Tag: still small voice

Categories
letting go Slow down

Letting Go

First published on Thursday 22nd February 2024 on Godspace Light – Letting Go

Christine’s post Relinquish, Let Go  and Lily’s post on Jesus going into the wilderness, I think, sit hand in hand. Letting go of things is like going into the wilderness. We’ve got used to what we do and we do it well, so why let go? Some of the reason can be that, like with Christine, new projects call us and there are only so many hours in the day. Some of the reasons are that even though we might have the time and the energy they are not what God has for us. Now that can be a hard one. It’s one I’m going through so I can speak from experience. I was doing a few writing workshops and projects and working with children, which I am also good at and love. In fact I wasn’t doing as much as I used to do in my 40s and I still had the energy to do it, but something was niggling in the back of my head/heart. 

You know that feeling when God’s still small voice is pulling on you. Those things you love are not giving you the joy they used to. You put it down to needing more zinc, hormones being out of sync, partner/children not pulling their weight, seasonal light deficiency. So you change your diet, get a SAD lamp, sort out a chores list for the family, but still something isn’t quite right. 

For me God got fed up of me not listening and it was my 84 year old mother’s health scare that brought things to a grinding halt. No worries she is fine now she’s slowed down a bit and decided she isn’t 30 any more. But the worry of her not being around and me being so busy that I didn’t have time to drive down country for 6 hours to see her. So it caused me to have to rethink things and hold things lightly.

But isn’t it a shame that I didn’t hear that still small voice in my heart that was trying so hard to tell me not necessarily to slow down but that there are things that I was doing that I am not meant to be doing. Interestingly in everything I do now those I work with know that if there is another health scare I will drop everything and just go. And of course, because I’m only doing the things God wants me to everyone I work with is content with that. 

Not just in the “big wide world” but in Church circles there is so often that push to be busy. The question “what have you been up to this week/today?” comes up when you meet. “Where have you been worshipping/serving God?” And if one hasn’t got a full schedule one feels like one could be missing out on some form of service/ministry/doing! Added to that the inner jealousies that other people have “ministries” and you’re just bumbling about drinking tea!

Jesus going into the wilderness just after he’d been baptised and God had affirmed him as his son was not a good PR move. In our fast paced world his “team” would have told him to grab the opportunity immediately because if he didn’t someone else might. But Jesus was secure in not just who he was but in what he was meant to do. 

Did you know that if you acted out the gospels and all the things Jesus did and said in them it would not last that long at all? Jesus had lots of down time, lots of time that was not worth recording in any of the gospels, lots of time just being, not just with God but with his disciples, his friends and even, I think, his family. 

Hanging out not just for the sake of “friendship evangelism” or as a “teaching opportunity” but, I think, he was hanging out to enjoy other people’s company. We can learn so much from hanging out with other people and also find out more about ourselves. We also need quiet time not just for praying, not studying, not reading but just being and letting the world flow past. 

So perhaps we all need some time over this Lenten season to stop, to think about whether the things, whether many or few, are what God really wants us to be doing. And then be brave enough to have gaps in our lives where there is nothing to do!

And I’ll finish with Christine’s poem from Monday’s meditation

Stay close to your inner world,
Travel slowly through the hidden corridors
Of your heart.

Listen quietly not for answers,
But for the questions
Hiding beneath the stress,
Of your uncertainty.
Do not be afraid,
Of what you will uncover,
Of what you might relinquish,
If you become honest
With yourself.

Categories
inner journey My voice

More Than A Painting

Painting by rossiehb.art*

I’ve never been one for a bucket list. Much as my family teases me about writing lists, and how on my death bed I will be leaving them all lists of what to do, I am not great at doing that listing of things I’d like to do. My lists are things to do during today. But if I had had a bucket list of things I would like to do before I die one of those things I’ve realised I would have put on would be to have a painting commissioned for myself. Not just to buy a good piece of art but to have one that is total mine and mine alone.

The other thing I would have put on my bucket list if I’d done one years ago would be to have a room of my own. A room that is totally mine. I’ve lived in rented accommodation on my own and when a single mum, or I’d lived with parents or with a partner. And even though I do take charge of the decorating in this house the rooms are still “ours” not “mine”, whereas now I have this study; a room that is s totally my room.

Anyway my friend, Rossie, started getting properly back into her art a while ago as her family’s time running Ywam Bristol was nearing an end. It is funny in wondering why her family moved to Bristol with this wonderful vision then things went awry, I do wonder if they were there so that Rossie could connect with some from the art scene there but also to be strategically placed to rekindle her art.

Anyway in May she wished me a happy birthday and something pinged within me and I asked her if she would paint me a picture because I felt it would fit perfectly with the new colours in my study. She asked me what I wanted and I just said for her to do as she felt.

Well as we all know I’ve been doing a lot of “work” on myself via QEC etc and I think the biggest thing to emerge is that I am being able to more clearly say what I want, when I want and how I want. I am being released from people pleasing, needing to be loved, from needing to complying, from my guilt of my past, etc, etc. Well guess what Rossie felt to call the painting??? “Finding Your Voice”

Finding Your Voice is often used in writing as in finding your writing style. But as I gaze at this painting I know it is more than just that. It is being able to know that the still small voice of your heart is clear, is you, is safe, can be trusted. It is knowing that the voice you hear is clear and true. It is hearing it within the clutter of shoulds and oughts and conditioning.

Over the past few years I have been finding that true heart voice, that voice that is truly me, that voice that can cope with the difference facets of myself without fear or criticism. Interestingly too as I’ve found my own voice I have been able to decorate my study as I like it, put in bits and pieces that I like, turn my desk so I’m looking out at the world rather than at a wall, added a comfy chair, a floor cushion, coverings, etc that I would not put in a shared room in the house. As I have found my voice so I have also found my space. I think too I’ve found my space within the wider world too without having to push myself to fit in with a clique.

So this painting is not just a something from a bucket list I didn’t have but it is something that says something about my journey. It has also come just as I was ready for it.

Unfortunately the photos do not do it justice. I messaged Rossie and told her that it is like trying to photograph a feeling. It doesn’t quite work, doesn’t convey what it says to me.

Please do check out more of my lovely friend’s painting as www.rossiehb.art and on social media on @rossiehb.art

And even the dog’s floor cushion matches the decor. The cushion is from Gill’s cushions, who is also someone I know. I’m slowly filling my space with personal things!

Categories
media prayer

There is so much more going on in the world than the media tell us

https://wildfiretoday.com/2022/05/08/updates-on-wildfires-in-northern-new-mexico/

I receive a weekly email from a woman who runs a ranch in New Mexico which she uses for healing retreats. Today’s one is full of her grief about the fact that her ranch is being destroyed by the wildfire that is sweeping across New Mexico killing people, destroying lives, making people homeless and jobless, killing animals, destroying nature, and changing the landscape of a huge expanse of the US. President Biden has declared it a state of emergency. And this is in a country with very little social support which – even though we criticise it deeply here in the UK – we do take for granted.

I also receive a newsletter weekly that ask me to pray for persecuted Christians around the world. Some of things these believers endure is horrendous. Again here in the UK we get very little persecution or even abuse.

But it got me thinking of how much the media controls what we know about the world. Yes the war in Ukraine is awful but it is not the only bad thing going on. Yes there will be a huge knock on effect with food but it is not the only place where our food comes from that might be struggling.

But these things I have mentioned – New Mexico wildfires, Ukraine, persecuted Christians – I only mention because they are things I can connect with. I did also get an email from UNESCO asking me to give money to children starving on the Horn of Africa. I did have to look up where it was. And I am sure the wars and climate change that have caused these children to be starving will effect more than just them. There will be a knock on. But it is in the news? No.

Too often we get caught in the trivial. And yes our politicians should held accountable but it should not fill our news screens. Yes we should know about wars not just that affect those with a similar skin colour to us but also those whose skin colour is different. But again it should not fill our news screens.

I wonder often how we can get a fuller picture of what goes on in our world?

I was talking to my husband, who is an avid news watcher, who says he watches the news so he knows what to pray. A very valid reason too. But I did wonder if maybe we/I should be asking God to show me where prayer is needed though listening to that Still Small Voice. I wonder if then maybe, just maybe, my prayers would be directed where they are really needed.

But as I write this I realise too that it is hard to find that time to sit, to be still, to hear the small voice, and to know what is needed prayer wise. Maybe I’ll start to try and get back to you – or maybe, like too often, I’ll just get busy and forget! Or maybe even turn a blind eye and hope it all goes away?