Author: dianewoodrow

I married Ian in 2007. I have two grown up children, who I home schooled until they were 16. My son has just joined the army, my daughter has just moved to Cardiff.
I have a degree in History and Creative writing and a PGDip in using Creative Writing for Therapeutic Purposes.
Until Feb 2016 I lived in a beautiful part of England and now I live in a beautiful part of North Wales where my time is filled with welcoming Airbnb rental guests, running writing workshops, writing, serving in my local Welsh Anglican Church, going for long walks with my little dog, Renly, and drinking coffee and chatting with friends

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others self

Letting Go Of Self

How many times in a conversation do you get frustrated when you want to unload about something and the other person butts in with their unload? Or how often are you talking with someone and you realise that either they or you have turned it round to self? Or how often do you get upset when things don’t go your way? Or don’t happen as you want them too?

I think one someone dies we grieve for ourselves rather than for them. If someone doesn’t get healed we take responsibility worrying that we didn’t “pray hard enough”.

Each time we do that we are putting “self” , our ego, at the forefront.

How often do I want a dry day, at least for those times when I’m out dog walking without any regard for what my country really needs? Or get narky because a friend is busy when I’d like to see them? Or the traffic is snarled up and I want to get home early?

Jesus tells us to “die to self” – which I think just means letting go of wanting to control the world.

I like to control my world. It makes me feel safe. I’m sure that is the same for all of us. We don’t like to not have a handle of things.

My friend in AA says one of the biggies is when they reach the step that talks about letting go of needing to be in control/letting go of self.

Only when we let go of self and our need to control a situation can we really let God/The Universe/A Higher Power than ourselves into the situation; into our lives.

It is scary letting go of self.

More and more I’m learning to let go of self and let God, but often this means more times I have nothing to do. This is because I don’t go looking for work or actively volunteering for things or even actively finding things to do. I now sit and wait and listen. Though often I spend times distracting myself from the listening by playing games on my phone, reading books, even reading the Bible can be just a distraction to be busy rather than finding what God really wants me to do in that moment.

I think most people are scared to let go and wait and trust in God. I wonder if it is back to that thing of not knowing we are loved unconditionally just for who we are and feeling like we have to work at being loved by God?

One reason I think is that if you aren’t filling your life and your head with other things you get time to ponder and then you see things in the “unseen” world.

Two you have nothing to tell anyone when they ask you “what did you do today?” How often do we all greet each other with “what have you been up to today/yesterday/last week/last month/etc?” Those yearly newsletters which have to put in what we have been up to. It is rare for someone to say “how are you really feeling today?” and really want to listen.

I think that brings us to the third reason why we don’t want to let go of self, of being in control. Don’t want to wait. If we stop rushing around being busy – which I think is what holding on to self equates to – then we get to think how we really feel about a situation, our lives, our towns, our relationships, our relationship with God. And then maybe we might see the gaps, what’s lacking.

Maybe too by letting go of self we won’t just be putting God/The Universe/A Higher Power first but will start putting each other first.

What would a conversation look like if I bit my tongue and really listened to the other person?

What could the world look like if we took the time to really hear what each other was saying without thinking how that relates to us and jumping in with our anecdote?

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Book for sale

It Became A Booklet!!

One of my super encouraging supporters keeps nagging at me [in that lovely God given way] to turn some of my posts into booklets so she can keep them and reread them. I thought seeing as I made it from beginning to end with Psalm 23 I’d give it a go.

Oh my Goodness!!! Fighting to the death with Amazon Kindle Direct Print [Amazon KDP] was like fighting a bear. Every time it looked like I’d won it would rear up again and do something to stop the process!!! I don’t remember it being so hard when I did my poetry book Inspirations From Walking in North Wales but that was back in the spring of 2022 so maybe I’d forgotten the stress!

But I persevered and here is it.

Thoughts on Psalm 23 Paperback can be found by clicking the link and is found either in paperback priced £3.50 or Kindle from 0.00 from Kindle Unlimited or £2.50 if you don’t have unlimited. Or you can purchase it from me for £3.50 [+P&P] or pick up from myself and I’ll sign it for you.

Categories
oughts writing

Walking Away from “Oughts”

Write from your Passion

First published on Godspacelight 9th July 2024

Writing workshop about dragons and myths run by myself – Barefoot At The Kitchen Table – June 2024

In Christine Sine’s newsletter to those of us who write for Godspacelight she talked about writing into her passion. This is probably one of the bests prompts I’ve had in ages. I have tried writing what I ought to write. I even set up a Substack account to write about writing for well-being but it’s failed. Why? Because, much as I love free writing for my own well-being, I wasn’t writing into my passion. I was trying to be something I wasn’t. I even tried putting in a regular structure to when I blogged but I’m afraid that isn’t me. 

How often do we do that – try to be something we are not? Whether it is in what we write or what we do? I think of many times when I have done something – job or ministry – that is so significant but isn’t me. Too many times to remember. It could even be something I’m good at, have talents in, but it isn’t my passion. I suppose if one jargoned it up I could say it wasn’t “my calling.”

As I’ve got older I’ve learned more and more not just what my skills and talents are but what I am passionate about. I love people, though I need time alone with a book too. If I’m honest my perfect day would be to go for a dog walk, coffee and breakfast with a friend and have a rolling, random conversation that covers deep and meaning as well as trivial and silly; come home and write a blog piece on something that either the conversation has triggered or that was buzzing in my head; and finish the afternoon on the couch to have a read of a good book, then maybe some intense Netflix drama with a glass of red wine to finish the day. Somewhere in that I’d like to ponder writing a short story or flash fiction, though maybe never get to write it; I’d like to email someone I enjoy writing to; run a writing workshop where I encourage others to get the most from putting pen to paper; and probably free write or journal myself. 

But I can get into thinking I “ought to” write X, Y or Z; I “ought to” be connecting with a certain person or group and “ought to” be doing something with them. But that is my “oughts and shoulds” and not my passion coming through. 

I’ve just read Timothy Keller’s The Prodigal God in which he talks of the older brother attitude being the one that says “it’s not fair” when God doesn’t do as we think they should do because we were “good Christians”. My “ought to” comes, I think, from a place that is where I’ve decided what a  “good Christian” or a “good writer” would/should do. It isn’t coming from a place of my passion. 

I think for all of us there are times when we do not run with our passions for many reasons; a need to fit in, a fear of missing out, having been told by a parental figure that life isn’t meant to be about fun, or whatever. I’m sure we all, if we allow ourselves to really hear our hearts, can come up with many reasons why we don’t follow our passions in work, in writing, in church stuff, in life in general. All of them have some truth in them but remember the devil goes around like a angel of light. The one who keeps us away from our true selves does it subtly not overtly. If it was overtly we would notice and rise above it. But it is filled with limited truths and comes from people who do care for us and want the best for us. But it is still lies if it keeps us from our passions and our true selves. 

I’m grateful to all the healing that I’ve received so I can hear God clearly, hear my heart clearly, and be bold enough to step out into my passions. I’m also bold enough now to walk away from when I’ve try to do something that looks good but isn’t me; when I’ve done an “ought”. But this has come about because I know God loves me unconditionally all the time – not just when I get it right/write 🙂 

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house of the lord paradise psalm 23

Psalm 23 – part 9

Various pictures of my house taken over the last couple of month by myself

First big cheer to me!!! I’ve made it. I’m not great at committing to doing something from beginning to end so I am feeling pleased with myself. Perhaps I might even do it again. I have discovered on thing that has helped me – scheduling posts. Some days I have ploughed on and done 2-3 in a day. I am writing this on 6th July and it won’t be posted until 11th. So maybe I have learned something about myself through this?

and I will dwell in the house of the Lord
    forever.

Psalm 23:6b

So this last part – I don’t think it just means a “happy in heaven living with God” experience. David says “forever” not “forever after I’m dead”. In fact this line comes after being in green pastures, calm rivers, dark valleys, making peace with enemies, being refreshed, knowing one is anointed, knowing God loves us unconditionally and that love and goodness follows us all the time and watches our backs.

I think that “the house of the Lord” is the green pastures, is the still rivers, is the dark valleys, is the room/table where we can make peace with our enemies, is the anointing, is the being kept safe from anything attacking from behind by goodness and love/mercy. I think it is all those things.

I think this might just be the “room” Jesus talks about when he says he has prepared a room for us in his Father’s House [John 14:2]. It isn’t a tiny bedsit room but it is the whole world – with pastures and rivers and dark valleys and hard places.

This is the room – the space – God has for us. This is the “House of the Lord“. And we live in it now – if only we open our eyes!

I am just blown away by this. I am grateful that my house group started this journey off for me. I have tears in my eyes as all this settles into my heart. It isn’t just that God is so much bigger than we too often make them to be but that what we have got by being with God is so much bigger, safer, amazing, than we could even imagine.

This takes me back to the song one of our house group mentioned last time – Pure Imagination from Willy Wonka especially the lines

If you want to view paradise simply look around and view it

Paradise is here and now, this is the House of the Lord – if you would simply look around and view it

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goodness mercy psalm 23

Psalm 23 – part 8

“Come on. Let’s go this way!” Photographed by myself July 2022

Surely your goodness and love will follow me
    all the days of my life,

Psalm 23:6a

One of the things public speaking teaches is that if you make something visual people will remember it. Well about 20 years ago at Cross Rhythms Festival, even though I don’t remember who the speaker was I do remember the great skit they did about this verse.

The speaker got two young people from the crowd up and got them to follow him. He called one Goodness and the other Love or Mercy [some bible translations have “surely goodness and mercy will follow me …”]. These two people followed him as he wandered round the tent where we were gathered. His point was that whether we went, the right place or the wrong place, going where God wants us or off doing our own thing, God has promised that goodness and love/mercy will be right behind us.

Often we don’t realise it because we don’t look. We career about on our own thinking we are totally alone and that it is all up to us. Or we are so fearful to “get it right” so we get God’s goodness and mercy that we don’t realise they are with us all the time anyway.

How much different would your life, would my life, be if we truly believed that whatever we did and wherever we went God’s goodness and love/mercy were hot on our tails, were there ready for us to fall into, were there to protect and support us?

All we would have to do is stop, rest by those green pastures – because often even though God leads us into those green pastures and beside still waters we don’t see them because we are rushing past to the “next thing”. What if we stopped and let God’s goodness and love/mercy hang out and minister to us?

So first we need to believe they are there. How do we know that? Well … because God promised us. Maybe we don’t believe really that God promised it to us too. Maybe we think we need to do something more to get God’s goodness and love/mercy and probably also God’s unconditional love????

It all goes back to that thing that if you don’t believe God loves you unconditionally and you don’t believe God has your back – which we see here God does because it says his goodness and love/mercy follow us, which means they watch our backs. Duh! – but if you don’t believe that then you maybe don’t notice the still waters, the green pastures and don’t believe that all that love and goodness are with you in those dark places?

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anointed blessed psalm psalm 23 unconditional love

Psalm 23 – part 7

You anoint my head with oil;
    my cup overflows.

Psalm 23:5b

I went for a long walk on a very windy beach to ponder this one.

I get the first bit – that God anoints me as his special person, his ruler, his one who can rule in his place. I am anointed and special to God even when I have to make peace with the enemies without and within, even when I’ve walked through horrid, depressing, dark, death-like things, even when I’ve been made to lie down in a calm place and do nothing. In all those things God says “you are anointed. You are important and special to me”.

It’s not what I do or don’t do but it is all about God’s unconditional love for me. See I’m back to that again. This does seem to be the crux of everything – God’s unconditional love for me in whatever situation – good, bad, busy, still, being important or not being noticed – in all of those things I am God’s special anointed person that they love for who I am. Amazing.

And I think it is once we realise that then are “cup”, our lives, our way of thinking, will overflow with blessings and gratitude. But, I think, we need to be willing to let God lead us wherever they want always knowing we are loved unconditionally, that God sees as us awesome, and that God has our backs and we can trust them with our lives – however good, bad or indifferent our lives are at the moment.

Categories
peace psalm

Psalm 23 – part 6

lovely wine bar in Cardiff that used to sell oysters on a Tuesday along with toasted cheese sandwiches. Photographed by myself Sept 2023

You prepare a table before me
    in the presence of my enemies.

Psalm 23:5a

What does table mean to you here? Too often we’ve been told by the preacher that it is a food table. And yes The Message version of the Bible does say ” You serve me a six-course dinner right in front of my enemies” which actually sounds a bit smug!

Of course being told it is a meal table conjures up images of having to be hospitable to your enemies, or smug to your enemies because God is feeding you and they are just looking on. But what if this table is a table for parleying around, a table for making peace around, like used to done between kings to end battles? What if it is for inviting in those things that are against you – your fears, your needing to be loved, your needing to “get it right”, your needing to believe you have “enough”, your lack of trust in yourself and in God, your issues and traumas?

It comes right after the shadow of the valley of death and before being anointed.

You anoint my head with oil;
    my cup overflows.

Psalm 23:5b

I think we presume it to be a food table because of the “cup” line that follows. I wonder how often we forget that the Psalms are poetry and are to be read as such. And not – as I am doing – dissecting them line by line.

At the house group we’ve started my friend pointed out that verse 5 is where the psalm changes from God doing [He] to becoming more personal [you]. But this gets missed if we don’t read it together.

It’s almost like a “yes yes I can understand with my head that God leads me and I don’t need to fear” but then switches to “oh my goodness it’s you leaving space for me to make peace with my issues and fears”.

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fearful psalm

Psalm 23 – part 5

LLandulas beach 1st July 2024 Photographed by myself

This little tree appeared after a landslide took down the nearby cliff which had two large conifers on it. The thought is that this was a seed from one of them. When we had huge storms here in April all this coast was under water, with the stones being thrown on to the coastal path. This little tree, because it is on its own, was unprotected, covered in sea water, and yet it has survived.

Do you sometimes feel like that little tree? Not in your true environment, alone, drowning, covered in something that is toxic to you? That dark valley place? Well as we saw in part 4 God understands and David says in his psalm

I will fear no evil,
    for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
    they comfort me.

Psalm 23:4

I’m not sure about you but I fear lots of things. I know I shouldn’t because I’m comfortably off, have my own home, have enough money to not only eat well but to go away on trips, to run a car, to have friends round, to go out for meals. I have a good husband that I get on with and we can have a laugh. I get to write, to walk my dog safely, and to grow as me. I live in a safe neighbourhood where crime is reported because it is rare. But I do fear.

I can fear not being liked, not getting these posts “right”, not having “enough”, worry about my children, my mum, my in-laws, my friends, what I should be doing with my life. Sometimes I even wake up in the night worrying about what to cook for eat and will those eggs have gone off! Oh yes that’s a genuine one.

But God says do not fear many many times in the Bible and here it comes right after walking through that dark valley, which is much worse than what am I going to do with the eggs in my fridge!

I know when I fear that I am not trusting God – whether that is with the eggs in my fridge or my children and the things they go through. If I fear then I am trying to hold on to control. I am trying to keep things in my ways of doing and being and not handing them to God who can then do as God knows best.

Why then follow the fear line with the rod and staff line? Now I’ve heard all sorts of sermons about the rod and staff being discipline and guidance but this morning, whilst I was pondering what to write, I felt God say that the “rod and staff” are the tools of a shepherd’s trade. No shepherd in the Middle East would go out without his rod and staff.

This line is to remind us that God always goes out with the tools of their trade – whatever that happens to be at any given moment. We aren’t always compared to sheep in the Bible. Sometimes people are compared to fish, coins, eagles, wheat, weeds, etc. and the tools of the farmer, fisherman, housewife, etc are all different to those of the shepherd but God is more than able to change tools as the metaphors change.

But in all this I have to remember that if I am fearful then I am not trusting God and probably not believing God loves me unconditionally. or that God knows what the right tools for this situation are. Perhaps when I am fearful I am trying to be god????

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death grief psalm

Psalm 23 – part 4

Photographed by myself Jan 2022. A lonesome tree on the top of the hill

How often do we feel like that when we are going through something awful? Something tough? Like we are exposed and alone?

He guides me along the right paths
    for his name’s sake.
4 Even though I walk
    through the darkest valley

Psalm 23:3b-4a

Do you know we only split the Bible into chapters and verses because some bishop decided it? The divisions started to happen in the 9th Century but really came into their own in the 13th Century. David, when he wrote this Psalm would have just written it as a poem with the lines as they are but to be read as whole.

For some reason this jumped out at me – of us being guided along the right paths for God but that sometimes they would lead us through a dark valley – through the valley of the shadow of death, as it says in the NKJV. For those who have gone through dark times, whether the death of a loved one, the end of a relationship, a redundancy, a lost opportunity, etc, it can feel like walking in the shadow of death. I believe any time of grief is a time of death – death of a dream as much as loss of a person.

Someone I care about deeply is going through a dark time but, standing back a bit, I can see that if they don’t go through this dark valley they will never be freed from certain things. This dark time for them will cleanse them.

I can’t find it but in one of this last week’s Henri Nouwen meditations he talks of how grief can be a place of growth. In Richard Rohr’s blog someone talks of how in our culture we try to ignore grief and dark times and run away from them. That we just want to get over it. But here if we run these verses together and don’t allow for the verse break it says that God, our Shepherd, will guide us this way. So does this mean that it is good for us?

Perhaps this is why we we are lead in those calm quiet places first – so we are refreshed but also have developed our relationship with God. Dark times are hard if we don’t know we are loved unconditionally and don’t know that God “has our back” so to speak. We need to get to that place where we can trust that we are being led – that we will be led through not left there. But that in the going through we will …

I will fear no evil,
    for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
    they comfort me.

Psalm 23:4b

Maybe then we can support and lead others through their valley of the shadow of death at God’s pace rather than rush them through because we don’t like them being sad and depressed.

God lets people grieve so should we – and that includes ourselves.

Categories
thanksgiving Trust God UK Elections

The Day After Election Day

A day break from working through Psalm 23 because yesterday was election day in the UK. It has been a tough choice.

How many people left like this yesterday? A little bit confused and feeling on their own? Photographed my myself 4th July 2024

Do you vote with your heart? Or your head? Tactically? Or just closed your eyes and put a cross?

I can’t tell how many people voted but I’m hoping its a lot because we need to vote. In this country all women did not get the vote until 1928 and it was only in 1969 that the voting age was dropped to 18. This is a democratic right we should all use. At my polling station they were pushing the votes deeper into the box with a big official looking stick so I hope that means lots of people turned out.

The results are nearly all in and in the UK we have a change of government and have moved fractionally to the left. Even if, in my opinion, the UK Labour party are not as left wing as they used to be.

love bit of graphics from Aljazeera news at 8.45am 4th July 2024 with most of the seats in

As you can see it is a great time for those who play with computer graphics. I’m sure if they added some council funding and a few creatives we could go crazy with it.

But seriously what happens now? How much will change? What difference will it make?

The Bible says we are to pray for those in authority. Remembering that when most of the New Testament verses about this were written it was at a time when the Romans were persecuting Christians. Actually before the Romans the Jewish authorities were persecuting followers of Jesus. Even the Old Testament verses about praying for those in authority are written when the Jews were in exile.

So we don’t pray only when we like the government. We don’t pray only when we get the rulers we’ve prayed for. We pray for whoever is in a place of authority.

It doesn’t tell us what to pray which I think we forget. I think there is often a misconceived idea that we can manipulate our leaders by our prayers. I’m not saying we shouldn’t pray that they see the poverty on our streets and eradicate it, or see the mess of our health services and our schools, and our welfare system, and the greed of many. Yes we should pray about that. But I think the big one we need to do is to give them to God and trust that God can speak to them.

For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.

Romans 13:1

I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.

1 Timothy 1-3

So all institutions exist because of God but we are to pray for them with thanksgiving so that they know how to govern so we can lead peaceful lives.

Now to be honest I think that’s much easier than having to tell God what these governmental leaders should be doing. Of course in my nice comfy house in a quiet North Wales seaside town I think I know best. But like most things, whether ruling the country or knowing what’s best for my family all I can do is give them to God.

So with this new government I am hoping that I can also enter a new phase not just in my prayers for the government but in the prayers for my family and friends and can pray with thanksgiving giving them to God and trust God knows best.