A - Z Challenge - L: Love

I've a feeling that this blog post might be a short one, but it's one of the biggest I've ever tried to write. I could have called it 'Loss' or 'Lost' or 'Lonely' or 'Lament', or any number of words beginning with L that signify the sad, broken feeling that permeates life at the moment. Ha. Maybe I should just have called it 'Life'. 

The last few years have been hideous for our family. On top of the strains and stresses of a global pandemic which knocked everyone for six and the disaster that is Brexit that ruined the family business, we have had other serious stuff that's not my story to tell, my job only to try and help others through. All this is ongoing. Then, on 16 April, Easter Saturday, my Mum (90) fell in her bathroom and hit her head on the floor. 

We thought she was getting better to start with - she was remarkably alert despite the trauma and the blood loss, and the doctors and nurses checking her over and dressing her wounds were optimistic that she would be back on her feet in a few days. To cut a long, painful, day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute story very short, she never did get back on her feet. 

My Mum died on 21 May 2022 at 10.25pm. Oh, God, I miss her. 

I was there at the end. We had time to sit around her bed and play her favourite music and hold her hand and tell her how much she was loved and what a wonderful Mum she'd been. I hope she could hear us. 

I hope she knew who we were, because latterly there were times when she didn't know us at all. My heart broke over and over as she slipped further from us into confusion and I did everything I could to comfort and reassure her, but I wish it had been more. It was exhausting and devastating and although I know that I was not capable of anything else, I am tortured by the idea that she was anxious and I was not there, and I am haunted at the memory of every moment of panic when she did not recognise her surroundings. 

But I was there all that day, all evening and at the very end, when her breathing slowed, and then there was a long, long pause. I leaned my forehead on her shoulder and wept. She took one more deep breath, sighed, and she was gone. Just like that.

I thought in my youth that when I finally lost my Mum I would be self sufficient with a family of my own and I wouldn't feel the devastation I contemplated when I was a kid. I thought that having taken care of her for twelve years since my Dad died and having felt the strain of being a full time carer in recent years, that there might even have been an element of relief. I thought that because by the end we knew that she wasn't going to get better, I might have been a bit prepared for the day when she left me. 

On all counts, I was wrong. 

Yes, she was 91 years old, yes, she was frail and struggling and the subdural haemorrhage that was the final straw could not be treated. Yes, I'm in late middle age myself and my husband is the best of all of them and my two daughters are the lights of my life. But, oh, Lord God, I want my Mum. 

I thought I'd tell you about her. Maybe share some stories about walking on the beach together, about sharing Sherbet Fountains, about laughing when her ice cream melted everywhere on holiday last year. About our shared inability to go for a coffee at a garden centre cafe without coming home with rockery plants. About her delight in her grandchildren, her pride in her family. About how badly she missed my Dad after his death in 2005. 

I don't think I can do it. 

She was my Mum. My biggest ally; nobody is ever as completely on your side as your mum, are they? If the whole world was against me, she would still be in my corner. Even in her last months I would go in and flop down on her sofa and tell her the things that were bothering me. She would listen, she would sympathise , she would give me a hug. 

I remember one time; I didn't even need to say anything. Mum was drying dishes at her kitchen sink and I came into the room. She took one look at my face and put her arms around me. As I hugged her back she felt so small, so slight, so fragile. I kissed the top of her head and helped her to her chair before she got tired or lost her balance. I put the kettle on. 

I go in there now and she's not there. Her chair is empty. I've sorted out some of her clothes and given them to charity shops, and I've cleaned out cupboards and put them to new uses but there are some things that I can't tidy away. Her favourite cardigan still hangs in the wardrobe because I can't let go of it. Her glasses are still on her chest of drawers by the mirror. The book she was reading still has her bookmark in it.

And I can't tidy away the love that I still have for my Mum that now has nowhere to go. I've looked after her for the last few years but she looked after me for my whole life. I sometimes think that I was more of a worry to her as an adult than I ever was as a teenager. Every day I think of things I want to tell her. I see things that I know would make her laugh, bits of gossip about people I see at the shops. I looked through a photo album I'd never seen before and I need to ask her who some of these people are. 

Who else knows what to say when I ask, 'Have a grape'? (the answer is 'I don't want a grape, either!', and then we both laugh - it's a long story). 

Nobody holds up the other end of our shared jokes any more. 

Watching all the pomp and ceremony regarding the death of Queen Elizabeth these last couple of weeks has been like scratching off a scab on a wound that is still painful. Mum was an ardent Royal supporter. She would have been so sad that the Queen was dead and also fascinated at the splendour of the funeral and loving the glimpses of the Royal Family. We would have watched it together with a packet of biscuits and lots of cups of coffee. It would have been another shared experience. 

Mum's funeral was not much like the Queen's, as you can imagine. We all had Covid at the time, so hardly anyone came, even though the funeral directors were very skilful in keeping the poorly people away from the healthy ones. It was over in half an hour without any need for gun carriages or orbs or sceptres. On the night they came to take Mum's body away I took off her wedding ring, grown loose as she became more and more frail, and I slid it on the ring finger of my right hand where it's stayed ever since. Her ashes have been scattered in the same place as my Dad's. We planted roses. 'Peace' and 'Remembrance'.

She's gone, and it really hurts. I don't know what death is, really. I know what Jesus told us about it, and I hang onto the things that I believe to be true. I hope that on that night in May when she left here she found my Dad waiting for her. I hope that maybe she was part of the reception committee for the Queen when she arrived a few months later. I hope that she's okay. 

I hope she knows how much I loved her. 

A-Z Challenge - J: Jesus

Well, who knows what letter of the alphabet everyone else is on? I am on J, which is a good place to be, because that's where Jesus is. 

Once again, an old post but this time heavily reconfigured. Some things do not change, do they?

'In the morning, when I rise, give me Jesus.'

This is a quote from a traditional spiritual song that I don't know which was famously (apparently) arranged by a lady called Alma Blackmon. The words are very simple, and beautiful and the refrain: 

'You can have all this world

Just give me Jesus'.

That's about it. 

There have been a handful of times in my life, Lord God, when I've run out of... well, everything. Energy, ideas, patience, peace of mind. This week is pretty much one of those times. It's been a week in which anxiety and worry linked arms and barged their way back into my head where they set up camp and made themselves comfortable. Fear crept in quietly and ominously and now huddles with them round the camp fire and depression has taken a step out from the shadows and is asking to join in the conversation.

Give me Jesus. 

Lord, give me Jesus when I rise, and before that, when I lie in bed and stab at the snooze button and try to stay asleep because it's easier being asleep than awake. Give me Jesus when I come downstairs and try with as much tact and diplomacy and thick-skinned-ness to communicate with my teenage daughters who have their own sizeable problems at the moment. 

Give me Jesus as I exercise to try to loosen my aching joints and fight on against the accumulating excess pounds. Give me Jesus as I make phone calls and check for sad messages that are surely coming soon. Give me Jesus as I break news, as I make arrangements, as I try to think of things to say. Give me Jesus when I'm on the brink of saying things I should not say. 

As I spend time with people I love, give me Jesus so that they can see Him, not me. 

Give me Jesus as I try to find a meal that everyone will eat at a time when everyone is free to eat it. Give me Jesus as I head off to bed before my daughters and try to sleep not knowing when they'll go to bed and if they'll be able to get up in the morning. 

Lord, Give me Jesus. You can have all this world, just give me Jesus. 

Lord, you can certainly have all this world. I don't want it very much at the moment. It's a world full of broken marriages and pain and illness and hospitals and doctors and shaking heads and bad news and low self esteem and tears and waiting and lying awake at night not-knowing and filling the gaps with imagination that just loves to paint everything bleak and grim. 

It's a world full of shadows that are so dark that sometimes it's hard to see you.

It's a world where you are visible in the huge extravagant beauty of the magnolias blooming in my garden (well, the ones that survived last week's sub-zero temperatures) and in the promise of the flowers on the tomato plants and in the baby radishes peeping potential above the soil. It's a world of purply-grey stormy skies and lashing rain then watery sunshine and subtle rainbows and the smell of wet dusty ground. 

It's a world where those that have eyes to see and ears to hear can find you all everywhere - and all that's just lovely and great but right now it's not enough, Father God. I don't want to discern you in subtleties, I want to run actually, not figuratively, into your real, solid, faithful arms and feel the weight and strength of your embrace. To let my legs go as wobbly as they feel and let you pick me up effortlessly and hold me close like a little girl. 

Daddy, I'm tired.

I don't want to be strong. I want to give up. I want to stay asleep. 

I don't want to keep trying to communicate when I don't have words. I don't want to persevere with the goals I've set myself - who am I kidding? I abandoned them long ago, but they haunt me still. I want to sit down and not move. I don't want to make decisions and I don't want to explain bad things to small children and I just don't want to do any of it any more. 

I don't want to run the race, I'm tired and I want to rest. 

You can have all this world. Just give me Jesus. 

He lives! (with an exclamation mark)

A friend sent me a picture from the internet. It was a picture of Jesus bursting out of the dark tomb into bright sunlight. Strips of grave-cloths flying everywhere, it is a picture full of energy and movement.

I love the idea of Jesus' resurrection as a dramatic, triumphant thing, not something serene and subtle. I think He would have emerged from that tomb exhilarated, breathing deeply of delicious fresh air. He'd have had enough of the suffocating claustrophobia of death, the crushing sensations of tightly bound grave clothes, the airlessness of a dark tomb, the cloying fragrances of embalming spices and ointments. 

He'd have stretched and flexed his muscles and thrown back His head and gazed at the starry sky - or the sunrise, or whatever time of day it might have been. He'd have lifted His hands and praised His Father in Heaven. He'd have smelled the grass and the dust and the flowers and felt the breeze in His hair and He might have smiled or even laughed to have conquered death so decisively.  He would have been wonderfully, thoroughly alive. 

He wouldn't be floating six inches above the ground with blond curls beautifully coiffed, hands folded in the sleeves of His pristine white robes and eyes downcast demurely. He wasn't a ghost, or an apparition; He was real. 

Jesus was a man. He was a carpenter, and then He was constantly on the move, so I reckon He'd have been in pretty good shape. He'd have had wonderfully strong arms and capable, calloused hands. He'd have been lean and well muscled (maybe even a six-pack, though that might be going too far).

He might not have been particularly tall; it seems that middle-eastern men in that era weren't particularly tall, and He'd have had olive skin, dark hair and brown eyes. We know from the Bible that He was not an especially handsome man - nothing that would turn heads if He walked past. 

I have an idea that if you looked into His eyes - if He was talking to you, if you had His attention - that perhaps that might have been another story. I think you'd have seen in His eyes something that you'd never seen before; you'd struggle to take your eyes from His. 

I bet He had the kindest eyes you've ever seen. Warm and intelligent and sincere. Eyes that could see into your soul; that could understand all the things you could never say, the good and the bad, the hopes and dreams and fears and regrets - and yet still you would know that He loved you. I think you'd have seen fun in His eyes; a joy of being alive alongside the sadness and compassion He had for the poor broken creatures that lived alongside Him. 

I think that Jesus was a man before and after His resurrection. Afterwards He was one hundred per cent alive, just as He was before. Blood was being pumped around His body, lungs filling with air, feet on the floor and all His senses keenly awake. I think He'd have enjoyed those days after His resurrection; He'd have been triumphant and joyful. He'd have known there was a job still to do, but He would surely have had a sense of satisfaction. He had done it, after all.

I have no idea at all where He spent those three days after they lifted Him down from the cross and placed Him, bathed with tears, in Joseph's tomb. A friend of mine mused: 

"Easter Saturday fascinates me, as one of those "between things" times, which is neither one thing, nor yet quite the other. Schroedinger's Saviour lies in the tomb (or does he?), resting for the Shabbat, and yet Peter hints that Jesus was already roaming the underworld freeing prisoners and causing his usual mayhem. Why not both? Why not be in three places at once? My God is beyond comprehension, wrapped in grave clothes whilst dancing at the pinnacle of heaven mantled in new authority and descending to the depths to set the captives free."  Karen Dibbens-Wyatt, April 2015

Why not all three places? It's a mystery beyond any human comprehension that a man could come back to life after he was categorically dead, and so all bets are off, I reckon. He might have disappeared from that tomb magically and turned up on the other side of the stone, or He might have pushed it away with superhuman powers. He might have vanished moments after He was laid in the tomb and visited Heaven and hell and all places in between, since God is outside time; there was no clock-watching throughout those three days. Who knows? I wonder if one day I might hear Him tell the story.

I like the picture of Jesus bursting from the tomb with untold power and energy. I see Him standing outside in the morning sunlight anticipating Mary's arrival and smiling to Himself as he relishes breaking the news. I think He enjoyed appearing amongst His disciples and looking with affection at their astonished faces.

'...he showed them his hands and feet.  And while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement, he asked them, ‘Do you have anything here to eat?’ Luke 24:40-41

I think that He'd have smiled gently at Thomas as He offered proof of His death and His life.

Because, obvious as it sounds - the penny drops - if Jesus died, and rose from the dead, He is still alive today. Normal human rules do not apply to Him. For us, there is nothing so certain that we will one day cease to live, but for Him: been there and done that. It didn't work.

He lives! And He didn't sneak out of the tomb apologetically, it would have been a momentous moment. The whole of the universe would have changed forever.

That's worthy of an exclamation mark, and I use them very sparingly.

He knows what death is like, and He knows what lies beyond. He says it's safe for us to follow; more than that - it's glorious and beyond our wildest dreams. He says that He's prepared a place for us to be with Him for eternity. But if He's battled death and won, He is not waiting for us in the place beyond death, He is here on this side too. He can go where He wants.

'And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.’ Matthew 28:20

If that doesn't blow your mind, I think nothing ever will.

Empty hands

I had coffee last week with someone who has just finished treatment for cancer. 

It was an incredibly uplifting conversation. It's clear that God really can bring something wonderful out of the most depressing and ominous of circumstances. The cancer was stage three - it had spread to lots of lymph nodes and the doctors have no way of knowing whether it has crept further on still in the bloodstream. Time will tell. 

Isn't that the human condition? Time will tell. We don't know. Technology doesn't know. Modern medicine doesn't know. The best that we can offer is 'time will tell.' And we think we're really clever. 

And yet, in that inexplicable way that we hear about occasionally, it's not all bad news.

The cancer has brought this lady closer to her family. She understands her body more than she did before and has learned to listen to its needs with more care. She has been forced to reassess her priorities; both in terms of tasks that need doing with limited energy, and also on a larger scale, not knowing what the rest of her life looks like; what is really important? She has been in receipt of such care and kindness from the people round her that she now knows that she is loved after years of doubting it. 

All these things are precious gifts. I wonder, is it possible to receive these gifts without the imperative of grave illness? 

I found myself nodding in agreement as she spoke of priorities, of understanding the important and the trivial and learning to tell the difference, and yet I wonder if it's really possible to see such things as they are from a position of full health (as far as I know; time will tell). 

Is it? Is it possible?

We spoke of those moments where something that you've always 'known' becomes real heart knowledge - the moment that the penny drops. The eyes widen slightly; something falls into place. You turn to another person and tell them of the mini-revelation you've just had and they look at you, bemused, because yes, they've known that too, but they don't see like you do. It's obvious... and yet it suddenly means something wholly different and more profound. 

The realisation that this is not all there is.

This life can be full of joy, or full of pain, or a mixture of both and many other things, but when you're in a place of grief and loss and fear and helplessness, it's a tremendous comfort to know that this is not all there is. CS Lewis said in his Narnia book 'The Last Battle', I think; this life is only the cover and the title page of the story of our experience. It's only when we reach heaven that the real story begins. A lifetime seems long (though only time will tell) and yet it is just fleeting in comparison with eternity, where the story will begin in earnest, and each chapter is better than the last... 

The realisation that any sense of control we have in this life is an illusion.

When all is well and life is trundling along uneventfully, we think we have everything sorted. All is well. I know what today is like, what tomorrow is likely to bring. I have plans. I know what I'm capable of, and I am full of hopes and dreams and expectations.  I want to be in control more than anything. I want to be able to decide what I do, what will happen and when.And then... I am not well. The doctors will do their best and my body will do it's best to handle the medicine that might be worse than the illness itself, but suddenly tomorrow is not guaranteed after all. Suddenly the hopes and dreams might have to be shelved. Suddenly I can do nothing about any of this. I am even too weak to climb the stairs unaided. 

When I open my hands to Jesus because there is no-one else, and nothing else to do (because I've looked around for something else - anything) I find that my hands are empty. They've always been empty. I've been grasping tight in my fists... nothing. Holding on to something that never existed.

My hands are empty. 

I am trying to be fit. I am trying to lose weight, to eat healthily, to get exercise to feel and look better. I think it's working a little bit - last night at swimming I paused at the end of my lane to catch my breath and I put a hand on my heart and felt it beating so, so fast - and I thought to myself how grateful I am that it can do that. I ask it to pump oxygen around my body faster, faster, more, more.... and my heart rises to the occasion. That is a miracle, and I can't do a single thing about it. One day it will stop beating completely, and I can do nothing about that either.

(I hope I'm not in the pool at the time.)

I'm not trying to be morbid or focus on the inevitability of death, though I imagine perhaps that's how it sounds.  As we had our coffee and my friend told me how different the world looks when you have a diagnosis of cancer, it was not a pathetic, frightening thing, though both fear and sadness were things we discussed. The 'penny-drop' moments that she described made me realise one thing, and it's a good thing, a reassuring thing, a very, very precious thing. Really, it is. 

Our lives are in His hands. 

In His hands, and there is no safer place. They are not our own, and we take every breath because of Him. 

I read somewhere one of those pictures with inspiring words on it that someone created, and it said, 'When Jesus is all you have, that's when you realise that Jesus is all you need.' 

When you have no certainties left - when your very life is threatened, none of the things we chase after in our affluent western world; wealth, position, influence, comfort... those things don't seem important. Not even the good, wholesome things like health, family, love. None of them will help when we glimpse death, and told that he might be coming soon. No, only one thing comes into clear focus, and that is Jesus. 

The only decision we make that truly matters is this. To open our empty hands and lift them to Him. And, as my friend testifies, the treasure that He fills them with makes us realise that we have never before known true riches.

That's what's real. 

Two dates and a dash

I have this one life, and I like it.

I like being alive. I know how fortunate I am to live where I do, how I do, with the people I do, and have the freedom to do what I do. I know that many, many people don't have any of the things that I take for granted. I could have been born in a part of Africa where I had to walk miles for water, and when I found it, it was dirty. I could have been brought up in a place where life expectancy is so short that I'd have died before reaching the grand old age of forty-four. I might have been in Iraq, fleeing for my life because of my faith, or terrorised in Nigeria, or crushed, uneducated and oppressed just because I'm a woman in Iran or Pakistan, or Saudi Arabia.

I try to grasp these truths and respond with gratitude and humility and to make the most of the opportunities that I have.

I am an introspective kind of person; definitely an over-thinker on occasion. I find myself spending time mulling over things like this - looking around the world and wondering what sort of person I might be if I had been born in Gaza, or in China, or Afghanistan. Or if I'd been in Jerusalem around 33AD, or in Stalin's Russia, or a Jew in Nazi Germany. What would life have looked like? What would it have made me?

Perhaps that's a completely different thing.

I have been born now, into this world, in Derbyshire in the UK and I have the life that I have. I didn't have anything to do with it - I had no choice in where and when I came along.

What even to call it, the fact that I have been born with so many advantages in nutrition, healthcare, education, freedom?  To say that I'm fortunate is inadequate as 'luck' or 'fortune' have connotations of chance and randomness about them, and I believe that God put me here, now, and I know that He doesn't make mistakes. There's nothing accidental about my birth or the circumstances surrounding them. I am also unsure about 'blessing', as I know that God loves those children trekking miles for water, and He loves the people in the vast prisons of North Korea, and He loves them no less than He loves me. I find it hard to believe that the God I know would withhold treasure from one of His children while giving so richly to others. The sun shines on the righteous and unrighteous alike, as they say... and sometimes when I see the simple joy of the impoverished African church in comparison with the apathy and discontent of many Western Christians, I wonder who is more blessed?

Opportunities and so-called accidents of birth aside, I am alive. I have been given the gift of a life - but I don't know how long it will be.

I'm checking the time and the date on my watch, now, and I will never have this moment again. Pff. There, it's gone. And another, and another.

Someone said that life was just two dates and a dash. I want to make the most of that dash.


I get to choose how I spend this life that I have. I make a myriad of choices every day; some that shape my life in a tiny way:

 - Scrambled eggs, or an omelette?  This shirt or that one?

Some that have a more profound impact:

 - Should I commit myself to writing this book, even if it means saying no to other things?  I am out of breath after walking up the stairs; should I do something about that?

Some that affect people around me:

 - Should I offer my help?  Should I stand up for that person?

Some that might have consequences that I may never know about:

 - Can I be bothered to pray for him/her?  Shall I send that letter? 

Split second decisions that can have huge effects:

 - Shall I respond angrily, or calmly?  Shall I pass on that piece of gossip?

I spend my days, and once spent, I don't get them back. A morning spent on Facebook, idly refreshing the page to see what gems appear on my feed next, or a morning spent reading God's word and asking Him what He'd like to say to me. An online quiz entitled, 'Which Tyne & Wear Metro Station Are You?' versus a two way conversation with the Creator of the universe.  Why on earth would anyone opt for the former?

(I am Central Station, apparently. Always preoccupied and in a hurry but more relaxed at weekends. See? That was worth doing, wasn't it?)

I was given a beautiful silver pendant a few years ago with a quotation from Jane Austen's 'A Prayer for Sunday':

"Teach us ... that we may feel the importance of every day, and every hour as it passes..."

The importance of every day. I've heard it said that what you do in an average day is what you do in an average week, or an average year. Today matters. This moment matters. I won't have another chance to do today better than I am doing it right now.

It's worth putting the Jane Austen quote in its context because she made this exact point:

"Father of Heaven! whose goodness has brought us in safety to the close of this day, dispose our hearts in fervent prayer. Another day is now gone, and added to those, for which we were before accountable. Teach us almighty father, to consider this solemn truth, as we should do, that we may feel the importance of every day, and every hour as it passes, and earnestly strive to make a better use of what thy goodness may yet bestow on us, than we have done of the time past."

Amen to that. Better use indeed. I doubt whether God was overly impressed that I took two minutes to establish which Tyne & Wear Metro Station I am most like.

It's not all about worthiness, though. I can't live a momentous life every minute. What am I doing right now?  I need to work and I need to play because that's how I was made. I cannot be 'on' all the time. It's about being aware, it seems to me. About being wise, not wasting, making good choices. Doing what I do for the glory of God, even if it's defrosting the freezer or watching my daughter swim. I can live my life in a thoughtful way, or I can fritter it away aimlessly.

I have been amazed and distressed in the last six months or so to hear that so many of my friends and acquaintances have been ill. I can think of ... eight people right around me now who are just beginning, in the middle of, or coming to an end of a course of chemotherapy for various cancers, along with a couple of people celebrating the end of such a chapter in their lives, and someone for whom the treatment did not work. I passed church this morning and noticed that it was set out for a funeral later today.

It doesn't last forever, this life of ours, and we don't know when that second date is.

She lived from this date - that date.

I want to make the most of that dash. It's my life.

At Christmas we had family staying with us for a few days and we ate, drank and laughed. On several occasions we laughed until we cried, and I have a few photos that can start me off again. Laughter is a wonderful, exhilarating, healing thing.  Late on Boxing Day the snow began to fall and the children dashed outside in excitement to roll about in it, throw it at each other and squeal with delight in the wonderland. I stayed inside for a while, thinking only of the difficulties and dangers of driving in the snow, the forecast that temperatures were dropping and the fallen snow would freeze and all the ominous implications. Then I realised that I was indoors feeling grumpy and they were outside shouting with joy.

I put my coat on and my boots and went to join them. Down the road the neighbours were out helping stranded motorists on the main road and we talked, pushed cars, scooped snow and we laughed.

Its all about choices. Little ones and big ones. Too often I only see the choice I didn't make in my rear view mirror.

People are dying in Nigeria, Iraq, Syria, Africa. Bad things are happening to people who deserve it no more than I do. People are writing heartbreaking blog posts on how it feels to live when terminally ill - and their loved ones are adding the post-scripts.

When I hear of a ten year old girl strapped with explosives and sent into a crowd, or someone dying of Ebola, cut off from their family, or a friend diagnosed with a tumour, it hurts my heart. No man is an island, remember - we are all part of the main* - and pain and suffering affect us all. But for me, safe in my kitchen, coffee and the internet on hand, all the comforts that I am used to, what should I do?

I have to live life. I have a responsibility to.

I have to try in my limited, complacent western way to grasp what I have been given and make the most of it. Lose the apathy; don't let it slip away.

To laugh and weep and feel and learn and celebrate and sing and love and grieve and see and ask and listen and rest and give and receive and grow.

There's a time for each of these things and so much more.

Notice what there is to be noticed, write it down, because that's what I do.

A million stars on a cold, cold night, whorls of frost on top of the car, a rainbow, the feel of my daughter's hand in mine.

Greenfinches on the bird feeder, an aloe vera plant that gave birth to no less than thirteen smaller plants, a pigeon the size of a football weighing down a branch of the elderly apple tree.

The sunrise - another day that nobody promised me, to add to my collection.

Notice and give thanks. Don't let them just slip away.

Psalm 90:12 tells us that an awareness of the brevity of life makes one wise:

'Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.'

After this life, there is something much better. That must be a comfort for those whose time on earth is full of pain and suffering, and for me it puts things in perspective on the days when my troubles seem big and complicated, but we are here to live until we die. To have a rich life full of the things that we are given to enjoy.  I know that I cannot do all the things I'd love to do but I must cut my coat according to my cloth. I have what I need to live the life I am supposed to live.

I want to live my life, not just watch it passively as it slips away. Carpe diem, I think. While I'm alive - live.

I want to make the most of that dash.





* John Donne, Meditation XVII 'No man is an island...'

The thunder of great waters

I did a little musing as I sat on a railing watching the sea do its thing back in the middle of summer when there was time for sitting on railings and watching the sea.

The tide was in, and there was a strong breeze that gave the waves white tops and blew spray at me from time to time. The sun was in and out from behind fluffy clouds and there was nobody else about.

Dear God,

The sea is like you.

It is eternal. Always there, never stopping, never still. It never rests, never sleeps. Shifting, multi-faceted, unpredictable, wild and untameable. Breathtakingly beautiful in all its moods, whatever the weather. That beauty is a complex mixture of light and shade, a million colours; shimmering, sparkling.

It engages all the senses - the blue, the green, the sunlight and reflected sky, the sound of crashing, thundering - and the soft and reassuring sound of surf on shingle.

I sit with my eyes closed and feel cool spray on my face; I swam and was embraced by its silky coolness, lifted off my feet by the swell.

I taste salt on my lips and inhale the fragrance that you only find at the seaside: freshness, brine, the smell of open space and freedom. I find that I breathe more deeply at the seaside in moments like this, luxuriating in solitude; just me and the vastness of you.

There is another sense that the sea touches, for me; the thing inside me that longs for you; the thing that is more than imagination, that comes from the deepest part of me.

My soul reaches for you, because you seem more tangible to me at the seaside.

I watch the ocean and see my God.

The sea is relentless and powerful. You cannot keep it out, you cannot keep it in. It will go where it will. The sea demonstrated its power when the tidal surges engulfed our coast a few months ago; I have seen the destruction left behind. The strongest man-made structures - concrete, iron bars as thick as my wrist, bent and broken like matchsticks, and discarded with the next wave. Flooding, overcoming defences, washing away things that we cling to.

The fury of the sea in a storm; deafening and intimidating. Restless, ruthless, threatening...and yet. that same sea reflecting a cloudless blue sky, soothing and welcoming, splashing on sand and shells, gently caressing my daughters' feet as they play at its edges.

Glory and majesty - the sea reflects the sunrise and the sunset, the beginning and the end, and will still be there, churning, shifting, waiting for the next day. It was made on the second day and will be there on the last. What are we, in comparison?

"Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea, or walked in the recesses of the deep?"   Job 38:16

The sea shows us our smallness, our frailness. It allows us to interact with it in a small way; it gives up some of its treasures and allows us to form a relationship with it but it demands respect. It gives life and sustains life and can take it away in a moment. We try to harness it, to subdue it for our own ends, but it will only allow us so far. We hover at its edges, gazing awe-struck into its depths, and it is pleased to show us some of its wonders, but we are never in control.

It has hidden depths that we cannot imagine.

Underwater mountain ranges that we have never seen. We don't know how deep it is - it is unfathomable. We cannot draw maps or chart the seabed. We are too small, too weak; our most impressive technology falls short of something so primeval.

We see the surface, and the things it permits us to explore, but it leaves us in no doubt that we are quickly out of our depth. There are things impenetrable, places we can't go, experiences we'll never have, whole ecosystems that we know nothing about, creatures never seen, photographs that will never be taken.

A mystery. Pre-historic, vast, sheltering, nurturing, secretive.

We are so small. We make mistakes; whole aeroplanes are swallowed without a trace in the depths. We are reminded of our fragility, and it's power.

Endless contrasts. I held in my hand the tiniest of crabs from a rock pool, a starfish. The seas are home to countless microorganisms too small for us to see - and then huge and powerful creatures like whales and sharks, seals and fish too large to land in a fishing boat. The delicate and the vast. Floating, mystical jellyfish, shoals of translucent fish, and predators with row upon row of lethal teeth. Things that we eat, things that would eat us. All life is here, and death, too.

"There is the sea, vast and spacious, teeming with creatures beyond number, living things both large and small." Psalm 104:25

Dangerous, yet healing. The sea helps to heal wounds, sterile and soothing. Life-giving, life threatening. Hidden currents, lurking dangers play alongside soft surf and exhilarating swell. It supports us, keeping our boats afloat and our bodies buoyant.  Full of joy and fun, beauty and possibility, yet we misjudge it at our peril.

"You rule over the surging sea; when its waves mount up, you still them." Psalm 89:9

Only Jesus had authority over the sea. There has only ever been one man who was unafraid, who spoke to the waves and they obeyed him.

I sit here and lift the camera to my eye and realise that the sea cannot be captured.

No wonder that throughout history we have been fascinated by it. We have tried to copy it, to halt it, to pin it down on canvas or film, to recreate it to take away for those of us who live inland, but we cannot, for no sooner have we frozen a moment in time, than that moment is gone and the sea is completely different.

It is only now. It was, it will be, but it is always the present. No two waves are alike. They each hit the seawall differently, throw different fountains of spray. There is no pattern, no predictability. It does its own thing, regardless of time, of me, of everyone.

There is so much to see. It whispers, shouts - booms an insistent invitation to tiptoe at the edges, come a little deeper, discover something new, dive in, explore, immerse yourself.  Be brave, get used to the coolness, the movement; enjoy the ride. Know who you are, and who the sea is; don't forget. Don't take it for granted, have respect, but come and enjoy.

Be washed clean. Be lifted off your feet.

Inspiration is here. Beauty is here. Refreshment, restoration, healing, strength are to be found here.

There is no barrier that you cannot break down,
There is no space you can't flood,
No door can keep you out,
No defences you can't breach.

"Mightier than the thunder of the great waters, mightier than the breakers of the sea - the Lord on high is mighty." Psalm 93:4

You are here.

It's going to be alright

Someone told me that they had come for him.

You know how people love to pass on bad news? Someone rushed to my lodgings to tell me the worst news there could be, and close behind them my daughters pushed past to kneel in front of me. They would have been more gentle with their choice of words but the news was the same, no matter how it was imparted. 

They had him. There would be no walking away this time. They meant to kill him.

I have no words to describe the agony of that moment. I know that I have no right to speak of agony having witnessed what they did to my beautiful boy, but I was torn apart right then. There was a stillness in the room as time stopped and my heart began to bleed. I couldn't take a breath. 

It was over. 

I had never understood my boy Jesus. To be honest I longed for him to live a quiet life, to take over the business, to stay with us and find a nice girl to marry and bring me my first grandchildren as befits my eldest son, but I always knew that it wouldn't happen like that. That there would be no easy life, no perfecting the carpentry skills that his father taught him. Joseph always said he was a good woodworker - had a feel for the wood in his hands - and with practice he could be great, but Jesus always smiled said nothing. He knew that his hands were made for something other than sanding wood. 

As he grew up I knew that he was not like the other children, even though in many ways he was just the same. He had a sense of fun, a ready wit, a boy's curiosity. He had something about him... he was such a good boy. No pushover, don't get me wrong, he was no goody-goody. I used to say that he was stubborn, but Joseph always laughed at my exasperation and told me that it was determination. The other children looked up to him. They deferred to him; he had presence, even as a small boy. And as he grew up and Joseph took him to the temple, we were soon in awe of his understanding. It was as if he were from another world.  Ha. 

I knew. I think I always knew. I knew that day at the wedding when he did the thing with the wine; I knew when I heard reports of amazing things that he was doing. I knew he was born for something greater than staying at home with his mother. If only.

As I wept and rocked back and forth that awful night and wished for a husband to hold me, and a strong carpenter son to walk through the door to tell me that it would be alright, just as he always had - that's when it came back to me.

Thirty three years ago. 

I was in a room not dissimilar to this one, and I was sleepy. 

'Don't be afraid, Mary. You're going to have a baby, and you'll call him Jesus. He will be great - he will be the Most High - his kingdom will never end.'

That's what the angel said to me. Have you ever had an angel speak to you? I remember the turmoil in my head that night, and then the strange, unnatural calm that came over me. It would be alright. I've looked for that same calm many times since then but it doesn't come from inside me. No, it comes from God. When I was with my eldest son I usually felt calm; he had that effect on people. I saw it over and over again as he was growing up. 

These last few years it's been different, somehow. He still inspired, still comforted, still reassured, but I saw a few people narrow their eyes when he talked to them; some people didn't get it. They didn't open their minds to his message. And this is what got him into such trouble. His determination - that stubbornness - to get the message across made him his enemies. He spoke out more and more. Yes, he did his wonderful things, he healed people, he taught people, but he challenged them too. He didn't pull his punches, and some people don't like to be told.

But I digress. There was something else. Quite apart from the circumstances around his conception and cousin Elizabeth's response, apart from the angels and the shepherds and the wise men, as if those things weren't enough!

Something else. 

Back from the early days when I still didn't know what being a mother was all about. I was so, so tired that day that I could barely put one foot in front of the other but it was time to take him to the temple for purification, and so we did. Joseph was so proud. You should have seen his face; and when I think how hard it must have been for him... he was the proud daddy of that baby boy that day, let there be no mistake. He was a good man, my Joseph. I miss him so much. 

So - at the temple. We presented Jesus and they all crowded round. An old man called Simeon came up to me. He looked at me with urgency in his eyes and tears on his cheeks and he told me that my baby was special. He would save people. He said that he could die in peace now because he had seen the Holy One of Israel.

Joseph and I wondered at it. Simeon gazed at Jesus for a long time. I wasn't sure what to do as he was due another feed and I really didn't want him to make a scene in the temple. I should have known better. There was nowhere that he was more content than at the temple. Before Simeon turned to go, he put a hand on my arm and spoke in a low voice. His eyes filled with something I didn't recognise, but I now know it to be pity. 

He said, 'A sword will pierce your heart.'

I told Joseph about it when we got home and he didn't get it either. He dismissed it as just something else that we didn't understand about our baby son. He put his arm around me and told me 'It will be alright,' and my heart settled. I believed him. God has had his hand on this boy's life since the beginning. Why would it not turn out alright? Great things were in store.

That day, when they told me that he'd been taken, the old man's words came back to me. It's exactly what happened. I sat there, my daughters' faces buried in my skirts, and I wailed as if I had been stabbed in the heart. I thought I might die, it hurt so much. 

The thing is, I have had to be strong. From the day that I found out I was pregnant, life has had moments where I've needed to be strong above anything else, and this was one of those moments. I was no use to anyone if I crumbled and refused to get up off the floor. I brought my beloved son into the world and I nursed him, and I taught him everything I knew, and then listened as he taught me.

I would not fail him.

I cannot talk about the next hours. I saw it all. I saw him endure more than a man can endure and I must confess that I shook my fist at God as I watched my eldest son, my perfect boy, suffer so completely. They did unspeakable things to him and they left him on that hillside to die. I saw it all. My throat was hoarse from sobbing and my eyes ran out of tears and became so dry and sore from the dust and...from seeing things that no mother should have to see. 

My boy. My beautiful son. He knew I was there, you know; he spoke to me as I leaned on John and watched him bleed. I take some comfort that he knew I was there. I didn't run away as some did; I didn't fear the Romans. What could they do to me that they hadn't already done? They took my firstborn son and they killed him. They broke my heart.

I watched that kind man Joseph take his body down and I kissed his bloody forehead as they wrapped him in his grave-clothes. Even in death he was not diminished, you know. He was still so beautiful to me. They couldn't hurt him any more. I took the thorns from his head and I smoothed his hair as I used to when he was small. They had to pull me away as they laid him in the tomb. I would have stayed there with him. They could have buried me too.

They took me home and the girls sat with me late into the night. 

I have nothing more to say, because you know what happened on Sunday. You know that this wasn't the end, even though it seemed like it. 

I don't know what the eleven did that night but I didn't see them. They would have known that I'd have words to say to them - where were they when my boy needed them? They stayed away from me. I imagine they hid, and I suppose I don't really blame them. Who knew if the soldiers would come for them too?

But I sat and I wept some more, and I berated God who had asked me to bring his child into the world in the first place. I wanted him to take the pain away. To bring back my son. To make it alright. But surely nothing would ever be right again.

I didn't move all night and all day Saturday. The girls brought me something to eat, but there was no way that I could feel hunger. I prayed. I gave him all my tears and my pain and my pierced soul. I laid it down. I had nothing left.

And then things changed. Everything changed.

I knew before they came bursting through the door for the second time in three days. I knew before Mary took my hands in hers and stammered out her tale of joy and wonder.

It came to me in the night as I sat, lost in my pain. That strange, unworldly feeling of calm. God spoke words of peace once again; this time not to a naive young girl with an unplanned pregnancy - this time to a mother whose soul was torn apart from watching her perfect son crucified. He didn't leave me in my agony.

I knew that they would go to the tomb to take care of the body.

I knew that they wouldn't find him there.

It's all going to be alright. 

Picture credit: 1. Cenetaph003.jpg (sic) by LittleJack 
Courtesy of Morguefile.com
Used with permission.

The world's claws

Good morning, God.

I read this:

'I was not created to marry, have children, work a good job, and be comfortable financially, but I was created to be with God for all eternity... A good way to determine if the world has its claws in you is to ask yourself whether or not you would want to die today... Today I am working on true faith in God, knowing if God took me to be with Him that He would take care of my wife and my boys because he loves them more than I do.

It made me think. 

It made me uncomfortable. It made me defensive. What's wrong with marrying? Having children? Working and being comfortable financially? All these things are not inherently bad... Can't I be what I was created to be while still being those things? And then...

Last summer I found a lump in my breast and the doctor thought that a biopsy would reveal bad news. He told me so. I came home and planned my funeral. It's saved in the 'documents' file on my computer. That night I sat alone in the kitchen after the children had gone to bed and I cried and cried and cried. I trembled and I yelled out to you in my heart not to take me home just yet. Running through my head were devastating thoughts that I wouldn't see my daughters grow up, marry, have children. I wouldn't be writing them letters at university. I wouldn't be going on holidays with my husband when the children were all grown up. I would never do the things that I wanted to do with my life; things I thought that you wanted me to do. It was all coming to an end. 

And I was devastated. How would my girls manage without a mummy? How would my husband cope with working and caring for them?

(See 'Let's not do it yet', June 2011)

At no point did I find peace and comfort in thinking that if you took me to be with you, then you would take care of my husband and the girls because you love them more than I do. In fact, I didn't think much about coming to be with you at all. I was completely focused on what I perceived that I was leaving behind. This must have told you an awful lot about where my focus is. 

Hmm.

So the world has its claws in me, does it? How does a person really manage to be in this world but not of it?  Does the guy who wrote that little quote honestly have such an open handed grip on his life that he could genuinely step away from the things he holds most dear without a backward glance? 

I love you, Lord. You know I do. There are times when I know that I don't belong here; when it's blatantly obvious that I don't fit in. I know that there is a place where I won't be plagued by anxiety, frustration, confusion and fear. I know that when I come to be with you then I will be more alive than I am right now. I know that where you are is a place of perfect peace where self consciousness and grief and loneliness don't exist. When I sing in church and the angels join in, when I read something and I hear you loud and clear, when I see a special sunrise or a rainbow or ice crystals or a dragonfly my soul swells and reaches out for you. But when it came to the crunch last year I hung onto the world with both hands. It wasn't a decision, it was an instinct.

Let your light shine

So the world has its claws in me. Is this a spiritual maturity sort of thing? Will I grow into a person who holds life so lightly?  Life is so full; so many people need me (do they? Would they manage without me?); so many things need doing (but must they be done by me?); there are so many things that I have yet to do with my life (are there? Surely that's up to you...) Surely I haven't finished yet. Maybe that's why I'm not ready. 

Now I know that I'm being hard on myself. Anyone would tell me that. I don't know of anyone who has their eyes so focused on you that they can live fully in this world while being totally wholehearted about the next. But then, I don't know, do I? I don't know people's private griefs, or the state of their hearts. I don't ask questions like that. But you know the state of my heart and I want it to please you.

A few months ago a friend and neighbour of mine died. He knew he was going to die, and he had peace. The magnitude of that struck me powerfully at the time, and still does. The defensive voice in my head tells me that maybe it all looks different from a hospital bed with a prognosis like my friend's - I don't know. So much I don't know. But he had peace. He had a lifetime of knowing you and loving you and when he arrived at the threshold of your Kingdom, it seems to me that he stepped over it without a backward glance. 

Lord, I don't have anything as valuable as you, but knowing that doesn't stop me looking around me longingly. I can do nothing for you at all that you need, and yet I long to do something with my life that honours you. I know full well, in my head, that all the things that I hold tightly clenched in my fists here in this life are small and transitory and trivial in comparison with the treasure that you offer me. I know. I am surrounded by people to whom I turn for help or advice before I turn to you. I am surrounded by stuff that pleases me more than it should. I have plans that are definitely my plans. I don't hear you as much as I might because I haven't learned to listen that well. 

I have some way to go, don't I? 

I want my priorities to be in the right order. I want you to come first, but it's a constant battle. You know the state of my heart, don't you? I don't want to be so hung up on my motivation for everything that I can't get anything done or decided or considered without wading through a load of angst. I over-think and I over-analyse.

So my conclusion is that you know me. You know me through and through and still you love me. I am sure that there are times when you are pleased with the progress I'm making; sometimes I can feel your pleasure. There are times when you are not so pleased and you want me to pick myself up and try again instead of lying beating the floor with my heels and wailing about how unfair everything is. There are times when you nudge me back into line in no uncertain terms. I know that you love me for who I am, not what I will be, what I do or what I think. I know that you care about me right now, imperfect and anxious and tying myself in knots. 

So that's what I give you. All I can do is lay it down as it is now and invite you to come and change what you want changing.

I'm going to come home to be with you one day. Maybe this afternoon, maybe in forty years time, maybe somewhere in between. You know when and where and how. In the meantime, you have a Plan for me and I pray for wisdom and discernment so that I can fathom the next step. The next step. The next step. I trust that you're going to change my heart day by day, moment by moment, so that all fits into place as I grow into the person you want me to be. My timing would have you do it all today, right now, but you know best. Little voice in my head whispering 'but...but...but...', shut up. He does know best. 

So give me more faith, Lord. What the author above refers to as 'True Faith'.  The sort that shows you to the people around me; so that when they look at me they see you. Build on the foundations that you've established, God. Make them strong enough to withstand the gales and the storms. Build tall and beautiful so that people can see. Show me how to unhook the world's claws while still appreciating the wonders and blessings with which you've filled that same world.

I'm a work in progress. I'm not finished, am I? Help me to take each day as it comes and fight each battle as it arises instead of looking ahead to where someone else says I should be and feeling defeated. I am so, so blessed with all that I have around me - my family, my friends, my home, food and drink and warmth and a Bible and a pen and a computer and a little fluffy ladybird thing in which my phone sits that makes me smile. What about that? 

I don't want to be dissatisfied and discontented, but nor do I want to live as though this is all there is. I know that it isn't the case. 

There is so much more. As they say these days: So. Much. More. 

Lord, make my heart more like yours. Give me your vision, your words. 

Let your light shine. 

Travis Verge, Walking in Shadows 2008, Anomalos Publishing

Rest in peace

Good morning, God.

Even though the sun is shining, it’s a sad, sad day.

A friend died yesterday. A friend and a neighbour. A real, honest-to-goodness gentleman for whom I had such respect and admiration. Always the same; warm, friendly, open and welcoming. He was a lovely man who carried you in his heart. Energetic, full of life. Full of fun. Creative, talented, humble and hard-working. Approachable. He always had time, even when he was busy.

Right up until his time was over.

He's gone, now. Gone to be with you. I imagine there was a party in Heaven last night. It's probably going on still. Were you there watching for him yesterday? Creator God, maker of heaven and earth. Were you looking out for him?  Twitching the curtains?  Restless in anticipation?

He'll be here soon. My lovely child is on his way. 

'Here he comes! Everyone! Here he is!  Come on in, my son. I’ve been waiting for you. 

Welcome home.'

You held him tight.  He's raising a glass with you right now. He's smiling. He is fit and happy. He can breathe again.   

He knew where he was going. Throughout his life he knew how to lean on you in sickness and health; he’d had to learn. He had no illusions about the fragility of life. He understood that he was seriously ill and he knew that you held his life in your hands, and that was alright with him. He knew that there is no safer place. He trusted you with all that he had. He had your Spirit in his life and your peace in his heart, and that could not be taken from him, even when he lay with nothing left but limited breath and looked at death with strength and dignity. 

He ended well. 

Lord God, I am in awe of such faith. It must have shone from his hospital bed. Father, shortly before he died he asked for prayer that he might be a witness for you in the hospital. I have no doubt that you answered that prayer, Lord. We might not see it or ever know about it, but lives will have been touched. It was your plan.

Thankyou for his life. Thankyou that I knew him. Thankyou that the world is a different place because he has been in it.

You know what? I am different because he has been here. I don't think that's an exaggeration. I don't know him as well as many other people; I have only known him for a few years, but he has been an inspiration to me. Never afraid to admit a mistake, always happy to share experiences and ready to listen, affirm, support and reach out to help. 

Lord, I'm sure he wasn't perfect. I'm sure that I never saw what those closer to him saw; the times when like everyone else he was angry or tired or irritable. I don't pretend to know him best, but what I do know is what he showed to me: kindness, patience, consideration, respect, the love of his Lord Jesus. 

He loved you. He preached you, he lived you and he died in you.  He has shared with me wisdom, pain and the joy of knowing you. And the manner in which he faced the end of his life will stay with me forever. I want to go that way too. His very last act on earth was to show the glory of his Father to the people around him. 

You must be proud of him. 

Rest in peace, my brother. 

And in joy. 

Lord, look after him. 

See you later.