Tag: God

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acceptance joy peace

Acceptance

Renly accepting that he has to be wrapped up in a towel after he’s been outside in the rain. Photographed by myself November 2024

I was chatting with a friend the other day about how she realised that she had to accept the limitations of what she was going through – her health, her personal situation, etc – and only through that could she feel at peace.

We talk about the Peace or Joy of the Lord [depending on translations] being our strength but very rarely do we look at what that entails – to settle into the peace and/or joy of the Lord during tough situations. But it struck me as we were chatting that accepting things instead of fighting against them makes such a difference.

That isn’t to say we settle back and go “oh well that’s it and I won’t try any more” or as I’ve found from certain people “you can’t expect me to do that because I’m an X personality” or “because I’m such and such diagnosis”

But it is being honest about the situation and saying “this is where it is and I am going to learn to live with that as best I can. I am going to accept the limitations of that [mental health issue, physical health issue, relationship that isn’t going as I’d like, insert your own] and am going to rest in that Higher Power and see what they want to do with me.”

From this place will come peace and that deep joy that transcends understanding.

We all know people who are going through some real tough times but they radiate something that is so gentle, so peaceful, that we want some of it. And we also know people who are going through things that you have to gird yourself up to see because you know you should because they are going through stuff but, boy, are they giving off some negative energy.

Having been through some tough stuff I’m not coming from a place of not knowing. But I also know there have been times when I gave off total negative energy and blamed and hated what I was going through and the whole world. But I also know there have been times when I have been sad and hurting but have lent in to something/someone beyond myself and trusted. Not so much that they would change the situation but that they would hold me through the situations. Whenever I do that I know I feel better, more peaceful, more calm, less blaming, and I’m sure those around me can feel that energy shift.

I don’t say it is easy but I do say it is worth it.

I’ve pondered this many times before. If you do a search of “joy” you will find many other posts linked to this one.

My blogs will always be free because I want to share them with as many people as possible but if you fancy it you could Buy Me A Coffee via this link.

Categories
families Stir Up Sunday

Changing Traditions

I was challenged by a friend about my origins of Stir Up Sunday from yesterday’s post. This is what comes, on my part, from going with tradition and hearsay rather than doing a bit of research myself. It wasn’t like I didn’t have the time as we still hiding inside from Storm Bert – which even though it sounds like a benign uncle caused a lot of damage and flooding across Wales. Even in our park the wind had pushed over 3 little fir trees which a friend and I helped to become upright again this morning.

Anyway it turns out the Stir Up Sunday originated from the 1549 Book of Common Prayer Collect for that day

Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may of thee be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

But by the mid eighteenth century this Sunday had become the traditional Sunday for families to make their Christmas puds. Tradition states that all the family got together to do this. A real family affair before getting caught up with the busyness of Advent. It was also where the adults taught the children their family’s traditional Christmas pudding recipe. As with all things each family always puts their own twist on things.

I think this is a lovely mixture of being Jesus and family together. Too often in the Church we can almost separate families or at least family life. We come together to look at a person at the front tell us how we are meant to be with Jesus/God and often the children are whisk away to Sunday schools, along with the adults who will run those groups, and there is a separation between family tradition and hanging out with God.

So even though this might look like another thing that could be seen as secularisation I do wonder if it was more about keeping family connected and also keeping God in the centre of the family. I wonder if there was chat about that day’s sermon, or whether that gave family members, old and young, a chance to ask those awkward questions. I know my kids used to ask all sorts when either we were in the car [no eye contact] or cooking together. I ran a youth group where we used to play lego or do craft things and the subjects those young people were questioning and questioning where God fitted into them was amazing.

Sad statistic –

In a 2013 survey, two-thirds of British children reported that they had never experienced stirring Christmas pudding mix

So I do wonder if Stir Up Sunday, with the stirring of the puddings was a great way of “bringing forth the fruit of good works” and learning about what a life with Christ as King looks like for the whole family? And I wonder what we could put in now to replace that?

Categories
clanging bell right energy

Furthering The Kingdom

We went out in the snow and then the following day in Storm Bert and this is the little dog afterwards wrapped in his drying robe! Neither picture has anything to do with the blog content 🙂

Today is Christ The King Sunday. I know this because my mum sends me her zoom links for her early morning church service, which I then forget to click on to but I still read the liturgy!

I love on the Sunday that many denominations acknowledge Christ as King it is also Stir up Sunday. No this isn’t a day for stirring up the congregations to become more Christ-like, to put Christ more in the centre of their lives, to give them a poke to get them out of their comfort zones. No! Stir Up Sunday was the day when all the women of the parish would stir up their Christmas puddings to get the alcohol evenly distributed so the puddings would taste great for Christmas day!

Fascinating that they are on the same Sunday!!!

But it got me thinking about a question that came up on the study we were doing with the youth group. The study had been about the Book of Revelations and the question was “what could you do to help make God’s kingdom come?”

Some of the answers were – giving toys to HomeStart charity, being kind to school friends, saying thank you, or for myself, writing.

It got me thinking about how we should be using our gifts and talents because I still think that it isn’t what we do but how we are that makes God’s kingdom come and I think that comes about when we know our talents, our strengths, our weaknesses, and take our areas of healing to God so they can heal us.

So even if we are being all out evangelical and preaching Jesus to people if we are not doing it from a healed, safe place but doing it because we ought to, or are fearful of what will happen to them if they don’t meet with Jesus, then people won’t notice. Great though it is giving toys to those children who don’t have enough if we do it with resentment or even with hoping we look good then we aren’t doing it with the right spirit, with the right energy.

I believe it is all about the energy that comes from us.

In 1 Corinthians 13 Paul says that if we do things without love we are like a clanging bell, an out of tune bell. In terms I understand I would say he is saying that if we do things with the wrong energy, with the “trying to look good” energy, with the “still hurting inside” energy, with the “needing to be needed” energy, then we are like an clanging empty out of tune bell. We hit the wrong note with others.

So I think whether today we are stirring puddings, trying to bring forward God’s kingdom, acknowledging Christ as king, or like one friend has just shared on FB, speaking gratitude over her battered kitchen, if we do it with the wrong energy then it will be clanging, but if we do those things and even the most benign things with the energy of love and acceptance things will change.

Categories
higher power Trust God

Praying About Elections

Photo by Element5 Digital on Pexels.com

It is interesting the response from the losing side when there is a referendum or an election. In the UK I’ve heard calls for proportional representation, or after the Brexit vote how it shouldn’t have been a 50/50 split, and today was reading about the way Trump has won in the US.

Democracy in the modern world is still newish. Yes it comes from Ancient Greek but really that was mainly the elite in the city state. And until recently most of the Western world only let those who owned property and were male vote, or over a certain age. Voting for every adult no matter what their status in the UK only came into being in 1969 – a mere 55 years ago! So we are all still new at it.

I’m picking up lots of newsfeeds, etc from people I know or know of, in the US and they are depressed, upset, confused and more. But then I am only reading ones from people who are like me. I’m suspecting that, if I followed those who did vote Trump I would hear a very different story. I do need to remember that what I hear is only from those I follow who are more like me than not.

One thing though I have been thinking about is prayer. Now I know lots of people who were praying for the US elections. I’m not sure how many were praying “let your will be done, Lord”, how many were praying “God protect our land” or something similar or how many had their own agenda. And I am sure that people on both political camps were praying too. Does this mean God was being dragged back and forth not sure what to do because Democrats were asking for a different result to Republicans?

But this got me to thinking, if we pray for something, are we trying to manipulate God to do our will or are we trusting they will do as they know to be best because they can see the bigger picture.?

If the Creator of the Universe can see the beginning and the end and middle and whatever then do we have to trust, especially when we pray for big things, that all will be as it will be.

How often have you or I prayed for something and it hasn’t worked out as we’d like, even to the point of someone dying, and some well-meaning, slightly insensitive Christian says “that must be God’s will”?

Henri Nouwen talks for how when we pray we shouldn’t come with a list of instructions for God but should come with a list of problems, issues and worries and then spend our prayer time handing them over to God and trusting that God will do as God will do and that our role is just to love and trust our Creator more and more.

So with that in mind, even though I do find the US results strange and unsesttling, though not unexpected, instead of being angry I am willing to spend time in prayer and be asking “what are you trying to show us, God?” and also moving into a place where I can trust that a Higher Power knows so much more than little old me.

Categories
faith suffering

Hope Inside

Baby seals at Angel Bay, Conwy. Photographed by myself Oct 2024

The seals, whether with babies or alone, always make me smile. There is something hopeful about them. I’ve been told that their numbers started to increase when the wind turbine were put in the sea because this made it harder for big fishing trawlers and so the fish population could increase and so things like seals could increase too.

At our last Upper Room gathering we finished up, after many roundabout routes, looking at the verse

Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you – 1 Peter 3:15

But what is our hope? Is it just that we believe we’ll go to heaven when we die? I don’t think that’s what was meant. To be something that people will ask us about our hope has to be visible. It has to be a hope that we have enough time, energy, money but it has to be more than that. I know lots of people who don’t have a faith in God that believe that, especially after they’ve done some inner healing.

As I write this I can feel myself struggling to know how to put the hope I feel inside. It makes me realise why believers need to gather together. When we were all sat around the table together we could encourage each other and remind each other what our hope is, what goes on in our lives that we lean on God for, what goes on that we know without it we couldn’t make it.

One of the Alcoholics Anonymous steps is to give things to a higher power. Most addicts say that once they can pass things to a higher power, whether they call that power God or not [and sometimes names are not important] they let go of trying to fix things their way. Their hope for their future was placed in the hands of a higher power.

Someone recently suggested that even if we are not addicted to something noticeable we are too often addicted to our own way of doing things. They were working through the twelve steps replacing the word “drink” with “think” and handing over their thinking to a higher power.

I believe that hope comes when we fully acknowledge ourselves, fault, failings and all, and hand them over to a higher power. As I’ve said before we must not pretend we haven’t suffered because suffering is what produces the hope inside.

So if I was asked I could, hopefully say, that the hope I have inside comes from knowing that I can hand everything over to a higher power, to the Creator of the Universe, who will help and guide me, heal me and help me become all I was meant to be, and loves me unconditionally even if I get lost along the way. And that I don’t need to go back to those old ways of survival but am, is it says in the Bible, “born again“, which as I’ve said before I don’t think is a one off experience.

My hope is that even if I mess up I’ve not severed communication with the Creator of the Universe, I don’t have to go back to my old ways, but can grab on and hand things over again and again and again, and move to that place of acceptance of myself as who I truly am.

Categories
faithful fruitful

Be Faithful

Faithful little dog. No apology if I’ve shared this photo before. He is so cute and he is so faithful

Well done good and faithful servant

Matthew 25:23

There is a lot of stuff in organised church about doing things, being busy, making a difference. But you know sometimes life is just hard work and you have to just sit it out, stay faithful to God, stay in the place God’s put you and wait it out.

I did a piece ages and ages ago about a how cormorants have to wait with their wings stretched out drying before they can go back and get more food. Even if they have a nest full of babies they have to be faithful to how they are made and wait until their wings are dry before they dive for more fish.

If God/our hearts tell us to rest then we must be faithful to that and not go rushing off trying to do things – trying to be noticeably fruitful.

Note the word “noticeably” there. By being faithful we are being fruitful because our hearts are healing, refreshing, waiting, faithfully trusting that we are hearing correctly. That is much more fruitful than being unfaithful to the safety instructions we are being given and diving in to the fray again.

At the moment I feel like I am being called to a time of being faithful to writing my story and might just share some bits on here over time. Maybe if my heart tells me. It could be so easy to share because I want to look good, to look like I’m doing something, but would that be being faithful?

If I’m not faithful am I really being fruitful?

Photo by Jay Lockyer on Pexels.com
Categories
altruistic Love

The Power of God!

Stones thrown from the beach to the coastal path after a storm in April 2024. Photographed by myself

The picture above shows a small part of the power of the sea. There were bigger stones thrown around too but I was obviously in awe of it and didn’t take any photos.

The power of nature, whether wind, waves, earthquakes, volcanoes, etc are easy to see but what does the power of God look like?

 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth

Acts 1:8

One of the last things Jesus says to his disciples is about receiving power from the Holy Spirit. [Read all that story in Acts 2]. But Jesus never actually says what this power actually is.

Now having come into following God through very charismatic churches I was always told that you could see if someone was “filled with the Spirit” if they spoke in tongues [this was seen as a definite sign in some circles and if you couldn’t “speak in tongues” then you were asked to check if you were a “real” spirit filled Christian!!!!], healings were another sign, raising people from the dead, deliverance of demonic spirits, discerning of spirits, and noticeable signs like that.

So last night was youth group night. It is Anglican not charismatic and is a small group of church raised young people with the vicar co-leading with me. We have been using the Bible Society’s Six Beats by Dai Woolridge which is great for opening questions. Sunday we were at Beat five which was about the starting of the Church and the coming of the Holy Spirit. There was no mention in the rap about all the above things that I’d been taught about in my early Christian life.

But then the vicar unpack the above verse and said that showing the LOVE of Jesus to people is the greatest power we can offer. Not just doing good deeds for whatever reason – and often we are all guilty of doing things to get noticed or to get the rewards, the pats on the back, the “thank yous” – But actually asking what people want, not just presuming we know, and then being willing to do what that person wants.

I remember as a single mum getting fed up of being given furniture I didn’t want or need, or food that my kids didn’t like, and then having to either give or throw it away. It was very rare for anyone to say to me “what do you need?”

Too often we presume what people want and even if they say we don’t hear.

Jesus says to the blind man “what do you want?” [Luke 18:35-43]. For the rest of us it was a bit of a no brainer question. The guy was blind. Surely all he wanted was to be able to see. But Jesus doesn’t presume he asks. And this is what true love is.

To truly love the someone we need to be willing to sit with them, to feel their joy or pain, and to ask “what do you want me to do for you?”

A totally different way of thinking! All this healing, deliverance, talking in tongues, etc are just outworkings of that power but the real power is to be willing to show the Love of God to others. And that, I believe is so much harder than just laying hands on someone and praying for them!

Categories
endurance hope

Suffering is good for us

Beauty of a dead tree. Isle of Wight. August 2024. Photographed by myself

… suffering produces endurance,  and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, …

Romans 5:3-4

Yet in the world we live in we take pills, whether prescribed or self-medicated, whether alcohol or drugs, whether taken in moderation or to excess, or buying stuff, watching TV, to elevate our suffering rather than acknowledging that we suffer.

I wrote a piece a while back about acknowledging grief rather than just trying to make it go away and really grief is a form of suffering, but there are loads of other things that cause us to suffer which lead to anxiety and depression, to various illnesses [Read The Body Keeps The Score and other books by Gabor Mate and others like him]

Who of us does not want to be able to endure, to be of a character people admire, to have hope that we can pass on? Yet too often we don’t want to go through the suffering to get there so we fill our lives with stuff, etc.

The Bible also says “Blessed are those who mourn” [Matthew 5:4] which means those who mourn are comforted by God, if they are willing to acknowledge their need. Suffering and pain teach us things, help us in getting closer to ourselves and to God/something beyond ourselves; help us acknowledge our true selves.

A wise person said “there is no hope without the acknowledgment of suffering” and “a denial of suffering is a denial of hope” and yet too often we try to deny our suffering behind so many things.

I was writing a short piece about an older couple I knew many years ago. They had been through a lot – she had lost a lung through TB and told she couldn’t have children, and also they were very involved in CND [the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament] and had been on the original CND marches Aldermaston back in 1958 when fear about the world being destroyed by nuclear war was high. Yet they chose to have children – one of which was my boyfriend for a couple of years – and chose to have hope and to be involved in the lives of others. They very much acknowledged their own suffering and the suffering and pain of the world yet were so full of hope people were drawn to them.

A leprosy doctor [can’t remember the article but do remember what was said] said that from what he see we treat pain as an illness rather than the symptom of the illness. So we treat the pain, the outwards signs, but we do not name and treat the actual problem.

If the above bible verse is true then won’t it happen that the more we treat suffering rather than acknowledge it, surely slowly but surely we will lose endurance, will not gain a depth of character others want to emulate, and so will lose sight of hope?

If we need suffering to have hope then let us be willing to be open about our suffering, name it for what it is, and so grow in endurance and character so we can be a hope to the world!

Categories
hard outer shell made good

And God said it was Very Good [Gen 1:31]

This dog totally believe he is good, where he is is good and life is just good, especially if I am with him. Photographed by myself at Newborough beach, Anglesey October 2024

Renly believes that wherever I am is good and that he is good and that life is good. Did you know God is omnipresent which means God is with us all the time? So surely we could then at least believe that we are good – very good.

So Genesis 1:31 says God made humankind and said humankind is good; very satisfactory, our best, pleasant, interesting, better than anything else we’ve made. [paraphrase]

Meaning of “Good” thank to https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/good

very satisfactory, pleasant, interesting, better, best

But do we believe it? Do we even get taught it in many of the churches we’ve been to? Too often we get taught that we are sinful, that unless we accept Jesus [whatever that might really means] we are condemned to eternal damnation, and need to repent.

I will go back to the whole idea that sin is just missing God’s mark, which we all do, but isn’t about not being made good.

Sometimes, I think, good can appear a bit of a weak word. A bit like nice. A word that is used more when things are not bad but not great, which is why I’ve added in the Cambridge Dictionary definition.

I think God looks at us and when they say good they mean more on the amazing side of ok than the “just got through” side. How about if we looked at that verse and realised that when God says good it means that we are pleasant, interesting, very satisfactory, the best for the Creator of The Universe to want to hang out with. And not just when God first made Adam and Eve but when God made each and every one of us!

But too often we get caught with the things we’ve done wrong, the hurts we’ve endured, the traumas we’ve picked up, the intergenerational stuff that hasn’t been cleared, and we look at ourselves through all this hard outer shell stuff and we forget that we were made good.

I also think it is this hard outer shell that can make us do horrid hurtful things to ourselves and to others.

I think the amazing thing about healing and learning to trust and hang out with God – whether this is through QEC, Sozo, Freedom in Christ, other trauma healing stuff from wherever, hanging out with friends who see through our hard shell and enjoy being with us, or even a phrase or sentence that slides into our hearts and chips away at that shell – is that we do see that shell for what it is; something that kept us safe from stuff that was going on around us but it is not us. And we will be safer without it.

So as we see the shell for what it is and even get to chip away at it we learn to see ourselves as was originally intended; without the “good/bad” judgements we and others place on us; without those epigenetic tags our ancestors and ourselves picked up; without the mistakes we have made. We start to see ourselves as good, very satisfactory, interesting, pleasant to be with, the best.

And I for one think that if the Creator of the Universe thinks I am good then who am I to argue????

Categories
content safe place

Contented Little Hermit Crab

From openverse – hermit crab

My QEC practitioner did a podcast for our group about being a contented little hermit, exploring how for most of us the more we QEC the more we enjoy being on our own. Yes we still like people. We still like to connect but it doesn’t rule our lives.

Anyway this got me thinking about shells.

How often as a quiet, maybe shy, maybe introverted, maybe a deep thinker, were you told how pleased everyone was when you “came out of your shell” as though being in your shell was a bad thing?

Why is it a bad thing? No one would tell this hermit crab or any other shellfish to “come out of its shell”. That’s is home, its safe place.

We had visitors this week and at times there were things that I found hard work in the conversations. I found that I am now in the habit of ANSing myself [calming my autonomic nervous system and staying in regulation and balance] rather than reacting. But I also realised that I was no longer biting my tongue so I didn’t say anything. I was going into my shell, my safe place.

Inside my safe place I could be quiet, let the conversation flow around me, not have any desire to react to what was being said. I had space to breathe, to really listen to what was not being said too – the energy, so that when I did respond it was, on the whole, light, breezy and safe.

So for anyone who is getting a hard time about not “coming out of their shell” often enough ignore those people. They are jealous that you have a safe place to be to view the world when they aren’t brave enough to slide inside their shell.

Our shells are our safe places, are places to catch breath, are place to connect with ourselves and with God, which is where we should be on a regular basis.

Go on! Be bold and connect with your inner contented little hermit crab.

https://giphy.com/embed/xUA7bh63SnoXTl66Na

via GIPHY