to understand more about what is happening with his "if we are to go die with Him then we must go" statement. Why then do we remember Thomas not for this but as "Doubting Thomas"? Is this just a British thing? So often as Brits we remember the negative of what people do and not the positive. We so often raise people up so we can knock them down, though in this case it is John who records this. Maybe to show the other side of Thomas? Maybe to stop him being judge as a doubter? Maybe so that he can be seen as all of us are with many facets to our personalities?
I need to try and remember this that people must not be judged and boxed but that in different situations, in different times of their lives, in different moods, people react differently.
A lot of us parents at the moment are saying how we need to remember what are children were like before they became challenging teenagers and also to look to at they might become. Like Thomas who at one point rallies the disciples, another questions and then goes on to take the gospel into India, a brave step even then, and is supposed to have been crucified there. I do 3hrs a week for a local authority youth service and so want others there to not label the young people as problems but to give them wings so they can fly, but society isn't quite so keen on all that.
Today as I go to work I will try to remember what the Gospel of John tells me about Thomas, and what it tells me about myself and those I know. Don't put people in a negative box!

Jesus rides into Jerusalem

2011-07-26T17:10:00.003+01:00

I was thinking and wondering about how I would've felt on that first "Palm Sunday" with Jesus riding in to Jerusalem and all the crowds cheering. As I got thinking I wondered actually if the ordinary people were excited because here was a man who would maybe not over throw the Romans but might just over throw the controlling religious system the Pharisees had put them under.

Never once in the gospels does it say about Jesus coming head to head with the Roman government. In fact he says one should be paying taxes. But there are many records of Him coming head to head with the religious leaders. The people must have always struggled with the religious laws and of being outsides and here comes a man who flouts the religious laws but for good. He's not antagonistic for the sake of it but to heal, to save life, to feed, to restore and release.

I think Jesus was showing the people how to live in God's freedom under an oppressive government but free from religious oppression. I wonder if this is why people in the parts of the world where one is persecuted for being a believer in Jesus do can hang in there, because they see what He has taught on how to do this.

Often the Church can be accused of being the same as the Pharisees, and then a new freedom with God comes into being but then becomes religious again. But we need to remember when we see this that Jesus did not come and flout the religious rules to be mean, to cause hassle, to be sarcastic, to think He was better, but He came to do good and so must we.

Judas

2011-07-21T07:49:00.003+01:00

Its the summer holidays so I have a bit more time to think and blog!

I am reading my way through the Gospel of John at the moment and noticing things about the disciples that seem to be overlooked. Judas has always been seen as an evil man. He has been totally demonised. At the beginning of John chapter 11 we are told about Mary pouring expensive perfume over Jesus, unknowingly anointing Him for burial, and Judas challenging this. John uses this chance to inform us that Judas will go on to betray Jesus and we view his comments about it being a waste, John's comment on Judas taking from the shared purses, and Jesus "the poor will always be with you" statement.

Why did Judas take money from the common purse? What was there for him to spend it on? Why if Jesus knows all things did He pick Judas? And why did He give him the common purse to look after if He knew what he was like?

These guys are wandering around Palestine. What is there to spend money on? Did Judas sneak off for a quick cigarette? A craft drink? Womanizing? Or I wonder if he was giving money away to those he thought needed it but without Jesus' say so, and this is where I wonder if Judas is more like we are than we would care to see. How often do we do good deeds but do not check what Jesus wants? using the excuse that "its obvious"? How many projects, plans, desires, good deeds, missions, etc are not what Jesus wants and yet we do them anyway because we want to be compassionate? I do wonder if Judas was doing lots of good things and the point John wanted to make was that we should not do things, no matter how good, without the authority of Jesus otherwise these things are just us being the amazing humans God made us but not following after Jesus. It is said, in the commentary in my Bible, that Mary was honouring Jesus whilst He was here. I have heard many, who are extremely compassionate get upset when money is spent on churches, church projects, even looking back on the amazing gold and decorations in the medieval churches, and complain that it could've been spent on the poor, on justice missions, on "good deeds". In fact I know I have been guilty of thinking and saying that! But who is to say that those who put into His Church are not like Mary honouring Him whilst there is still time. As one knows in reading about Christians in other parts of the world they cannot even meet together let alone build a simple church without the risk of persecution and death. Perhaps we are meant to glorify His meeting places here?

Judas betrays Jesus, but there have been some thoughts on this that he did it because he could see where he thought things were going and wanted to make it right, want to manipulate Jesus into His kingdom on earth. The musical Jesus Christ Superstar explores this briefly. But again how after has the Holy Spirit started to move and we have enjoyed it but then seen a "better way" for it to be going in and so manipulated things. And then, like Judas, been remorseful and guilt ridden after wards, with some turning their backs on Jesus because of it.

So much of our view of the Bible, of God, of Christianity, has been tainted by what we've been taught, read, hear from others, read in classic and popular literature, with many thoughts from the superstitions of medieval times, that often we just regurgitate, whether believer or not. I believe as Christians we need to open our eyes and start learning straight from Jesus and asking for release from what we think we know. Judas may not be the bad guy we've allowed him to be made but maybe just like us in that situation!

Julius Caesar

2011-04-24T08:28:00.002+01:00

It must be in the air at the moment to read books about conquerors. Must say something about where I am/where God has me at the moment!!

This one I haven't yet finished but really the points that struck me as a Christian and again like with Genghis Khan of how we could be pulling together as a Body, are nearer the beginning when Julius is more idealistic and before he gets more into conquering for conquering sake.

Julius sees the vision of how Rome should be, a shared republic with everyone having an say and working to their talents, giving to make the best for Rome. He is frustrated with leaders who can only see as far as their own petty politics and wanting to be the best. As I sit here at home trying to decide where to go on this Easter Sunday, and even whether to go, I wonder how many congregation leaders will be thinking of their own groups, their own services, of wanting their stuff to bring in the most people, be the best, or how many are truly thinking and praying about the rest of their town, city, even county. How many leaders want the whole Body to grow or just their part of it? thinking that what they have is the best, the total?

I've just read a great bit on Gnosticm gathered by Fawn Parish which says that Gnosticm is where we the way into heaven is with a password and we have the password, not others. By that even some of the more lively charismatic congregations, who would never call themselves gnostics because they see that as something somber, aesthetic and introspective, actually are because they see their way as the only way. Check out Deeper Still which can be found by emailing Fawn on fawn@reignbridge.com

Julius's main aim, even as he gets more power hungry, is for the glory of Rome to envelope the whole earth. I just feel that as a follower of Jesus I need to be wanting that more and more. Not for people to "get it right", which often means just doing it the way I see as best, but of really wanting Jesus known every where, and so that those who know Him cannot keep quiet about Him and that includes me

Genghis Khan

2011-03-22T11:36:00.002Z

I should've done this ages ago whilst it was still fresh in my mind, but what with college, friends, family, etc, etc, etc I've not done it. But hopefully all I want to say will come out

We have just read a trilogy about Genghis Khan which I felt was a total story of what God wants His people to be like.

Genghis had been thrown out of his tribe by the new leader when he father died but during his time of intense survival got a vision that if he could unite the mongol tribes this would never happen to anyone else. Firstly he started with those who had no tribe, then started to gather the tribes. He discovered that the Chin people were actively encouraging war between the various mongol tribes as they knew if the tribes were fighting each other then China was safe.

How like church this has been over the ages - when someone is under the protect of the leader they are safe but if the leader dies or changes allegiance even that person is no longer safe. In church we can be quite brutal to those who don't fit in and there are many who "wander the plain alone not part of tribe" and are waiting for a leader. Also the devil is making sure the various denominations are always fighting amongst each other, always finding fault. Christians do more harm to each other than the outside world. Interestingly when I was doing my assignment for Religion and Philosophy even though other religions may go against there doctrine of "thou shalt not kill" Christians are the only ones who don't care about killing each other. - Ok so the Sunni and Shea Muslims do but this is much more clearly one side against the other, whereas Christians are ok about just going in for the kill with anyone who is not the same tribe as they are!

Another things was one of Genghis's brothers is threatened by a group of leaders from another tribe as Genghis is getting them all to live together and the beat him badly. But this brother says he knew if he called on the blood of Genghis, in other words said who his brother was they would not have dared to touch him
I wonder how ofter we forget to remind ourselves and our brothers in Christ that we are all related under His headship, and if we did call on The Blood of Jesus we would be safe for a good beating.

We do have someone who will join all the tribes together if only we would turn to him and stop trying to do it our own way. Jesus is the head and yet the parts of the Body seem quite happy to listen to the enemy, run around on their own, stab each other and not realise the damage they could do to the world if only they would unite.

Another thing was no one got left behind. When the warriors moved the families moved too. This worked in a way that meant the men would not go wandering to other women, but also that the children could see what warrior life really was. I think often when adults in the church do things they so often put on a separate even for the children, or behave in away that is different, rather than having the children watching, listening and learning of the battle they have to be in to be a Christian. The children then know the hardships as well as the glorious victories. I often wonder if our young people leave church because the going gets touch in the lives, especially as teenagers, they struggle with their walk with God, and yet all they have seen from the adults around them, sometimes even including their parents is this joyfulness because so many churches believe that we have to be happy clappy all the time.

Hope people are still out there watching and waiting for my blog. I'll facebook it and see if that helps. XX

Surprised!!

2011-01-28T16:24:00.002Z

Well after saying I've got no time I've got half an hour at the moment whilst Ian finishes working before we go away for the weekend for our 4th wedding anniversary, a president we put in when we first got married, that no matter what was going on we'd always go away on the weekend nearest our anniversary just to get some time out. Last year things were so exhausting we just seemed to sleep for most of the time!! Looks like it could be the same this year!! :-)

Anyway I have been pondering, as we have been doing Cultural Studies all about religion and philosophy and then in Lit studies as we've looked at The Life of Pi, and just how little people know about Christianity and yet how little they want to explore the truth of it. Some of the things that have been said about Christianity in our politically correct world we would not be able to say about any of the other religions.
But also people seem to want to explore the other religions, get to the bottom of them, find out what they are really all about, or at least find out the nice bits that suit their western philosophies. But with Christianity I've noticed we keep coming back to the this thing that we are a Christian country, Christianity is a bit dull and boring, judgmental and irrelevant for the modern world we live in! My thoughts on why are that I wonder whether in our countries Psyche we have got so use to "being christian" but all these other religions are new to us, as a country, and so we want to explore them all. Even though there have been Jews and Muslims in this country for centuries they have always been the foreigner but now we are seeing the Britishness in them and so want to know more! Maybe!
Also what has amazed me is how people who seem willing to explore any other thought or idea are so closed as to what they see Christianity. We have some great people on our course and who are teaching us and yet so many of them when it comes to Christianity, not to other religions, seem to think they know it all, do not want to explore and examine it all. A thought for Rick Joyner is that Christianity is the only religion where, if you really do follow Jesus, do not "do it yourself", that Christianity has nothing to do with our efforts but all to do with Jesus' and this is why its an anathema to so many people.
Interesting too, I got called an agnostic by one of our lecturers today because of the fact that I could do decide whether I like the idea of the tiger in Life of Pi being his alter ego or a real story. Very interesting. I wonder too if she has made this decision on some of the questions I ask and points I make, because to me Christianity is all about the journey. We know the final destination, eternity with God, but we want to grow to become more like Jesus on this earth and also to take as many people with us as we can, and who can have life and life in abundance on this earth. Again I have been getting the distinct impression that people see Christians as just marking time till heaven and to be on a journey to discovering God must be agnosticism as their view of Christianity does not meet this.
The more time I spend with people the more amazing they are!!

Oh well off to now get the man away from the computer so we can get away. XX

No Time No Clear Thoughts

2011-01-24T17:17:00.002Z

I am fully gripped with this college course at the moment. A friend asked recently why I hadn't blogged in so long. It is because all my time and energy and thought process is filled up with writing assignments, dealing with home and family, launching my kids into the big wide world and just getting by.
I am loving college but the fact that for Access to HE we have to do 6+ subjects all of which come with assignments there is always just so much buzzing in my head all the time. i write essays in my sleep, pray for my children who are not children any more and their future whilst I'm on the bus.
I totally admire those mums who've been full time workers, or even part time workers, and full time mums. I admire those who can blog and do study. Actually most of all I admire all the young people who go to college and still hold on to God. College is an amazingly hostile place to follow God. Western civilization is not just very humanist but very antagonistic to Christianity in very open ways. Things that are done and said would not be said about other religions, or at least not about certain other religions. I can understand why young people either keep their heads down or lose their faith entirely.
Thankfully my daughter is one of the "keeping her head down" and is surviving. I keep praying for her. I can see though why my son moved away, just slowly.
God is big enough though.
Anyway I've got a place doing History at Bath Spa University for Sept 2011, and I've also got a part time job as an assistant youth worker which will help pay for the coffee habit I've developed since starting college. Oh the conversations are great and I do have an amazing time sharing who God is with people, but with all this blogging will be few and far between.
But that doesn't mean I'm not still thinking.....

The Nativity

2010-12-24T09:32:00.002Z

I've just watched The Nativity on www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer Well worth it. But interestingly it very much follows along from what I was saying in my last post, about Mary being despised, Joseph struggling to accept it all - very much as one would expect a young man to be when his betrothed shows she's pregnant. Jesus is born away from friends and family and, even though it is never said, a prostitute is the midwife. Must be because she doesn't have her head covered.

A friend of mine has been having dreams that God is going to be doing something very new, and I think getting our heads round the idea that Jesus was born alone, with the despised of society around Him and that even though now Mary is revered at the time she was nearly stoned to death, and that wonderful Joseph took a while to be able to accept this truth.

I am interested to know what God is up to and wonder how much time I'll get over the holidays to pray and ponder it all?

Mary and Joseph

2010-12-19T13:27:00.003Z

I have been pondering Mary, the mother of Jesus, and it was pulled together a wee bit by the sermon I heard today. She is totally amazing in what she endured and yet so little is known about her or mentioned, which I suppose for the early readers didn't need to be said because it was known.

Here was a young girl, probably barely 15, who gets a visitation from an angel and becomes pregnant. God has put her with an awesome fiance who can understand dreams and is obedient to God. Following on from hearing the Jewish guy the other day with the key factor of Jews being they obey God this makes these 2 people pure Jews, totally ready to parent the Son of God.

But what must these 2 people endure. Did anyone suggest to Mary she have an abortion? Did anyone encourage Joseph to get her to get rid of the baby? We know he considered "putting her aside quietly" but as for what had been suggested to him about the baby we will never know.

I have been pondering on the whole thing of there being no room for them in Bethlehem even though she was heavily pregnant. The usual bit at the moment is that this was wrong and the couple would have been welcomed in by Joseph's family and she would've had the baby in the place in the home surrounded by Joseph's female relatives. But what if they had decided that she was duping their man, and that he was a bit of an idiot to still be hanging around with her. Maybe when they turned up at his family home he was told that he could come in but not the trollop and that if he was going to stay with this awful woman who had duped him into taking her on as his wife even though she was pregnant with someone else's child they he was not entering their home. This makes Joseph even more amazing than at first glance, being willing to be rejected by his family to obey God, but also makes the birth of Jesus even more of a place of rejection. It was not that the inn keeper would not let them in but there was no room for them in Bethlehem with anyone and that they were seen as total outcasts.

Wow! Again as I ponder the birth of Jesus I do wonder if I could obey God that much to be rejected by my family and be totally alone. Not such a great fluffy, fun story as most of our nativity plays and sermons make out.

As someone was saying the other day "Your God's not fair" meaning how only those who believe will get to live for eternity with Him, but I do wonder just how fair God is to allow His only son to be born not just into such poverty but into such rejection and for Him to have not emotional scars. He couldn't have done because He was still willing to lay down His life for us!

Our Heritage

2010-12-16T10:33:00.003Z

Yesterday in our Cultural Studies lesson we had a lovely Jewish man come and talk about his faith. Our current unit is religion and philosophy.

Listening to this Jewish man talk about his faith, which they don't call a faith but more a way of being, a lifestyle, a who they are, the more I could understand deeper some of the things of Jesus.

One of the things he said about was that they mustn't avoid legitimate pleasures, and there are rules about having to drink wine, of getting drunk at least once year, and of how many times a married couple must have sex, as well as other things! But what struck me was that when Jesus said "I will give you life and life in abundance" he was referring to these rules, because we must always remember that Jesus was talking to Jews. I think we so often forget that and put our western mindset on things. I believe what Jesus was saying was that we were no longer bound by rules but by Grace and so really our lives should be even more about grabbing the legitimate pleasure of God, not about being assure, miserable, solemn.

Another one was that the Levites were the priests because they were the most war-like of the tribes and it meant they would never carry weapons again. As Christians we are known as the Royal Priesthood, amongst other things, which to me means if we have those war-like tendencies lurking about which would make sense of the Crusades, Inquisition, etc.

Another he mentioned was that Jews expect God to have prepared a place for them in the world to come that will reflect how they lived their lives on earth, how they fulfilled the destiny God had for them. To me this is saying about when Jesus says "My Father has prepared a mansion/room/house" (depending on translation) to the Jews again this would be that reassurance that God knew what they were doing and was preparing things for them as He has promised.

And he talked about how Jews do the rules because the important thing is to obey God and that is what defined Abraham. This guy didn't believe Abraham was the only person God was talking to but he was the only one who obeyed. Again for me that is what defines me as a Christian, not that I remember to keep the rules, do the right thing, even that I live a good life, but that I obey God.

God was speaking to me about obeying Him and of Him having put me just where He wants me on Sunday during worship time and after in the talk, which I did need as I've been feeling like I'm having a hard time both at college and at home. And for me this whole thing of obeying God is what will mark me out as being different.
I noticed some in my class who had come with their own thoughts and theories and were going to voice them, and that is so how Christians can be. We think we know what is right and we are not going to listen to anyone else but, as I know I've said before, if we are all made int he image of God then we all possess a piece of God, and for me this Jewish man says he prays to God 3 times a day, he must be able to share with me, with us all, a piece of God and help us to grow in our spiritual journey here on earth.

If I get time I will continue these thoughts but ....

Living the Mystery

2010-11-28T14:57:00.002Z

Hey three weeks running and I've been to the same Anglican church. In fact I can't remember when I last went to church 3 weeks running. In fact its been 4 weeks running as I was at a large charismatic church before this 3 week run!!

This morning the talk was about how we should be living the mystery of Advent and of Jesus in us not just talking about it, and not just coming to church. This all fitted in very nicely with a lovely friend who always makes me think, who asked if my blog was always faith based. I haven't replied to her email yet but this sermon got me thinking. And you know what I think that everything I consciously do should be faith based. Ok so I know too that everything I subconsciously do should be faith based too but I'm not so good at that. I screw up, I swear, I make mistakes, I lose my temper, I do lots of things that I'm not ready to confess here as yet. But deep inside what I really want to be doing is living my life based on Faith and Trust in Jesus, the Son of God, who came to bring me into right relationship with God the Father.

I am reading more and more books as I slog back and forth on the bus and all of them are leading me to want my life to be open to God so that through that I'm open to others and in bring them to be able to touch with God. I know there are some out there who are hungry for Him, some who are settled in where they are, some who really do not care, but I am hoping with all those God puts across my path they can see some of the mystery of Him lived out in my life.

How will I be able to do this? I don't quite know but I am hoping His Spirit in me and my being tuned into Him and want to live my whole life as a faith based life bring this into being.

Worshiping!!!

2010-11-25T19:54:00.002Z

Last night I took Ian out last night to see the Saw Doctors, a folk rock band he use to follow ages ago that he hasn't seen in the time I've known him. It was my early Christmas present to him. I had never seen or heard anything by the band before but really loved it.
They were a great, lively band of older men, like most of the audience in age, full of fun and vitality. But much of it was like the average charismatic church but without the preaching, collection and prayers.
We all faced the band (always good when you've paid to see them), people knew the words (though with the band it was from listening to the songs not from the OHP), there was lots of clapping (some in time and some out of time), hands in the air waving, dancing, people generally being friendly and enjoying being in the crowd. It got me wondering though, as I was swept along with the atmosphere, how much of what goes on in the average charismatic church is really worshiping God or is it being swept along by the atmosphere. And who's to say when and where the Holy Spirit turns up anyway. There was one point when the song was very deep and meaningful and the saxophone was really taking the crowd that it felt like a true God moment. To me it felt like God had turned up.
The similarities were amazing and as I looked at my ring which says in Greek "No one lives for themselves" I felt like God saying that this was not just for us Christians but for all mankind - we all live for each other and that we are, not so much pack animals, though one can see that so often, but more connected to each other in some deeper way, something more spiritual. There is something in the fact that, if one believes the Bible, we are all children of God whether we choose to follow Him or not, He still made us all, and so there is that God connection in all of us.
Was last night worship? Maybe! But also sometimes on a Sunday morning we are worshiping the band, the sound system, the choice of songs, the whole set up rather than God.

Advent

2010-11-21T15:36:00.002Z

I got invited today to our local Anglican church's woman's Bible study. It really does cater for busy women as it is at 10.30 on Sunday morning to coincide with the main service so those with children don't have to look for a baby sitter, those with husbands who don't go don't have to make another day to be out of the house, and those who are busy don't have to try to find another space in their calendar.
Now I don't know what it is about Anglicans and how time just seems to stand still for them. I have always found that Anglicans, maybe because they are so clear at what they do can do twice, three times as much, as charismatics and can make one feel more special and more relaxed Maybe I just hit lucky, or maybe God's trying to tell me something.

Anyway we were looking at Advent, which for me feels very important as I know so many people, including myself, who have something they are waiting, often not as patiently as they should, for God to help them give birth to something, to reveal the next piece of the plan, the puzzle, to give them the leg up to the next bit of the journey. So like the established church so many people are waiting. And I was expecting something about this.
The person leading got us to think instead that this is a time to remember we are not just waiting for the remembrance of the first coming of Jesus, but also to be remembering the second coming of Jesus, which as we should all know from reading our Bibles will be a totally scary time, a time of judgments, and God coming in Power, and of the moon turning to blood and many other quite scary things. Even though it will also herald in the amazing time of Jesus living on this earth with us, it is not a pleasant period to have to live through. But it is what we should be looking forward too as well.
We looked at 1Thess 4:13-5:7 and how Paul reassures the people that all, even those already dead, will be risen with Christ in the last days, but what we all noted was that twice he says to encourage each other. This is a hard journey the Christian one. Christianity, when we truly open ourselves up to Jesus is a hard journey of changing our sinful ways and becoming more like Him, and there are so many different ways of doing that, and some of them maybe not Holy Spirit led. But in this hard journey we do need to connect with people who are going to walk with us, how are going to encourage us and who will understand how hard it all is.
Do we get this in church? I think at times we do. But I think most importantly we get it with friends who really know the struggle we are going through, who really know how much we are changing and how much we want to change. Fellowship is about being with each other together on the journey

Maybe some of what we should remember...

2010-11-12T12:03:00.003Z

I have carried on pondering these thoughts of remembering and it has struck me that we do need to remember so many things but one is that we live in a free country where it is safe to protest.
My daughter was on the student protest in London on Weds (10th Nov 2010) and she has some photos of some of the demonstrators who got into the Millibank building. She did also get glass in her eye when they knocked the windows out which a kindly policeman sorted out for her and she is fine. Just a boosted ego!!
But what has struck me, especially as we are doing about apartheid in Cultural Studies is how free were are in the country to protest and how people are seen, on the whole as individuals. Oh people will cry Police brutality at some things. I wonder if we expect are Police to be more than human at times.
But when Tabi was hut she was seen as something separate to what was going on, and was treated accordingly. In many other countries she could have been beaten and arrested just because of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Even these anarchists will not be beaten until they confess, will not be placed in a dank prison where they may never get out of.
Ok we might say that the government will not take any notice of these protest, which is what has led to a lot of apathy over recent years on protesting but at least we are free and safe to do it.
Let us maybe remember what we could've been.

Remembrance Day

2010-11-11T17:58:00.002Z

A day to remember.
But to remember what?
The origins of Remembrance Day were so that Europe would remember what happened in The Great War.
That was the 1st World War to us now.
So many wars have happened since then.
So many young men have died.
What are we remembering?
I find it all very confusing, especially as I spent years as a Peace protester - an interesting oxymoron!
I forgot again to remember the 2 minutes silence at 11 o'clock as did my young companions. But what could I have told them if I had remembered.
In Bath at 8.45 Monday morning a group of soldiers were putting poppies in the a lovely stone cross on the ground outside the abbey and seemed to be doing the 11th November service which seemed a bit strange.
Now these soldiers they know what they are remembering. I'm sure many have lost comrades.
My son is still talking of joining the army and still keeps going to the selection dates and being deferred for one reason or another but still the journey there continues. I pray that war will be over by the time they let him in but Jesus seemed to promise that there would be wars and rumours of wars till He returned so unless He comes back before the Army or whoever take Ben then the wars will continue.
As I've been writing this I think what I shall remember is Jesus who fought the ultimate war with the evil one for our sakes so that we could be reconciled with God. Jesus took on Himself all those things that cause wars; jealousy, fear, greed, control. And because of Him we can find peace and freedom in this world in our hearts, and in the next totally.
So often too the world does the same to Jesus as they do for the soldiers that have died; they don't understand and so they just ignore it.
Please help me, Lord, to remember those mortal men who died so that I live in a free country, so that we can go an protest like the students did yesterday, but also help me to remember You, dear Jesus, who died for me so that I can be totally free.

Course!

2010-11-09T16:29:00.003Z

Oh and forgot to say in update - I've sent off my university application to do History and Creative Writing in Bath Spa, and 2nd choice of History in either Bath or Bristol. My tutor was full supportive. My personal statement came together really quickly and easily. Interesting how that is so often the case when we do what we should be doing. So now it is just waiting for the whole UCAS process to happen and to get accepted in one of these.
Please pray its Bath Spa as it would just be so much easier to get to and I'd love to do the joint honors of History and Creative Writing.

Witnessing

2010-11-09T16:18:00.002Z

I have realized when I decide to let God in on stuff just how much I want to talk about Him.
Since starting college life has been a bit up and down, a struggle to put it mildly. I have had a long chat with God after being told I needed more inner healing, after a throwaway remark I made, and not having the time to be able to spare to fit it in. Interesting one of the things I'm stressed with is finding time to do everything and yet here was someone suggesting how to fill more of my time!! Duh!!
Anyway long chat which seemed to help, but one of the things I did ask Him was, silly though it may seem, what book I should do for my book review. We had to do something fictional and I just love reading so it was hard to choose which one to pick. The one I was reading at the time didn't seem right. Anyway I picked a Francine Rivers one, Atonement Child, which is about a Christian girl who gets raped and people's reaction to the whole thing of whether she should abort the baby or not. In my talk I managed to link it in with Mary, the mother of Jesus, and of how maybe she'd had it suggested that she have an abortion, and maybe that was why she went off to stay with Elizabeth until she was too far pregnant. I managed to weave in God being a God of love and grace who we can trust not a God of rules.
But the most interesting thing to come out of this, even before I got to do my talk, is that I have had so many opportunities to talk about God; from my testimony, to explaining about love and grace and so much more.
It is like I was willing to make my self vulnerable in doing this book talk, which actually was only 2-3 minutes with no questions after, and God has just opened doors for my willing heart to just speak out. It is all very exciting.
Also for me it is all much more real than going to do Healing on The Streets or other forms of street evangelism or witnessing. I have always preferred the sitting around chatting to friends and telling my story. And what has amazed me is just how accepting people are of me.
Maybe its because this time together is going to be short but maybe too its because having been challenged on hurts inside me I have opened up my relationship to God again and let Him in to do the healing - not a course or program!!

Medicines

2010-10-30T11:47:00.002+01:00

Another chance for a quick blog before starting back to college on Monday!!

This time I've been thinking about how we in the West view healing and medicines. I have seen how the British health service has taken my father-in-law and step father and treated each of their ailments as individual ailments but never as holistic. And yet as Christians we are happy to send someone to the local hospital after we've prayed for healing for them if nothing happens. But to suggest sending someone to a herbalist, who deals in holistic medicine and how may or may not be a Christian is seen as wrong. We seem to put our trust in the trained professionals whether doctors or preachers. Again I find that if I, in certain places, were to stand up and preach, prophecy, whatever, I would be asked where I got my training from and if I said just from God I could be looked as askance.
I am not saying that we go to untrained herbalists or acupuncturists or other types of alternative healers, but I am also saying that not all doctors are Christians and so maybe we should not put so much trust in them as we do.
Perhaps again we need to go back to trusting God and asking Him what His plan is for our healing!!

Best Laid Plans.....

2010-10-29T18:50:00.002+01:00

I was planning to blog every day because of it being half term but there has been family and friends to catch up with and assignments to get sorted and God on the move.

There seemed to be a plan at one point at to what I was doing but now things have shifted. I think I am being led down a path I'm not sure about which will not have the same clout and recognition I had been hoping and then this morning I read in "Reconciliation and Justice as a Way of Life" in an article from John S Holden called "A Witness and a Testimony" (oh this is where college seems to be kicking in - everything is referenced!!) that I am very slowly working through, 'You want for instance to do some great service and to fill some great sphere. but Christ's answer to your longing is to set you down to face the difficulties of a small work in a place where there is little recognition'.
I have had to put together a personal statement in my university application process and have found it very hard. It is very much about honouring oneself which is just so hard anyway. But I had planned to do Social Policy on a number of accounts; it makes going to university at my age worth it as it will be doing something worthwhile, and also I have had this prophecy about how I have the keys for industry, agriculture, the arts, education, government, and so much more that I believed going into something Social Policy related would be the way God would fulfill that.
Well after a trying week trying to do a Sociology assignment and get this personal statement to be on the Social Policy angle I gave it up to God. Oh why didn't I do that in the first place. And then started on a Cultural Studies/History assignment which I was really enjoying.
Well what seems to have come out of it, and from this sentence from this article and other types of confirmation is that it looks like I'll be doing History and Creative Writing. I've always wanted to do Creative Writing but have been put off as it seems so popular at the moment. I just love to write. And also I have always loved History and in fact said not so long back that I wish I'd been encouraged to do History when I was 18.
I have a friend at the moment who is struggling with his life but he says he wont pray about it because God may not give him the answer he wants. I know God isn't obtuse but sometimes if we are willing to say, and mean, 'Jesus, You are Lord of my life' then sometimes He does what we don't expect. Or what I feel in my case, is pushing me where I wanted to go but didn't think it was 'good enough'.
Thank goodness we have a loving Father who's on our side. Shame we don't trust Him more :-)

Jesus Christ Superstar

2010-10-24T15:47:00.002+01:00

I've been meaning to blog the thought on going to this for about 3 weeks now but the busyness of college and family life is taking its toil, so some of my first impressions will not be there but here goes -

Firstly it was great to see an amazing rock opera done with such skill and style by an amateur dramatic group. And with the director being an acquaintance of ours that made it even more fun.
From what I remember neither Andrew Lloyd Webber or Tim Rice were Christians when they wrote this and I know this director isn't which actually makes it an interesting piece to wonder at why they did it. But to me, in that last week of Jesus' earthly life so often in Church we forget that He was fully human as well as full divine. Here was a real man, with feelings, knowing He was going to His death, a death that He had witness probably hundreds of times and so knew how horrid, how painful it could be, and by this point would know what His human body could endure. He knew what the total humiliation was going to be and I do wonder if He feared He would let everyone down, that His humanness would totally take over.
I'm not sure about others, but for me very much the fact that Jesus could go through all that fully human and still obey God, that He did have fears and concerns, that He did wonder what the whole point to it was, why after all His time on earth there were still beggars, cripples, people who needed healing, people who still didn't recognize who He really was, what was really inside of Him, and yet inspite of all that He was still willing to obey God, still willing to go to the cross and die in the hope that He and His Father had got things sorted, that He was doing the right thing.
Sometimes I get upset that people don't know who I am, that they don't see what is inside of me and because of who they are hear things that I say in a different way to what I mean, and yet God knows and actually I am just to be open and to obey God. And if Jesus truly was fully human, as well as fully divine, if Jesus also felt insecure in His mission, and had real human feelings and yet still obeyed then I know I can do it too.
I wonder why so often though we do not want to see the humanness of Jesus. I wonder if that would mean that if we did then we would know that His live and His obedience to God are obtainable, whereas if we accentuate His divinity over and above His humanity then we can keep telling ourselves that we will never attain to what Jesus did!!!
I do remember someone once teaching that if we could get our heads round the fact that Jesus' divinity in His humanness came from the same Holy Spirit that lives in us then we would be so so different.

College and busy life

2010-09-26T13:35:00.002+01:00

I'm afraid I've been very lax in write and reading blogs and emails. I am taking today for a big catch up. I started college 2 weeks ago and I love it but having to be on a bus at 7.55 4 mornings a week and then 9am on the other day, having homework to do, and having taken on a couple of part time jobs, and then there is all the other things like running the home that have kept me busy beforehand. I have often felt for women how have to work full time and how hard it must be for them to effectively run a home, be with their kids, their husband - who I do find is the one I neglect! - and have time to read a book too, and now I totally sympathize with them. Though at times I still feel a light weight when I hear of these women on my course who are running families, doing this course and working loads more than I do but we are not to compare.

It has been great though too in that most mornings I get 40 mins head space. I am using it to read a book by Tommy Tenney on Esther called "Finding Favour with the King". It really is about how we can be lazy Christians; how we find it easy to give thanksgiving to God, esp when He is giving us things, to praise the One who gives us great gifts and to look to the gifts, but of how few of us really want to just worship God for the fact that He is God, including all the bits we don't understand. Are we willing not to give God a list but to find out what He wants and to get close to Him, to really get intimate with Him for intimate's sake?

I have found this time so helpful. Reading a chapter and then letting it sink in as I wait for the bus to complete its journey is really refreshing me. I'm not sleeping well because of so many things inside my head but chewing on these thoughts and wondering how to be intimate with God during a hectic day really does put a different light on things. It is make life easier with my husband, with my slightly wayward son at the moment, with my busy daughter, with my hectic routine, with missing my friends who I don't get the time to see.

I really do want to spend time with Father God just because of who He is not because of what I might get out of Him, and actually deep inside what I am hoping is that through that being with Him it can flow out of me and change the world around me.

Oh I'm not saying I don't lose the plot with everyone at times and find, esp immediate family frustrating, but I do know that I can get back to that place much quicker than beforehand.

Oh loads more I still want to explore. Joanna, Fawn Parish who runs the Reconciliation week I was on has written a great book about Honor called believe it or not "Honour: What Love Looks Like", which I have read and "The Power of Honor" which I haven't read, both of which are on Amazon!

FatherHeart

2010-09-13T16:07:00.002+01:00

First I want to say that a lot of the reason I keep going with this is the great comments I get from people. So thank you to you all for your comments, on the blog, in emails to me and on Facebook. Thank you!

Well it was an awesome week. It was a great time to catch up with people who I had not seen in over 6 years and to find that there was still that heart connection, and to meet up with new people and establish something there too. It was like coming home, like finding family, finding my tribe. I seem to have a tribe scattered world wide and someone did pray that I would find some of my tribe nearer to home too. And knowing God answers prayer I will wait and see.

It was great to be with some "big people" in the world of reconciliation and to hear them say that they are still learning, wanting input and that even though some of them are known names we are all important. We sat in a circle and though Brian and Rhianon were the main people to share their stories there was room for everyone to input, my stories being as valid as theirs, and lots of room to ask questions, to explore and tease out things, and to realise that for some things this side of heaven we really do not know the answers and we do not want to put God into a box, no matter how big!!

I've got loads I want to share but am going to start with things I learned from Rhianon Lloyd, which I know will expand as I have time to unpack all this, explore it, reread my notes and to pray.
Rhianon is involved in trauma counseling and reconciliation in Africa and really God put together what she does as she was doing it when she went to Rwanda 12 weeks after the genocide. And we need to realise that we should not go in with a set program but to let God lead and direct and be willing for Him to take and use us and go from there. Yes Rhianon had some training which was why she was asked over in the first place but she is a humble lady, and again this shows what the word humble means - someone who has total confidence in God and that He will take the lead, and a willingness to trust that leading.

It appears in so many things that we so often start the story of the Gospel, the good news of Jesus, in the middle. Rhianon goes into these stricken countries and meets with those who many not even know Jesus yet and talks to them about what they see as the perfect Father and they spend some time exploring this. Then she is able to tell them actually God is the Father they have been looking for and that He can be trusted with all their hurts and pains, which as you can imagine after a genocide are more than many of us could even imagine. Though actually God was talking to me and telling me just how real He sees my pain just as much as He sees that of the genocide victims.
Once one knows one can trust God the Father then the Cross can be introduced as the safe place to put all one's hurts, pains, sins, sinned againsts, and place it all at the Cross and accept God's forgiveness through Jesus. I feel that very often we say God is Father and that Jesus died so we can be forgiven but actually we do not help people to see that this Father is one who can be trust and who wont use what they say against them. And how a lot of the time we come to Jesus with hurts and get told He will forgive our sins.
Very much even in those who are victims of genocide they have sinned too by the attitude they have taken to their oppressor. They, understandably, want to see vengeance, our human form of justice happen. And Rhianon takes them through this journey of putting them accepting God's forgiveness through Jesus for their attitudes, and many repent for what they did not do, and getting them to a place where they truly want those who brutally murdered their families to have that same freedom and forgiveness as they have received through Jesus. How many of us want that from those who've hurt us? Hutu and Tutsi are together repenting and forgiving and blessing and honouring.

Now that is something I want to explore next time - the whole concept of honouring!

Healing

2010-09-06T10:33:00.003+01:00

I'm off for a week conference, though will be a sort of retreat too before the busyness of work and college, from today till Friday. I leave in half an hour and am all ready packed and sorted. Hopefully I will get time to put some of the highlights in when I get back!

Here is a thought before I go - I have been reading my way through the gospels and it amazes me how many times when Jesus heals someone he tells them not to tell anyone and yet when there are healing services in churches we are always told to bring our friends and to tell everyone about what goes on. I wonder why this is.
To me we seem to use healings as a sort of testimony that Jesus/God has power and can heal and this is the big thing. Whereas Jesus said the greatest commandments, which is meaning the main things we are to do, is to love God with everything we have and love others as ourselves.
I wonder if at times we like miracles because then we don't have to do the lifestyle? This is why I love the reconciliation group that I will be with for the next 5 days because it is all about lifestyle, loving the unlovable, which is usually the person that winds us up the most, but also many others, of building bridges and seeing God's glory come in healing hearts as well as limbs and for lifestyles of those who are being reached out to and those doing the reaching.

Again for me I see so many things that are not something that can be quantifiable as a leg growing or sight being restored but that actually goes a lot deeper and empowers people, produces a love and acceptance so that all can reach their God given potential.
I am not saying physical healings are wrong because they must be right because Jesus did them but I am saying that they are like the icing on the cake and really we are to love God and love others and our lifestyle must reflect this.

Summer Rushed By

2010-08-29T11:50:00.002+01:00

It has been 12 days since I last had time to really sit down and write anything. Summer has been a whirl - a whirl of what I'm not sure because even when I look back in my diary I cannot quite see what has gone on.
Tabi and I did get our trip to Blenhiem Palace in at last, though the plan for the summer was to do lots of stately homes but the time just flew by. Its that whole thing of working out how to be spontaneous and how much one needs to plan in. It really has got me thinking about how so often things can just get caught up in today and trying to keep the whole show on the road.
This is a bit how life has been for us as we have got busier. Sometimes time really is just doing the house, cooking meals, working (which I have just started on - and then go on to college soon!!) and of how the more one does that the vision disappears.
I have been praying a lot about the whole thing of the church leaders in Weymouth and of them having to keep the whole show on the road as their congregations expect a sermon every week, pastoral care, the leader to turn up and endorse their various other meetings, etc, etc. But I have also been praying and pondering about what God wants us to be doing. I did have a vision for our town and of praying stuff for it, and we seem to be being blessed by another couple wanting to start a simple church idea in our home, but I wonder with that what vision we should have.
We have been busy, busy just living life, and I feel that we have lost the connectedness between us as a couple and from that have lost the vision we should be praying about. Ok so we suffer from the fact we do see the world very differently and so getting a joint vision is hard work, but it seems to me that the busier we have got the more we have got in with just the business of living life and have forgotten to make time to hang out with God, with each other, not just to watch TV but to pray and to find this vision we are meant to be having.
Oh I could make lots of excuses as to why we haven't been able to do that, and most of them are really good. In fact some of the excuses would involve helping others, but still we have lost the point and purpose to why we are here and we need to refind that.
Hopefully in the busyness of college, family, keeping house, working, etc we are going to understand the urgency of making time to keep that vision in place. And maybe too we will be able to be kinder to those who have got so caught up in keep the whole show together that they have lost the bigger picture.
My prayer today is to help me/us to find that bigger picture, the vision God has for us for now

Next Wave - Please Pray

2010-08-18T16:37:00.003+01:00

Still things roll on with the 2012 Olympics and it would be great if you could all pray about the YWAM boat Next Wave getting the only berth left in Weymouth harbour for the sailing side of the 2012 Olympics. The local churches have to put together a proposal to say why the boat should be there to convince the local council. YWAM very much want to use the boat to serve the area and serve the Olympics so it would bring a team who would be willing to volunteer for other things, would be a safe place of hospitality, and would be willing to just be there for people.
The proposal needs to be in very soon and the local churches seem to be having trouble just finding the time as well as running their churches. Something I think happens so often in local church; one goes into survival mode and cannot see that bigger picture, but that is for another blog :)
My son Ben served on it for 4 weeks when it was first here in the UK back in 2006 so we do have a connection with it. And Brian Sloane, the man in charge, has said he'd like me to be involved in the planning of things if the boat gets accepted. This would be a great chance of us to reconnect with YWAM and find a space to serve our country at this amazing time.
I really do feel that 2012 is a significant year and that there is something in that Mayan prophecy which the movie 2012 was based on. I don't think the world will end like that but I do think something significant will happen, maybe on the lines of the Gutenberg Press which changed the way people lived and view the world back in 1436!!

Labeling

2010-08-18T16:31:00.002+01:00

Labeling is a funny thing, esp as we use it more and more to identify people these days. Box people some would say. But we seem to have a concept on what labeling is, whether it is good labeling or bad labeling. If I say I'm prophetic that is seen as good labeling, if I say I'm greedy that can be either depending on what I say I'm greedy for. Why is it ok to be greedy for God and yet wrong to be greedy for power?
Just recently we have been looking into Asperger's Syndrome because my lovely husband displays an awful lot of the characteristics of this way of looking at life. It is totally amazing the traits in it, all very frustrating for those of us who don't see the world that way and who have to work around this lovely person but very much without these people we could all still be stilling about drinking tea in caves and talking about what needed doing.
But it has been interesting how why Ian has tried to explore this with people, esp Christians, he has been told not to take on board that label. It is seen as a bad label, hence then finding it hard to work out how we live as a Christian couple with seeing the world so differently. I do wonder if he said that he was an evangelist, that would be a good label, and if we were struggling as a couple to deal with his way of looking at life of wanting to evangelise everyone he saw then we would get loads of help.
It seems to me that good labels get help but "bad labels" people struggle to accept and to deal with, esp in Christian circles.
I wonder what other differing labels like that come to mind?

Humility

2010-08-10T15:58:00.002+01:00

I've been having an interesting chew over on this one after recently my other half has been told he's humble on 2 different occasions. Now I am not saying he isn't but I did realise that the suggestion of him being humble is that he is quiet, thinks a lot before he speaks and is quite wise, on the whole, when he does speak. Very cool but is this really what humble is? Are those of us who seem to speak quickly not humble? Very much we are often not seen as humble by others.

I was looking up what humble meant in a recent Bible study I was doing about Jesus who was the most humblest person ever but He was quick to speak, often put people in their place, though I know too that what He said was the right thing to say too.

So after much prayer, thought, chewing over whilst doing other things, the conclusion I have come to is that being humble means being totally reliant on God, knowing that with God we can do all things but without Him we are nothing. Its not about being quiet and not doing things, of sitting meekly in the corner, it is about being bold enough to step out there and be and do knowing how great our God is and how much He wants to do with us.

Wonder if I'm right? But I know I'm going to keep on working on learning to rely on Him.

Torn Ligaments

2010-08-09T21:07:00.002+01:00

I was with a neighbour the other day talking about another neighbour who'd had a car accident. Her and her daughter had similar injuries but her daughter had broken her foot, the mother had torn ligaments. What my neighbour said fascinated me. She said that the torn ligaments were not so noticeable to begin with and would take longer to heal.

In Ephesians 4:16 it says "from whom the whole body, joined and knit together tightly by ligaments, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love"

As I keep being burdened by a need to pray for unity in The Church this really has struck me. I wonder how many of the divisions in the Body of Christ weren't noticed at first, were just a bit painful, but then as time went on one knew something was wrong but wasn't sure what. But then when the problem is discovered it will take a long time to heal. This is, I think, why its a burden few want to carry. If I'd have known that it was so hard maybe I wouldn't have taken it on either :)

But anyway this is a long drawn out process. In fact once a ligament is torn then it often never heals the same. Also it is not uncommon for people with torn ligaments to get depressed. I wonder sometimes if that goes on in our congregations as a collective, not as individuals, but as a corporate body. There is a malady, a feeling of not wanting things to change, of needing to potter on in the same old same old just because to do anything else takes too much.

What we must realise too, which is encouraging, is that even when a ligament is severely torn and the person may never walk again the body is still intaked, just not able to function and be as effective as it should be. Perhaps too this is why we often wonder why The Church seems so ineffective in some areas, but that could just be because it is a useless ligament that we need to wait for it to heal.

Father God we need You to do a might miracle and heal these torn ligaments, to help us see the tearing and to try to use these joints when things are still torn.

Sun Waking up?

2010-08-02T08:28:00.002+01:00

I thought I'd just post this from SpaceWeather.com. I posted a while back that they were predicting that the sun was waking up and I was wondering what prophetic significance it had - accentuated after watching the movie 2012!!! But very much they were saying on SpaceWeather.com that what happens with the sun will dramatically effect here on earth.
Maybe this is why we are feeling restless. Jesus does say when He comes back we will all see. So?
Anyway read on and see what you think - (Probably to get the links to work you'll need to go to the webpage on SpaceWeather.com as I'm not sure how I get them up here and working!!)

COMPLEX ERUPTION ON THE SUN: On August 1st around 0855 UT, Earth orbiting satellites detected a C3-class solar flare. The origin of the blast was sunspot 1092. At about the same time, an enormous magnetic filament stretching across the sun's northern hemisphere erupted. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded the action:

Click to launch a movie (EUV 304 Å)

The timing of these events suggest they are connected, and a review of SDO movies strengthens that conclusion. Despite the ~400,000 km distance between them, the sunspot and filament seem to erupt together; they are probably connected by long-range magnetic fields. In this movie (171 Å), a shadowy shock wave (a "solar tsunami") can be seen emerging from the flare site and rippling across the northern hemisphere into the filament's eruption zone. That may have helped propel the filament into space.

In short, we have just witnessed a complex global eruption involving almost the entire Earth-facing side of the sun.

A coronal mass ejection (CME) produced by the event is heading directly for Earth: SOHO movie. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras when it arrives on or about August 3rd.

more images: from Francois Rouviere of Mougins, France; from Rogerio Marcon of Campinas SP Brasil; from Didier Favre of Brétigny-sur-Orge, France; from Cai-Uso Wohler of Bispingen, Germany; from Wouter Verhesen of Sittard, The Netherlands; from Michael Buxton of Ocean Beach, California

Dilemmas

2010-07-27T11:08:00.002+01:00

Dilemmas are interesting things to have to deal with. I have just come back from only the one day at New Wine, a huge Anglican based week long conference, based in a field near where we live. Its interesting that we have never been there before, even though it happens every year and is only 40 mins drive from our house. Probably the reason. Have you noticed how we also like to do mission in places that are not on our doorstep too?

I have been a bit challenged by God on a few personal things recently and realise that the congregation I went to last Sunday does speak a lot about getting oneself right with God and going from there, which is a great place to start, but the talks we heard yesterday, on the whole, were much more about doing, getting out there, justice.

I love the 24-7 ethos that speaks of prayer, mission and justice though am still trying to work out how that works in the world that I live in. It would be great to have some like minded people on board but as yet God has not revealed them.
So my dilemma at the moment is to try to work out what it is God wants, not just for me but for us all. Not the whole world but us as a family which with Ben and Tabi growing up looks very different every day almost.

I would love to buy a big house and fill it full of children in some deprived part of the country. I would love to start a Simple organic church here in my home and release people into who God has called them to me not to just fit the mold. I would love to go abroad on an internship but the ones I like seem to want graduates. I am about to embark on a course that will open doors to go into university.

Sometimes you see and hear people who's lives are just so sorted and it seems all so straight forward. I wonder if that is true?

So as I wrestle with my dilemma I may not blog so much, but then I may use this as a space to voice what I feel and then see what feedback I get.

God really does want us to be involved with Him in justice and setting people free. In fact He says so very clearly in Isaiah 58 and 61 amongst other places. Someone said recently that there are more mentions of justice issues in the Bible than being born again and yet so many congregations labour more on making sure everyone is born again than walking justly.

How do we do this in the places God has placed us? in the families He has given us to protect and release? the partners He has given us to love and cherish? the neighbourhoods where we are now?

Heroes or Anit heroes?

2010-07-15T15:33:00.002+01:00

We were listening to the news on the radio today about this Facebook page paying tribute to Raoul Moat and how badly the social services and police had let him down. Here is man who has murdered one person who's only crime was to go out with Raoul's ex-girlfriend, and attempt to murder his ex-girlfriend who he claims to love and a policeman who was doing this job. What makes this man a hero?

We live in strange times when someone like this can be help up as a kind of hero and those who are doing their jobs, like the police, as criminals because this man committed suicide. What are we teaching people? Is this going to encourage people to want to join the police force, want to fight for justice, to join in with the social services teams to help people out. I am tired of it all.

But then as I looked more and prayed into it, it feels to me as part of a scheme to stop people trusting in authority, to stop them trusting in the very people that have been put into our society to protect us. There is so much in the news at the moment, from the Baby P horror where it was again the social services who were seen as the bad guys not the people who had tortured the poor baby, and then the incident with the Brazilian boy who ran when the Police shouted "Stop" and they killed him. Why did the boy run anyway when he was from a country where Police carry guns and do shoot people? In fact in Brazil they shoot street children just to get rid of them, and that is the Police there who do that.

We may not have a perfect police force or social services but it would be great if we didn't keep running them down, but saw that people make choices and some of that involves them deciding to commit suicide after murdering one person and shooting 2 others. Surely this person cannot be a hero? or even an anti-hero? Dear Jesus please help us get things back in perspective.

From the Graduation speach in the Movie Eclipse

2010-07-13T20:56:00.001+01:00

Will write more on what I think of the 3rd Twilight Movie, Eclipse, in some other blog but for now just feel this speech by Jessica at their graduation is what every young person needs to hear, and also every parent.

“When we were five, they asked us what we wanted to be when we grew up. Our things were answers like astronaut, president, or in my case, princess… When we were ten, they asked us again. We answered - rock star, cowboy, or in my case, gold medalist… But now that we’ve grown up, they want a more serious answer. Well, how about this… Who the hell knows? This isn’t a time to make hard and fast decisions. This is the time to make mistakes. Take the wrong train and get stuck somewhere chill. Fall in love - a lot. Major in philosophy because there’s no way to make a career out of that. Change your mind. Then change it again because nothing is permanent. So make as many mistakes as you can. That way, someday, when they ask again what we want to be… We won’t have to guess. We’ll know.”

Faith Filled Church

2010-06-30T19:45:00.002+01:00

Whatever do we mean by this expression? Just recently I have had people coming to me to try to persuade me to come to "their church" and the main thing that each of them tell me is that their congregation is Biblically based and faith filled!!! Some even mention that it is "really following The Lord".

You know I am really pleased for each and everyone of them. I just hope they are in the place God wants them to be not because that for the moment the person in charge is saying what they would like to hear.

I remember when I moved to N.Ireland and decided to look for a church where one could feel the Holy Spirit moving in. Well we went to Presbyterian, Baptist, Church of Ireland, New church, Pentecostal, and more. The biggest problem was that when one waited and listened one could hear/feel the Holy Spirit moving in each one of them. And actually given free reign in most of them but in the style to which each person denomination was comfortable in.

Ok yes I know we can all say we have seen the Holy Spirit quenched, stopped from moving, but I often wonder if that is because there are people who have come because that place at one time suited their needs, that they would say it was "faith filled" and yet now the teaching has moved on to something that isn't what they want to hear and so they squash things from moving. I'm sure there are loads of theories why at times it feels like the Holy Spirit isn't moving and I know as I made Christian friends in N.Ireland that they would tell me that Holy Spirit wasn't moving in certain places but I can only say what I got from God on my 1st impression of entering many buildings.

I think really we need to see the whole gamete of the different congregations like a diamond. A diamond only shines so wonderfully when it has many polished sides. If it doesn't have the many sides then actually it is a piece of glass. It is the way the light catches all the different facets of the diamond that made it so beautiful and as it moves so the way it reflects the light changes and can be awe-inspiring.

So why can't we let all those other denominations, small groups, simple churches, high churches, etc shine the light of Jesus in the way He wants and all join together so that the rest of the world just gasps in wonder?

A Dog Example

2010-06-26T14:27:00.002+01:00

This week as well as the usual stuff we are walking a friend's dog whilst she is a nurse at Glastonbury music festival.

I find dogs amazing. This dog totally adores his owner but now when we go for a walk he follows me. I have become the new top dog to be followed. I have been reading about the change that comes over us when we start to accept Jesus and follow Him, of how we go from following our own path to following Him. And I think often we can be like dogs where, even though at times it looks like we might have gone off for a wander on our own in fact we are just having a sniff about to see what is around, doing our own thing, but in the end we know how is the one who wants to be with us and so we, eventually, go back to following who we are meant to be with. The dogs always know, even when they have gone off to play with each other, just who they belong to and who to follow home.

It gives me courage when I think of both my children, who both have made that move to follow Jesus and yet at times at the moment look as if they have forgotten who they are following. Using the dog example either one day they will lift their heads up from where they are sniffing and remember or He will call them and they will come scampering.

Made to feel Welcome

2010-06-23T10:31:00.002+01:00

This week I am in the chorus of a local amateur dramatic production of King Lear. Tabi has been in it for a while and asked me to join with her this time.I have found this group to be warm, welcoming, friendly, supportive and accepting of all. We are a team.
I also help with the Citizens Advise Bureau (CAB). I have found this group to be warm, welcoming, friendly, supportive and accepting of all. In both these groups I don't feel like the new girl, though in both I am one of the least experienced and with a potential for screwing it all up. In fact at dress rehearsal last night I did because we are wearing masks and I am almost blind under mine as I have to take my glasses off. Instead of people saying I shouldn't do this everyone has made sure I am looked after and cared for. I did need to make my needs know but felt like I was in a safe place to do that.

I have been in Christian groups that have been warm, welcoming, friendly, supporting and accepting of all, who have picked up those who were struggling and made sure they were part of the team. But I have also been in Christian groups where that does not happen.
Until recently I thought I had a problem with authority as I can get quite fearful around certain leaders and I have done all my inner heal pray with that but still had that fear. Last night I realised I was being open and talking to the director about my sight problem without a stutter and without fear. Also at CAB I was having a laugh and a chat with someone who is very much in a senior position here.
So do I have a problem with leadership or is it to do with the fact of the way the leader is?

As I think more and more about dechurching and what comes next I hope that I can get to be part of a team, build a team, that can be warm, welcoming, friendly, supporting and accepting and going somewhere. I want to say of course this will happen with God at the centre but both the AmDram group and CAB do not have God at the centre. But they do have confidence in what they are doing and trust in their cast/team. I pray that for all congregations this will happen because actually with God at the centre us Children of God should be able to do this with even more warmth, welcomingness, friendliness, support and acceptance.... But also with a huge dose of love :)

The Garden

2010-06-20T19:08:00.002+01:00

A quick update on the garden and the whole no dig things!

It was all very hard work at the beginning digging up all those shrubs and weeds but it is looking good now. And is all reasonably simple to look after, especially if I knew what where the first vestiges of veggie plants and what are those hard ass weeds that will just keep on coming. I am now very good at identifying ground elder and withe-wind, both of which have to go. They are the hardened weeds. And the faithful old bramble that I have been battling with these past 3 years, as well as some Japanese maple that no matter how many times it is cut down sends up suckers to keep the whole processes going.

But we have lots of lettuce, so many in fact that for some the joy of salad with every meal is wearing a bit thin. And there has been red currants that have never really seen the light of day yielding plenty, though as yet I am not sure what to do with them!! There isn't enough to make jam but too many to not do something with. And we've had a nice crop of strawberries, though really only enough to pick and eat. But maybe if we didn't eat them as we picked them we'd have lots! And there are broccoli and courgettes and many other exciting things fruiting along the way.

But knowing that in the beginning I was comparing this whole no-dig gardening to our spiritual lives I do like to ask God what He has to say on it all.
First I notice that to keep it easy I do a little weeding in the morning when I am sorting out the chickens and rabbit, usually in my dressing gown as I'm a morning person and Ian a night owl. In totally animals and weeding takes about 20 mins. But that made me see that this is how I need to be with my inner life with God, checking on it when I get up, pulling out the bad stuff that has grown up over night and getting ready for whatever the day has to throw at me. In fact I have been making sure I get in an hour of Bible reading, journaling and praying most mornings before doing the animals and garden and I have been amazed at the difference that does make to just how I am looking at many things.
Then I notice when I go out later in the day to just check on things that often a few other of the hardened weeds have crept up and need pulling out or they will start to get big in the sunshine. Now this is where with me I am not so good, I do not often take stock of what is going on in my heart during the day and pull things out. These are the things that I can ignore and let grow, and often they are the hardened weeds of attitude, of those niggles with family and friends that always seem to occur. This one I need to let the gardener in a bit more often to deal with my hardened weeds.
Then at the end of the day I have a final check on eggs and then water things, especially any new plants I have put in. And again there are some of those hardened weeds that have some how reappeared. I am learning at night that before I sleep, as my head is on the pillow, I need to just go through with God where I've screwed up, where I've let in those weeds, and also to make sure we water what needs to be grown in my life.

Today Ian noticed that some withe-wind had grown up with the runner beans. It had managed to disguise itself and had grown to the height of the beans and was all twisted round them. It took ages for him to unwind them and not harm the runner beans. But again this makes me see how easy some of the strongholds in my heart can hide and look like something good and grow up together. And how then I have to be more careful how I deal with them as I could destroy some potential fruit too.

I am learning that for my garden it is an every day thing, even with the easier no-dig gardening, and for my heart, my spiritual life, it is also an every day thing even though I am as one with Jesus and have the power of the Holy Spirit walking with me. Neither can just be left!

Dechurching

2010-06-16T19:39:00.002+01:00

I have been following some comments on Neil Cole's blog about Organic church, something that God has been talking to me about for a long time now. Sometimes I listen and "get it" and give it a try and other times I just don't get it at all and get despondent or even try to join a church, which seems to often end in tears, on my part.

But there was one comment that struck me from someone in Arizona about how when they have people come to them to talk about organic church they tell them first to detox from what they are use to. This comment has sat with me a few days and then I had an email from someone wanting me to help someone out who's daughter has had a rough time at school and at 13 is going to go for home schooling. Well interestingly the first thing I suggested to her was that she deschool. Deschooling is a way of the child and parent getting all the stuff of school out of their system, detoxing, and then being able to get into home schooling without trying to do school at home or feel guilty that they aren't doing what school would be doing.
Please don't get me wrong, even though I am/have been a dedicated home educator I have nothing against schools and people who send their children there. As I write this I do wonder if I could say the same on the church front. I think I can with home educating because apart from a year and then 5 weeks in year 9 for Ben and now this year at college for Tabi we have not done school so to speak, so really apart from things I've got to get over about when I was at school :) we haven't had any issues with school at all. So can be happy with our choice and happy with others.
Now as I said I feel that organic simple church is something God has placed on me years ago and yet I have never really dechurched. I do it for a while then want to get involved so I can be a part of something. So all the things I'd started to detox on all came back, but a bit like a drug addict or exsmoker the hit is harder than before and more destructive.
Again I am really not saying that this path is for everyone and I feel I am working towards the place where i can say, as with school, that so long as people have made an informed choice and can be who they are meant to be then I have nothing against organised church in whatever form it comes in from CofE to Pentecostal, Charismatic to Catholic, but that for me, like home educating, simple organic church is for me.

And very much like the child who goes in and out between school and home school they actually are the worst behaved, hardest to get on with, hardest to fit into a group, whether that group be home ed or schooled, I think I am bouncing between the two and need to give myself permission to detox, to dechurch and then to see what God decides He wants to do with me.

For another blog but so often I try to sort out God's plan for me and really do need to carry on with where I was on the last blog and trust that His will will be done.

Your Will Will Be Done

2010-06-14T14:27:00.003+01:00

Apparently, according to Nehemia Gordon, in the correct Hebrew translation of Matthew's gospel the "Lord's Prayer" should read "...Your Kingdom come Your will will be done on earth as it is in heaven...". Now that puts a whole different slant on things. In fact as one friend said it makes your prayer life different.

How?

Well if God's will will be done then we can relax a bit because what He knows is the right thing to happen will happen. But also it ups things a bit too when one gets one's head round prayer as being a partnership with God. We really do need to know what God's will is so that we don't waste countless hours praying for something He doesn't want to happen. I know with the partnership thing we can be negotiating because we do have that amazing honour of, through Jesus, being allowed into Father's throne room. But still we need to know we are coming in in His will not in our own great ideas.

So once we know what God's will is we can be praying in His will that will be done, which then makes more sense of Jesus putting this line in for His disciples to simplify the whole prayer thing.

Surprises

2010-06-08T20:21:00.002+01:00

I was doodling this in church the other Sunday and decided to submit it to the local Climate Change group who are publishing a book on people's thoughts on climate change and they have decided to publish it! Surprised or what!!

CLIMATE CHANGE!!

Changing, changing! We know the climate is changing!
Everything in the world is always changing!
With it comes floods
With it comes rain
With it comes total change in the whole system of climate as we know it
We are told to embrace change
Told that change is always with us
Change when ecospheres are destroyed
Changes when species die
Changes when what we knew has gone
Changing, changing! We know the climate it changing!
Should we embrace this change?
Should we try to change and stop this change?
Is all change good?
Is all change bad?
How can we see and harness what is good from this climate changing?
How can we deal with and stop what is bad?
Can we stop what is bad?
Is life as we know it all over?
And yet, and yet!
In all of this what picture can we hold on to
Is there hope is all of this?
Is there something to help us through all this?
When we see the world leaders not seem to be able to agree
When we see protests appearing to be ignored
What can we hold on to?
And yet back in a flood
Back in a time of total livelihood being destroy
There comes a symbol of hope.
There comes something we can hold on to
There in that tree as helicopters fly above the floods
There is the woman, labour induced by the trauma
There she is giving birth in a tree
There is our symbol of hope
There is a sign that God has said He will not destroy the world with a flood again
There is a sign of new birth
There is a sign of hope
In all this fear,
In all this disillusionment
There in a tree in an forgotten African country
There is a symbol of hope
There is new birth
Help us hold on to that symbol of rebirth
The symbol of hope
In all this change and change and more change there is hope
Hold on tight to it

Family Part 2

2010-05-27T11:43:00.002+01:00

Thank you to everyone for the lovely comments I've got about this. Shame you can't get them on the blog so we can get a discussion going sometime but never mind!!

I've been chewing this whole family thing over a lot and its not often I visit a topic a 2nd time so quickly. But I keep wondering if instead of just saying the Church is Family we need to start teaching more on what that means. To the 1st Century church this was all so easy because they were use to families living together, having to get over disagreements because their livelihood depended on it with the whole farming things. And with the early Church they couldn't bitch about each other because they were in a persecuted minority.

I have been looking at families. A friend of mine has recently got engaged. Very romantic story about meeting her fiance on Facebook, but then with him being in Canada and her in San Diego they decided she would live with him family in Canada for a bit to see how the relationship developed. A great way of getting to know someone warts and all. I think of another friend in California who married 3 years ago where the two families were so intertwined and so close to each other that even when she was not seeing her now husband (they took about a 4 year split) his parents still supported her in mission, and of course everyone was so delighted when they got back together. And because they were all so close there was room to include us when we went over for the wedding.

Now that's a question how come its the closer families are to each other that there is always room for someone else? Maybe this is the same for church? The closer those in the congregation are to each other, the more secure in all things, the more truly welcoming they are? The more the less of a threat if someone new gets invited to dinner, someone knew speaks "a word", the leaders are safe in who they are and what is going on that there is space for people to make mistakes?

Actually that is something I think is a biggie too for families - the space to make mistakes. My kids are great but they do screw up but I still love them, help them out and give them some love whilst they sort out the next move and because of this they seem to try lots of things without fear. And I know this in other families too where it is safe to make mistakes.

Again though going back to the congregation thing, because that is really where the rubber hits the road, I think in the West we have a luxury of being able to fall out with each other. In the parts of the world where the Church is persecuted for just being they do not have that luxury. But also I see in those parts of the world a deeper understanding about the survival of family.

I do wonder if here in the West we have lost a lot of what connected family is what with the nuclear family, of being able to survive without the help of parents, siblings, aunts and uncles, and that has fallen into our congregational life?

.......But You Cant Choose Your Family!

2010-05-25T08:28:00.002+01:00

I've been pondering church/congregational life after a very poorly attended 24hrs of prayer in our town, and the phrase that came to mind was "you can choose your friends but you cant choose your family" We keep going on about how the church is family, of how we are brothers and sisters in Christ but we often think that should be that we are all friends and all get on with each other.

We have just had a bit of a family filled weekend, seeing Ian's parents and one of his sisters on Sunday and me seeing my Mum and having a bit of a heart to heart with her on Monday, and also of watching how Ben and Tabi react with them too. All these people are my family, whether in-laws or parent or children or spouse. Mustn't forget Ian in this equation!! But all of them react differently to each other and I react differently to each of them, and differently to them when other combinations are about. But they are all family.

I wonder often if we actually say/know we are family in the Church (Big C world wide church) and yet expect to act like friends. I tell my friends things I wouldn't tell my family. I do things differently with my friends than I do with my family. I choose my friends because our interests are similar, our ways of thinking are similar or challenging. I see one friend and we talk about something, another and we talk about something else. Some I see or email on a very regular basis, some I see very occasionaly. But with family its different. With spouse and children I live with them and my life does have to fit in with theirs and visa versa. With the wider family because we life a distance away we made arrangements to see each other but often we have to grit our teeth and deal with certain things, the way Mum refuses to see her son has grown up, the way another parent doesn't want to see there are problems that could be their fault. With some families they see each other every day because they live across the street, with others they live in different countries. Some families have gone through so much that the mention of a parent just causes so much pain because of the abuse that has been done, with another its just a hurt because of misunderstanding and breakdown in relationship.

So as we can see there are happy families, ok families, close families, distant families, families full of hurt and pain, all only held together by blood ties.

As the Family of God we are held together by the blood tie of Jesus and actually sometimes I think we need to accept that this is all that holds us together. Yes in some places there is a close bond within the congregation, with others its bond through a para-church movement, with some its through a distance but a share association, but also with some it is only that blood tie because there has been hurt and abuse and pain, relationship breakdown, expectation, a congregation so large that the quiet ones get lost in it and never get to use their giftings, with others an openness and a way of sharing for all.

I think we need to stop expecting the blood tie of Jesus to make us into one big happy family. Yes this is what He prayed for in John 17:20-21. Actually He prayed that we would be united as Jesus and God are united, but actually I think that also comes by hard work and wanting it not just by expecting it!

Not sure where I'm going to go with this at the moment but I'm going to pray and trust and see what help my Heavenly Father can give me. I wonder too how much we as children try to do the family stuff when I know as Mum that I have to be helping my children. Maybe, just maybe we need to lean on God more and let Him help us to be a close happy family in Him. How does that work when others don't seem to want it or get it? I don't know but I think I'll go for a long walk and pray about it!

Canadian Geese

2010-05-20T14:00:00.002+01:00

Do you remember me saying about the joy of the honking of the Canadian goose sometime in the winter telling the whole world that one of his kind had arrived on his river?

Both are a long way from a migration route so it is so lovely for him to have a mate now. And they have now had babies. About 4-5 little goslings to look after. Ian saw them the other day. They have made a nest at the bottom of the old Chantry, a lovely house and gardens, and parent Geese where taking baby geese for a swimming lesson. Ian said that Dad stood on the side looking so protective whilst Mum led them into the water. I felt so pleased for him.

Again it reminded me of how life is, of how we need to protect those things we have waited so long for and have finally been given. It is so easy to take things for granted once we've had them a while, like our relationship with God. Someone was pondering on a blog where they would be now if they hadn't gone into that 1st 24/7 prayer room over 10 years ago. They now work full time for 24/7 prayer.

Again the lovely Canadian goose has given me a good example of keeping an eye on what I have got and not taking it all for granted.

Busy/Distractions

2010-05-16T07:06:00.002+01:00

I have been really busy of late and so haven't had time to blog. Actually I haven't had much time to think too deeply so there has been very little in my head.

I was exploring this with a friend and she had just read how people with my motivation can get caught up in being busy, pleasing people - as in not in that people pleasing way but just going with the flow as they like to be with people to encourage them on their journey, doing lots of little things that lead to that feeling of being overwhelmed. But as well as this they lose out on their calling, on what the God given plan for their lives is.

This is where I got to. Oh it didn't come on all of a sudden but has been creeping up on me. First I take on this job, then that friend wants to see me, then this other job, then another friend, as well as the regular family commitments. Suddenly my day is too full to think, to really pray without getting distracted, to have time to write and be creative, even no time to do the CAB study that I really want to. I had to slow down, to rethink, and this is what I have been doing, in the gaps, between this conversation.

I know God has a plan for me in this town and I don't think it is to do with cleaning old people's houses, no matter how much they need it and how lovely they are. I have spent time sorting out what I do and how much time it takes and then cutting it back. Yes we could do with the money, but I have survived on less when I have been doing what God has called me to. I wonder where that trust has gone? God will provide for all our needs so I do not need to be doing jobs that then distract me from what He wants for me. And even though this is probably another blog space I do wonder why it is so much easier to trust God when one is with people who also trust God? In Ywam we all had to trust God but it does seem in regular congregational settings we trust more in programs. But I digress........

I am having to set good boundaries, to learn to say No. I need to go back to being a human being rather than a human doing.

The interesting thing though I noticed yesterday when Ian and I took time out from doing what we ought to do and just did what we wanted to do that there was time in our garden. Time to plant and time to weed! And I remember God saying when I started on this whole thing with the chickens and the no dig gardening that this was part of the establishing the land. It is interesting that when we took time out to be there was time to establish something in our land. There was also time for a neighbour to share a confidence, and for Tabi to cook us a meal. Both things are rare as the neighbour is very private person, and Tabi really does not like cooking. But I believe this came from slowing down, from being not doing, from doing what we wanted not what we ought to, for having time for us rather than others.

My prayer is that I am bold enough to stick to my boundaries when people try to push them, when others need me, and to then find that space again to keep exploring what it is that God is wanting us/me to establish, what His vision for me is and how I get there.

Avatar

2010-05-05T15:16:00.002+01:00

Oh started something this morning!!! There is a Facebook link saying about how Avatar the movie is linked to occultic things, thus seeming to imply that the director is into all this, or that the anti-Christ is ruling, or something. Not quite sure what really. But to view the link you have to click the "like" button and then it registers on your Facebook status! Now if that isn't up to something I am not sure what is.

Anyway I put some dismissive comment with it on my FB and have had an interesting response from one friend. Thought it would set him off actually but......

Anyway what struck me is how much do we as Christians go looking for the paranormal, the occult, the dodgy when actually Jesus never commissioned us to do this? We were sent to tell the good news of Him, of how through Jesus we can actually talk with God, how all the wrong things we have done in this world can be forgive by what He did for us and so from that we will not just have a more connected and peaceful time here on this earth but will go to spend eternity with our Father in heaven. And from this we are meant to be discipling people into following this awesome God, becoming more like Jesus whatever that may mean (another subject for another blog day!) and going out to heal the sick, release the captives, etc, etc.

Does putting a link up to tell people that a movie is from the devil really help them?

At the recent prayer school at our nearby congregation one of the things that struck me was how we often tell people the bad news of Jesus, that they have sinned and are going to go to hell if they don't turn to Jesus, rather than the good news about the destiny He has for them in Him, and the whole being in touch with God. I feel that this Avatar link comes in the bad news part rather than the great news about Jesus. And yes I do know both the whole being forgiven for sins is as important as the being connected with God but should we not be proclaiming rather than making people feel bad?

Elections

2010-04-30T08:51:00.002+01:00

It is only 6 days now till the UK general elections. I know it is my democratic right to vote, but the question is who for? This is not a political discussion but just to say how with our local candidates they have all 3 taken very strange tactics, identical tactics but all the same. Each has chosen not give points from their manifestos but to rundown the other candidates. Some of the things they are saying are very silly and just obvious too.

If I was taking my vote on who gave me the clearest picture of what they stood for it would be one of the minor parties just because they are telling me what they stand for not how rubbish the other parties are. I have even written to one of the candidates to say how disappointed I was that when he gave me a card what only had 3 points on why I should vote for him these were 1. that he was local, 2. that in our area it is only a 2 horse race, and 3. that the other main horse didn't live in the area. At least the English Democrats (where did these come from?) can tell that they will give good hospital treatment to me when I'm only and a good pension and jobs only to people who speak English. I'm not saying I'll vote for them but at least they told me what they stand for rather than how rubbish everyone else is.

At least with these televised debates we can know at least what the leaders of the big 3 stand for.

Ironic

2010-04-28T10:32:00.002+01:00

This made me mad a first and then made me smile at how institutionalize one can get.

It's a friend's 30th birthday next week and he is having one of those age crises that some people seem to get on the "milestone" birthdays. The usual "what have I done with my life" stuff. All very normal. Anyway his wife is trying to organise a party for him. They have a house group they are part of so many from that were going to be invited. Since letting everyone know the date of his birthday and subsequent party the congregation they go to has announced a series of prayer meetings on Weds nights. Jon's birthday is on a Weds. The of the couples from their house group of 5 couples are not now going to come to the party but will go to the prayer meeting. Fine!

But here is the ironic bit - the prayer meetings are about how they can do church differently and be more relational!!!!!! Need I say more?

UK Elections

2010-04-22T08:30:00.003+01:00

I was praying about the elections this morning and had some thoughts

There is all this talk about how really there are only 2 parties, Labour and Conservative, and that a vote for LibDems is a tactical vote. It is interesting to note that only 100 years ago the Labour party was in its infancy and was seen as a bit odd and radical. And yet it was made up of people who were passionate about what they believed in, had principles they were going to fight and die for and so by the end of the Second World War they are strong enough to be voted into power and to implement the principles they had so diligently fought for for the last 50 years or more.

I was told on Monday that Clement Attlee, the 1st majority Labour prime minister in 1945, stuck to his principles of a health service for all, housing for all and education for all even though Britain had a huge debt falling the Second World War. He believed that to go through with what he had promised the people and had been voted in for was the important principle. Do we have politicians like that now? Do we have political parties like that now?

I was also led on to pray for those Christians that I know who are standing for parliament this time with the major parties. I do not know why they have chosen them and not gone for being part of the Christian party, but I do believe they have chosen the harder route. We need to be praying that these people can stick to their God given principles even if the parties they have felt led by God to stand with may not be so committed.

And maybe too we need to be praying for our young people, those who were part of the Wilberforce Academy in Oxford in April this year, those doing politics and law degrees, those feeling a calling to human rights, politics, etc whether Christian or not to be able to be passionate about things, to have principles and to be able to stick to them.

Rumours

2010-04-15T14:37:00.002+01:00

I was wondering about what we really know to be true, as in from the horse's mouth true.

As we approach our UK General Election date of 6th May we are hearing all sorts about all the various political parties from the other parties. What do they base their truth on? And how much do we believe about these parties from those tidbits and from satire programs? And where will we go to find out the truth? Who can we believe?

There were rumours of Barak Obama, that even though he went to church with is wife he was really a Muslim. What was true there? How will be know? I feel there reading his book helps, but that takes time.

I feel that in a lot of ways we now live in a world where we are all too busy so it is easier to believe the little bits and pieces others find out for us rather than go looking ourselves. We just do not have the time! We have got lazy! We do not check the credentials of the teller, or if they have an axe to grind, or with some of the comedians just that they know how to tell a funny story well.

We need, with this election coming up, to take the time out to find out for ourselves, to spend time reading those manifestos, chatting not just with the candidates we like but with all the parties, and being willing to ask those questions on things that are dearest to our hearts.

That means too we need to find out what is dearest to our hearts!

What We Don't Know

2010-04-12T09:55:00.002+01:00

I have been reading Barak Obama's book on his early life. Even though he is half black half white it is the being black that stands out. As he explains how other black young men felt and the conflict he had inside about being discriminated by white people and yet having a white mother and white grandparents is very interesting. There is something in what he says his black friends say about continuously feeling oppressed in a white man's world and the anger that causes inside of them, that feeling that they will never really be able to be true to themselves, that whole depth that slavery has done to the psyche of this people group. And of how people who were mixed race actually did not want to recognise the black African inside of them. All this is something I will never understand and neither will most of my friends.

It got me to pondering something that was said at church yesterday, of how we shouldn't call someone a "chav", a word that came about originally to apply to young men, generally white, who lived in large council housing estates, went around in gangs and were violent. And yes like lots of words it has become an insult but also to me I was feeling like it describes a people group, again a group that have been so down trodden that we, as in motivated, educated, encouraged to reach our potential will never know.
These are young people who listen to a certain aggressive style of music, girls wear provocative clothing from a young age, boys in tracksuits and trainers, under age sex is common, but the main thing that gives them this hopelessness way of life is that they are 3rd or 4th generation unemployed, their schools are deprived schools where teachers do not want to come, and they have people in government trying to help them out by throwing money at them, but not understanding the depravation in their souls.
Brenan Manning talks of people like these before the word came into being. Of how even when they meet Jesus they cannot get out of this cycle. Yes Jesus gives them some hope and they do want to change but with such little education, being stuck in slum housing, maybe having to resort to prostitution to feed their families, to feed themselves, not because of a drug habit but because there are no jobs.

Sometimes at church I do wondering if we do try to reach people we know nothing about like the "chavs" when we have never lived like them, like the black person who even though they have never known slavery feel something deep inside. In fact with the "chavs" they have finished up in the housing estates they have because to a point they were the white slaves of the oppressive landlords, mill owners, etc. We have never walked their road, we do not know.
So maybe it is ok to use the word "chav" as a people group so long as we are not using it as an insult, but also maybe we need to be careful we do not think we can understand when we have never ever been there.

Sheep

2010-03-22T15:17:00.002Z

Went to a friend's son's Christening yesterday (thoughts on Christenings to be left to another day!) and they acted out the story of the Lost Sheep with some of the children. The woman who was the shepherd took all the sheep with her when she went to look for the lost sheep.
You know I had never seen it that way. Some how I'd seen it as the shepherd being more concerned over the one missing sheep than the safe 99 so had left them behind, a sort of safety in numbers thing. Bur really there is no way Jesus would leave us who are with Him to look for one who isn't. Of course He would take us with Him. And remembering the whole thing of middle eastern sheep is that they follow the shepherd wherever he calls and wouldn't have stayed behind anyway.
So does this mean that as Church we really should all be going off to look for the lost, in a crowd, rather than just waiting for the lost to either come to us or for those "called to evangelize" to bring the lost back?
At the end of this story the sheep had a party along with the shepherd. Suddenly this story makes loads more sense. Now to work out how to put it into practice.

Romans

2010-03-20T13:33:00.003Z

Woke up praying and thinking about Romans this morning! Basically I've done lots of spiritual mapping and very much there is always this whole things about the control of the Roman empire on our land and then the control of the church of Rome on our land and the aftermath of all that, leading very much to a spirit of control. And very much in whatever you read, be it on spiritual matters to fiction books Rome is seen as the bad guy, wanting total control, who walks across the land and stamps out the indigenous cultures and uniforms them.
We live in an area that actually welcomed the Romans over. They were trading with the Romans before they invaded and actually appear to have given them a foothold in England. There is a swath of land that had Roman style villas dated before 33AD when Roman came a conquered and settled.
So what sort of things should we be praying when we see the control in this land but know that it welcomed in the control of the Romans? a area where the whole idea of organised life was clearly welcomed, even maybe happening beforehand.
We will keep praying and see what God leads us to but it would be interesting to know what it was the led the Romans and the church of Rome to want to control others in the first place.
Or really is everyone like that, likes to know how things go, keeps away from letting everyone have total freedom, just in case they lose their position, their place of being. How controlling are we all really?

Meetings Mondays

2010-03-16T20:11:00.002Z

I do not know what goes on in this town but it seems to be meetings can only happen on a Monday!
Yesterday we had at least 3 we could go to, 2 to do with prayer and one a canoeing one - for Ian not me that one!! And once a month here on Mondays (different Mondays) there is Churches Together, Climate Change, and something else which I forget.
I am already committed, as is the car, to take Tabi to and from drama in the next town. This use to be on Weds but they changed it to Mondays!! And we missed out playing 2 of the witches in the local amateur dramatic society's production on Roald Dahl's Witches because instead of rehearsing on Tues and Thurs they changed to ....... Mondays and Thurs!!
Though actually I say that is all happens on Mondays but maybe that's not quite true, though so much does, it also happens on Tues which again seem to be able to go into the same spin of there being a choice of 2-3 things on the same Tues :)
And my way of dealing with it all so often is just to stay home and read a book!! So much easier than trying to make a decision :)

Oh to 18-25 again!

2010-03-13T17:04:00.002Z

After the last post of debt and young people I am now wishing I was that age again. Maybe not a teenager but very much in that age of 18-25 when life seems to sort out a bit more, people start taking you seriously, the hormones are calming down, and the door of opportunity is wide open!

We came back from IAM10 24-7Prayer.com party with a bag full of leaflets. It has taken me a month to get around to look at them and they are totally amazing. It is all on the justice and prayer angle, which is awesome, but all very much aimed at the 18-25 year olds.
Oh I could go on about all sorts but really I am just awfully jealous of these young people who have so much energy too. I'm suffering with lack of energy at the moment too - menopause and chicks flying the nest!
I was wondering what there was out there for those of us who didn't get to Jesus till we were older (30 plus for me) and are only just starting to work out what we are called too. There is loads and I am just trying to get over the things that our society can be prone to throw at us, that by late 40's we are over the hill, which is so untrue but can leap up and grab one at times.
I am now waiting with excitement and anticipation for when my energy comes back after menopause and Ben and Tabi getting a bit more sorted and just see where I will fit. But sometimes there is that frustration of missing out because so little is about to encourage those who are older, no 40-60's group to join. Life very much is geared towards the younger generations
And also to make sure that I don't get too jealous of these opportunities and frustrated when these young people settle for just the ordinary!! :)
Like my dear friend Mavis I want to still be causing hassle for the Kingdom when I'm as old as she is. Bring it on!!

What we are letting our young people do!

2010-03-11T15:09:00.003Z

I do wonder what we have let our young people become. Interestingly at the moment I am reading a book by Francine Rivers about Rome in about 75AD and again how the youth are just after pleasure and what they can get for themselves. It seems like we have allowed our young people to seek after pleasure, look to themselves and not too worry too much of what comes next, what the consequence are. But as with the observation in Francine Rivers' book it is the parents who have allowed this to happen.
As you know I work in the Citizens Advice bureau (a charity that shows people how to deal with difficulties they have got into) yesterday there were 3 young girls all with major money problems. I was only observing so cannot say anything but what I wanted to say was "what have you been spending your money on?". One girl had a £6,000 car because she needed it to get to work. In my day (oh dear here we go) we use to get cars for a few hundred pounds, and I know they are still out there because we have been looking to get another car and there are loads for not much. But also one's first car was always an old banger not bought on finance. Actually I remember a dear friend on mission who was in a muddle because she had a car on finance and her reason was "because everyone did it".
But it was the attitude of the Adviser I was working with with these young girls. Very much his thing was that these debts were not that bad, that they could get away with paying very little, and even writing the debts off.
We wonder why our economy is in a muddle when an awful lot of people are being able to get rid of their debts by paying £90. Just working the basic sums of 100 people with £10,000 worth of debt and how then that adds up.
Also why it is so easy as a person to be able to get rid of one's debts and yet there are developing countries that if they could get rid of their debts could give health care, education, etc to their people.
I will launch some more of what I have seen and heard with young people in another blog.
But the question I come back to in my head is what can I do? What can the church do? is the church doing anything? I see many young people in church with stuff. Are they in debt? I know not all are as I remember one lovely young girl who was dress making for the whole of her university course so that she wouldn't even get a student loan, which is very much an accepted part of life.
What did Jesus say about money? and our love of it? Again back to the sheep and goats - as a developed, rich country what are we doing for those little ones?

How we should live!

2010-03-06T08:54:00.002Z

There are a couple of good pieces out there on the blogs - one from Emerging Mummy, which you can get to via Accidental blog and one from the 2churchmice - and what has been buzzing in my head which sort of fits with them. Hey I'm a connector and I like to connect things!!

How do we live our lives? What do I do that makes a difference to other people? How do i walk out my Christian walk in the doing what Jesus would do?
I am very caught up in this whole act justly and behave righteously and am exploring what it means. But when I suggest to people that actually we could form groups to pray blessing over the town, over the area, they look at me as though I have lost the plot.
I am told that one fellowships and prays for each other, that we learn so that we can grow. I am not sure if I understand this when I read what Jesus and the early disciples got up to.
Yes we are to grow in Christ. We are to die to self and take up our cross and that this is a daily thing. But we must be caring for others. What is it Jesus says about how people will be seperated? The sheep and goats story? Those who do good things to others, who see what is going on and take care of them. And He also says "I can only do what I see the Father doing?" and how do we know what the Father is doing? By praying more and more, by seeing the presence of God come down when we pray.

2churchmice look at a book where and Christian and an atheist go round different congregations in US. The atheist notice that there is a lot of talk about self help and very little about caring for others. Yes I know I must care for my fellow believers, but I am afraid for me that is with a desire to lift them up and to see what a difference they could make for the area they live in if they pray and pray and pray some more, hear from God and expect Him to reveal what He wants them to do, and to just see what a difference His Spirit makes when we pray and call Him into a situation.

This is what I want to do. And as Emerging Mummy says I don't want to be remembered for clean floors and a nice house but for so so so much more.
Interestingly in the week my 16 year old daughter said she would keep following God because she wanted to finish up in heaven with me. Now I think that means I must be doing something right - hopefully in my journey with God.

Dealing With Disappointment

2010-03-02T13:09:00.002Z

This may not be as positive a blog as the name of my site should be.

I checked my emails today to see one that said that the Weymouth pastors have decided they want someone more local and who can do evenings and weekends. Interestingly enough I didn't say I couldn't do evenings and weekends but that I would need someone to put me up. I feel a bit let down as I really did feel that this was something I wanted to be doing and have had some great confirming words from people. Maybe I got my hopes up, or maybe it is of God.
It is again taking it back to knowing what is of God and then does not come to pass because of people not being there or when it is not of God. How does one know?

I think I feel let down because all this planning and organising is what I would love to be doing wherever and yet it does not seem to be.
I was rereading a prophecy from John Dawson from back in Oct 2004, which I am sure I mentioned about having these keys for so much but also in it is says about how people will see me as little and lowly and of no account, which is what it feels like.
Again when does when know when to push oneself forward and when to wait on God, or is it that I will be seen as lowly but He will then show me the doors I have these keys for.

I have been reading Gerard Hughes book on "God in All Things" and one of the exercises was to see what your greatest desire was and he explored the idea that pride was not actually a wrong thing. That the guy who started the Jesuits had a pride attitude in that he wanted to be better than the Celtic saints. There are pride things that do push us onwards, but sometimes these pride things are what get us hurt too.
I think my desire is to be up there organising prayer rooms, talks and discussions, seeing churches joined and united in their heart for prayer and stepping out and helping to deal with issues of injustice and get the world to take notice. Though most of the time i am not quite able to quantify what I mean. But it seems like wherever it just doesn't seem to happen.

I was out walking a friend's dog just now and I couldn't quite see the path but when I looked onward I could see the next bit of the path and sort of guessed where I was meant to be walking. All the way on the walk it was like that. I could see my destination, could see some of the path but it was never quite where I was sure at the time where I was walking.
In fact back when Ben, Tabi and I were doing Ywam we had to do some prophetic getting rid of stuff and we'd decided to walk to the top of this hill, again along the way we kept feeling like we'd lost our way but then we would find something that showed we were on the right path like a bench or litter bin or coloured arrow.

So how do I deal with disappointment. Well firstly I rant a bit at God, take it to Him and wonder what is going on and what I miss, go for a long walk and know that this will give me time to talk with Him, and come back and wonder.....
So for now I am at the wondering stage....But I know the things I must take care of are not to take offense when I am overlooked, not to be hurt and to spent my time preparing, sorting out my lifestyle and being the watchman He called me to be ever ready for when He shows me those doors.

And also maybe writing and bit and sticking to what my blog is called "A Positive Blog". Hopefully I am getting there

Pushing Doors...... or prompted by God?

2010-02-22T16:55:00.002Z

This is a personal, where I'm at blog

For a while I have been praying about Weymouth, the place where the 2012 Sailing events for the Olympics will be held and wondering about going down and prayer walking there. I've even been praying over my diary to see when I could do this. And interestingly about how I could be involved after it is all over.
We get the Ywam update magazine regularly and this month had something about teams for the 2012 Olympics so I emailed the person at the bottom to see what I could do. Turns out the person involved is someone we sort of know - the ex-captain, but still main man in charge, of the Next Wave, the Ywam ship my son Ben went on back in the summer of 2007. Ben is very lovely and so always remembered!!
From email to say I was up for doing something I have had an email back to say that the pastors of Weymouth are having a meeting to consider whether to have a Ywam coordinator help them set things up and would I be willing to consider it.
I did pray and have had some interesting dreams but the upshot is that if they say Yes then I am going to attend a meeting.

I do need to hold in my heart that it wont be till after Weds that I shall know if they even want someone or not, and then not till the meeting, which will be in the next couple of weeks, will I know if they want me.
Being me I have jumped ahead a bit and am seeing it as my job but that is because I am made that way and do have to imagine the situation and me in it before I can go anyway.

But the thing I come back to, the thoughts I have, are was this a prompt by God to get in touch at just this time, or did I want to push a door and it was coincidence? It is always that one that is hard to tell. How do we know what is God leading us and what is God being kind to us because He wants to bless us or even what is just coincidence? And how often do we push a door, it swings wide open but it is not of God at all and is going to lead us up some wrong path? But then if we do that with the right heart does God care for us and bless us anyway? And anyway is any experience ever wasted? or is that just a humanistic approach?

Lots of grapple with as well as trusting the outcome of this meeting on Weds and then.......

The Mist

2010-02-19T06:42:00.002Z

Tabi and I watched The Mist the other day. She wanted to try out a Stephen King! I will now spoil it all for anyone who has not seen it by giving my thoughts on it all, as there was a lot to think about in it with a very interesting twist at the end!

Basically the military release killing monsters from another world and they wreck havoc hiding in this very thick mist. It is not a traditional horror but more a psychological one, looking at how people react during extreme stress.
There was the religious nutcase who was very Old Testament, wrath and judgment. But she was charismatic and rallied the people. It was amazing how people could go from being so mild mannered to being whipped up into a frenzy that they were able to kill in cold blood. It was interesting too how even though people (the dozen or so good guys) kept telling her to shut up, they did not have enough back up to talk to the people. Their response was very much "shut up and stop scaring people" but nothing for anyone to hold on to. The crowd followed the fanatic because she had something to say.

Our good guys seem to do all the right things until the twist in the end. They fight off the monsters, protect the store, get medical supplies, treat the wounded. But when they believe there is no way out and that the mob may turn on them they decided to get out, to leave everyone to what seems to be an accepting fate. Of course the mob tries to stop them and the monsters eat some of them so it all appears to be very heroic. They then drive until the petrol runs out on his truck.
There they are, 4 adults and his son, in this thick mist with one gun with 4 bullets. He, our hero, heroically shoots his son and the other 3 adults and then gets out of the truck to take his fate with the monsters. All of which seems very courageous and stops the others having this horrid death.
Well as he steps out one sees that the mist is thinning. What has happened is that the military have come along and are torching all the monsters and their nests and now the planet is safe again!! He acted too soon.

In one of the military trucks is a woman who towards the beginning of the film is trapped in the store with all the rest, has totally accepted that there is danger in the mist but was only popping out for 5 mins and had left her 8 year old and 5 year old alone in the house, so she walks into the danger, totally selflessly just to hope that she can get to her children. And she is one of the ones who has been rescued along with her 2 children.

Of course we felt it was a very bum ending but the more I have pondered it, because it is one of those sorts of films, the more I have wondered in what we call heroism. How often do we reward the selfish act? The person who chooses to go it alone, to walk away from a dangerous mob situation? And how often do we reward the person who puts their safety after that of those they are called to care for?
I have been wondering this in the many situations we live in from family to church to work to neighbourhoods. The "good guys" very much were making a run for it, not being able to give anything helpful to the mob, knowing they couldn't take everyone with them so wanting to save those who had a similar mindset to them.
How often too do we not know what to say to the charismatic personality who is off the mark but has the crowd behind them?
All things to carry on pondering!

Conversation overheard on the bus

2010-02-11T09:36:00.003Z

Once a fortnight I do this mega bus trip, an hour and 40 mins on the bus! Anyway there I am reading Martin Luther King's autobiography and crying and wondering if I would've been brave enough to stand with them, do I stand with the oppressed and hurting, and just taking a pause from reading to wonder about my own state of concerned-ness when I over hear this conversation of this young teenage lad on his mobile.

A rough transcript "I'm coming in on the bus now. Are you going to be there? Well I've got to sort out my overdraft first. You'd better be there as I've got you a birthday present! £450 of it! Can't say much as I'm on the bus, but let's just say there is so much there we can shovel it up like snow. Get what I mean! I've paid £100 down payment but need to get the rest sorted soon. Should just get us really wrecked!"

So the gist seems to be that the boy has got himself overdrawn to buy £450 worth of cocaine so him and this mate, who didn't seem to be really sorting himself out to come round, could get wasted!

Does make you wonder what the world is coming to! I prayed for him. I wasn't brave enough to turn round and say anything. Though not quite sure what I would've said. When he got off he looked about my Ben's age. Where were his family in all this?
More prayer for our young men I think!

Head space

2010-02-08T06:46:00.003Z

Just a quick blog to say sorry for not writing. I tried to start this morning but other things are buzzing in my head. I really do need space and quiet and time to just be able to create. And I want to keep what I put in here positive, because that is how I want to live my life. I'm doing my best. But at the moment I know there is so much buzzing around that I will put something negative in. Not that there is lots of negative stuff going on in my life. In fact quite the opposite but I know if I am tired I can put in things that I will regret later.
So watch this space and I'll be back :-)

Definite Direction

2010-01-28T15:40:00.002Z

I was driving to college this morning and again was stuck by the large van in the driveway for someone doing go-karting and I thought again of Jensen Button, the British formula one racing champion.
I have known of Jensen Button for many years. When he and I both lived in Frome his trophies for go-karting were always on display in the windows of a car showrooms I use to push Ben past in his pram. So we are talking of 18 years ago.
I was wondering how often we see potential in our children and really give up our lives to go for it for them. I wonder if Jensen's Dad even had a premonition of what he was going to be even before he was born which is why he called him Jensen. I don't think his dad is a Christian, though I do wonder if a Christian dad would've been able to push his son to be a formula one racing champion.
But it did strike me of how often as parents we don't look at our children's gifts and talents enough and do not push them, giving up our own dreams to do this. In this world now we would be seen as pushy parents, even accused of putting our dreams on our kids. Well Jensen seems happy enough and seems to have the talent too!
I wonder at times with my two flying the nest what difference it would've made. Though actually as I write this I think that I did see in Ben something about him joining the army even as a small child, not in the going to kill someone but in what it seems he is deciding to do now which is a Driver Air Despatcher, taking supplies to the front lines which could lead to dropping aid and such like too, something I can very much see him doing.
So no I don't feel condemned and I don't want to condemn anyone else but seeing this truck and thinking of Jensen Button I do wonder how much I've prayed for my kids and their destiny and also how much we really do encourage people to do this, or do we just try to get people to bring their kids to church and hope that something rubs off!

And yes Mavis and Joanna I don't think I was saying not to have good Christian friends to praying with, share things with, etc but like you both say in the end it is us and God!

Sheep

2010-01-24T07:37:00.002Z

Should we just follow the shepherd's voice or should we be checking with the other sheep that they are hearing the same thing? Is it better to move hoping that its His voice or stay back checking and double checking with others as to whether it was Him or not? We have a friend who is often saying "the Lord told me...." and going and sometimes it is into some bizarre situations that I do wonder if it is Him or not who told her, but we also have a friend who never does anything unless they've had it confirmed by a lot of people. Which is right? Or rather which does God delight in more? Because I do think that is the question rather than right or wrong. I often wonder if God delights more in our stepping out and maybe not doing "the right thing" more than He delights in us being cautious and fearful of man.

As for the sheep and checking with the flock, surely the only way that we will know we are part of the same flock is because we are all following the same voice, following the same master shepherd not because the sheep are always communicating with each other. Perhaps one of the biggest problems with community, with congregation, is that there is too much checking all are on the same page and not enough checking what the Shepherd is saying. So often we miss what Jesus wants because we are too busy chattering in the flock.

I have been learning a bit about hearing lately because I have tinnitus and the reason I hear it so much is that my brain prioritizes that sound over other sounds and it has got me to wondering how often we prioritize other voices over the voice of the Lord. The example of the shepherd Jesus gave was of a middle eastern shepherd who was constantly singing and talking to his sheep so they always knew where to go. I think because He used this example this is what He is always doing with us and why Paul said we were to pray continuously - prayer being a jargon word for 2 way communication with God - because God is always wanting to be in communication with us. But we have gone and put the sound of God's voice on low priority in our brains and put the voice of man, the voice of the world on high priority.

Interestingly too I have been learning that once a sound is in that priority place, either high or low, it takes a lot of work to alter that which is why, maybe its easier to follow the sheep we can see that the God we can't.

Haiti

2010-01-21T17:19:00.002Z

I've had some stuff in my head for this for a bit but life has been busy what with teen hassles and flapping of wings, getting a job that means I'm out the house about 8am. It's only 2hrs but then I carry on to the computer course I'm trying to finish, then to visit with friends, and also have had a full day with the CAB training so when I've been on the computer my head hasn't quite been there. Tonight I have been spoiled by the whole family going off climbing and me having the house to myself. There was the usual pressure to catch up with friends but I am resisting.

Anyway some thoughts I've been having on Haiti - I will not duplicate what has been said so do just check on to other blogs that I've listed and link on to others too.

I was praying for Haiti and reading my Bible. I'm doing Matthew in order and had just come to the feeding of the 5,000. What amazed me is what we do pray when we pray and what we don't pray. Here in this story Jesus multiplies physical things because the people needed him too and it says he was filled with compassion for them. So I got praying that the food, water and medical supplies would be multiplied for Haiti so that there was more than enough.
That very day I get an email from The Message Trust in Manchester who sponsor hundreds of children in Haiti and they have had their luggage allowance multiplied by Virgin Atlantic to half a ton each (each of those in the Message Trust who are going over) and then today I see the headlines that the Haiti aid appeal has reached £38million and is growing. Is this an snswer to my prayer? It wasn't quite what I asked for but I do see it as that.
It did make me wonder though how often we pray for healing, conversions, safety, even wealth but don't pray for God to do again the miracle of multiply vital life needs.

Holocaust and Trafficking

2010-01-17T19:23:00.002Z

I posted this on a prayer network we are trying to starting in our town. Its a bit of a slow start. Only 8 people on board, 2 of them us, one is an email address we are using, 3 people using email address they hardly check and one lovely active lady. Lots of prayer needed to start a prayer network in a denominationaly divided town.

But anyway what really did strike me as I prayed in remember the Holocaust and our present human trafficking injustices is how similar they are and I wonder how history will remember how we as Christians dealt with human trafficking. So much gets ignored because we would have to so change our ways. I see it as so similar to Wilberforce and the abolition of slavery and the Holocaust and now.

"Just wanted to send out a prayer request to remind everyone to just pray about

1. that 10th Jan is Holocaust remembrance day and that it would be good to pray for all those who lost their lives in the Holocaust - the millions of Jews but also the Slavs, handicapped, and those who stood up to Hitler. And whilst I was praying this morning about it felt we also should pray about those who turned a blind eye to it all and that we are not like them

which brings me to

2. the 24/7 prayer community are praying from 10th Jan to 17th Jan in regard to Human Trafficking - which very much centres around the sex industry but also covers those who are involved in the chocolate and even the food industry, where we want more for less. And in this I felt whilst praying that so often we turn a blind eye to it because we really do not want to know. We can stand up against it when it is in the sex industry but to think that if we do not buy fair trade chocolate then we can actually be getting chocolate that has been grown and picked by children in slavery. This is not an exageration. And even some of the regular foods we get in our supermarkets are picked by illegal immigrants who have been trafficked over here with the promises that the streets are paved with gold.

Dear Jesus please help us to love and care for all and open our eyes to the injustices of this world."

Plough Sunday

2010-01-12T11:50:00.002Z

Thank you laddies for all your lovely encouragement. Julie you need to connect with Mavis as you are both in Yeovil. Wish I lived closer. Ian and I were only saying over breakfast this morning that we wonder how we meet people here who are on a similar planet to us.

Anyway an interesting thing we discovered over the weekend, that the Sunday just gone, the 1st after Epiphany use to be known as Plough Sunday when the farmers would bring in their ploughs to be bless for the coming season of ploughing the land. They would've also sharpened them and got everything ready. Then Monday would be a holiday, if the weather was right, and everyone would get out and help with the ploughing, because as we should know if you don't plough you can't sow, and if you don't sow you don't get a harvest.
Another interesting thing would be that it is better to plough and then have frost and snow as this breaks the ground up better and will produce a better harvest. And there is something about snow that when it is on the land the water content is different and so again produces a greater harvest!!!
But we were also saying how now that we are no longer so connected with the land we do forget all these things and can miss the season, miss what God wants us to do.

Then it was exciting this morning to open and email from Emerge Wales about responses to the weather to find one from Catch The Fire Ministries which says :

Preparing the Ground for greater harvest

"I woke up yesterday and saw myself flying over UK and Europe and most of it covered in snow instead of seeing the usual green fields. In these days the snow has fallen even in places that don't normally get snow - and has lasted longer than for many of us in our life times - definitely something to be taken notice of. The physical is a sign of the spiritual. I felt the Lord say - though the sins of the nation and nations are as scarlet I am here to make them white as snow. A large gathering of souls. I desire nations to turn to me and I am preparing the ground and warming the hearts. As the blanket of snow covers the ground so there is something happening hidden in the hearts of people across the nations of Europe and the UK today in this season even though they are not aware. They are going to be stopped in their tracks by an encounter with heavenly Snow treatment. This is a season to signify a change in the spiritual atmosphere - the blanket of snow is covering the earth and will bring a cleansing. Following this time people will have increased hunger for the truth of the gospel and will respond to the blood of Jesus salvation - increase of souls being won - people will hear and see and listen and respond to the truth and be drawn to it instead of repelled and even those who wouldn't normally be interested will be. Also as snow melts from underneath and waters the earth - the love of God melts hearts and brings hope and light and truth and the barriers come down and the truth feeds the heart - gradually soaking in deeper and deeper. In a months time the new spring bulbs will be popping up and as the truth of God's word and as the blood of Jesus cleanses and softens hearts so new life will spring forth - beautiful new life of new souls won for Jesus. We have already seen opportunities to share the gospel and warmth of Gods love to those who would not have listened before, this is going to increase and we need to be ready to take the opportunities we are given - they will come suddenly, in the supermarket, talking on facebook, anywhere and anytime - be ready to make the most of them and respond to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. He's preparing the ground for us so keep your eyes and ears open. A season of sowing and harvesting is upon us." Mick & Sue Taylor, Catch the Fire Ministries

I've copied all of it even though some is not quite what I've been saying because I think its really good.

So we are being prepared and as with the building of our chicken run which is on hold now because of the ground being frozen we need to be watching the sky, watching the weather, being in touch with the land so that we can go and do when the time is ready.

Running with the Weather

2010-01-06T17:09:00.002Z

This week started out look very busy, lots going on, lots to juggle about, but now the snow has come. It was one of those things when I heard about it I didn't quite believe it and so made sandwiches for Tabi for college and me for work, but we had them for lunch at home today.
This is Ben's first winter in a job and he's found it hard, that whole thing of not being about to play in the snow, of having to bunk at a friend's house tonight as he wont be able to get in tomorrow morning, of not thinking about all this when he packed to go to work mid morning today once the roads have cleared.
And hard for me as mum to keep my mouth shut and not nag him to ask the people he is staying with to give him lunch, much as I would love to.
But it has got me thinking esp from reading these prophecies of life changing how we so need to be not just watching the seasons but realising that we need to be willing to be flexible and to go with the flow with them. It is not just about watching but about reacting to what we see. We can see that it is going to snow but what do we do about it, still carry on the same old way and hope its all ok or bend and flow with the changes?
Talking of prophecies too I was reading Joanna's blog (The Journey) and where she says about Martin Scott prophecying over them about travel and then how they started to make things happen. From reading the stuff that is said to be going to happen this year how much am I willing to make things happen?
Though I do say I would love a clear directive from God to know what my "mission" is for this year. It still all seems very very vague. Doors sort of opening but not too clearly. But maybe too I need to just watch the seasons and then react to what the weather sends me?

A New Year, A New Decade

2009-12-31T07:17:00.005Z

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

2009-12-23T16:06:00.002Z

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

2009-12-21T14:11:00.002Z

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

2009-12-14T20:33:00.002Z

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?

2009-12-04T15:07:00.001Z

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

2009-12-03T11:25:00.001Z

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

2009-11-28T13:04:00.002Z

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

2009-11-26T16:27:00.002Z

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

2009-11-24T15:26:00.002Z

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

2009-11-20T10:38:00.002Z

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!!!

2009-11-17T19:52:00.002Z

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

2009-11-09T15:23:00.003Z

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!!

2009-11-07T17:24:00.002Z

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

2009-11-05T08:59:00.002Z

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!!

2009-11-04T08:51:00.002Z

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

2009-10-30T09:01:00.001Z

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

2009-10-19T16:01:00.003+01:00

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

2009-10-17T14:27:00.002+01:00

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

2009-10-16T09:45:00.002+01:00

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

2009-10-08T14:26:00.004+01:00

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

2009-10-08T14:20:00.002+01:00

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

2009-10-06T14:58:00.002+01:00

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...........

2009-09-30T09:39:00.003+01:00

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

2009-09-25T11:41:00.002+01:00

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

2009-09-21T08:40:00.002+01:00

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

2009-09-17T11:30:00.004+01:00

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

2009-09-17T11:17:00.003+01:00

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!!

2009-09-15T17:00:00.002+01:00

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

2009-09-14T16:30:00.002+01:00

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!

2009-09-13T16:09:00.002+01:00

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

2009-09-12T15:17:00.003+01:00

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!