Progress

Ageing is strange. It just seems to happen when you aren't looking. 

As a child I accepted all that my family - and life - threw at me. Not until adulthood did I start questioning just how normal it was? What is normality, I wonder?

My mind fantasises and dreams up the ideal...oh wouldn't it be tremendous if that were 'the  'norm'! I look at the dysfunctional relationships in my life and compare them to this 'norm' I have dreamt up, and feel cheated. When I wake up to the deception, I then start to compare my relationships to my perceptions of the relationships in other people's lives and feel that I have lacked. Never mind that my perceptions are flawed, never seeing what may have happened when my eyes were elsewhere.

Ancient offences, some long forgotten rise up, clamouring for attention. On days, I look for healing in all the wrong places, knowing that The Great Healer is close, watching and waiting, but the path to His heart is elusive.  

Perhaps the Healing requires action on my part. Forgiving, letting go and giving. The call to LOVE grows ever louder. Love against all reason, love in the face of offences, love in my 'doings', not merely in words.

I find those who have hurt me, becoming old and frail. So reluctant to accept the help that is obviously needed, until the time comes when there is need and opportunity to help. And in helping, in that very practical action of visiting the frail, helping the helpless, this feeling starts to grow. Just a bud at first, then becoming a blossoming hope that there will be fruit. At last, through no conscious effort the fruit of LOVE emerges. Past offences become irrelevant and every good moment that is left becomes treasured. 

There is no normality. We each travel our own path, and are responsible for our own choices. To resent, or to love? It is up to me.

The Elusive Healer is perhaps not as elusive as I thought. He is Love and in loving, His work is done. He dwells there, and when I choose to do the same, healing comes. 

Broken is Beatiful?

So is broken beautiful? Or is it just messy and obsolete? I passed an old broken boat the other day. There was just enough of it to make out it had been a boat.

It didn't look beautiful. It just looked broken. Surely it's destiny would be to be bright and shiny, sailing the ocean free, not rotting in the mud.

But as I thought about that, I imagined that perhaps it has sacrificed its freedom to become permanently embedded and anchored to a 'home' . And it has become a home for countless little sea animals that live there. Much of the time, when the tide it up, it is completely hidden. It is empty forever of people, but it is full of water. Were the water not from our polluted land, it would be washed clean.

It is broken but it is washed, full of water and it is home. Perhaps there can be beauty in brokenness.

Identity...authentic?

So I was out walking in an old lane and saw this sign...................

Now the sign was written in old English font and the spelling 'olde' is an ancient spelling. A coach house was traditionally an inn (i.e. pub) in the days long before cars - days of coaches and horses. On a long journey, the coach would stop at a coach house to get fresh horses, or you might stay overnight there or take refreshments...so you would expect an Old Coach house to be a welcoming place for weary travellers, a historically interesting, old, inn.
Well this is what the Olde Coach House was...

What a let down. It was obviously - despite the sign - new, complete with solar panels! Nothing traditional or historical about it. It did not look like visitors would be welcome - CCTV and alarms all round, and big sparkling bars to keep people out.

It made me think.
So often I take things at face value because of how they are named, or signed.

 I keep hearing that church is a family, but families do not just see each other once a week. Families have time for each other.

I am not saying there is no love at church. There is. But it is not a family. I cannot just roll up at someones house just slop on their sofa and know I am welcome. I might be welcome if it is convenient, but if they are busy - go away.

I keep bumping against boundaries. Boundaries should be to keep strangers or unwelcome guests out, not family. Don't family have permission to 'come on in'? Perhaps not to the bedrooms, but certainly to the downstairs rooms.

Our definitions and labels say one thing, but the truth is different. It would be a foolish person to see the sign to the Olde Coach House and just wander in, taking no notice that everything about it screams 'private' and 'keep out unless you own a key'.

For my own safety and sanity I have to look beyond the labels. My house has no label. I don't think I could live up to it if it did. I am not always friendly looking, I can be suspicious, even prickly on days. But I never turn anyone away.

Surely having time for one another is the base line.

 I John 3:18 Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.

Forgive me if I sound bitter, forgiveness is a work in progress.

Hiding?

So where have I been?

It's over a year since I posted. I wrote 'the pain of loving', and put the blog out there. Then a few friends asked if I blogged, and I gave out the blog address only to be challenged about the various things I have said. I should have taken on board my own words! The pain of loving indeed.

My heart felt violated. Yes this is public, but why do people who live nearby prefer to see my heart online instead of over a coffee?

It is a short cut to my heart.

Not only were they preferring an instant insight that cost little time or vulnerability on their part, but my heart was judged and my words were used against me.

By putting my heart online I am saying, 'this is worth something...what God is doing in me...this is precious.' It is out there in the hope of connecting with fellow travellers who may be on a similar journey.

I am becoming convinced that we are, that you and I are His Beloved. Just as He is mine.

And he doesn't qualify his love, he doesn't wait until we are healed, set free and sorted out. He takes us in our brokenness, so that He can shine through all the more like treasure in clay jays.

The last months have been a difficult and painful journey. I have been battling with feelings of betrayal and abandonment, I have been aware of lies and offences been thrown at me. Ah the battle to avoid bitterness taking root.

And I have felt gagged. I have felt a pressure, in knowing who reads this blog, to sounding spiritual. To say the right things. Knowing that any wrong things may be taken down and used in evidence against me. Knowing that some of my deep heart feelings may be bandied about as if they cost nothing to write.

And yet here I am, writing again! Why?

Well I have changed the blog name and removed followers who live nearby, lest I be judged, and this blog name will just be hidden amongst thousands of others, and may only be stumbled upon by weary travellers wondering if they could possibly be Beloved too. Oh, and you are. So Beloved.

Perhaps old and distant friends may find their link still works and that is fine. You are welcome here.

I want to be honest. Authentic. Without feeling threatened or that I am TMNE (too much or not enough.) One day I will have the courage to be that authentic with all whom I know. But that day is not today, for my heart has been damaged, and trust is a hard commodity to find right now.

I feel like I have been left with so little and yet so much.

I look around, and apart from my fantastic husband (and that is a Big exception) I see few people nearby. Perhaps my increasingly prickly reactions or my retreat has pushed them away, but really it is ok. Forgiveness is starting to flow as I drink the cup Jesus drank. Yet increasingly, my vision is filled with Him. Utterly beautiful.

Bless you my lord for daring to walk this painful road before any of us, and in a depth we will never experience.

Submission and Surrender

You can surrender to many things.
You can surrender to your circumstances and put them on the throne.
You can surrender to your sickness, your past, your wounds, or your feelings and enthrone them
Where they will rule you like a merciless dictator.

Or

You can surrender to me
And see how I can release the power of the these things
See how I break the yoke of the oppressor.

It means letting go of the pain, the victim in you, the status of the wounded one.
It means becoming ordinary, but whole, as I intended you to be.

Will you do that?

It will free and release you to embrace my healing and know my freedom.

We can be united in a holy, joyful, divine embrace.
Receive the spirit of sonship.
There is no better place to be than in my embrace.
The dove with wings of silver and feathers of gold will rest upon you and dwell in you.
Those who the son sets free will be free indeed.

The Pain of Loving

I once heard someone pray, thanking God that Love is such a joy. That it is something that comes with no pain.

I'm afraid I have to disagree.

I find that there is pain involved in loving. It is a risky business. When you actively love someone, you are offering them a piece of your heart. There is no guarantee that this will be valued for the pure gold that it is. Or that the love will be returned through people.

Sometimes I look around at all the people around me, and I feel such love in my heart, it can be overwhelming. It's hard to know what to do with it, because for one thing, I don't always know the best way to express it, and secondly, not everyone wants to be on the receiving end.

Someone said 'a relationship will only progress to the depth of the person who wants it least.' So true, unfortunately. The same person said that God cannot take lonleliness away, only people can. It is my eternal, lonely frustration that I desire to love deeply from the heart and to visit and know the hearts of those whom I love deeply. But rarely do many of those people have the time or inclination to go there - or perhaps the courage to take such a risk. Said with no trace of self-pity, for I honestly know that other people have many things in their lives to give their time, energy and love to. Their families for one thing! And that of course is right.

But there are huge temptations and accusations that then kick in. It can feel that this love I feel towards others is not reciprocated in any obvious way - at least not in any way that leads us to engage or relate as friends. Then comes the double-edged NETM sword of accusation. NETM = Not enough/too much.

The thinking can go that I am not enough - not engaging enough, not interesting enough, not clever enough, not spiritual enough - just wholly at some level I don't understand, not good enough to bother with.

Or maybe I am too much - too emotional, too demanding, too intense, too high maintenance, too confusing, too prickly, too complicated - altogether too much trouble to bother with.

This inability to deeply connect with others is one of the biggest pains in my heart.

And yet I know God gives me the choice of whether to love. But to 'not love' would be to kill my heart or at least to shut it down. And if I shut it down, it does not just become closed to people, but to God as well. As I cannot do without Him, so then love - however inexpressible or unreturned - has to remain. I will continue to love, and cry into the carpet on the days when it is so painful.

You only need to look at Jesus to see the truth of this lived out – so much love He gave which was not returned. He is the image of the invisible God, who looks out with huge compassionate love upon so many who simply turn away. They have such a distorted image of who He is that they believe He is not enough for them. Or else He is too much - too demanding. They see Him as a taker, when He is really a giver. He will not force Himself on anyone, so the eternal Christ hangs on the cross with arms flung wide and heart exposed, pouring out love in His very blood, to all. To those who recieve it and to those who don't. Like me, He is longing for relationship with those He loves. But only He knows the measure of pain that fills His heart as time after time people turn away, even in hatred of Him, just as they crucified Him all those years ago. My pain can only be a dull reflection of His, as my love is also a poor imitation.

There is comfort in knowing He understands. That He has been there, and still is. Truely. There is comfort in that.

But there is also pain.

The pain of loving.
(all this reminds me of Oscar Wilde’s story ‘The Happy Prince’ – do you know it?)

Sword of Fire

The other day I was looking at an abstract piece of art and clearly saw a face of someone holding a sword, I thought initially that it was an angel. The face had a pearl like texture, yet the skin was red in part & he was wearing a golden helmet. The sword was also golden but it had fire running up and down it.

A song was being sung. It was about pain. A song that although the Lord had torn us, he would bandage us. He had wounded us but would heal us. And that he had not left us in our pain but was with us in it. Like the fourth man in the fire, he was there.

I saw the picture again, and this time I realised it was not an angel - it was Jesus. He himself was standing in front of me with the sword. He had compassion in his eyes and I knew he would not pierce me without my permission. His eyes told the story that he knew what the pain would be like & I remembered that he too was pierced with a sword. Out of his wound flowed the blood of salvation & the water of cleansing….my wound would not cause me to shed blood or spill water. It would not be an exit wound but an entrance wound for Him….for the sword of his word….for His presence…..it would be an entry point for healing.

Then he called for surrender. ``

He asked 'what is on the throne? Yourself, your needs, your pain….?'
All those things need dethroning so that He can be enthroned in my heart.

Above the pain, above the desire for deep close friendships, above the loss and the loneliness.

Then Jesus was sitting on the throne in front of me. His eyes blazed like fire but there was laughter within them. I was awestruck, kneeling but he beckoned me closer. The arms of the throne were golden and I put my hands on them & leant towards him. I heard his words "I will speak with you, I will be closer than a brother. Fix your eyes upon me."