Just Being.

Emotional stored up energy.
Focused and realised.
Freedom giving.
Boundaries broken.
Just being.

Mind wanders to silence.
Paths form and grow
Boundless and limitless.
Love Intensifies the silence.
Just being.

Spiritually connected
Phisically contained.
Hedges, fences.
Familiar paths.
Safety in the knowing.
Secure
Just being.

Would I.
Could I break out.
Smashing paths, trampling fences, distorting dreams.
Hurting all.
That’s not me.

Could I.
Should I be wild and reckless
Selfish.
Boundaries would be lost .
love would be hurt.
That’s not me.

Silence beyond just being.
Prayers that never utter a word.
Peace and freedom.
Love that pulls me, beyond my boundaries.
Thats me.

Melting points.

Day 24 – Lent Challenge – Refine.

Trying to find a person that fits the word refine is not easy. The more time I give to this the more I realise the refining that is beyond the human. Refining comes from God.
It’s the hollowing out, the deepness and deaths being refined by God takes us. The tears that flow and keep flowing as God hollows out our hearts.
It’s painful..
I’m writing this blog the morning after mother’s day. Feeling totally exhausted by the whole day. My heart is crying and confused.
Mother’s day reminds me the that the pain has a purpose. God uses the pain.
It’s the pain that shapes and moulds us. Theirs no hiding from it, nothing is hidden from God.
It’s a change to the core. God tells us he will take us through the fire to refine us like silver and purify us like Gold. The melting point of silver is 1761 degrees. the melting point of pure gold is 1945 degrees. Pain is that hot temperature that causes pain, melts our hearts.
I am angry and struggling with myself today. Angry that it took pain for me to find God not Joy. That’s why the tears that don’t want to stop today.
Tears full of why. It’s almost as if the tears stop the refining fire getting to hot. Gods way of stopping me boiling over. Allowing me to stay held in the crucible that is Gods love. The crucible that holds my heart in the fire.

Psalm 56:8 The Message (MSG)

You’ve kept track of my every toss and turn
through the sleepless nights,
Each tear entered in your ledger,
each ache written in your book.

Despair – The Compelte Loss Or Absent Of Hope.

Day Eleven – Lent Challenge 2018 – Despair

I feel called to be along side those that have complete loss and absent of hope. Reaching into the forgotten corners of our communities.
Dysfunctional families where poverty and hunger is real. Being a voice for them, fighting for justice. That the love of God may be made visible to them.

Writing the above one powerful image comes to mind.
A father sat rocking in grief unable to look up from the floor. Numb and muted by pain, he rocked slowly in some hopeless attempt to self calm. A father that had his 3 children removed by social services the day before. A father that was expected to partake in a meeting with no support.
He sat alongside his wife holding her hand. Not once did they break contact, not once did they look at each other.
I attended that meeting and did nothing. A cried deeply inside, I prayed that someone would go to them and stop this cruelty.
I am ashamed with myself for not doing something. I never had the confidence to help. I never had the words to say to them.
When I experienced terrible pain and grief myself some 18 months later, I found myself wrapped in love. Held in grief, prayed for and supported in my pain.
I can’t imagine going through so much pain without love. Going through grief without someone to hold you. Crying thinking no one cares.

The father and mother in my story will never know the impact they made on my life.
My journey is just beginning. Giving people space and opportunities to explore what it means to be loved by God.
I feel so full of energy and need some way of putting that energy down . God is changing me and giving me a voice; a voice that I have never really used much before.

My confidence is growing and so is my knowledge. I am hungry to learn, excited to see where God will send me and the path this might take.

Psalm 88 The Message

1-9 God, you’re my last chance of the day.
I spend the night on my knees before you.
Put me on your salvation agenda;
take notes on the trouble I’m in.
I’ve had my fill of trouble;
I’m camped on the edge of hell.
I’m written off as a lost cause,
one more statistic, a hopeless case.
Abandoned as already dead,
one more body in a stack of corpses,
And not so much as a gravestone—
I’m a black hole in oblivion.
You’ve dropped me into a bottomless pit,
sunk me in a pitch-black abyss.
I’m battered senseless by your rage,
relentlessly pounded by your waves of anger.
You turned my friends against me,
made me horrible to them.
I’m caught in a maze and can’t find my way out,
blinded by tears of pain and frustration.

We are Loved.

Day Six – Lent Challenge 2018 – Listen.

Trying to pinpoint one person for the word listen was a lot harder than I thought.
Running this morning I asked myself what gives me that buzz of excitement every time I hear it?
It’s the dawn chorus.
So this blog is a thank you to the person that took a teenage me out very very early one spring morning to listen to my first dawn chorus. Sitting in darkness we waited for the moment the first bird sang.
It’s as magical then as it is today. It’s that explosion of airborne joy. You can hear the Robin, Blackbird and sparrow so clearly. Yet they remain invisible in the twilight of the morning.

The teenage me just heard birdsong. The difference is today when I get up early and sit quietly in the darkened woods I listen to God.

Its one of the few times and places I can be really still. Stillness in the presence of our Lord. Stillness in the anticipation of a new day that’s about to dawn. God speaks out of the silence. It’s not just silence, it’s stillness full of positive energy and life. A sacred space where I can just be. A space that God speaks his word.
It’s as if everything is on hold in this silent place the atmosphere is charged: than the first bird sings.
This little oasis of creation speaks and rejoices in the new day.
Imagine if we equally rejoiced in the new day shouted it out “We are loved” Our voices were beautifully in tune with creation. Our message being heard above the chatter of our busy lives around us.
Take the time listen for yourself Dawn tomorrow is at 05.22 ( full darkness ends).

Psalm 5:3 Good News Translation (GNT)
you hear my voice in the morning;
at sunrise I offer my prayer[a]
and wait for your answer.

 

Viewing life through the eyes of others.

Day Four – Lent Challenge 2018 – Hospitality.

Today’s Lent challenge prompt is “hospitality ” and I chose to share and say thank you, to one family that are very gifted in hospitality.
Its their total acceptance of who we are. Just as God excepts and love us so do they.
Viewing life through the eyes of others is never easy. It’s so easy to criticise those that do not think the way we do.
It’s so easy to think someone that is loud is rude.
It’s often just their way of hiding the true person. The person they are to afraid to show the world.
It’s only when we take time it get to know people do we discover the true them.
Many of my friends can’t see beyond my husband’s negative comments.

The phrases that comes from his mouth can be blunt and seem rude, but that’s not really him. He would be devastated to hurt someone’s feeling. But he also can seem rude, condescending, or downright mean. Making terrible mother in law jokes that are not funny, laughing at another person’s mis-fortune, or cracking inappropriate jokes.
We have found ourselves as a couple on the edge.
Church family has broken the cycle of us feeling rejected. It has broken the cycle of us not socialising.
Hospitality really is God given. It has only been through the church that we have felt this expectance and love.
So thank you to this wonderful family for inviting us into your lives, for sharing food together and laughing with us.

Romans 12 The Message (MSG)

12 ^1-2 So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

My Granny.

Day One – Lent Challnge 2018 – Learn.

My maternal grandmother taught me so much. Spending a lot of my teenage years with this old little prayerful lady was a gift.
A priceless gift that I am only just starting to see it’s true value .
She taught me respect.
I respected her values even if it did not understand them or believe in them.
She taught me to thank God every day. Before we ate she said grace thanking God for the meal we ate together. I respected this.
Before I went to bed she would request we pray for others. I respected this .
The teenage me learnt that my Grandmother valued prayer.
The adult me has been gifted with a teacher that taught me to pray. Showed me the value and power of intercession prayer. She taught me that you don’t stop praying when things get tough. You pray more.
I have so much respect for this little old lady that would pray for hours.
She prayed for those she loved, She prayed for those she did not, She prayed for those that were hurting in the world.
Pray often left her exhausted and emotional but she never stoped .
So my first blog for lent 2018 is to Granny – Thank you for teaching me how to pray. Thank you for praying for me.
I have a funny feeling you knew God would catch up with me in the end.

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 The Message (MSG)

16-18 Be cheerful no matter what; pray all the time; thank God no matter what happens. This is the way God wants you who belong to Christ Jesus to live.

A choice that was no choice at all.

Reading someone else’s blog the following words shouted out from the page.

“You had a choice,” she said, “but you did not have free will.” A choice that was no choice at all.

These words have been said to me in similar ways more than once in the last 18 months. In my grief they offered no comfort. I was not ready to hear the words “no choice”, not ready to believe that I had no choice at all.

I had no choice but to turn and walk away.
Holding you in my arms, I told you a life with this new family would be so much better than a life with me.
Expressed my happiness in all that was happening.
I told you that it was going to amazing and wonderful.
A choice that was no choice at all.
I hugged you a hug of a thousand words.
Inward tears streamed inside of me .
I smiled so you understood it was ok.
A smile that was just muscles moving my face.
It was a smile that wanted to scream.
I had no choice but to smile.
No choice but to leave and not look back.
I could not look back.
You trusted me.
You could not see my face grumbling in grief .
Relief momentarily numbed the pain.
Relief that I held it together.
Relief that I made it outside before I gave into searing heat of breaking pain.

A choice that was no choice at all.

No choice is why I could not cry.
No choice why you could not stay.
I had no choice but to leave and say goodbye.

I had free will but no choice.

Loving Father
Please let your will be done in my life. If it’s not your will let it slip through my grasp. Give me the strength to forgive those that hurt the ones I love. Give me the courage to face my fears. The peace not to worry about the things I cannot control or change.
Amen.

Magnetic Sisters

Life of mud and wellington boots.
Coloured pens that echo my thoughts.
Fluffy blankets in case my dreams.
Wild hair that lives its own life in its own time.
I dream.

Food cupboards sorted by colour and size.
Hair that’s brushed and not in your eyes.
Beds made, house neatly clean.
Magnificently sublime.
Magnetic sister.

Your hate has so much energy.
Physical punches aimed my way.
I would never fight, just flee
Shyly introverting
Quietly crying.
You hurt me.

Reborn I see your vulnerability.
I want to understand your pain.
It’s time to stop repealing
Stop guarding what we know.
We love each other so deeply.
I know want my love to show.

Running in the rain.

Day 28 – refresh – lent challenge 

Black clouds fill the sky
Cold air brushes by.
You can feel it’s going to rain
It’s going to pour
I love the rain

Darkened clouds and large rain drops
Smelling the inviting air
Stepping out into the rain
Liberating refreshing running in the rain,

Natures strength is in the rain
Pelting against my face
Puddles splashing as I run
Mouth open catching rain drops one by one .
Smiling running though the rain

Running takes away the pain
Running crying in the rain.
My tears are hidden as they roll
Tear drop puddles mixed with rain

Running is my therapy
Place to anger and to be me
Rain dilutes and waters down
Calms me and helps me understand

Colours change from dark to light
Multi colour smile shines so bright
promise of sunshine after rain
Peace after pain
Running praying in the rain.

By it’s a beautiful world .

I keep asking myself why ?

Once again our beautiful world has been darkened by yesterday’s brutal and senseless attack in westminster.
watching the news seems inappropriate the images are to harsh, reading the written words are shocking enough , the images we see are loved ones , friends and family injured and traumatised , even to start to imagine the grief of the families affected is beyond thought these people need their privacy and our love and prayers,

Day 20 – ask – lent challenge

John 1:5  the light shines in the darkness , am duchess the darkness has not overcome it.