Just hold on

Last week I went prayer weaving.

No, I hadn't heard of it before, either. There's a little loom which consists of a series of removable prongs in a wooden base (five, in our case - just weaving something small). You take a ball of wool, or strips of fabric, ribbons - whatever you can make into strands - and weave it in and out of the prongs across the loom and back again. Knot two pieces together to change wool or texture, and then when the loom becomes almost full, pull the prongs out, threading the attached piece of wool through your creation. You can do this several times in order to make a piece that's as long as you want.

By the end, my piece of woven fabric was about eight inches long and about four wide. After removing it from the loom for the last time, you cut the warp threads (the vertical ones) and tie them off, and there you have it.

It's supposed to be a prayer.

The idea is that you have a conversation with God as you weave. You choose your colours instinctively and without too much deliberation in order to allow God to speak to you in whatever way He sees fit; through colour, through texture, through metaphor, through ideas or thoughts or words in your head.

I went along to the session feeling quite down; a prevailing mood for a while now. If I hadn't committed myself to begin there I suspect I might not have gone at all, and to be honest, I wasn't particularly up for having a conversation with God. I wasn't in the mood for more pep talks about persevering, or about counting my blessings. I was making up the numbers and, if nothing else, I'd decided that an hour spent doing something crafty might be a bit of relaxation time, and so I'd give it a go.

God started work a little bit before I did, that particular evening. I'd had to take my eldest daughter to swimming training at a pool some distance from church, and arranged for someone else to bring her home, so I was feeling a bit frazzled as I climbed into the car with twenty minutes left to do a half hour journey. For the first time in a few weeks I turned the music up as I drove off; I'm so rarely on my own in the car at the moment that I hadn't had the chance to listen to any music for ages. It was a Phil Wickham track called 'Just Hold On'.

Yeah.

'There is a battle in the distance

I see it flashing in the sky

It's gonna be a long, long night

All that was holding you together

Is crumbling apart

And left you with an aching heart

Take my hand, here I am'

The first thing that came to mind was that it feels as if I've been in a battle. This year has started with so many things to cope with coming at me from every angle. Things that I thought I'd dealt with (and written triumphant blog posts about) years ago are back to hassle me. Worrying about what people think, battling with indecision, pride, fear, tiredness and bad temper. Early mornings at the swimming club, self consciousness, feelings of inadequacy and anxiety about the future, and so on, and so on. And that old chestnut that when I need God most, I have no energy or desire to find Him.

Yes, there's a battle. Always a battle, but I've been struggling in the middle of it. It has felt like a long, long night, and I've been afraid that I'm coming apart, feeling downcast, miserable, apathetic, discouraged. Yes, that. What the man sang, that.

'Take my hand, here I am...

Love is gonna make it right

Just hold on, just hold on

There's mercy in the morning light

When you're weak love is strong

Hold on'

I don't really know what happened as I listened to that song, but a little glimmer of something seemed to penetrate the darkness. A ray of morning light, maybe. A little glint of something shining in the black. I turned the music  up loud. 

So, prayer weaving.

Each seat had a loom set up and ready for a participant. The vertical threads were already attached to the loom, and my seat had black threads already on it. Good, I thought.

I knew what I was going to do. The room was set out with multiple baskets and tubs of different fabrics, wools, yarns and ribbons in every colour, pattern and texture that you can imagine. While sipping my coffee before we began I decided where I was going to start. I chose the darkest colours I could find in shades of black and purple and began weaving. 

It was quite therapeutic, the in-out-in-out of the thread between the pegs, a rhythmic thing that I found wasn't conducive to thinking, really - more just switching off. My piece of work grew longer with each row of ins and outs and I changed material every few rows.

Fluffy black thread, chunky purple wool, tweedy fabric in dark colours, purple ribbon. I wanted there to be different textures, but little colour. Dark, drab, plain.

And then... a little glimmer of gold. A shaft of morning light in the gloom.

My mind was full of the symbolism of what I was doing. In-and-out, in-and-out. A rhythmic plodding on, sometimes fast and sometimes slow.

Sometimes tightly, weaving with tension, sometimes more relaxed, loosely.

Some threads were easier to use than others, some slipping through the fingers smoothly, and others lumpy and bumpy and hard to work with.

Some strands of fabric weren't really long enough - particularly the shreds of gold that I found; I wished there were more of those, but they were quickly woven in and then I was back to my dark threads.

Some of them rough to my fingers, some silky, some fluffy and soft, some thin and almost wiry.

In-and-out, in-and-out. Like days and weeks and months and years. Life (from where I was sitting, in that frame of mind) dull and monotonous. Too much dark and not enough light. Too dark to see what was ahead; not enough colour to inspire. And yet, bright threads woven through adding glimmers of beauty, changing the mood of the whole piece.

At the end when my piece of weaving was free from the loom, I found scraps of red and gold ribbon and tied off the ends - my little night-time prayer gilded at the beginning and end with little pieces of sunrise.

'There's mercy in the morning light...'

I was quite surprised at my piece, when it was finished.

I was surprised at how dark it was, in comparison with other people's. Bright colours everywhere, yellows and greens and reds and oranges... and then mine, by far the most miserable looking piece of work in the room. Still, to me it spoke of hope, the assurance that there is gold to be found even in the darkest hours, that after night comes morning, with it's rays of brilliance. That God is there in the blackness

'Take My hand, here I am...'

Afterwards, I took my bit of weaving home with me and laid it on the arm of a chair in the sitting room. As I sat, I was smoothing it out, fingering the different textures and gently shaping it in my hands.

As I looked closely, I noticed something; something that I hadn't intended when I'd selected the component parts.  I'd been looking for the darkest, drabbest colours that I could find, and yet... here was a dark-looking rectangle of wool and fabric, but examined closely it was full of hidden colour and pattern.

Much more beautiful than I'd anticipated.

I took photographs and took the lens as close as I could to the weave and I found that the camera found a depth of colour in close up that wasn't immediately obvious unless you held the fabric up to the light and examined it in detail. Through the lens, it looked different.

A browny-purple wool turned out to be made up of a myriad of different colours ranging from grey to beige to blue and green. A black thread had specks of vivid blue, and a dull tweed hid strands of yellow and teal.

More than meets the eye.

So perhaps when life is at its drabbest, most monotonous, then its beauty can only be seen through a special lens. Maybe I need eyes to see, and ears to hear. Perhaps there are hidden treasures that can only be found in close up, with concentration; only when I am enabled to see. Maybe even the darkest fabrics are made of tinier threads that bring their own colour to contribute to the whole - but from a distance seem invisible.

So my woven prayer was more of an offering to God: the God of the morning light, who invites me to take His hand when I am stumbling in the darkness. When there's a battle and the night feels long, He is there, and morning is coming. He took my offering and gave me something in return. He showed me that even in the darkness there is beauty - that black is not a colour on its own but all the colours combined. Sometimes even if we can't see them, the colours are still there, undiminished.

Maybe God's got plans for that darkness. He is a God who wastes nothing, remember; all the scraps of fabric that I knotted together go to create something with depth and texture. A combination of odds and ends, of lengths and strands. If anyone can bring good things out of bad, He can. If anyone can find beauty where all seems ugly, He can.

Beauty in darkness. Immense variation even in monotony.

Colour in the shadows.

'Love is gonna make it right.

Just hold on, just hold on'. 

Amen.

Phil Wickham, 'Heaven and Earth' 2009 INO Records

Fog in June

June is a busy month. I should really learn to expect it, but it creeps up on me every year.

June is that no-man's-land between Spring and Summer, starting with a half term and ending with the rabbit in the headlights realisation that the Long Summer Holiday is looming. June for me means my husband's birthday, Fathers' Day and my eldest daughter's birthday, as well as some painful anniversaries: my Dad died nine years ago on the day before hubby's birthday, and his funeral was two days before Elizabeth was born. Nine years ago, June changed for me from just another month to an emotional cocktail that seems to pack a more powerful punch every year.

So I should see it coming, perhaps, but I didn't. 

May ended on a bit of a high. A Writers' Weekend in the beautiful Yorkshire Dales, old friends, new friends, time spent laughing, crying and soaking up inspiration. It was one of those minor mountain-top experiences. Not an Everest of mountain-tops, but bigger than Ben Nevis. A Mont Blanc of weekends, maybe. I got some glimpses, scribbled notes and tried to pin down ideas, and came back home itching to explore further some of the things that God had whispered to me.

Some things about who I am/who we are as women of God, something about self-esteem and trusting the One who made us/about another way to live...freedom...peace...healing.

Big things, hey? Exciting! I was excited and energised. I felt as if I was on the edge of clarity. Not finding out the answers to all life's problems, but almost understanding that there was a place that I might get to where things are better than this. Where things I've struggled with for three-quarters of my life might start to be untangled and leave me a freer person; living in that peace that Jesus promised, that I've never been able to find. 

And wouldn't you think that right there would be the recipe for a period of great productivity, growth, spiritual exploration?

Some really good blog posts? 

Nope.

Just couldn't get going. I have a myriad of excuses; I was very tired by the weekend itself, the drive there and back, the early mornings and late nights, the emotional energy of all the processing, and of being surrounded by people, however engaging... I needed a bit of down time. A few days away from the computer. Too much to do, so little time. 

I find that I work through things best when I write. So often I start a blog post in one state of mind and finish in another; I understand things better when I write. I pick things apart and work out what's really going on and sometimes I surprise myself. I do this in my journal as well as on the computer, and so you'd expect that I'd be scribbling away madly after the high point of the weekend, wouldn't you?  As my computer gathered dust my notebooks would be jumping off the shelf? I'd need more ink? 

Nope.

That seemed impossible, too. Concentrating on anything seemed impossible. It all became terribly complicated until it was just too much.

Enthusiasm and energy leached away into lethargy. I put down my devotionals and started reading an old thriller. When I found out I'd read it before I carried on reading it anyway.

That just about sums up the last few weeks.

'Just too much' characterised June this year. Nine years ago I wept and wept and from a fog of shock and grief begged God not to let me go into labour and miss my Dad's funeral, and this year I've shed tears and begged God to help me fight my way out of another fog. He answered my prayers then, and I believe that in time He'll answer them now.

I don't know what's happening, but I know something is. I guess that sounds very odd.

I know there are lots of people who would advise me to stop thinking so much and get on with the everyday stuff, and I know they're right. I am a Myers' Briggs INFJ and I make heavy weather of everything.

I am not waiting for God to show me what He wants me to do with my life, I should get on with doing the things that He has already shown me I should do with it. I have a family, a home, school stuff, church stuff, writing stuff. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other. Yet I can't shake the feeling that it's a time of waiting, too. Active waiting, as a good friend said to me. Stopping, listening, trying to be still and wait until the swirling thoughts settle into something that I can see. I know He won't let me down.

So I'm trying to put something down, words on a screen, taptaptap on my little keyboard, fully aware that I make very little sense. I know that God won't leave me here. He is doing something - Aslan is on the move! - and perhaps He put His finger into the waters of my mind and heart and stirred them up until the pool is swirling cloudy so that in time something of worth that might rise up to the top.

I need to stop asking 'What? When? Why?' and just focus on who He is. There is peace in His presence, and I should nestle up close. Stop trying, and let Him get on with whatever He's doing. He'll tell me what's going on when He's ready.

I hope so. I do hope that the confusion and frustration of this month hasn't been for nothing; but He said that nothing is wasted. Not even the tears.

Well, there have been plenty of those.





Image credit:  whirlpool.jpg by pippalou
Courtesy of Morguefile.com. Used with permission

The other side of the bongs

So, Christmas is over and the New Year is lurking perilously close, just out of sight but definitely there.  Waiting. The conveyor belt that is life is carrying me helplessly nearer the end of this old year and towards the yawning opening that is the New one and there's nothing I can do to stop it. Hence 'helplessly'. Nice bit of redundancy there.

This is an anxious time of year for me, as you might have gathered. You know me inside and out, Lord God, and so nobody will be more aware than you that my discomfort levels rise round about now. 

I have always thought that the New Year has such potential, but in my experience it rarely lives up to it. I have spent many years trying to find the perfect way to spend New Year and as the 31st bong-bong-bongs into the 1st with Big Ben's chimes it has found me in a variety of places.

I have been in pubs counting down the 10-9-8 with a few hundred other inebriated individuals looking for fun and company; I've been on London Bridge for the Millennium celebrations packed tightly together with a few million other cold and squashed people looking at the fireworks reflected in the Thames and the flashing blue lights of an ambulance as it tried in vain to reach a man whose heart chose the worst time ever to stop. 

I've been at parties with paper hats and party poppers poised for explosion as Big Ben chimes the big chime, and I've been on the sofa with one other precious person and a glass of champagne watching celebs act silly on the telly.

I've even tried going to bed at ten and sleeping through it more than once. I've found that this particular course of action actually has the most positive effect on mood on 1 January. It may be that it's to be recommended, but then it's a shame to miss it if New Year has such potential, isn't it?

The best one? I was once in Antarctica sitting on the deck of a ship on honeymoon with my husband (who else?) and we sat, party clothes bundled up underneath huge puffy jackets, hair squished under woolly hats and hands buried in pockets.

We were the only ones outside as a party went on below.

The icebergs loomed pale in the light from the windows and the only sound was the wind. The sea was inky black, the sky inkier still, with more stars than I've ever seen. The milky way was there in all it's cloudy glory and the stars of the southern hemisphere fascinated my amateur astronomer husband used to different sky.  Fireworks forbidden because of pollution, as the year turned into the next one, the Captain sounded the ship's horn - a long, melancholy wail that must have made the penguins jump. It was moving. That was probably the best way to see in the New Year that I've tried. 

But whatever I do, the moment passes and there's what to do next. The old year has gone and the reality is that it's the middle of the night - a night like any other - and the next day is inevitably an anti-climax. It's  now January, still winter, still cold/wet/windy/bleak/dank and there seems nothing to look forward to. The festive season is well and truly over and the decorations look out of place. 

What, then? 

Why does the New Year depress me and make me anxious? I think it's about letting go. As one year rolls into the next, I have to let go what's past. 

I'm not very good at this, am I? 

As the sort of woman who replays every significant (and, often, insignificant) conversation in her mind for hours afterwards wishing she'd said it differently and wondering what the other person thinks, letting a whole year slip from my hands is hard. 

For me, with a tendency to live too much in the past, New Year feels like the loss of something. A familiar year. Better the devil you know (Ahem. Sorry). The outgoing year feels like a battered old comfy sofa and I sort of want to stay sprawled on it rather than get up and walk through that dazzlingly bright doorway to who knows where.

I tend to favour licking the wounds of the outgoing year than looking forward to the new one. A new year is full of possibility, yes; but if your glass is half empty instead of half full then it's also full of hurdles and challenges and difficulties. It's a scary blank page, a white space. Unsullied. Perfect in it's untouchedness. And I'm about to stumble all over it and reach out with sticky fingers and mess it up.

See? I've just splurged out all my New Year angst. It's going to happen whether I'm all ready for it or not. That conveyor belt that I'm riding has no manual override. Well, there is, but only you control the button. 

'Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in Him.'
Jeremiah 17:7

And that's it, really, isn't it?

I trust you. 

I trust you to lead me into the New Year and I trust you that there is nothing waiting the other side of those bongbongbongs that we can't handle together. There's nothing there that you haven't seen already and there's nothing there that will surprise or shock you, even if it frightens the pants off me.

My confidence is in you, not in me. On my own I rush things, I speak too soon and too much, I make mistakes, I break promises, I don't do what I should do and I do what I shouldn't. When my confidence is in me, I come unstuck.

This coming year - I will trust in you.

This year I want to go where you want me to go. I want to put one foot in front of the other in the full knowledge that your footsteps are there already and there is no safer way to go than when I'm matching my stride with yours. There's no other certain way of getting where you want me to go.

Lord, the last few years have begun with a wonderful sense of anticipation and you haven't let me down. The anticipation is still there, but this year I feel a bit different; there's a scoop of trepidation too. I don't feel as if I'm leaping into the new year with much enthusiasm even though I have a strong sense that you're taking me somewhere. Part of me is excited but I'm a little wary as well. There seems so much to do. So many mountains to climb. Such a long way to go.

The dreams I have, even the ones that I am convinced that you've blessed, they seem so far away.

This morning in Sarah Young's 'Jesus Calling' I read:

'Enjoy the adventure of finding yourself through losing yourself in Me.'*

I read this and the New Year felt a little less scary.

I do have plans and hopes and dreams and ambitions and I know that you know what they are because you planted them in my heart. I know that your timing is better than mine even when I'm annoyed with you for not getting me there fast enough. I know that nothing is achieved without commitment and hard work and that nothing worthwhile ever comes easily. I know all those things. I believe that you'll take me a step closer this coming year.

But maybe the destination is not as important as the journey. The last few years it's seemed to me that you and I have been on a warp-drive trip together; you've been teaching me so much that at times my head has spun.  I know that you have more in store. I know that before I get where you want me to go, or do what you want me to do, you want me to be the person you want me to be.

So maybe the destination is not as important as the journey. At least not right now. Perhaps I can limp over the threshold of the new year holding onto your arm and leaning into you. Maybe I can fix my eyes on you so that your glory shows me the way and lights up the dark places on the way and shows me the potholes so I don't come crashing down. If the new year is a blank page then perhaps with you by my side you will give me the words to write on it.

I like the sound of an adventure if you are coming with me. I like the sound of finding myself - the me you created me to be. I like the sound of losing myself in you. In being so close to you that you rub off on me.

So close that I can reflect your light to a world that has too many shadows. I like the sound of inhabiting you, and you in me. Yes please, Lord God. I want all you have of that.

I'm wondering if starting a new year with quietness and deliberation and a confidence in something unshakeable is better than with a bang and a grand gesture and a flurry of dynamic resolutions.

You are the God of fresh starts. Help me to take off the fear and hang it up this side of the threshold, before I deliberately step through.

We're off on an adventure, you and me, aren't we?

I trust you.

Maybe the New Year is full of potential after all.



* Jesus Calling by Sarah Young, 2007 Integrity Publishers.

Edited and reposted from 2012 because it seems more relevant than ever. I trust you, Jesus. 

Darkness and fog

Oh, God.

It's been a horrible few weeks. Not life in general, horrible, but the me-and-you thing; coming here and exchanging the time of day, having something to say - it's just not been there. 

It still isn't. I've been sitting here for more than an hour and I am tap tapping at the keyboard right now just trying to hang onto the fact that you're still exactly where you've always been, even though I'm not quite sure where I am. 

Lord, I was in church on Sunday and we sang a song together and I can't remember what the song was or how it went, but it had a line in it about darkness. 

Something like, 'The darkness shall fear', I think. 

Darkness in this context clearly meant satan, the devil, evil in general or an absence of you. (I think I hedged my bets nicely there). What occurred to me, is that I am all too familiar with darkness. 

Darkness can be a comforting thing, I think. At night, I like it dark. I don't sleep well in light - I'm a thick curtain sort of girl. We used to live in a wonderful barn-conversion with a roof window right over the bed and it drove me mad. There was no blind or curtain and I resorted to draping my dressing gown over a roof beam to try and blot out some light so that I could sleep past dawn in the summer months. 

No, dark for sleeping is good. 

It's darkness at other times that I struggle with, and there seems to be a lot of it about at the moment.

It's autumn, and I make no secret of the fact that I find this time of year depressing. Yes, I can appreciate the beautiful colours, and I have my fair share of lovely photographs. I like the days when it's bright and crisp and there's a blue sky and some sun and a nip in the air (though I like days like that better in spring).

I know all about things having to die back to rest and gather strength for new shoots etc etc but look, I'm just not an autumn person. It's dark too early in the evenings, it's cold and dank and death and decay are everywhere. And I don't like draughts or Halloween. And orange is my least favourite colour. 

Did I come across just a bit petulant, there? 

In church on Sunday there was something more than the time of year on my mind. I've been struggling to concentrate, recently. It's as if my mind has been full of fog. Countless times in the last month I've been sitting here in front of the same computer that has been my close friend for several years and all of a sudden it's been cold and unwelcoming. I've done far more Facebooking and general surfing than I've done in ages. I've stared at blank documents until my eyes have stopped focusing and I've given up and gone to put the kettle on. 

Fog. Darkness. Confusion. Inability to concentrate. I look at the time I've wasted and become discouraged and depressed.

This darkness is a dense, insidious thing that wraps itself around me like the softest of shawls. It snuggles in close and at first look it seems to be a safe, insulating thing. It muffles and envelops. It's constantly moving and shifting shape and after a while I realise that I'm not hearing anything external, only the voices that are in my head already, that seem to be best mates with the fog on the outside. They whisper and nag and point out things to me.

There are several voices in there. 

Sympathetic:

'You've got too much on your mind, no wonder you can't concentrate.'

'Just give up for now. You're not in the right frame of mind.'

Accusatory:

'You're pathetic. You'll never get anything done.'

'Have you seen how much time you've wasted?'

Discouraging:

'There's no point starting now, there's not enough time left.'

'You have no ideas, no inspiration.'

Defeated:

'May as well give up. This is never going to work.'

'Why did you even think you could do it?'

...and others. But they echo in the darkness inside my head and I can't hear anything else. There used to be voices that encouraged me, cheered me on, made me hope for the best, believe, dream big dreams, but when the deadening darkness is there with it's arms wrapped around me, those voices can't make themselves heard. 

Yes, I realised all this as I stood and sang that forgotten song on Sunday morning. I saw the darkness wrapped around me. Soft and fluffy and even a little bit inviting - to start with, and then after a bit it penetrates deep to my bones and makes me cold and shaky and uncertain.

It's not black, this darkness. It's more grey, like storm-cloud grey. It's constantly moving, hugging, shifting, enveloping. 

I have a very bad habit of chewing my fingers and they're bad at the moment. I've been wanting to get a grip on what I eat but I'm feeling the need for comfort food more than ever. I have always found writing is a freeing thing, a wonderful way of working through problems, of capturing ideas and pinning down memories and, most importantly, meeting with you, Lord God, and yet for weeks now it's been oppressive and fearful. It has always brought me clarity, and yet when I'm in most need of it, I can't do it. 

Writer's Block? Ha. It's such a cliche, isn't it? Someone suggested to me that I had 'Writer's Block' and they even said it in inverted commas. Maybe that's it, but I think it's more than that. Here's what I think, in my foggy, muddled way:

I had an idea. I want to write something, and I want it to be for your glory. I want people to read it, and be encouraged and inspired. I told a few people about my idea and they were interested and told me that I should go ahead. I should go ahead and write it, and they would help in any way they could.

I felt excited and expectant and energetic. Full of hope, I had a new purpose and so many ideas that I couldn't get them all down fast enough. I have books and Post-It notes and notebooks and scraps of ideas all over the place. 

I thought I might actually do something.

Then the fog rolled in. 

I don't think that's a co-incidence. I don't think it's by chance that a million little jobs that have surfaced that need attending to on the days that I had set aside to get on with my idea. 

But then the voice (I think it belongs to 'Accuser', though it might be 'Discourager' - they're all the same), it says, 'You've got a big opinion of yourself, haven't you? Why would you or your writing be any sort of threat?'

And I'm back to square one. 

Why bother?

Lord, please tell me that I'm not the only person this happens to? I've read part of this little rambling back and I think I sound quite mad. 'Voices' in my head and the arrogance to put my own lamentable lack of discipline down to demonic interference... 

But I think I know about the fog.

Take it away, Father God.

May your light shine so brightly that it burns away to nothing like mist after sunrise.

Help me to shake it loose, Lord, and think clearly.

I want to hear your voice - the one that builds and creates and encourages and enables and equips, instead of those that make me feel bad.

I think that the fog is robbing me of tools that you put into my hands. It saps strength and corrodes determination. Steals confidence. Takes all these things and replaces them with heaviness, weariness and confusion.

It muffles, stifles. Lord, it stops me from seeing you, hearing you, sensing you here right next to me. 

'He wraps Himself in light

And darkness tries to hide

And trembles at His voice

And trembles at His voice...'*

Speak, Lord God, and the darkness will tremble.

Rescue me, as you have so many times before. I'm sorry that it's taken me so long to get to this place. I've been immobile, wrapped up for too long listening to the wrong things, letting them seep into the heart of me and sap my strength. 

I'm not going to stay here any longer. 

I'm going to get moving. 

'How great is our God

Sing with me

How great is our God'*

Amen.

* 'How Great is Our God' by Chris Tomlin, 2004 Sixsteps Records/Sparrow Records

It won't always be dark at six

So how is my Lent going?

Is that you asking, Lord?  Why would you ask if you already know?

I am sort of blurred at the moment. 

Can't concentrate on anything. 

Including you. 

Going to stop writing in staccato sentences now.

I'm not feeling well. My cold has turned into a cough which has turned into a chest infection which saw me trudge up to the doctor this morning in defeat; with a following wind I should be on the mend tomorrow thanks to some little green pills. Part of me wants to assure you that my Lent will go better when I'm better.

But I'm thinking that this time last year you allowed me to be slowed to a stop as well. (You sat down next to me) Last year I stabbed myself in the eye with a document wallet (I know, I know, it still makes you smile) and the week was going to be so busy... I learned then that the world keeps turning without me and then again, this week, I've had to get off for a while again and strangely enough, life goes on. I can't help thinking that the one-eyed me this time a year ago might have made better of the hiatus in the speed of life than the coughing and complaining me this time around. 

But everything has been cancelled. I haven't even shopped so the meals are getting a little bit eccentric and freezer driven. Or they would be if it were not for my Mum, who once again (and again, and again) has been wonderful. I am sure that I'm more trouble to my mother now, as a forty-one year old with husband and children than ever I was as a teenager when I was supposed to be a hassle. 

I have read two and a half books and I have slept a lot. I have cried with self-pity and I have coughed until my ribs feel as if they've been run over (hence the self-pity). Have I spent more time with you in all this time when I couldn't do anything else? Well...

It's been unseasonably mild outside.

I think I just changed the subject.

Yesterday I went out in the garden for ten minutes and I saw three purple crocuses. A host of snowdrops. The weather has been mild and sunny and for a little while there I started thinking about when to clean out the greenhouse, what I would plant and where. I walked around and noticed which plants have (so far) survived the winter and which I never got around to pruning last autumn. The children came and went crazy in the sun for a little while. They got muddy and they swung on the swings and they kicked around a football. I sat with a couple of fleeces on huddled round a mug of tea and it was lovely. 

Spring isn't here yet but I can see it coming. I'm waiting for the daffodils. I love daffodils. When the daffs come I know that Spring is here. Soon, please. 

Of course, it's February and this is the England and so the chances are we'll have four feet of snow in the next week. Indeed, a frost is forecast for tonight. Good job I didn't take the fleece off the yucca.

Today I read a story about being happy. About choosing happiness. About not waiting for happiness to happen but to decide to be happy. It lifted my spirits momentarily until something happened to squash them again. I need to seize those moments and bury my nose in them. Close my eyes and ears to everything else that is going on around and immerse myself in a moment that is purely of you. I'm finding that it's hard to do right now.

The doctor told me today that the antibiotics will start to make a difference in about 24-48 hours but I might not be better for a couple of weeks. He told me to give myself time to get over the chest infection; to be gentle with myself. I think I am already too gentle with myself - I let myself off too many hooks. Things that are difficult I tend to shy away from. 

Like choosing happiness. Just for a moment there I pick happiness up and then something crashes into me and knocks me off balance and instead of clinging tight to the happiness in my hand it my fingers open reflexively and I drop it. And it's gone.

Too often I take the line of least resistance.

Sigh.

I'm feeling a bit rough and not thinking straight. I'm finding my promise to find the positive in every day a bit of a challenge at the moment. 

• My little girls gave me cuddles today.
• My Mum changed an appointment so that she can take Katy to her swimming lesson tomorrow so I don't have to get up early.
• My husband brought me a mug of tea in bed. 
• Every day this week I've had a text message from a friend asking how I am and saying that she's thinking about me.
• My Mum bought me freesia. My favourite flowers.

Thankyou for all those things and doctors and chemists and comfy beds and sleep. Thankyou that I'm not seriously ill and that you are a God of second chances.

Thankyou that the nights are getting lighter. As my Mum says, 'It won't always be dark at six'.

I'm holding onto that at the moment.

It won't always be dark at six.

Psalm 42 and the blues

Hello God.

I suppose I've been keeping my distance lately. I'm not sure what to say. I'm definitely struggling to pray at the moment; I keep planning to find quiet time; to sit down with my Bible and my books and maybe my computer and to find some time to think. To write down what I want to say because I can't seem to pin down my thoughts when I just try to pray in my head. I start and then within seconds I'm distracted. I can't seem to focus or find words unless I'm formulating sentences to write. 

So I guess I'd better write. 

Lord, it's Autumn. It's raining, and the trees are shedding leaves and the flowers are dead or dying and the ground is soggy and it's dank and dark and miserable. So am I. I don't like this time of year. I know you have your reasons; I know about the cycle of nature and I know about hibernation (yes please - can I just hole up till Spring? Will everyone leave me alone for a few months?) and I know about the need for energy preservation and dormant periods and so on but it still doesn't convince me that you couldn't have found a more cheerful way of doing it all.  Why can't we have blue skies and sunny days that lift our spirits? Why does it have to be a long, slow, depressing slide into Winter? 

I'm really in need of something. I think I'm properly depressed and I can't seem to get myself out of it. I'm alright on one level, getting up in the morning and going about my business, but then someone asks me how I am and I go to pieces. As long as I don't have to cope with anything - rise to the occasion, so to speak - I'm fine. But if something happens, then the poise that I've spent years mastering disappears in an instant and I dissolve.

Earlier this year I was really going well. I was excited and expectant and I felt you close by and I was loving it. Things went wrong but I bounced back and I knew you were with me, teaching me, showing me things, leading me forwards. It was great. I was on top of the world and I had an amazing sense of anticipation. I thought that you had something in store and I felt ready. That's all gone. 

I've been reading Psalm 42 and it really strikes a chord with me.

'As the deer pants for streams of water,

So my soul pants for you, my God.

My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.

When can I go and meet with God?'

It's ok for David to speak like this in the Psalms, in the Bible, Lord, but I suppose I feel a bit daft comparing myself to a deer. And the panting thing...not sure...but I just feel as if I'm longing for the closeness that I felt only a few months ago. I was in a place where I thought I could hear you. I was full of ideas, so much so that sometimes my head was so full that I couldn't scribble on scraps of paper fast enough. I was full of enthusiasm and optimism and plans for the future. Plans that I thought were your plans. I thought anything was possible. I want that back.

'My tears have been my food day and night,

while people say to me all day long, "Where is your God?"'

There are lots of tears here at the moment. It sounds like David was weeping rather than eating but you know that it's not how it works with me, God. I do the eating as well as the weeping. I lost a lot of weight earlier on this year and it's creeping back on - so that doesn't help morale any either. Where are you when I need you?

'These things I remember as I pour out my soul:

how I used to go to the house of God

under the protection of the Mighty One

with shouts of joy and praise

among the festive throng.'

Yep, exactly. At Easter this year I went to church at every opportunity. Well, that might not strictly be true and I know that there's no fooling you - but I was there loads. I was involved in lots of things, I contributed, I went to pray, I went to praise and I went to be with my church family. Right now I feel like running away. I can't pray, when I try to worship I start to cry and I am avoiding people because I can't make conversation without appearing unhinged and pathetic. I started to cry in a meeting the other week and I can't be doing that. People will think I'm nuts. 

'Why, my soul, are you downcast?

Why so disturbed within me?'

I could give you a dozen reasons why I'm downcast and then I could think of a dozen more. Life is hard. I didn't want to come back from our wonderful holiday because I knew that reality would hit back and it has; being prepared didn't help. I've spent the last few months coping with breast lumps, financial problems, employment issues, business difficulties and illnesses of members of my family; Katy's surgery (twice) and now the children are struggling with school. My littlest girl who has been through so much this year has started school and she's sad every morning and hangs onto me and it's just the final straw. 

Take this morning.  Lizzie has been separated from her friends in her new class.  The other girls on her table were together before in the other class and today they were exchanging party invitations. Each of them ended up with three and Lizzie watched as they laughed and compared notes but there was no invitation for her. My heart broke and I just wanted to say, 'Come on my little love. Let's go home.' 

Onward to Katy's class and she clung to me like a baby monkey. Her eyes were big and tear filled and her chin was trembling. Her teacher wanted a word (because she was upset yesterday at lunchtime) and Katy's little shoulders heaved even though she didn't make a sound. I was steered towards the door and as I turned to wave bye bye she beckoned me with a small movement of her hand, tears rolling down her face. The classroom assistant moved over to comfort her and her teacher told me to go. I walked away from my little girl and I so wanted to scoop her up and tell her it was alright, she doesn't need to stay if she doesn't like it. 

That's why my soul is downcast. My soul is all over the place. I don't know how to cope with my worries and I'm having nightmares that disturb me too. 

'Why, my soul, are you downcast?

Why so disturbed within me?'

Everything is going wrong, that's why. I need you and I can't find you.

'Put your hope in God,

for I will yet praise him,

My saviour and my God.'

Oh Lord I do hope in you. I keep hoping that I'll stumble upon you sometime soon; that you'll tell me the answer to some of these problems. That you'll show me what you want me to do about all the uncertainties and difficulties that I'm in the middle of at the moment. Things that need sorting out quickly and things that are more long term. I do trust you. It's just that I need to act on some of this stuff and I don't know which way to turn. 

I do sometimes get a glimpse of how life might be if I did manage to hand over these things to you. If I did actually manage to give you my worries and not take them back. Even now, I know that what I'm struggling with is the sense that I can't feel your presence; I do know that you are there. I really don't know what I'd do if I thought that you weren't there at all. How much worse life could be if there was a genuine absence of you in my life. If there were no God? I believe; I just have so many questions and I don't know how to wring an answer out of you.

'I say to God my Rock,

Why have you forgotten me?

Why must I go about mourning,

oppressed by the enemy?'

My bones suffer mortal agony 

as my foes taunt me..'

You are my Rock. I am holding on to you as if the tide will wash me away. I know that you haven't forgotten me. I'm sure David did, too; and I am aware that the stakes for him were higher than mine are now. He was King of Israel - Big Guy from the Bible; I'm just a stay at home mum who's got the blues. I am going about mourning. I keep trying to focus on positives because I know that what I dwell on will increase in size and all I'm doing is compounding my depression by analysing it. Someone yesterday asked if there was nothing positive I could tell him and I honestly couldn't think of anything at all. 

A wise friend told me yesterday that maybe I just have to stand at the moment. Not move on, not do anything, just stand. As the waves break over me, just stand. I can see the sense in this; the poetry, even, but what I don't see is how I go forward with all the stuff that I need to sort out at the moment. Phone calls that need making, letters that need writing, decisions that need making. So I can stand, difficult though that might be at times, but I can't just do nothing indefinitely.

'My bones suffer mortal agony

as my foes taunt me...'

I don't suppose my bones suffer mortal agony; I think I might have arthritis in my left thumb and my hips are often stiff, but I suppose I should be thankful that my bones are not in mortal agony. Thankyou for that. My foes aren't exactly taunting me, either. I do worry that in my own home my current defeatism doesn't exactly help your light to shine in my life. If I could bounce back again from this latest onslaught I'd be a much better witness to you than I am in my current miserable state. 

'Why, my soul, are you downcast?

Why so disturbed within me?

Put your hope in God,

for I will yet praise him,

My saviour and my God.'

Amen, Lord. I don't have many options really but to keep on keeping on and to trust that you have it under control. I know that you hold the universe in your hand and I know that you love me. You know what you're doing; it's just that I don't, and I'm hurting at the moment. I'm like Katy with tears rolling down my face and I feel as if you're walking away out of the classroom door and I don't know what to do. It doesn't seem fair that I'm on my own. I want you to pick me up and carry me. Just give me an idea of how to go forward, Lord and I will. If you want me to step out in faith, Lord, just tell me which direction?

I will praise you because I know that whether I feel you there or not, you are there. I will put my hope in you because I know that you haven't yet let me down and you won't let me down now. I will praise you because you deserve praise - you are my saviour and my God. 

I don't understand but you have told me that I don't need to understand, only to believe. 

Come soon, will you?

Light at the end of the tunnel

Well, Lord, there is light at the end of the tunnel, and although I know that you were fully aware of it, this has come as a bit of a surprise to me, to be honest. I know that tunnels usually have light at the end of them, but this one has been unlike any other tunnel that I've been in. It's been darker and more unfamiliar and frightening than anything I've known before. The last few days have been dark indeed, and for a few days there I couldn't see even a speck of light in the distance.

Turns out the tunnel had a bend in it. The other side was there, and closer than I thought, but I just couldn't see it.

My God, what a few days it's been. I've been so down. Today I feel better; I wouldn't say I have a spring in my step, but I definitely feel a bit better. I sat here in front of my computer earlier on and suddenly thought, 'Do I feel better?'

Coffee mug halfway to my mouth, I stopped and considered it and to my surprise, it turns out that I did feel better, yes.

So what happened? (Do you want to say, or shall I?)

I've got to hand it to you; this prayer thing works. You answered my prayer and I can only thank you and thank you and thank you. I've been frightened and you came to rescue me. I was like a rabbit in the middle of a road and it felt as if I were paralysed in the face of a juggernaut coming to flatten me.

Five days ago I took hold of my life and decided that things were going to be different. I wasn't going to live in the shadow of fear and doubt and anger and dissatisfaction and half-heartedness any more. I prayed with some very patient, wise people and I committed myself to some pretty profound changes. Some of the stuff I was trying to get rid of has been troubling me since childhood, so it went pretty deep. So that was then.

The following day, as you know (because you were watching) I woke up feeling dreadful. I was so, so depressed that I felt knocked sideways and that hopeless feeling persisted for the next three days. Tearful and defeated, all the negative thoughts that I'd been trying to banish were back only much worse. Why did I think that this would work for me?  I couldn't do anything right. I was just a failure. I couldn't pray because I couldn't find any words. I didn't want to read my daily notes or look at the Bible and I very strongly didn't want to listen to the worship music in the car, which I usually find really helpful. I felt claustrophobic and panicky and I actually found it hard to breathe once or twice. And I couldn't find anything that I was capable of doing about it.

I didn't do anything at all to help myself until last night I managed to read out loud some Bible verses that I found in a book to help with exactly what I was going through. In floods of tears, again, I lay in bed and cried out to you and you heard me. I managed to pray a bit. Only a bit, but you really do take my meagre little offerings and honour them with riches, don't you, my God?

This morning it felt like dawn. I just felt lighter. Not euphoric, or ecstatic, but the misery had lifted. I feel bruised, but not mortally wounded, as I did. I feel vulnerable and a bit fragile, but not defeated. I am not defeated after all. You answered my prayer.

Whatever battle was going on in my head might not yet be over, but I know that I am on the winning team, and the darkness is receding. My Saviour came for me. I know this sounds dramatic, but it was. It is.

I don't know what it was all about. A wise friend of mine said that such an experience is like the death throes of the old ways of thinking; the negativity and fear that I'd renounced wasn't taking it lying down; the enemy wasn't going to give up easily. A tug of war was taking place and I was the poor unfortunate hosting the competition. Is that it? I still have so much to learn in this area. I feel so uncomfortable talking about it at all.

I don't think that I'm out of the woods yet; I have some pretty difficult things coming up and I don't feel particularly robust emotionally. Soon I have another appointment with Katy's consultant where we'll decide on her new treatment programme and I don't really like either of the options we're so far presented with. I need to be strong because if I feel like this I think I might cry on the nice man who's only trying to help us. I am stronger than I was a few days ago. What an eternity has happened for me in the last few days.

I don't want to go through that again.

The thing is, I have had a glimpse of something. If anything positive can come out of the awful way I've been feeling since last week (other than the obvious), it's that I've had a chance to see how appalling it must be to wake up every morning feeling this way, with no end in sight. Once I had spoken to someone who had done this before me, I was reassured that if I hung on in there, there was an end to it. The light at the end of the tunnel. I needed to stick it out. But what if there is no light? What if there's only unrelieved misery as far as the eye can see?

I had a chance to taste the darkness of depression. After my children came, both times I think I probably had mild post natal depression; the sort of tearful, exhausted, despairing gloom that perhaps many new mums go through. It was horrible; I didn't enjoy it a bit, but it was nothing on the scale of this. This was bleak, and after a comparatively short while I had a glimmer of hope when I was told that it was temporary. What if someone has no such assurance?

Not knowing how far you have to travel by feeling your way before light illuminates the path again, if it ever will? Feeling blind and fumbling along. Merciful Lord Jesus, bring the people I know about who are depressed out of their dark tunnels. I understand a little bit better how they feel and it breaks my heart. No-one can see the world through someone else's eyes, or think their thoughts, or feel their emotions, but I had a try at something in the last few days that just gave me an idea of what it might be like.

You know, the sense of being cut off from you was terrible. I was casting about for help - my closest friends away on holiday, my usual props - my Bible, my daily readings, my music just didn't feel accessible to me. You were too far to see, let alone reach.  I was separated from my Father. Is that how you felt as you suffered on the cross, Lord Jesus? How much worse it must have been for you than for me. The light of my relationship with my heavenly Father is like a little candle stub at best; it burns brightly or dimly, but it's small and insignificant in comparison with the floodlit, dazzling day of your communion with your Father. And because of us, because of me, that light was extinguished for a time.

How terrible must that have been for you? I cannot imagine the sheer weight of it. All I know is that for me, it was awful. I cried, and I was afraid, and I was desperate. My God, what you did that first Easter is huge, isn't it? Bigger than my imagination.

So I'm back. And I have learned. Oh yes.

I belong to you.

Thankyou for rescuing me. I'm glad to see the light again. Do you remember that some months ago I said, 'Show me what you want from me. Make me the person you want me to be.' Of course you do. Nothing gets past you, does it?

I think I can definitely conclude that you have been working on me, aren't you? Even I can see that I am not the person I was six months ago. I said, 'Bring it on!' and you took me at my word. And, I think, so has the other guy.

So here I am, bruised and tear-stained, but not beaten, and I'll say it again:

I am your child and the devil cannot touch me.

Holding on

Lord God, today I feel as if I am clinging on to a tree as a wind tries to sweep me away. Holding onto a railing as a tsunami crashes against me. I'm holding on with all my strength and holding on is all I can do because my feet have been swept out from under me and my eyes are screwed up shut and my head is down on my chest. It's a good job I have something firm to hold onto. That's you.

I still feel pretty low today but the difference is that I have a better hold of what it is that I'm holding on to. I've been reminded today of your permanence, and the simplicity of it all; that I don't have to do anything, because Jesus did it, and does it. I just have to hang on. So I feel as if I've been reduced to the simplest, most fundamental thing; I'm hanging on and just trusting that you will win this battle on my behalf. I can't do it, but you can. 

So the voices in my head that say, 'You can't do this'; no, I can't. But my heavenly Father can. When they say, 'Why do you think you're special?' I can reply 'I am special because I am God's child'. When I hear that I can do nothing right I can say that although I am flawed, I am made perfect in Christ. 

'I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.'

Philippians 4:13

I can do this. 

I feel so much better knowing that it's normal to feel so bad after having made a stand. It makes sense with my limited understanding that if someone tries to stride closer to you that they would feel a hand on their shirt trying to pull them back. I feel as if there are a million hands pulling and pulling; a million voices reminding me of all my weaknesses and failures and difficulties and all the times that I've taken one step forward - and then two (or more) back. All the times I've given up. 

I've been thinking that maybe because I had such a fallow period in my life, spiritually - about fourteen years - maybe I have after all have got to this point in my life with the spiritual maturity of a toddler. Maybe it's all too much for me and I'm trying to run before I can walk, but it's not true. I certainly don't have the wisdom of someone who has many more years in this than I do, but I am not helpless and I just want to follow the Master.  You can see my heart and I know that you can find the grain of faith in me and you won't let me down.

For someone who is quite feeling-driven, this is really hard. I can't sleep. I'm waking up feeling low and dark and short-tempered and emotional and nothing is really helping. The only way that today is different from yesterday is that I spoke to someone today who told me it's normal; she's been through it and it was like this for her too. That has helped so much. I don't feel crazy any more. Just tired and weighed down and discouraged and fearful. My head feels full of cotton wool and my eyes are sore. It sometimes feels hard to get my breath. Nothing matters very much.

I'll go on clinging. The tears are not very far away today and I can't raise much enthusiasm for anything, but I'm trying to look beyond the storm and towards the rainbow. I know the sun is still there even if thick clouds are shrouding it. Or at least, I believe that the sun is still there. 

Lord God, come and rescue me. Again. Blow away the clouds and let me feel your warmth and stand in your light. Don't let the wind and waves sweep me away. I know that you won't.  I know that you're fighting for me, Lord. I know that there's conflict and I know whose side I'm on, and I know that you have ultimately won the war. I'm not doing very much right now except holding on and waiting for you. 

I am your child. 

I am valuable because you value me. 

Isaiah 43:2

'When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;

and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you.'

Amen. Even if I feel like I'm drowning.