Tag Archives: featured

Dealing with Change, Surviving Tough Times

Shaken?

Leave a comment

My smallest girl was so excited yesterday unwrapping our Christmas snow globes.  She gave each one a little shake before she found a place for them on the bookshelf and watched the swirl of white glitter surround the figures within.

This time of year is a bit like living in a shaken snow globe.  All the busyness of school plays and concerts, shopping, cooking and trying to get everything done is like a huge swirl of glitter celebrating yet surrounding and sometimes obscuring the message at its heart.

At the centre of my advent snowglobe there’s the extraordinary miracle of a newborn king laid in a manger, Almighty God constrained in weakness, a world changed forever.  I desperately want to celebrate it, to marvel with the shepherds at the miracle of the incarnation, to be soaked in the reality of God-with-us.

And yet there are days when all I can see is the snow, and however hard I try I can barely make out the outline of the new parents cradling my lord and my saviour. This postcard is exactly where I’ve been for the last few weeks, struggling to get a glimpse of Jesus through the snowstorm.

When I started to pray about this picture I was certain that God was going to talk to me about finding stillness,  about making space for the glitter to settle so that I can see clearly.  And that would no doubt be a great plan.  But I was wrong, he wanted to say something quite different –

 Know

Just know it.  Even when you can’t see it, know that he is there, at the very centre.

The shaking of our snow globes doesn’t remove the figures inside, just obscures them.

Know

This Christmas, even when you can’t see for glitter, know that he did invade the world that he created.  Know that he brought his Kingdom to Earth and that, in spite of all appearances, the increase of his government and peace will not end.

Know

Know that however much the snow globe of your life is shaken, and by whatever means, he will still be there. Even when it feels as though the world has been turned upside down and the storm is at its most suffocating – nothing has changed… he is still there.

And it is possible to reach out through the storm or the glitter and catch hold of him, not seeing perhaps, but touching the miracle of the God who loved us and came to pitch his tent among us.

He is still there

God with us.

 

 

 

 

Living the Life

Bigger on the inside.

1 Comment

I don’t often dig out old posts out of the archives… But I think this one deserves another airing.  If like me you’re already drowning under tinsel, star-shaped cookies and costumes for the Christmas show, you might find this helps restore some of the wonder!

 

********************************************************

If you’re reading this in the UK you probably don’t need me to tell you what this postcard is, or why I associate it with Christmas… but for those of you that aren’t:

This is the TARDIS. It’s from the long running UK TV show Dr Who and it’s a time-travelling spaceship. It’s become something of an iconic image and because of the unmissably excellent Christmas Day special episodes, it doesn’t seem entirely out of place in the jumble of jolly santas, cherubic angels and sprigs of holly.

Apart from that, all you need to know is this: It’s bigger on the inside.

On the outside it’s the size and shape of a 1960’s British Police telephone box (a regular sight on UK streets when this series started, ten years before I was born!), but on the inside it is apparently vast (there are even rumours of a swimming pool.)  Ask any Dr Who fan to describe the TARDIS and that’s what they’ll tell you – ‘it’s bigger on the inside’.

Think of how you would gasp in awe and wonder if you were to walk through that little blue door and discover that it is so much more than it appears to be.  Think of how you would run outside again to check and double check what you were seeing.  Think of how much your mind would be expanded!

Wow!

Awesome!

That really would be amazing.  To see something that so defied my understanding of how things are, how they work, of what is possible.  I’m pretty sure that I would be bursting to tell people about it but might also struggle to find the right words to describe how that discovery makes me feel…

All this reminds me of another image I associate with Christmas day:

A new-born baby.  Small, soft-skinned and helpless. Wrapped in a cloth and lying in a straw-filled manger.

And when I look, I hear God whisper,

“Can you see it?… Can you see what the shepherds saw, what the wise men travelled to see?”

“He’s bigger on the inside”

This is the extraordinary miracle of Christmas for me, perhaps even more amazing than the Easter-miracle of the resurrection:

Our God who spoke the universe into the existence and holds every part of it together; our God who said “let there be light” and who is the light;  our God who is infinitely powerful, infinitely wise, infinitely creative, infinitely loving, infinitely big; everything that he is is somehow contained inside that tiny cloth-wrapped package in the manger… Astounding.

For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him

Colossians 1:19

Take a moment today to let that sink in again.

Take some time to be awestruck,

to marvel.

and don’t be fooled by the tiny, helpless, sweet-smelling, soft-skinned baby in the manger…

He’s so much more than he appears to be.

Seriously bigger on the inside.

tardisfeat

Identity

A New Name?

Leave a comment

Should I be Brown Owl or Fluffy Owl?  I need a new name as I become a Brownie leader, and I apparently I get to pick my own…

Names.

The thing that keeps rising in my mind is that the Bible gives so much weight to names.  They matter, and not so much the names that parents give to their children, but especially the names that God chooses to give to people… names that mark out something of their identity and destiny. And I especially love new names.

Abram- exalted father, became Abraham – father of a multitude.

Sarai – quarrelsome, became Sarah – princess or noblewoman

Simon- God has heard, became Peter – the rock.

I’ve known for a long while how important it is to step away from  negative names that other people sometimes ‘give’ me.  Even if they’re occasionally true about the way I behave – they’re not my name, and they don’t define who I am or who I’m going to be. Walking free of those names is important. But God isn’t just in the business of taking negative names away, he always wants to replace them with something new and better!

A while ago I started asking God what his names were for me.  I’ve waited a while for an answer and then tried to step out and live in the truth of what I’m hearing.  Some of those names I share with all of you who follow Jesus : Beloved, Precious, Righteous, Daughter (or Son), Princess (or Prince) and many others.  They’re our family names. Our shared identity and destiny.

But I believe that God also has personal names for each of us, and that it’s OK to ask him about them.  For example, one of the names he gave me, surprisingly through someone who didn’t really know me at all, is Map. It seems that one of my roles in the kingdom is to be a treasure map. Hunting out treasure and directing other people to where it can be found.  Knowing that Map is one of God’s names for me has given me the courage (and sometimes the determination) to keep writing and painting this blog.  It’s sometimes been about choosing to live in the truth of that name.

Thinking about and praying about and journaling about this name and others has been really powerful for me.  So my question for you to ponder this week is: What new names does God have for you? You can make a list of ‘family’ names and ask him about them, and you can also ask him about personal names.  Of course the only way to find out those is to ask him and then to listen!

 

**********************************************************

The other names that are on my mind this week are from Isaiah 6 –  The the names of identity and destiny that God the Father gave to his son, hundreds of years before he was born on Earth, but which resonate with so much of what our world is longing for right now.  Miraculous wisdom, strength, love and peace. Come Lord Jesus.

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given

and the government will be upon his shoulders

and he will be called

WONDERFUL COUNSELOR

MIGHTY GOD

EVERLASTING FATHER

PRINCE OF PEACE

and of the increase of his government and peace, there will be no end.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Identity, Living the Life

Cactus Flowers

3 Comments

 

Let me first admit that flowering Cacti always make me giggle.

My husband once gave me a tiny flowering cactus for an anniversary gift, cheekily claiming that it was a much better picture of his love for me than a short-lived bouquet of greenhouse-grown shop-bought flowers.  He also told me his choice had nothing to do with the fact they were on special offer at the petrol station, or that he hadn’t remembered the date until after the florist was shut.

Flowering cacti make me smile because just a few days later I discovered that the bright pink flower – the living parable of my beloved’s love for me –  was in fact a dried straw flower, stuck onto the tiny baby cactus with a glue gun.
Apparently I’m not the only one to a have fallen for this trick! The dried flowers can even sometimes still open and close as humidity levels change, giving the impression they are alive.  It’s only when you turn them upside down that the big blob of glue gives the game away.

This picture speaks to me about choosing not to join in with the worldwide game of pretending to be something you’re not.  Cacti are amazing, they can survive the heat and drought and make use of the rain when it comes. It may take years and years for them to come to maturity, but when they do the flowers are spectacular, eye-catching and extraordinary. Every bit worth the wait.

I found out about the great flowering cactus scam while listening to a special edition of Gardeners’ Question Time on the radio.   It was then that I reached out, turned my love-cactus over and discovered the glue-blob of truth.  (Sometimes it takes a moment of revelation and the willingness to ask ourselves an uncomfortable question to make us realise where we’re faking it.)  After I’d recovered from the shock I listened to the rest of the program to see what I could do to get my cactus to produce a genuine flower.

According to Bob Flowerdew, the answer is to give it as much sun as you possibly can, and then wait… maybe for years…

Don’t settle for faking it.  You are a person who is meant to flower.  In your own way, and in your own time you will unfurl into a hand-designed, individual bloom. And that flower, whatever it looks like, will bring glory to the one who created it and has always known how it will be.

Until then, sit in the light.  Know that every ray of it you absorb will go into producing an incredible bloom.  Much better than a stuck on dried flower could ever be.

 

 

 

 

 

Living the Life, Surviving Tough Times

Three Bears’ Prayers

2 Comments

I was in a prayer meeting one morning last week with a few other Mums from the girls’ school.  We pray for a lot of different things in that meeting, from strength for the teachers to protection from illness to air conditioners lasting for one more season. But at this point we’d been talking about how hard the middle school years can be and were praying together especially for the christian kids in year 7, 8 and 9.

A prayer was forming in my head along the lines of the kids surviving those years with their faith intact when next to me my friend Shannon started praying for something altogether bigger and more beautiful.  She prayed that each of those kids would grow to have their sense of identity, of self, so grounded in their identity in Christ that they would be immune to the pressure to be anyone or anything else.   Wow! Even as I write it again I can feel my faith stretching.  How great would that be?

As I sat there in the prayer meeting and felt my faith grow and expand to fit the bigger vision of Shannon’s prayer I thought to myself, ‘we just went up a size’.

It felt as if Shannon had prayed a big brother prayer to the one in my head.  Not one that was more important, but one that stretched my faith to the next size up.

And just in that moment, this postcard popped into my head, with the words:

‘Now go for the Daddy Bear Prayer’.

For once, I understood exactly what God was saying to me – Baby Bear has a little bowl, a little chair and a little bed; Mummy Bear’s things are middle-sized; but Daddy Bear’s bowl is huge, his chair is huge and his bed is huge – so, a Daddy Bear prayer must be huge.

Sometimes we need to get hold of our faith and pull at it until it fits something bigger.  Fortunately, faith is stretchy and it grows when it’s under tension like skin for a skin-graft.  So I asked myself, ‘what would be a huge, faith-stretching prayer to pray for our year 7-9s look like?

So, I let my faith spread out a bit and I prayed that they would be not only protected, with their identity rooted in Christ, but that they would become equipped and empassioned for mission, transforming the culture they live in, seeing their friends and teachers come to faith, changing their world. Not individual beaten-up survivors but a strong united victorious army.

Now that, for our little beleaguered bunch of Christian kids, is a faith-expanding prayer… I’m so going to keep on praying it.

The point of this postcard wasn’t to get you to pray for middle-schoolers (although please do, they need all they can get, bless them), but to ask you, ‘What are the three bears prayers for your situation?’

What’s the little prayer that is easiest to pray?

What’s the medium sized prayer that stretches out your faith?

And what’s the massive Daddy-Bear-Prayer that your faith only covers a corner of, but which puts it under the tension it needs to spread out and grow?

Write them down now, then get out your faith, give it a stretch and pray some big prayers into your situation, and into others’ situations.

Let’s release a volley of Daddy-Bear-prayers and see what our faithful God might do.

Surviving Tough Times

Full of holes

2 Comments

There have been times this past week when I’ve felt rather like a colander, full of holes.

It’s all very well standing before God and asking him to fill me up again when I feel like a bucket. Even if I’ve run completely dry and empty I can gather together the faith that the Holy Spirit is good at filling me up with his presence, peace and power.

But this week it was harder. We’ve been camping at our church stream’s Bible camp and although the teaching, worship and fellowship were great, the weather was a bit challenging! Putting up an enormous tent in driving rain was not ideal, lying awake and shivering in our sleeping bags at 3 am was a bit wearing, but when rain gave way to gales, and the marquee housing the prayer space that I and others had worked hard to put together literally blew away, it was quite a struggle to keep hold of my sense of humour!

We salvaged stuff and rebuilt the space somewhere else of course, but I was left feeling just like this picture – like tiredness, stress and disappointment had knocked out lots and lots of little holes. And asking God to fill me felt a bit hopeless. I mean, how do you fill a colander?

His answer was simple.

Call on me more.
I can fill you faster than you can leak.
Even on colander-days.

Actually I suspect that I’m a bit colanderish on more days than I realise. I get the impression that God is not as surprised by my state of leakiness as I am.

So if you’re feeling full of holes today, ask God to fill you to overflowing. Don’t fall for the lie that there isn’t really any point because you’re a bit broken and full of holes. He is more than able to fill you faster than you can leak.

*sorry to all those who have noticed I’ve been a bit less regular posting over the past few weeks! Canal boating is a great get-away-from-it-all holiday, but low on opportunities for internet connection! Back on dry land again soon! Ellie x

Living the Life

Lists, lists, lists

Leave a comment

It’s official – I am drowning in a sea of lists… In the past week I’ve flown to England (sorry there was no postcard last week!) and am now getting ready for camping with the family and preparing my son for a trip to Africa. Packing for a six week trip in a country which has unpredictable weather always stresses me out a bit, and I always get it wrong (too many pairs of shorts, not enough cardigans..) and the camping/vaccinations/visas are pushing me slightly over the edge 🙂
One way I try to keep that stress under control is to write lists.. Lots and lots and lots of lists.
I have lists of clothes, of medications, of jobs I have to do before I leave, of items that need a charger, things I need to tell my husband, emails I need to write and pictures I want to paint. All of them scribbled on the backs of till receipts and envelopes, mostly never to be read again. Lists are slightly taking over my life.

My husband, who has a much more orderly mind than mine, just can’t understand why I write so many lists (especially as I tend not to read them again). But I find the process of writing them really helpful for three reasons:

Firstly, it helps me to prioritise; to focus on those things that need doing.

Secondly, it changes my perspective, and changes my heart (so that I calm down and panic less!)

Thirdly, it actually helps me to remember, to bring to the front of my mind all the things I need to remember.

The lists which are collecting on the fridge and in the bottom of my handbag and back pages of my sketchbooks remind me of a list I’ve been writing recently, and which is important for all the reasons above: a thanks list.

A friend challenged me a while ago to write a list of everything I have to be thankful to God for. I’ve been working on it for a while and as you can imagine it’s turning into something of an epic.

Strangely, just like I don’t really realise how many jobs there are to do until I start writing the list, so I didn’t realise just how many reasons I have to be thankful to God until I started to write them down.

More importantly, I can feel it changing my heart. Writing the never-ending list is pushing me deeper and deeper into a sense of ‘I have’ instead of ‘I need’. And even though I’m really only at the beginning of this particular journey, I’m experiencing a wonderful unfolding revelation of what it means to say that God is my provider.

So this week’s postcard is simply an encouragement to write lists:
a list of prayers you’ve seen answered
a list of all the people you love
of all the good books you’ve read
all the ways God has provided for you financially
all the positive influences in your life
all the spiritual blessings that are yours in Christ
all the material things you take for granted
all the necessities and all the luxuries
all the songs you love
all the paintings that have lifted your heart
all the things that make you smile
and all the best moments in your life that you can remember…*

*if you have any more ideas for sub-lists of things to be thankful for, put them in the comments!

Living the Life

What does Freedom look like?

Leave a comment

I’ve been wondering this week what freedom looks like.  I’m painting a piece for a prayer room around the theme of finding freedom, so the question has been bubbling away all week!  One picture that comes to my mind is this hot air balloon, breaking free from the ropes that held it down and heading into a vast unexplored sky.

Freedom is finally becoming all that you were always meant to be.

The balloon is beautiful.  It is a joy to watch it become slowly inflated with warm air, to see it grow out into its shape, to watch it as it eventually strains against the ropes that tether it to the ground.

At each stage it is wonderful, holding all the potential to become truly itself, to fulfill its purpose, to be all it can be.

And yet, it is not until it is released from the ties that hold it down that it is able to be truly itself, to do what it was designed for.

I listened to a talk recently by one of my favourite authors and speakers, NT Wright.  In it he mentioned about how when people have been sick for a long time we sometimes say that they are ‘a shadow of their former self’.   But, he says, to a follower of Jesus you can say ‘you are only a shadow of your future self, because as you become more like Jesus in the way you think, feel and behave, the more free to be truly yourself you are.

I love that idea so much.  Just like this balloon, being slowly filled and then being released one rope at a time – through your choices you are transformed into his likeness, through his Spirit you are filled with power and as you are cut free from the things of the world that hinder you, you will change,  becoming more like yourself than you have ever been before.

So this postcard is an encouragement, firstly not to lose hope when the journey seems long, but secondly, not to become too accustomed to life on the ground.

Strain towards what is ahead.

Don’t fall for the lie that it’s better to stay safe and uninflated on the ground.  Don’t fall for the lie that you are all that you will ever be. And don’t fall for the lie that some chains just can’t be broken.

You are only a shadow of your future self.

You are designed to fly.

hotairballoonfeat

For Your Journal:

If you’re filled, but not yet flying, maybe you’re not quite free.  Even one rope can have the power to keep you close to the ground.  Take some time to ask God to show you if there are any ‘ropes’ in your life that he wants you to deal with..  Then ask him what it will take to deal with them.  If you need to, go and find someone you trust who can pray with you.

Living the Life

Umbrella.

2 Comments

I seem to spend a lot of June and July under an umbrella.  Not because it’s raining, but because my fair, freckly, northern-European skin makes me fundamentally unsuited to the Mediterranean sun.  So,  a shade-junkie, I dart about between patches of coolness, clutching a bottle of water and wearing a big hat.

Because I appreciate the shade so much, I love these verses from Psalm 121:

The Lord watches over you—
    the Lord is your shade at your right hand;
 the sun will not harm you by day,
    nor the moon by night.

Sometimes, even a big hat isn’t quite enough.  The first time I saw someone carrying an umbrella like this in brilliant sunshine, however, I thought it looked very odd indeed.  Where I come from umbrellas are sold in the autumn when skies are ominously grey and then blow inside out on arctic railway station platforms.  In my mind, unless it’s enormous and anchored to a lump of concrete outside a cafe,  an umbrella is about keeping dry.

But in a Cyprus summer it’s not uncommon to see an umbrella on a blazing hot day, carried by someone who needs a portable pool of respite from the harsh sun.

God is speaking to me today about the shade he offers, about his promise to protect me day in and day out, about his constant presence over, around and next to me.

Firstly, like this umbrella, his shade is portable. I don’t have to dart from prayer meeting to church meeting, from quiet time to worship CD to experience his protection, his presence.  I can carry it with me all the time.  There is truth in the words that he is always with me, and his intention is that I should experience it.

Secondly, God’s protection is at work in season and out of season.  It may be that you are used to experiencing God’s help in one area of your life, but it has simply never occured to you to ask for it in another situation.  Perhaps you haven’t seen that an umbrella can be as helpful in sunshine as it is in rain.

Lastly, I also notice that there is room under this shelter for more than one person.  One of the great advantages of an umbrella is that it moves with you.  You can take it into places where it is needed and then invite others to walk alongside you for a while.  As they walk with you, they too can experience the shelter of God’s love, the nearness of his presence.  Today’s postcard is an encouragement to me to invite others to walk beside me, to learn to let other people step into the presence of God that I carry with me.  I’ll have to let you know how I get on with learning how to do that.

God is always with us. But it is possible to carry an umbrella in all kinds of weather, and yet never put it up, never stand underneath it and benefit from its shelter.  Perhaps today the Holy Spirit is calling you to step under his protection, to stop trying to brave it out by yourself and to ask for some help.

Whatever God is saying you today, I hope that you will enjoy the shade of his presence as you draw close to him.

Living the Life

Diving for Treasure

2 Comments

“Just throw them in one more time Mummy, pleeeease!”

I’m on holiday, so I spent the morning throwing diving toys into the pool over and over again. ‘Treasure’ for my six year old mermaid to retrieve from the bottom of the deep.

After a while I observed a technique developing. I would throw all the toys in at once, and instead of diving in immediately, my sweet sun-bleached mermaid would stand on the edge of the pool and wait for a while, looking.

Of course I asked her what the pause was for,
“Mummy, you have to wait for water to stop being wiggly before you can see where the treasure is… then you can dive for it.”

The water of my soul has been a bit stirred up lately. A load of things have had my mind busy. not bad things on the whole, but there has been a lot of end-of-term activity, a lot of summer things that need planning and a few slightly stressful jobs lurking at the back of my in-tray, and the water has become churned up. The treasure that I’ve been looking for has been difficult to see, like colorful smudges on the bottom of the pool.
so I heard God speak to me today – you really need to let the water settle.
I went back to the pool later, when the mermaid had gone inside to eat watermelon and watch High School Musical for the hundredth time, and it was still. Every toy was as visible as if it were already in my hand.

Stillness matters.

But for me, it doesn’t seem to be enough to just say ‘be still, my soul’. I actually have to do something to pull all those stirrers-up out of the water or at least to stop them thrashing about so much… So I did what I know how to do, I sat down and wrote a list of the things that help me find stillness.

Going for a walk, or a long swim
Listening to certain kinds of music
Writing a list of all the things that are stressing me, and then praying about each one.
Reminding myself that stillness isn’t a reward for those who are super good, or super spiritual, and that it is not, therefore, out out of my reach.