Blank page moment

I'm having a blank page moment. 

God, I want to fill this blank page with something that makes you smile. 

Something that says, 'Here he is: my God. And he's my Friend.'

What? 

Should I have something to say about how I would like to have a Thanksgiving Holiday like my friends in the US? How I imagine them over there with houses full of laughing family and friends, lit windows giving glimpses of warm, decorated rooms and people sitting round laden tables, hands held, eyes closed, giving thanks to the Provider?

Should I go where I usually go when I don't have words - the Psalms? Should I pick a psalm of praise and add my own contributions, lifting my heart to you in the sure knowledge that my heart will be lighter when you give it back to me than it was when I offered it to you in my hands?

Maybe I should make a list. Of worries to offload, anxieties that make that vertical line between my eyebrows ever deeper; things that I need to offer you once again, even though I've done so a million times, yet always crept back under cover of darkness and gathered them up again. Maybe I could someday leave them with you?

Should I come to you with armfuls of hopes and dreams and longings that I dust off, daily as I wait for your timing? Perhaps you would give me insight into your Plan, so that I can once and for all crumple my inferior, short-sighted one and throw it away, because at last I see, really see, that yours is better?

Perhaps I should describe what's in front of me, sitting here in my kitchen, the wind blowing so hard that the bird table is on its side and the neighbourhood cats all have their fur blown backwards. The leaves swirling in a fountain in the air. Or what I hear, which is the sound of the news on television. Someone lost his legs in Afghanistan. Someone raped on a towpath. Someone suing for libel. Someone sheltering their children from bombs. 

Should I ask you what it's all about? Should I give you my anger and frustration that you could stop these things, but you don't? 

Shall I write a diary entry? Shall I tell you what I've done so far today, what my thoughts and feelings have been? How I managed something this morning that I've been putting off for a fortnight but how long my To Do list still remains; how I finished a book that has inspired me and how I drank too much coffee and ate too many biscuits? 

Shall I try for a poem? 

Shall I search for an inspiring word from someone else and talk about it? 

Shall I write a stream-of-consciousness trundle down memory lane in the hope that I might make sense of things that happened to me many years ago? 

I could do any of those things. 

But what I want to do is just sit here and love you. I don't need words, much as I love them, and much as you indulge me. You are Almighty God. You don't need anything from me. 

There's nothing that I can do to make you love me more, and there's nothing that I can do to make you love me less. 

You don't want anything, you want everything. I want to give you all that I can.

Here's all of the above.

Here am I. 

I love you, Daddy. 

When I need you

Hello God.

I want to ask you something.

The other day a friend of mine was telling me about a tantrum that her little boy recently had. He shouted and stamped and cried and cried until he was completely out of energy and tears and he finally let her hold him in her arms. She cuddled him and rocked him and prayed for him and he hugged her back until he slept. 

My friend told me with wonder that those minutes in each other's arms as she held him and prayed and rocked him to sleep were special moments indeed. She said she felt privileged to be his Mummy and it was almost worth the shouting and the anger and the tears in order to be able to be part of the healing. 

I wonder if all Mums have this experience from time to time. I know that with my girls, Katy in particular, I have done it too. Katy is the tantrum queen in our house. She's getting better as she gets older (she's five tomorrow, you know) but over the past couple of years here the windows have vibrated with the sound of Katy's screaming. She would stamp, throw things, kick, hit out with little fists and shout until she was hoarse. She would expend every last bit of energy.  Over time I came to know when I should approach her and when to leave her alone, because trying to pick her up before she was ready would only result in a renewed fury and the possibility of bruises. 

There'd be a sort of tipping point. There was (and still is, though the tantrums are less violent now) a point at which Katy would lose control and had fought herself into a place where she realised that she needed help. If I watch her these days, she might look at me through her tears and sort of raise her arms a little; not  going so far as to reach out or signal for a hug, but we know, my little girl and me, what she means. She wants me to come and hold her. When I do, she might still be stiff and unyielding, and almost certainly she'll carry on wailing for a while, but we know that we're at the beginning of the end. 

What happens is that she clings onto me and I gather her up and wrap my arms around her. I hold her to me and she pushes her face into my neck. She sobs and heaves and her little body shakes as the tension slowly subsides. I whisper to her and rock her and I stroke her hair and I inhale the wonderful fragrance of her and I push her fringe away from her hot, teary little face. After a while her body melts into mine and she usually snuggles into me and holds tight. It's all gone. She doesn't have anything left. 

Just like my friend's little boy needed her to be there, my Katy needs me sometimes just to be there when she's run out of herself. Run out of fury, fear, energy and tears. And although the tantrum is frustrating and uncomfortable, those moments when I get to help her come back are precious indeed. I know she'll grow out of tantrums, but I hope that I can still hold her and rock her now and again for a while longer, because I love it. I love that she turns to me when she's at the end of herself and I love that I can help. I love that we fit together and feed from each other and the result, after the tumult and rage, is peace and renewal. 

If I try to intervene too soon, Katy hasn't yet come round to needing me. She's still too full of whatever disturbing emotions are driving her for me to get close. I have to wait until the arms go up. Wait until she sobs 'Mummy'. Then, that's my cue. I can pull her to me and we can let our love even out our feelings. I would never, ever, turn her away at that point. I couldn't do it. I love her far, far too much. 

My friend is very wise. She told me about her little boy and the blessing of holding and praying for him as he found his equilibrium again and softened into sleep and then she said, 'Is God like that with me?'

Wow.

Oh, Lord, is that it? Are you like that with me (and her)?  Do you wait, patiently, watching the tantrum progress in all it's impotent fury until I reach the end of my tether, and then do you open your arms for me? I know that you don't intervene too early - you don't stop me from raging or from wallowing in my self pity, but when I do, finally, eventually, run out of options and run out of energy and strength - there you are. 

When I have nothing left, you hold me. 

Only then, when I've exhausted all alternatives, that's when I lift my arms to you. That's when I lie in bed and let my tears dampen the pillow and I cry out to you. It's usually the point when I have no more words than my four year old daughter who can only say, 'Mummy'. 

Abba. My Daddy. 

Does it give you the same pleasure that it gives me as a Mummy?  The same feeling of intensity and something even approaching joy that I get when I hold Katy so close that she melts into me? I don't mean a joy that she has been so distressed, or that she's cried until she's spent, but a joy that she has at last let me help her. A joy that I had something to give that helped?

Do you feel like that? Do you ache to hold me but I won't let you near? Do you love me so much that your arms long to fold around me and bring healing?

It's an amazing thought. I don't quite know what to do with it. 

I wonder why I have to be so far away before I turn around to come back. I wonder why I can't run into your arms sooner and spare myself the trying and failing to run things under my own strength. You think I'd learn. I'm just like Kate in that I can only accept your embrace when I've tried everything else. Got it all out of my system. 

I'm just a child. And a little one at that. 

Thankyou, Father God. For all the times that you wait for me with your arms open. For all the times that you hold me when I cry even though it's a hurt of my own making. All the times that you love me enough to bring me back into you even though I've stamped and thrown things and shouted at you and held you away until I have nothing left. 

Thankyou for a glimpse of your love, Lord God. 

Abba. My Daddy. 

I'm needing a hug. 

You delight in me?

Do you delight in me?

I know that you love me, I believe that, but delight?

I think I'm not really grasping this yet. Three times in the last few weeks have I come across the idea that you delight in me. Once in a sermon and once on my daily reading, and once somewhere else that I can't call to mind. Not just love, not just care for, but delight.

It's made me think. So much so that I am aware that I've used the word 'delight' five times in eight sentences and the first four were in italics.

I delight in my children. I delight in the way they laugh, the way they astonish me with their perception, their development, their wit. They delight me with their smiles, their fragrance, the softness of their skin. They delight me with little 'I love you' cards, with ideas, with funny ways of saying things and sometimes even with their behaviour. This delight is a mixture of love, pride, surprise, more love, admiration, happiness.

When I feel delighted with my children I am enjoying them. They make me happy. They give me pleasure.

I know that you love me, and I know that I am your child, but I'm sorry to say that it's a fairly new idea to me that I can make you happy to that degree.  I know that you love me and I've always understood the idea that you want what's best for me - but I let you down. All the time. I know that you forgive me and lavish more love on me but that I've always felt that I can't really give you anything back.  What do you need? You're God. Surely there isn't anything that I can give you?  When my children smile and hug me and tell me they love me, I am delighted. Do you really feel like that?

Wow.

I heard someone say the other week that if God had a photo of me in his wallet he'd be showing everyone and saying, 'This is my daughter! Look! She's wonderful and I love her. Look! Isn't she great? My daughter!'  Now that's what I do with my daughters - do you really feel that way about me?

Wow.

Can you be so proud of me despite my obvious flaws? Can  you really revel in me, get pleasure from me - delight in me - in the same way that I am enchanted by my girls? Maybe the answer lies in the fact that quite often my girls frustrate me, annoy me and make me mad, but I always always return to the heart-swelling love that I see when they're asleep.  I always see the best, the potential, the loveliness when they're asleep.

Somewhere I read that you look on me as I sleep and smile in that way too. When I'm not saying something I shouldn't, or doing something I shouldn't, or thinking something I shouldn't. I'm asleep and not dissembling or scheming or shouting or worrying; I'm just asleep. You look on me with delight. I love that idea. I love the idea that my heavenly Daddy comes and strokes my face and bends to kiss me as I sleep. Sometimes as a 'grown-up' in this world I still want someone to come and take care of me. When I have to be so strong for my children and strong for my Mum and strong for my husband I sometimes feel that I am pathetically weak and vulnerable and it's all a mirage. Up close I'm still just a child. That's when it would be wonderful to think that someone looks down on me and loves me as protectively and forgivingly and full of wonder and pride as I do with Elizabeth and Katy.

Another thing was in a daily reading by Bill Hybels:

'My children are an absolute priority to me. Now multiply a father's love exponentially and you'll know how your heavenly father feels about you. No-one's voice sounds sweeter to God than yours.'

Can I really be that important to you? You love me so much? You delight in me? Not just tolerate me, or love me in a 'Well, I made her, she's alright when she tries her best' sort of way? Does my voice sounds sweet to you? Do you love it when I want to talk with you, be with you? Do you long for me to hang around with you more often and for longer?

Help me to grasp this, Lord. I am in awe that my God is also my Daddy. I don't know what to make of the news that the King of Kings who holds the Universe in his hands can also look at me with any sort of enthusiasm, let alone joy. I am amazed.

It makes me want to love you more. If my children make me laugh with delight when they smile and when they come to snuggle up to me or when they talk to me or tell me they love me then I want to make you laugh with delight when I do those things too. I must stop looking down and in at myself and start looking up at you with the love that I feel. Tell you about it, not just come to you half asleep with a shopping list of things I want from you.

I'm sitting here and smiling.

I love you, my Daddy. Thankyou for loving me so much.

My Lord and my God and my Friend

There's this thing that's been going round and round in my head for a while now and I want to ask you what you think about it.

It was suggested to me that my way of talking to you, God, is a bit irreverent.  Not reverent enough. Requiring more reverence.  Hmm.

I've said before that since I've become a parent, I can see the 'Father' side of you with much more clarity; the Abba, Daddy bit, and I suppose it's with that in mind that I come to chat to you and I just lay before you what's in my head, muddled or annoyed or happy or sad.  I've always thought that it's better out than in, that you're always more than capable of coping with my confusion and bewilderment, and I've always believed that you'll make allowances for my clumsiness if I step out of line. Maybe that's a bit presumptuous. What do you think?

I know that you are so much more than my Heavenly Father; I know that you are my Saviour and my Light and my King and my God. I do get the awe thing - indeed over Easter I've been floored by it at times. I don't think I diminish you with my familiarity, do I?  

AW Tozer said:

'We do God more honour in believing what he has said about himself and coming boldly to his throne of grace than by hiding in a self conscious humility!  Those unlikely men chosen by the Lord as his closest disciples might well have hesitated to claim friendship with Christ. But Jesus said to them, 'You are my friends!'


And you are mine. You are my friend.  I can't explain why; it's underserved and unthinkable that the Lord of the Heavens should want me for a friend, but you do.  I know that you love me, I know that you died so that I could be friends with you. I don't want to wrap up my words in language that doesn't come instinctively - it makes no sense to me to do that because you know what's in my mind, and how I would speak if you were right here, now; so where's the point in translating my thoughts and ideas into something more deferential, when you can see the before as well as the after?

One day I shall see you face to face and I have no doubt that I shall fall down on the floor in front of you. I know you are the Lord of the Universe. I know that you are the Creator God and in comparison I am insignificant - but you have made me significant.  You have invited me to come before you with confidence as a member of your family. I'm not going to turn away from an invitation like that - I want to grab it with both hands. You know me inside and out.  You know when I'm being disingenuous and you know when I'm being honest. You know when I struggle to find words and you know when I have so many that I can't get them down fast enough.

You also know when I lose sight of what I'm saying because I get wrapped up in the process of writing. Sometimes I like what I write and forget who I'm talking to, and I think that's more of an issue than the tone of voice in which I talk.  I know that I like to create; I know that I love words, and sometimes, just occasionally, I get pleased with what I've written. I start to think, 'Ooh, that sounded good,' and become more self conscious about it all. It starts to be too much about the process and not about you. More about how I say it and less about what I say. I don't want to do that, either, I really don't. I've tried for years to write something that's 'good' and I've never managed it. Just trying has been hard work and no fun and I've always given up. This is different for the very reason that it's not dressed up or over-thought. Sometimes that might mean that it's raw or poorly thought out, or ungrammatical (hope not) but I have come to the point where I think it's better just to be me, in front of you, and tell you what's on my mind.  And I do want to hear from you. I'm trying to learn to be expectant. If you wanted to use the 'comments' bit underneath here, that'd be fine; but any response in any form makes my day. If there's something you want me to change, let me know.

I want to reflect you.  To notice what you're doing in my head, my heart and my life; to notice what you're doing around me in my family, my church, my world.  I want to show these things to people and I want to honour you by noticing and marking and remembering so that not one thing that you do for me goes unnoticed.  I can't even take a breath without your will so I know that I miss many many more things than I see, but I'm learning. This last few months has been eye opening to the point at which so much of life seems a distraction.

So I'm coming boldly to the throne. I'm taking you at your word and I trust you to show me if there's something I should do differently. I am learning so much.  I'm learning how to match my stride with yours for a second or two, though I'm not so good at it yet and I soon fall behind. I'm learning about priorities, though that still needs so much work too.  Everything needs a lot of work, but I know that you won't leave me and I know that when you start something that you finish it.  So here I am. On a journey and you're at the wheel.  I know I'm a back seat driver and I keep leaning forward with helpful suggestions and duff map reading, but I do know that you're in charge and that's the best way to get where I'm going. I want to make sure that I don't miss a thing en route.

I'm loving it.  I love you, my generous, creative, loving, inspiring, beautiful, patient Daddy. My Lord and my God, and my Friend.

Yours and yours alone

Well, Lord, it's a cold, cold day and I can't get warm.  


The day has been fine - not too stressful at any point and with definite Good Things happening (my lovely Katy feeling fabulous in a Buzz Lightyear costume complete with helmet and wings at nursery, Elizabeth gone up a group at school for reading, afternoon spent drinking coffee with friends) but I'm feeling low and as the day has gone on I'm sinking.


But.


I thought I'd put that on it's own to get your attention, Lord.  This isn't just another moany, gripey, whingy post in a long list of them.  No. Because I am determined to do this differently.


I am going to worship you anyway, despite not feeling great, despite not being able to go to my lovely singing group tonight as I can't sing without coughing (I know, I tried hooting away to a CD in the car earlier, of which more shortly) and I am feeling so cold that I need a hot bath and a warm wheaty and some paracetamol.  


I just couldn't stop myself, could I?  That whinge sort of sneaked in there. Sorry.


Earlier on I flicked over to the CD in the car as the song on the radio was 'Whiter Shade of Pale', which I have always hated.  I don't know why I felt moved to tell you my dubious motivation for switching to a worship CD, but I guess you already knew, didn't you?  It wasn't from any great desire to worship at that moment; I'd have turned it over even if it had been 'The Wheels on the Bus' on CD.  Actually, maybe not.  It's a close thing, 'Whiter Shade of Pale' or 'The Wheels on the Bus'... but I digress.


Anyway, the next song was 'Abba, Father'. 

'Abba Father, let me be Yours and Yours alone. May my will for ever be Evermore Your own. Never let my heart grow cold, Never let me go. Abba Father, let me be Yours and Yours alone'.

Dave Bilbrough 1977, Kingsway/Thankyou music


I remember this song from so long ago.  It's from my early days in Church when I was 16 and 17 when life seemed so much more complex but actually was infinitely simpler... and this is a simple song. 


God, my Daddy, make me more like you.  Keep me from ambivalence about whether I please you or not. Keep me focused on you.  


Recently I've felt as if life is either an up or a down - I've been wondering to what extent things that go wrong in my life are down to (ahem) The Enemy - and I've been longing for the moments that only come every so often when I see something or hear something that opens my eyes wide and I get a glimpse of you in all your glory.  


There's all that middle ground, though; the less-than-highs and more-than-lows and the times when life is just humdrum.  That's when I need to praise you when I don't feel all full of the Spirit.  I need to because you told me you want me to.  In 'The Purpose Driven Life'  Rick Warren tells us that worship from a place of not feeling like worship is profound worship indeed.


So I sat in the car and thought about it and I sang along with 'Abba Father'. And coughed a lot, and examined my troublesome tonsils in the rear view mirror (I was at a red light at that point, I hasten to add, not hurtling along at 40mph) and I realised two things:  


One:  You are my Heavenly Father and you are there whether I 'feel' you or not. 
Two:  I won't be going to the wonderful acapella group tonight as I feel too ill and wouldn't be able to sing anyway. (There I go again.  Feeling sorry for myself).


I'll try again. 


Two:  When I feel as if there's not much to be thankful for, I need to give thanks for the wonderful things that you have done.


I want to make you happy, God.  I want to get to your throne one day and have you say, 'I noticed all those times when you were full of praise when you didn't feel like it and that was good; that pleased me'.


I'm a fair weather friend and a foul weather friend, I think.  When the going is great, and I am surrounded by you - when the sun is sparkling on the water and I can see both ends of the rainbow, when my little girls delight me, when music stirs me, when you make yourself known during prayer - I am there with my arms in the air.  And when everything's awful and I'm in bits and I can't think where to turn or what to do - when it's dark at 5pm and the wind is howling and the children are fighting and I'm so, so tired, then I am there, pulling at you and asking you for help.


I want to be a faithful friend.  I want to hold onto your Name because I am your child and That Is What I Do, not because I feel as if I've received something, or because I want something.  I want you to be in my mind all day because that is where I allow you to live, not because I'm emotionally aware of you, or I'm clinging onto you because I perceive my ship to be sinking.

'Abba Father, let me be Yours and Yours alone. May my will for ever be Evermore Your own. Never let my heart grow cold, Never let me go. Abba Father, let me be Yours and Yours alone.'

I wondered the other day why you speak to me often in songs, Lord.  I thought about it and then imagined you saying with a smile, 'Well, you've not yet really learned to listen to me but you do know how to put a record on'.  I guess you can speak to us in a million different ways.


I want to be your child, Lord.  I want people to look at me, listen to me, and see and hear you.  When this is all over I don't want to get to Heaven on a technicality; I want to be some use to you now. 


At the back of my mind I know I might be asking something scary, and it does scare me.  


A question on my Spiritual MOT is, 'What's the scariest thing that God could ask you to do?' and to be honest being asked by you to do anything is scary.  But I don't have any option because you made me, you know what I'm for, and that's the only thing that matters. Being who you want me to be.

'Abba, Father, let me beYours and yours alone.'

So I will praise you, Lord.  I will lift up your Name because you loved me enough to send your Son to die for me, so that I could live; so that I could sit here with you and tell you that I love you. 


I will praise you when my tonsils hurt and when they don't.  When I walk home from singing with your Spirit fresh in my heart and a smile on my face, and when I can't go singing and I'm sad that I have to miss it, and that little frown line is etched deeply between my eyes.  


I will remember the precious things that you told me in the light even when it's dark, because I know that they're true.


So the other guy has no power here. I won't lose sight of you even when I can't see you clearly. I know you've told me that you're there, and that's enough. 


I believe you. You'll never let me go.