Peace please

Afternoon, God.

I have half an hour with a cup of tea. This is not going to be a long, exploratory conversation. It's more of a quick check in because I'm feeling all over the place. 

I need some peace. The world isn't giving me any; you were right there. I need your peace. As your child I'm supposed to be equipped with it all the time but there seems to be something wrong. It's going wrong.

There's so much I need to learn. I know your method of getting me to learn is to give me many opportunities to learn a particular lesson and I'd just like you to know that I'm not enjoying it much. I'd really appreciate it if I could just wake up one morning (tomorrow? Please?) and it's all been assimilated and I am a New Person. 

I need to learn that I can't do everything. That my attempts to please everyone are inevitably going to fail. That in wanting people's approval so badly I'm relying on them much more than is healthy, or necessary. It ain't going to work. 

I need to stop looking to other people to shore up my confidence. Only you can do that. If someone disapproves of me, but you don't, then who cares? (Little voice says, 'Me'.) If I disappoint someone who had unrealistic expectations of me, or expectations that are different from yours - but you're not disappointed, then what does it matter? (Little voice: ...but it does seem to matter.)

I need to stop looking to other people to dictate my mood. If someone else has a black cloud following them round, then nowhere does it say that I have to climb under it as well. I don't have to adopt someone else's attitude. That's so, so hard. I can be absolutely fine first thing in a morning if the circumstances are right, and as soon as I lock horns with any other member of the household who may have got out of bed the wrong side, my sense of wellbeing sort of crumbles. How can I keep my own equilibrium when people around me are spoiling for a fight, or flopping about miserably, or looking for reasons to complain? It's fine when I can soak up their sunshine, or bask in their rainbow, but I'd rather have my own little peaceful microclimate, please. This might sound trivial but it's getting me down.

I need to stand firm whatever the season. When it's sunny and when it's raining. When the gales blow and my leaves are blown off, I need to stand vertically, looking only up at you. When skies are blue and when they're grey and lowering. Lord, I feel as if my roots are not strong enough and I'm not sucking up enough of you to keep me steady. I feel frail and wishy washy. I so want to be strong. 

I need to learn to lean on you and you only. I'm not self-sufficient. People say that the only person you can trust is yourself, but I know that I come to grief when I do that - I can't rely on me any more than I can rely on someone else. Other people are great, but there are times when they're not there. Friends aren't on the end of the phone. People have their own worries and troubles and sometimes, with the best will in the world, they're not there. They might be right there, but not there.

You know what I mean.

So I need you. The only One who'll never let me down. The only One who is always there. The only One totally, completely, wonderfully, powerfully on my side. Father, I have a knot in my stomach. 

John 16:33
'I have told you these things so that you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world!'

Thankyou God that you've overcome the world. I can't imagine that this is how it's supposed to be. What was it like before Adam and Eve messed it up, Lord?  Because right now the world that I live in is indeed in trouble. On a big scale and a small one. My life sometimes seems to be a mess of human relationships which have sparks of absolute wonder and joy and troughs of confusion and misunderstanding and hurt feelings and resentment. I'm tired.

I'm needing that peace you told me about. The peace that I've tasted before, but in my struggling and failing and falling I keep letting go of it. Thankyou that you are endlessly merciful. You keep on loving and forgiving and topping me up.

I will take heart because you have overcome the world.

Romans 15:13
'May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.'

Yes, please. Peace, please. So that my stomach doesn't get knotted up and so that my heart doesn't feel heavy in my chest. Joy - that would be wonderful. Sometimes just keeping on keeping on seems to take up so much of my energy that joy seems too much to hope for.  And hope too? I have a hope. A hope of a day when all the rubbish is a thing of the past.

I'll take all you have of that.

My God of hope, joy, peace. I trust you. 

Your love is the anchor

Evening, God.

I don't know where I am at the moment. Either up or down and not very much between the two. I suppose it's to be expected but I'm not that keen on the roller coaster feeling. I didn't realise that we never got off the roller coaster last year when Katy's neck looked to be healing well and the consultant at the hospital discharged us. It turns out that it hadn't stopped after all. It had paused back at the beginning but the seat belts never clicked undone and it was so still that we didn't notice. Now we're off being dragged along and I don't want to do it again.

Got to stop being so maudlin. Onto more cheerful things.

The other day was Katy's birthday party and we had sixteen children at a local soft play centre for a disco and games and food and climbing and sliding and lots of noise. Katy had on her Batman T shirt and thoroughly enjoyed being Queen Bee. She danced with abandon and blew out her candles and it was lovely. No sign of any worries. I wonder if they're lurking, things she's heard from the doctor or from me that are planted in her mind ready to grow into something.... but there I go again. I'm trying to be positive.

Positive.

She's opened her presents and waved her musical magic wand and shared her new Barbie doll with her big sister (a bit) and now she's sitting on the sofa with Peppa Pig as the exertions of the weekend seem to be catching up with her. Thumb in mouth, eyelids heavy. In church on Sunday she asked me at 11.40 am how long it was until bedtime.

I'm finding positive hard.

Forgive me, Lord. I'm struggling to find words today.

A list is called for. Always seems to fill a gap when I'm short of joining words.

Here we go.

Good Things:

• Elizabeth nearly doing the crab in her second gymnastics class this weekend and so triumphant.
• Katy walking along the beam (low to the ground) all on her own and so triumphant.
• Daffodils. May have mentioned them before but I just love daffodils.
• Good cup of coffee. Like this one. (Scraping the barrel here).
• Friends. I am truly blessed with friends who care. (Not scraping the barrel here).
• You. You're the only thing that never changes. The only thing in my life that's permanent and unshifting and solid and always there. 

In church we sang Brian Doerksen's song 'Faithful One'.  I cried. 

'Faithful one, so unchanging

Ageless one, you're my rock of peace

Lord of all I depend on you

I call out to you, again and again

I call out to you, again and again'

You are faithful and you are unchanging. You are the only thing that is steady enough to cling onto. Lord, I sometimes hate being so helpless. I can't make my daughter better and I can't do anything about so many situations that upset me. I just can't heal and I can't mend and I can't break down barriers. You can do all these things. It mystifies me when you can and you don't. 

But I depend on you. A large part of me doesn't want to because I want to get along by myself. I want to have the answers and I want to be self-sufficient. I don't want to have to surrender control because without it I feel at sea. I feel insecure and uncertain. They've told me that Katy's ill again and every fibre of me wants to make her better. To make it go away. To say, 'No, we're not having this.' To go to the counter and complain and say that we won't put up with this.

But I can't. All I can do is open my hands and depend on you. 

I feel a bit like a child beating my hands against your chest and crying and wailing only to run out of energy and collapse  into your arms and sob. I can stamp and I can ask you, 'Why? Tell me why?' but you don't have to explain yourself to me and you won't. 

Will good come out of Katy's illness? I don't know. Will you see us through it? You did before and you will again. Why? Because you love Katy and you love me. You love our family. Will you be with us all the way through? I know, I know. I know you will. 

'You are my rock in times of trouble

You lift me up when I fall down

All through the storm

Your love is the anchor

My hope is in you alone'

You are my rock. I'm clinging on again. Last year I did a lot of clinging. A lot of waiting and holding on and there were a lot of tears. It was a year where I found you in a new way at the same time as going through some of the toughest times of my life. I fell over again and again and you did indeed lift me up. The storm raged and you did indeed hold me fast. I said that I was adrift - well, you were my anchor. Without you I'd be lost in the ocean and it wouldn't be long before I could tread water no longer and I'd sink. 

You are my anchor. You show me where home is. You keep me afloat. You stop me from drifting. You are secure and faithful. 

Where else could I put my hope? My faith is so small, sometimes. I know parents right now who are going through agonies with their children who may not survive the illness they have. I know Mums for whom Mothers' Day was acutely painful since they are no longer a Mummy to anyone, or for whom motherhood just won't seem to happen. I am so blessed with my two wonderful girls. A husband who loves us. A Mummy of my own for whom a card and chocolates on Mothers' Day just isn't enough. 

I have so much to be thankful for. But still this song started in church and my throat closed. Tears started. 

You are my rock in times of trouble.

I've got trouble again, Father. I need you. I need a hug from my Daddy. I need a good night's sleep. I need to think clearly. I need to hold onto the anchor. 

Lord, I'm sorry if I'm going on about this. I'm just going to say this and then I promise I'll try to focus elsewhere. 

Heavenly Father, heal my little girl. Take away any worries that she has that she hasn't articulated, any half-formed thoughts or confusion that she might have. Make them go away. 

Heal her physically and emotionally and spiritually and any way that needs healing. Leave no scars. 

Don't allow her to sense fear or anxiety in me. It isn't me who's ill. It's not my neck, my lymph system, my body. She doesn't understand that when people hurt her with needles or even sticking plasters that they're doing it for her own good. How frightening must it be to be small and have such trust; depend on your all-powerful parents and then find that they don't stop the bad things from happening after all? Even when you scream, 'Mummy, make them stop! They're hurting me!'  I didn't make it stop and I can't now. I let them take blood and I let them dress her wound but my littlest girl didn't understand. What a betrayal.

Be with my Elizabeth too, Father. I don't know what she thinks about all this. She's kind and tender and vulnerable. She understands more and more as she gets older but she's only so small and having a little sister who's poorly must be so hard to cope with. Last time she was beside herself with worry about her little sister and spent hours making get well cards and pictures and kept asking if Katy was alright. Lizzie is a worrier. She gets anxious and stores things away to worry about (I wonder who she gets that from?). Please place your hand on her and take away anything bad that's planted in her mind or her heart. Don't let it grow and take hold. 

Please don't allow us to focus so much on Katy that we don't notice Elizabeth's struggles. Make sure that Lizzie knows how special she is as well as her little sister. Give us eyes to see and ears to hear and perception to know what needs saying and when. And what should go unsaid. 

Sigh.

Be there, Lord. Come into the middle of all this and bring peace of mind. Circle Katy, Lord. Keep darkness out and peace inside. 

Thankyou for all that you've given me and for the assurance that you will never leave. 

Lord of all, I depend on you

I call out to you, again and again.