Tag Archives: hope

Living the Life

A Christmas Card from Postcards from Heaven

4 Comments

I’ve been in conversation with God for some time now about what picture should appear on the front of your Christmas postcard… A scene of Bethlehem? Something tinselly? But no, this odd little bauble-bottle is what keeps coming into my head and there’s no getting away from it…

it doesn’t have a name, as far as I know it doesn’t even exist and I can’t imagine it would be useful, but Jesus often doesn’t follow my rules and I always eventually realise it is easier just to go with what I think he’s showing me! So this is it: A two-chamber bauble-bottle that holds more one type of liquid.

Christmas is just like this.. Christmas is a container that holds more than one thing..

I really love it.  I love the kids’ excitement, the preparations, the sense of specialness, the time with friends, the family traditions, the special food, the random animals in nativity plays and even the theologically-challenged carols.  I just love it.

and yet…

Yesterday was my Dad’s birthday, and this will be our sixth Christmas without him. And at this time of year, I miss him more than ever. I can’t enjoy our traditional family singsong without missing the sound of his voice, I can’t watch my kids in a recital without thinking how proud he would have been of them, and I just can’t do Christmas day without missing his energy and sense of fun.

And I’m guessing for many, if not most of you it’s the same. Along with the joy comes an acute awareness of what has been lost.

Christmas is a container that holds both joy and sadness, and somehow they can only be poured out together.

For me, it’s not possible to experience the joy without also walking through the sadness.  To not allow one of them to be released from the bottle would be to stifle the other as well.  And I really want the joy…

It seems to me, at this time of year, that the world is conspiring to show me a perfect Christmas.  One with perfect, complete families where no-one gets sick, or forgets anything, or worries about money or falls out over the rules of a board game.  Where teenagers leap with joy at the idea of a game of charades, the roast dinner is all warm at the same time, the whole family gather around the piano to sing carols (in four-part harmony) and above all, no-one feels sad, not even for a moment.

It’s not true of course, there is no ‘perfect’ Christmas.  It’s just another impossible standard for me to fail to reach. Not everything has to be perfect anyway, and I suspect that the fact that the joy always comes mixed in with sadness just makes me normal.

For those of you who are similarly normal: Know that God understands.  He understands great joy and deep sadness.  And he reaches out to carry you through both.

So on this festive postcard I will wish you a Happy Christmas, but because that on its own doesn’t seem quite real enough:

This Christmas

May you have enough joy to soften your sadness

Enough peace to calm your storms

and enough hope to look up into the eyes of the Saviour of the World and to find yourself covered by his love.

Living the Life

Bigger on the inside.

5 Comments

If you’re reading this in the UK you probably don’t need me to tell you what this 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

Living the Life

Frogger

7 Comments

Ever feel stuck?  Like there’s no way forwards?  Like you’re living in the consequence of decisions made a long time ago, and that the dead end you’re now in is inescapable?  You need to think about Frogger.

Frogger was a game I got mildly addicted to a long time ago when my teenagers were still toddling.   It mostly involved hopping a little frog around on lily pads and getting it to the other side of a road or a river.

The picture I had today was of a frog who had hopped out along a particular line of lily pads, and then got to the end of the line.  He looked across and saw other frogs hopping along another line of lily pads and thought ‘oh well, that’s it then, I went the wrong way, I blew it’.

It’s easy to feel that one choice you made or that was made for you has messed everything up… that you’ve gone off on a diversion from the main route and can never go back.  Like somehow you will never be able to live fully in the goodness of what God intended for you because of one foolish/stupid/scared choice you made and there is no way to get back onto the right track again.

Of course we do often have to live with the consequences of our choices… but the truth about frogger is that there’s always an alternative route… even if it looks like there isn’t.  Any moment now a new lily pad will pop up, or even better, a floating log will come along to hop on to and take us somewhere completely new!

When we get to one of these ‘dead-end’ places, we have another choice: We can sit on our lily pad feeling sorry for ourselves, wondering if God has forgotten us, berating ourselves for the decision we made that has got us into this place, putting all our faith in our stuckness or we can call out to God and trust that he is able to do something about it.

And of course- he can.   There’s never only one route across the river, and as I was thinking about last week when I wrote this, our God is a the master of reversing impossible situations.  He isn’t just creative -he is Creativity.  Finding new ways to get you to where he wants you to be is as natural to him as breathing is to you.

‘You are stuck, it’s hopeless, there’s no way out’ is one of the regular often-used lies of the enemy.  It’s designed to paralyse you, to stop you from realising that there never was one perfect, easy route across the river; that everyone either makes stupid choices, or encounters obstacles and that our creative father constantly builds new routes for us.

If you’re feeling stuck today, like you hopped off the main path and onto an inescapable road to nowhere, take a real step and ask God to help you let go of that lie.  Reach out and catch a hold of the truth that he has never for one moment forgotten you, and ask him to help you grasp the truth that your life is a constantly growing ‘new creation’ and that he has more enough power to build you a new route across the river and into the places he has called you to be.

My problem is often that I want to see the path marked out in front of me.  I want to be able to think, “oh I’ll hop there, and then there, and then there and that will take me to where I want to be”.  My life just isn’t like that.  I often cannot even imagine how God is going to take me into the things he’s spoken to me about, let alone plan the route!

So my struggle is to choose to trust in the God of floating logs and suddenly growing lily pads instead of trying to plot my own course all the time… frogfeat

Whatever your struggle is, I pray that God would speak to you today and that he would open your eyes to trust in his extraordinary creativity and love for you.  It will be worth it.

 

Living the Life

Everything changes

2 Comments

But now…

Do you know, I think those might be two of my favourite words in the Bible.  For me, those two words capture something wonderful, beautiful and essential about the Gospel that it’s easy to lose sight of the wonder of..

They also remind me of this card. It’s from one of the games that we used to love to play endlessly and noisily with the youth group we led in our twenties, back when our idea of a great way to spend a Wednesday evening was to fill our living room with teenagers and talk to them about Jesus.  (Actually that still sounds like a pretty great way to spend an evening to me, but that’s another story)

The card means change direction.  If anyone plays it, play stops and then goes back the other way, instantly and without question. It turns things around, reverses them – changes everything.  And I love the picture because in it I see what Jesus came to the world (and to me) for: to turn things around, to reverse them and to change everything. You can just imagine what the ‘cardboard testimonies’ of people who met Jesus in the gospels would have been like:

“I was sick for years and years, but now I’m healed”

“My brother was dead, but now he’s alive”

“I was an outcast, but now I’m a treasured friend”

“I thought I knew everything, but now…”

So, back to my favourite words, so that you too can whisper them to yourself and feel their power pulsing in your veins.

But now…

They actually come from the first chapter of Colossians, and they tell you exactly what happened the moment that God looked at you and me, and through Jesus decided to play the ultimate change direction card onto our lives:

Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior.  But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation— if you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel.

Colossians 1: 21-23

You were alienated, cut off, at a distance, separated, but now –  you are brought near.

You were an enemy, but now –  you are a friend of God.

You were a foreigner and an alien, but now –  you are family.

You were stained, dirty, marked, grubby, but now –  you are washed absolutely clean, without blemish, but more than that, you are Holy.

You were guilty, but now – you cannot be accused.

It’s an extraordinary card that God has played in your life.  The ‘but now’.  Costly, powerful and irrevocable… and yours to accept.

LIke many of you, I’ve known this is true for ages and ages and ages… But somehow I still struggle to confidently live in the reality of it.  I still fall into thinking about myself as grubby and stained and failing, as I was before Jesus rescued me from the dominion of darkness, brought me into the light, hosed me down, gave me a new place to stand and new song to sing.

So, if you’re like me, and you need reminding – take five minutes now to remember it again… breathe it in…  feel the glory and the power in those two little words:

But now

Living the Life, Surviving Tough Times

When climbing a mountain…

2 Comments

Intrigued?  Well, I’m not surprised.  I didn’t know what one of these was called either (had to google it 🙂 ).  It’s a piton.  Mountain climbers hammer them tightly into crevices in the rock face so that they can attach their safety ropes through the hole.  A vital piece of rock-climbing kit.

When God showed me this picture, I imagined what it would be like if, exhausted from a difficult climb, beaten back by the weather, you were to come across one of these, already firmly in the rock face and ready to clip your harness on to.  What a relief I would feel if it were me, and how grateful to the climber that scaled this wall before me and left me something to take a hold of.

So today’s postcard is an encouragement to start nailing in some of these beauties, both for those who scale the walls you’re climbing after you, and for your own benefit (just in case like me, you have a tendency to revisit the same challenges).

The first time I really noticed how this could work was when I was in a tiny church choir.  One day the choir leader played us a piece he planned for us to sing. It was extraordinarily complex and difficult with solos and harmonies and even a rap(!), so we reacted in some disbelief!  But he believed we could do it, and as a group we somehow just chose to take his faith and believe it.  It was as if we reached out with our Karabiner clips in our hands and clipped our harnesses onto the faith he was holding out.

Our faith in God is like that, we have the ability to hold it out to others and say “here-  hold on to mine, I’ve scaled this wall before you”.

I can’t tell you exactly what the pitons you put in will look like, they might be a word,  an action, scripture glued to a mirror, a testimony, a song, a journal entry, a book, a blog post, a status update, a tweet. But I do know that when we start to hold out the faith we’ve gathered to others it will multiply.  Whatever they say about problems, faith shared is faith (at least) doubled!

While a piton has to be strong, the real strength is in the rock.  The job of the piton is simply to enable someone to anchor their heart to the Rock of Ages, into the ultimate strength and safety of the Living God himself.

piton feat

If you’re climbing in a storm,  look out for what others have left for you.  When you see it – choose to reach out for it and clip yourself on!

If you’ve taken on a difficult face and made it to the top.  Look for the faith that you grew on the journey and then choose to find a way to hold it out for others.

And please, please comment below about the ways God is speaking to you that you could hold out the faith you’ve collected to to others and then comment again about the ways you’ve done it and seen faith multiplied in other people.  In the words of the Lego Movie – that would be awesome!

If you’re interested in more of what I think faith is and isn’t you could read this:  Faith and the Flying Fox or this: Ready to Walk on Water

Identity

Nametapes

8 Comments

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

Identity

There’s no place like home

2 Comments

It’s our nomadic season!

Once a year we run from the summer heat and leave the small island of Cyprus for the slightly bigger one of the UK, where we live out of (several) suitcases for five fun, but long, weeks.

Sleeping in a tent or on the guest beds of our fantastic welcoming friends and family is wonderful, but I can’t help missing the feeling of being ‘home.  Of course, the point of being here in the UK is not to feel ‘at home’, but to have fun, invest in friendships and do things that can’t be done when we’re in Cyprus.  But, although I’m having a great time, it’s actually quite difficult for a homebird like me to be on the move for that long.

I’ve been reflecting on that strange tension between the longing to be home and not feeling ready to leave yet.  Just a couple of weeks ago I was really wishing that I could pop home for a few days, run the washing machine ten times, sleep in my own bed and then pop back to spend more time with the friends I love (and the massive to-do list!)

It’s made me think again about Paul describing our bodies as ‘tents’  (in 2 Cor 5).  He seemed to think of his earthly body as ‘temporary accommodation’, to be replaced by a permanent building in heaven.  I’m fairly sure that most of the people Paul sold his tents to weren’t weekend leisure-campers either.  Tents were for people who for a long time or a short time were living on-the-move.

 Heaven is where our home is – life on earth is just camping

It’s made me wonder whether my life is, in reality, quite a lot like my family’s summer trip back to the UK.  It’s an interesting thought. …Maybe the point of my life is not really to be comfortable, or settled or easy; but to do (and enjoy) those things that won’t be possible in heaven… Chasing after the lost, loving the outcasts, defending the oppressed, caring for those in need.

Perhaps we are all ‘temporary nomads’ in the world for a while before we head back to our Home in heaven.  The long-term-travelling-camping thing is fun, but not easy.  It can be uncomfortable and difficult and inconvenient and we may never feel quite settled.

This time next week, we’ll be on our flight back to Cyprus.  There will be tearful goodbyes, and regrets about the stuff we didn’t get done… but it will be OK… we’ll be going home.

blue tent

Living the Life

Climbing the Helter Skelter

2 Comments

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

2 Comments

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

Perfume poured out

Image 3 Comments

I love the story from John’s gospel of Mary of Bethany.  Especially the moment where, perhaps overwhelmed with gratitude for the raising from the dead of her brother Lazarus, she comes to Jesus, pours oil over his feet then wipes them with her hair.

Today there are two things that strike me about this public display of adoration…

One is that it is an act of incredibly expensive worship.  It makes me wonder what a family in a little hill village above Jerusalem were doing with a pint of perfume that was worth a year’s wages?  One commentator I read suggested that it might have been a way of saving money, an investment for the future, perhaps for a dowry when Mary or Martha wanted to marry.  In any case it was a hugely expensive offering.

It may be that Mary was literally pouring out her financial security, her plans for the future, her hopes and her dreams over the feet of Jesus.  An act of pure worship.  It was extravagant, costly, over the top,  and it caused others to question whether she was getting too ‘carried away’, but in this moment it was undoubtedly entirely the right response to Jesus.

Sometimes singing a song of worship is a costly act for us, but there are many other things which we are called to do which require much greater obedience, trust, surrender and sacrifice.   These choices, to do what Jesus asks of you even when it might cost you your dignity, your good name, your financial security, your  dream of how life would be, are extraordinary acts of silent worship.

 

The second thing I notice today is that in John’s account ‘the house was filled with the fragrance’ of the spilled perfume.  I have a tiny, tiny bottle of spikenard oil from Israel that a friend gave me.  Just the tiniest dot of it has a heady perfume that I can smell on my skin for hours.  I can’t quite imagine what the fragrance of a whole pint spilled on Jesus’ feet and the floor would have been like.  The scent of it would’ve been totally overpowering and would have not only filled the whole house but would have lingered in that place and on Mary’s hair and on the feet of Jesus for days if not weeks.

When I painted this postcard, I wanted to show that in our moments of love, surrender and giving,  in singing worship and in the rest of life, Jesus does not remain impassive.  He responds. He smells the fragrance and he leans towards us to receive the gift. He honours us and our costly gifts to him as He honoured Mary and He wears the fragrance of our worship with pride.

When we not only declare our love publicly and with extravagance, but anoint Him with our trust, our hopes and our dreams, the perfume is spilled out over both Him and us.  We share in the lingering scent of it and the fragrance spreads out to fill the room.

I wave the white flag

and I pour out,

my heart,  my life,  my hopes,  my dreams,  my security,

over your feet.

Already washed in your blood

made clean by your sacrifice

restored by resurrection

alive in your life…    I choose

to trust

and place my all

into your hands

may the house be filled with its fragrance

Perfume poured out

If you want to read it for yourself, this story is in John ch 12 v 3-8.

reflect white