Shed that heavy cape

For some reason, this morning on our walk I was remembering the heavy lead (?) cape which the dentist used to wrap round your shoulders to prevent the x-rays going where they shouldn’t go, when he was x-raying your teeth. Maybe they still use those capes, but I’ve not had it on for years.

I remember how heavy it hung on my shoulders. How awkward it was to sling round your shoulders.

It reminds me of the responsibilities I carry. The responsibilities Don carries. They weigh us down. They elicit sighs from time to time. Mutterings of ‘weary, weary’ from Don. 

I’m then reminded of Jesus’ invitation. ‘Come to me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will refresh you. Take my yoke on you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble and you will find rest for your souls.’ 

The modern paraphrase from The Message is wonderful. ‘Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me – watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.’

The unforced rhythms of grace. Nothing heavy on my shoulders. I don’t think he means we are to cease caring about those we love, or adopt a ‘whatever’ attitude to life. But as we share our burdens with Jesus, they cease to be burdens and perhaps even become blessings. 

Which of course, most of them are anyway. Most of the burdens we carry are for those we love. 

Blessings every one.

I’m going to ask God to help me shed that heavy cape today. I want to wear the gossamer one that Jesus gives.

Stain Remover

So, the day after the wedding, family and friends gathered at the parents-of-the-groom’s home for a wonderful buffet. I’m not one for meat pies but I have to say the Melton Mowbray pie was fantastic. 

However, this is not about delicious pies, champagne or strawberries. It’s about red wine, and how for the third time in my life, someone taller than me has spilled a sprinkling of red wine across my shoulders. 

Not to worry, I reassured my hostess. I’ve got some red wine stain remover at home, and it always works. 

I hadn’t reckoned with a two day delay until I got home. Nor had I reckoned with a very nice white bolero sweater which could only be washed in cold water. I used my trusty spray and threw the sweater into the cold wash, only to be disappointed to discover four conspicuous dark stains still there after the cycle. 

I used the Vanish bar. Then the Fels Naphtha bar, a fifty-year-old remedy from the Midwest which my mother still swears by, and indeed, until now it has always done the trick on the hardest stains.

Nada. By now I was afraid that I would rub the fine knit into an ugly ball, so I let it drop back into the cold water and soak while I walked Dusty. 

It is still soaking, twelve hours later, but I do believe it is fading a bit. 

So the moral – besides always ensuring nobody with red wine is trying to push past behind you – is that even the most stubborn stains may eventually come out with enough soaking. 

My soul is pretty badly stained. Don’t know about yours. But I think that if the stains are ever going to come out, I need to soak in the Spirit, soak in the Word, soak in Prayer. 

Jesus says that he will make my sins whiter than snow. Now that’s the main stain I want removed. 

But I would be grateful, too, if when I wake up in the morning, the wine stain on my shoulders has disappeared.

Walk on the Wild Side

We have been away for the weekend. We went south to a family wedding. 

We rented a very comfortable cottage on the island where all the celebrations were going on, sharing the house with Don's brother, sister and brother-in-law. There was the seaside atmosphere of a place the family used to own on the west coast of Scotland, with the same convivial family times, shared meals, good fish to eat and wine to wash it down. 

We were there for three days, and as we head back north now, I am reflecting on the fact that I only opened my Bible twice, never prayed with Don, missed church, and didn't say grace before meals. We slipped into the routines of those around us, those with whom Don grew up, and who don't share our faith.

It has made me think of the descriptions in the Bible about who we are...that we have been grafted in to the true vine, which is Jesus. I grow roses at home, and I know it doesn't take long for cultivated roses to revert to their wild state. Seven leaves instead of five. Different flowers. The grafting-in can revert to wildness.

I am the vine, Jesus said. You are the branches. Grafted in. If we don't stay in him, we revert to our default mode, our natural, wild state.

It takes thought and effort to remain grafted in. We can't assume anything. We can't presume to remain in Christ if we make no effort to remain in him, through building up our relationship with him in Bible reading and prayer.

I remember what I was like before I was grafted in. I remember the sense of emptiness and sometimes hopelessness. 

I don't want to go back there again. I want to remain grafted in. 

Glad to be heading north now, back to my own routine, my own wee prayer window. My routine walks with Dusty, which draw my thoughts to God. 

But I wonder, how long will it take before my default mode will always be with face turned upwards in worship, no matter the circumstances.

Of course I did pray. I did thank God for the food silently before I ate. I did pray for people and situations that I know of right now. So maybe I didn't so much revert to wild, to seven leaves, as just express my faith in a different way. Or am I just kidding myself?

Hmm.

Trust Rating

It seems that every time I go onto my blog site I am pestered by bouncing adverts telling me I’ve won a prize or I have a virus or my PC is about to crash. Alongside it is a Trust Rating which I notice is never 100%. 

Anything less than 100% and I’m not going there. I’ve heard the horror stories and I’m pretty cautious. 

Trust is a tough one. Some people might say that it has to be earned. As events reveal the reliability of your faithfulness in a relationship, for instance, the sense of trust is strengthened. I have a wise friend, though, whose motto is that you should only put your expectations in God alone. 

Throughout Scripture we are given a picture of a faithful God who loves and cares for his people. A loving Father who never abandons those he loves. A God who can be trusted to be good 100% of the time.

It may not feel like that when struggling with terminal disease or catastrophic failures of relationships or careers. But even in the tough times – especially in the tough times, I’ve found – God can be trusted to hang in there. When everyone else has deserted, he will still be there, your champion, the lover of your soul. 

Pontius Pilate was addressing the embodiment of Truth when he asked him, “What is truth?” He couldn’t see who Jesus was. Sometimes we can’t see who Jesus is. That doesn’t make him any less who he is – the way, the truth and the life. 

He came and died for the sins of the whole world, whether or not the whole world believes or accepts. He offers everyone the opportunity to enjoy relationship with him which starts now and goes on into eternity, whether or not everyone accepts.

That’s the truth, and the trust rating on that is 100%.

Peripheral stuff

I’m sorry this seems to be turning into a daily weather update from northeastern Scotland! Somehow it gives me inspiration.

This morning, for instance, our glorious blue skies of yesterday were blanketed away from us by a thick layer of gray clouds. The wind has picked up a tad and there is no need for sun cream today. Although it does afford a respite from the relentless pursuit of weeds round the garden, my spirit sagged as Dusty and I headed off on our usual walk. I am a warm weather person, craving the sunshine every day, and a gloomy morning threatened to give me a gloomy mood.

As we approached the first wood, I became aware of the chorus of birdsong. They were singing, though the skies were gray. They were singing their hearts out, despite the summer sun having disappeared. It didn’t sound like they had given way to a bout of melancholia. They weren’t singin’ the blues like I was.

They weren’t basing their mood on the weather.

This is a truth I have known ever since the first year I got married and moved to Scotland. “Don’t base your mood on the weather!” “Don’t let a grey sky determine your outlook.” But somehow knowing something in my head doesn’t always sink deep into my heart and soul and become a maxim by which I live.

Thankfully my knowledge of Jesus – as incomplete and naive as it still is, even after all these years – has sunk deep into my heart and soul and I do make the effort to make my love for him a maxim by which I live. The weather is peripheral, but my reaction to it isn’t. If I am going to live a life sold out to Jesus, where my focus is on him and not on any external circumstances or situations, then I need to allow my love for him to affect all the peripherals, so that I love him with all my heart, all my soul, all my strength and all my mind. And that will affect everything I do.

Even though the skies are grey.