Fallen Trees

 

The leylandii has towered over the garage for decades. Doug can’t remember a time it wasn’t there. I can remember Don planting it. It was a bit of stage scenery for a fashion show at the wedding exhibitions he organised. Small. In a pot.

We had no idea.

It grew like Jack’s beanstalk – fast and strong. It broadened its base and stretched ever higher. Twice, fierce winds brought a branch down, and I began to realise it had to be taken out.

A tree surgeon came a couple of days ago. With quiet confidence, he scaled one of the trunks, only harnessed with a rope. A chain saw hung from his waist. Professionally, he began to dismantle this noble tree. Over the course of two afternoons, he has brought down several of the trunks and cut them into logs. Three or four spindly-ish trunks remain for his final foray.

Screened off for decades, the Hill of Fare has re-emerged into view. My perspective has broadened; my vision has opened out. It’s a view I used to have, which became obscured by the overgrown tree.

On this Hogmanay, heading into 2021, I hope to take some time to sit with God and allow him to identify the overgrown leylandii in my life. The ideas and assumptions which have grown steadily during my lifetime and obscured truths which I used to recognise. I fear I may have grown attached to some of them. I may be reluctant to see them go.

It’s sad seeing a healthy tree go down, but I am relieved to have a view back. May it be so in my understanding as well, as wrong ideas are removed so that I can see clearly once more. So grateful that God has time to help me do this.

Happy and healthy New Year.

Jigsaw Life

 

It sits in the prayer window, in the parcel bag it arrived in. A jigsaw puzzle from new friends from Germany who stayed with us for B&B on their honeymoon. We shared a bottle of bubbly then, and keep in touch now. I suspect that the puzzle will reveal a picture of this house, or the view from their bedroom window, as she hinted in her email that this was the subject.

I haven’t yet put the puzzle together, as our dining room table is currently covered in craft projects and supplies. I plan to locate a tray big enough, and then will enjoy seeing a picture emerge from the jigsaw-cut pieces. We have not been given a picture of what it is, so it may take some time to complete.

Sometimes it can feel as if my life is broken up in a bag like that. Not in a terrible way, but just in a way which seems confused and doesn’t quite make sense. There is a picture there, a beautiful picture I suspect, which the Father is putting together, bit by bit, and will, I trust, one day fully emerge. I wonder, in the weird way I think, if my part in the process is to provide the tray – my life – for the Father to carefully ‘put me together’.

I imagine that I can get ahead of him, trying to squeeze a couple of pieces together which aren’t meant to marry up. My job is to surrender to him, to trust him to be making a perfect fit of the disparate aspects of my life and personality. It requires a level of trust which I need to dig deep for, a level of absolute trust in his goodness and faithfulness.

Lord, increase my trust in you today. I lay down my life, so that you can rebuild it to reflect your Son.

Memory Protection

 

The overnight snow flurries left a ragged frozen blanket tossed on the grass and playhouse. It’s melting fast. The wool knit gloves are great for warmth, but not much use when playing in slushy ice.

Suddenly I remembered. Aren’t there some snow gloves, children’s sizes, still lurking in the trunk under the stairs? How long have they been there? Twenty years? Are they still there?

Turns out they are comically too big for a four- and six-year-old, but worn anyway!

A big house offers space to squirrel away treasures and trash, half-remembered or completely forgotten. A long life is the same, I am discovering! Things present themselves from my memory bank, things significant and things trivial. They come as randomly as my memories about the snow gear under the stairs.

I love the way God assures us that when we have confessed and repented of sins, he forgets them. He filters them out of his memory bank and doesn’t use our failings to remind us of our sinfulness. I pray for those whose memories haunt and traumatise them, and ask God to heal and bless those tortured by negative memories. May he drop a filter of love which releases the grip of guilty or victimised memory.

He has given us the helmet of salvation to protect our minds, and the shield of faith to extinguish all the flaming darts of the enemy. With his help, we can learn to use these protections.

End of year blessings

 

The washing machine is on its third load of the day. It is freezing outside, and those two things remind me of the Girl with the Pearl Earring, who spent so much time washing clothes by hand in freezing weather.

I am grateful for technology.

I’ve just returned from another run to the grocery store, where the shelves were full. I could pay with a credit card.

I am grateful for a  car, for money in the bank, and for food available to purchase.

I hear the busy sounds in the kitchen, of hungry children who have been playing outside all morning. I am grateful for a house that can welcome family and enjoy the hustle. I am grateful for good health.

This has been a challenging year, but through it all, I have felt increasingly humbled by our blessings.

Remembering those whose struggles this year have been life-changing, whether mentally, financially, or physically. In this world we will have trouble, Jesus said. But take heart, for he has overcome the world. I am grateful that Jesus came into the world to save us.

Icy blasts and warm breezes

 

My house is always too cold and draughty for bread products to rise properly. That’s where the bread making machine comes in – a Christmas gift a couple of years ago. It transformed my experience of trying to get the traditional Potica to rise.

I just listened to a beautiful piece of music – a beautiful peace of music recommended by Jamie. And I was thinking that it is musical moments like that, and time spent sitting ‘doing nothing’ while resting in God, that raise my inner spirit and help faith to ‘prove’ and rise.

These plague-ridden days can be a blast of arctic air on us all. Brexit uncertainties, environmental emergency, homesickness and longing to see loved ones: we are definitely in a frozen wasteland globally. But God is there with us, Immanuel.

May you spend empty time wisely. May you identify moments you can snatch for R&R with the Lord. All things are possible with God. Even in the midst of crying or exuberant children, even in the midst of a long to-do list, offer God a moment of your precious life and he will bless your offering. Snuggle up to God and absorb his warmth and love, and let him trim your wick and flare your inner light to take out into the dark winter days and share the hope of the gospel.

Merry run-up to Christmas.

Asleep in the Boat?

 

‘I want to be asleep in the back of the boat in the storm,’ she said with feeling.

How many of us echo those sentiments during these days? These days which swirl into what appears to be a perfect storm, gaining strength, buffeting us in gales of ferocious winds.

We had an e-Christmas greeting yesterday which startled and challenged me to seek a new perspective on current events. ‘May the new year bring forth more of our LORD’s plan for ourselves and this earth.’ More of the same? Is she kidding?

The trust and hope implicit in that short sentence is so encouraging. Light in the darkness. My cry out to the Lord during most of this year’s turbulence has been, ‘Wake up! What’s happening? Why are you asleep?’ This lovely friend of ours, Donna, shines with the light of Jesus as she speaks out words of faith and trust. It’s not the first time she has inspired me to lean all my weight on Jesus.

Our God reigns. He is alive. Immanuel. God is with us.

‘May the new year bring forth more of our LORD’s plan for ourselves and this earth.’ Reminds me of the faith-filled response of a young virgin who met with an angel: ‘May it be to me as you have said.’

May we all be strengthened and refreshed as we meet with Immanuel anew this year. May our words and actions bring light into the darkness and turn more hearts towards the King of Kings.

 

Trees of Life

 

Thirty-nine years ago, Don and I went up to Glen Tanar and bought thirty trees to plant along the driveway and round the perimeter of the garden. We took a selection: wild cherry, Norwegian maple, Chinese rowan, sycamore, beech, elm, poplar. The tree centre gave us fifty larch saplings for free.

We came back. I was a few weeks’ pregnant with Robbie, which was a great excuse not to do the heavy digging work. I had the easy task of steadying each sapling in place while Don dug the holes and filled them in again.

The drive is stony. It is full of weeds. Digging holes required a pickaxe. We knew nothing about soil types. We never looked up to see what overhead wires might be threatened as these trees grew.

During the intervening years, the poplar grew so fast and broke off in the wind a few times: it’s now been taken down by an expert, burned in the fireplace. The leylandii is about to meet the same fate. Forty-seven of the fifty larch never made it out of infancy. The cherry trees have been re-seeded many times by hungry birds, who helpfully pooped out the stones in lines underneath the power and telephone lines.

Some of the trees on the drive have thrived; some have struggled in their shadows. We were young and enthusiastic, and we knew nothing about what trees need, and how high they could be expected to grow. Some knowledge and advice would have been a good idea.

I am reading and hearing many things these days, these days which are so full of global, life-changing and often heart-breaking news. I ask that the news that brings life will take root in my heart, will flourish and grow in my life and offer shelter and encouragement to others. I pray that the news which brings death will wither and die, that it will find no fertile soil in my heart nor mind nor on my lips. May God feed me with his word and water me with his love so that the leaves he sprouts can bring healing and wholeness.

The season of waiting and watching continues. May we all watch in hope and wait in peace today and always.

 

Interference!

 

She’s recording another audio book in her home studio, fashioned in one of the front bedrooms, using heavy wool blankets for ‘sound-proofing’. A couple of days ago, Mhairi sought us out to try to identify the source of a high-pitched whine which was marring her recording because her mic was picking it up. Don couldn’t hear it: (now I have ammunition when I suggest his hearing may be beginning to fail!) I could hear it; we thought it might emanate from a tractor in a field within view, as tractors these days are equipped with all sorts of high-tech which might, in fact, be connecting it to satellite transmission. When the tractor left, the sound stopped, and Mhairi resumed recording. We presumed we had been right.

Then, yesterday, she heard it again. This time I couldn’t hear it: (ok, so both of us are beginning to wear out). Doug listened and heard it: there was no tractor in sight. Then Don went into problem-solving mode and hit on the source: the central heating. When it went off, the whine stopped.

Whew. We could control the whine.

Sometimes my spiritual ears are tickled by ideas which don’t come from God. I set out to hear Him, but interference from another source spoils my understanding.

Fifty years ago, society began to slide into ideas of relative truth. ‘It might be true for you, though maybe not for me, and that’s ok as long as nobody is hurt.’ Now, well bedded-into the cultural consciousness, this idea has gone on to foster the explosion of ‘fake news’. Technology has facilitated algorithms which detect what we might think and then feed us that news in order to define who we are.

We have divided and polarised and hardened our positions. The art of listening has waned if not wholly disappeared. It has become easy to assume that we know the truth because we have read the proofs on our news feeds.

‘What is truth?’ Pilate asked Jesus. With truth right in front of him, Pilate didn’t recognise it.

I pray for a revival of listeners, a return to respectful discussion, a restoration of congregational understanding. Even as we are isolated during this pandemic, may we recover our humanity and learn to turn off those things which whine and distract so that we can hear what God, and what each other, are saying.

 

 

Pointed Paintbrush

 

Just when I was on the edge of a slump, having opened my curtains on to another dark morning, the sun burst through and streaks of blue divided the bands of dirty white cloud. Looking out the prayer window at the familiar field, I noticed the stripes of shadow stretching long across the green grass. Shadows of the leafless trees lining the driveway. Shadows suggesting trees far taller than they are.

The sun sits low in the sky in a Scottish December. Its light-beams illuminate the south-facing branches and trunks, leaving the rest dull and brown. It’s as though a divine painter dipped a pointed paintbrush into a pot of gold in order to outline all that faces the sun.

The sun has not deserted us, and neither has the Son. Nothing in the news is a surprise to Him. We are not abandoned, not left alone and helpless. I am facing Him so that His paintbrush can outline me in His light. Perspective is everything. Focus is key.

Come, thou long-expected Jesus. Bless every hungry heart today; encourage every faltering soul. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness hasn’t overcome it.

 

Water, Water Everywhere

 

The sound of many waters was constant. Though it has been raining steadily for days, we hadn’t anticipated the effect of all that rain on the waters round Crathes Castle, but as we approached the usually-quiet stream emptying from the loch into the River Dee, we became aware of the noise. We marvelled at the force of the current, but also at the height. A few more inches and the bridge would be breached.

We moved on past the loch, up the hill and along the boardwalk that rises proud of the usually marshy land next to the Coy Burn. Everywhere we looked, the water rushed and tumbled. There were no patches of still or stagnant water where anything could fester. No, there was water everywhere and it was all alive and on the move.

Justice will roll on like a river, Amos wrote a few thousand years ago. Vengeance is mine, says the Lord. Justice will roll on. God is a God of justice. We pray for the days to dawn when justice will roll on like a river, a mighty river. When the innocent will be lifted up. When there will be no more injustice perpetrated by self-serving tyrants, big or small.

Ask me for water, Jesus advised the Samaritan woman at the well. Ask me for water, and streams of living water will flow from me through you. Lord, today I am asking that streams of living water will flow from you through me, and that those waters, those living waters, will bring about justice and peace. That those living waters will wash away all the toxins and poisons that fester and grow. That those living waters will bring Life in all its fullness, in all its beauty, for all your people. Prince of Peace, we are waiting. Waiting on tiptoe for you to refresh us, and refresh the world. Maranatha.

Waiting

 

A dark morning. Rain lashed and wind shrieked through the night, and dawn has come, grey and white and cold and dark. The trees stand stark against the sky, bare bones. The earth lies dark and empty.

All creation waits.

I know that beneath the apparently empty ground, bulbs already begin to sprout, stretching fragile stems towards the weak light. I know that in time, the stems will break through the hard crust, will bud and blossom into colours and fragrances to delight and impress.

Faith is the assurance of things hoped for.

All creation waits. The pandemic continues; the normal festive gatherings are on hold; reunions are postponed. Hearts are sad and longing. Longing for this season of waiting to pass.

As it will. This, too, shall pass, as my dear Mom says to me every day when I speak with her. We’ll meet again. There will be joy, and because I am sure of that joy to come, I can have a quiet joy in my heart now.

Waiting is hard. But knowing we have a God who is love, we know that the testing times will pass, that winter will open out into spring and there will be abundance of laughter and love and hugs and relief. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for. May God help us all to hold on in faith today, knowing that he never leaves nor forsakes us. May he come to each of us today in our hearts, reassuring us of the truth.

Waiting in Hope and Trepidation

 

I was lying in my darkened bedroom, holding an ice cube on the lump rising on my bruised forehead. Waiting. Waiting for my Dad to get back from work.

It was three months since my 16^th birthday, three months since I’d passed my driving test. I’d been driving home from a cello lesson. Driving home on city streets in rush hour.

Traffic had slowed as it crept sluggishly round a fender-bender, an accident now at the side of the road. I was distracted by it. My attention was on the collision at the side of the road. I was distracted, but still moving forward blindly. I looked ahead again. The traffic light had turned red. The cars ahead had stopped. I braked – too late. Crunch.

My parents’ 1960 Chevy – the first new car they had ever bought, though by now it was a few years old: unwieldly and heavy – had ploughed into a small Renault with its engine vulnerably in the back. My car then pushed it forward until it concertinaed into the car in front.

“What happened?” the front driver demanded. “Did your brakes fail?”

Sheepishly, rubbing my forehead where it had banged off the steering wheel, I demurred. No. I had failed – failed to focus on where I was going.

An hour later, I waited. I waited for Dad to come home. Dad, who’d taught me to drive, always repeating the admonition to remember a car was a lethal weapon.

I heard his car in the driveway. Heard the back door slam. Heard Mom’s voice, then his, low. With trepidation, I heard his step coming down the hall, approaching my bedroom.

He came over to the bed.

“How are you?” he asked, perching on the bed. “Are you ok?”

“Yes, Dad. I’m sorry.”

“You sure you’re not hurt? Nobody was hurt?”

Never mind about the car, he said. He’d deal with the insurance. The car could be fixed. Nobody was hurt. As long as nobody was hurt.

I’d been waiting. Waiting anxiously. Expecting a lecture at best. Car privileges rescinded. Grounding maybe. Displeasure for sure.

Instead, I got love. Unconditional love. And reassurance. He would take care of everything. My Dad would handle it.

The world is waiting. We are all waiting anxiously, on tiptoe, for this pandemic to cease. We were distracted. We’ve taken our eye off the road ahead even while moving forward. While watching one car crash, we have caused another one.

We are all waiting for a saviour to pull us out of the wreckage we’ve caused. Waiting for a saviour.

“He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognise him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God … “ John 1:10-12

We’re waiting for a heavy step coming towards us, expecting a reprimand and a punishment, judgment. But our Saviour came as a baby, Immanuel, God with us. Today he is coming to us, breathing unconditional love. Arms open, he is drawing us into a precious, deep hug. Unconditional love, whispering peace to us.

“Come to me, all who are weary and worn out, and I will refresh you.”

Advent. Season of waiting. This year, we are waiting as never before. Christmas is coming, and yes, it will be unlike any Christmas we can remember.

God comes. He doesn’t ask us, “How could you? Why did you?” but “Are you ok?” Fully deserving his wrath, we receive his love.

All who receive him are children of God. We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God, hope which does not disappoint.

My heart is full of love and gratitude for an earthly father who modelled God’s grace to me. My heart is full of love and gratitude for our heavenly Father who gave up everything because of his love for the world.

Barometric Pressure

 

When we got a barometer several years ago, we needed to get it calibrated before it could give us a correct reading of the air pressure. I don’t think we ever did it, so we never were able to trust its accuracy.

As I sat in the prayer window this morning, it occurred to me that that is where I go to be recalibrated. In this world, there are so many things which declare themselves to be a normal baseline. Truth. But these things have changed through the years and do not give an accurate measure of right and wrong.

This was brought home to me a couple of days ago. Going through the attic, we found a book which I had as a child and absolutely loved. In my memory, it was about a beautiful and kind Queen who invited children into her palace and taught them to ballet dance. At their suggestion, she decided to fly round the world in her magic carriage and collect destitute children from different places to demonstrate their own dances. As a child, I loved the colours and the pictures.

Excited to plunge into the story again, I sat between Greg and Flick and started to read. Immediately, I winced at the implied lesser status of women. A few pages in, and I could barely believe the racism expressed in presenting caricatures of various nationalities and races. I stumbled, trying to recapture the remembered magic of the book to convey to my grandchildren. I flicked past things. I re-worded it, which was tricky as Felicity was reading along with me and noticed.

When we reached a place where children were shown bowing prostrate before a buddha, the questions were coming thick and fast. We ended up googling buddha, to satisfy their interest in who he was and why were people worshiping his image. Oh my gosh.

I so need the barometer of the Bible and the Holy Spirit, the whispered guidance of Jesus, to navigate this world. Just like the weather, norms of what is acceptable and what is not are fickle, constantly changing. Only God never changes. He is our rock. Again, I am so grateful.

Taking the rough with the smooth

 

The path through the Enchanted Forest is frozen hard. A frequent trail for tractors and jeeps, the ruts and gouges in the mud give texture and reassuring traction for the trepidatious walker. Much more concerning, and slippery, is the frosted, paved road. The smooth surface presents an ice rink for the unwary.

I wonder if I am less likely to come a cropper when life serves up a repeat than when I am moving through virgin territory. When I have previously struggled with an issue or situation, I am aware of the tricky bits. Some of the scars from previous encounters may even hold me steady. On the other hand, when I find myself in a new situation, I may mistakenly see a smooth road ahead, stride out proudly presuming to know my way, and land on my derriere.

Whichever type of path my life is taking just now, it is so reassuring to know that Jesus walks with me. And you.

Here in the northeast, it is a glorious winter’s day, sunny and sharp, clean and clear. Grateful and enjoying the beauty. Thank you, God.

 

Glakit

 

I sit, ‘glakit’ in Scots, gazing out the prayer window at the few cows munching the grass in the field just beyond the driveway. The farmer told us that grass loses its nutritional value as we head into winter, so the cows need to eat more or have supplements. They are busy grazing, seemingly all the time.

How much time is wasted grazing on things which have lower nutritional value for my soul? Just considering what I should take in for optimum health during Advent, and all the time. This morning it was, among other readings, Isaiah 40. Full of nutritional value. I recommend.

 

 

A Glare of Gold

 

A glare of gold penetrates a grey sky and stretches its light through bare, brittle branches of the old damson tree. The day is unremarkable, another winter’s day which is shivery and still.

My first task this morning is something I dread, something I shrink from doing. It feels like bare, brittle branches. As I prepare to do it, God’s love penetrates the brittleness of my reluctance and he warms my heart. He reminds me of his love, that he is always with me.

This is the day the Lord has made. I praise him that everywhere I look, even on the most ordinary of days, I am reminded of his love and care. May we be attuned to his frequency today as we go through even the most dreaded or mundane of tasks. He is everywhere, always on our side and always full of love.