Stepping stones

It’s my birthday today, and I’ve just been thinking of all those that have gone before – birthdays, I mean! It would be lovely to have a list of what I did on my birthday every year, kind of like a ladder. 

I would love to have my memory jogged to recall in better detail those beautifully decorated doll cakes my mother made on the alternate years when we had parties. I’d love to cast my eye down the list of names of friends and family with whom I celebrated, and remember.

I remember a few clearly. The early teen year when my friend Linda and I, whose birthdays were one day apart, thought we were gathering with a group of girlfriends to go ice skating, only to be ‘kidnapped’ by my mother and others and taken to the Camp Fire Girls day camp where we camped overnight, cooking dinner over an open fire and sleeping in pup tents. Memorable and fun.

My 21^st was spent in Stirling where I was an exchange student for a year. Three friends and I ate dinner in a Chinese restaurant together – it felt a little dull and anticlimactic. 

On my 40^th, we had a party and danced to the sounds of the 60s, which was wonderful.

Today I will celebrate with one son and his wife coming up for the weekend, and we shall all go to another son and his wife’s new home tomorrow for lunch. I’m also meeting my sister in law for a coffee and scone, and was out for dinner last night with close friends. It’s amazing to be made to feel special.

Every year, April 12^th is a stepping stone through my life towards its climax. I’m thinking of Jacob’s ladder, the story in the Bible where Jacob has a dream of a ladder joining earth to heaven, with angels going up and down on it. When he awakens he exclaims, ‘God was in this place and I didn’t know.’ Then he builds an altar there and worships.

God has been with me on every step through my life, and sometimes I didn’t notice. Jesus was criticised by the more serious religious types for spending too much time eating and drinking – at parties. Celebrations are God’s specialty, and I like to think that as I get closer to the top of my ladder, I am approaching my eternal home where there is plenty of singing and dancing, and everybody is special. 

So today, as I intersperse various jobs that need doing with moments of sharing and making new memories, I will reflect on those steps that went before – the ones I can recall. I will delight as I open cards and receive good wishes from loved ones near and far. And I will be awe-struck that despite the billions of people alive now and who have gone before, God made me unique, a one-off, and to him I am special. 

As are you.

Colours and Moods

I’m surrounded by wallpaper pattern books as we try to decide how to redecorate a bedroom and the dining room. Neither has been touched for over 25 years; suffice it to say, it’s time.

So many designs; so many colours. I thought I wanted something dramatic like black and white with a vibrant splash of red somewhere, but now I find myself drawn to shades of antique blues, rosy pinks and pale golds. Each colour creates a mood. Would a darker wall make for a warmer glow for a candlelit dinner in the dining room – provided I remember to light the candles!? Or would it make the room just feel dismal in this northern country where the sun doesn’t shine as much as we’d like? 

That’s why I’ve got a yellow kitchen, hallway and conservatory – trying to maximise the weak sunlight. 

Geometric or floral? Striped or dotted? Plain or embossed? 

Does it really matter what’s on the walls of our home? Not really, and yet ... God made this world full of beauty and diversity and colour and shape. He didn’t need to make a giraffe with a ludicrous neck, or an elephant with a ridiculous trunk, but he did and it adds to the richness of life. He didn’t need to make each individual unique, every fingerprint a one-off, every personality different from every other personality. But he did, because he is the God of the massive, and the God of the minute. The God of the vast expanse and the God of the tiny detail. And I think he looks at us and delights to see us explore our own inner creative possibilities.

What we put on the wall maybe doesn’t matter so much as the process through which we go as we consider all those choices, and try to come to a compromise with each other. 

I praise God that we don’t live in a world that is just fifty shades of grey.

Who do you say I am?

So, Margaret Thatcher has died and the papers and news reports are either praising or scathing. She was either the best Prime Minister of the last century or the one who turned Britain into a crueller and more selfish nation.

It all depends on your perspective.

At the end of the day, which she has reached, God’s perspective is the only one that counts. It is the only one that is completely just and fair. He is the only one who knows all the circumstances, all the secret thoughts, all the motivations and aspirations and disappointments and hurts. 

We have no right to judge another person. Jesus said to take the plank out of our own eyes before we try to remove the splinter from someone else’s. In other words, we are all flawed. We have all messed up and made poor choices, have hurt people and left things unfinished which might have benefited others. And we have all done some good things, too. Things that people have noticed, and things that have gone unseen. 

Only God knows.

But the Bible teaches that our salvation doesn’t depend on how much good or bad we have done. Our salvation depends on how we see Jesus. If we see him as just a good man who taught some sensible things, we have missed the point. We need to dig deeper, to look at what he said about himself, to allow him to speak to us through the Bible and through others so that we understand that in fact, he is who he says he is. The Son of God. The Alpha and the Omega. The Saviour of the world, who died for our sins and rose again triumphant over death.

We will stand before the Judgment throne of God one day and have to give account for ourselves. For those who try to justify their actions by circumstances, it will be a pretty scary time. For those who know that their sins are their own responsibility, but who also know that Jesus paid the price for our sins, it will be a time of rejoicing – not that we ‘got away with it’ but that we recognise the incredible love that Jesus has for us, that made him willing to endure all that he did so that we could spend eternity with him.

More than once, Jesus asked people, ‘Who do you say I am?’ 

Your answer to that question is the most critical answer you will ever be asked to give. From the perspective of eternity, it is absolutely worth spending time considering, looking into, wrestling with. From the perspective of life on earth, it makes all the difference to the quality of every day. 

A relationship with Jesus Christ is the most wonderful thing about life. Hearing his voice, being encouraged and comforted by his Spirit, being united with others who know him and love him, starts now and carries on into eternity.

And yet, so many people allow the busyness of life to distract them from its central question.

‘Who do you say I am?’

Everything Beautiful

Walking Dusty this morning, I was thinking of a dear friend of mine whose family has been torn apart by division. A family of many broken hearts. My friend is a lovely praying believer and it just doesn’t seem fair.

But then I thought of God’s promise, that he makes everything beautiful in its time. It may not happen in our time. She may never know the reconciliation for which she longs, during this lifetime. But in the course of eternity, she will be given the vision to see the beauty which God has salvaged and created from times of the most incomprehensible pain. 

I know she will see the beauty, in time, but I’m not sure if everyone in the broken family will appreciate it, because of the choices they make. Because I’ve still been thinking about the way we think, the things we choose to think about, and how those thought patterns become engraved in the physical routings of our brains so that we eventually do have the mind of Christ, or the opposite. If we consistently resist making choices which lead our thoughts upwards, and instead choose to dwell on the ugly, the evil, the seamy side of life, then our minds become dark and closed. We are unable to even perceive the possibility of things being as God has ordained, because we have grooves in our minds which lead everywhere else but to God. 

Another dear friend once painted a calligraphy for me which is of a verse from Paul’s letter to the Philippians, in which he counsels his readers to train their minds to think about things of beauty and life and light. I’m beginning to appreciate the holistic cohesion of mind, body and spirit, and see the importance of that advice even more clearly.

May your day be filled with encouraging thoughts and positive feelings, so that little by little, yours becomes the mind of Christ. It is an offer open to us all.

Recharge

I’m not sure if it’s just me, or if the battery on my laptop is requiring more frequent recharges these days. It does seem like it starts flashing at me at least once a day, and I don’t believe it used to do it that often. 

I’m not even using it as much as I was when I was doing more serious writing. Maybe the battery is just getting old.

We are into birthday season, starting yesterday with Don’s birthday, and I guess that’s a time when you consider the years a little bit more. They seem to roll past, one after the other, in ever increasing frequency and with ever increasing speed. And that’s kind of scary.

Not because I’m scared of dying, really, but because I enjoy living, and I don’t look forward to leaving loved ones behind.

But back to the battery. Both Don and I have been noticing our own batteries are running low more often. We’ve had a long winter, after a cold summer, so maybe we just need a dose of sunshine and warmth. We’ve also had a period of colds and coughs, which has left us feeling, as the Scots say, ‘fusomless’. 

But basically I guess we both need to plug in more frequently to the Lord, to recharge our spiritual batteries and maybe begin to live life in a slightly less physical way. 

I’m glad he’s there, just waiting to renew our energy when we come to him. I just need to learn a new rhythm of life perhaps.