Tag: Substack

Categories
interesting plans

Part of God’s Amazing Plan

Matt Kelland’s Unhack Your Brain https://unhackyourbrain.substack.com/p/priorities

I found this great quote on Matt Kelland’s Unhack Your Brain Substack and I love it, but then on Sunday at our Messy Church Easter service we sang Our God Is A Great Big God which I also love.

I just love to be reminded that God is sooo soooo big but also that God has loved me since before the world began, since before I was born, since before I made all the mistakes and screw ups I did and all the hurting of others that I did too. God loved me inspite of what I was going to do. Now that is amazing.

But then it came down to how to I balance this line “how wonderful to be a part of God’s amazing plan” with it being ok not to have “a purpose or grand ambition” and to just “wander through life finding interesting things to do“.

I know I’ve pondered this whole “God’s plan for your life” before in other posts but again I was struck with the revelation that, even though way too often, especially in charismatic denominations, there is this emphasis on “finding God’s plan for your life”, of praying into every move you make to check it is “part of the plan” and lots of angsting and fears about “getting it wrong” or “missing out”.

But what if …. and as Matt calls it an “unpopular opinion”… what if God’s plan for our lives is to find interesting things to do before we die?

The world is crawling with interesting things and interesting people. This morning an older couple and I stood in wonder at the confetti blossom falling from the trees; in the park I noticed a lady sniffing the apple blossoms; I talked with an man about how he’s dealing with his terminal cancer; with another friend about how the family are dealing with the sudden heart attack of her father-in-law; I laugh at squirrels scampering up trees and the puppy who leaps up the tree trunks trying to catch them; I smile at connections to do with The Green Cross Code man [a UK road crossing initiative back in the 1970s]. And all this is just in the 45 mins to and from the park today. That’s even before I’ve started reading the amazing Substack and WordPress blogs that appear in my inbox, before I start reading the piles of books I have, etc.

The world is so amazing and if God’s purpose for my life, God’s amazing plan for my life, is to potter along and enjoy those interesting things then I think that is totally amazing.

Yes also I know that God’s plan includes loving God, ourselves and others, and forgiving God, ourselves and others, which again if you get into that is amazingly interesting.

I think once we can do the finding interesting things everywhere, can forgive God, ourselves and others and can love God, ourselves and others, then I think we have definitely got the most amazing grand plan ever.

Categories
Feelings Thinking

It’s About The Thinking!

A continuation from yesterday’s post – because I found the picture I was looking for. Interestingly it came to me when I’d stopped thinking about it and was walking the dog. Just popped into my head. I find lots of my ideas do that – just pop into my head. But I do forget that. Yesterday I spent the morning pondering what to put on my Substack for the coming week and then was sorting supper and it popped into my head so I wrote a 500 word pieces around memories of Christmas.

I also had more thoughts, after find the above, and from comments by Matt on yesterday’s post around the “How do you know?” thought which is similar to the fortune telling idea.

Too often we “know” what someone is thinking or why they have done X,Y or Z. But we don’t. We often don’t really know why we are doing what we are doing because much of it, I believe, is around triggers. For instance we suddenly lose our temper with someone, or a friend that we don’t lose our temper with but have horrid thoughts about, but we don’t really know why. Oh we do all the pondering and putting forward ideas to ourselves, generally that revolve around blaming them or ourselves, but it can be because what they said or did reminded us of a hurt from a parent, a teacher, a situation we were scared it. But instead of accepting we feel hurt, sad, whatever, we try to justify it.

Take this morning – I woke up feeling sad. Like really sad. And a bit snarky and looking for a fight. Thankfully it was only me, the dog and the cat about at that time. Though the cat can wind me up greatly at times!! The dog is an angel. Anyway I left the cat at home and took the dog for a walk in the dark just as the sun was waking behind the hills. Instead of trying to work out why I was feeling as I was – that whole thinking thing – I just accepted that this was how I felt and let it go.

A feeling is just a feeling. It is a chemical reaction in your body which, apparently takes only a few seconds to go through you unless … you decided to hold on to it and think about it.

So I’m not sure what was causing my feelings of sadness and crankiness but I know they’ve gone now because I didn’t chew them over and think about them I just accepted that was how I felt.

It saves so much time too. I’m not going over who might have said, or not said, done or not done, anything to me, or imagining what they are “really” thinking about me. For all I know my sad feeling this morning could have been because of a chemical imbalance that changed when I got out walking. Who knows? And I’m getting to the point of “Who cares?”

Though with all things, as Matt says about “How do you know?” it is “really hard in practice, though, because our brains are hardwired to make assumptions”. Though now there is a part of me that is going – is that our brains that are hardwired or is it our conditioning?

A thought for another time 🙂

And picture of the dog to finish with – especially for Gina who I know, and am not presuming, seconded guessing or fortune telling, loves my posts if I put a picture of Renly on them 🙂

Categories
oughts writing

Walking Away from “Oughts”

Write from your Passion

First published on Godspacelight 9th July 2024

Writing workshop about dragons and myths run by myself – Barefoot At The Kitchen Table – June 2024

In Christine Sine’s newsletter to those of us who write for Godspacelight she talked about writing into her passion. This is probably one of the bests prompts I’ve had in ages. I have tried writing what I ought to write. I even set up a Substack account to write about writing for well-being but it’s failed. Why? Because, much as I love free writing for my own well-being, I wasn’t writing into my passion. I was trying to be something I wasn’t. I even tried putting in a regular structure to when I blogged but I’m afraid that isn’t me. 

How often do we do that – try to be something we are not? Whether it is in what we write or what we do? I think of many times when I have done something – job or ministry – that is so significant but isn’t me. Too many times to remember. It could even be something I’m good at, have talents in, but it isn’t my passion. I suppose if one jargoned it up I could say it wasn’t “my calling.”

As I’ve got older I’ve learned more and more not just what my skills and talents are but what I am passionate about. I love people, though I need time alone with a book too. If I’m honest my perfect day would be to go for a dog walk, coffee and breakfast with a friend and have a rolling, random conversation that covers deep and meaning as well as trivial and silly; come home and write a blog piece on something that either the conversation has triggered or that was buzzing in my head; and finish the afternoon on the couch to have a read of a good book, then maybe some intense Netflix drama with a glass of red wine to finish the day. Somewhere in that I’d like to ponder writing a short story or flash fiction, though maybe never get to write it; I’d like to email someone I enjoy writing to; run a writing workshop where I encourage others to get the most from putting pen to paper; and probably free write or journal myself. 

But I can get into thinking I “ought to” write X, Y or Z; I “ought to” be connecting with a certain person or group and “ought to” be doing something with them. But that is my “oughts and shoulds” and not my passion coming through. 

I’ve just read Timothy Keller’s The Prodigal God in which he talks of the older brother attitude being the one that says “it’s not fair” when God doesn’t do as we think they should do because we were “good Christians”. My “ought to” comes, I think, from a place that is where I’ve decided what a  “good Christian” or a “good writer” would/should do. It isn’t coming from a place of my passion. 

I think for all of us there are times when we do not run with our passions for many reasons; a need to fit in, a fear of missing out, having been told by a parental figure that life isn’t meant to be about fun, or whatever. I’m sure we all, if we allow ourselves to really hear our hearts, can come up with many reasons why we don’t follow our passions in work, in writing, in church stuff, in life in general. All of them have some truth in them but remember the devil goes around like a angel of light. The one who keeps us away from our true selves does it subtly not overtly. If it was overtly we would notice and rise above it. But it is filled with limited truths and comes from people who do care for us and want the best for us. But it is still lies if it keeps us from our passions and our true selves. 

I’m grateful to all the healing that I’ve received so I can hear God clearly, hear my heart clearly, and be bold enough to step out into my passions. I’m also bold enough now to walk away from when I’ve try to do something that looks good but isn’t me; when I’ve done an “ought”. But this has come about because I know God loves me unconditionally all the time – not just when I get it right/write 🙂 

Categories
Follow Substack

Substack

I battled with various Photoshop/Adobe type apps until I finally worked out how to do this. This the banner for me new Substack account. Though when you go on the account I have no idea where it has gone. But I’m still proud of working my to this point!

I have decided to start a Substack account for my writing, especially for a new project I’m planning about “parenting adult children” [just a working title for now.

It would be great if you would follow my Substack account too on https://dianelwoodrow.substack.com/ If you have any difficulty following please message me here or email me and I can add you – I hope.

I’ll still be doing random blogs roughly weekly here too as there are things I want to write that don’t quite fit in with the project ideas so please stay tuned here too.