Tag: newnormal

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2020 accepting being me coronavirus Covid-19 God horse lockdown new normal prophecy refresh reset Rest rethinking

Listen to what you’re saying!!!

Or analogue from falling off a horse part two!!

Gwytherin churchyard – taken by me April 2019

Since the start of lockdown myself and other prophetic writers have been banging on about resting, reseting, reconnecting, renewing, etc. Lots of “re”‘s in there!! But are we really listening? Or maybe it is just me!

For the last couple of weeks I’ve been led on the couch getting over a fall from a horse (how it came about is mentioned in the previous post) and I am bored. I still ache, still can’t do all the normal things I do round the house, am tired and am having trouble keeping concentration. Why? Well because my bones or muscles, whichever it is, are trying to reset and renew, but I want to get back to doing, but healing takes time.

Here in North Wales in are about to start a two week “firebreak” to try and deal with this coronavirus. Who know if it will work or not but I wonder if it is like me having a long bath with Epsom salts and hoping that means I can put the hoover round later. I will tell you from experience that it doesn’t work. I still need the time. And I need to be imagining my “new normal“. But I, like my country and my church, and like so many others, do not want to put in that time. I’m bored of sitting around doing nothing but reading and thinking and sleeping!

Did God let me fall off my horse so I could have time to rest? Did God send the coronavirus so we could all have time to rethink? Someone I know had a horrid accident and got compensation for it, then 20 years later a member of his family nearly lost their home and he was able to use his compensation to stop that happening. Did God cause him to have the accident so he had that money? I don’t think so but I know God uses everything.

So I need to let God use my time led on the couch here and having to ask people for help so that I can rest, refresh, reset, and renew. And maybe too we to, as a Church, as a nation, need to follow the same example and allow God to help us to reset, refresh and renew and so become all we are meant to be. Perhaps this is a time to humble myself and pray and let God do the healing?

[A great resource I’ve found to help with this is The Prayer Shield]

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Llyn Anafon

Llyn Anafon taken by me Sunday 27th Sept 2020

Yesterday was the last day of our holiday. It was our first holiday this year due to lockdown. The first 6 days of it were spent in Northumberland in a self-catering cabin, but we had to come home early because we could not stay with friends in the area for the weekend due to the NE of England being in local lockdown. So on Sunday we walked into Snowdonia, away from the tourist crowds and had a picnic Sunday lunch by this beautiful lake where I wrote this poem.

Black mirror broken only by occasional jumping fish trying to catch the last midges of summer.

Blobs of white undefined sheep gather together then drift apart enjoying the last grass of summer. 

Man watches, thinking, pondering, closes eyes & dreams drifting on the last warm rays of summer

Interestingly this could be the last time we see this llyn like this because Welsh Water is draining it and returning it to how it was before it became a reservoir in the 1930s. This will mean they will not have to keep looking after the concrete dam there. But it is interesting how the local people have reacted The extraordinary saga of Snowdonia’s ‘vanishing lake’ that has left people ‘seething’ 

I wish I could find an article that said how the local people reacted when the stream was dammed up in the first place 90 years ago. I wonder if it was with similar outrage? And it got me thinking as to how vehement we can be about change and how it upsets us and yet how quickly we get used to the “new normal”, coin a recent phrase. I wonder if in ten or twenty years we will have got used to local lockdowns and will bemoan them if/when they cease?

You can just see the blobs of sheep across the lake. Taken by me 27th Sept 2020

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accepting allthingsarenew Black lives matter change church prophecy resee

What Are BLM Protests Teaching Us?

My daughter and her friend at the BLM protest in Cardiff on Sunday 31st May

There are many prophetic posts and articles about how the next “wave of revival” will be led by young people. Revivals are always led by young people and I believe this is because God wants to stay relevant to the prevailing culture, whether us oldies like it or not.

In North Wales, where I live, last year we commemorated the hundredth anniversary of the last big revival in Wales. That revival was led by young people, and interestingly curtailed by older people. But the majority of the people who led these services and gatherings calling for a new wave of revival were older people, middle aged, my age. The services were conducted in a way we all like – words, prayers, songs, talk, all led by the man/woman at the front, with little space for someone else to react, question or interject. It is how we have grown to know and expect church to be. Are we willing to change not only what we think church services should look like but to let this expect “wave of young leaders” mould church their way? There’s more to it than faster, louder songs and a more catchy preach.

I have noticed the Black Lives Matters (BLM) protests that a high proportion of the people attending aren’t just going along to the protests but are reading and researching the issues. They are then posting and sharing on social media the things they are learning. Things are very different from my protesting days! Sharing and connecting and finding information is so much easier and more varied. Interestingly I noticed that many of those protesting against the BLM marches were white middle aged men, who did seem ignorant of some of the facts.

I believe, if we really do hope for this revival that has been prophesied, not just the older generation, but the younger ones who’ve got used to “how to do church”, need to back off, let go, and also gain some in-depth and varied knowledge on our faith, [which I do see happening in some ministries] because when these young people grab hold of God they will want to know the whys and hows and whats. Are we ready for that? Are we ready to let go? Are we ready to educate ourselves in what we believe? As it says in 1 Peter 3:15 “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect,” Note it says “to everyone who asks”. We need to learn to wait until the questions are ask and only answer what is being asked not what we have our stock answers already prepared.

The crux of the BLM protests seem to be about changing attitudes to race but if you listen there is more. There is a challenge to look at our attitudes regarding sexuality, relationships, and life in general. All those things many of the older generation, especially the white middle classes, are stuck in thought patterns of what’s right and what’s wrong that have never been questioned. I have noticed if I spend time with a radical young person I am pulled up on things I didn’t even realise were racist or sexist. How are those who have been in Church for a long time going to able to cope when this rising younger generation talking of God as She or It or They?

The young people will not only lead but they will revolutionise how we think and feel if we let them. I believe some older church members, church leaders and even those who prophesied this wave, may not be willing to accept these changes.

A prophetic word that came out at the outbreak of Covid-19 was that this would be a time to “reset”. Perhaps this is part of the rest – a rethink of our attitudes to each other. Maybe this is a subject for my next blog?

BLM Cardiff 31st May 2020