Peace for today

Perfect and constant peace.

Isn't that what we all want and even if we don't know it, need?

I stumbled across this verse at a time in my life when all I needed was peace, but instead, fear, worry, anger, doubt, shame, blame and suspicion ruled the roost. I lived backed into a perpetual corner of expectations from others and myself.

My mind was always going at a 100 miles a minute. Every situation was analysed and re-analysed. Every word spoken or emailed turned over and over anxiously in my head.

For example, our pastor would send a simple email saying that he'd missed me after the service and just wanted to give through some details for the next week.  And it would start: "What did he mean by that? Maybe he is trying to tell me I should have stayed behind in church to help pack up? Why do I always do this? Why didn't I THINK?! Off course they need help packing up. Next week I am going to stay behind and help. In fact I am going to reply right now and explain why I couldn't stay this week and that I will definitely be there next week to help before and after the service."

And next week would come and one of three things would happen:

1. One of us would get sick and I would be unable to go, but would then send emails, texts and stopping short of smoke signals, to make sure they knew that I hadn't just absconded ("after all, what would the people say!"), or;

2.  By about an hour before we had to go to church, my poor family would have had their heads chewed off and spat out, because we are LATE. I would be ranting in the car to two teary-eyed blessings who couldn't understand where this terrible concept of church I had created met with the sweet Jesus I was trying to tell them about;

3. Or worse even, I would be there, but grumbling about the fact that no one else helps.

I wish it wasn't true, but it is and I have done each of these 3 at different times and sometimes all together.

I was a slave to looking and seeming perfect. I was a slave to what others thought of me. I was a slave to what I thought others thought of me. I was a mess. And I suppose that I just thought life was always going to be like that. But that is not the message of the Gospel. So God intervened.

At the beginning of 2014, I read this verse and it was as if everything within me shouted: That's it! I want that! You know that moment when you just know that you can't go on like that? I kept seeing this verse over and over in different places.There are only about 4 verses that God has ever confirmed and re-confirmed to me like that. "Life-verses" I suppose.  I had hurt my little family (and myself) enough and I was in danger of scaring them off church and God forever.

The NKJV says:

You will keep him in perfect peace,

whose mind is stayed on You,

because he trusts in You.

A marriage counsellor once told me, that any problem in any relationship, always has to do with a lack of trust. I have tested it in many of my relationships and any problems that arise always boil down to: "I don't trust that you have my best interests at heart" or "I don't trust that you love me unconditionally".  Which off course is absurd because we are human and selfish and definitely have our own interests at heart most of the time.

But in this case it meant that the problem in my relationship with God, had to do with trust. I didn't completely trust that God had my best interests at heart. And that is why I had to try and take control of every situation and scenario, because: "Just suppose God doesn't come through".

So, I wept and repented of that and I asked God to help me trust Him. As Joyce Meyer says: I was desperate to become addicted to peace.

It was a long road and it took me repeating this verse over and over maybe 10 times a day every time I caught myself getting on the merry-go-round of thoughts again, before it sank in. "I trust You", "You keep me in peace", "Hey, this is not peace, so it's not of You", but finally I thought it had become a constant in my life and I could teach others to do the same. (Spoiler alert!!! I was wrong).

One day this week (after I had started writing this post), I had a hard day. It was just one of those days where I was tired and the kids were ill and bickering and I felt ugly and like a bad wife and mother and housewife.  

I spewed my tears and self-pity to my sister (who has MANY other more serious things to worry about, by the way) and she just listened and then she sent me the verse with the Protea flower above to comfort me.  

I had a little laugh at God's sense of humour and I calmed down and I realised that I will never "arrive". God in His love and mercy, mercy, mercy still takes time out from building galaxies and babies in wombs, to remind me (and you): 

Trust me and you will find peace.

I Am enough

Tonight life hurts. Life is too dark and too heavy and too unfair.

It chokes and smothers and draws ugly dry sobs out of me.

A baby shouldn't have to suffer. Not even a parent should have to suffer or watch their child do the same.

Tonight I know the theological answers of how when sin came into the world the perfect became imperfect and sick and toxic and our bodies will only be free from it's effect when we enter eternity with God.

But tonight the theological answers are not enough. Because tonight I just want to sit on my Father God's lap and beat at His chest and cry: "Why Daddy?!"

And I hear Him say: Don't hold back. I can handle your questions. 

I Am enough.

Unpacking

Today I have to unpack our boxes.

They arrived last week and were met with much excitement (mostly about the tv and Playstation) and all the exciting bits like the coffee machine and Lego were immediately mined out.

And now what is left are the day-to-day casserole dishes, old school reports, books and odd pairs of socks. Not exciting.

I am reminded of so many projects gone by that started like my box delivery: with excitement and joy and laying awake at night that ended in ...nothing. See, I am a good starter. I can dream about what lies ahead, lay awake imagining the outcome and write To-do lists. But when it comes to the middle and end? Things get fuzzy. Messy. Anti-climmatical. It involves lots of "Did-I-really-hear-God" 's and emergency trips to buy toilet paper to avoid facing it.

But I have learned the following more recently (Thanks to Cheri Gregory:)

  When I avoid doing something it is most often due to fear

• Either fear of doing the wrong thing or making a wrong decision or
• Sometimes it is fear because I don't really know what the next step is 
• And very often, it is because there is a seperate unresolved issue that will be dug out at the same time. 

In the case of these boxes it is all of the above!

• I don't really have space to put everything that came in these boxes AND I don't know where everything should go. We moved back from London to a fully furnished home we had happily filled for 6 years before we left for the UK and then my mother-in-law's things were added.

• I don't know whether to start with the kitchen boxes or the book boxes or the keepsakes or clothes or toys. So.. I don't start at all.

• 4 years of our life are in those boxes. Yet it seems so small. London was like a pressure cooker (for lack of a better analogy). It 'cooked' me quickly and brought out parts of me I didn't know or want to know. But it also brought friendships to a quick depth that ran so deep that I am still bleeding from being pulled away. I will heal, but in those boxes are paintings that were painted for me, a prayer cloth with scriptures written on it with loving, prayerful hands, a cross-stitch of Psalm 73:25-28, a Dyson vacuum cleaner (don't laugh) which had my friend running all over London to find it, handwritten notes from children and people I had the privilege of sharing life with and a Russian apron and oven mitts from my sister-from-a-Moscow-mother. 

Aaaah I see... 

So- I resolve that for today I am going to do the following things:

1. Be kind to myself.  And when I start feeling guilty or condemned about my progress, remember:

 Romans 8:1: There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit" (NKJV)

2. Take the unpacking 15 minutes at a time (that's thanks to the Flylady) and

3. Have a cup of tea

4. Enjoy the memories. It cleanses and heals the wounds.

So... What was masked as my relentless procrastination habit was actually a fear. Fancy that.

More about Procrastination another time (Wait, did I just procrastinate "Procrastination"?)

Wish me luck!

A beautiful year...

Early in 2012 I went through probably one of the most difficult times in my spiritual life.  

It involved what I saw as a betrayal by other Christians which always makes the wound sting so much more.

Until recently, I had blamed this incident for the shaking in my faith and the subsequent spiritual lethargy I felt.  I couldn't pray, praise Him, get involved or even read the Bible. And it was EVERYBODY else's fault.

Much to my shock and horror, God showed me more recently that a) He was ok with what happened ( What?!) and b) It was for my good (Again, WHAT?!)

See, I had come into 2012 and probably 2010 and 2011 before that believing that spiritually I had ARRIVED!  I fasted, prayed, spent time studying the Word, was studying Christian counselling and had been involved in a ministry for women who had been hurt or abused. I also came from a vibrant, caring, home group for women, which had become my little throne and safety net.

But it was when I thought I knew everything that God had to show me I knew nothing.

I hope to unpack more of what The Surgeon is doing in me as He reveales it to me...

Pleased to meet you. I am Busy.

I am learning a very hard lesson today.

I wear busyness as a badge. "Look how busy and full my schedule is.  I must be good at what I do?!"

I constantly over-promise and under-deliver. I offer to do something for and then I cancel at the last minute, because I am overwhelmed at the thought of feeding, dressing and getting my 1-yr old to sleep while I try to see someone in need, see someone I feel guilty, because I had to cancel  seeing them yesterday or just do something I have been putting off doing at home.

Today I said yes to: a GP appointment straight after, a football session for my son, going to meet a mom in need, then I had to look after my friend's son for a few hours, clean house and host our church leadership meeting at my home. Now many women could do this easily. But to get between all those appointments, I will be stressed to the max, stressing out my son and also neglecting my 1-year old's basic need to sleep, because he can't fall asleep in the car. I even planned on leaving him in his pj's and then dressing him when we got to football. And it is raining outside.

I mean it is madness when I look at it now. And it is all driven by guilt, guilt, guilt and pride, pride, pride

I SHOULD be able to do it. I SHOULD be perfect. X can do it? Y can do it? Why can't I?

That's Me

Is it too late to be the Me I was made to be?

No! 

There is always time to be the Me I was made to be

I'm not talking about career choices or a mid-life crisis

I am talking about being h-a-p-p-y with M-e.

But...

The Me YOU want me to be?

The Me I THINK you want me to be?

Or the Me I have made you believe I am? All lies really.

None of them based on my true identity which

Now I see more clearly than ever 

Nailed to a cross

You don't get more real than that

When the King paid with His blood for every

Shameful act I will ever commit

THAT is me.

So when I disappoint myself, or you- I'm still free

When I make a mistake- I'm still free

When you misunderstand me? - I'm still free

When I am not strong enough, clever enough- I'm still free

Free to be Me. In You.

The oldest knife in the drawer gets used the most

I have these old knives in my home that I could never go without. From the "Ginsu" era of miracle knives. They were my mother's and they actually do still work.  My husband and his sisters used to try and hide a hideously melted old knife from my mother-in-law so that she wouldn't use it, but she always found it.  I heard a woman on the radio the other day phoning in to answer the question: "What annoys your husband or wife about you?", and guess what: It was the old knife that she kept using. (He'd better be careful before she proves him to be wrong about how sharp it is). But it got me thinking about how the things that don't seem valuable to some, are very valuable to others.

Elizabeth- barren, Mary- too young, the Shepherds- rough, strange and smelly, the Wise Men- foreign pagan worshippers, Anna- a widow and very old, Simeon- too old and Joseph - working class.

Yet, God appeared to all of them in some way or the other to proclaim Jesus' birth and His future as the Messiah.  

Would I have scorned had I been there? Would I have "wondered" and whispered about Mary's innocence and even mental health? Would I have doubted that God would reveal His son to foreigners of a different religion? Would I have laughed at the shepherds half asleep, babbling incoherently about a choir of angels and paying homage to a baby (a baby?) who was the promised Messiah? Would I have shaken my head and clicked my tongue at the elderly man Simeon and Prophetess Anna who was clearly too old to still be used by God? And a dirty carpenter for a father?

I can't say I wouldn't have.  I can only hope that by grace I wouldn't have missed it.  But it does give me hope. God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble. If He can use the old, the young, the widow, the weak, the strange, the broken, He can use me. And He can use you.