Tag Archives: hope

Identity, Living the Life

Cactus Flowers

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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

Celebrating the light

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“No, not the nightlight Mummy!  Turn on the big light, the nightlight makes shadows”

So runs the conversation with my seven-year-old at bedtime (nearly every night).

I’ve been thinking about that this week.  A little bit of light goes a long way to dispelling the darkness, but a 100 watt light bulb is much, much better.

Our world is full of little nightlights.  Little bits of God’s beauty and goodness breaking through in smiles, sunsets and hugs, in love, truth, joy and laughter.  Every single piece of goodness and beauty in our world is a gift from the heart of our heavenly father and it gets rid of much of the darkness.  But even the light of all those little night lights is not enough. It makes shadows.

This weekend a lot of people are, one way or another, celebrating the shadows.  I really, really, really don’t want to offend, but I won’t be. I know that making fun of the darkness takes way some of our fear of it.  I know that for most people it’s just lots of fun and pretending to be scared.  But I won’t do it… I can’t, I just want to look into and celebrate the light.

Because the truth is that turning on a 100 watt light bulb in your life is better than having nightlights and trying to train yourself to not be afraid of the shadows.

As Katie says “when you turn on the big light it’s different. All that darkness runs away, all at the same time and there’s no room left for any shadows”

So today, as every day I’m going to do my best not to hang out in the shadows, and I’m celebrating the light.

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it”

Happy victory-over-the-darkness day everybody – have a good one 😉

Living the Life, Surviving Tough Times

Dust days

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I glanced out of the window at church on Sunday morning and realised we can see the mountains again.

The beautiful Kyrenia mountains are the permanent backdrop to life in this city.   If I get lost (which still happens even after four years here) I look for the mountains to get my bearings; when we’ve been away, the sight of them makes me feel I’m home.

The sky in Cyprus is nearly always blue, so we can usually see those mountains as clearly as can be.  Occasionally we have some haze or cloud so they are harder to make out, or even partly covered – but it’s always obvious where they are.

Last week though, an extraordinary cloud of dust descended on the city and we could barely see the buildings down the street let alone a range of mountains 11 miles away.  For almost a week, our mountains were completely hidden.

In life there are days when the sky is clear, when you can see God’s face as clearly as your own reflection in a mirror.  In my experience there are many more days where it’s cloudy or misty, and you struggle a bit to be aware of his presence or hear his voice.  And then, every once in a while there are thick dust days.

No-one has a relationship with God that is easy-breezy mountain-top-experience all the time.  Everyone has misty seasons and even thick, thick dust days where it’s hard to breathe and harder to see.

On Sunday morning, as I was struggling to worship after my stressy week of sick children, overdue speeding tickets, broken down cars and general tiredness; feeling guilty and confused because I just couldn’t feel God’s presence as clearly as usual (or as much as everyone else in the room seemed to) I looked up and realised I could see the mountains.

And I heard him whisper:

“Look at those mountains…

Was there one moment, in all of the week that you couldn’t see them, or in any of the times when they’ve been partly hidden from you, has there ever been a moment when you’ve doubted that they were there?”

(And of course, I never have. Mountains don’t just cease to exist because I can’t see them. I have faith in the existence of those mountains!)

“Well then,” he said, “trust me that I am here, whether you can see me or not – you just have to turn to where you know I am, keep walking towards me, and wait for it to rain”

So I’m doing that my friends.  I’m turning to where God is, because I know he’s there, even when the outline of his face is tricky to make out.  I’m declaring to my heart that he is where he has always been.  And it seems to me that this isn’t lack of faith – it’s faith made solid, faith you can walk on.

‘Faith is being sure of what you hope for, and certain of what you cannot see’

If you’re walking blindly towards where you know God is just now, my heart is with you.  Take courage. One day it will rain, the dust will be washed away and your view will be clear again. Until then – He is still with you.

Dealing with Change, Living the Life

All about change

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August seems like the perfect time to send a holiday postcard, so here’s one from the week my family and I spent traveling through Shropshire, Cheshire and the West Midlands on a canal boat.

Water doesn’t like to slope, so when the great engineers who built the canal systems encountered a landscape that needed to be climbed, they built amazing water-filled lifts called locks. Each lock is a chamber with heavy gates at each end which can be filled up or emptied of water so that the boat can rise up or lower down to the level of the next stretch of canal.

To fill the lock you use a turning handle to wind up heavy paddles in the gate which let water into (or out of) the chamber at a tremendous rate creating a huge amount of noise and splash. We quite enjoy working the locks but there’s no denying that it’s really hard going! Pushing the gates open against the weight of the water, closing them again, winding up the paddles, waiting for ages for the lock to fill then pushing the gates at the other end open is slow and heavy work, but it’s amazing to witness the extraordinary power of all that water moving from one place to another.

And it’s necessary: without these powerful level-changers it would be impossible to travel through the ups and downs of the British countryside.

I’ve written before about the seasons we go through in life, being a child, being a parent, being a parent of children who have grown up, living in one place or another, working, retirement…

Often it’s the shifts between seasons that are the hardest to deal with. The parts where you’ve said goodbye to what was, but haven’t really stepped into what is next. Those times, like the minutes that the boat is in the lock, can be turbulent, a bit scary and slow in passing.

The locks reminded me this week that change, even good change, like getting married, having a child or starting a new job, can be really hard work.
Like traveling through a lock, there is a cost to change which is measured in effort and in unsettling turbulence but there is also a sense something incredibly powerful is going on somewhere below the surface. The other hung it’s reminded me is that change is also really necessary if you want to continue on with your journey.

I often describe myself as being change-intolerant, a natural settler. But I also really want to keep pressing onwards towards what’s ahead and like water, life doesn’t slope, so there are bound to be locks ahead.

The challenge to me is to willingly step into times of change, to accept the turbulence and scariness with faith, because I’ve realized that even if the only way forward is through locks, that’s the way I want to go.

Remind me of that when I’m complaining about it 🙂

Surviving Tough Times

Full of holes

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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

Haybales and farewells

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It’s June, and around here that’s the season of rising temperatures, goodbye parties and little round haystacks.

The haystacks sit rolled up in fields inside and around the city, straw-yellow rolls on a landscape of parched stubble.  The swaying grass has been cut, rolled up and now waits patiently in the sun for the day when it will be piled up precariously on a back of a truck and taken away.

I’ve been thinking about these haystacks a lot as I’ve watched friends pack up their homes and say their goodbyes this week. They too are experiencing the end of a season and wondering what the next one will be like.  Their lives have been cut down and rolled up, and they sit now in this field, in the odd period of in-betweeness, waiting, and saying goodbye.

One day it will be my turn.  For now, my heart is aching for the friendships that will be missed – empty fields in the landscape of my life.

The haybales that I’m seeing everywhere mark the end of a season, it’s ok, right even, to be sad that the grass no longer ripples at the touch of the wind, green from the winter rains or white from the spring sunshine.  It’s ok to be sad, but it’s also a time of year to be hopeful.

Because God’s word for us at this time of year, for the leavers and the left-behinds, is this: the goodness is not lost.

The goodness is not lost.

The grass is cut and rolled up because it’s made it to the end of its season.  If it were to stay in the field it would dry out, and the goodness stored up in it during this season would be lost forever.  But the haybale keeps the grass inside it fresh.  The goodness and growth is locked in so that it can be of use in a new season.

All that you’ve learned, all that you’ve grown, all the love and grace and hope that you have received and then given out to others… all that is not lost.  Somehow it’s just rolled up and put away for another season.

I’m sure I don’t completely understand this picture. But even as the cumulative grief of friends leaving is catching at my heart, so I can feel the hope in these haybales.  God knows what he is doing – the goodness will not be lost.

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Living the Life

I will pour out…

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Last Sunday the western church celebrated Pentecost, this weekend it’s our turn in Cyprus. So here I am, caught between two Pentecosts, and I have this picture in my head.

I’ve been thinking about the disciples in the upper room. Meeting together perhaps to celebrate Shavout – the festival of the first fruits, but certainly to pray, to stare at their empty hands, to hope. Waiting, but not sure about what they were waiting for. Hoping, but not sure what to hope.

And then suddenly…

The Holy Spirit showed up in the room.

And he sounded like a violent rushing wind and looked like flames of fire.

I suspect the Holy Spirit can choose to look and sound pretty much how he likes, but on this occasion he came to them in a way they could not mistake. The same fire that had burned with the presence of God in the bush where Moses heard God speak now came to rest on each of them. Wonderful but terrifying.

Almost every time I read a story in the Bible, something different about it grabs my attention. What stirs me most when I read this one today is the very first gift that the Holy Spirit chose to give to those trembling disciples. As the Spirit was poured out he gave them a gift of languages, the ability to make the good news available to everyone.  

I love that. The very first gift of the Spirit was one that shouted for all to hear that everyone could be included, that the presence of God was not just for the chosen few, but from now onwards it was for everyone who called on the name of the Lord regardless of where they came from.

Of course they were misunderstood. And some who didn’t quite understand what was happening yelled out their criticism (as occasionally happens today when the Holy Spirit shows up in a way that’s not quite what we expected!) so Peter stood up to explain what was happening, quoting this beautiful verse from Joel:

‘In the last days I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh,
and your sons and daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions
and your old men will dream dreams.’

Acts 2:17 NRSV

Sometimes we think about the presence of the Spirit or the gifts of the Spirit (or of some of them), as being just for ‘the special’, just for ‘the holy’ or just for ‘someone-else’.

But God is pretty clear about it here.  When he pours out his Spirit, it is on all flesh.  No-one who calls Jesus ‘Lord’ is excluded from that statement:  we can’t exclude others from it and we can’t exclude ourselves from it.

God didn’t say, “I will pour out my spirit on those who shout loud enough, or pray hard enough, sing sweet enough or close their eyes long enough”.

He said “all flesh”

even when you’re tired

even when you’re lonely

even when you’re grieving

even me

even you.

That’s the beauty of Pentecost – the good news in my language, the spirit poured out into my flesh. The precious, beautiful Holy Spirit, suddenly available and present to us all. Poured out not in a trickle or a dribble, but in abundance – a gush of the pure, sweet, inexhaustible presence of God poured out over anyone who wants to come and stand underneath it.

Any time you like.

poured out

For your journal

You might like to join me in praising God for the beauty of Pentecost, for his generosity in pouring out one Spirit on all of us that follow his son. You might like to think about what it might mean that this happened at the festival of the first fruits, of celebrating the beginning of a harvest. You might like to make a choice to stand underneath that waterfall of his presence again, or maybe even for the very first time.

Living the Life

Blessings and Butterflies

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I read a post once about a friend who had found a butterfly while clearing out books in his attic.  He assumed it was dead, and picked it up gently to have closer look.  As the hibernating butterfly absorbed the warmth of his hand it woke up, ‘came to life’ and then fluttered away.

For some reason I’ve been thinking about that butterfly this week, so I’ve painted one, and here it is, resting on one of my favourite pages of the Bible, ready to flutter into life at any moment.

I’ve always loved the list of spiritual blessings in Ephesians: holiness, blamelessness, love, destiny, adoption, grace, forgiveness, revelation, reconciliation, redemption, hope, and a guaranteed inheritance.  Unshakeable, irrevokable blessings that every single one of us who trusts in Christ can call our own.  Each blessing like an individual butterfly, beautiful alone, but even more wonderful dancing together in a glorious symphony of colour.

A friend once said to me that if only she could get her head around these blessings, if only she could really understand them and appreciate them, she was sure it would change her life forever.  I think she’s right.  Catching a hold of the reality of these truths, having revelation of the impact of these spiritual blessings really would change everything.

It occurs to me that we all have times and seasons when we lose touch with one or more of these ‘butterflies’.  We turn around and our sense of being loved, or having a future, or cleanness, or belonging, or closeness to the Father has disappeared, slipping away quietly in the night. It might even be a while before we notice that it’s gone.

The truth is that these blessings cannot be lost, but our awareness of them, and of their importance, can hibernate for a season and be temporarily ‘lost-to-us’.

Are any of these butterflies sleeping out a winter for you just now?  Have you been distracted, as I so often am, by the smaller, beautiful, but much less important blessings of ministry or gifting? Or has something come in to rob you of one of these truths, chipped away your faith in it until it no longer flies for you?

I believe that today is a great day to go hunting in the attic for butterflies.

A day to remind ourselves of the extraordinary, amazing, unearned and priceless blessings that are ours in Jesus.

And perhaps even the day to pick up those that look like they have died, to hold them in your hand and to ask the Holy Spirit to breathe.

butterfly

May you be blessed with the waking up of butterflies in your heart today.

For your Journal.

Read through that list (in Ephesians 1), and ask God to highlight to you, in whatever way he can, which of these blessings he would like to bring back to life for you today.  Then think, pray and journal about that blessing: draw pictures, write words, listen to music, sing… do whatever it takes to bring that butterfly back to life.

Identity

It is well with my soul… reasons to love Good Friday

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It’s the time of year when our thoughts are drawn to the cross, to the pain endured there, to the freedom achieved there.  But, if I’m completely honest, Good Friday hasn’t always felt like good news…

I first decided to follow Jesus when I was fifteen, and somehow in those early years I picked up the idea that Good Friday was all about feeling bad and guilty.  This was a special day in the church calendar when we all took a good long time to think about how awful we were, about how much our beautiful saviour went through for us, and about how responsible we were for that terrible pain and suffering.

I don’t remember anyone teaching me that this was ‘Guilt Friday’, but that’s what I learned. This was the day to look at the cross really hard, and then to feel really, really bad.

and I did.

But a beautiful revolution happened about 15 years later…

Late one lent evening, as I sat in a prayer-space looking at a wooden cross draped with red silk,  I had one of those moments where something you’ve known in your head for a long time finally makes it into your heart. God showed me the cross as if it were an enormous power shower towering above me. I suddenly realised that as I knelt beneath the flow of Jesus blood, as it poured out over my hands, my head, my heart, it didn’t stain me with responsibility, it didn’t make me guilty – it made me clean.

So I realised that on Good Friday I couldn’t come to the cross and feel bad about myself, or about how much Jesus suffered for me. Not because I’m not a sinner, or that Jesus didn’t suffer, but because some much bigger, more glorious things were filling up my head and heart so much that there wasn’t room for anything else.

As I said to a friend at the time:

“I know I should be feeling bad, but I just can’t help myself, when I look at the cross, all I can feel is clean”

Awesomely, gloriously clean.

And when I remember what Jesus was prepared to go through in order to heal my relationship to the Father, what he chose to endure so that you and I could be made clean and whole and entirely free from guilt and shame, I don’t feel bad (all that clean-ness gets in the way), but I do feel very, very grateful, and very LOVED.

Really really loved.

The words of this hymn, It is well with my soul by H. G. Spafford, explains the feeling that wells up inside me better than I can:

My sin – oh the bliss of this glorious thought! –

My sin, not in part, but the whole,

is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,

praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

With that in your head it just won’t be possible to look at the cross and feel bad.

So this Easter, as you’re celebrating the extraordinary victory of the cross and resurrection, take another look at the cross and see if you can see this power shower.  If you feel even the smallest part dirty, or guilty, or unworthy or ashamed – step in.  The cross can wash you clean.

.power shower

Surviving Tough Times

On faith, hope and being sure

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Are you sure?

On the one hand there are some things that I am, absolutely, sure about… I’m absolutely sure that I belong to God and that I can call him ‘Abba’.  I’m sure that he is bigger, more powerful, more beautiful, more just, more gracious and more loving than I or anyone else can imagine.  I’m sure that I although I am one of the millions that he loves fiercely, that his love is in no way diluted, and that I am precious to him.  I’m so sure of his forgiveness and grace that I know I can lean back into them and believe that I am accepted in spite of my past, present and future mess-ups.

I’m sure.

And yet.

It doesn’t take much to leave me feeling like this daisy, adrift on the ocean.  A few mistakes, someone angry, a stinking cold, a friend leaving the country.  All that ‘sure-ness’ can melt into weariness, shaken-up-ness and not-sure-I-can -hear-God-ness in a matter of days.

So when I came to God on tuesday morning to ask him for a picture to put in a postcard for today, all I could see was this daisy, floating on the ocean.

Two things are true about it:

One- the daisy is tossed about, but not sinking.  It’s not sinking because its petals are wide open, and its petals are open because it’s facing into the light and the warmth of the sun.

Two – even though it’s affected, pulled up and down and this way and that by the movement around it, this tiny daisy is anchored, deep, deep down below the waves, into something solid.  The rope that ties it is slack so that there is length to cope with the rise and fall of the waves and tides, but it’s strong.

It was only after I’d painted this anchored daisy that I read the verse from Hebrews:

We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure, It enters the inner sanctuary, behind the curtain, where our forerunner, Jesus has entered on our behalf.

Hebrews 6:19-20

It’s not the only place I’ve heard about hope recently.  On yesterday’s news the newly-elected prime minster of Greece claimed that this week’s election outcome was a ‘victory for hope’.  Many, many people there are hoping for an easier future.  
Hope is extraordinarily powerful thing, and when that hope is shown to be false it can be utterly crushing.  Unfortunately, when you’re being tossed about by the waves having your hope-rope anchored to anything that is in this world is just like being anchored to another set of waves, there’s no guarantee of stability coming.

The hope that the Bible holds out to us is in a different league altogether. As Hebrews tells us, it is anchored not in this world, but on the other side of the curtain, in the place where Jesus has gone ahead of us, in the presence of God.

It’s a mystery, but it’s a bit like my anchored daisy.  Deep, deep, down and beyond it is fixed irrevocably to something other than the ocean. Something solid and unmoveable, something which contains the ocean itself.

Here and there, in places, a gift of faith solidifies that hope into sureness.  And as I’ve painted and pondered  I’ve realised that this shaken-ness, the tiredness from the wind and the waves doesn’t make me ‘not sure’.  It just reminds me that sure-ness is not a surface feeling. It goes much, much deeper than that: Sure-ness is hope soaked in faith, over and over until that hope has become somehow more real than the ‘reality’ of the waves, and is anchoring my heart way beyond this particular storm, and into God himself.

However you are currently being shaken, whatever storm you are living through, or watching people close to you live through, try keep your face turned towards Jesus. Then your petals will stay warm and open and you you will be able to rest on the surface of the waves. Remind yourself often of the hope that you have as a child of God, and then ask him for the gift of faith, so that your hope become strong and solid, and then whatever happens, you will still be able to say, ‘I am sure’.