God is always God

A walk in the mist. After days of blue skies every morning, it seems odd to be shrouded in grey. But having enjoyed such blue skies, I am confident that I know what lies above that grey mist: pure blue sky. And I know that when the mist rises, I will, again, see blue sky.

When I live with a thankful heart, I am aware of the close presence of a loving God. When things happen, then, which seem to obscure his presence, I am confident that though he is hard to see, he is nevertheless always there, always loving me. Circumstances change and the mist rises, and God is always God, always good, always for me.

Washing Cycle

Washing machine churning away again. When the weather is as settled as this, I just have an urge to throw all the blankets, mattress protectors, bedding into the wash to get it dried and aired in a few hours. There is something so lovely about the fragrance of clean linen air dried amongst the flowers in the garden.

Spending time in Jesus’ presence, focused and aware of him, is a bit like being hurled into the washing machine! Some stubborn stains get released. Some may take future washings, hotter water, more soap. Then hanging out with him, hopefully draws in some of his beautiful fragrance which can be detected when we are out there in the world.

Scorcher in Scotland

Another scorcher in Scotland! YES!

I was out early this morning, watering strawberries and rasps, roses and flower pots. It was a precious point of reconnection with my childhood, where hot summers always necessitated early morning watering. The sound of the spray on the leaves, the steady drip from the inevitably leaky hose, the scent and feel of water in the warm air. Summer.

The drooping plants, now revived, have lifted their heads to the warmth of the sun now beaming down on them. They have what they need to bloom and fruit, to bring joy right where they are.

Coincidentally (hah!), my reading was Ezekiel 37, the valley of dry bones. Dry bones, which needed not water but breath, the breath of God, to revive them. Every day, I so need that early morning breath to inspire and revive me.

Head up now, face towards God, breathing in his Spirit, I am ready to face the dentist.

Game of Trumps

Some of us in this family enjoy playing the game of Wizard. It’s a game of trumps, which I rarely win but I enjoy. When we sailed to New York on the Queen Mary 2 last year, I took a daily morning lesson in how to play bridge, another game of trumps. I didn’t begin to really understand what I was doing and would never be on a winning team without many more lessons, but again, I enjoyed the challenge of the game.

It seems there is a game of trumps being played out in the US now, which I don’t understand and don’t like. It’s a game in which everyone is a loser. The obvious losers are the most vulnerable and disadvantaged. They are the weak and the destitute, the orphan and the widow, the old and the dispossessed. They are the stateless victims arriving at the southern border, exhausted and fearful, desperate to find a safe haven for themselves and their children.

They arrive to find they have been trumped, and the penalty is separation, incarceration, and possible deportation. If Mary and Joseph had arrived in El Paso with new-born baby Jesus, they’d have been separated and incarcerated. Egypt has a bad rep in the Bible, but they had no such cruel policy. Mary and Joseph stayed a few years and then, when the death of a tyrant meant it was safe to go home, that’s what they did. They left Egypt and went home to Nazareth. Egypt, the cruel nation from which Moses and millions of enslaved Hebrews were set free, had been a safe haven to refugees fleeing persecution. I am sure God blessed many Egyptians for their kindness and compassion to a young, frightened family.

The other losers in this game of trumps is the culture and value system of this former Christian country. Some members of Team Trump claim that the Bible validates the plan to separate families, and call on patriotic Americans to obey the administration as they freewheel their way through the law of the land in their desperate quest to ‘make America great again’.

Where is Jesus in all this? High-fiving his way around the White House, encouraging the executive to continue being tough on these murderers and rapists who are swamping the border and threatening the security of all Americans? No. He will be found in the compassionate hearts and outstretched hands of those seeking to comfort the victims. He will be moving among the crying children, confused and heart-broken in an alien culture, where they don’t even speak the language. He will be sitting with sobbing fathers and mothers, robbed of their children by those from whom they sought asylum.

America is on a downward spiral, which will only be corrected if her leaders live out the motto on the money: in God we trust. With open hearts and open arms, it’s time for America’s leaders to live big and brave, not small and scared.

Last year I was so moved to sail into New York harbour as my forbears had, guided in by the torch held high by Statue of Liberty. They were on a ship from Hamburg, and they built a new life for themselves in the American heartland.

So what’s happened to America’s heart? How has it all gone so wrong?

Maybe we all started caring more about ‘me’ than about ‘we’. Maybe we became vulnerable to fear as our faith ebbed. As our security became rooted in our bank accounts and pensions and insurance policies, maybe a frisson of fear trembled our hearts as we turned up the music, not wanting to be reminded of the fragility of our own lives. We didn’t arrive here overnight, though the arrival seems sudden.

Well now we’ve been trumped, by a president who regularly identifies others as losers, without recognising that he, like all of us who listen more to our own wisdom than to God’s, are losers. Without Jesus as our guide, we are all losers.

I am so grateful that in this big game of life, God makes the rules, and they are all grounded in love. Jesus, the way, the truth, the life, the Prince of Peace, is the trump card. Because he loved us so much to die for us all, (yes, even the ‘losers’), we can live big and brave and bold, motivated by love and compassion.

I am so grateful to God, that love trumps everything.

Shame, President Trump

We’ve been setting out bedding plants. Marigolds, petunias, salvia. Unusually, until last night, we have had very little rain. Almost none, so that apart from our infrequent watering, the plants were withering in soil dry as dust. They are young, without resilience or robust root systems, and without nourishment they wither and die.

Children, toddlers, babies, separated from their parents. Placed in internment camps run by security firms who are raking in the money. These tender children are young, without resilience or robust survival mechanisms, taken to strange places with people they don’t know. They are withering in soil dry as dust.

This is beyond cruel. Shame, President Trump. Shame, Jeff Sessions. Shame, silent Republicans. Shame.

Identity

Identity.

When we visited my Uncle Bill long years ago, he had one or two of those Magic Eye pictures on his wall. He delighted in watching our faces as we struggled and strained to discern the hidden picture. He offered a few tips. Let your eye relax. Imagine a point beyond the picture. Sheer relief when the hidden image emerged, as I think we felt a bit foolish until we could pick out the picture.

Being with young grandchildren a bit, I often wonder just who these precious souls will grow into. God has given some hints with some precious prayer times before their births, which makes it exciting to watch as what he whispered is beginning to come out.

Flick loves all sorts of tales of fairy princesses, so we have encountered the magic mirror of Snow White’s stepmother. Interesting that her biggest concern was her appearance, and she demanded of the mirror to tell the truth of who was the most beautiful in the kingdom.

Often, our own insecurity of our self-image is as shallow as that.

But I’m thinking about Jesus, as a baby, as a toddler, beginning to awaken to the truth of his identity. He didn’t look into a magic mirror. He didn’t look into a Magic Eye picture.

He looked at Scripture. And the longer he looked at Scripture, relaxing in his Father’s loving presence, the more clearly he saw himself and understood his true identity and calling.

When we look long enough into our Bibles, we, too, see ourselves and understand better our true identity. Children of the King. Loved.

Out of our understanding of our identity, our callings emerge. Some callings are universal: to worship and love God, to share him with others, to be filled with the Spirit and be transformed daily into the best version of ourselves. Some callings are peculiar to us: to write, to speak, to serve, to sing, to raise children.

May God help me to look long into Scripture, and then move out in faith and confidence.

No Toxic Wallop

A candle with the fragrance of Persian Rose squats on the sideboard. I thought it might aid concentration as I worked on some writing, so I lit it. Nice smell. I got to work, but as the hours ticked by I realised I had a throbbing tightness in my temples. I’d already taken a pain killer for that persistent back problem, so wondered why the headache. I blew out the candle and the headache eased.

Sometimes we choose artificial soothers, thinking they will give us peace, joy, or inspiration. In reality, though, they can carry a pernicious and even toxic wallop.

God invites us to lean in to him. The more we depend on him for our inspiration and guidance, the more we realise he really is the source of all peace and joy. And he never gives me a headache.

Bridge Building

Gales closed the bridge to high-sided vehicles. I was driving an ordinary car, but the buffeting it took as we crossed the Tay was slightly alarming. Ever since an accident in front of us nearly resulted in our car soaring off the San Francisco Bay Bridge, I’ve had misgivings about the safety of bridges.

I once explained to school kids that Jesus is a bridge, a bridge between us human beings and our holy Father. The Jesus Bridge is wholly reliable, though, and there is never any danger of anyone soaring off into the atmosphere.

The current Pope declared recently that Christians should be bridge-builders, not wall-builders. When we build bridges between people, we are part of Christ’s workforce.

May we all build bridges today, whether in action or in fervent prayer. Both are powerful. And we can trust that when Jesus is the foreman, the bridges we build will be safe.

The Comforter

Hot water bottle on my back, still. I’m not sure it really helps but it does feel nice and hopefully is working away to loosen a muscle or two or unknot a tendon. It’s comforting, anyway.

I’m just back from a walk, where I was a hot water bottle for a friend. Sometimes there are no answers that can solve a situation, but a listening ear is like a hot water bottle on a problem, bringing some comfort, even if no solution.

Jesus sent the Holy Spirit. One of the sobriquets by which he is known is the Comforter. When things are hard, when pains don’t easily go away, having the Comforter beside and within is such a blessing.

An Inspiration

The southwest facing windows were spotted on the inside with fly residue and coal fire film; on the outside they were marked with many a winter rain. I grabbed the ladder and the window-washing equipment and headed out, but in my way were a few overgrown shrubs.

That sent me off for the hedge clippers. I couldn’t just clear a path for the ladder, but spent a bit of time stretching and reaching as I clipped the other shrubs in the line. Then washed the windows and can once again enjoy the sunsets.

Playing with lively grandkids over the next few days, however, strained already over-stretched old muscles and now I sit, hot water bottle and BenGay on my back, nursing frustrating aches and pains.

Limitations. It’s hard to accept them and learn to live within them. I encounter more of them as the years go by. Things I would never have hesitated doing, I sometimes think twice before doing them. Things I should hesitate doing, I pay the price for if I ignore caution.

My limitations, so far, are small potatoes compared to those suffered by others. An inspirational friend, a man of faith, has passed on into the glorious presence of God this past weekend, a man who could still manage a smile despite the ravages of motor neurone disease which froze every other muscle. By the grace of God, he and his family managed to live big and brave over these last few years as the horrible disease took its toll.

Though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, God walks with us. The darker the valley, perhaps, the greater the light shines in and through us, if we let it. Stephen did that.

Today I thank God for his example, and for the inspirational way his family supported him throughout. And I praise God that though we all walk through that dark valley, none of us walks to it – it is never our ultimate destination. Today Stephen is out of the valley. Hard as that is for those who loved him, it is also a deep consolation.

Wild Thing

We picked up some pretty bedding plants at the nursery. The few we’d planned to buy multiplied into a couple of dozen, so we set to in the garden when we got home. Ground needed clearing. Bulbs lifted and replanted. Weeds dispensed with.

Later, I realised I couldn’t see out of my fly-spotted kitchen window. Washed it, and the dining room ones, which then meant I needed to go outside to do them to get the full effect (which is wonderful!). But in order to reach the windows outside, I had to trim back dead branches, clear up more spring detritus.

My prayer window is dirty. It’s next on the list, but I notice the bush outside is sprouting in all directions and will need trimming before I can reach the window.

There is more to do than I have time or energy to do. Some of it will just remain wild.

God is working on my inner being. He’s not limited by anything, but he knows that I am, and in his mercy and love, he leaves some bits wild while he polishes up some others. My soul is a bit like my garden. Some of it is flowering and fragrant, and some of it is weedy and unproductive.

But praise God for his mercy and love, because he never gives up on me.

Crushed Clothes in a Crowded Closet

My clothes closet is jammed with clothes accumulated over decades. There is an Austrian dirndl I bought in Vienna with my sister, shortened to a miniskirt length. A Mexican blouse from Olvera Street in LA, bought with Don the first time he came to Long Beach. A skirt with autumnal colours given me by my mum-in-law. A dress and trousers my sister made me (and she has been home with Jesus now for over 30 years). A Pendleton jacket my mother grew out of and handed on, and a paisley print jumpsuit with 60s neon colours she sewed for me in 1971. A USC sweatshirt of my Dad’s. The bridesmaids dress I wore to my sister’s wedding, and my own yellowing, spotting wedding dress. And much more of the same.

Clothes with tags of love. I may never wear most of them, but how do I give them to a charity shop?

Then there are other things in there. Clothes I once thought looked good, and which still look fine on a hangar but have lost their allure when I put them on. Clothes that are usually too warm-weathery for this climate. Clothes that are well and truly out of style. Big shoulders. Wide legs, or narrow legs. Clothes I still like. How do I give them away?

I was sitting in a talk at the Cherish conference last week, listening to an amazing, moving talk by Lisa Harper, when I suddenly had this random thought about my crowded closet, and how most things that come out of it look crushed.

During my lifetime I have gathered many memories of my short-comings, my sins, shaming me, making me stuff them into the closet of my soul. But they are still there, secreted away, largely forgotten but nonetheless cluttering my being, stifling my breath and honestly, crushing me.

Get rid of them, God says. Throw them all away. Give them to me and I’ll throw them away. I’ve forgotten about them and so should you.

Jesus came to bring us life to the full, where we can live in freedom and not be haunted by past mistakes and poor choices, by things we’ve done and things that were done to us.

I don’t know if I’m ready to be brutal with my physical clothes closet, but with the internal one – yes. Every time I hear that condemning whisper reminding me of something I could have done better, something I shouldn’t have said, something I shouldn’t have done, I’m going to yank it out and throw it away for good.

And breathe in the reviving breath of God.

Ice Cream

Felicity and Phoebe rushed back to us, princess crowns bobbing on top of braids and ponytails. They waved silver plastic wands with a star at the end and asked what we wished for.

‘Ice cream.’

A variety of flavours were chosen and, in this fun game, duly provided. (I wish it were a little more tangible than it was…)

We were on repeat with this and eventually I thought I’d shake up the wish list a bit.

‘I wish I could sing really well. And I wish I could play the piano really well, too,’ I said.

Our fairy princesses looked stunned. Lost for words (unusual for Flick!) until Phoebe piped up, ‘We don’t have those wishes.’

We went back to ice cream.

Our heavenly Father is no fairy princess. He who created the Milky Way is well able to answer any of our prayerful wishes. Sometimes he gives us just what we ask for. Other times, though, it feels like an emptiness rather than a YES. It feels like there’s a divine deafness to our persistent request. Maybe even a powerlessness to provide. Or, even worse, an unwillingness on God’s part to step in and say YES.

Not true. Our God is a good, good God. Jesus suffered unspeakably because he thought you were worth it. He thought I was worth it. He can give us ice cream; he can give me the voice of a nightingale and the skills of a concert pianist. He gives me what is best for me, even when I don’t see it, when I don’t recognise it. Even when it seems the ice cream is melting and I’m singing like a frog and playing chopsticks on the piano. And when the silence is prolonged and the pain is profound, he is wrapping his arms around me, his tears mingling with mine.

Never does God say to us, ‘I don’t have those wishes.’

Hang on. Keep praying.

Silence the Storm

We went to Barcelona for the sun, and it rained. We went to Biarritz for the heat, and had to light a fire to keep warm.

Yesterday in Leeds, there was cloud cover and some drizzle. Six hours drive north in Aberdeenshire, they were putting on Factor 50 to keep from sun-burning round the barbie.

We are in the midst of climate change and it is disrupting – flash floods in Ballater again, torrential rains across the Yorkshire moors last night.

We think we know what to expect, but the truth is we never know what is round the corner. Jesus said we’d have trouble in this world, but not to worry, because he has overcome it all.

He has overcome it.

Tonight, I choose to silence the storm within and without, and bathe in the Son.