Tag: christianity

Categories
faith important

Being Prioritised

With dogs, so I’ve been reading, when you introduce a new dog there has to be a new pecking order sorted, a new claiming of who is top dog. With Renly being 11 years older than Willow, and being the more easy-going, I’ve had to work on making sure he is top dog and she doesn’t bully him. So he gets treats first, gets to choose his place on the couch, etc. I prioritise him over her. Also to get her to behave I have to be top dog so she does as I tell her, and so she feels safe and secure.

That isn’t how it works with God. God doesn’t prioritise any of us. God doesn’t have any of us as “top dog”, care for more than anyone else, have anyone more special than someone else. [Though if we stick with the dog analogy then to feel safe and secure we need to know that God is top dog!]

That isn’t to say we shouldn’t treat people with care and respect – but then I think that might come back to the “if you fully love yourself then you can love your neighbour fully”.

Many of us, especially in childhood, were not prioritised, or it felt like we weren’t prioritised. It could be due to a demanding younger sibling, a major trauma that happens in the family where the parents fold in on themselves and forget about their children, not from abuse but from survival. But even if we can rationalise out the whys we have still be hurts, still felt unloved and unsafe, still felt unprioritised. We were living with an often unseen wound that needs healing; a wound that would appear as a temper tantrum or a shutting down or a sulking or a walking away from a relationship or an addiction.

Though of course with all wounds we need to identify it first.

I think though many of us, because we haven’t acknowledge and subsequently haven’t been healed of this wound of being scared because we felt we were pushed to one side, we don’t believe God will care for us. Rationally there are loads of people so much more deserving we can tell ourselves. Why would God care about my life, my problems, my job, how I’m going to pick up my shopping, etc? We have learned that we don’t come first, that others do and should, but also we feel unsafe when we feel we aren’t prioritised.

But God does care. God doesn’t have “top dogs”, doesn’t have those they care about more than others, those who take priority.

Yes there are people who seem to have more and those who seem to have less and I don’t understand why, but I do know it isn’t because God cares more for one than the other, or thinks some people are better than others. It is a question I plan on taking up when I get to heaven as God and I sit chatting on the side of the River of Life, but till now I’ll keep it as a mystery.

Each and everyone of us comes first with God, which is dead hard to get your head around. I believe this because I have seen my wound, have been healed of it and now can fully accept that God loves and cares for me as much as they do anyone all at the same time. The mystery of faith!

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Categories
encouraging Freeing

Mary Jones

Mary Jones Pilgrim Centre

Mary Jones was an amazing young woman. She comes from a time before teenagers when by 15 you were a woman, almost married, an adult, expected to pull your weight. But it is her tenacity that stands out in the story. It is said she saved up her pocket money, possibly what was left of her wages from whatever job she did after she’d give her parents her keep. So she saved this up for two years. Then she walks 26 miles from her home in Llanfihangel-y-Pennant to Bala to buy a Bible, a book she was longing to have for herself. The Rev Thomas Charles told her he had no Bibles but could get one for her in two days. So she waits, gets a Bible and goes home again. End of Mary’s story.

This inspires Rev Charles to start up the Bible Society which is still influential and still going today giving Bibles to the world. Read more here – Mary Jones Pilgrim Centre

Whenever I’ve heard Mary Jones’ name mentioned the focus always shifts to the Bible Society story, which is great. But what struck me this Sunday when our preacher mentioned her was that here was a young woman who was probably from a devout Chapel family, heard the Bible regularly, even had ones in the chapel she attended and could possibly have borrowed one at any time. But she wants to read God’s word for herself, wants to study it for herself, possibly wants to sleep with it under her pillow. So she doesn’t moan about what she hasn’t got but is proactive and goes and does something about it. It gave me hope from my children who were brought up knowing God but for whatever reason have walked away. These children of mine, or of any of ours, don’t have to walk 26 miles in the hope that someone has a Bible, don’t have to save up for 2 years, don’t have to wait a few days to get one. There are Bibles in most major high street booksellers or online.

God convicted Mary Jones to get her own Bible [as maybe God did with many other young people who didn’t heed the call] and she went. I am now going to be praying that when God convicts my children to get a Bible and return I will keep well out of the way and let them walk their own path to get there.

I was so encouraged by thinking of Mary Jones as the person not as the inspiration for something bigger.

As our preacher the week beforehand said “we don’t know what little seeds we are sowing in the dark”.

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Categories
downcast Encounter

Why So Sad?

Photo by Dr Photographer on Pexels.com

Today in church we had the reading from Luke 24 about the disciples on the road to Emmaus. I’ve pondered this before in Presumption and Emmaus Road but for me I find a lot of the time these familiar stories have a new question or a new meaning appear. Today’s is a question.

Jesus catches up with these people – two, more than two, male, females, family, friends, strangers. Who knows! But remember it was dangerous to travel in small groups back then because of robbers, etc.

It says later that these people say they knew that there are witnesses to say Jesus has risen and yet in the Bible the encounter starts with

17 Jesus asked them, “What are you discussing together as you walk along?” They stood still, their faces downcast.

Luke 24:17

And then they go on to say that they thought everyone knew about Jesus being crucified and they also recount the witness accounts of him not being in the tomb.

But why if they have been told Jesus has risen are they still “downcast”. That doesn’t make sense to me. I could understand if they were pondering things, thinking it all through, but to still be downcast when they’ve heard Jesus has risen seems a bit odd to me.

But then I got to thinking of all the miserable worried looking Christians I know who don’t appear to believe they can slide into the peace of God via Jesus. As if deep down they don’t really believe all the things they sing and read and hear preached.

I’m leaving this with a question because I could get judgemental and I really don’t want to. But I would love to know why were Cleopas and crew downcast and why are some 21st Century Christians downcast?

I really would love to know because for me, even on those horrid days when I’ve screwed up big time and would just love to hide, to sleep, to not get involved in the world, I still don’t feel downcast. I can still feel that deep joy of knowing the Creator of The Universe loves me uncondtionaly and has my back – whatever that may look like. But maybe to others they can’t see that in me so maybe I do look downcast then?

I was blessed when I “converted” because I had an amazing encounter with Jesus and knew at that moment I was loved even though my life was a mess – and caried on being a mess for a while after! But it was a very powerful God encounter. Perhaps that is what happened with Cleopas and crew and maybe from then onwards they were no longer downcast.

Wonder what happened to them?

Categories
something more teachings

A Missing Book?

Photo by Nicole Finkel on Pexels.com

This morning in the 24-7 Prayer Lectio 365 they were sharing on Jesus risen with this verse

1 In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach 2 until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen. 3 After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God.

Acts 1:1-3

Because it says “Theophilus” at the start of both Acts and Luke it is presumed that these books were written by the same person, and that Luke was a historian as well as theologian and wanted to get things accurately shared.

The more writing I do and the more I get into editing to enter my work in competitions, etc, the more I’m looking closely at things and seeing if they make sense.

Take note here – Luke says that in his “former book” he talks about all the things Jesus did and taught till he went up to heaven and verse 3 says that over a period of forty days he “spoke about the kingdom of God”. Jesus doesn’t go up to heaven till after those forty days. According to Luke Jesus taught the disciples over this time and that he, Luke, had shared this in his former book.

The Gospel of Luke finishes with a quick summary of Jesus telling the disciples what they must do and then of him going up to heaven but to me that isn’t “all Jesus began to do and teach”. Yes there is lots in Luke’s gospel about what Jesus did before he was crucified but the 40 days after resurrection???

To my mind, if Luke was such a dedicated historian and theologian, why would he write that if there isn’t another book out there somewhere filled with the conversations and teachings that went on between Jesus and his disciples and, I think, those new followers who missed out on so much by not hanging out with Jesus before crucifixion; words and teachings that would be so helpful to us all in knowing how to live post-resurrection.

Categories
psalm trust

All About Trust

Those who know you, LORD, will trust you;

Psalm 9 shared by Bible Society’s Lent readings

Renly and Willow assisting with my writing!!

I have noticed the more our new rescue dog, Willow, hangs out with us the more she trusts us. But it isn’t just that. The more she hangs out with our old dog Renly, the better they get on with each other. We are all getting to know each other and learning to trust each other.

With Willow too, the more often we go round the park the more she gets to know it and the regular people and dogs who walk there and so the more she is comfortable and trusting there. There is also the thing that the more she trusts me on a walk the more she trusts where I take her.

It is the same with God. The more we hang out with God the more we learn to trust God and the safer we are. I can’t remember who it was, maybe Henri Nouwen, who said that we need to get to know God in the calm times of our lives then we can trust God in the rough times.

Fourteen years ago now we went through a very tempestuous time and I know if I hadn’t built up my hanging out time with God before then, spent time devouring my Bible, praying, worshiping, reading about God, then I know I would not have been able to trust God during that time. Like Willow I build up my “hanging out getting to know God” time and knew then that I was safe with God wherever.

Again it is not about throwing requests at God, not about being busy doing things with God, but it is hanging out with God and just “doing life” with God, which is how the trust is built up.

[Though back on the Willow front – it is now 4.30pm and she still doesn’t quite trust that I will remember to feed her and Renly, which just goes to show we all need to work on trust 🙂 ]

this is the first stage of looking longingly
but by this one she’s talking to me

Categories
delight desire

Do You Know The Desire Of Your Heart

and how often do you sit calmly for long enough to listen? Or can you only really hear your heart’s desires if you are delighting in God?

Aber Falls footpath March 2016

According to Googlephotos it was ten years ago today that we first walked to Aber Falls. This was a side path so we took it. That’s what we were like back then when Renly was only 4 years old and could walk for miles and miles and miles. Interestingly we’ve not walked this path since that day. Some of that is because Natural Resources Wales have been doing a major replanting scheme so the fir trees that were beyond this path have been removed and new native to the area trees are being replanted.

This morning I was reading Psalm 37 as part of the Bible Society’s Lent readings for today and this verse jumped out at me

Take delight in the LORD,
     and he will give you the desires of your heart.

What struck me was – how many of us really know the desires of our hearts? And how many of us stick to a plan we got 10, 15, 20, 40, etc years ago and keep trying to get there even though we have changed massively since then? This is why I’ve used the above picture. Only ten years ago our dog could walk miles and now, much as he enjoys his walks, he is much slower and cannot walk as far. But also this piece of land looked like it was going to be conifer trees forever but now there are struggling beeches and ash, as a more native forest is re-established. The desires and plans have changed both for my dog and this piece of land.

We moved here 10 years ago. Back then my desire was to run our house as an Airbnb house, offering hospitality to low-budget travellers. Even before Covid the ethos of Airbnb travellers was changing and I was thinking of stopping. The desire of my heart had changed. Also a around that time I was doing lots of work with children and teens around Creative Writing but again my desires have changed.

Though in both my “desires” it was Covid and Lockdown that accentuated my need to relook at my heart and what it really wanted. And as my regular blog readers know I have done a lot of QEC healing since Covid too.

My heart has changed. My desires have changed. My circumstances have changed. My energy levels have changed. So much has changed that I cannot expect to keep slogging on with what I believed my heart wanted back then. I am always changing and always evolving.

I was emailing with someone the other day about relationships and of how hard marriage is because we are in to for a very very long time and yet we are not the same people who got married back then, and neither are our spouses. We have changed. We have evolved. Circumstances have changed us. Circumstances are often a driving force for changing the desires of our hearts.

So back to the verse – I think there is a connection too. I think the psalmist is saying that it is as we delight in the Lord that we learn what the desires of our heart are. Not what we think they ought to be, or what we think they should be, or what we think would please others, but what we really really really desire deep down inside. And I do think we need to do loads of healing to get beyond the “good girl/good boy” scenario and the people pleasing, or the “what would look good to others/friends/family”.

But I honestly believe as we hang out with God, delighting in God, delighting in the fact that we are forgiven, delighting that we are loved unconditionally, and that if we mess up on those desires we can pick ourselves up and start again and that the Creator of the Universe will still be by our side. But we have to give this time. We can’t fit it in around other things. It has to be a part of all that we do, all day, every day. Back to what the Apostle Paul calls “praying continuously”. That’s just hanging out with God and delighting in them, not mithering at them to change things. A bit like something I talk about with my writing group – of not striving but of allowing things to ponder, to touch those Alpha waves, those Eureka moments – all of which come when we are delighting in something not striving to get an answer.

This verse isn’t about telling God what we want them to do but is about being with them and enjoying them. Delighting in them.

It is ok for our desires to change and change and even change back again but if we delight in the Lord then we can step out with confidence and do what will make us glow with joy and peace.

Categories
forgiveness trust

It Should Be This Easy

I’ve just been reading Butter by Asako Yuzuki translated from the Japanese to English by Polly Barton. It is much more than a book about a serial killer and food. It is a book about misogyny supported by other women, about finding one’s true self, of breaking with the norm; a coming of age book but by someone in their 30s.

But the page I am going to share comes towards the end and it is when Rika’s best friend takes her to an end of Ramadam meal put on to help Japanese people learn about Turkish culture.

It is these two pages where the women read from the pamphlet that stuck me

I’m not sure how well you can read it – maybe photographing pages from a book and editing them with a small dog sleeping in the crook of my arm isn’t the best way of doing it but …. well here it is.

I wasn’t sure where to go with these when I thought of this post last night but knew I wanted to share but then this morning the Vicar I work with phoned me up for a chat about a couple of people we know but then we moved on it trusting God and the importance of knowing one is forgiven and how there are many Christians who don’t fully believe that. As we said this hinders them not just in their Christian walk but in how others perceive Christianity to be.

Now I know this pamphlet the women are reading is about Islam but I think this is what God is like in Christianity too. But like way too many religions how we out work the love of God become a rule rather than a love based.

I’ve missed it off that first page but it is when Rika says “…It is enough if the people who can do it do it ….”

And then on the following page Reiko says,

“… God … won’t take joy or satisfaction in the sight of suffering. Which means, you don’t have to go through everything alone. You don’t have to always be growing as a person. The far more important thing is to just get through every day.”

This is what, I feel, we need to keep remembering as Christians. Firstly that God loves and forgives us, that God doesn’t take joy in our suffering, that we need to remember that God is with us so we don’t have to go it alone. Also that God has put precious friends in our way too so it isn’t just us and God, but us and God and our friends, family, those who support and encourage us with no string attached.

Too often in Churches we see rules – of having to go, of having to be involved, of having to be a part of, of having to pray, of even having to be nice to people, and of having to “grow” in God – when, especially after reading this, I think God wants us just to get through every day – and if possible in peace and knowing we are loved and forgiven.

And as happened with the unexpected phone call, God so often has some unexpected plan to help us on our journey if we are willing to stop striving and be willing to let God lead us – which only comes through trusting and believing.

Categories
Magi surrender

Wise People’s Gifts

I’ve been looking at different thoughts and things around those wisemen that came to visit Jesus and their gifts. What if those gifts don’t represent what we’ve always been told they represent. There is nothing in the Bible that says why they gave the gifts, it just says

On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.

Matthew 2:11

Then they go home again a different way.

So what if GOLD, to these wisemen, represents their worldly wealth? What if they prophetically looked at this baby and were willing to trust all their worldly wealth, all their earning power to Jesus? These wisemen must have been rich because they travel from Persia to Judea and Herod welcomed them as equals – and he was a proud, image-focused human. These wisemen could afford to take time off of making money to journey for weeks with an entourage – not just the 3 of them that we see on on Christmas cards – but a whole entourage of baggage, of guards, of food, of water [yup you need lots of water to cross a dessert] It says too that they “open their treasures” not that they just slid over a few presents. But they looked in their treasure chests and they decide from there what to give. That took a camel or two of its own to carry plus guards so they weren’t robbed.

So maybe Gold represents trusting God from now on for earnings, for wealth, for the financial security that gold, that jobs, that money brings to us all.

I wonder if FRANKINCENSE represents one of the tools of their trade. These were astrologers, star gazers, fortune tellers. A lot of the people I know who tell fortunes, who do divining, and those sort of things use incenses in many ways – to help with the atmosphere, to help calm, to help even open a portal to another dimension. What if these wisemen were giving this gift to Jesus because they were saying that they no longer needed to create an atmosphere by altering states of mind, they didn’t need to even keep the illusions of their trade up any more? Maybe they were handing the tools of their trade over to Jesus and trusting that God would do whatever with their skills and talents.

Now to MYRRH which we’ve always been told they gave to Jesus foretell his death. Myrrh is an embalmer. They were also a wealthy class of people living in a culture where tombs were built and prepared long before the recipient died, and generally orchestrated by the person who was going to be buried in there. The living person was keeping control of their death and afterlife!! What if they gave myrrh to Jesus because they were saying that their death – the timing, the manner, how they were buried – was no longer in their hands, that they no longer had control over it. That as they had given over control of their wealth, their earnings, their trade to the living God so they were giving control of their death to God.

Maybe all three gifts were to show that, rich and important as they were, they were letting of all that and giving it into the hands of this baby who they knew, through their prophetic eyes, was God Incarnate – someone they could trust not just with their lives but with their deaths?

Categories
Rachel Weeping

Belated thoughts on 28th December – Murder of Innocents

A belated post due to lots of dog training, beach and mountain walking and inertia!

I wrote a really fun play for my youth group which they performed on Christmas Eve looking at the nativity story from the point of view of Mary’s donkey, the Shepherd’s sheep and the wisemen’s camel. I also added in a dragon to show how the enemy tried to thwart God’s plans without success. Though there was always the bit that I had to miss out because it was a family/children’s service – and that was the murder of the innocents by Herod after Jesus and his family escaped to Egypt.

16 When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. 17 Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:

18 “A voice is heard in Ramah,
    weeping and great mourning,
Rachel weeping for her children
    and refusing to be comforted,
    because they are no more.”

Matthew 2:16-18

There’s been a lot of talk this year about Jesus being a refugee and how one needs to be generous and supportive to refugees [which is only right and proper] but how do we deal with those babies who got murdered?

Many Bibles headline this piece “the murder of innocents” – so here’s my question “What do we about the continued with the murder of innocence?”

Yes still today, and possibly more so than ever, the innocence of children is being eroded. As I write this I’m also watching TV and seeing the contrast between the innocence of the film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and the adverts. The adverts are telling me that taking my children to a regular playpark is boring and that I should be taking them to Butlins where there is light and noise and implied fun. The simplicity of swings, slides, overcast days, regular cornflakes, is now seen as boring. The innocence of childhood continues to be eroded.

I read a great piece in a book called “Going Home Another Way” a devotional for the Twixmas time. For the 28th December there was a piece by a man who’d lost his leg when he was five and he talked about the youth he worked with and why it was the more difficult youth who were attracted to him. And he says he believes it is because he lost his innocence at five when he had his leg amputated and they have lost their innocence with things like their home life, their parents, their friends, etc.

These were children in poorer areas but I think so many young people lose their innocence due to expectations, materialism, “having to do well”, and more. I’m sure we can all name things that took away our innocence long before it should have been and it has caused us to make many of the life choices we do.

I got this via an email on 28th December and I think the first bit is great but I’d change the last line

Innocent’s Song by Charles Causley


Who’s that knocking on the window,
Who’s that standing at the door,
What are all those presents
Lying on the kitchen floor?


Who is the smiling stranger
With hair as white as gin,
What is he doing with the children
And who could have let him in?


Why has he rubies on his fingers,
A cold, cold crown on his head,
Why, when he caws his carol,
Does the salty snow run red?


Why does he ferry my fireside
As a spider on a thread,
His fingers made of fuses
And his tongue of gingerbread?


Why does the world before him
Melt in a million suns,
Why do his yellow, yearning eyes
Burn like saffron buns?


Watch where he comes walking
Out of the Christmas flame,
Dancing, double talking:


Herod is his name.

But I think by saying “Herod is his name” we’ve missed out on being responsible for the loss of the innocence of our children – whether we’ve given birth or not. I think “Herod” could easily be changed to “materialism/expectations/being too busy” and I’m sure there are many more.

Perhaps the Rachel’s of this world now need to keep weeping for our son’s who have lost their innocence and refuse to be comforted until something changes?

Categories
let go Trust God

The Greatest Sin

for getting to put God and Jesus in the centre of all we are and all we do.

The sky on our drive home on Tuesday looking towards Eryri photographed by myself whilst in the car hence why it is a bit blurry.

When we go to the Anglican church there is always a prayer of confession which talks about repenting for things we’ve done and things we’ve not done but last week it stuck me that one of things we don’t repent of is not putting Jesus in the centre of things, of not trust that God has a plan through it all. Surely that is one of our main tenants of faith – that God works all things to good [Romans 8:28] – yet too often we don’t believe it. Instead we try to do it on our own, with our own skills, with our own strength. Ok so we might pray that prayer “Jesus help me with my work/family/this situation/this decision I have to make” but then we get back to working out the answer, of putting together pros and cons, putting together contingency plans, and worry and worry and worrying. And so we get stressed, grouchy, and of course that can lead to various health issues if we read Gabor Mate, etc.

Over the last month or so we’ve had loads of curveballs thrown our way from family issues to car issues to boiler issues to getting a rescue dog – something we wanted but maybe the timing was out? I found I was getting more and more stressed and so not being able to see through things and not being able to truly enjoy the new dog.

This is our something good – a new dog called Willow who our old dog Renly gets on well with

We all have deep-seated different motives for why we take on board what we take on board. For myself I wanted to “get it right”, to “please everyone”, and to “be a good girl”, and to “prove myself”. None of which are what God wants.

So how does one put God at the centre? It is really hard work but also really easy. For me it was to trust that God knew that all these things were going to happen at this time. God also knew I could handle them, but not in that way that I had to sort it all out by myself but that I was able to rest with God and let them deal with all the curveballs. I don’t even need to catch the curveballs. That is God’s job.

I do have to be willing to let go of controlling outcomes. Not that any of us can control outcomes anyway but, oh my goodness, we all do try very hard to keep control of all situations, which just leads to more stress. If God was willing to give each of us freewill surely we should let our family and friends have freewill, even if we think we know best or could do better.

So once I’d let go of it being my responsibility for sorting other people I could hear what God wanted me to do in those situations – to be able to leave my old and new dog peacefully with a friend as I went away, to leave relationships for God to sort and not see them as a reflection of me. And I do think we too often see the way our children, especially, behave as a reflection on ourselves and how we brought them up. Instead of being as gracious as God is with us and letting them have the freewill to do what they want. That doesn’t mean we don’t pray for them but it must be a freewill prayer filled with love and grace. I think we can pray “your kingdom come” in both personal and world situations but we cannot pray “your kingdom come and it looks like X,Y,Z” because, for one, that is controlling and, two, we really really do not know the whole situation but God does.

So for me with all that was going on I was able to turn my heart toward God, to trust them in all things, to let go of trying to control and to hear what I am to do. Interestingly this has made settling the new dog into the family much easier and has helped me sleep better. Has it sorted the other things out? No! But, even though I care, I know they are not mine to sort.

So I have put Jesus back into to the centre of my heart and my life – though of course have to keep turning back to doing that again and again and again – and my life becomes much simpler.

God is good when we acknowledge that they are.