On sticking your head above the parapet

Not for the first time, I've read a blog post by Deborah Jenkins and she has inspired me to write my own post. Not for the first time, this little nudge has come at exactly the right time; and not for the first time, it's been when I've been feeling very much in need of a bit of encouragement. 

I make heavy weather of things, I know. Life in this 'season' for me is definitely more like a slog than a gambol and writing, while very precious to me indeed, is regularly elbowed out by the mundane and the immediate. When time and head-space are both acutely limited I have to make sure that I read the Bible daily and spend some time writing in my journal because I have found these to be life and sanity savers. For long periods it's the only writing that I do, but I've kind of made peace with that. Anything over and above is a bonus.

I got something written a few months ago. I was pleased with it. When it was all finished I knew that it wasn't perfect, but so much work had gone into it that it was as good as it could be. I was satisfied. I was happy to say that it was mine. Every writer knows how difficult it is to let the world in and risk what they might say or think. It's very hard to be so vulnerable.

I showed it to a trusted friend. 

Continued over at The Association of Christian Writers' Blog, More Than Writers where I post on the 23rd of each month. Come and visit. There's some good stuff. 

A whisper from the enemy

I'm over at The Association of Christian Writers (ACW) site today with a post about confidence and hard work and investing in the unknown and just generally listening to the voices in my head that tell me, 'You can't do this.' 

You know what happened?  

Some really lovely people took the trouble to comment on the post, or on the Facebook page, or to send me messages to reassure and encourage me. 

They said, 'Me too,' which is a wonderful thing when it feels as if you're the only one who's struggling with something.

It means a lot. I am feeling more positive than I have in ages as a result. 

Aren't people kind?  The folks at the ACW seem to me to be kinder and more generous than most. 

Have a look at today's post here:  More than writers: A whisper from the enemy

If you want to find out more about the ACW, check out the website: 

The Association of Christian Writers

or say hello on Facebook: ACW Facebook group

A word fitly spoken

(This is the text of a talk last week at a Ladies' event at church: An Evening of Encouragement)

Have you ever had a moment when you realise something about yourself, something deep inside that’s been hidden for a long time, and it gives you a shock? Sort of like a wake up call from God?  Well, this evening for me is the end point (or maybe it’s not the end point at all!  Who knows what He has planned from here onwards?)  of a thought process that started with a bit of a shock a few years ago. It was one of those moments where the penny drops, and makes quite a thud.

I was surfing the internet, as you do when there’s housework needing doing, and I read a blog post about women and friendship. It was a beautiful post celebrating women and sisterhood and the support and encouragement and sort of connection that is specific to women. The special bond between a group of female friends. Maybe you can imagine that. Maybe you know exactly what the author meant. To illustrate her point, she’d taken photos of women at a local conference that she’d gone to. There were groups of twos, threes, fives, big happy, laughing, hugging ladies having a good time together.

You know what came into my head?

It’s not true.

Emphatically. The voice in my head was loud and angry.

It’s not real.

I surprised myself with my cynicism. It came from somewhere deep inside me that I hadn’t been aware of. These women had done nothing to me except stare at me from the screen looking as if they were having a great time enjoying each others’ company and being the best of friends, and yet I looked at them with a resentful suspicion that unnerved me.  I just didn’t believe any of that picture perfect friendship stuff – in fact it annoyed me. I studied their faces and tried to work out who was faking that happy smile, what they were really thinking beneath what was surely a facade.

I’ve no idea how this is going to sound to you – you might well wonder what’s been wrong with me - but the truth is that until these past few years, I’d never had a close female friend. As I was growing up, I had a few so-called friends, but they weren’t all they should have been. Maybe I picked the wrong girls, or the wrong girls picked me, and I was grateful to have been picked by anybody, but they were full of hurt and betrayal and unhappiness and they sapped a lot of confidence from me.

One day she’d be my friend, the next she wouldn’t talk to me. On the way to school I’d never know what day it would be. On the on-days she’d link arms with me and all would be well. On the off-days she’d tell the other girls mean things and laugh at me.  She’d do mean things, but the worst, it turns out, were the things she said. On the on-days, for my own good, she’d tell me that I was fat and ungainly and she’d advise me on who I should avoid standing next to because they were so much slimmer and prettier than I was. She told me that I’d never get anywhere, be anyone. She criticized the way I walked and the way I laughed.

Another she, years later, my tutor at university. I stood up to her when she made my friend cry, and she took me on one side and told me that my friends had told her bad things about me, but she wouldn’t tell me who, or what. I looked around at the people I shared the lecture room  with in a different way after that. I didn’t trust anyone any more. She told me that I had no integrity, that there was something wrong with me that other people could see.

Sticks and stones may indeed break our bones, but whoever said words can’t hurt was talking rubbish. Words can demolish people. They can chip bits off us and leave us fragile and wounded.

The more chipped-away-at we are, the more closed off we become. If we do recognize what we’re doing - and we might well do it all subconsciously and not think about it at all - we rationalize that we’re becoming more self-sufficient, saving ourselves hurt by keeping people arms length.  It seems a sensible solution, and it even seems to work.  

So I read this article about the wonderful miracle of women and the power we have to build up and I realized that I felt as if I had only really seen the power women have to bring each other down, and this had an escalating effect on my whole life. I would walk into a room, and be immediately intimidated. I have to say, it’s a bit better, now, but it’s still a challenge for me. The voices that tell me the lies about those women are still there, and I have to work hard to shut them up. (I’m a work in progress).

I would walk in, and assume that everyone was looking at me and criticizing me. What I was wearing, my make up, my face, my words. They would noticing every flaw that I’d tried so hard to conceal, physical and emotional. My bad hair day, the spot on my chin, the fact that my jeans were a little bit tighter than they were last month, my confusion and lack of confidence. They'd look at me when I walked in and talked scathingly about me when I left. Something inside me was programmed to believe that this is what other women do. To each other.  My default position was one of apology and defensiveness. All that because of words spoken to me years earlier.

If I’m honest, I was afraid of other women. I was fully aware of their power. Women can destroy each other with a look, a remark, an expression. We can crush. We may not do it with our muscles, but the devastation is complete.

The thing is, God can do amazing things. However, it’s a bit uncomfortable when He starts operating on an area of your life that you never knew needed surgery. The wake up call for me was when I saw this article, but He’d already been working lots before that. I do know what friendship is, now. It’s taken me this long. I know what it’s like to have friends who are gifts from God.  People who know me and stick with me, keep my secrets, comfort, inspire and encourage me, and talk sense into me when I don’t have any of my own. People who speak truth to me.

People who’ve helped God counteract the lies spoken to me over the years.

Words from my childhood and university days had caused fairly deep damage to my fragile self-worth, my image of what friendship could be, and even my view of other women.

It comes down to the power we have and how we use it.   We have the power to change people’s lives, and we need to realize that and use it to change them for the better, and not for the worse. You can chip away and undermine, or you can do quite the reverse. The girls and women I’ve been talking about used their power deliberately to damage, but we can learn how to use that same potential to build someone up, and the results can be just as dramatic.

Encouragement is a wonderful term that has inside it a whole host of possibilities.

It means to inspire with courage, spirit or confidence – to help someone needing courage to find some. You can do it. I believe in you.

It means to stimulate by assistance, approval – to boost someone, to give them something that they can use to find more inside themselves. To let them know that you’re on their side, that you’re cheering for them. To lift someone up, to take them higher, to remind them of how far they’ve come, how well they’re doing. To embolden, hearten, reassure, urge, support, help.

Aren’t they wonderful words?

Words are endlessly powerful, and a personal word of encouragement in the right place can have a huge effect.

It can make the difference between someone giving up or carrying on. The difference between winning and losing, hoping and despairing.  Something you say might be just the confirmation someone needs to make a decision, or try something new, or make a change. It could simply something that makes them feel a little better about things.

Encouragement comes in all shapes and sizes, and we shouldn’t dismiss the things that seem insignificant. Something that seems quite small can be quite powerful in God’s hands. A while ago I was walking up Chatsworth Road behind a lady. It was one of those awkward situations where you find yourself walking at just the same speed as someone in front and so it looks a bit as if you’re a stalker – you have this dilemma - do you speed up and overtake, thus having to continue to walk at a faster than normal pace all the way up a straight road, or do you hang back and dawdle, only to catch up again… maybe that sort of thing just happens to me.

Anyway, I was walking behind this lady, and I admired her haircut.  Is that familiar? You stand in a queue at the post office or somewhere, and admire someone’s jacket, or outfit or shoes or anything,  but you never say anything for fear of being thought odd or invading personal space. Well, I was walking up Chatsworth Road, staring at this lady’s hair, and it came into my head that on this occasion I should tell her how nice it looked.

Seriously?

I decided that if she turned right up Quarry Lane, I’d say nothing. 

She didn’t. 

If she turned up Vincent Crescent, I would say nothing. If she carried on, I’d say something.

We got to the junction with Vincent Crescent, and she didn’t turn off.  So, as we approached my turn onto Chatsworth Avenue, I accelerated slightly, drew alongside and said to her, ‘This might sound a bit silly, but I’ve been walking up the road behind you, and I’ve been thinking how nice your hair looks.’

I smiled at her, and made to walk away, and she stopped me. She said,

‘Do you really think so? Oh, thank you so much. I’ve just had it done at a different hairdresser, and I wasn’t too sure if it suited me. I’ve been worrying. I don’t think my daughter will like it. She liked it how it was, but I fancied a change. Thank you so much.’

It made a difference to her. I don’t kid myself that I did anything profound, but I believe that God nudged me to tell that lady that she had nice hair. He knew she was feeling anxious and insecure and through my words He helped her with that. She walked off a little straighter. 

I hope it helped her face her daughter with a bit of confidence, but even if her daughter didn’t like it, at least she knew that there was a strange woman stalker on Chatsworth Road who did.

God is in the business of encouraging. He cares about details like angst over haircuts, and He cares about the big whopping life choices that won't grow out in four weeks. He doesn’t want us to be closed off solitary individuals struggling alone in a crowd with our own neuroses and problems. He never meant it to be that way. He told us that we’re family, and we should be caring for one another. Helping each other with battles. Cheering for each other. Willing to be honest with each other about life and pick each other up when necessary, in a big way or a little way.

 Anxiety in a man's heart weighs him down, but a good word makes him glad.

Proverbs 12:25

Small encouragements are all about the pleasure of being noticed, thought about. That someone cared enough to consider me.  We all long to be approved of, affirmed. I have had several compliments about a particular shoulderbag of mine and I love it when someone says something. I always say, ‘Thank you. A friend made it for me.’  It gives me pleasure that someone shares my impeccable taste in accessories, but also that I have a friend who is so skilled and also that cared enough to make me something so beautiful.

There are big things, too.  Just now and again we get an opportunity to speak simple words into a person’s life, even if we might never know that that’s what we did. I think God gives the gift of prophecy to some people, but I think that much more widely He gives opportunities to speak words that find a home deep inside someone’s heart.

A few people did this for me: they spoke into the dreams that I have for my life, and I have never forgotten their words.  When I was nine, a teacher at junior school wrote in my autograph book, 

‘To the Daphne Du Maurier of tomorrow: keep on writing!’ 

My Dad had several books published and we were so proud of him. He inscribed one of them to me with the words, 

‘To Helen: may she write more and better books than this.’  

There are people in this room who have encouraged me who have no idea how precious their words were – and are – to me. I filed these things away in my heart and they continue comfort and motivate and inspire me.  I dream of writing something one day and these encouragements keep me going when the little voices in my head tell me that it’s been said already and said better than I could say it and I should just give up and open a packet of biscuits.

These are raw things; to reveal your dream to someone is a scary thing because they might tear it down. Again, it reminds me of the girl at school in whom I confided the same dream. She laughed and said, ‘Dream on, Helen.’ It hurt, but that's exactly what I did. I dreamed on. Because on that occasion the positive words of my teacher were more powerful than her bitter ones. Without that specific encouragement like a stake holding steady a vulnerable sapling, she might have uprooted my dream. 

 Gracious words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body.

Proverbs 16:24

Someone believed in me. Some days I feel able to take on the world, others completely defeated, but those words stay solid for me. When my teacher wrote that lovely line in my autograph book, I bet he had no idea of the impact it would have on me.

We have no way of knowing what God might do in the future to join up the dots and make our innocuous comment into something huge and powerful for someone.  The thing we say, the little tiny dot that we add – might be just one in a long chain that God is adding to a person’s life that will one day join up and become something amazing.

 A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver.

Proverbs 25:11

Encouragement counteracts the vulnerability that we all feel when we fall prey to comparisons. Someone noticed something positive and affirming and bothered to tell me. My self worth takes a little boost. Someone once said that we are like buckets and life punches holes all over the buckets and our self-esteem pours out of the holes. When we encourage each other, we fix some of those holes, and we refill a little of the self-esteem that leaked out.

I think we’re doing a vital part of God’s work in encouraging each other. Encouragement is listed by St Paul in Romans 12 as one of the separate gifts in the Body of Christ, and maybe it’s true that some people have a special ability to discern an opportunity for encouraging someone, but I think there’s no doubt that each one of us is able to do it. It's what God told us to do.

Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.

1 Thessalonians 5:11

Prayer: 

Father God

Thank you that you care about every detail of our lives. There’s nothing too small or too big for you to be interested in and there is no wound too deep for you to heal.

Maybe there is someone in this room who feels that they have more experience with cold and painful words spoken over them in their lives and not so much hope and encouragement. Lord, we know that it’s not too late. We know that you can heal and make new. Reach into the depths of us, will you, and mend the bits that are broken?

We know that you are the Healer. That we don’t have to settle for wounds that won’t heal even if we’re used to them being there. We don’t have to tell the story of the way those wounds were inflicted and shrug and say, ‘That’s just how I am.’ Thank you that you are a God of restoration. That you want far more for us than this.

Teach us how to be encouragers, Father. To listen for your voice when you prompt us and be obedient to speak if you ask us to. To notice people, really notice them. To take opportunities to build up and point people to you, for you are the answer, whatever the question.

Teach us to want the best for each other, and always be on the lookout as to how we can encourage each other to keep going in pursuit of your best for us.

Lord, teach us more about the power that we have to change each others lives, and teach us how to use it wisely. Let us only bless, and never harm. Let us love, inspire, nurture, comfort and encourage each other.

In the name of Jesus Christ

Amen.

After this we made 'Encouragement boxes' where we decorated our own little box, and then wrote on small cards words of encouragement for each other. People were encouraged to pray for an individual and wait on God to see if there was anything specific that He wanted to say. We used scripture, wrote prayers, told anecdotes and gave thanks for each other. Everyone went home with a box of cards to read through and be encouraged by. 

Letter to the one who noticed

Hello, my child.

I just wanted you to know that you're doing alright. You're so hard on yourself and you still hold fast to that tendency of yours to assume that if something isn't perfect, then it's not good enough. Well, I alone am perfect. Try and remember that, will you?

I see how hard you're trying. I've noticed. I've noticed that you whisper my name under your breath when faced with a situation that upsets you; whether you're anxious, angry or confused. I hear it when you scream it in your head or exhale it in a sigh. I hear, and I am there. Think, now, you have noticed me too, haven't you?  You're learning that it really does make a difference. 

All your life, I've been leaving you little notes, now and again. Little things that you'll understand. You're getting better at noticing and interpreting them and it delights me when you do. I see your pleasure and it pleases me.

I understand that you see me more easily in some things than others - I know that lions remind you of Aslan from CS Lewis and you think straight away of me. I know that when you see a rainbow you think of my promise not to flood the world again. When you see a sunset, a mountain range or lightning you are awed and you reflect on my glory.

I hear your overwhelmed words of gratitude when you gaze at your children (particularly when they're asleep!) and it makes me smile. You're recognising more and more that the things you have are blessings from me.

I saw you on your stomach on the lawn the other day taking a photograph of a butterfly in the grass, and I saw you stop to point out a tiny flower growing between the pavers on the road. I love it that your daughters know now that their Mummy wants to stop and notice and take pictures of those little messages that I leave in your path.

I hope that one day they too will understand they are gifts from me. Make sure that you tell them.

I don't miss a single thing, my love, and to see you appreciate those little tokens of beauty and love that I leave for you makes my heart swell.

It's good to notice. 

You're doing well, but I want you to notice much more. 

There is so much more. I am visible in subtleties as well as grandeur. And this is a hard one: I am there in the clouds as well as the sunlight. Anyone can smile when all around them is warm and happy; I want you to learn to notice my presence in the darkness as well as the light. 

I am there when you're at the end of your tether after a day when you have been unable to find a moment to yourself. I am there when you sit and chew your fingers regretting the thing that you've just said or done. I am there when you feel at odds with the world, when you feel that you spend your life trying to make others happy, and when you complain who is caring for you?  I am there, too, and I'm caring.

I want you to learn to find me in those situations as well as the moments of tranquility and joy. It's a real sign of maturity when you choose to trust me in the middle of pain or confusion or depression, and it's time for you to learn to be better at it. There are still things to be thankful for in the most miserable of circumstances. 

Try to find those things. Look carefully, and I promise you that you will find them. I will help you if necessary, until you get the hang of it.

The thing is, something special happens when you reach for me at times like that. I am right there to be found, just as I am when you're on your mountain top, breathing in the vista with a smile on your face. I am always there, close by, arms outstretched. 

Feelings are deceptive, you know. Sometimes you need to make a decision to act even when you don't feel like it. I know that you don't particularly want to hear that as you are led by your feelings, but I know that you understand the truth of it. It's a hard thing to learn, but you can do it.

When you take hold of me in faith when you don't feel any positive emotion at all - that gives me an opportunity to pull you closer. When you find it in you to lift your praises when you feel more like cursing, or when you thank me when you don't feel thankful, those are the times when I see how much more like me you are growing. 

Don't get hung up on this. I know that you'll read these words over and over and berate yourself for not being able to do it, bringing up every occasion you can think of where you failed. I don't keep a track of those times. I see every effort you make; every time you lift your eyes or your hands and every time you take a step forward you make me smile. There's a long way to go, and there's more to see than you can imagine.

I have so much for you, but if I gave it to you all at once, you wouldn't cope. Take it one step at a time. I'm walking with you, remember, and I never get tired. 

I am proud of you, little one.

You're doing fine.  

With my love

Jesus



Linking up with Sabrina Fowles and Ruth Povey at 'Letters To...'
This fortnight we're at Sabrina's place and the prompt was: 'Letter to the one who noticed'.

Mud pies and me too

Morning, Lord.

***

...and that's where I left it. Nearly two weeks ago.

Struggling to come here and struggling to talk to you and then clearly it's no surprise that I've got nothing to say. So, because I have nothing, I don't come here and I don't talk to you and the whole thing goes over and over and gets bigger and bigger. I become more and more self-conscious and more and more inhibited and I wonder if it's worth it at all.

Lord, I've got myself in a mess.

I know that you're with me always. I know that you're with me through thick and thin and I know that any progress I make comes from you. I know that you have given me gifts, and that you want me to use them. I know that you have a Plan for me and I know that your timing is perfect.

So, I reckon that you're used to me panicking when things go wrong; I moan and I complain and I cling onto you harder. I am there every time you turn round and when you do, you trip over me, I'm so clingy. I need you and I know it. But what's surprised me recently is how I panic when things go right.

It's only a little thing. Only small, and for some people I know who are way past where I am in this little journey of ours, it must seem tiny. Here it is (and I'm cringing as I write it):

I come and spend time with you, and for a couple of years now it's been my habit to have a waffle with you and then press a small orange button that says 'publish' and let other people in on my meanderings. Sometimes people tell me they liked what I shared. Sometimes there's a deafening silence. Sometimes it makes my heart swell when people tell me that you moved them to tears or to laughter through the words I tapped out. The best thing of all is when someone says, 'Oh, me too!' Then - that's when I know that you are smiling. There's nothing you like more than to see your children reach for each other in encouragement and love. That's when I know that there is nothing else that I want to do, other than this.

So over the last few months I've known that you were smiling. I've felt it, and so have others. People are joining in our conversations and maybe - who knows but you? - my dream is starting to come true and they are seeing you, hearing you, and joining their voices with mine, their prayer and praise with mine. It's wonderful.

People are so kind with words of encouragement, and then occasionally someone is unkind because the things I say about you make them angry and offended and they hit back with hurtful criticism. You don't leave me alone to handle it; you're there when they're mean as well as when they're nice. I have read it, worried about it, debated what to do with it and moved on past it a few times now. I know full well that not everyone will agree with me. I know that not everyone accepts what I know about you. Some people might some day; some never will.

It's the way it works.

But what I'm not used to is a growing audience. I'm not used to writing guest posts for other people's websites and then seeing visits here from a whole new set of people; family from around the world.

Chicken.

I know where you are when I'm in trouble, but these last few weeks I've lost sight of you when things go well.

I don't mean that I'm off doing my thing, basking in the sweetness of success, thinking that I can do it all alone; no. It's not that. It's as if it was so much easier when there were only a few people listening, and I knew almost all of them. I remember when I pressed the 'publish' button for the very first time. I wrote in my journal, 'Will anyone read what I've written? Why should anyone care?' and it was such a quiet, intimate thing. It was just me and you.

Nothing has changed. No, nothing. It's still just me and you. But in my head, I'm all self-conscious again. What on earth do people think?

In that first post-publish journal entry I said that it was up to you, Lord. Up to you whether anyone came by or not. Up to you whatever happened.

Nothing has changed.

I once had a friend who was always there for me when my life was in a mess. Broken up with a boyfriend? There she was with tissues and a bottle of wine. Struggling with exams or poorly or lamenting about the failure of the latest diet? She was there with sympathy and a listening ear and a bag of marshmallows.

But when things were going right? Nowhere to be seen.

She was my rainy-weather-friend and she didn't like to see me when I was happy. She didn't like things to be going well. I never really got to the bottom of why, as we drifted apart during a phase of my life when I was doing ok. She didn't return my calls and didn't come to drink coffee when there were no tears involved.

I feel as if I'm a bit like that right now. When it's you and me against the world (or when it feels like that) I am here all the time and I stay close, but when things start to go right; when you start to give me a little of what I've so badly wanted - I am off like a rat up a drainpipe. Off. Maybe it's safer to stay where things are familiar, anonymous.

What do I want, if not for people to read what I write? I firmly believe that if you have given me a gift, I should use it. If you want me to write, then you must want people to read what I write. So I should be pleased when people do, shouldn't I? Instead of panicking and going into a flat spin before running off and hiding. I should be happy instead of filled with anxiety. Encouraged and enthused instead of oppressed by it.

I have often wondered where I'm heading with all this, and I've chafed at what I perceive to be slow progress. I think I now understand why the brakes have been on - when you take them off, even for a moment, it rattles me so much that I stop in my tracks and start to sabotage the whole thing by standing in the road like a rabbit caught in the headlights of an oncoming car.

People come to see what you and I talk about. So... if I don't talk to you, then they won't come any longer.  All subconscious, you know, but horribly effective. If there's nothing to see, they don't come. Why would they?

I've tried to work out what to do about this, and the only thing I can do is the same as I've always done. I lay it all in front of you.

Here it is. Here am I, with all my strange neuroses and unpredictable panics. It would be funny, if it wasn't so discouraging. I am used to failure, but give me something that goes right instead and I don't know what to do with it.

The amazing thing is that I laid this all in front of you and you smiled that slightly amused, indulgent smile that you smiled and you said, 'It's alright'. You found a handful of your best encouragers and you placed them where I'd find them. You linked me up with a few people that I may never meet in this life, who have become friends in the most meaningful sense of the word. Wise people whose words lift up, not destroy. People who are open and honest about the ups and downs of life and don't try to preach but just tell it like it is.

The Internet is a strange place. Some people criticise it for being shallow and trivial but I have found it exactly the reverse. There are people around the world who have helped me when I needed helping in just the right way. Other people who write who know how insecure it can make you feel. People who know that a word or two of encouragement - even when limited to 140 characters or a comments box - can change someone's day. Stop someone from giving up. Assure someone that they're not alone. Raise a smile when tears have been the order of the day.

I've said, 'I'm struggling,' and people said, 'Me too.'
I've said, 'This is hard,' and people said, 'It is. But you can do it.'
I've said, 'I don't know if I can do this,' and people said, 'Me neither, but He helped me, and He'll help you too'.
I've said, 'I worry that I'm not good enough,' and people said, 'We're not, but He is.'

Who'd have thought it? I've learned that if I stick my head above the parapet, the things that have hit and hurt the most haven't been thrown by anyone else but me.  I can talk myself out of the wonder and pleasure of any experience and find that it's easier to stay crouched down low, hiding, than risk going somewhere where the air might be cleaner and the view so much better.

CS Lewis once said:

'It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about ... when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday by the sea. We are far too easily pleased.'

Maybe I'm too easily pleased. I told you that it was alright if only half a dozen people read what I write, and it was ok if lots of people read it. Then when you move me away from a) towards b) I scuttle off back to my mud pies. I know where I am with mud pies. What do you mean, the seaside? That sounds very open and exposed to me...think I'll stay where I am...if you don't mind...

But no. That's not how it's going to be.

I just want to say, once again, that I am along for the ride. I just want to keep doing what we do together, Lord, you and me.

I want to notice you in my life, I want to tell people about what you're doing and I want to encourage and inspire.

I want people to see you and see how wonderful you are.

I want to be honest enough that people say, 'Me too,' because that connection is invaluable. I don't feel anywhere near such a failure when someone says, 'I feel that way too,' and I have such hope when someone says, 'I felt that way - and things are better now'. That's the power of connecting with people. Little words on a screen can pack such a punch.

I'm sorry that I've been all over the place lately. I'm sorry for the uncertainty and doubt and anxiety when you have always looked after me and you have always been the one who gives me words and there's no reason for that to change now.

It isn't about me. It isn't about me.

Thank you, Father, for your gentleness and compassion in this latest strange lesson in my life. Thank you for the honesty and vulnerability of those people whose struggles they've shared with me this past week. Thank you that you have introduced me to family scattered all over the world who are so different and yet all love you and are willing to reach out and be reached by brothers and sisters who need encouragement.

Thank you that you are a God who has no problem moving with the times and working  as powerfully through twenty-first century social media as you do through the pulpit and the printing press.

Thank you for every person who visits here and reads about you and about my limping, imperfect journey. Thank you (gulp) for stats and comments and guest blogs and 'Me too,' moments.

And, Lord, thank you for the words.

Thank you.