Tag Archives: featured

Dealing with Change

Gappiness

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This is my beautiful nearly-six-year-old’s new smile.  Gorgeous isn’t it?

I’ll admit though, that when she ran to me yesterday, yelling with excitement that the wobbly front tooth was finally out, I did have a little moment of grieving for that pearly toothed little-girl-smile that I will never see again.

And then, before I knew it I was wondering what her big teeth will be like: Will they come through straight and strong? Will they look too big for a while in her little mouth? Will she still look like my Katie?

I was stuck there for a moment in an emotional whirlwind, caught up between grief about what has been lost and worry about what is ahead…

And then… she smiled!

…And I heard God whisper  “Gappiness is just so beautiful, isn’t it?”

And it is…

A long long time ago, when I was an architecture student, we spent a month or two talking about liminal spaces: porches; walkways; vestibules; corridors; thresholds; all ‘in-between’ places. We talked about how important it was to help people realise that they are making a transition, to sense that a change is taking place, and to prepare them for space they were about to experience.

I often remember those lectures as I see people around me passing through liminal life-spaces, passing over the threshold between what was and what will be, moving and adjusting from one season to another and travelling the gappiness in between. It helps to recognise the liminal spaces for what they are: temporary places of rest, or refreshment, or preparation.  Gaps where God can prepare us for the next season.  They will pass.  And although they can seem awkward or uncomfortable, they do have a beauty of their own.

Kate showed me this morning that she can just see the tip of the new tooth poking through… before I know it she will have her big-teeth smile… but it will take a while, and for now, I’m going to lean back and enjoy the gappiness.

gappiness

Living the Life

The Bouncing Ball

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In case you don’t know (having had the sense to avoid all sing-along movies for the last eighty-nine years) the bouncing ball is a little animated dot that bounces brightly along the words of a song to keep the sing-along-ers in time (and on the right word!)  It says – THIS IS WHERE WE ARE – PAY ATTENTION.

In my extensive research 🙂 I read just now that when the bouncing ball began life in September 1925 it wasn’t even animated, but a studio employee bounced a tennis ball on a long stick merrily along the words of My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean. Wikipedia even tells me that on the latest sing-along version of Disney’s Frozen the little ball has become a bouncing snowflake… *shudder* As if there can be anyone left in the world who doesn’t already know all the words…

Enough history… I don’t think God gave me this picture this morning so I could celebrate 89 years of sing-a-long movie technology…

The ball is all about focussing your attention on what needs to be done right now, on what is happening right now.  As I said – THIS IS WHERE WE ARE NOW, PAY ATTENTION.

It helps avoid confusion between that and what’s coming next, or what’s just gone. And it makes you keep a steady time.   Someone put it there, on purpose, to help you stay in the right moment.  And let’s face it, the whole thing sounds better if the vocalists are in time with the music!

To follow the metaphor, I am the kind of person who rushes ahead to the chorus instead of letting the verse play out. And although the chorus often has a better tune, the words of the verse are nearly always more interesting.

But the message I’m hearing through this week’s postcard is: Focus on the now. Don’t get distracted by the just gone and the not yet. Learn. Keep time. Find me in the present.

So that’s what I’m going to try to do.

I’m cheating a little because I wrote this poem for my very first post… but I’m all for recycling… and since I seem to need to hear things more than once, I’m going to assume that it might help you too…

I search for you:
I strain ahead to look for you
to see where we will go together
Longing to know, longing to be there, longing to see
and I just glimpse your face through the mist.

I turn around to look back
at the place I saw you last
felt your touch, saw you move, joined the dance
but it's gone.

and yet
when I open my eyes
I see you are with me now

bouncing ball feat

What about you? What is God saying to you through this picture? Do you need to rewind or fast forward to get your focus on to what God is doing now?

Identity, Living the Life

Clean Water

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Ever had a problem with your water supply?

This week, my city has a problem.  The water pipes supplying some of the outlying villages have decayed and started releasing something toxic into the water.  No-one is sure where the problem is exactly, or how long it will take to fix, but you really don’t want to drink that water until they have!

So God has been speaking to me this week about the importance of keeping the supply pure, because the fountain of water that he has placed in each of us that chooses to follow him is not just for ourselves but also for all those around us.

“Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them” John 7:38 NIV

(In case you haven’t realised it yet – you are not just a kitchen tap, you’re a public water fountain.)

What the Nicosia Water Boards current problems have been whispering to me this week is this: “the pipes matter”

Have you ever drunk water through an old plastic bottle spout, or (if you’re really lucky) through your own sock at at youth event?   If you have, you’ll know that water inevitably tastes of whatever it has passed through.  And whatever living water you give out to others will pass through your heart on its way.

I’m feeling challenged this week because our dodgy water supply has reminded me that any bitterness, unforgiveness, cynicism or hatred in my heart will pollute the water that flows out me in my friendships, my relationships and ministry.  And if I don’t want to have these things in my heart slowly leaching toxic waste into the people around me then I need to do something about them.

All you amazing, extraordinary, wonderful fountains of living water reading this post, it’s time for us to get cleaned up  – there’s a world full of thirsty people out there and it’s time to get them a drink.

 

tap2feature

it's time to forgive


not saying I don't have a right
to be angry
or wounded
or hurt

but to stop
draw a line
make a choice

and put down those rights at the foot of the cross
with my pain
and my sin 
and my shame

and then
to walk away

free

 

Identity

Nametapes

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This is how I remember it… like a page in the much-loved story book of the children’s early lives… a moment that God used to touch my heart.

It’s more than ten years since my firstborn started school, but I still remember the day when I was battling through the pile of freshly-bought school uniform, dutifully sewing in the little white woven name tapes, and my four year old came to ask me what I was doing.

Now, I’ve read that the average four year old asks around 200 questions a day, and mine was maybe even a little above average in this department, so I cast around for an answer that would pre-empt any further questions and maybe even send him back to his lego:

“I’m sewing in little tapes with your name on them, to show everyone that these clothes belong to you; and then no-one can take them away from you and they can’t get lost.”

It must have been a good answer, because he just looked very thoughtfully at me and then disappeared upstairs to his room again.

A minute later though, he reappeared, dragging his much beloved (and slightly gruesome) Blue-Blanky. This worn and grubby cot blanket had been at his side constantly for the past three years (apart from one heart-rending moment in a motorway service station and some late-night under-the-cover-of-darkness trips through the washing machine…) and was a great source of comfort to him, and occasional stress to me!

“Sew my name on Blue-Blanky Mummy,” he said earnestly, “then everyone will know it’s mine, and no-one can say it’s not and it can never ever be lost, or taken away”

So I did.

About a week later I was reading Ephesians when this verse caught a hold of my heart:

“Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession- to the praise of his glory” Ephesians 1: 13-14 NIV

I suddenly realised that the Father has done the equivalent of sewing a woven nametape onto my very heart and soul – he has marked me with a seal.

Isn’t that marvellous?… isn’t it wonderful?  The Holy Spirit is the irrevokable royal seal on your life that declares to the earth and to the heavens for ever and ever:  “This soul is MINE”.

When I look at this picture, I hear God whispering:

“Everyone will know you are mine, no-one can say you are not, and you can never ever be lost, or taken away”

I wonder if you do too?

cashtape

Living the Life

Ready to walk on water?

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I’ve always loved the story of Peter leaping enthusiastically
out of the boat and walking towards Jesus across the water. Over
the years I’ve thought about it a lot as I’ve tried really hard to have
the guts to follow Jesus into the places he’s called me to.

There are a probably a hundred different sweet, important, challenging things you could find in this one story, but today I’m picking the three which I’ve been thinking about this summer and maybe God will speak to you through one of them…

The people in the boat were possibly not shouting ‘Go Peter!’

I wonder whether the other disciples heard Jesus’ voice above the waves. If not, then their reaction would almost certainly have been of the “where are you going you nutter” variety.  Sometimes God speaks to us through our peers, often through our leaders, and always in line with the Bible; but occasionally He calls us to do something that looks kind of crazy to a LOT of people…

He only went where he was called to go.

Peter heard Jesus and obeyed even though it looked (and probably felt) impossible.  Note that he didn’t just wildly do something that looked impossible and then ask Jesus to bless him in it… Big difference.

‘Safe’ is relative.

I’m not into taking risks.  Unlike my 5 year old, I have this inner drive to try to stay safe.   Maybe it’s a mum thing?  I’ve heard a lot of talks about walking on water that suggest it’s all about taking risks and stepping out of the safety of the boat.  But that misses an interesting question which I heard Jesus ask one day when I was struggling with this:

“where do you think is safer, Ellie? In the boat? or where I am?”

I guess it depends a bit on your definition of ‘safe’… but I’m inclined to wonder if in that moment Peter saw the boat for what it was, and Jesus for who he was…

…or maybe he was just a crazy hothead out for some adventure.

 

Here’s the thing… I really don’t want to leave the comfort of a safe, predictable boat, but I REALLY want to walk on water.  Can’t have it both ways!

I painted this postcard after spending a lot of time listening to this song, Oceans by Hillsongs. My heart is especially captured by the line:

‘spirit lead me where my faith is without borders’

That’s my prayer for today  – a yearning to replace comfort with courage… to go beyond the limits of my fragile faith… to walk on water.

walking on the water

For your journal

I guess my point from today is that if you want to walk on water in your life of faith with God, the first step is that you really HAVE to be able to hear him speak to you.  Make some time to listen to him today, about the things you’re already doing, and maybe make some space for him to call you out of the boat again…

Living the Life

Climbing the Helter Skelter

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This is the kind of Helter Skelter I remember from when I
was a child. I guess that many of you will have been on one.
Maybe even this summer! To use it, we would pick up a rather
dubious smelling sack, go into the inside of the tower and climb a
spiral staircase for what seemed like forever. Eventually,
legs aching, we would arrive at the top and step out into the
daylight again. It was incredibly hard work in the darkness. Small
legs, plimsolls and scratchy sacks going around and around and
around. And then finally, sometimes suddenly, the joy of having
made it to the top… Fear mixed in with the excitement as I walked
out onto that top platform.. Not quite able to believe that I’d
climbed up so high in the darkness, and giddy as I looked back down
at where I’d come. I thought of that feeling a few weeks
ago when I read this post
by an old friend… Someone I used to walk to school and giggle
about boys with, someone I used to watch dance movies and exchange
make-up tips with and someone who one day, about 26 years ago, was
standing next to me as we both whispered “yes” to Jesus and fell
into his never ending grace. She, my extraordinary friend, wrote so
honestly about the years that she had put in, fighting against
anxiety and worry. Years and years of choosing to trust God when
her heart wanted to run. And then she wrote about a stepping out
moment, of being in a situation where she should have been
terrified, but realising that she had learned to lean into God, to
walk without fear. I was so inspired. Life often feels like the
Helter skelter. We put in many uncomfortable years in the darkness
of not really being sure what God is doing. Climbing and carrying,
with only little glimpses – hope – of where we’re going or what we
might be achieving. Sometimes we feel like we’re moving in a
circle, continually coming back to familiar places of pain,
weakness or battle. The challenge is not to give up… Because as
we circle around, revisiting old issues and fighting similar
battles, as we press into God and call out to Him we are actually
spiralling upwards to higher places. It’s not easy going, but it’s
going somewhere. How much do you want to emerge into the daylight
and realise that old enemies have been defeated? How much do you
want to climb into the sack that you’ve carried and use it to live
in the blessing of the freedom you’ve earned? I do. I pray that we
will both keep climbing until we get there.   helterskelter
   

Living the Life, Surviving Tough Times

My Boy’s Dream Car

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This push-along-with-your feet-car was the object of desire of every single child at the toddler group I used to take my son to.  He wanted to ride in it almost from when he could crawI, long before his legs were long enough, or coordinated enough to be able to move it himself.  And I still can’t see one of these red and yellow beauties without smiling at the thought of him at 3 years old, chubby cheeked and grinning as he trundled around the yard.

We never had one at home, but every time we went to a place that had one he was desperate to play in it.  So for a while there a Little Tikes Cozy Coupe was his ultimate dream car.

I can’t tell you how funny it is to think of him trying to get into one of these now!  At fifteen he has the same wild blond hair and cheeky grin but they now top a nearly 6 foot tall body. Gorgeous – but all arms and legs and enormous feet. I’m not sure it would even be possible for him to fold his gangly frame into this little car, much less get it to move anywhere.

This week I feel like God is speaking to me about hopes and dreams. When I was 20 I had dreams about what God might do with my life.. I dreamed of having a family;  helping people find Jesus; healing; preaching; leading worship; of seeing revival…   Some of it has happened, some hasn’t, and there’s also been load of amazing and difficult and wonderful stuff that I never expected.

I’m older now, and I tend to think of crazy hopeful dreaming as something young people do.  It’s tempting (maybe sensible) to put those dreams down and just get on with things the way they are…

…But

Yesterday, while I was hanging out the washing, God told me to paint a postcard of a cozy coupe. I often don’t really understand what the ‘message’ of a postcard is going to be until I’ve had a chance to pray about it,  and this time it wasn’t till I sat down (in the cool of an air-conditioned coffee shop) to write that I started to hear God speak about dreaming.

How does the Cozy Coupe fit into that?  Well, it was Jonny’s dream.  And it was a great dream for him to have when he was two, OK still when he was five, but now?… Now it is totally outgrown and limiting, utterly unsuitable.  Jonny needs to get a bigger dream.

Do you still have dreams about what God might do with your life?

Maybe you’ve lost hold of your dreams on the roller coaster of life. Maybe you’ve forgotten what they even were. Never mind. You’ve probably outgrown them by now anyway. What good would it do you to fold yourself up into those old dreams anyway? Today is a really good day to ask God to give you a new dream, a new vision of what he wants to do with you and in you and through you.
Today is the day you need to get a new dream.

 

cozycoupefeat

 

reflect blue

 

For your journal:

When you ask God about what dreams he has for your life today… write down what he says!

 

Living the Life, Uncategorized

Thirsty?

Image 3 Comments

I know that in the heat of summer,
especially here in Cyprus, it is really important to drink lots of
water. But I am the sort of person who gets busy and caught up in
things and I often just forget.

I’ve
noticed that when I’ve gone a long time without drinking and am
feeling thirsty, I often take a while to realise that’s what the
problem is and might even try other things- an apple, a biscuit –
not really recognising what it is that my body needs or is
craving.

Sometimes we are like this with our time alone
with Jesus. We forget how much we need him, how much his presence
is like water to our souls and we become ‘spiritually dehydrated’
without really noticing. And yet, as when our bodies have gone
without enough water, one taste of pure refreshing time with Him
can be enough to reawaken our thirst and make us drink long and
deep. Perhaps you too have been busy and distracted? Perhaps you
have not noticed how thirsty your soul has become? Why not come now
and take a sip? Ask your loving father to pour out his refreshing
spirit over your soul. Sit with him for a while… and enjoy the
precious refreshment he longs to bring you. Thirsty?

Holy Spirit
come,

drip drops of living
water

onto my lips

cool, clean, pure

and as
I drink

stretch streams of sweet
refreshment

into the dry and thirsty
land

that is my soul.

reawaken my thirst for you

oh living water

until I
cry out

for more

and more

and
more

and then let me be
drenched

soaked in you

day after day

year after
year -and let me never dry out again

Living the Life, Surviving Tough Times

Changing the ground

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This is the plant that ‘would never grow’.

Years ago, when my parents moved house, they brought with them a  large rhododendron in a wooden pot that was a favourite of my Mum’s. The pot was old and failed to  survive the move, so my stepfather stripped what was left of the wood away and planted the Rhododendron straight into the soil of the garden.

And my Mum, who is the only one of us who has any clue at all about gardening said,

“it will never grow”

Because, she knew what the rest of us didn’t: that some plants need a particular type of soil to flourish.  Rhodedendrons need to have their roots in acidic soil, not in the chalky clay of an Essex garden.  So it really didn’t stand a chance…

However, 25 years later, here it is – not just surviving but thriving.  A great big green and purple horticultural-impossibility!

You see, it turns out that even though most of the garden behind our house does indeed have very alkaline soil, the corner where this shrub was planted is in the shadow of a centuries old oak tree.  Year after year that oak has been releasing hundreds of leaves, which fall in a thick layer over this part of the garden.  And year on year many of those leaves have been absorbed into the soil and have changed it.

The oak tree has changed the soil around it from a place where the rhododendron had no hope of surviving into a place where it has been able to become glorious.

When my Mum emailed me a snapshot of it a couple of weeks ago,  I heard God whisper two things into my ear.

Firstly:

“don’t give up on people – you don’t know as much as you think you do”.

I do have a tendency to fall into a trap of thinking I know things.  Accepting that God knows better than I do is a good place to be.  Conventional wisdom says: ‘that plant can’t survive in that place’ but God says – ‘There’s a bigger picture’

and second,  a challenge:

“Be an oak”

Because this plant is under the edge of an oak tree, it’s alive and blooming, even though the soil is naturally hostile to it.   Some people are living their lives, day in, day out, in environments that are hostile to their faith.  Conventional wisdom might say that their walk with Jesus has no hope of surviving, let alone thriving…

But you and I can choose to be oaks.  We can choose to be continually releasing grace, hope, compassion, truth, faith and love.  And even when it feels as though those ‘leaves’ are just falling to the ground, unnoticed by anyone, they are making a difference…  soaking into the soil and changing it…

It lifts my heart to think that I could be an oak tree in someone else’s life,  quietly releasing what it takes to support life, changing the environment, making a difference.  I’m not even entirely sure how, but I’m up for finding out.  you?

all is not always as it seems
sometimes
you and I

can change it

Mum's Rhododendron

 

reflect greens

 

For your journal

What do you think it takes to be an oak tree?  Ask God to speak to you about how you’re already doing this, and how you could do more.   If you have any ideas, please comment them below!

Maybe you feel more like the Rhododendron, struggling to survive in a hostile world.  Perhaps you need to find a place where you can be in community with some oak trees and to choose to receive whatever it’s going to take for you to grow.

 

 

 

 

Identity, Living the Life

Superhero Socks

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This is my sweet five-year-old, dressing up in her fifteen-year-old brother’s superhero socks. He has a wide collection, and likes to wear them mismatched as a tiny but significant (?) piece of rebellion against the oppression of school uniform…

I’ve been thinking about superhero socks a lot this week.  In my last postcard I mentioned IHE’s -Impossibly High Expectations – and the potential they have to limit us from being all God created us to be.  And I’ve been thinking about my own, and how to describe them to you, so that you can spot yours!

On reflection: having an impossibly high expectation of myself is like being quietly stalked by a Superhero.  This SuperSomeone tiptoes along behind me, like a malignant imaginary friend, waiting for  the moment to point out my inadequacies, show me how I could do things better, or encourage me to aim ridiculously high.  Next to her, I always feel pretty rubbish really.
Now, while it’s perfectly OK to enjoy a good superhero story, and even (in some circumstances) to wear the socks; I’m sure you’ll agree that to believe that you can be a superhero is a dangerous, possibly even life-threatening delusion.

But, we all seem to do it. We all seem to invent a ridiculous, superhuman version of the role we’re in, and then expect ourselves to be it : SuperSomeones.

My loudest and most powerful Supersomeone is ‘SuperMummy’. She stands in the background of my life, ever ready to rear her (very beautiful and perfectly made up) head at any opportunity. For some reason she is most likely to manifest the night before the children’s birthdays, or Christmas, when she’forces’ me to organise beautifully themed birthday parties, icecakes until 3 in the morning and try to make everything  ‘just perfect’.

If I ever take my eyes off Jesus and let them settle on SuperMummy, I’m done… I come to a few days later, confused and exhausted, wondering (again) why on earth I thought I needed to do all that stuff.

You see SuperMummy always wears make-up, is slim, has beautiful hair, can wear scarves stylishly, bakes perfectly, has a beautiful home (she found that piece of furniture in a second-hand store and distressed it herself) and a high-powered career, is amazingly spiritual, never shouts, and can preach in high heels without falling over. SuperMummy reads bedtime stories to all of her children every day, never forgets the PE kit, or shows up with kids in uniform on Mufti day, can instantly find a protractor the night before Maths exams, runs the PTA and never misses a dentist appointment…  Gosh, she can probably service the people carrier (minivan) as well.

SuperMummy does NOT exist… But do you know what? if I let myself be conned into trying to be her, I may not exist for very much longer either.  Trying to be a superhero is exhausting and dangerous… and not what Jesus has asked us to do.

Whoever you are, and whatever stage of life you are at, I bet you
have a SuperSomeone.. A SuperPastor, SuperDad, SuperFriend,
SuperDaughter, SuperWorshipLeader, SuperChristian.  Walking
quietly beside you, whispering over your shoulder, “You need to be more like me”  Do you know what? –  You need to get rid of them, right now, whatever it takes.

SuperWhatever will distract you from what God is calling you to be and to do, he or she will suck all the life out of you, exhaust you, whisper ‘try harder’ over your shoulder until you can’t manage another step and then show you all the ways you’ve failed.

Whatever you think about what he has written or said since, a few years ago Rob Bell, in a very popular book called Velvet Elvis had a moment of pure genius. Writing on this subject he said:

‘KILL YOUR SUPERWHATEVER… ACT NOW… SHOOT FIRST!’

At the moment we fell into his arms and surrendered to him, God our father gave us a gift to help us defeat the Supersomeones. An enormous endlessly supplied water cannon, filled with… grace.

There is grace enough to cover ever one of your imperfections… and mine. There is grace to not to have to be perfect, to be a superhero. In fact, Grace says “you aren’t a superhero, I didn’t make you that way”.

Of course, our kids, work colleagues, churches, friends, families, need us to try to be ‘good-enough’, but there’s a loooooong way between that and a superhero.

So there’s my challenge for you for the week: ask God to shine his light on your inner Superwhatever; ask him to show you where you have ridiculously high standards of yourself and then apply a ridiculously generous amount of grace…. Shoot first.

superherosocks feat

For your journal:

Is it time for you to give up wearing some superhero socks?  Have your worked out who your supersomeone might be?  Spend some time asking God about it this week.

Then set yourself some challenges… For me, shooting grace at the supermummy meant making some good-enough decisions, some of which I found very hard. ( Buying a pile of chocolate muffins instead of baking a birthday cake is one I especially remember:)

What challenge will you set yourself to be ‘good-enough’ this week?

 

P.S.  In case you don’t scroll down that far… Commenter Deborah wrote this, and I think it’s great:

‘What other approval is there, that compares to the voice of God whispering to my heart, “You’re mine”.’