Tag: prayer

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accepting change family Films forgiveness God gratitude life Love mindfulness nature relationships

Conversion

“Translations vary, but in our modern day, conversatio morum suorum generally means conversion of manners, a continuing and unsparing assessment and reassessment of one’s self and what is most important and valuable in life. In essence, the individual must continually ask: What is worth living for in this place at this time? And having asked, one must then seek to act in accordance with the answer discerned.”
—Paul Wilkes, Beyond the Walls: Monastic Wisdom for Everyday Life
 This is something I would like to be plaster as wallpaper all around my home at times – both to remind me, to remind the rest of my family, to remind those who come to our home, but also to remind us to give this to others. So often our world works on this upward spiral, including in church, of getting better and better and of achieving, of reaching the goal. But this says that in fact we should understand where we are and asking what is worth living for in the now. It’s not about getting better, of having a purpose, of achieving, but of being and living.
Richard Rohr says something similar today (28th Dec 2015) :
Both God’s truest identity and our own True Self are Love. So why isn’t it obvious? How do we find what is supposedly already there? Why should we need to awaken our deepest and most profound selves? And how do we do it? By praying and meditating? By more silence, solitude, and sacraments? Yes to all of the above, but the most important way is to live and fully accept our present reality. This solution sounds so simple and innocuous that most of us fabricate all kinds of religious trappings to avoid taking up our own inglorious, mundane, and ever-present cross of the present moment.
I have been working with young people who haven’t made it in the education system and all we seem to do is trying to keep them in that holding pattern until the can leave school, which is now 18 years old. Why are we not teaching them how to make the most of where they are? Many of these kids have amazing gifts and talents, just not recognised in the modern school system, so they’ve been labelled and made to feel like they have nothing to give. Yet if we could get them to live fully in their present reality, which for many is really hard, but also to ask what is worth living for in this present moment? I think we could get them to change. I really do believe not just with these kids but with everyone if we could work out what things in this present moment are worth living fully for and how can be be fully present then things would change.
The reason why we don’t teach this? Because so very few people live it. I know I struggle to. But that is also something I’m learning and am going to take in 2016 – that if I don’t get it right today then I forgive myself and start again. I don’t even have to wait till tomorrow to start again. I can start again the moment I realise that I’ve messed up and am not fully present, not looking at what is worth living fully for at this moment.
I was trying to practise this whilst out walking with the dog this morning. Ok it was helped by the fact that there was the most gorgeous burnt copper sunrise. But I’ve got lots on my mind. Today my mum and her husband are coming to “do Christmas” with us, so there was food stuffs to think of; my son is having an operation and I want to be there for him but he leave 200 miles away; my daughter is off back to uni 100 miles away and I was trying to work out whether I could manage to take her back; and of course the big one – we’re moving. All these thoughts were crowding into my head and taking over often. As was the thing of wondering what life will be like this time next month. But whenever I realised that I was not in the moment I wouldn’t be cross with myself but would just pull myself back and go back to enjoying the sunrise and the lovely day, and watching the dog rushing about. And of course my mind would wander again and again would have to be pulled back.
Again I think this is a place where we aren’t kind to ourselves or others; we don’t cut anyone any slack. If we mess up we’ve failed. If someone does something wrong they are labelled as a certain type of person. Very rarely do we give ourselves or others the grace to just say this is a phase. I am learning with my family, husband and children, to try to just let it be and say this is what it is for now. Do I force them to change? No that would be wrong because what do I know about what is best for them. Many times I’m not sure what is best for me until I’ve tried it, and then sometimes its best of then but not later on. I am a fluid evolving being and so are those around me. To truly accept this growth and change and living in the moment we must trust that all will be well.
Or as it said is Star Wars: The Force Awakens “The Light — It’s always been there. It’ll guide you.”  And also “As long as the sun is there we have hope”
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accepting adventure glorifyingGod God life

Trust! God!

We’re on the move

We are on the move, my husband and I. Some people have advised caution, said “don’t move too fast” but in fact this has all been a long time coming. Nearly nine years in fact! We have got close and then things have changed but we have held in there, often without knowing it.

So on our honeymoon my husband had this big download from God about our home being a place of safety for others. He got words and pictures and all sorts. So we pottered on letting this happen around us, for my children, for people God dropped into our lives along the way. We got hurt and confused at times by what it was all about. We had people that we had spent time with moving on to other things and not even speaking to us. In hindsight we have realised that this is what the “vision” had all been about but wasn’t easy. Then came the big crash three and a half years ago when people we had been praying for took their own lives, either deliberately or by accident. That shatters one’s trust in the vision and in God. We had been told we were a safe place and those we’d been praying for and who had come under our roof took choices that led to their lives being cut short. Where did the vision go then? Buried!!

Though not quite. It simmered away. We both kept niggling at it without realising but we had lost our trust in God to do His bit. We never walked away from Him. Like Peter said when Jesus asked him if he was going to leave as others were doing, it was “where else can we go?” But there had been a shift in the relationship. I believe we spent the last two years rebuilding our trust in God, because it has only been just over two years since my father-in-law died. Someone else we’d been praying for and hoping to become well again.

So the Vision was written large nearly nine years ago. We wanted to run with it but weren’t able to – to being with because of our own lack of experience and also lack of space, but then because of things beyond our control unsettling us. We needed to grieve. We needed to regroup. We needed time. We needed to be bold enough to look at the Vision. Interestingly we didn’t do anything deliberate to bring it back to the surface. It all happened in an roundabout sort of way. So yes it would be possible to say that we are moving quickly but in fact we’re not.

And we are still trying to learn to trust. It’s odd but I can see it when we wait for someone to buy our house. It isn’t happening fast enough which at one time I would have said was a great way for us to learn patience but now I’m struggling because that trust that God can and will has slide. But actually it makes us rounder people, I believe, more able to support those who’ve been hurt because we’ve been there too. But trust is such a hard thing to regain.

And as I think of regaining trust in God I think of people in my life, not just those who’ve died but those who are still alive, who’ve hurt me, broken my trust. In all cases it is hard to trust again, but God seems to have led us to a place where we are having to trust Him to sell our house and led us to our “Promised land!” 🙂

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God grief life relationships shared blog

Where were you … ?

I’ve just read a post asking “Seven/Seven: Where were you?” and also today was talking with mother of the girl I tutor about remembering where we were when … and listed various events that we remembered and talked of what we remember about where we were.

I commented on the “Seven/Seven: Where are you?” post and said:

I will always remember where I was on 7/7/2015. I was at home in Frome, home educating my daughter. My son had gone to college that day in Radstock. We were really engrossed in something when suddenly we both said “let’s put the radio on”. Neither of us will ever know why but we listened with shock as the reports unfolded. We are Christians and we just prayed and cried.

But also I remember clearly where I was when the Twin Towers were hit –

We were in our first week of our Family DTS in Paisley Scotland. I think it was the first time I’d left my kids for with someone to teach them since I’d taken Ben out of school. Us adults were in a church hall about 2 miles from the main house. Our base leader came in (the days before everyone had mobile phones) and said there was dreadful news. It unfurled slowly. We were on our faces in prayer. It was not just an awful time nationally but for me it was an awesome time realising the things I could pray and the strength I could pray with.

The death of Princess Diana is neither so deep or so inspiring.

We were living in Belfast. We had been there for about 10 months. I was helping out in the Sunday school at the church we had been attending for maybe 8 months. Someone came in and said “Diana’s been killed in a car accident.” Everyone looked sad. I didn’t say anything. I presumed this was someone they knew, someone who attended the church. I remember racking  my brains to think of any Diana’s I’d known. Thankfully I kept quiet and didn’t embarrass myself.

But it also brings back memories of where I was when I hear of things closer to home –

  • when I heard my Dad’s voice on my answer phone and I knew something serious had happened – my sister had drowned.
  • when my husband phoned from our friend’s house to say that friend had succeeded in hanging himself.
  • my Dad bursting into tears in the first ever house I owned to say my Mum had left him for the second time.
  • the colour of the train we were on when we picked up the message from my husband to say his dad was dead

These are a list of events where I can see and smell how things were, that have stayed seared in my brain, where everything is still so vibrant, where something has been capture. A moment in time. And yet there was a prompt on a

Did my childhood kitchen look like this?

Linkedin group I’m part of which this morning said “write imagine your 5-6 year old self and write about the kitchen in your family home.” I couldn’t remember. I know I’ve moved a lot as an adult but as a child we only lived in four different homes and I can only really recall the third house, where I lived from 10-16. I only remember the fourth house because I visited it twenty years after I’d moved out because new friends were living in it. How can I see snapshots for vividly and yet not remember even something vague from a place I must have gone in to over a thousand times?

It is said that memory is an odd thing and that we shouldn’t trust it that much. What is truth may not be fact. Yet those things etched in my brain that I have mentioned above I am sure that they are really true, that they really were like that. In fact there are certain

Maybe this just says it all from http://www.theyoungadultcaregiver.com

words or phrases that can send me right back there. Though I wonder if I spoke to others who were there whether their truth is the same as mine?

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gratitude Love prayer

Why Should We Think God Will Answer Every Prayer?

So simple???

I come from a tradition of Christianity that believes that if one prays in the “right way” then prayers will be answered. From evidence seen that isn’t true. But this has got me thinking “why doesn’t God answer prayer?” which actually has led further to a “why should God answer any of our prayers?” And this is where I’m starting from now. Not that I will never pray again but I do wonder what give me the right to think that I should have my prayers answered? If I am a Child of God, which I do believe I am, then I trust that my Father will do what He thinks best, but most of the time I behave like a toddler, grizzling when I don’t get what I want, and thinking if I find the right formula next time then He’ll answer. As a parent I’ve had to make lots of decisions for my children from where we’d lived, even to whether I’d stayed with their father or not, to what form of schooling they had, even what religion they learn most of through my practise. That one is

Firstly a demand then a realisation that it’s only God’s mercy that answers our prayers

interesting because even if we say that we will teach our children about all faiths they learn most about the one we follow because of what we say as much as what we do. So as a parent I make decisions, and even if I consult my children, which I did often, whether we did as they suggested or not was up to me. Why should I see God as any different? Why should God answer my prayers?

Ok so this hurts when someone dies too young from anything; cancer, suicide, accident. But do I pray because I think I am worthy of being answered? Or do I pray because I want to be able to input into my “father’s” decisions? There is a story of Abraham and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19, where God brings Abraham into His decision making process. God does similar with Moses during the exodus from Egypt. Loads of times God asks His people what they think. But we don’t see it as an honour but as a right.

C’mon But so often we don’t see it as an honour to be included but as a right. We pray and we expect God to answer the way we want every single time. When He does answer often we are grateful but more as in it being our right and it being a miracle that God should deign to answer us.

I think God answers our prayers so often, and so many of them are so trivial; for parking spaces, jobs, even at times what to cook for supper – or maybe that’s just me 🙂  But there are big prayers that don’t get answered, where people died, get into debt, wars break out, etc. I think though we notice more what doesn’t happen than what does. I’ve been praying for a young friend who’s mother died suddenly last year from a severe asthma attack. On the anniversary of her death he graduated as a Butlin’s redcoat and now has his own show as one of the big animal characters there. When I knew his mother was in hospital I prayed for her but she died but I have been praying for him ever since and he is doing great. Now I could focus on what didn’t happen, his mother’s healing, or I can focus on the life he is living. That doesn’t mean I’m not sad about his mum’s death but I can choose what to focus on. There are too many times when we focus on what didn’t get answered rather than think ourselves honoured that the Creator of the Universe should even want to listen to us.

God is good – all the time – but so often we forget what a privilege it is to be heard by Him at all.

And it’s all about Grace that I can boldly go into God’s throne room 🙂

I do think though that we focus on what didn’t happen because when we lose someone to death it is such a big thing, such a huge grief, and its like the compliments thing – we need 10 good things said to us to overcome one bad thing. But I for one am going to get to the place of being honoured that God should even take any notice of me at all, and still walk into His Throne room boldly!