The Helper

On one of the rare mornings, on our holiday, earmarked for doing our own stuff, Joe went off the get a hair cut while I took mum around Sainsbury’s supermarket.

We don’t have a Sainsbury’s in Inverness. There are a number of Tesco shops, a Morrisons, and a Co-op.

Being as mum is a little shaky on her feet, we commandeered a wheelchair and she balanced a basket on her knee. There wasn’t much on the list, just enough to see her through to the weekend – bread and milk and other necessities. My niece, Kelly does the proper weekly shop with her at the weekend.

The wheelchair wasn’t heavy to push, but there were lost of trolleys and lots of shelf stackers to get in the way. In Tesco I might have been able to navigate blindfolded to the UHT milk, but not in Sainsbury’s. Rather than toil up and down the aisles looking for what we needed, I kept tapping the shelf stackers on the shoulder and asking them for directions. They were incredibly well informed. Such and such an item was on aisle 37, or aisle 24 or whatever. My mum was very impressed with how swiftly we got around and finished the shopping.

The shelf stackers knew exactly where everything was and in some cases, rather than just tell me, they walked beside me till we got to the right place. Without their help we could have been wandering around aimlessly for ages, perhaps giving up altogether!

I have just been reading about the Holy Spirit.

How often are we like the shoppers in a supermarket, endlessly trailing up and down the aisles trying to track down some obscure ingredient for a dish? Asking the person who knows where we will find what we are looking for makes things so much easier. Likewise, we stumble through life, looking for answers, scraping our spiritual knees in the process when we could ask the One who knows!

Jesus does not call the Holy Spirit the Helper without a good reason. How sad that He gives us a Helper, and we don’t ask for help! Our walk with Jesus could be a really vibrant experience if we used the help the Holy Spirit offers.

It is not enough really to merely comment that we need to use the help the Holy Spirit offers. What am I going to ask Him to help me with?

Holiday snapshots

I have just arrived home from a visit down south to see family. The rest of the this blog could be the equivalent of digging out the holiday photos and showing you endless pictures of people you are never likely to meet. So, I will hand out a few awards instead!

The award for the least stressful day – there wasn’t one! When you have a huge family and feel obliged to make sure that you visit each and every member and they don’t live near each other it is stressful. The one day that we did not visit anyone – the Monday – that was stressful because of all the phone calls I had to make to arrange who to visit and when!

The award for the most stressful day – take your pick! I am opting for Thursday – visiting my sister in Northampton. She has moved house, not that I could ever find her previous house either. Northampton isn’t a part of the UK that I know well. I had been to the library earlier on in the week and downloaded an AA route to the house. It worked up to a point. There were considerably more traffic lights than the route mentioned. Once we found the place, we had a great time, catching up with the news and re-acquainting myself with nieces and nephews. They told me a quicker way home, which might have actually been quicker in daylight! Driving around Northamptonshire villages late at night is not fun.

Award for the best family cooked meal – there were a lot of cooked meals to chomp our way through. Every sibling invited us to dinner! I have no wish to eat pasta for quite a while - that seemed to be the staple ingredient for most meals. The prize goes to my brother who cooked a wonderful chicken and rice meal with spinach. He also let us join in on the preparation of the desert – a wonderful lime cheesecake. I de-rinded the limes! Second prize, if there was one, goes to my youngest sister. It was the opposite of the feeding of the five thousand with the loaves and fishes. She had cooked to feed the five thousand, and half a dozen of us polished the lot off.

Award for most entertaining company – not relatives at all this time, but a very good friend. That is not to say that visiting the family was not entertaining because it was. It is just that my family don’t do magic tricks and these folks do. On a previous visit, many years ago, their younger son, practically set himself on fire juggling with lighted batons! This time he kept the repertoire down to card tricks. It is all about miss direction and having the right kind of patter!

Award for nicest niece or nephew – they are all rather wonderful people and a real credit to their parents. I have to admit that my personal favourite is Harriet – not for anything she did this time round, but on a previous visit. She had been extraordinarily kind and like an elephant, I don’t forget! She is a person that looks out for others and makes people feel comfortable and at ease. Her sister, Charlotte, is wonderful too! She loves poetry! She is the one most likely to change the world – lots of opinions about what is wrong and what needs to be done to improve things. Most likely to make it to the Olympics, if they have women’s rugby as a sport, is my niece Emma who is going to a rugby festival in Great Yarmouth this Easter weekend.

Award for best family pet – apart from one cat and a guinea pig, they are all into dogs. I think there are as many dogs as there are nieces and nephews. We only had brief glimpses of some of them – like Bailey, the bulldog. He belongs to Kelly who bought him and then discovered she was pregnant. She is optimistic that there won’t be any problems. Jethro, who belongs to my sister Sharon, has to be the most laid back and relaxed of them all. He hangs around horses most of the day. Bob gets the prize though. He belongs to another sister, Carla, a black Labrador, endlessly patient and mild mannered. We took him out for a walk, or a “pull”. The village playing field was overrun with children learning how to play football, so we found an old footpath and took him down there. Lots of puddles to throw sticks into that Bob gloriously chased down!

Holiday snapshots

I have just arrived home from a visit down south to see family. The rest of the this blog could be the equivalent of digging out the holiday photos and showing you endless pictures of people you are never likely to meet. So, I will hand out a few awards instead!

The award for the least stressful day – there wasn’t one! When you have a huge family and feel obliged to make sure that you visit each and every member and they don’t live near each other it is stressful. The one day that we did not visit anyone – the Monday – that was stressful because of all the phone calls I had to make to arrange who to visit and when!

The award for the most stressful day – take your pick! I am opting for Thursday – visiting my sister in Northampton. She has moved house, not that I could ever find her previous house either. Northampton isn’t a part of the UK that I know well. I had been to the library earlier on in the week and downloaded an AA route to the house. I worked up to a point. There were considerably more traffic lights than the route mentioned. Once we found the place, we had a great time, catching up with the news and re-acquainting myself with nieces and nephews. They told me a quicker way home, which might have actually been quicker in daylight! Driving around Northamptonshire villages late at night is not fun.

Award for the best family cooked meal – there were a lot of cooked meals to chomp our way through. Every sibling invited us to dinner! I have no wish to eat pasta for quite a while - that seemed to be the staple ingredient for most meals. The prize goes to my brother who cooked a wonderful chicken and rice meal with spinach. He also let us join in on the preparation of the desert – a wonderful lime cheesecake. I de-rinded the limes! Second prize, if there was one, goes to my youngest sister. It was the opposite of the feeding of the five thousand with the loaves and fishes. She had cooked to feed the five thousand, and half a dozen of us polished the lot off.

Award for most entertaining company – not relatives at all this time, but a very good friend. That is not to say that visiting the family was not entertaining because it was. It is just that my family don’t do magic tricks and these folks do. On a previous visit, many years ago, their younger son, practically set himself on fire juggling with lighted batons! This time he kept the repertoire down to card tricks. It is all about miss direction and having the right kind of patter!

Award for nicest niece or nephew – they are all rather wonderful people and a real credit to their parents. I have to admit that my personal favourite is Harriet – not for anything she did this time round, but on a previous visit. She had been extraordinarily kind and like an elephant, I don’t forget! She is a person that looks out for others and makes people feel comfortable and at ease. Her sister, Charlotte, is wonderful too! She loves poetry! She is the one most likely to change the world – lots of opinions about what is wrong and what needs to be done to improve things. Most likely to make it to the Olympics, if they have women’s rugby as a sport, is my niece Emma who is going to a rugby festival in Great Yarmouth this Easter weekend.

Award for best family pet – apart from one cat and a guinea pig, they are all into dogs. I think there are as many dogs as there are nieces and nephews. We only had brief glimpses of some of them – like Bailey, the bulldog. He belongs to Kelly who bought him and then discovered she was pregnant. She is optimistic that there won’t be any problems. Jethro, who belongs to my sister Sharon, has to be the most laid back and relaxed of them all. He hangs around horses most of the day. Bob gets the prize though. He belongs to another sister, Carla, a black Labrador, endlessly patient and mild mannered. We took him out for a walk, or a “pull”. The village playing field was overrun with children learning how to play football, so we found an old footpath and took him down there. Lots of puddles to throw sticks into that Bob gloriously chased down!

Just hand me a black bin liner

I can’t remember the last time I wore a full length coat. To be honest, full length coats probably means an inch or two off the floor for someone my height, but I just couldn’t resist the bargain – reduced from £100 to £30 in the sale. Having just dropped a dress size on the diet, I dared to try it on. Dark grey wool with a light grey scarf, it fitted to perfection. I fell in love with it, and despite being on the cusp of spring, and this being a very winter coat, I bought it! I’m sorted for next year!

There are some people in the world that can wear bin bags and look terrific. I am not one of those people. I can wear something that looks terrific on the coat hanger, but on me – well, I might as well be wearing a bin bag! I just don’t have that thing called style!

I remember many years ago asking a friend of mine who worked in “Dash” or “Miss Selfridges” to come shopping with me. I can’t remember where I had got the money from, but it was, for me at least, a huge amount. I needed new clothes and I didn’t possess dress sense. She expertly glided around the displays, filling up my arms with things that I would never have contemplated – the colours, the styles were alien to me, but she knew her stuff and made me look good. I even bought a colourful floral hat! However, I spotted a brown skirt and fell in love with it. I insisted on trying it on. I liked it, and although she argued vehemently that it was not the right style for my height, or my figure, I bought it. She was so disgusted that I did not listen to her advice that she refused to go shopping with me ever again.

Incidentally, I was looking for a blue jacket – when I bought the black coat. I needed the blue jacket to complete a wedding outfit. Despite being two stone lighter than I was at my niece’s wedding last summer, I found that the outfit still fitted. It was a little loose – but not “two stone lighter” loose surely? I hate to think how tight it must have been on me last year! I don’t think I will get another wedding wear out of it if the weight keeps shifting – but that is kind of encouraging, isn’t it?

Becoming Jane

I am not really a social body, but I am trying to nurture a circle of friends beyond the holy huddle, so when the ladies at Joe's office invited me to join them at the cinema to see "Becoming Jane" I took them up on the offer. Going to see a film is not exactly something that encourages great conversation and relationship building – what else is there to say but, “No thanks,” when the bag of liquorice allsorts passes by for the umpteenth time?

Although I have read “Pride and Prejudice” and drooled at a dripping Colin Firth rising from the lake at Pemberly in the BBC adaptation, I don’t really know that much about Jane Austin.

Having seen the film, and assuming that it is based on fact, she has joined my heroines list. Agent Scully from the X-Files has long been number one in the list – for always being the first to go into scary dark places! She doesn’t do the shivering wreck thing that many women do. Judi Dench is also in the list somewhere. I remember watching a programme about her life and deciding that she was living the life that I wanted! Jo Brand hit the list earlier on by learning to play the organ and playing some complicated piece in the Albert Hall in front of thousands of people. Marg Simpson is also on the list because she loves Homer and I would find him very hard to love – although at times he reminds me of Joe!

At the time when Jane lived women were very much encouraged to marry – and marry well if they could - and have children. She had the chance to marry well but turned it down because she was looking for love. When she found love, although she had a chance to elope with the young man, she chose not to – not because she minded losing her reputation, but because she didn’t want him to lose his. As one of the characters said to her at the end of the film, “It appears that you won’t marry for money…and you won’t marry for love either.”

I found it challenging that didn’t choose the safe option. She never married at all in the end although she was in a position to do so. She was not prepared to take the second best option. She was not prepared to compromise to make life easier for herself. She did not live her life to fit in with other people’s expectations. Even choosing to become a writer and get her books published was not the done thing, but she did it. I admire her courage and commitment to principles that she wasn’t prepared to brush aside when they became inconvenient.

Where is the balance between pursuing you own plans so doggedly and fulfilling family obligations and duties? Her independence came at a price and it wasn’t just Jane who was paying but her family too.

There are things that I know I would like to do, but I often feel the pressure of responsibilities. The tutor at the creative writing course shared with us that she was retiring from her teaching post so that she could pursue her writing full time. She had written a novel that had never been printed, had begun a second novel and wanted to see it come to something. She could afford to do that and there was always supply teaching to fall back on.

I guess that Jane considered the price of things she really wanted. Some things, like marrying the lawyer, came at too high a price and would have brought more suffering than joy. Other things – the suffering would have come through not doing it and she was willing to pay the price.

God's carefully planned days

There as a whole verse in one of the worship songs on Sunday that described my Saturday to a tee - “Lord, You have searched me and Know me, You’re familiar with all of my ways, Such is Your knowledge about me, that You carefully plan all my days.”

When God plans the day, He adds in interesting little challenges! The first challenge was a flat battery! I had left the lights on overnight. There was a time when my neighbours would knock on the door and tell me! I phoned a friend who kindly came out to jump start my car. It was kind of an emergency as I had booked myself on a creative writing course and offered people a lift down. I was already running ten minutes late!

Once I had picked up my passengers the car stalled. I put my head down on the steering wheel and prayed that it would start up fine. I suppose in the course of everyday life many people say “Dear Lord” or “Oh God please…” and they are not actually praying but just expressing frustration that things are not going to plan. Mine was a genuine prayer and led to an interesting conversation on the way down. There were lots of questions about my faith – about whether I believed God could do anything, whether I ever felt abandoned by God, whether I was really sure that God loved me and if I believed he did – why did bad things happen?

It was an unexpected conversation and there were plenty of opportunities to testify to God’s faithfulness and share scripture.

It also led to one of the ladies asking me to pray for her. She was going through a difficult time, having just broken up with her boyfriend. She was feeling emotionally fragile, but she had also hurt her arm. We found a quiet corner of the room and prayed together!

I had my own plans for the day – to spend the day writing! God had his own plans and neatly wove them into the day! It was not a church setting, and not on a Sunday, but just as every day life was being lived. It was a natural, unforced and fruitful encounter with God.

Natural evironments

I caught the last half hour of “The March of the Penguins” on TV last night. Had they let Johnny Morrison loose on the narrative, one could have imagined the penguins saying all sorts of interesting things – about the cold weather, the eggs the male penguins had balanced on their feet, the absence of the females who had gone on a sixty mile hike to find water and food and so on. As it was Morgan Freeman did an excellent job!

There was so much that spoke volumes to me on many levels. Watching the march of the female penguins on their hike to reach the shore you couldn’t help but notice how cumbersome and slow the whole thing was. They are not built for walking. Often they fell onto the bellies and slid along for a while, but it was once they were in water that they really looked at home. They were eager to get into the water, and there were no orderly queues. Once in the water they were more like fish than birds. Did you know they can hold their breath for fifteen minutes? They were darting here, there and everywhere snapping up fish and skilfully evading the seals that wanted to eat them. Outside the water they were lumbering and clumsy. In the water they were mermaids. The difference of environments was amazing!

Come Saturday, that’s tomorrow, I get to be in my natural environment for the day! I have signed up for a creative writing day course in Aviemore. Some people may prefer to have all their finger and toe nails ripped out before they would ever put pen to paper and be creative, but not me!

I have always been of a writing bent – the written word just does it for me in a way that any other media doesn’t. Writing, as opposed to reading, is so my natural environment. A number of years ago I was exploring the world of college evening classes. The head bit of me said that I ought to sign up to do a counselling training course. It would have been so useful as at the time I was thinking about trying to get into the guidance role in teaching. It would also have been useful in terms of Christian counselling. I stood there, at the desk, with my money in my hand, ready to sign away the next twelve Thursday evenings. My eyes saw the words “Creative Writing”. Instead of following the head, I followed the heart. I was like that penguin who dived into the water! Home! I have rarely felt so comfortable in any other environment as I do with a pen and piece of paper, or a computer and a word processing package – and a topic of course!

Penguins spend very little of their time in the water. They delight in being in the water, but they are not there all the time. Nature demands that the reproducing and the rearing of the young happens outside, on dry land. It looks very inhospitable – with driving snow, dark days, biting wind and gnawing hunger. But when they are in the water, it is like all of that is cast aside. The chains of responsible parenthood fall off, although they are eating so that they can feed their young when they get back.

Some people live their whole lives never finding their natural environment. We were all created to live in fellowship with God, but if you look at statistics, very few people find that fellowship. Things happen, the devil happens with his lies, that force people to live somewhere that is hostile and inhospitable, where God never intended them to be.

A Sense of Wonder

This is just a snatch from my dream last night – not the whole thing. I am not sure that I remember much of the whole thing but this one scene caught my interest.

It was one of those rare dreams in the third person. It was like watching a movie rather than being personally involved – although if you are anything like me, you do get involved in movies!

The scene was a furniture shop. Around the walls there were cupboards – the kind that you would build into the walls of the home. One of them was made to look like something you would find in a Victorian home, perhaps in a sewing room. There were lots of drawers of various sizes. In some of the drawers, for display purposes, there were rolls of material for making dresses, and there were smaller drawers with ribbons in, and buttons of various kinds. One drawer contained a pair of scissors on a pile of lace.

The shop assistant called over a young girl and showed her the drawer with the scissors in it and told her it was a magic drawer. Things put in this drawer would sometimes disappear. To demonstrate what he meant, he opened the drawer to show the girl the scissors, and then shut it. Maybe he tapped lightly on the drawer, or blew on it like magicians do. When he opened the drawer, the lace was still there but the scissors had gone. The little girl looked really wide eyed.

The main character in my dream was a very pushy woman. She marched over to the cupboard and told the assistant not to be so silly. It wasn’t a magic drawer and there was a very simple explanation. She opened the drawer to reveal the scissors, and then pushed her finger down the side of the drawer. There was a small hook, or button, and a small eye on the side of the drawer. She hooked the eye on the button, closed the drawer, and when she opened the drawer, the scissors had disappeared. It wasn’t magic, just a clever devise to hide the drawer.

Suddenly, the woman’s face changed and she burst into tears. She was distraught – not about finding that the drawer worked by a clever devise, but on realising how determined she had been to find the devise. She had dismissed outright the idea that it could be magic and sought straight away to find the “truth”. She realised that she had lost her sense of wonder. Everything, it seemed, could and should be explained away.

I woke up with tears on my face! How sad that there are some people – not even grown ups – that need to have everything explained. There is no sense of the miraculous. What they can’t see doesn’t exist. I sometimes wonder if my own sense of wonder is being eroded away by the science and reason of the world I inhabit. Then I spend time in worship before God, and it is restored!

Many years ago, when I was attending a creative writing course at college, one of the assignments was to re-write the lyrics to “Raindrops on Roses”….”My Favourite Things” from “The Sound of Music” I thought I would do the opposite – and write about the things that I really didn’t ‘like. Here is one of the verses that came to mind this morning.

Science unlocking the secrets around me
Mysteries solved nothing left to astound me
Looking at stars and not being impressed
These are some things that I really detest.

This...

This…
My ultimate creative miracle
So unlike what has gone before
All else was just the frame

This…
Is not spoken into being
Commanded to be
By a single potent word

This…
Is no huge expanse
No firmament above the waters
No separation of water and sky

This…
Is not a mountain or a valley
Robed in swaying grasses
Clothed in forests of mighty oaks

This…
Is no flaming sun
Glorious in heat and radiance
Or cold and remote like the moon

This…
Is no eagle soaring on high
No sparrow skipping on a sun speckled branch
And nothing that twists and turns in the dark waters

This…
Is not a beast
Lumbering and clambering
Empty of soul

This…
I have held in my hand
Clay from the ground
Fashioned and crafted

This
I have breathed upon
Touched by my Spirit
Ignited and stirred to life

This…
Vessel of My image
In his being
I see Myself

This…
Fragile bone and flesh
Small in the immensity of the universe
Endowed with significance

This…
Free to choose
To love or reject
To draw near or to walk away

This…
Is man

This…
I love

If only I was Dorcas

The FW topic last week was "sewing". This was my entry and it came second in the Editor's Choice. That means that it will be published in one of their anthologies! I am somewhat delighted and over the moon!

If only I was Dorcas

Let’s suppose I died today.

It wasn’t a long drawn out affair of gasping breaths and whispered words. It wasn’t so swift and surprising like a car accident, that I had no time to prepare. I just became ill and didn’t get better. At the end it was like turning off the lights and gently closing the door to this life and falling to sleep. It was a good death.

Let’s suppose that I am tucked in my coffin.

One would hope that I am wearing my best blue dress. It brings out the blue flecks in my eyes, not that you can tell. I was never one for wearing much make-up so I hope that it is a natural look, not too heavy on the lip stick. I had hoped to touch up the roots on my hair, but never mind.

I hope that the conversation isn’t too solemn and hushed. I don’t mind a few jokes or some carefully chosen cheerful anecdotes of the things I had done. By all means, wear black if you feel you have to, but try to smile even just a little. I have gone to a better place remember!

Let’s suppose that in the next town, not too many miles away, is a church leader.

He had been given the keys to the kingdom. The Spirit of God rests upon him powerfully. He reaches down to the lame, pulls them to their feet and dances with them into the church. When he is arrested for preaching the gospel, an angel is dispatched to unlock the doors and sent him on his way. Some say that this man, this church leader, has even walked on water.

Do you send for the man?

If my name was Dorcas, you would have gone to the nearby town to urge him to come at once. She was a disciple who was always doing good and helping the poor.

If I was Dorcas, you would have taken him up to the room where I lay and shown him the clothes that I had made. There might have been a wonderful wedding dress that I had carefully sewn together. As I worked in the light of a candle, I would have been praying for the bride-to-be. I would have prayed for a fruitful married life, for fulfilment and harmony, for children and for laughter. Perhaps you show him a simple strong shirt of a working man. It’s nothing dainty or fragile, but fit for the fields and fighting against thistles. As I sewed the seams I would pray that he would be strong to fight the thorns of injustice in the village where he lived.

When you sent for the man, did you expect a noble tribute spoken at my graveside? Did you entertain the possibility of his turning you out of the room, taking me by the hand and commanding me to awaken?

You see, the community could not function without Dorcas. She had an essential contribution to make that they just couldn’t do without her. There was no understudy waiting in the wings to say her lines, no one to pick up the mantle she dropped. She was irreplaceable so God restored her to her church.

I am not Dorcas. I am not dead yet, but if I was, and if there was such a man in the nearby town, would you call him? Is there anything you could show him about what I have done that was good and helped the poor? There are no wedding dresses, no simple strong shirts that I have made and given away. What can you show him, what evidence can you provide that I have an essential contribution to make? Can you persuade him that I am irreplaceable?

I cannot be Dorcas. I can only be me. Is it enough?



Inspired by Acts 9:36-42

"And He made the stars"

Last night, in an attempt to generate a WW point, I walked into town last night. On a Wednesday evening I help out as an English language speaking class. It is nice to be a just helper encouraging the students to say the words and phrases correctly.

The numbers of the class fluctuate quite a bit from week t week. Many of the men who attend are from Poland. They are also football supporters. I don’t think Poland has a team in the Champion’s League Cup, but Celtic has a Polish goal keeper. There were a number of big games on last night. Sometimes there are more helpers than there are students, and sometimes I can excuse myself.

Walking home last night, the stars were just magnificent. Living fairly near to the edge of the town, the light pollution is not so bad.

Part of my route home takes me through a playing field. In the summer months, in the evening lots of the young players’ leagues uses the pitches. There are always dog walkers. It backs on to the row of houses where I live.

Last night I had an overwhelming urge to lie on the grass and just look up at the stars. I had my MP3 player plugged in and was listening to worship music. It just seemed appropriate to look up at the stars and remind myself that I serve an awesome God.

I found a spot far enough away from the path, and just patted the grass. It was wet!

Suddenly there were a million reasons why it was not a good idea to lie down!

The grass was wet.

With all the dog walkers and the darkness, there was a good chance I would settle down on a pile of doggy do. Just because there are notices reminding dog owners to make use of pooper scoopers – it doesn’t mean to say that they do.

And not to forget the dogs. I can imagine me, lying on my back looking at the stars and then being pounced upon by a large furry object. I could then have taken the opportunity to witness to the dog owner, I suppose, about God making the stars and stuff.

In the end, I contented myself with staring up at the stars and then going home for a cup of tea.

Spontaneity is not what it used to be! I wish I didn’t talk myself out of doing things that would probably encourage my faith!

In it together

I almost thought I had come to the wrong meeting last night! A lot of what our Weight Watchers leader said could almost apply to a vibrant and growing church!

Every week, we get given an inspirational article and this week it was “Perfect weight loss partners”. It was looking at the support we need that will help our weight loss the most. It is all about weight loss, but the principles apply to anything really.

“Many successful WW members find that losing weight is easier when they have the right people, information and encouragement around them.” It seems to me that if you apply this to developing your relationship with God, the same things apply. You need to have the right people, the right information and encouragement to grow as a Christian.

“Encouragement – someone to celebrate my small achievements.” The scales at WW measure half pounds too. Sometimes it is not even the weight loss that is celebrated – but a habit broken, or a good practice taken on board. Sometimes, in church, we wait for the big achievements before we testify about the goodness of God.

“Accountability – someone who’ll expect me to step on the scales each week.” I know from trying to loose weigh on my own that if I don’t feel like I have lost weight, I will just not step on the scales. Why bother having it confirmed that you have had a bad week and eaten far too much – much better to wait until you “feel” slimmer! Backsliding as a Christian does not happen over night – it is gradual and slow and relatively unnoticed. Being built into a body, someone notices and hopefully says something.

“Understanding – someone who knows what it takes to lose weight.” It is important to remember our roots and where we have come from. Our leader has a very unflattering picture of herself posted on the entrance board. She has lost masses of weight. Inevitably I look at the picture and I think that if she could do it, so can I. I know that she has been through what I am going through. In a church setting this has to be true. If we feel that no-one can relate to our situation, then we take the next step of believing that they cannot help us. Maybe we need to be prepared to paste the unflattering picture of ourselves for people to see!

“Motivation – someone to keep me inspired.” It says in scripture that we are to spur one another on to love and good works. I can remember preaching a long time ago from a few verses in Ecclesiastes – the bit about why two are better than one. There was a line about two keeping warm, while one person on their own gets cold. I saw this in terms of passion – on your own it is easy to let you passions cool down. Another person can remind you, and poke and prod you to pursue the passion.

“An exercise buddy – someone to exercise with.” Our walk with God is our own walk, we are accountable for our own spiritual temperature. But other people can have an input into that. I enjoy a bible study with a friend every week. We don’t just exercise our minds over what a verse means, but we allow the word we look at to throw light and convict us and challenge us. I could do a good job on my own – but my friend sees things I don’t see, and she sets me challenges that I would never reach for.

“Day to day support – someone who supports the small changes I make on a daily basis.” I have people, WW people, who I can phone if I wish. I haven’t phoned them as yet! I have been on weight loss programmes so often that I am an expert at knowing what I ought to do. I don’t have many questions. When it comes to my Christian life – I have experience, but I am not an expert. It is sad that our day to day support has become for many of us our week to week, Sunday to Sunday, support. We can phone people mid week, but we rarely do, so in the end we struggle. The equipping that God longs to give is in people – but we don’t ask, and we don’t offer, so we struggle. We may triumph in the end, but only after a prolonged battle that we need not have fought.

Well, I am certainly challenged to play a more effective part in building God’s living temple – His church. I am running through names in my head and thinking of how I can help and support people.

Paul's chains

Reading the end chapter of the book of Romans, it is hard to remember that Paul is in chains. There is a freedom that he exudes that seems to be at odds with the fact that he isn’t free.

I look at my own life and see that there are no chains. I am not shackled to a wall in a prison. However, the absence of visible chains does not mean that I live free. It seems that there are invisible chains – chains of people’s expectations of me, my own expectations too, fear of what others might think, or my perception of my own limitations, or my lack of faith. So many chains!

It frustrated Paul that he couldn’t go anywhere physically. He wanted to be with the people he was writing to, physically – but he couldn’t. If he couldn’t be there in body, then he made sure that he was there in spirit – through his letters and through his prayers. He found ways of getting around the barriers that could have prevented him from speaking into the lives of the people he held dear.

What would Paul do with the freedom that I have? Would he let it slip through his fingers or would he embrace each and every moment and use it?

Paul didn’t have the freedom that I have – I do! How do I ensure that I do not let it slip through my fingers? How do I embrace each and every moment and use it?

Attempt number five

I think this is my fifth attempt at weight loss – official attempts that is, through attending a weight loss class. Attempts one and two were successful – I lost the desired amount of weight. Attempts three and four were not successful – I gave up after the first stone or so. I suppose that to some extent none of the attempts were truly successful in that the weight went back on. I might have lost weight but I never really changed my eating habits – I just put them on hold for a while!

Attempts one and two were sensible eating combined with aerobic exercises – my leotard and leggings are in the wardrobe. I look at them occasionally and remember the days when I was bounced around on an exercise mat! I started at a lighter weight and had fewer pounds to shift in those days. I hovered between a size ten and a size twelve.

Attempt number three was never going to be successful. Every week the leader of the class showed up without a hair out of place and with make-up flawlessly applied. It was like the old Charlie’s Angels series – battling the bad guys without breaking a nail. This woman was dainty, power-dressed to the nines and I really couldn’t imagine that she ever battled with her weight. She encouraged us to take our Weight Watchers mayonnaise on holiday with us and keep counting the points. How real is that? I didn’t feel that she was in my corner fighting alongside of me.

Attempt number four I can’t remember that much about. It sprang out of a challenge from the pulpit to join a club, make friends with people and share Jesus with them. I joined WW, but never quite got around to evangelism!

Attempt number five is turning out to be a marathon, but I love the leader! She confessed this evening that over the last year she has put on a stone in weight. As she says, she didn’t just wake up one morning and there it was – an extra stone that wasn’t there the day before! It was not keeping track of the points, not measuring the quantities and looking out on the cold and cloudy days and deciding not to go for the walk! This is a woman that speaks my language!

She is like me! She is real! She is not dainty and power dressed with every hair in place and make-up flawless. She does not tell me the take my low fat mayonnaise on holiday with me! She knows that birthdays happen, that Indian curries taste divine and that you can’t be good all the time! Most of all she fights along side me! She is flawed!

There is nothing more soul destroying than feeling that the leader you are following is so far in front of you that you have absolutely no hope of ever catching them up. They are so far divorced from the reality that you face that they have nothing to say to you. They live on a different planet!

Jesus is quite unique in his leadership – He isn’t flawed and he doesn’t require me to catch up with Him. He slips back to walk beside me and never makes me feel that I am failing because I don’t get it right first time. He doesn’t tell me either to take my low fat mayonnaise on holiday with me!

Incidentally I lost a pound this week!

Billy Graham's Crowning Achievement!

A friend emailed this to me – I was telling someone about it last night, but here it the account.

Billy Graham's Crowning Achievement!

In what might prove to be the crowning achievement of an illustrious career in ministry, the 87-year-old evangelist, Billy Graham shocked The 16,300 in attendance at the Celebration of Hope crusade in New Orleans Arena on Sunday Night. Touted in advance as possibly his last Evangelistic crusade, Graham invited the packed house of evangelical Christians and the hundreds of new converts to join him on the one mile walk from the arena to New Orleans' infamous Bourbon Street.

"While we have seen God do tremendous things here the past couple of evenings. Yes, it is true that a great healing and a great many salvations have occurred within the confines of this auditorium. Still yet, there lies a great mountain in this city which needs to be
conquered."

Then taking from the Biblical Book of Joshua Chapter 14 he read, "I am this day, eighty-five years old. As yet I am as strong this day as on the day that Moses sent me; just as my strength was then, so now is my strength for war, both for going out and for coming in. Now therefore, give me this mountain of which the Lord spoke in that day," his voice suddenly sounding more forceful than during his 22 minute sermon.

"I last preached in the City of New Orleans in 1954 and I felt then that there was some unfinished business. Tonight, in what very well might be my last evangelistic service, I aim to finish that business and lead as many of you that would follow me to the multitude of lost souls that fill Bourbon Street tonight. That is my mountain!

That is where we shall see the harvest!" said Graham as the stadium erupted in cheers that lasted the next several minutes.

Utilizing a waiting mobility scooter, the elder Graham joined his son Franklin across the Arena floor and through the opened doors leading towards the French Quarter. In a show of solidarity and determination reminiscent of civil rights marches of the 1960's, nearly the entire capacity crowd joined in the 20 minute trek while singing, "When the Saints Go Marching In".

As the march crossed Canal Street and headed nor! toward towards Bourbon Street, many onlookers stood in stunned silence as the massive crowd Of people began singing in unison the Christian hymn, Amazing Grace.

Upon entering the west end of Bourbon Street, Billy Graham was soon recognized by partiers.

Soon those joining in the march began to approach those partying on Bourbon Street with the Gospel message that they had heard preached just a half hour before. Graham himself joined with a group of local street evangelist in ministering to a man who had survived Hurricane Katrina in the lower 9th Ward.

Within 30 minutes the entirety of Bourbon Street was packed with Christians and the once blaring music of nightclubs and strip joints had been replaced by weeping and worship as people poured out their drinks and sought prayer from the Christians who were now reaching out to them.

"I have never seen anything like this in my life," said 20 years New Orleans Police Department veteran, Tom Phillips. "This is unbelievable! We thought a riot was going to break out, but this looks more like a Revival than a riot!"

Two hours later, a glowing Graham sat back down on his scooter and smiled. "Now I know how the Apostle Paul must have felt at the end of his ministry. Do the work of an evangelist; make full proof of thy ministry. For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith."

Hours later hundreds of Christians remained on the street ministering to the many people eagerly waiting to receive prayer and ministry. New Orleans will never be the same.

Feet of clay

Joe asked me earlier on this week if I knew what was wrong with Jonathan Edwards. He was stepping down from his commitment to “Songs of Praise.” He didn’t know whether it was a problem with the “Songs of Praise” set-up or whether it was a faith issue.

Years ago, Songs of praise did a Jonathan Edwards special. He was such a big name – an Olympic hero – and a Christian too. He talked about his family, his achievements and how God had been with him.

I knew nothing, but made it my business to find out. It is a faith issue. He is not convinced anymore that God exists!

How does that happen to a person – shining brightly one moment and snuffed out the next? Except that it never happens that way at all – the light dims gradually over time, until there is no light. You don’t go to bed one night believing in the reality of God and wake up next day not believing. It is a process. There is a beginning, a middle and an end.

I think the beginning it is about who you perhaps spend your time with, and who you don’t, or about what you spend your time doing and what you neglect to do. The world of work, the people that you meet every day in the work place, can erode away at your faith, ever so slowly. In the Song of Songs it mentions the little foxes that eat away at the vines. The times when I feel most fragile are times when I have started to listen to the cynicism around me, and poke holes in the things I know to be true! What stops me from progressing too far down that road is making sure that I have fellowship with people who will build me up and repair the damage done.

Other times when I feel fragile it has been down to being too busy and not spending enough time with God. I know that I can get so immersed in writing that all else gets put to one side. I don’t soak in God’s presence because I see a deadline looming over the horizon. I do my mathematics and don’t think I have enough time to do what I need to and have the quiet times with God.

I think that for Jonathan it must have been an added pressure to be a Christian hero to many. Why do we need to do that people – put them up on a pedestal like that? We all need to be heroes of the faith in what ever walk in life we find ourselves, so that people like Jonathan Edwards don’t have to shoulder all the responsibility.

I taught for a while in a private school in Cyprus. Some of the pupils were boarders, and I lived in the same building. The school was a Christian school and many of the boarders were not Christians. It would appear to be an ideal situation – a real Christian living among them. A living advertisement as it were before their eyes! It didn’t work out that way. I was immature in the faith, and not really sure of what I believed.

I can remember saying, “Don’t look at me. Read the New Testament and see how Jesus lived his life!”

How sad! It was so the opposite of what God wants to say, “Look at her! Then you will see me.”

We seem to be so busy pointing to someone else and saying “Follow him – he’s got it right.” That we don’t say, like Paul confidently said, “Imitate me, because I am imitating the Father.”

Third in the Snowman's Rally

We have workmen coming on Tuesday to do something with the ceiling by the back door. For a long time we had a bath that leaked, and the water dribbled through to the hall downstairs. It is quite scary watching as the light bulb on the ceiling used to fill up with water.

Well when we finally got around to replacing the bath, someone suggested that we might be able to claim on the insurance to get the downstairs ceiling repaired. A survey revealed that there is asbestos lurking, so we have people coming in to dismantle the thing safely and build us a new ceiling. The insurance will also cover replacing the wallpaper.

All of this is just one huge introduction to something entirely unrelated to all of that! Having to clear out the back end of the hall of all the rubbish we have hoarded, we took a couple of boxes of stuff down to the recycling centre. Much of it may not be worth recycling, but it is someone else’s problem now.

On the way back home, we went by way of the Caledonian Thistle Football ground. I thought it would be a quiet road and an easy roundabout to negotiate on the way home. I was wrong. The car park was full, and at first Joe thought maybe Calley were playing at home, but that was not the case. The car park was full of lorries and racing cars. It was the starting point for the Snowman’s Rally. The route takes in the road to Loch Ness and surrounding forest trails and things.

We have very fond memories of the Snowman’s Rally – Joe likes to think that we came third one year! We must have been married at the time and it being near to the Valentine weekend, we had booked a hotel on the edge of Loch Ness. I think we hired a car. On the way out towards Loch Ness, we noticed that at every lay-by along the road there were hulking great lorries with men rolling tyres down ramps. It was all very curious.

Suddenly from behind us there was a whooshing sound and a race car shot past us at very high speed. I think we blinked, not quite able to believe it. This was closely followed by another whoosh as another race car sped by.

The local paper warns people long in advance about the race and the course. They don’t close the roads or anything, you just take your chances. We were on the middle of the Snowman’s Rally – currently third, according to Joe.

My first instinct was to get off the road quick, but all the lay-bys were taken over by the lorries. I drove to the next village, Drumnadrochit, and took a right, assuming I would be off the route and safe. Whoosh, another racing car sped by – the race route also took a right at the village and we were still in the race – currently fourth!

We finally managed to get off the road, when the route took a left into a forest track, but our troubles were not entirely over. Spectators had parked along the road – both sides of the road, and coming towards us was one of the big lorries. Remember, I was in a hire car at the time. I had hysterics! Somewhere in that moment I just lost it! I was all for abandoning the car and walking back to the village to find a bus stop. I hauled my nerves together, and I might have closed my eyes too, as our car and the big lorry passed within millimetres of each other.

So, yes, the Snowman’s Rally! I wanted something stronger than a cup of tea when we found a café a mile or two down the road.

Kay Carver and Melanie Morrison

Last night as part of our Valentine celebrations, Joe and I went to the cinema to see “Music and Lyrics”. It was labeled as a romantic comedy and I thoroughly enjoyed it. For an hour or so after wards Joe and I were humming the song the two main characters had composed. It was very romantic and very sing-able and if they bring out a record, I will buy it! Hugh Grant has a very nice voice, although in an interview he put it all down to the sound equipment. Just as computer packages can airbrush models so they look slimmer, or have perfect skin tone, you can do the same with voices! I prefer to think that Hugh is just being his usual self-effacing self.

I enjoyed the movie because it struck a chord with me. You have probably never heard of a couple of song writers before – Kay Carver and Melanie Morrison. This goes way, way back in time.

Kay Grant was one of my best friends at school. She was visually impaired and used to wear plastic glasses with very thick lenses. I think that she was virtually blind in one eye, and not so far off blind in the other eye. She was very tall and gangly and not at all graceful. She was good at sports – she always won the cross country races. She was kind of person that just kept running.

The love of her life was music. She played the piano and taught herself to play the guitar. She really was a genius on the piano – after one lesson she composed a tune.

She discovered Jesus a short while after I did and she began writing songs. She would come up with a melody and then wait for a while for the lyrics to come together. It is a long time ago so I don’t remember any of the songs, but they were her heart to Jesus.

The Christians that I hung around with then were guitar players and singers, so I have always had a soft spot for music, although I don’t play. I had guitar lessons, kay tried to teach me, but I never got beyond the pain. I didn’t like sore finger tips!

I can remember one time Kay playing a melody and saying she didn’t have any words yet. I asked if I could write the lyrics. I am not even sure if I asked. My interest in writing was just in the bulb beneath the ground stage, no shoots as yet, but I thought I could string a few words together, and she was too nice to tell me to back off and let her do it. The words that I came up with, yet again it is too long ago to remember them, they were nice words. They were beautiful words and the song sounded great – but they were not “heart” words. They were “head” words, strung together because they fitted well, but they lacked soul. Looking back I cringe at my audacity. I am sure that if Kay had been allowed to do her waiting thing, the lyrics she would have settled on would have been so much better.

As it was, years later, she got married to a man called David Carver (hence Kay Carver). When we met up we tried to remember the song lyrics, but because there was no heart and soul to it, the words had been forgotten. She could still remember every word of the songs she had written!

Where does Melanie Morrison fit into all of this? I had been away living in Cyprus for five years, returned home to live with my parents for a while and started attending their church. I was single at the time, and there was a wonderful man who I thought I was in love with and thought I might marry – Michael Morrison. It never happened but Kay Carver and Melanie Morrison had such a good ring about it! I imagined the two of us, Kay and myself, getting back together to revive our songwriting partnership. It didn’t happen.

I watched the film and I remembered those days. I am so different now. Today my lyrics would have heart and soul, but I wouldn’t but in and invade someone else’s melody the way I did then.

Love to..

I felt that Valentine's Day could not go unremarked! I wrote this peom a couple of years ago. I am just reminded of how often I used to write poems to my husband, Joe. There are recipe books at home, and cards kept from previous anniversaries and celebration days with Mel's poems scrawled on the inside cover - a pastime worth reviving!

Love to hold you
Love to touch you
Gently, softly
Love to love you

Love to feel you
Warm beside me
Every contour
Love to love you

Love to hear you
Sharing whispers
Wholly tender
Love to love you

Love to taste you
Lips caressing
Lightly stirring
Love to love you

Love to watch you
Still and sleeping
Quietly dreaming
Love to love you

To be near you
To be with you
Ever always
Love to love you

My road

There are times when I really feel like the church in the book of Revelation that is accused of being luke-warm. I don’t particularly feel far from God, I just don’t feel so on the ball and I don’t beat myself up about it either! So when one of the churches in Inverness was hosting a “soaking school” I signed up for the meeting tonight and for the day tomorrow.

I spent quite a bit of time in preparation for the evening. I admit to being a tad worried at times that everyone else will get touched by God and I will be left stone cold! I sent some time praying about that. The big issue though for me is about feeling manipulated. I have been to many meetings where it is not necessarily the Spirit that is doing the stirring. Because of that I kind of go into these things with my guard up and keep a distance from what is happening. I am vaguely cynical at times, but repented and asked God to increase my expectation.

However, God gave me two words. The first was “Step forward” – be prepared to embrace what is said. Along with that was this idea of being unrestrained – not putting up barriers and allowing God access in whatever way He wanted to move.

The second word, which could sound like an opposite was “Step back”. This is a curious one. Because I am so wanting to join in and feel something, I often try too hard to make it happen. God was saying “Step back” – not to wind myself up, make myself feel something, when in reality there was nothing of substance happening. God said, He wanted to do it all, without my help. He would do the touching, if there was to be any.

It came right out of the blue. The speaker was talking about forgiveness. I recognized that it is something that I don’t do enough of. Her list of people that she hadn’t forgiven was thirteen or fourteen – mine was a lot longer. I have whole classes that hurt me and I carry the hurt like a badge. She talked about forgiveness bringing release and freedom – that you are no longer tied to the person by your anger.

Then she went on to talk about forgiving God. I had never thought about forgiving God – that I would ever need to forgive God. Bad things happen and, yes, God could have prevented them from happening but chose not to, and, yes, I suppose you do get angry with God – but I always thought that you focused on the fact that all things work out for good, so you just get on with it. The whole idea that you could hold a grudge against God surprised me. God is good, he has paid the price for my sins, adopted me in his family – so many really wonderful things that the things that don’t turn out so good, are nothing in comparison.

And yet, sometimes all you have really done is suppressed it. Even if you talk it through and feel better, it is not necessarily dealt with.

After she had finished talking, she asked for people to come forward if they felt they needed to forgive anyone. My millions of third year pupils that give me grief came to mind and knowing I was to “Step forward”, I went to the front.

Once I was there the word 6to “Step back” came and I decided to allow God His space and not try to direct His gaze. I soon discovered that the real issue was not the millions of third years giving me grief. My issue was with God.

When I married Joe, I thought I had stepped onto a path of motherhood. It was part of the plan – children. And a break from teaching while I reared them. The path I found myself on was barrenness, infertility treatment, miscarriages and no children at all. I never had the break from teaching. There are so many things – not reading to them at night, no tucking them in, no homework to supervise, no parents evening, no being the mother of the bride at the weddings, not grandchildren. People that have children just have no idea of the hundreds of ways that childless couples miss out. I know they miss out on the wet beds and the nit combs – but there is so much I don’t get to do.

Suddenly what I have never allowed myself to really say was that it was God’s fault. I was robbed of my motherhood!

I am three years into the menopause, so my biological clock has just about stopped ticking.

When one of the helpers came to minister to me, we stood for a while holding hands, and then embraced. Maybe God didn’t say anything to the woman, but to me He said “Mourn the loss of your motherhood.” That is kind of a depressing thing – not the uplifting thing I was looking for! I cried. It wasn’t unrestrained weeping and wailing – just heart wrenching sobs.

God talked to me about putting me on my path and not to yearn to be on someone else’s. I was almost wasting time wishing that I was somewhere else in life and not being the “me” that I could be. Motherhood was not my road, my road was better! My road was just as full of challenges, just as full of joy, just as fulfilling. My road was a good road and it wasn’t a single track with passing places and potholes!

A verse came to mind about weeping enduring for a night but joy coming in the morning. “Why wait till morning?” said the Spirit. I don’t know whether I can say that I feel joyful right now – I feel contentment. I feel the right path beneath my feet and an explorer’s anticipation.