Work in progress....

'...being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.'
Philippians 1:6 NIV

I have been musing about this.

My youngest daughter and I tidied her bedroom some weeks ago.  Well, I tidied her room and she followed me around complaining, removing items that I put in a black bin bag and disagreeing with my definition of 'rubbish'. The room was dreadful. It was a mess, and needed work. About an hour into the job, it looked much, much worse than it did to start with. You know that bit where Macbeth says, 'I am in blood stepped in so far that should I wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o'er.'? 

Too late to change my mind; no choice but to push on. Can't leave it like this.

My life is in such a state at the moment. A while ago God started tidying up, making a few changes; can't stop now.

I am a work in progress.

I'm over at The Association of Christian Writers' blog today, as I am on the 23rd of each month. Click here to read more. 

Playing small

Hello God.

I've been thinking about my hopes and dreams recently -  and I began to wonder what it is that is stopping me from really going for it; giving it all that I have. What stops me from going out on a limb. What is it, really?

I read about stepping out in faith and following the path you have chosen for us. Not dawdling along and collapsing on the nearest bench, opening my packed lunch when it's only half past ten, but actually striding down the path, one foot after another. Walking with you, trusting that there is always more path even though I can't see it. Believing that if you started me down this path then you know where it leads and you do want me to get there.

'For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.'

Ephesians 2:10

You made me. You made me to do something with my life and you have a plan. You didn't intend for me to sit comfortably and admire the view.

I am pretty sure that the plan is not for me to sit here drinking coffee, eating too many biscuits and waiting for something to drop into my lap. Just treading water. I need to find some get-up-and-go, and for someone low on confidence and energy, whose inclination is towards excessive napping and whose default position is procrastination, I'm going to need some help.

I do think that recently you have been prompting me. Not in any subtle sort of way, either; it's become impossible to ignore, and so here I am, preparing myself for the next step.

Max Lucado (Again. I am a big fan) said this:

'What about you? As God calls, he equips. Our maker gives assignments to people. What have you done well? What have you loved to do? Stand at the intersection of your affections and successes and find your uniqueness. You have one. An uncommon call to an uncommon life.'

(Cure for the Common Life, 2006, Thomas Nelson)

I want to live an uncommon life. I don't want to be run of the mill. I don't want to meet you on the Big Day and feel that I let you down. I don't want for you to ask me what I did with the gifts you gave me and for me to be unable to look you in the face because I never tried.  I don't want to look back and see how wonderful the tapestry of my life could have been if only I'd had more...what?  Courage? Faith? Get-up-and-go?

This inspires me:

'Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we're liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.'

Marianne Williamson, 'A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of 'A Course in Miracles' (often attributed to Nelson Mandela).

My playing small doesn't serve the world. If I bury my talents in the ground and eventually give them back to you unused and muddy then you've said that you won't be best pleased. If I plant the seeds that I have, then who knows what might grow?

From tiny acorns grow towering oak trees.

From tiny acorns...

But it's easier to play small. Less scary to curl up in a ball and hope nobody notices me if the alternative is to stick my head above the parapet.

I'm not good at boldness and I live in fear of failure. I hate being laughed at. I worry about what people think. What if I invest enormously in something and nothing happens?

On the one hand I know who you are and I know what you're like and I love you and I trust you and I know that you have a job for me to do with this life and I know that you won't let me down. On the other hand I doubt myself and I worry about things going wrong and the result is paralysis.

Rabbit in the headlights.

My playing small doesn't serve the world. Who am I to hide my light under a bushel? The world is my oyster!

Ahem.

This is hard. I feel as if I'll set myself up for disaster. If I claim to be good at something, to have Big Plans, then people will laugh at me. It will all go wrong.

Mr L again:

'The fire of your heart is the light of your path. Disregard it at your own expense! Blow it. Stir it. Nourish it. Cynics will doubt it. Those without it will mock it. Those who know it, those who know Him, will understand it.'

Max Lucado Daily Devotional, 19 April 2012

Who cares what the cynics say? (Little voice in my head says, 'I do') Who cares who mocks? (and again). But maybe it's worth the hassle and the ridicule to look in the eyes of those people who know you and understand. I'm working through this in my mind. I'm not sure what the plan you have for my life looks like, but I do know that you have one. I know that you've made me just the way I am for a reason. There's something that you want me to do with this short time I have down here, and I'm certain that it's not just to sit here and worry at my hangnail.

When I meet you face to face to I really want to try to explain that I could have made a difference and I chose not to?

But I don't want to live my life as you would have me live it just because I'm afraid of the consequences if I don't. I want to please you.  I want to achieve something for your sake; to show the world a little bit of your glory. To wrap up my life's work with a bow and present it to you as an offering. To leave this place a little bit different (and in a good way) from the way it would have been without me.

Good and faithful servant, as the story goes. I want to be one of those.

So I don't want to play small. I want to think big, because my big, even my BIG is only the tiny tip of the iceberg of your Big.

'Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Chris Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever!'

Ephesians 3:20

So is my small insignificant? I have found over and over again in the last couple of years that if I give you a little, you give me back something huge. You take my tiny, imperfect offering and magnify it until it becomes something wonderful. Immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine. Think of that.

My wildest dreams are nowhere near wild enough.

You can do it. I can't, but you can. And you don't wait for me to be ready, you ask me to step out in faith, relying on you, not myself. If I waited until I was ready then I would still be sitting here contemplating a coffee and a packet of biscuits in a decade's time.

'If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work. The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavourable. Favourable conditions never come.'

CS Lewis

See? I'm getting the message. You know what I'm thinking and you keep nudging me. I tell myself, I can't do anything much at the moment - maybe there'll be a better opportunity in the future. You send a morning devotional with CS Lewis to tell me that a better time will never come. I convince myself that I don't have what it takes and you send Max Lucado to tell me:

'God doesn't call the qualified, he qualifies the called! Don't let Satan convince you otherwise. He'll try. He'll tell you God has an IQ requirement or an entry fee. He'll tell you God only employs specialists and experts. '

You keep on going. Am I listening yet?

Another morning devotional sent to my phone in the last two weeks:

'Jesus said: 'What are you producing with your life for the Kingdom of God?'

(Robert Boyd Munger, 'My Heart - Christ's Home Through the Year, 2004, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship)

And I have my hands over my ears and I'm just wanting to go to sleep, because it's easier and I'm feeling a bit tired.

It seems too hard to look into the future and determine to do something with it. Easier to take each day as it comes, in my routine, in my rut. Trundling along, not pedalling particularly hard. Not taking any risks. Not upsetting the applecart.

But you didn't call us to live ordinary lives. You told us that we were chosen, special, extraordinary.

Your Holy Spirit lives in me; how can I be run of the mill? If you ask me to do something for you with my life, who am I to argue with you? If you tell me that I'm good enough, who am I to say, no, I think you're wrong?

My playing small doesn't serve the world.

Help me not to play small, Father. At times I feel very small indeed. I feel powerless and afraid and inadequate. But you said:

'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.'

2 Corinthians 12:9

Well, I am weak.

Distractions here, there and everywhere. I feel as if I have a million reasons why nothing I try would ever amount to much. I feel as if there's no way I could ever accomplish anything for you. As if everything I touch will turn to dust. But you keep nudging. With infinite patience you keep on smiling and then sending something else to throw light on the seed you planted a couple of years ago. You have a plan for me and the time is right. Not my time; that will never be right. Your time.

Give me courage to set out on this journey, to take a step, and then another. I look at the mountain and I know that I can't climb it, Father God, but with your help I might just set out for base camp, and then see what's next.

Give me wisdom and patience and always more faith. More of you.

I don't want to play small with my life. I want to show your glory to people; to shine as a child of God, because that is what I am. I want to be all that I can be; do what you made me to do.

I want to live an uncommon life.






Edited and reposted from April 2012, because guess what? I'm still not there. But I am packing my rucksack, and I'm preparing for a long journey. 

Playing small

Hello, God.

I was talking the other day. Talking to my husband, to my friend, to you.

It strikes me that I probably did that in the wrong order. But anyway.

I was talking about hopes and dreams and what stops me from doing anything. What stops me from going out on a limb. What inhibits me, stops me from going for it, as they say.

I've been reading a lot lately about stepping out in faith and following the path you have chosen for us. Not dawdling along and collapsing on the nearest bench, but actually going where the path goes, whether or not I'm out of breath. Walking with you, trusting that there is always more path even though I can't see it. Believing that if you started me down this path then you know where it leads and you do want me to get there.

'For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.'

Ephesians 2:10

You made me. You made me to do something with my life and you have a plan. You didn't intend for me to sit comfortably and admire the view.

I am pretty sure that the plan is not for me to sit here drinking coffee, eating too many biscuits and waiting for something to drop into my lap. Treading water. Killing time. I need to find some get-up-and-go, and for someone low on confidence and energy, whose inclination is towards excessive napping and whose default position is procrastination, get-up-and-go takes a bit of finding.

I do think that recently you have been prompting me. Not in any subtle sort of way, either. It's become impossible to ignore, and so here I am. Trying to work out what comes next.

Max Lucado (Again. I am a big fan) said this:

'What about you? As God calls, he equips. Our maker gives assignments to people. What have you done well? What have you loved to do? Stand at the intersection of your affections and successes and find your uniqueness. You have one. An uncommon call to an uncommon life.'

(Cure for the Common Life, 2006, Thomas Nelson)

I want to live an uncommon life. I don't want to be run of the mill. I don't want to meet you on the Big Day and feel that I let you down. I don't want for you to ask me with disappointment in your eyes what I did with the gifts you gave me. I don't want to look back and see how wonderful the tapestry of my life could have been if only I'd had more...what?  Courage? Faith? Get-up-and-go?

I was talking about this and a quote was nagging at me. Something someone said that I read a long, long time ago and although most of it I'd forgotten, a few words came back to me. I googled the bit that I knew and this is what it was.

'Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we're liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.'

Marianne Williamson, 'A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of 'A Course in Miracles' (often attributed to Nelson Mandela).

My playing small doesn't serve the world. If I bury my talents in the ground and eventually give them back to you unused and muddy then you've said that you won't be best pleased. If I plant the seeds that I have, then who knows what might grow?

From tiny acorns grow towering oak trees.

From tiny acorns...

But it's easier to play small. Less scary to curl up in a ball and hope nobody notices me if the alternative is to stick my head above the parapet.

I'm not good at boldness and I live in fear of failure. I hate being laughed at. I worry about what people think. No wonder I don't get much done.

On the one hand I know who you are and I know what you're like and I love you and I trust you and I know that you have a job for me to do with this life and I know that you won't let me down. On the other hand I doubt myself and I worry about things going wrong and the result is paralysis.

Rabbit in the headlights.

My playing small doesn't serve the world. Who am I to hide my light under a bushel? The world is my oyster!

Ahem.

This is hard. I feel as if I'll set myself up for disaster. If I claim to be good at something, to have Big Plans, then people will laugh at me. It will all go wrong.

Mr L again:

'The fire of your heart is the light of your path. Disregard it at your own expense! Blow it. Stir it. Nourish it. Cynics will doubt it. Those without it will mock it. Those who know it, those who know Him, will understand it.'

Max Lucado Daily Devotional, 19 April 2012

Who cares what the cynics say? (Little voice in my head says, 'I do') Who cares who mocks (and again). But maybe it's worth the hassle and the ridicule to look in the eyes of those people who know you and understand. I'm working through this in my mind. I have no idea what plan you have for my life, but I do know that you have one. I know that you've made me just the way I am for a reason. There's something that you want me to do with this short time I have down here that nobody else can do. If I don't do it, then that tiny but significant part of your Plan goes undone.

I could have made a difference and I chose not to.

Do I want to try to explain that when I meet you face to face?

But I don't want to live my life as you would have me live it just because I'm afraid of the consequences if I don't. I want to please you. I want you to be proud of me. I want to achieve something for your sake. To wrap up my life's work with a bow and present it to you as an offering. To leave this place a little bit different (and in a good way) from the way it would have been without me.

Good and faithful servant, as the story goes. I want to be one of those.

So I don't want to play small. I want to think big, because my big, even my BIG is only the tip of the iceberg of your Big.

'Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Chris Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever!'

Ephesians 3:20

So is my small insignificant? I have found over and over again in the last couple of years that if I give you a little, you give me back something huge. You take my tiny, imperfect offering and magnify it until it becomes something wonderful. Immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine. Think of that.

My wildest dreams are nowhere near wild enough.

You can do it. I can't, but you can. And you don't wait for me to be ready, you ask me to step out in faith, relying on you, not myself. If I waited until I was ready then I would still be sitting here contemplating a coffee and a packet of biscuits in a decade's time.

'If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work. The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavourable. Favourable conditions never come.'

CS Lewis

See? I'm getting the message. You know what I'm thinking and you keep nudging me. I tell myself, I can't do anything much at the moment - maybe there'll be a better opportunity in the future. You send a morning devotional with CS Lewis to tell me that a better time will never come. I convince myself that I don't have what it takes and you send Max Lucado to tell me:

'God doesn't call the qualified, he qualifies the called! Don't let Satan convince you otherwise. He'll try. He'll tell you God has an IQ requirement or an entry fee. He'll tell you God only employs specialists and experts. '

You keep on going. Am I listening yet?

Another morning devotional sent to my phone in the last two weeks:

'Jesus said: 'What are you producing with your life for the Kingdom of God?'

(Robert Boyd Munger, 'My Heart - Christ's Home Through the Year, 2004, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship)

And I have my hands over my ears and I'm just wanting to go to sleep. It seems too hard to look into the future and try to take control. Easier to take each day as it comes, in my routine, in my rut. Trundling along, not pedalling particularly hard. Not taking any risks. Not upsetting the applecart.

But you didn't call us to live ordinary lives. You told us that we were chosen, special, extraordinary. Your Holy Spirit lives in me; how can I be run of the mill? If you ask me to do something for you with my life, who am I to argue with you? If you tell me that I'm good enough, who am I to say, no, I think you're wrong?

My playing small doesn't serve the world.

Help me not to play small, Father. At times I feel very small indeed. I feel powerless and afraid and inadequate. But you said:

'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.'

2 Corinthians 12:9

Well, I am weak.

Pathetic, even. An emotional wreck, these past few days. Nothing going right, distractions here, there and everywhere. I feel as if I have a million reasons why nothing I try would ever amount to much. I feel as if there's no way I could ever accomplish anything for you. As if everything I touch just turns to dust. But you keep nudging. With infinite patience you keep on smiling and then sending something else to throw light on the seed you planted a couple of years ago. You have a plan for me and the time is right. Not my time; that will never be right. Your time.

Give me courage to take another step, Father God. Give me wisdom and patience and always more faith.

I don't want to play small with my life. I want to show your glory to people; to shine as a child of God, because that is what I am. I want to be all that I can be; do what you made me to do.

I want to live an uncommon life.





Edited and reposted from April 2012, because guess what? Nothing has changed very much..... still working on this.

The place where beauty comes from

Hello, God. 
It's the wonderful CS Lewis again.  Really, I must read more of his stuff, and not just 'The Screwtape Letters' and Narnia. The way he seems to drop wonderful gems of wisdom and insight so effortlessly  into his letters and musings makes my day. What about this one:

"The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing — to reach the Mountain, to find the place where all the beauty came from — my country, the place where I ought to have been born. Do you think it all meant nothing, all the longing? The longing for home? For indeed it now feels not like going, but like going back."
— C.S. Lewis (Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold)


What did you think when you heard him say that, Father?  I bet you smiled.  And now this exceptional man is with you; he's home.  I wonder if it's just as he thought it would be. 

I love this picture.  'The place where all the beauty came from...the longing for home.'
There are days when I really understand what he means; CS Lewis just sums it up for me. The days where things are too hard, require too much effort; when failure seems inevitable, and the simplest task is daunting.  Days like that make me long for a world where the struggling stops.  I don't mean that I have a desperately hard life - I know that I don't.  I know that there are many millions of people in this world who'd swap with me in an instant and I wouldn't want to swap with them.   What I'm talking about is the hamster-wheel feeling that I get occasionally where I feel that I'm running to stand still, and most of the stuff that I'm struggling with is trivia that's getting in the way of the important stuff.  

John Keats said in his poem, 'Ode to a Grecian Urn':

'Beauty is truth, truth, beauty - that is all
ye know on earth, and all ye need to know'

He's right.  Because you are Beauty, you are Truth, and you are all we need to know.  You are the source of all that is good, lovely, beautiful, awesome, impressive, true. I should look up more, instead of looking down.  Instead of watching my feet in case I trip or step in something, I should look up towards your beauty.  Instead of concentrating on where I am, or where I've been, I should concentrate on where I'm going. I spend so much time looking over my shoulder, down at the ground, or in at myself that I sometimes don't see what CS Lewis saw.  I get an occasional glimpse; those moments when I'm tired, despairing, defeated - sometimes you show me something that stops me in my tracks; those are the times when I am immensely comforted that this is not all there is.  But to live in this world, patiently, while knowing that I'm not at home here, that home is somewhere else, where one day I'll be; that's amazing.  

I'm not there yet.

I hang onto the things of this world too much.  I like being here.  I like being snuggled with my family in front of the fire with a glass of wine on a cold evening. When Spring has at last arrived and the sun is shining and the plants are growing and the sky is blue - when the children are playing and I'm getting dinner ready and there's music on...  in my world things are generally alright.  

When all is well, I think I can cope.  I think I can do it on my own, and that's where I come unstuck.  

That's where I forget CS Lewis' vision of Home entirely and actually it turns out that I've made myself pretty comfy here, living my little life with only occasional reference to you. I have so much that I rate so highly and yet in your eyes it amounts to nothing. I surround myself with things and people and opinions and ways of passing my time and yet there's a much much bigger picture that CS Lewis saw that I only glimpse occasionally. All my 'stuff' isn't worth anything in comparison. 

And then there are times when it all goes wrong and I turn to you, anxiously searching for you like a toddler who looks up to realise that the legs next to her are not her Mummy's legs after all. 

I can't handle it because I am not equipped; all the 'stuff' isn't worth anything when I need real help. Only you will do, and I run to you from whichever distant outpost of my life I've been exploring.  I dash back home out of the rain. I find my shelter in you and wonder why I ever left, only to set out again without a backward glance when the sun comes out next time.   

I am such a Rainy Weather Friend. 

There's a place, isn't there.  A physical place, the Bible says, where I'll be one day and I'll stay.  I will be there with you. I imagine it might be like holding a baby in your arms for the very first time after giving birth - this little miracle held close, smeary and slippery and screaming and screwed up; we meet for that momentous first time, never held in my arms before - in any arms but yours, God -  never heard, never seen, but this little creature is oddly familiar.  She feels familiar, she smells familiar; it's as if I've known her all my life even though we've only just met.  

I reckon that might be how it is in Heaven.  When I get there I'll look about and recognise it from the glimpses; from the precious moments that you left the door open a crack so I could see in, just for a second.  I'll know it, because I was made for it. There's a special spot that's waiting just for me, because you prepared it yourself, and you've been waiting for me. 

It will be the source of all beauty; how could it be other, since it is where you are? 

And as CS Lewis said, it'll be like coming home.

Amen, Lord Jesus. 




From the archive:  edited and re-posted from April 2011. 

Hard hats and the Holy Spirit

Morning, Lord.

You know that bit in the Bible where it says, 

'...being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.'
Philippians 1:6 NIV

Of course you do. Well, I'm wanting to tell you a couple of things this morning.

1. You've started something.
2. I'm looking forward to the finished article. I think. 

Katy and I tidied her bedroom some weeks ago.  Well, I tidied Katy's room and she sort of followed me around complaining, removing items that I put in a black bin bag and disagreeing with me in my definition of 'rubbish'. The point I am making, however, is that the room was dreadful. It was a mess, and needed work. About an hour into the job, it looked much, much worse than it did to start with. No choice but to push on. Can't leave it like this.

And that's a bit how I feel. 

I am a work in progress.

I know that you are at work. I know it beyond any doubt; I know that things are considerably different from the way they were three years ago, two years, one year. I know that you're working in different areas of my life and I accept that work is needed. Many bits of me are as messy as Katy's bedroom floor. And yes, I'm the one who follows you round reinstating the bits that you want me to throw away. 

It came to me a few days ago that your Holy Spirit lives in me. I have known that in a brain sort of way, but the other day it just clicked into place in my heart. I know the Holy Spirit is there not because I prophesy or speak in tongues (The Tongues of Men and Angels) but because of this:

'...no-one can say, 'Jesus is Lord,' except by the Holy Spirit. 

1 Cor 12:3 

And you know what? I can say Jesus is Lord. Oh yes, I can. And I know it in my heart more every day. Thankyou Holy Spirit.

I love it when the first words in my head in a morning are in praise of you. I love it when I have a line of a song going round in my head all day and it's a worship song. I like filling my head with things like this. A few days ago I woke up with a line from Matt Redman's song, 'Once again' in my head:

'Thankyou for the cross, thankyou for the cross, thankyou for the cross, my Friend'

Today it was from Phil Wickham's 'Cannons':

'All glory, honour, power to you, Amen...' 

It makes me smile. I think it makes you smile too, and that's good. I want to make you smile.

I woke in the middle of the night a few days ago and glanced at the clock. It was 3:16am.

'God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, so that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.' 

John 3:16

3:16. A few years ago would I have made a connection like this? I don't think so. Is it a bit cheesy? Are there Christians out there that would roll their eyes if I shared this little nocturnal nugget? Maybe so, but I like it. It's only since I've been spending more time with you and learning to listen as well as rabbit on that I've started seeing so much more. I see you all around me, when you give me eyes to see and I manage to keep them open. I see you in the rain droplets on a scarlet Autumn leaf. I see you in a man on a train reading a book about prayer. I see you in the double rainbow above my daughter's school at pick-up time. I see you in the low, orangey shafts of sunlight against a dark, purpley stormy sky right now.

I know that my Redeemer lives, and that he lives in me.

I am a work in progress. I come complete with notices advising steel toecapped boots and a hard hat. Danger lurks within; I am not finished yet. Authorised access only; all visitors please check in with the site manager before coming any further. And what I thought was a small renovation project turns out to be a fairly sizeable building site. I read this from CS Lewis and there was more than a small spark of recognition:

'Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently he starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.'

CS Lewis, Mere Christianity

I don't know if I'm going to be a palace or a block of flats but the 'knocked about abominably' bit rings some bells. I think it's because I'm pretty sure you're working on lots of different bits all at the same time. My temper, the things I say and how I say them, what I think; things that I dwell on, the priority I set on spending time with you, learning how to concentrate on your Plan for my life and not get sidetracked by everything else, tackling my need for approval and desire to please other people... and so much more. Then, of course, there's patience (blimey, asking you for patience isn't quite what I'd hoped it would be. I wanted to wake up one morning effortlessly unruffled and serene, not find that my life is littered with opportunities to develop blessed patience).

For your own safety...

You're not just ripping out the fireplace, you're digging deep and you're rewiring, re-plastering, knocking down and rebuilding, re-roofing and landscaping simultaneously.

I'm looking forward to the furnishing. Cushions. Lamps. Decor. Maybe that'll be a bit more comfortable?

The only thing that I disagree with CS Lewis about is the last line of the quote above. You're not waiting until it's all finished before you move in; you're here already. You must have a sleeping bag on the dusty living room floor, I think. It's certainly not a house fit for a King just yet, but that's the wonderful thing about my God. You're not waiting for the throne room and the chapel to be gilded and frescoed. You're happy to step over the threshold while the roof is still leaking. You're happy to walk around touching the walls affectionately and reassuring and making plans, making yourself at home even when it's grubby and draughty and you get your hands dirty.

Why? Because you love this little house. Even in its neglected state, you love it. You looked at it and took in all the many inadequacies and problems and you still thought immediately that it was worth saving. You could see which walls to knock down to let in more light. As soon as I opened the little battered door, you sent in your best team.

So, Father God. As Project Manager, how's it going? No, don't tell me. I'm not really that keen on knowing that we're only on Phase One of a lifetime's worth of construction. Come and build. Find the locked doors in secret corridors and help me to open them up so that you can renovate those rooms too. Even when it's painful - because I want to be a palace fit for the King of Kings.

I don't want to aim small. I want to be all that I can be, and for your glory. I want everyone to know that you are the architect and designer and the builder. I want people to look at me and see you.

Let's just take it one day at a time.

This might take a while.

Pictures used:

hardhat0001.jpg by MConnors
constructionsite.jog by wallyir

both from Morguefile.com 
Used with permission

Playing small

Hello, God.

I was talking the other day. Talking to my husband, to my friend, to you.

It strikes me that I probably did that in the wrong order. But anyway.

I was talking about hopes and dreams and what stops me from doing anything. What stops me from going out on a limb. What inhibits me, stops me from going for it, as they say.

I've been reading a lot lately about stepping out in faith and following the path you have chosen for us. Not dawdling along and collapsing on the nearest bench, but actually going where the path goes. Walking with you, trusting that there is always more path even though I can't see it. Believing that if you started me down this path then you know where it leads and you do want me to get there.

'For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.'

Ephesians 2:10

You made me. You made me to do something with my life and you have a plan. You didn't intend for me to sit comfortably and admire the view.

I am pretty sure that the plan is not for me to sit here drinking coffee and waiting for something to drop into my lap. Treading water. Killing time. I need to find some get-up-and-go, and for someone low on confidence and energy, whose inclination is towards excessive napping and whose default position is procrastination, get-up-and-go takes a bit of finding.

I do think that recently you have been prompting me. Not in any subtle sort of way, either. It's become impossible to ignore, and so here I am. Trying to work out what comes next.

Max Lucado (Again. I am a big fan) said this:

'What about you? As God calls, he equips. Our maker gives assignments to people. What have you done well? What have you loved to do? Stand at the intersection of your affections and successes and find your uniqueness. You have one. An uncommon call to an uncommon life.'

(Cure for the Common Life, 2006, Thomas Nelson)

I want to live an uncommon life. I don't want to be run of the mill. I don't want to meet you on the Big Day and feel that I let you down. I don't want for you to ask me with disappointment in your eyes what I did with the gifts you gave me. I don't want to look back and see how wonderful the tapestry of my life could have been if only I'd had more...what?  Courage? Faith? Get-up-and-go?

I was talking about this and a quote was nagging at me. Something someone said that I read a long, long time ago and although most of it I'd forgotten, a few words came back to me. I googled the bit that I knew and this is what it was.

'Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. it's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we're liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.'

Marianne Williamson, 'A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of 'A Course in Miracles'

My playing small doesn't serve the world. If I bury my talents in the ground and eventually give them back to you unused and muddy then you've said that you won't be best pleased. If I plant the seeds that I have, then who knows what might grow? From tiny acorns grow towering oak trees.

From tiny acorns...

But it's easier to play small. Less scary to curl up in a ball and hope nobody notices me if the alternative is to stick my head above the parapet. I'm not good at boldness and I live in fear of failure. I hate being laughed at. I worry about what people think. No wonder I don't get much done. On the one hand I know who you are and I know what you're like and I love you and I trust you and I know that you have a job for me to do with this life and I know that you won't let me down. On the other hand I doubt myself and I worry about things going wrong and the result is paralysis.

Rabbit in the headlights.

My playing small doesn't serve the world. Who am I to hide my light under a bushel? The world is my oyster!

Ahem.

This is hard. I feel as if I'll set myself up for disaster. If I claim to be good at something, to have Big Plans, then people will laugh at me. It will all go wrong.

Mr L again:

'The fire of your heart is the light of your path. Disregard it at your own expense! Blow it. Stir it. Nourish it. Cynics will doubt it. Those without it will mock it. Those who know it, those who know Him, will understand it.'

Max Lucado Daily Devotional, 19 April 2012

Who cares what the cynics say? (Little voice in my head says, 'I do') Who cares who mocks (and again). But maybe it's worth the hassle and the ridicule to look in the eyes of those people who know you and understand. I'm working through this in my mind. I have no idea what plan you have for my life, but I do know that you have one. I know that you've made me just the way I am for a reason. There's something that you want me to do with this short time I have down here that nobody else can do. If I don't do it, then that tiny but significant part of your Plan goes undone. I could have made a difference and I chose not to.

Do I want to try to explain that when I meet you face to face?

But I don't want to live my life as you would have me live it just because I'm afraid of the consequences if I don't. I want to please you. I want you to be proud of me. I want to achieve something for your sake. To wrap up my life's work with a bow and present it to you as an offering. To leave this place a little bit different ( and in a good way) from the way it would have been without me.

Good and faithful servant, as the story goes. I want to be one of those.

So I don't want to play small. I want to think big, because my big, even my BIG is only the tip of the iceberg of your big.

'Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Chris Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever!'

Ephesians 3:20

So my small is insignificant to you. I have found over and over again in the last couple of years that if I give you a little, you give me back something huge. You take my tiny, imperfect offering and magnify it until it becomes something wonderful. Immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine. Think of that. My wildest dreams are nowhere near wild enough.

You can do it. I can't, but you can. And you don't wait for me to be ready, you ask me to step out in faith, relying on you, not myself. If I waited until I was ready then I would still be sitting here contemplating a coffee and a packet of biscuits in a decade's time.

'If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work. The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavourable. Favourable conditions never come.'

CS Lewis

See? I'm getting the message. You know what I'm thinking and you keep nudging me. I tell myself, I can't do anything much at the moment - maybe there'll be a better opportunity in the future. You send a morning devotional with CS Lewis to tell me that a better time will never come. I convince myself that I don't have what it takes and you send Max Lucado to tell me:

'God doesn't call the qualified, he qualifies the called! Don't let Satan convince you otherwise. He'll try. He'll tell you God has an IQ requirement or an entry fee. He'll tell you God only employs specialists and experts. '

You keep on going. Am I listening yet?

Another morning devotional sent to my phone in the last two weeks:

'Jesus said: 'What are you producing with your life for the Kingdom of God?'

(Robert Boyd Munger, 'My Heart - Christ's Home Through the Year, 2004, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship)

And I have my hands over my ears and I'm just wanting to go to sleep. It seems too hard to look into the future and try to take control. Easier to take each day as it comes, in my routine, in my rut. Trundling along, not pedalling particularly hard. Not taking any risks. Not upsetting the applecart.

But you didn't call us to live ordinary lives. You told us that we were chosen, special, extraordinary. Your Holy Spirit lives in me; how can I be run of the mill? If you ask me to do something for you with my life, who am I to argue with you? If you tell me that I'm good enough, who am I to say, no, I think you're wrong?

My playing small doesn't serve the world.

Help me not to play small, Father. At times I feel very small indeed. I feel powerless and afraid and inadequate. But you said:

'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.'

2 Corinthians 12:9

Well, I am weak. Pathetic, even. An emotional wreck, these past few days. Nothing going right, distractions here, there and everywhere. I feel as if I have a million reasons why nothing I try would ever amount to much. I feel as if there's no way I could ever accomplish anything for you. As if everything I touch just turns to dust. But you keep nudging. With infinite patience you keep on smiling and then sending something else to throw light on the seed you planted a couple of years ago. You have a plan for me and the time is right. Not my time; that will never be right. Your time.

Give me courage to take another step, Father God. Give me wisdom and patience and always more faith.

I don't want to play small with my life. I want to show your glory to people; to shine as a child of God as Ms Williamson said in her oft-quoted passage. I want to be all that I can be; do what you made me to do.

I want to live an uncommon life.

Conviction and condemnation

'I didn't go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don't recommend Christianity."

CS Lewis

Lord, I know where he was coming from when he said this. 

I'm not entirely sure about the port, mind you. I like a glass of port after a meal; at Christmas I was prevailed upon to try blue stilton with my port (as you know, I am not a fan of mouldy cheeses) and I have to say that the port really did make it an exceptional experience. Somehow the strong taste of the cheese and the sweet richness of the port combined to make it very pleasant indeed. Still, I think I am more of a red wine sort of girl. Or a nice demi-sec champagne. 

But that's not the point. 

Discomfort. How much is it of my own making, and how much is healthy discomfort? With regard to what I believe, how much is justifiable and how much inappropriate?  How much of the discomfort around issues to do with faith in my life is down to you, and how much to me?  What things are issues that you are nudging me to resolve, and how much comes from the other guy?

The difference between conviction and guilt, for instance.

The other day my regular devotional email asked me what my daily quiet times were like and suggested that perhaps I should get up earlier in the morning to make sure that I spent time with you. Every fibre of my being shouted 'Nooooo!'  Please be assured that it's not because I don't want to spend time with you; I very much do. It's more that I am not a morning person. Left to myself I would stay up late and get up mid-morning but you know that. It's not particularly compatible with having a family, however. I don't think I ever greet the day with enthusiasm and spring out of bed with energy. It's a grudging leg that slides slowly out from under the duvet after every last bit of 'snooze' has been wrung from my alarm clock. 

But let's not dwell on my lack of sleep. There lies great disgruntlement. And you've heard it all before. Actually, most people of my acquaintance have more information than they needed on the subject of my sleep deficit.

What I'm interested in is that after reading this email with some scepticism, I sent it to a friend who I know has a similar devotion to her pillow with a facetious comment about it not being my desired reading for the day. I know she would have sympathised. What she came back with was a one line suggestion that I should think about whether I was feeling convicted, or guilty.

I believe that you do sometimes convict us. You make us aware that we need to change our behaviour. You point out an area of our lives that needs work. You love us while doing it; mostly you are gentle and understanding, but you are also perfectly righteous and cannot stand and watch us indulgently while we do something that offends you. I also believe that you choose your timing carefully, because if you convicted me all at once of all that is wrong with my life I would shrivel up and expire.  But when the time is right, and you know that we are in a position to do something about it, you might just whisper, 'Ahem. Have a think about what you just did.'

So, how do I know the difference between conviction and guilt?  Do I feel guilty about not finding a quiet time every day? Yes, sometimes.  Do I feel convinced that it should be held first thing in a morning?  No, I don't think so. I hope not. Please, no. I do accept that last thing at night isn't so good. Especially not lying in bed with the light off and covers tucked round my neck. Surely after lunch is good enough?  Or sort of mid-morning? Is there really something special about first thing when I'm clinging to the last vestiges of a warm bed? I'd be interested in hearing your views on this. Well, I think I would. 

I'm getting off the point again. 

I think the difference is that when I feel guilty, I start feeling bad about myself, and negative thoughts crowd in. 

'There's no point in trying to get this right, I'll never do it.'

'If I can't do this, I'm not a very good person.'

'I'm a bit of a failure, really, aren't I?'

...and so on.  Coupled with my constant need to Get It Right, this is guilt for me. I easily feel defeated, which makes trying again so much more difficult. Giving up seems an easier option. Guilt has me focusing on the problem. 

Conviction is different. Conviction seems to be when I suddenly stop and think to myself, 'Blimey, I should be doing that differently.'  I sometimes feel sad that I got something wrong, but the long, lingering sense of blame isn't there. There's an answer to the problem. When I feel guilty I feel ashamed and heavy. When I feel convicted I feel that I need to be forgiven, yes, but that things aren't ruined forever. I haven't blown it. I'm not the sum of my failures. It isn't a comfortable feeling, as CS Lewis said, but it isn't crushing, defeating, depressing, insidiously demotivating.

Conviction comes with the knowledge that you will forgive me and I can try again. Guilt, on the other hand, discourages me from trying again because I feel too bad about things. 

Guilt comes with condemnation, and conviction comes with forgiveness. With guilt, a door slams shut when there's realisation of wrong, whereas with conviction, the door is open and there's a light shining from the next room.

You said that you came not to condemn the world, but to save it. So if I feel condemned, then I believe it's not you that's doing the condemning. 

But if I realise that I need forgiveness, then I know that you are waiting with open arms and a smile to forgive me and send me out to try again. 

'There is no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus.'

Romans 8:1

And that's me. In you. So there's no condemnation. 

So, do I feel convicted or condemned about early morning quiet times?

If it's all the same to you, I would rather shrug off my feeling of discomfort about the concept that it's necessary to get up ridiculously early in the morning (because in this house to beat the children out of bed and have any peace first thing would mean rising before the birds. That might be a slight exaggeration). I'd rather continue my search for a better time. I confess that my search has not perhaps been relentless and determined. I could probably do better. 

Help me to notice the difference, Lord. Help me not to get dragged down with guilt and anxiety over the many ways that life goes wrong and I need to do things differently. Help me to understand when you are prompting me to come to you and sort something out, and when I am being lied to by the one that the Bible calls the Accuser.  

Help me to understand the difference between conviction and guilt. Help me to be honest and keep a short account with you so that the rubbish doesn't pile up round me so that I can't see over it.

So, quiet times. 

You tell me. I'm listening. I'm bracing myself in readiness for a word from you.

But I'd ask you to remember that I'm not at my best first thing in a morning, and certainly not before my first coffee. You made me that way....

Looking for level ground

I woke up to these words this morning. I went tap tapping on my little iphone to find my daily reading and there it was:

Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love...Show me the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul...Teach me to do your will, for you are my God; may your good Spirit lead me on level ground.

Psalm 14:8,10

Level ground indeed, please. I've been climbing mountains and falling over cliffs for ages and I want to walk a little while with you feeling the sun on my back and your hand in mine, please. If that would be alright.

I read it three or four times and smiled (which is an achievement after a bad night where Katy shouted piteously at 2am because she'd got herself wedged down the side of her bed and took some extracting and consoling) and then I opened another reading:

Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.

James 1:12

Well, I feel less confident about this one because I am not so much persevering as getting on with it because I have no choice. But nevertheless, I know that you are there, even when I can't feel you. I know that you are caring for me even when you don't physically lift me out from where I'm stuck down the side of the bed. I know you will never leave me because you said you wouldn't and I believe you.

You are good to me, Father God. By the end of every day I am so tired and discouraged and worn down by it all that I get grouchy with you as well as with my family, but I do know that you are good. I know that I need to grow up in so many ways and it's hard work. I suspect deep down that you are teaching me something, or changing me, or hammering out the metal so that it's stronger and more useful but when I'm in the middle of the hammering I have to say it's not much fun.

CS Lewis put this idea so brilliantly. Why does anyone else ever try to write everything when he has expressed things so perfectly?

'Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself'.

CS Lewis, Mere Christianity

Come and live in me, Lord God. Make me a house fit for a King. Just be gentle when you can be, and if there's any way of explaining it to me as you go along so I don't feel so bewildered, that would help no end. Help me get over the fear. All the fears, including the fear of being worked on.

I do want to be of some use to you, Lord. I don't want to be mediocre. I don't want to live life on a nice even keel with no troubles at the expense of any progress closer to you; I don't want to arrive in front of your throne one day and have you say, 'Oh, there you are. Well, alright then, come in.'  I don't want a place in your Heaven on a technicality, I want you to be there because I was faithful.

Thankyou for moments of insight. Thankyou that we saw the consultant this morning at the hospital and Katy's dressings are every other day now rather than every day. Thankyou that you have given me some wise, kind, friends who love you. I have so much to thank you for.

Snakes and ladders

Bear with me here, Lord.  I know it might seem as if I'm overdoing the CS Lewis thing at the moment, but things keep jumping out at me. 


I'm sitting here waiting for three eggs to hard boil as Elizabeth has to take a hard boiled egg into school tomorrow for her Easter Egg Rolling competition, and I forgot to boil one till now.  I'm wanting to be in bed but as I watch the pan I thought I'd check in with you. Not that I'm just filling time; you know what I mean. 


I'm mulling over the fact that I just snapped at Lizzie as she tiptoed into the kitchen earlier when I was on the phone to remind me of the need for hard boiled eggs and I scolded her for being out of bed and assured her it was in hand when actually it's a good job she came down as otherwise I'd have been hard-boiling eggs at the crack of dawn tomorrow and she'd be rolling a hot one. Poor Lizzie. I'm feeling bad for not admitting that I'd forgotten. I've been reading recently about the need for absolute honesty and the ease with which I assured her that I was onto the hard boiled egg thing is somewhat startling... still, that conversation is for another day. Today it's CS Lewis again.


I'm perilously close to a full bar of Galaxy chocolate, too, so I need to keep my hands occupied.  Bryan brought it into the house at the weekend and then was inconsiderate enough to leave it there when he went back to London.  What can you do? I can't even get up to make a coffee because if I open the fridge for the milk, there it is, looking at me. 


Anyway, CS Lewis. 


He said:


"Relying on God has to begin all over again every day as if nothing had yet been done."
 (Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer)


Ain't that the truth.  I feel I'm getting somewhere and then I do the two steps forward, one step back thing.  So much is happening at the moment that I am excited and full of anticipation, then along comes a juggernaut and knocks me flying.  I'm shaking sixes and climbing ladders only to land on whopping snakes that take me back to the beginning.  I look at the children at my bedtime and I sit on the edge of the bed (or on their foot, as I did inadvertently last night with Lizzie which sort of ruined the moment) and I put my hand on them and I pray and I kiss them and I wonder at their beauty and innocence and smallness.  I invariably think to myself, 'How could I possibly have been so cross with you earlier on today?' and I promise, I promise that I'll do better tomorrow.  Tomorrow comes and I've usually mucked it up by breakfast time. 


I'm hard boiling three eggs in case they crack.  I've just looked at them and two of them have cracked.  Lord, look after the third one.  I do want to get to bed this side of midnight.


So I try and I fail.  Or I don't try very hard, and I fail. Each morning I need to start again.  No matter what insights I have on one day, no matter how uplifting the worship on a Sunday, no matter how powerful the sermon, how loving the friendship, how outstandingly patient I am at the children's bathtime (ha!); I need to begin again every morning.  A new page. 


How wonderful is it that you allow that.  That you don't say, 'Well, you've really blown it this time. You were impatient/crabby/hurtful/distant/mendacious enough to ruin it completely.  It'll be a while before I'm helping you again.'


Thankyou that you don't pick up your ball and go home with it every time I don't play nicely.  Thankyou that you give me a clean page each day even though you just know I'm going to make a mess of it. Thankyou that your shoulder is there for me to lean on, your hand to hold and your footsteps to follow each new day. 


Today's coming to an end and tomorrow will start all too soon. I'm going to give it to you; I'm going to lay tomorrow before you and rely on you all over again. No matter what has happened today, I shall be here tomorrow night agonising about the same things, no doubt. Help me to change that, bit by bit, over time, will you, God.  Help me stop thinking I can do it, and teach me to let you do it instead. 


Let there be more ladders than snakes. 

The place where the beauty comes from

It's the wonderful CS Lewis again.  Really, I must read more of his stuff, and not just 'The Screwtape Letters' and Narnia. The way he seems to drop wonderful gems of wisdom and insight so effortlessly  into his letters and musings delights me. What about this one:


"The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing — to reach the Mountain, to find the place where all the beauty came from — my country, the place where I ought to have been born. Do you think it all meant nothing, all the longing? The longing for home? For indeed it now feels not like going, but like going back."
— C.S. Lewis (Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold)


What did you think when you heard him say that, Father?  I bet you smiled.  And now this exceptional man is with you; he's home.  I wonder if it's just as he thought it would be. 


I love this picture.  'The place where all the beauty came from...the longing for home.'
There are days when I really understand what he means; CS Lewis just sums it up for me. The days where things are too hard, require too much effort; when failure seems inevitable, and the simplest task is daunting.  Days like that make me long for a world where the struggling stops.  I don't mean that I have a desperately hard life - I know that I don't.  I know that there are many millions of people in this world who'd swap with me in an instant and I wouldn't want to swap with them.   What I'm talking about is the hamster-wheel feeling that I get occasionally where I feel that I'm running to stand still, and most of the stuff that I'm struggling with is trivia that's getting in the way of the important stuff.  


John Keats said in his poem, 'Ode to a Grecian Urn':


'Beauty is truth, truth, beauty - that is all
ye know on earth, and all ye need to know'


...and I think he got it right, didn't he?  Because you are Beauty, you are Truth, and you are all we need to know.  You are the source of all that is good, lovely, beautiful, awesome, impressive, true. I should look up more, instead of looking down.  Instead of watching my feet in case I trip or step in something, I should look up towards your beauty.  Instead of concentrating on where I am, or where I've been, I should concentrate on where I'm going. I spend so much time looking over my shoulder, down at the ground, or in at myself that I sometimes don't see what CS Lewis saw.  I get an occasional glimpse; those moments when I'm tired, despairing, defeated - those are the times when I am immensely comforted that this is not all there is.  But to live in this world, patiently, while knowing that I'm not at home here, that home is somewhere else, where one day I'll be; that's amazing.  I'm not there yet.


I hang onto the things of this world too much.  I like being here.  Today the sun is shining and the plants are growing and the sky is blue, and it's a Friday and in about half an hour I'll be going to pick Bryan up from the station - so in my world things are generally ok.  Pretty good, even.  I'm planning which wine we'll open, what we'll watch on the telly and what I'll cook for tea.  The children are in the garden with a picnic and at the moment they're not squabbling.  When all is well, I think I can cope.  I think I can do it on my own, and that's where I come unstuck.  That's where I forget CS Lewis' vision of Home and actually I've made myself comfy here, living my little life with only occasional reference to you. I have so much that I rate so highly and yet in your eyes it amounts to nothing. I surround myself with things and people and opinions and ways of passing my time and yet there's a much much bigger picture that CS Lewis saw that I only glimpse occasionally. All my 'stuff' isn't worth anything in comparison. 

And then there are times when it all goes wrong and I turn to you, anxiously searching for you like a toddler who looks up to realise that the legs next to her are not her Mummy's legs after all. I can't handle it because I am not equipped; all the 'stuff' isn't worth anything when I need real help. Only you will do, and I run to you from whichever outpost of my life I've been exploring.  I dash back home out of the rain. I find my shelter in you and wonder why I ever left, only to set out again without a backward glance when the sun comes out next time.   I am such a Rainy Weather Friend. 


There's a place, isn't there.  A place where I'll be one day and I'll stay.  I imagine it might be like holding a baby in your arms for the very first time after giving birth - this little miracle held close, smeary and slippery and screaming and screwed up; you meet for that momentous first time, never held in your arms before, never heard, never seen, but this little creature is oddly familiar.  It feels familiar, it smells familiar; it's as if you've known each other all your life even though you've only just met.  I reckon that might be how it is in Heaven.  When I get there I'll look about and recognise it from the glimpses; from the moments that you left the door open a crack so I could see in.  It will be the source of all beauty; how could it be other, since it is where you are? 


And as CS Lewis said, it'll be like coming home.


Amen, Lord Jesus.