{being} still

Storms raging

outside my cocoon

wind blows trees and pylons down

 

wooden frets 

splinter the driveway

plank hits plank, hail rains down

 

peace descends

joyful praise ascending

cocooned in love, full stop

Whether {weather}

He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers. 

—Psalm 1:3

The sun is streaming through the window against a purply black cloud. I know without looking a rainbow will be there. Violent wind howls down the chimney, it is a tumultuous day of opposites.

It’s G’s birthday today, he works his way through it. I don’t celebrate birthdays and he does. It’s odd.

As the black cloud recedes to allow the sunrise its glory, blue sky fills its place, when dark clouds fill our minds we can choose to force them away with the violent wind of rationale.

My neighbour and I were talking yesterday, she said some lovely things and I hope I did too. I wish like she does that we could talk and talk until we were all talked out but we no longer live on the same lane and our talk is tapping keyboards rather than face to face.

Toff and Treacs (how quickly names get shortened) fight for attention and then distracted chase an imaginary mouse round the room. Toffee, better now after a dose of cat flu.

Grey rain clouds are vying for attention in the sky, pushing ever closer. An odd day.

Trees are beginning to bud, the willow has a shower of pussies, a rose from last year still blooms. Crocuses and snowdrops are formed, daffodil leaves pushing through. January though not yet finished has left little impression on the seasonal calendar. Things are moving faster because of the inclement weather.

The day is settling into grey. The sun still shines above but no longer visible. Time to move. Time for coffee. Time to gather children and kittens. Time in one day.

 

Untitled

It is only when my past visits me that I truly, truly understand that I am completely and utterly remade, recycled, made into something new. I live in this new way of living but don't absolutely realise it until past visits.

I have been witnessing a change in someone close to me based on what they see in me and have to say I am gobsmacked by it. There is an openness there  now, where before a closed mind.

They have seen the change in me not just on the outside but the completely new "normal" I have and they like it, nay, they love it. The intransigence in which they have sat for so long has been shook up because they have seen God working in me.

This is not a boastful statement, I am not boastful of me, but of what God does through me and where I thought he could not go, He has gone and begun the process of warming a cold heart.

I pray that I can continue to show the love of Christ in everything this person sees and hope and pray that one day the abyss becomes a fissure becomes a healed wound for them.

My God is amazing, steadfast and true and I trust and have faith that He can do all things. I had for long time thought it was too much, too hard, but that is dissin' God and how great and awesome He is.

re{writing}

I haven't written for what seems a long time but in actuality is just over a month. There have been obvious reasons and more obscure reasons and am not sure if this will be a one-off post followed by a fallow period again.

I am living in jubilee, I cannot hold it in any longer, I have been so blessed over the last few weeks to have received gifts from very special people and an anonymous donor too. The minefield traveling continues:

No sooner than I think I have dotted my "eye" and crossed my "tea"  the bureaucrats want something else. I am not a paperwork queen so it has invloved huge mileage gathering the pieces of information they require. Since January 3rd I have been waiting for an inspector to arrive. 

I am not financially embarrassed I just don't have money for extras, I have learned new ways to be frugal and have increased the number I am feeding at weekends. Since October I have kept within my budget but January has proved fruitful:

Each four weeks I have been given four hundred euros to feed the family and the van. Diesel costs about fifty or sixty euros which leaves forty of fifty for food. 

Charles Dickens in David Copperfield had Mr Micawber give this sound advice:

 My other piece of advice, Copperfield, said Mr. Micawber, you know. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery. The blossom is blighted, the leaf is withered, the god of day goes down upon the dreary scene, and, in short, you are for ever floored. As I am!  

I am pleased and chuffed to realise that this month I have a surplus of one hundred and fifty euros. It has helped that I spent this week hunkered down in snow covered cleaning mode. I have my shopping list for today and the cats and dog will have more spent on them than their human counterparts.

God has provided for me and my family, I have learned a new level of frugality in financial terms and am counting my blessings. There is a really old hymn that sums up how to do this. Fix my eyes on Christ, who he is, what he did, what he did for me and then look at my life at the thousands and thousands of blessings. Over at typepad.com I am going to start naming them one by one.

 

When upon life’s billows you are tempest tossed,
When you are discouraged, thinking all is lost,
Count your many blessings, name them one by one,
And it will surprise you what the Lord hath done.

Refrain

Count your blessings, name them one by one,
Count your blessings, see what God hath done!
Count your blessings, name them one by one,
And it will surprise you what the Lord hath done.

Are you ever burdened with a load of care?
Does the cross seem heavy you are called to bear?
Count your many blessings, every doubt will fly,
And you will keep singing as the days go by.

Refrain

When you look at others with their lands and gold,
Think that Christ has promised you His wealth untold;
Count your many blessings. Wealth can never buy
Your reward in heaven, nor your home on high.

Refrain

So, amid the conflict whether great or small,
Do not be disheartened, God is over all;
Count your many blessings, angels will attend,
Help and comfort give you to your journey’s end.

Refrain

 

Highest point: scrubbing my kitchen floor and solving the leak in the washing machine.I am not in debt, the bills are paid and I am discovering new depths of patience with civil servants.

1 Corinthians 10:13 

No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.

 

sand{castles}

perfume and pheremones pervaded her space

he slid in beside her

silent tears 

 

shame and anguish filled her mind

he snored gently on

tormented

 

facing the world with plastered face

he floated through

regardless

 

fixed smile, white flashing teeth

crumbling in a heap

he left

 

she built her castle on the sand

nature took its course

slid bereft

 

peace return this Christmas time

fill her with hope

God loves

 

 

Untitled

Have you ever been in the situation where through the way someone else behaved you got confirmation of a decision you made.

I decided to forgive.

I didn't know why I chose, I had enough ammunition to walk away, to not engage, to run.

I knew there was a bigger reason in the choosing, that was brought home in some backsliding, sharing, honesty and truth.

BUT

I think I still had the ticket, I don't think I tore up the ticket out of the situation.

And then I talked, it started in June and has been rolling ever since. I talked again last week.

A normally highly verbose group reduced to silence, sharp intakes of breath at the description of a wound. Empathy oozed. 

When you see that smiley person, unless they tell you, you cannot know what is underneath. We are like icebergs.

BUT

when we talk, share, real raw "warts and all" honesty, when we bear our inner core, when we become vulnerable to people, then we see palpable signs of God's amazing grace, his bottomless mercy and overwhelming love.

We see it in others.

There was a time when I baulked at the sight of human judgement. When people told me I wasn't Christian because ...When people made assumptions based on what they thought the "backstory" was. When I avoided sharing so people would like me. When I got things pear-shaped.

No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to us all. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it. (1Corinthians 10:13)

As a child of God I am not immune to temptation but I try really hard to walk away from it. There are images floating in my head I would rather weren't there. There is a default coping mechanism I'd rather it wasn't my first thought when facing crises.

BUT

When I saw one of the listeners from my talk hug a person they only knew through my talk I began to grin. I have been grinning ever since. 

God's unconditional love expressed by his children.

 How can I not share no matter how difficult?

{un} breaking broken

broken people can be thankful for the weirdest of things

for some people having feet that touch the ground as they walk is enough to be thankful for

it depends where your normal hangs its hat.

 

normal, that thing that when you know you aren't and the situation you are in is not, you crave it

 

look at people passing you in the street with their perfect husbands, wives, children, parents

 

we look but we don't really see

because we are broken

 

we don't see the snide comment between spouses

we don't see the glint in the eye

we don't see the cowering child

 

we look and see what we want to see

we are so absorbed with the crises of our life, we see surface in others, we see what people want us to see

 

I have a friend who suffered horrific physical abuse as a child at the hands of her step father. She was always so open about her suffering. She survived. She speaks and teaches on child abuse. I heard her talk recently. She talked about wanting to be me, she wanted my parents, my life.

And I ...

 

It all depends on your normal, where you hang your hat of normality.