Oh I’m sure there’s a rational scientific explanation. In fact a man in the park told me that
the whole row of trees where one fell all have dead roots so all will fall at some point. Ok so that’s a reason but why that one during Storm Doris on Wednesday? Why not another one? Why not all of them? So as I was talking to him a woman walked past us and we both said Hello to her as we always do then he said “her husband passed away recently” which I knew because she’d told me and she’d told me this is the reason she gets up and walks briskly round the park each morning before she starts her day. Then he said, as she moved further away from us “and she’s had cancer.” She’s still standing, still walking, still able to smile and say good morning.
In fact I know of a few people who are dealing with cancer, bereavement, ill health, divorce, etc who still have time for other people, who still get up each day, who still work, care, smile. Then I know others who are going through similar who have fallen; some to staying home all the time, some to drink, drugs, fighting, bemoaning everything, some even to suicide. So what makes some people fall and others not?
The glib answer could be God, but that’s not true. I know as many Christians who have fallen into that pit of despair as I do those who do not have a faith. I know as many people who are still standing swaying in the wind of the awful things the world is throwing who don’t have a faith as I do ones who do.
There is something more than knowing/not knowing God that has to do with this whole falling/not falling. I think some of it is personality. Some people can just see the positive through things, some can’t. I would say, from experience for myself and those I know, that as a Christian in hard situations it is the knowing that God is there, it is turning to God and
not expecting Him to be a fairy godmother who sorts it out but that He is a true friend who walks with you through it all. For those who say they don’t know God I think it is a tenacity that they won’t let life pull them down, that they will make the most of what they have whilst they on this earth for themselves, their families their friends. I think it is that which causes those with cancers to keep going with
their craft workshops, run marathons, get up in the morning and smile.
So why do some trees fall and others don’t? I think like people they have a tenacity in their trunk that makes them want to stay standing and be willing to face another storm.
Surely if you are going to name something then the name should fit. Why call a storm Doris? Is there anything that conjures up wild, fierce wind, storms, snow, plans being changed or cancelled in the name Doris?
names. Names that don’t suit a storm. I think that is because it is scientists, meteorologists, who names them. I’m sure they have a very sensible way of doing it. I am convinced they work through a book of names picking at random. I wonder what would happen if you had a group of creative writers naming the storms.
essentials and pull to come home, that made my writing workshop group all want to stay home. Desdemona has sent waves of rain water under my front door and soaked the free paper that was there. Thankfully it is only in the porch and only the free paper that got ruined. Also I think a storm called Desdemona would wait till we had cancelled the group, till she had wrecked her havoc and then stopped raining and made wonder why we’d stopped everything. Though I must add that Shakespeare’s Desdemona does eventually get strangled by her estranged husband because his sidekick makes him think she’s an adulteress.
the wrong thing, etc but what about others? How willing am I to have people who are hard work, mess my life up, over step my boundaries about? What about 
that we should love everyone as God loves them, but we don’t. I can forgive my children anything because I love them fiercely and still have that mother-tiger protective care element. I can forgive my husband most things because I have 
bit like the love your neighbour as yourself and you have to love yourself first. So we need to be able to know we have scars, reveal them wisely, don’t be as we think we should be – because often that means we are false to ourselves anyway and people can feel something is not right and avoid us anyway.
then 24 days later she was found staying at the home of her mother’s partner’s uncle. All the way through, because of knowing the story, it appears obvious that the mother knows something more than she is saying, but most of the estate rally behind one of the women who organises searches, poster and t-shirt campaigns, marches and all sorts to keep the media focused on this little girl from the poor estate.
present partner was abusing her but was not strong enough to say. Who knows. In one scene during two of the close friends of the mother are sat in the park and both say that they were abused but it is said in a matter of fact way; one saying you had to get over it and move on, the other saying she did report her father but only because he was remarrying and she wanted to project the children of his future wife. But it was just a very normal thing. It left me wondering how many people on that estate had been abused or where abusers and so reacted as they did.
Yes she did have mental health problems but she was not evil. What it left me feeling was how we are into this all or nothing. Trump is all evil or all mad or all something. Everything is in or out, good or bad. It is all or nothing mob rule and I believe The Moorside was showing just that through the tale of a young misused woman and an estate full of people who were lost and no longer knew their way.
Most Christians, and many who aren’t, will know the story of the Footprints in the sand; where there are two sets for a while then only one and the person says “where were you Lord when I was struggling?” and God says “I was carrying you.” And it is to encourage Christians to realise that when they cannot go on God carries them. A great metaphor! But why footprints in the sand?
something there about how God does carry us but I also think that it is in the sand because footprints in the sand get washed away twice a day and as fallible human beings we quickly forget what God has done for us. Just over a year ago I wrote a piece about trusting God and about struggling with trusting God and yet I still want to walk in my own strength through things. So we have only been living here a year – exactly today we got the keys 🙂 – and I now run a successful room rental via both Airbnb and word of mouth, and am running workshops in various amazing places. Yet I struggle to trust that God will provide – work, participants for workshops, money, people to stay in our home. Because of workshops and also with room rental bookings not all coming via Airbnb there can be times when people cancel due to change of circumstance or ill health. I have noticed that these things happen when I have projected how much money I should be earning that particular week/month and have started spending it in my head. It is like God then says “excuse me, but you’re trusting in yourself and not in me” and I have to have a rethink. I want to be self-sufficient but God is saying I have to be God-sufficient. It happens again and again because I am so bad at learning my lessons. But I’m getting there 🙂
So I think the reason that the it is “Footprints in the Sand” is, one because we forget when we cannot see the evidence, but also because we need to walk in trust with God all day every day so that we can make those new footprints with Him every single day – like I do on the beach with my dog each day 🙂
Aspirational Adventures 