A Precious Gift

I wonder what you would consider the most precious gift you’ve ever received? I can think of some wonderful gifts which made my life easier (washing machine and dryer – thank you Mom and Dad; dishwasher – thank you Mother-in-Law). I can think of some items of jewellery – of value indeed but more so because of the love expressed through the giving of them. 

Up there with precious gifts is the gift of time. Many wonderful people have gifted me a few hours throughout my life. Too many to name, but I haven’t forgotten my sister-in-law’s sacrificial gift of time and elbow grease in cleaning my house, more than once, when I was expecting a baby, or just expecting visitors. I haven’t forgotten the formatting of a book I wrote, the trimming of trees, the fixing of computers, the baking of cakes, and so on. So many gifts which boiled down to someone giving up that most precious commodity, time, in order to help me.

Last weekend our three sons all converged on our dining room and began the arduous task of stripping wallpaper, sanding woodwork (including doors, windows, decorative boards and even the floor – though that was done by Don), and then repainting, re-varnishing, re-wallpapering. Rome wasn’t built in a day and our dining room wasn’t done in a weekend, or even a week. 

Which is why I have been so quiet of late. We’ve been continuing the task of painting and papering. And now, as my back has given way again, one son is coming back tomorrow to finish off the walls with Don.

My heart is full of gratitude to these wonderful young men, and my equally wonderful husband. And gratitude leads me back to a verse or two from Philippians in the New Testament, where Paul has written: ‘Don’t worry about anything; instead pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.’

Our dining room hadn’t been decorated for over 25 years, but the task was more than we could manage. Our boys saw the need, and came alongside. God knows what we need, and he comes alongside. May you share your need with him, and enjoy his peace today.

Lover of my soul

Valentine’s Day again. A day so loaded with pent-up emotion – hopes and dreams, expectations and disappointments, fulfilment and loneliness. Why do we do this to ourselves? 

As I write this, a chainsaw roars away in the background as a local businessman clears the wood across the field from our house. It looks like a scene from World War 1. Devastation everywhere. A thick carpet of needles and pine cones, twigs and branches, nests and shelters lies dying on the ground while the curtain of trees is ripped and torn asunder. Now from my back door I have a clear view of – wait for it – a tank! No, not a water tank, but a weapon, decommissioned obviously and now used as part of the paint ball games which fan out across that area of ground and extend into the (still-standing) woods beyond. 

The toys for boys team bonding game which has developed over the last couple of decades within such close proximity to our rural idyll hasn’t bothered me – until now – because it has been muffled and sheltered by this thick insulating stand of trees. No longer.

Hey, wait a second, you may be asking yourself. How did I segue from a day celebrating love and relationships to the devastation wreaked by a chainsaw in the woods? 

There is a link. The devastation reminds me that so many relationships have fallen victim to cutting remarks, disapproving attitudes, selfish ambitions, and that this day can be a painful reminder to many of the beauty which once seemed so unassailable in their lives. Many today will be standing in the midst of an emotional battlefield left from such brokenness and dying hopes and dreams.

Nobody sets out on a love affair expecting it to end in pain and ugly emptiness, and yet so many loves are abandoned and left to wither and shrivel. More today than ever before? I think maybe today people are more ready to give up and walk away from something when it hits a challenging moment, rather than working through it and finding the relationship strengthened as a result.

The trouble with a day like Valentine’s Day is that it can rob a person of a right perspective. And what is the ‘right’ perspective?

I believe it is that no matter what your circumstances are today, Jesus Christ is the divine lover of your soul. That is an amazing truth. The Creator of the universe looks at you and loves you, warts and all. There is nothing you have done which can spoil his love for you; there is always another chance with Jesus, always an opportunity to draw near again and let his embrace soothe your fears and sense of loneliness. He never walks away from his relationship with you; he never gives up on it, even though for him it has seemed unrequited for a long, long time. Still he stands at the door of your heart and knocks, hoping you will open your heart and invite him in.

His Valentine to you today is the brilliance of a rainbow, the fragrance of a lily, the rosy streaks of a glorious sunrise or sunset, the laughter of a child, the words of love he whispers through the Bible, just to you. 

That devastation in the woods across the field will soon sprout with new life beneath the compost of life that once lived and now is cut down. Seeds of hope; seeds of promise and love.  If your heart feels devastated and dead, look closer. Seeds of love are there, sprouting. Nurture them.

‘I have loved you with an everlasting love,’ God says. 

And if God is for you, what more do you need? Jesus is the lover of your soul and mine, yesterday, today and forever.That's reality, not a pipe dream.

Get the eternal perspective, and catch the fragrance of his heavenly presence. Take time to linger and breathe in his love, allowing it to reach right down to the places that feel dry and dessicated and which nothing else seems to reach.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Adverse Circumstances

If I’ve learned anything through the years of my life, it is that I don’t know nearly as much as I think I do. School years measure academic knowledge, and if you put in the study you come out thinking you are pretty smart.

Until you move out into the world, and on into life. Competing voices vie for your attention, promoting their values, lifestyles and dogma. Some don’t appeal, ever, but others you might entertain briefly, or for a lengthier space of time. Or even for the rest of your life.

Much of life is one foot in front of the other, day after day. Routine. But sometimes other things interfere which cause us to pause and consider. Often those other things are not nice in themselves.

I know someone at the moment who is struggling at work, not being given good clear instructions but then being criticised when things are not done as expected. She is facing this situation as an opportunity to grow, and refuses to walk away. 

I know there are thousands at the moment flooded out in England. Day after soggy day the rains  come down and the floods rise up until they engulf the gardens and invade the kitchens. And still the forecasters predict more wet weather. Is this a time for some of those thousands, if not all, to reconsider values and aims, goals and meanings? 

I have had some routine hospital appointments this morning, always sobering as you rub shoulders with the chronically, long-term sufferers. Will my back ache ever ease? Or is this a time for me to reassess priorities and drop deeper into God to draw on his resources more fully?

Little Samuel was sleeping in the Temple when he was awoken three times in one night by a voice calling his name. Finally he was given advice from Eli, the priest, ‘Go and lie down, and if he calls you, say, ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening’. 

Samuel took Eli’s advice, and God shared a couple of secrets with him. 

One can’t  measure life experience like one can measure academic knowledge. And we never reach the end of the textbook until we end the final chapter of our lives.

Today I want to be open to hearing God’s secrets, if he wants to share them with me. I want to be open to new growth opportunities. And I look forward to the time when I am eager for things without having been prompted to want them, through adverse circumstances.

Loathsome cobwebs

Walking downstairs the other day I focused on the old Grandfather clock at the bottom. I walk by it every day but – maybe because it doesn’t work – I never look at it. But I did a few days ago and saw something which looked like a loathsome amoeba creeping through the carved mahogany curlie-cues above the clock face. Don came in response to my cry of horror and said quite calmly that it was just a cobweb. 

Well I usually know a cobweb when I see one. It hangs down from the ceiling or the light fitting and waves about in the air. But this was something else. It looked almost like a Scottish tam o’shanter hat, draped lazily over the edge of the curved surface. 

How long did it take to acquire such dimensions? How many times had I walked past and never noticed? How many guests had noticed it with horror and thought I was a terrible housekeeper? 

Bad habits, unhealthy ways of thinking, grudges, critical attitudes – all those negative things begin as cobwebs in our psyches and, if not knocked down and cleaned out, develop over time into loathsome things which smother healthy thought and skew creative and right thinking. 

We can become so accustomed to the furniture of our minds that we don’t always notice when these creepy things are gaining a foothold. Hence it is so important to regularly examine our thoughts by the light of Scripture and prayer. 

Paul wrote to the people in Philippi that they should guard their thinking: ‘summing it all up, friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious – the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse.’ (The Message)

A great antidote to loathsome mental cobwebs.

Shipping and Handling

Last night I nearly made an on-line purchase. When the total price of the item came up it had nearly tripled from its original cost. Horrified, I went back and discovered that the shipping and handling charges were more than one and a half times the cost of the item, and then there was ‘tax’. I cancelled the transaction.

I’ve been thinking about the way we handle items, valuable or not. Before I was married, the only item of value which I owned was a cut crystal bud vase. When I was moving once, I was so anxious not to break that vase that I decided not to pack it but to put it beside me on the passenger seat of the van, where I would be able to see it and take good care of it.

When I reached my destination, I’d forgotten about it, and as I opened the passenger door to unload belongings, the vase had wriggled to the edge of the seat during the drive and crashed to the roadway below, smashing into smithereens. 

The Bible tells us that our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit. We couldn’t be carrying anything more valuable if we tried! The Holy Spirit of the creator of the Universe, living inside me. So how do I handle him? Do I take the best care I possibly can of my own body, monitoring what I eat and drink, what I wear, whether or not I am tattooed or pierced? Or do I generally treat my body in an off-hand sort of way, careless of the cargo I carry?

My attempted purchase last night was over-protected in its shipping and handling. My precious cut glass vase – though I was trying to super-protect it – was actually under-protected and destroyed. I’m not sure I really know how to carry the Holy Spirit in an appropriate way. He doesn’t need my protection, but he does warrant my honour and respect.

I hope that my words and actions today will reveal the precious cargo I carry in a way that encourages, comforts and refreshes all who I come into contact with.