Tag: trust

Categories
different trust

Trust Is The Key

This is a regular beach walk of mine but often, when there have been big storms, of which we had many over the last few months, the stones and gullies have been changed. It can be a very different walk. I need to remember that we are all different as people depending on our personalities and maybe too the storms we have ridden.

Last night was youth group night. It was a new group and I didn’t want to presume that just because they had come to a church youth group that they all believed in God so our first question of the year was “Would you identify as a Christian? If yes why? If no why?”

Only three young people came and all said they would tell their friends they were Christians or that their friends knew this already. It was the “why?” question that challenged me the most.

For myself, I had a very powerful experience which brought me to really want to follow God in the big way. I would say I “became a Christian”. So for myself it is all about the experiential experience. One of the group said that when she prayers she can feel a presence sat beside her. But the other two, and the vicar, all said they just believed and struggled to say why they believed. The answer from all three of them was “I just do”. No wavering. No changing.

When we talked about what things it meant to be a Christian the main one was that God was centre of our lives. We didn’t get into tenants of faith. Nothing about what you had/had not to believe or do to be a Christian but just that God and Jesus were a major presences in our lives who encouraged us to think and behave in a different way.

The first church I attended, and many others I have been to that have shaped my beliefs, have been very much of the ilk that to be a Christian one had to do and say certain things, believe in certain things, accept certain things.

I’ve also studies not just the Reformation but many of the points in history where Christians have persecuted Christians because they have done things in a different way. Things we would now see as trivial. But as the vicar reminded me, even now [and I experienced in other churches] though there may not be actual burnings at the stake, there can often be judgements against those not have “prayed the prayer”, been “properly” baptised, and also the issues of gender and sexuality, care for the planet, who leads the congregations, etc, etc.

What struck me greatly was that we are all different in who we are but that makes us all different in how we approach God, how we behave about God and with God. For me I needed that experiential experience, something tangible to hold on to as I unraveled and rebuilt my life. But for others it is just that believing and that knowing that that is enough.

But what came out of if for me is that however we experience God and however God is out worked in our lives, that important bit is that we keep God and Jesus central and trust them enough to lean on them no matter what is going on around us. Through that can we show God in our lives to others. Then when we take God’s love to others it is something tangible not something we are just saying.

Categories
Lord's Prayer Trust God Uncategorized

Whose Will?

So two posts in quick succession. This is because I’ve been enjoying my daughter’s company and not had time or headspace to blog.

But I have been praying. And again am stuck on working with The Lord’s Prayer. And especially the line “Your Will be done“.

It made me think of how often we mither [check out the link as it is a north of England expression] at God to do what we think is the right thing. With many situations, whether it is Ukraine, Israel/Palestine, getting things done in my home town, illnesses with people I know, there is much more going on under the surface, hidden histories, that we know little or nothing about, hurts and pains we don’t understand, and so often what we are “telling” God to do is ill-informed. I think this is why Jesus’s advise was telling us to say to God “look I see this situation. I’d love you to be involved in it. Your will be done within that.“

Now I had an interesting thing happen after I was praying for God’s will to be done about a certain person. As me and this person were walking and talking they said something that I could almost see God highlighting for me. It was something very deep with them and shared in a way that I felt led me to ask God if that was a way I was to pray about it. I believe now that God has given me their direction in praying for this person and that God and I are yoked together in this.

I also had another time when I did the “ok it’s your will not mine here” as I was finding certain things with another person difficult. I was also trying to avoid that person. But again God had other plans. There I was walking round my park on my own and they were walking the opposite direction. They greeted me warmly and we walked together. Again I could hear that still small voice saying “this is My will that you walk along side them.” And it was like there was nothing else I had to do but to walk with them.

I can be an organised, planning person. It is a family joke that I like my lists. Often of an evening I write a list of what I want to do the following day as part of my unwind before going to sleep routine. But I also find that I can get into doing this with praying for people; the list with an idea of what each person, situation, etc needs. But this takes away the “your will be done” part of the Lord’s Prayer. I wonder too if these things interfere with the “give me each day my daily bread” part.

So this year I am going to just let God’s will be done, not my will, in how I pray and who I pray for, and just trust and see what happens.

Categories
Main Event ordinary

Defining My Year

Colwyn Bay 6th January 2024 photographed by myself

It is that season where we look back and look forward. A time when we talk about our best times over the last year and our worst times. A time when we talk about and make plans for the future.

I’ve been reading Josh Luke Smith’s thoughts which he has been sending out each day since 1st Jan. This verse struck me from the poem he shared

We must not define our lives by our worst days, and neither should we by our best; most of life is in the middle.

Joshua Luke Smith – This is the main event

This photograph I’ve shared is from a walk my husband, daughter, my dog and myself did yesterday. It was an ordinary walk along and ordinary beach. We talked about ordinary things then went to the pub. Ordinary

Neither of my children could make it up for Christmas. 2nd January was the first time my daughter was able to come and has managed to be with us for the whole week. But she’s tired after working all through December, over Christmas and over New Year in hospitality. She’s tired and needs a bit of family downtime. We’ve done a lot of sitting about and chatting. One afternoon her and the dog fell asleep on the couch whilst I was reading. We did one day where we went out to lunch so she could get a new coat. But it was all low key. All ordinary. It was life lived in the middle point between best and worst.

But as Josh says in all his writings for this year – and it is a phrase he uses often – it is the ordinary that is the “main event”. If we spend our time waiting for the amazing or even wallowing in the awful we will miss out on so much. God promises to be with us ALL the time.

Yes God promises to be with us when things get tough and life is awful and when we need to be enfolded in their loving arms. God promises to rejoice with us when things are amazing and shout with us. Though often in the great times, and even in the good times, we forget to acknowledge God. But God is with us ALWAYS.

With this in my head it is helping me realise to just acknowledge God in the washing up, in the deep cleaning the kitchen which I did this morning because husband and daughter have gone for hike in the sunshine that has miraculously appeared over North Wales. I have got good at remembering to praise God for the beauty in my local park but this whole thing of remembering that actually it is the life we live day in day which is our “main event“, which is our lives, is something to be grasped

I suppose it is what mindfulness is deep down, but often that has been turned into a “thing.” – eg “I am being mindful” or whatever. But this is just knowing that all my life, whether good, bad, indifferent, whether mindful or forgetful, all of this is my life. All of this is the main event of my life.

Dog enjoying the beach. For the dog each moment of every day is just what it is!

Categories
autumn season

Autumn Tide

Photos from my walk this morning at Betws-y-Coed, a lovely town on the edge of Snowdonia, about 20 miles from my house. Dog and I were walking there at 8am watching the mist lift off the river. Was about 3 degrees with that lovely fresh autumnal/winter feel to it. Not quite a nip but almost. The sort of weather that makes dog walkers smile.

Today looked like it could be the first dry morning of the week so, even though I have quite a few other things to do today I thought I’d drive the 40 minutes to Betws-y-Coed, do the 40 mins walk around the golf course and see the two rivers meet, then go to the Alpine Cafe for breakfast and write some poetry. Renly likes both this walk and this cafe [there is a sausage involved so he gallops around the walk 🙂 ] I felt now that I had stopped working in the nursery/after school club, and Mum is doing ok for now, I thought I’d get back to at least once a week taking myself off to write poetry.

It is very much free writing from what I’ve seen and the photos I feel led to take so there is never a plan.

What came from today’s was all about autumn, understandably. But more about my autumn. Not that “oh I’m in the autumn of my life and the end and winter are coming“. Much more a “this is an autumn season where I need to shed my leaves”

I’ve just googled what goes on with leaves in the winter. [Here’s my take on it so all your biologists and amateur biologists hush!!] As light fades the tree sucks in as much goodness as it can from the leaves because they are no longer photosynthesizing and so they turn all those amazing colours.

So I’ve reached a place where I have been taking a lot of goodness from the projects and work stuff that I’ve been doing over the last few years but that means I need to be looking inside of my “tree-self” a bit more. I need to let those dead leaves go, let those projects and things fall.

But what I noticed as I pondered about walking in mulch and compost was that most of the leaves don’t fall that far from the tree so really the leaves are going full circle and being the compost to help the tree keep going.

I feel I have been fighting this process for a while. Trying to keep going under my own steam instead of letting go. I think I’ve been afraid that if I let everything go then there will be nothing. But in fact all that I’ve done will fall at the “base of my trunk” and so give me sustenance for whatever comes next.

Via QEC, God, and a book called Don’t Believe Everything You Think, I’m doing my best to give all my dreams to God/The Universe and let them bring them to fruition. I know there will be things I have to do but I must only do the things I feel deep in my heart and know to be from God/The Universe. It all comes without striving.

These trees don’t strive. They are just the best trees they can be. They don’t plan the seasons, the winds, the droughts, the floods. They just get on and do their thing.

The walk I did today is one I do every couple of months and today I noticed things I hadn’t seen before, but that was because there were very few leaves on the trees. I was looking through the bare branches and seeing the road, seeing houses, seeing sheep and things. If I am wise, as my leaves fall for this season, I can see other things and who knows what might come from my quietly just being, just really seeing and waiting?

Oh and I took this last photograph because the plant in the foreground has brown and green leaves and red berries too!

Categories
Encounter prayer

Cart Before The Horse

New Forest ponies photographed by myself June 2021

Too often we put the proverbial cart before the proverbial horse and wonder why nothing happens.

For instance we pray for world peace, for people groups to forgive each other, for people to consider the earth and the climate change issues, for people to stop abusing each other, yet I have realised that with the stories I read with my youth group Hagar and Gideon only changed when the had an encounter with God.

Hagar could only forgive Abraham and Sarah for their abuse of her and let go of her own anger and pride when she had met with the God who fully saw who she was. Gideon could only go and do what God asked of him calmly and without anger when he had met with the God who calmed his fears.

I think too often we expect ourselves and others to forgiven, to do just as God says and no more or less, to walk in peace and deep joy, when they had not had an encounter with God. I also think it often needs to be a regular different facet of God we encounter to fit with the things we are dealing with at the time.

So I am going to try to start praying for my friends, my family, world leaders, situations, and asking if these people will have an encounter with God. That sort of encounter that makes them feel fully known, as Hagar did, fully trusted as I think Gideon did, fully loved just as I am as I did and do regularly.

I also think that to be able to have those true encounters we need to be healed so we can truly see God when they come visiting. As you know I’m very pro QEC and also Sozo, but there are other ways of allowing those false beliefs of self-doubt, unworthiness, expectations of life, etc, changed and replaced by Godly freeing ways. For Gideon it was giving a sacrifice. For Hagar it was believing God say her.

So let’s get praying for people to have God encounters and then trusting God will change them, will speak to them, will be with them, in the way that is right for them and their situation rather than telling them and God what they should be doing.

Categories
crisis Trust God

From Crisis to Crisis

This was my dog’s latest crisis – being trapped on the stair by the cat whilst I hoovered downstairs!!!

We seem to lurch from one media reported crisis to the next. All of which are pretty scary to say the least – whether it is the Russia/Ukraine war or what is going on with Hamas and the Israelites in Israel and Gaza, as well as our lurching UK NHS and education system crisis and the cost of living crisis. We are constantly being pulled to worry about things outside our control. I think this is why in my area at the moment there is so much focus on a local council threatening to ban dogs from its beaches all year round to the new 20 mile per hour speed limits. These are things we can control, things we can do something about.

I had been planning a post about how trivial these complaints are when so much else is going on but over this past week I “got it”. Yes we can send money to UNICEF for Ukraine, Gaza and Israel but we can’t do much to change the situation. But we can sign petitions for both the 20 mph changes and the dog ban on the beaches. We can moan to our local councils, who more often than not will listen to us and definitely will not shoot us. We are so lucky in this county to be able to do that. And, especially with local matters things often change because we could bump into our councilors in the park, in the pub, in the supermarket. And many of them are where they are because local matters are important. We can make a change

We cannot stop the atrocities in the Middle East, in Ukraine, with modern day slavery, with drugs, with all sorts of awfulness that actually we do forget about once it has moved away from the headlines. Even with our own health and education systems, if we are not affected personally we do forget about them.

The media encourages both that feeling of panic and of worry but once we “get used to” what is going on they find something else to cause us panic and worry. So we do then look to something, like dog bans or 20 mph speed changes, to vent that worry and panic on. It is all short term but it does sometimes help.

Prayer is one way to go. Although sometimes that can feel like God isn’t listening. How long does one pray for peace and watch people die? For people to stop abusing those more vulnerable than they are? For people to not need drugs and alcohol to find peace of mind and wholeness? It takes a certain type of person to keep hammering at God on those subjects when nothing seems to be happening.

So how do we trust that God is listening? This I cannot answer. I’m hoping when I get to heaven I will. But I have to have faith. Faith that my little, often half remembered prayers, get heard and thrown into the bigger pot.

He was given much incense to offer, with the prayers of all God’s people, on the golden altar in front of the throne. 4 The smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of God’s people, went up before God from the angel’s hand.

Revelation 8:3-4

Though, like with much of the book of Revelation this is confusing because all these prayers get sent up and given to God then the angels cast down all sorts of nastiness on the earth. But I do have to have faith that God hears, that God listens and most importantly that God knows best.

Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see

Hebrews 11:1

This isn’t easy in the small things – like the death of a fellow dog walker, the death of an acquaintance from stomach cancer and another acquaintance from secondary breast cancer in this last month. But if my hope and faith isn’t in God then where is it? It can’t be in the media because that is fickle, as are the politicians, the economists, the world leaders, the leaders of terrorist groups, even my employers, parents, etc. They are fickle all of them. All are searching for keeping themselves safe.

God on the other hand doesn’t care what we think of them. In fact God doesn’t care if we give them a gender or not. God made us all so that we can love them completely, love each other completely and unconditionally, and they can love us with relentless conditional love. When we don’t do our part because we are scared, wanting our own way, fickle, fearful, etc then we to often pray “my will be done because I’m scared if you don’t do it my way things will get worse” rather than “your will be done because you know best and I trust you”

So with all this madness of people hating each other, of people fearing each other, of money being the biggest goal, are you, am I, willing to trust handing things over to God? Whether our worries are the wars and poverty in the world or personal things like 20 mph speed limits can we tell God our worries without telling them how to sort it. And will we be able to trust they have heard and trust that they can sort it?

Categories
being real magic

We Can Do Magic

Magic of a river in full flow after a storm. Abergywngregan August 2023 Photographed by myself

Did you know you could do magic? In fact you do it every day by the things you think and how you hold on to your feelings.

I tried to write this without mentioning the people concerned but realised it didn’t make sense otherwise so I’ve had to name the relationships. Bit of tough vulnerability here!!!

This revelation came to me whilst I was having negative jealous insecure thoughts around my daughter-in-law. As I was journaling and pondering and, I suppose, justifying my feelings, I got a picture in my head of the Snow White’s wicked stepmother. From that picture this came.

Snow White’s stepmother would have been a kind and beautiful woman when the Snow White’s father pick her as his second wife. He didn’t have to marry to have someone to look after his daughter after he was widowed as some men do. He could have had servants to do that for him. He chose her, I am sure, for her beauty and beautiful nature. But she had been wounded in childhood by someone so as Snow White grew into a young woman she got jealous. Then I am sure there were times when Snow White went off and did things just with her father. This would have exasperated the stepmother’s wound. I wonder too if she also pondered whether the father looked at his daughter and remembered his love for his first wife. All this added to the stepmother’s insecurities making her feel angry dark thought inside. She then chose to act on those thoughts and, if she had been successful, instead of helping her step daughter through teenagehood and out into the wider world, she as good as killed her.

It made me realise that we can choose what magic we use and how we act on our feelings. I had a choice – 1. to be jealous and angry with this person and to send out negative vibes. Ok not a poisoned apple but something close to that which would have killed our relationship and killed my relationship with my son 2. I could accept that this was how I felt but then let those feelings slide from me, know that my relationship with my son was not based on who they were with now but on some “deeper magic”.

I could trust in the depth of the relationship with my son and no longer be jealous of his wife then give life to our time, or I could spoil everything with my jealousy.

[I was going to say petty jealous but actually it was very real and I had to accept it before I could let it go. I think too often we dismiss our feelings and so they fester about because they haven’t been truly banished.]

The stepmother did not accept her jealous feelings, instead she acted on them and went into destroy mode. I decided to accept my feelings, let them go, go to my safe place of deep gratitude, and allow a better magic to flow.

And of course as you know the answer to the Snow White story so you can guess the answer to this story. Yes we all had a great time together. There was no negative animosity. I grew in love for my daughter-in-law and got some great times on my own with my son.

The magic I made was my choice, but it comes through the healing I’ve gone, my relationship with myself, my trust in God/The Universe to have my back and love me unconditionally. Without all that I would still have that wound and be wanting to hold too tight, to poison what was, not be able to enjoy what is going on around me.

Though sometimes I think we don’t realise we can do magic so we say things about a situation or person that are not uplifting or positive, we work towards a worst case scenario, and we are not disappointed. Snow White’s stepmother “knew” that eventually Snow White would be more popular and more beautiful than her so she had a plan on what to do with her then. If I had planned in a “I know this time will be hard work” I am sure it would have been. But instead, once I’d free wrote/journaled around it, accepted what I was feeling and accepted that this was not a good place to be, ANSed myself, etc then I could believe this was going to be a lovely magical time with my son and his wife.

Because it was deep magic from being healed and knowing I am an amazing person then it wasn’t a “trying hard” but was from a place deep in my heart.

We need to all remember we are all making magic every day by what we think, feel, do and believe.

Categories
Encounter forgiveness

Hagar

For me the beach alone early in the morning is a great place for me to encounter God.

The Bible version of the story of Hagar can be found in Genesis 16

At our last youth group we were looking at the names of God and by mistake I picked out the verses where Hagar runs away from Sarah but meets with God in a big way. She is the first person to say “God sees me” [Gen 16:13] Amazing.

Lots of this story we gloss over but it was horrendous and where I struggle to get my head round Abraham can be one of the founders of the Jewish, and subsequently Christian faith. Hagar was a slave. We don’t know her nationality so she could have been trafficked, stolen from her family, sold by her family. She has no past in the Bible. But she was there to be used to her mistress, Sarah. Hagar is probably very young, and probably a virgin. As we know in the story Sarah and Abraham couldn’t have any children so Sarah “gives” her maidservant to Abraham to have a child with. That is the line that is used. Do we ever think about it too much? Abraham had sex with Hagar, whether she wanted it or not. He raped her. I suspect he raped her more than once just to make sure she was pregnant. Hagar is loses her virginity to serve her owners. It is very similar to what went on in the slave plantations where the master would have sex with his slaves. Funny how we don’t often put this story in that context.

Anyway Hagar gives Sarah what she wanted and Sarah is angry that Hagar has a child and also we get the feeling that Abraham is fond of the child and possibly of this nubile young woman he has raped. Sarah is abusive to her maidservant, the mother of the child that would be classed as Sarah’s. In the end Hagar behaves like a lot of young girls I know would do, she runs away. And it says she leaves her baby some distance away to die. I wonder if she liked the boy? Can one love a child of rape? Some can. Some can’t. I am suspecting she would have been grateful if Ishmael had died. Maybe she believed that if he was no longer about she could get on with her life, forget she’d had a child. Thankfully God knew that she would always love that baby and it would always be apart of her. A baby once conceived is part of a woman forever whether it lives or dies, miscarries or is terminated, very few women every forget that baby.

So there is Hagar weeping under a tree hoping that her baby dies and she can then run away somewhere. And God appears. He reassures her. He shows unconditionally love. But here is what I find the most amazing – God tells Hagar to go back to her abusers. I know my reaction would have been to say “really! Like I love all the things you’ve said about my boy. I claim them. But to go back. I don’t think so”.

What struck me as I was doing a potted telling of this story to my youth group was that Hagar must have had to forgive Sarah and Abraham before she went back. Otherwise she would have gone back all full of anger and hate and resentment and that energy would have caused issues with her relationship with Sarah and Abraham. Hagar had to full forgive them. Then Ishmael could be a full son, could be fully loved, and could gain all that God has promised.

But I think I know how Hagar was able to forgive. Because she had had an encounter with God. Because she knew God loved her unconditionally. God loved her as a slave, a victim of rape, of abuse, of displacement. God saw her for all she really was and loved her unconditionally. I wonder if we can only fully forgive others once we know God fully sees us and all we are. God fully loves us and all we are.

Perhaps if each of us realised we were fully seen, fully loved by the Creator of the Universe then we would be able to fully see and fully love others and not be afraid of what they might do, say, take, react?

Categories
Contentment Trust God

It Ain’t What You Think It’s the Way That You Think it

[misquote from Bananarama & Fun Boy Three’s It Ain’t What You Do, It’s The Way That You Do It]

Sunrise over Conwy beach photographed by myself

I haven’t had time to post for a while. I’m also still working on some thoughts to add to series I was starting following on from my friend’s visit. So far I’ve got Hope and Free Will and a drafted post looking at Why Do We Allow Suffering? but I’ve not had time to fully get my thoughts in order as this week has been really busy. In fact last week was busy too.

But this got me thinking about how we look at things. I can be really grumpy that I didn’t get a day off last week and worked more hours than I was rotated in for and that this week has gone the same, or I can accept that this is just the way things are at this moment in time. I can look at my diary and see that there isn’t much down time and feel grouchy about that or I can enjoy each day as it comes and feel grateful for the spaces I do have. Not a false push through sort of gratitude where we try to be grateful for things but a deep into my heart gratitude that I don’t just mean with my head and my will but that I can feel through my whole body.

Now I see these feelings flip flop throughout the day. So I have moments when I feel that true deep gratitude and then I feel lighter, the children I’m working with are easier to deal with. But then being human I can then feel just fed up that I’m still at work and wish these children would go home, feel my legs and eyes aching, and then, guess what? The children pick up that energy and are harder to be with. It is my energy that changes not just my own body but those around me.

I don’t want to just be working towards the coming fortnight when I shall be on holiday but want to enjoy each day as it is. So to add to those lines

It ain’t what you feel, it’s the way that you feel it

It ain’t what you think, it’s the way that you think it

It ain’t what you say, it’s the way that you say it

It ain’t what you do, it’s the way that you do.

Thank you to – Bananarama and Fun Boy Three

I know I won’t get this right every time but I will try. So today, even though I am doing twice as many hours at work and can’t have time write as much as I’d like, enjoy my dog, etc, etc I will be grateful for this day, this week, this time God has given me and enjoy it to the full rather than wishing it was something else and I was doing something else.

Because “This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it” Psalm 118:24 rather than bemoaning what we don’t have.

Categories
free will Mystery

Free Will

“I’m just looking, Mum” – my dog on the beach 6th September 2023 Photographed by myself

[This is the second of some blogs following on from discussions with a friend who stayed with us over the last weekend. She is exploring her faith and asking those “awkward” questions]

One of those things that comes up in those discussions about God is free will. As in “these things happen because God gave us free will” . But sometimes one does ask why!

I work at a local after-school club and yesterday was really struck by the meaning of “free-will”. It was the first day back and I wanted to give the children ownership of their after-school club so I came up with some great ideas. Did they want to do them? No! All they wanted to do was play hide and seek in the confide space of the after-school club room [a converted double garage] with very limited hiding spaces. All worked very well until they started to fight about who could hide where, who was actually counting, etc, etc. as I put away all my games I’d got out for them.

But it made me think of God and how in the Creation myth God gives humankind this beautiful garden but humankind goes “no I want to find out about good and evil”. Then later on God gives some suggestion on how to live a long, peaceful life – take the 7th day as a full on rest day, take the 7th year as a full on rest year, trust that you will always have enough, believe God will supply in the right timing.

So mankind thinks that really that 7th day is to do some extra-curricular things [sports, church, shopping, etc]. Of course you can’t really not do anything for a whole year because then you’d starve/not have enough so humankind does not give the land a rest or themselves. And then we come down to the “enough”. Humankind then decides they don’t have enough land, enough food, enough, possessions, etc and so some take more than they need. In fact most of us have more than we need or will ever use but we think we’re ok because we can point to others that have even more again. But there are so many in the world who do not have enough. And that’s not God’s fault. That is our greed, fear, and not trusting God.

So like the children in my after-school club who did have amazing things they could be doing, we reject the good because we think we know best and then we fight with each other when things don’t work out. And of course with my friend in her explorations we blame God for all that. Doh!