How to be a small, inadequate, mighty warrior

Gideon had a word with me the other day.
I'm sure you've met Gideon. His story can be found in the Book of Judges in the Bible. 

I am drawn to Gideon. He felt small and inadequate, and I know that feeling.

Judges 6:12.  God sent an angel to chat with Gideon and the first thing the angel said was, 'The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.'

At this point I imagine Gideon looked behind him, because clearly there must be a mighty warrior nearby that he hadn't noticed. He wasn't feeling very mighty, or warrior-like; he was feeling defeated and weak and insignificant. What's more, he didn't feel particularly that God was on his side, but he rallies and very politely comes over all cynical:

'If the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders...?'

********** 

Continued over at the Association of Christian Writers' blog, which is called More than Writers, where I contribute some profound wisdom on the 23rd of each month.

Come and have a look round.

Seemed like a Good Idea...

If I ever write an autobiography, it's going to be called 'Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time'. 

It's the story of my life. 

A few weeks ago, I was sitting thoughtfully by the side of a swimming pool watching my athletic older daughter at her swimming training. She switched between freestyle and breaststroke, backstroke and butterfly as the coach instructed, and he walked up and down the poolside as they all swam, calling corrections to their technique, monitoring times and chivvying when necessary, by turns stern and encouraging. 

Leaning forwards, elbows on knees, chin cradled in my hand, I reflected, 'I would have loved this when I was Lizzie's age.' 

Just think. You're young and fit and all the bits of your body do what they're supposed to do without hurting. Nothing is stiff, nothing creaks when you bend or straighten it. You can leap out of bed in a morning and jump back in it at night. You don't have to monitor how many painkillers you've had in a day to decide if you can treat yourself to two more at bedtime. You can spend a day at a gymnastics class, swimming training, bouncing on a trampoline and riding your bike and still have the energy to splash too much in the bath and resist bedtime. 

You can get out of breath without your throat hurting and starting to cough. You can break into an unexpected run without pulling up suddenly and limping. You are lithe, light and bendy. And swimming is your thing. So you're at a club where someone else takes charge of your fitness. Warm ups, intense training, cardiovascular workouts and muscle building is all thought out for you and someone else guides you through it. They watch that you're doing it right and correct you if not. They monitor how tired and out of breath you get and adjust the workout so that you're challenged but not stretched too far. 

She's eight years old, and she takes all this for granted. Two or three times a week, in a pretty swimsuit, matching hat and goggles, she is a fish. 

And I watch. 

And that fateful evening, I did more than watch. I thought to myself, 'I can do that, too.'

Where did that come from, God? Did you mischievously plant a rogue thought in my head, just to be funny? Or was it from the other guy? Because I sat there, clearly high on chlorine fumes, and at that moment, and for some time afterwards, it seemed like a Good Idea to join the adult swimming sessions that take place two or three times a week with the same coach. 

On my way out, I casually asked him exactly how fit you had to be to come along, and he waved the question away and suggested I come along on Monday. And my fate was sealed. 

The thing is, if I chicken out, I still see him three times a week as he coaches Lizzie and is teaching Katy too, and I haven't a clue why, but he's one of those guys that you want to please. A word of encouragement from him is a precious thing, and I've seen both my daughters blossom in delight at a compliment from the coach. So why on earth would I want to put on my swimsuit and climb into the water in front of him? 

It seemed like a good idea at the time. 

So, to bring you up to date, I'm swimming two evenings a week for an hour and a half each time. Yes, an hour and a half. Ninety minutes. I usually glance at the clock after about 20 minutes, which shows pretty much when I start longing for my bed. The first time I was there I noticed that it was 25 past the hour and congratulated myself on getting through the session, only then realising that it was twenty-five past eight, not twenty-five past nine. The horror. 

And yet, there have been moments of joy. One session each week we have some coaching on our technique, which is brilliant as I taught myself to swim aged about ten with no regard for conventional wisdom on how it's done. I have learned so much, and not just the true picture of how unfit I've become. I am improving. I can do a tumble turn (and even face the right way when I surface - how's that?) 

I've got a kick board borrowed from my daughter (and noticed that she's BITTEN it - why on earth would you BITE it? Must have a word but strangely it keeps going out of my mind) and a pull buoy and fins. A pull buoy is this devilish lump of foam that you place between your thighs to prevent you from using your legs when swimming, thus building up strength in the arms. Hmm. The fins, or flippers to you and me, are designed to make your legs work harder as you kick. I dislike the pull buoy with a vengeance but quite like the fins, because I hate my legs, and it feels like hard work when I've got the fins on. On the other hand, at least when I'm wearing them I can zoom through the water as if I know what I'm doing.

Feel a bit like Jacques Cousteau. 

So, splish splash. Got all the kit. Even a water bottle, so I must really be a sportswoman, mustn't I? 

Then, the icing on the cake. The other week, the coach said, 'Well done. Looking good.' 

Ahhh. 

It happened, it really did. I know because I checked with one of the other adult fitness people trawling up and down in my lane. She heard. He really did say, 'Well done. Looking good.'

She understood the magnitude of this incident. She quickly told me of an occasion when she had received a similar compliment. 'It kept me going for weeks!' she confided, and I know what she meant. I am still basking in that moment. 

Of course, it has to be said, I am not actually looking good, but you have to start somewhere. Me doing a tumble turn in my black cossie and black hat is reminiscent of a whale breaching. (NO! I am fearfully and wonderfully made. I am. Even me.'

Even me. 

I have come a long way from the first session where I was so self-conscious that I pushed myself so hard that I thought I might either die or throw up, and now I know when to say, 'No, I'm having a rest.' and stare assertively through my goggles when the coach does that excruciating drill sergeant whistle-through-his-teeth that indicates we're supposed to be setting off from the deep end again. 

I have come a long way. That first evening, it was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life simply to walk out from the changing rooms to the far end of the pool in front of twenty odd fit and athletic-looking men and women. I really thought that someone might tell me I shouldn't be there, and my humiliation would have been complete. Actually, everyone is very friendly (even when I'm getting in their way) and yet there's no getting away from the fact that I am the most overweight and least fit of all of them. There are a couple of people older than me, but they are in breathtakingly good shape, and one lady of sixty still competes at county level.  I always let her go in front of me.

Actually, I let everyone go in front of me. 

It gets to half past seven in the evening on Mondays and Thursdays and I can honestly say that at that point I would rather eat my own feet than get in the car and drive myself to the pool. It's the time of day when the kids are nearly in bed, nearly settled, the end is in sight, coffee and a good book and an early night, and here am I preparing for ninety minutes boot camp. 

What on earth was I thinking? 

I was thinking that I need to get fit. I need to lose some weight, ease the old joints a little and try to get my heart doing its thing so that it can go on doing its thing well into the future. I think it's a good idea despite the trauma of changing rooms, swimsuits and fighting for breath amid gods and goddesses who don't seem to break a sweat or ever run out of breath. It feels right, even at the points when it feels so wrong, and I am feeling better for it, even if, inexplicably, the scales haven't yet registered the monumental effort that I'm making. 

But onward I go. Breathing a sigh of relief after each session that it's a few days until the next one. Wondering if my trousers are a little looser, and trying not to compensate with cake. Using up an inordinate amount of shampoo so that my hair doesn't fall out. 

I will carry on because I need to do something, and I like swimming, but if left to myself, I would make excuses and not bother;  I know this, because it's happened often. So, because I have a time and place that I'm expected, I feel more obligation to go. I'll keep going, because every time I've been, I've been glad I did. And I'll keep going, because I think it's right. Once I'd had the idea, it stuck in my head and kept coming back in a way that reminded me of the times when God has spoken to me. I'm not saying that my latest fitness campaign is sponsored by the Almighty, but I think He's smiling. 

Then today, I saw this, and it had new meaning for me.

'When you pass through the waters, I will be with you.'
Isaiah 43:2

He won't let me sink.

Thank you, God.

Climbing to get nowhere

I’m climbing. 

Hand over hand, trying to find footholds and holding on so tightly that my knuckles are white and my fingers hurting from gripping the cold metal.  I am halfway up a telecoms mast of some sort. It’s on the very top of a tall skyscraper, the part that reaches up beyond the concrete and glass almost into the clouds making the very highest point.  It’s an aerial, a mast to pick up a signal or something. It’s thin and sways in the wind – and there is quite a wind up here.

I’m afraid I’ll fall. I’m using the narrow rungs and handles that fearless maintenance men use, but I am not fearless; I am terribly afraid. My breath is coming in shudders and gasps and my progress is painfully slow as I have to check each cold, rusty handhold and foothold before I can raise a leg or an arm to get higher.

I know that if I fall, it’s a very, very long way down.

God is with me. He’s right there, and I know that He won’t let me fall, but this is not a comforting security as it was when we stepped through the door marked Fear and flew together miles above the earth. He is watching me carefully. He is on a level with me – I don’t know if He’s standing on thin air or floating somehow, but he is a few feet away, watching me as I struggle to climb the mast.

He isn’t pleased with me. He’s not angry, He’s sort of sad - He doesn’t like what I’m doing. He watches, protecting me, but He is not approving.  I know that He won’t let me fall, but He has withheld the sense of safety and peace from me.

I climb. Ragged breath, painful hands, cold against the rough and sharp edges of the metal. I have no gloves and insufficient clothes in the bitingly cold wind that threatens to blow me off.

I am high. I am almost at the highest point, the tip of the tallest building. The view should be breathtaking from up here, but I am so full of fear and looking for the next step, the next rung, that I cannot look around. It’s a technical climb and it takes all my concentration. I have climbed this high to see all that I could see, but now that I’m here, I am too preoccupied to take it in.

I am exhausted.

God is showing me that it’s a fruitless climb. I am as high as it’s possible to get climbing in my own strength up a man-made structure. I am as high as I can get and yet it is frightening, risky and unsatisfying. He will never leave me, but the enormous effort I am putting in to climb so high is ultimately fruitless.

With God I flew, high up in the clouds – much higher than this. Holding His hand I stepped through a door that frightened me, and with His arm around me I was no longer afraid. We flew, glided, soared, and it was effortless. It was exhilarating and the view was so, so beautiful. Time stopped still so that I could appreciate the sunlight glittering on water, birds flying in formation, fields in a patchwork of green and yellow. There was a gentle breeze, but it was cooling, refreshing.

I was free.

Contrast that with this. I am worn out and in pain, trapped on the mast. I am frustrated and afraid and so, so cold. Far from that feeling of weightlessness, I know that my own body weight is causing the thin tower to bend and I hug the mast close to me, fearful of the swaying movement of the metal.

The wind fills my ears with loud, distracting sound.  I worry that I couldn’t hear God’s voice up here even if He chose to speak to me, but He is silent. In any case, I am too preoccupied with holding on.

God is still there, just as He was when we flew together, but there is no joy in the way we relate to each other. He looks at me with sadness and concern in His eyes, and my glance is resentful; that He is watching but not helping me. In the sky, when I trusted Him completely, He looked at me with delight and we laughed together. Now, He seems resigned, disappointed.

My experience in the sky with the Lord God was characterized by freedom, joy, peace. A sense of space, of being able to breathe. Climbing on my own up the mast above a skyscraper I am terrified, vulnerable, hurting, and I cannot catch my breath. Up there, with Him, the clouds we sailed through were refreshing, stimulating. Here, on this tower, they are deadening. I feel suffocated.

He is showing me that when I am with Him, I can go so much higher than I can on my own. No matter how hard I try, how high I climb using my own energy, my own skill, my own strength, it will never bring me the satisfaction I want. On a man-made structure I will sway dangerously in the wind, I will hurt myself trying and still I won’t get very far. The view from up there will always be disappointing.

He will not leave me, but I will not see the things I long to see. I can only do that if trust His strong arm around my shoulders and hold tightly to His hand and go where He leads.

I cannot do it on my own.

I want to fly, free and effortless, with my God, not try and try to climb and wear myself out trying. I want the peace, the freedom, the breathtaking beauty of the view on His terms, not mine. I want to hold His hand, and when He is by my side, when I have His strength coursing through me, replacing my own flimsy courage with something perfect and invincible, I can do anything.

‘I can do all things through Him who gives me strength.’

Philippians 4:13

See also The door marked 'Fear', January 2014 for the one about flying with God.

Image credit:  Top_of_The_Rock_IMG|_6522.JPG by rose vita, courtesy of Morguefile.com. Used with permission.

Shark teeth and bravery

Lord, I want to tell you about my little girl being very brave indeed. You must have been proud. I know that I was.

As you know, my little Lizzie (7) had a loose front tooth. For ages.  Lizzie is the only child in the world who hates to wiggle her loose teeth. She's too squeamish - they sort of need to work loose on their own, preferably, and then drop out, untouched by human hand. This one was a bit of a problem, as it was the first of her big top front teeth to become loose, but also because the new, grown-up tooth was emerging behind it. Apparently it's called a 'shark tooth' when the new one comes in at the same time like this.

(Speaking of sharks, I've got a bone to pick with you about teeth. Why can't we just regenerate new teeth when the old ones fall out or become troublesome like sharks do? Wouldn't that be so much easier than all this dentistry anguish?  Any thoughts?)

Anyway. Lizzie's tooth was in the way. The new one needed prime position and to save her a jaunt with orthodontics when she's a bit older, the baby tooth needed to make way for the new one.  She wiggled (sort of) and we cajoled and she cried and we reasoned and we bribed and she worried and eventually she decided all on her own that while she was at the dentist anyway, maybe he could pull out the old tooth. So he did. With remarkably little fuss from my little girl.

I was so, so proud of Elizabeth. She hasn't got a great track record for bravery (like mother like daughter, perhaps) and yet she managed an injection of local anaesthetic and the extraction of a front tooth with barely a tear.

And yet, as she climbed into the big chair, she was terrified. She was afraid, but she was brave. It's no good claiming courage when something doesn't frighten you, and I think that anticipating having a tooth pulled out is worthy of a degree of nervousness. If you're seven, and you've never had any dental problems until then, more than a degree of nervousness. So I was so proud of my girl. She was brave.

I wanted to thank you for my little girl and for being right there with her holding her hand as she had a little whimper when the dentist reached for his pliers, or whatever that scary-looking instrument is that he uses to extract teeth. Thankyou for a dentist who is worth his weight in gold (doesn't it say somewhere in the Bible that a good dentist is worth more than rubies, or something? Well, it should.)
Thankyou for being there with me as I juggled Katy (her turn for a check-up was straight after Lizzie and she was watching everything with wide eyes) and also tried to reassure and comfort the afflicted one in the big reclining chair.

Thankyou that we live lives where an awkward baby tooth is deserving of comment. I know that there are seven year olds and their mums in this world that have much more serious things to worry about than 'shark teeth'.

Just wanted to tell you about it. Milestone in our house. Lizzie was very proud of herself and for hours (no, days) afterwards kept asking if she'd been brave. After all Katy's operations and blood tests and hospital appointments last year I think Lizzie had cast herself in the role of non-brave-sister, and you know what? It's really boosted her self-esteem to have come through this little dentist's appointment with a well-deserved 'I was brave' sticker. She basked in the glory for ages and I haven't got tired of telling her how well she did.

Good out of troubles, hey?

Thankyou.

I have my eye on the other, wobbly front tooth now. It's sticking out a bit at an angle as if the new tooth is behind it. She won't wobble it.

Lord... let's not do this all again, please? 

Going where other people don't want to go

I'm thinking about courage, God. Bravery. How some people seem to have it in buckets.

A few things have happened lately that have made me think about courage. It seems to be coming at me from all angles. I'm not quite sure what it is you're trying to teach me, but there's something.

I'd like to be brave. I'd like for people to think of me as brave, but - hang on - I've been bitten before and now I'm shy of coming to you like this. I once asked for patience and you gave me two small children to look after and opportunities to develop patience coming out of my ears. That wasn't quite what I wanted; I was hoping I'd just wake up one day and feel incredibly patient. So, if that's what you might do I'm not going to ask you for courage...

On holiday we visited a Lifeboat station by the sea (and before you say it, I know Lifeboat stations are usually by the sea) and we had the chance to see a great big orange lifeboat poised for action on a frame by the slipway, and also to look around at the plaques on the walls detailing each outing for the Lifeboats from this station, which vessel they helped and how many lives were saved. Over and over again, these men scrambled into the boats and launched into the sea to rescue those in trouble. Photographs showed waves the size of buildings washing over promenades and battering cliffs; the sea a swell in which a large boat might disappear, and yet the lifeboatmen risked their lives to save others. That's courage.

They went where other people didn't want to go.

When most people were battening down the hatches and closing the curtains on a rough, stormy night, these people were climbing into boats to go exactly there the danger was.

One man was commemorated more than anyone else at this particular station. A man named Henry Blogg. He was a lifeboatman. He rescued people; pulled them from the sea when they were in trouble. A memorial was on the wall with his name on it. The inscription read:

'His gallant crew rescued 873 lives during 55 years of service. 

"One of the bravest men who ever lived."'

Wow. And now there's a window with Mr Blogg's name in it, and a commemorative plaque with this inscription, and a list of the vessels that he rescued. A local hero indeed.

The same evening that we'd visited the Lifeboat station I watched a documentary about the soldiers in Afghanistan. Men only just out of school trying to find hidden bombs before they explode and kill or maim. The footage that was shown was breathtaking; cameras on their helmets as they went out on patrol showed some of the reality of life on a tour of duty out there. The risk of placing one foot on the ground in front of another. The consequences of a step the wrong way. Don't ask me about the morality of war, or the justification of our troops in these places because I don't know. What I do know is that they are brave, brave men and women.

One soldier, a medic, was on patrol and had the responsibility of detecting the explosive devices so that his colleagues could declare an area safe for the locals to re-inhabit. He was walking carefully with a metal detector when there was an enormous explosion elsewhere and a shout that a man was down. He knew that someone needed medical attention urgently and he knew that he was the medic. He ran across unexplored ground and across a small bridge - an obvious place to put a bomb - in order to treat the man who had his legs blown off in the explosion because he knew that time was of the essence. Courage. Of a kind I find hard to fathom.

Both these people had immense courage, and with it a selflessness and sense of duty that is amazing to me. I live in a world where self-preservation and one's own comfort is everything and to put your own life on the line for someone else like that leaves me in awe. Saving lives. Going where most people are afraid to go.

It goes on. Since our holiday at the seaside the Paralympic Games have begun. Every time I turn on the TV I see another person who inspires and amazes me with their tenacity and strength of spirit. A lady who lost her legs in a bomb attack in London in 2005 is now in the Olympic Volleyball team. Those with terrible injuries fight back with determination and amazing courage to achieve sporting prowess at the highest level. Individuals with defects from birth overcome their seeming limitations to be faster, higher, stronger than people like me can dream.

An Olympic commentator interviewed a Paralympian who had just won a gold medal in his event, 'Has it been a lifetime dream to win a Paralympic medal?'  The man looked at her levelly and replied, 'Not when I had my legs, no.'

Ouch.

Courage? Certainly. Courage not to be defeated by evil or compromise or changed circumstances. Courage not to give up. Courage not to give in to a world that can't see past a disability and might view you as damaged or substandard. Courage to maintain dignity when confronted by halfwitted interviewers. Courage to keep going, keep trying.

So this thing, courage. Bravery. What is it? Do we all have it?  Surely we're not all programmed for bravery, as I know that amazing acts of cowardice happen all over the place, every day. I do know that you can only be brave if you're scared in the first place. If you're not scared, you don't need courage. Courage is keeping on despite fear. Courage seems to be determination and perseverance and then... the extra thing that makes you run to save a man's life even though you risk your own.

It's made me think of my little life. No rough seas round here; at least, only metaphorical ones. No unexploded bombs on the school run - though on occasion the mums in the playground are pretty scary.  I have all the advantages of four limbs that work, more or less, and I am grateful that my body gets me through each day. I am aware, though, that I could do with a bit more courage, of the everyday get-on-with-it kind.

Lord, I complain and I grumble and I am full of self-pity and dissatisfaction and it's all pretty meaningless. Blessings are piled up around me and I still find stuff to whinge about. I know that you are a God who cares about the small stuff and I know that you are endlessly patient with my daily gripes and anxieties, but do you ever just sigh heavily when I'm in the middle of my latest complaint and wish that I'd get on with living with a bit less fuss?

I wouldn't blame you if you did.

You know what? I think maybe there are two types of bravery. There's the sort where someone fetches out a very special kind of courage just at the time when something amazing is needed. A soldier sprints across a battlefield to help his friend even when he might be shot at or step on a device that might maim him. That's the dramatic sort of bravery. The VC sort of bravery. And then there's a day-to-day sort of courage where a widow keeps getting up in a morning and taking care of her family even when her heart is broken. Where someone makes a quiet decision not to be defeated and keeps on going when life is hard. And I don't mean my sort of hard, which is not hard at all. I mean when life is hard. The sort of hard which happens when someone is ill with no prospect of getting better. Someone needs care and always will. Someone who knows that life might not get any better than this and yet finds the gold thread running through the black often enough to keep on going, through ill health or misery or rejection or pain or seeming hopelessness.

That sort of bravery doesn't win many awards. It doesn't make the news, and in our world quiet stoicism and day-in-day-out courage are often overlooked, but I know that you don't miss a thing. I don't know much about treasure in heaven, Father, but I am quite sure that those people whose lives are spent keeping on keeping on; I think they must have a special place in your heart.

That sort of courage is going where other people don't want to go, too. Who chooses to live life like that? Maybe courage is having a hope and hanging everything else from it. And when our hope is you, Lord Jesus, we know that the thread of that hope is endlessly strong. Much stronger than I am.

That's what I want, Father. I want the hope that I have to go ahead of me so that I can fix my eyes upon it and keep following, not a hope stuck in my back pocket that I fetch out when I remember that it's there. I want the day-in-day-out sort of courage that means that I'm not knocked over when things get difficult. I want a higher threshold for difficult, please. I want to learn to take the small things in my stride more. The tantrums, the messes, the stresses and the flaring of the temper.

I don't know if I'll ever be called upon to do something truly brave. If my children were in danger I hope that I'd put my life on the line to protect them. I hope that my instincts would kick in and I too would be dashing across the minefield. I hope I never find out, but if I do, Lord, give me what I need, because I'd like to be the one who steps up to the mark when necessary. The one who goes where nobody wants to go because it's the right thing to do.

Maybe more use to me and my family right now would be for me to be the person who with quiet determination just keeps going. Each day, each ache, each morning routine and each bathtime battle, just keep going without the endless complaining that I give in to all the time. If you could inject a generous measure of good humour and patience, Father, that'd be even better.

Blimey, there I go with the patience request again.

You'd think I'd have learned.

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.

Connections

Morning, Lord

Today I am getting things done. I have a pile of paperwork next to me that just gets straightened up from time to time and rarely gets sorted until deadlines are looming and I have a bit of a panic. Amid the filing and the reminders and the scraps of paper with incomprehensible scribbles on (that were so important at the time) I found some important things.  I have sent Christmas cards to a few people via Christian Solidarity Worldwide who are imprisoned or persecuted for their faith. 

I like the idea that somewhere in a prison a long way away someone might open an envelope from me and realise that they are not forgotten. That someone is thinking about them and praying for them even as they sit alone and wonder what the future holds. Lord, I read about these people who have such faith, such courage. They stand up for you when it might well cost them all they have; certainly it has cost these two men in Vietnam their freedom and their home - they are separated from their wives and children and they endure beatings and the constant threat of worse. 

Would I be so brave? I don't know. Here I am in my comfortable home, writing Christmas cards and saying a prayer and it all seems so small in comparison. Lord, keep them safe. Give them hope. Bless them in ways that transcend their captivity.  

Another lady in Cuba marches alongside the ladies who have had relatives who disappeared because of their beliefs. She was not personally affected but she believes that as a Christian she should stand for what is right. In exchange for her integrity and courage she has been ostracised, threatened and beaten, her house vandalised. Still she stands with her sisters and asks for justice. 

Wow. I find life difficult sometimes and I moan incessantly but what have I really to complain about?  I need to remember people like these who know about fear and hardship. 

I've written a letter to the little girl that we sponsor as well. Her name is Karen and she lives in El Salvador. She doesn't have much but in a photo we have she is smiling broadly. My daughters have made pictures for her and so I've sent those as well as a photo of us. Katy has something that looks suspiciously like chocolate all round her mouth but it was the only photo I could find with the four of us on it. I suppose Karen won't mind a dirty face. Isn't it amazing that we can connect from across the world? This little girl is five years old and is very, very poor. She lives in a hut with mud floors and she works as well as going to a little school in the afternoons. She tells me that at school she can play with a doll. That doesn't sound as if she has many toys - not like my girls who have so much already and are excitedly discussing what riches Christmas might bring. Little Karen has responsibility that belies her years, few things to play with, no room of her own, not enough to eat some days and no idea at all of the sort of life that my children live. 

How can I get this across to my girls? When we look at the pictures of Karen and we discuss what she might do for toys they are mystified and change the subject. They don't understand because they are so young and have so little experience and idea of the size of the world and the diversity of lifestyles. I tell them things but they find it hard to understand and I want them to grow up understanding how blessed they are and understanding the privilege of the choices that they have and the opportunities they are presented with.  It drives me mad when they break toys and discard them without a second thought, when they won't share, when they want more when they already have more than enough. 

I know that I'm to blame when they don't appreciate their things; I am quite sure that every parent wants to give gifts to their children and see their faces light up and I've done it far too often. I love Christmas morning when they open their stockings. Stockings are small, and full of small treasures. A packet of tissues. A pencil. A satsuma. It's Christmas afternoon that makes me a bit anxious when they open the presents from all the family and people are so generous and the gifts pile high. For the last two years I've spirited away armfuls of presents as it was an embarrassment of riches. 

What a thing to worry about. I don't suppose the two Vietnamese pastors in jail whose families are struggling at home without them worry about spoiling the children this Christmas. I don't suppose Karen's parents in El Salvador are concerned that she might take her non-existent toys for granted. I bet they would love to give her piles of presents.  I bet she'd be delighted with anything. I bet the mothers whose malnourished babies are dying in Africa aren't worried that they won't appreciate the things that they have. It makes me feel ashamed. 

Forgive me, Lord, for all the times that I shower my children with unnecessary things that don't do them any good and just bring short-lived joy. Forgive me, Lord, for the times that I don't show them how blessed we are and make sure that they understand. Forgive me, Lord, for the times when we turn our backs on people we could help and look inwards to our own comfort instead. 

Thankyou for all the blessings of our life here. Help us to appreciate them instead of taking them for granted and wanting more, and I mean me as well as the children. We're all as bad. With Christmas approaching help me bear in mind the things that are important and don't let me bury it all underneath a mountain of wrapping paper. 

And may those pastors in Vietnam, the lady in Cuba and my little girl in El Salvador know how proud you are of them. May they experience you in a real way this Christmas - and for that they don't need money or wrapping paper or even freedom. 

Now there's a thought.