blog ~ faith ~ family ~ heartlife
Motherhood.
Joys and sorrows beyond imagination.
Now may the God of peace…
equip you with everything good for doing his will,
and may he work in us what is pleasing to him,
through Jesus Christ,
to whom be glory for ever and ever.
Amen.
One particular time a few years back when I was major-league stressed about something, I was driving along a road close to home thinking over and over “I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what to do” – when I came upon a traffic jam where I could neither see the problem nor where I needed to go.
My cry of “I don’t know what to do” was immediately applied to the road situation where visibility was so bad.
This turned out to be one of those amazing moments when God spoke so clearly through the circumstance at hand to show me something much bigger and which I will never forget. I felt the words “the way will become clear” somewhere deep inside and as I inched forward through a messy convergence of truck and traffic and narrow road and road works, bit by bit I could see what I needed to do next.
So many times in life we are faced with new, difficult, stressy things that if we wait, and watch, and follow the way marked out bit by bit, we’ll get to the other side of the thing and see we did Ok. And more importantly, that we were Helped.
One of my mentors (Elaine McGrath) once said “Feelings are good because they locate you but you don’t have to stay where your feelings tell you you are”.
This remark has become so much a part of me now, I have found it invaluable. Years ago I had an idea of turning the concept into a kind of children’s board ‘game’/teaching resource… with a map and coordinates to better feelings and how to get there. Every time I applied myself to thinking how it could be done, it became too complicated so it never did eventuate. I’m glad it hasn’t in a way as I’d do it so differently now to when I first thought about it.
Feelings can be an accurate reflection of truth. Such as grief after a death. The depth of grief being a reflection of the love. Completely the ‘right’ emotion.
Feelings can tell us lies. Such as worthlessness and self loathing. These feelings tell us we are in one place while the truth would show us another. One of the hardest things to do is to lift oneself out of these feelings and return to truth. One of the scariest things I know of is the action people can take based on the feelings that have lied to them. Sometimes revealing the lie is easy (such as recalling you have PMS and are not to be trusted!), but sometimes seemingly impossible.
Sometimes feelings tell us everything is alright, when really they are not but our quest to feel only the good perpetuates the deception.
We all live lives somewhat at the mercy of our feelings… am still in the process of taking a step ‘outside’ myself and learning to think more, react less. Learning.
I’m LEARNING!
Thankyou God for allowing me to meet Elaine.
“Feelings are good because they locate you but you don’t have to stay where your feelings tell you you are”.
Years ago when I was finding some stuff really heavy going, I heard something that impacted my prayers, life and expectations so deeply it has stayed with me ever since. Prior to that moment, I spent most of my prayer time asking God to fix things, change things, alter circumstances, make people be a certain way… FIX things… amke it hurt less or be less hard… you know the drill…
With what was happeneing at the time, I was ripe ready for the words that I heard in church one day. It was my brother in law Paul talking as he led the service that day. I’m sure I’ll get some details wrong here but the essence remains true.
He spoke of his Dad who’d fought in The War. On the night before armed combat Pauls Dad prayed “don’t let me be a coward”.
Wow.
I’d have been begging to live, to get outa there, for everything to go away and not be true. I was amazed at the contrast of my lesser hardships and style of prayer to that situation and those words.
Since then it has been part of me to ask less for my list of what I think God should do, and more to ask Him to fill me with courage come what may. To thank Him for His promise to equip me do do His will and to work in me what is pleasing to Him. I’ve often wished that those moments with God, where He changes something so big in me in the blink of an eye- would happen more often. Maybe they can, should or will… but I’m so glad for these times that crop up like oasis in a desert. Often at the last gasp – there comes the Living Water.
Once upon a time, before I was a mother, I used to sew and design clothes for a number of ladies. One of the most valuable lessons I learned from this period of my life is that most women (I never sewed for any men) have parts of ourselves we want to hide or disguise and/or other parts to flatter and promote.
Continue reading “Appearance and assumption”
Each of our names shows something about ourselves, our relationships, our gifts or quirks. I am Heather to most but Mum to some, Aunt to more, Hon to one, Mrs to many, Fred to siblings, Frazzle to brother, Bruce to a few from way back when, Heath to the other, Mumsamoo to oldest offspring, Boss to third, Mummy to smallest. Each is true but none is complete.
God is My Refuge and my Strength but that is not all.
He is My Redeemer but that is not all.
He is my light but that is not all.
He is my Song but that is not all.
He is my Comforter but that is not all.
He is a Consuming Fire but that is not all.
He is my Everpresent Help in Times of Trouble but that is not all.
He is Truth but that is not all.
He is the Rock but that is not all.
He is Creator but that is not all
He is The Husband of the widow but that is not all.
He is Father to the Fatherless but that is not all.
He is the Father of Lights but that is not all.
He is the Hope of Israel but that is not all.
He is Jehovah Jireh-Nissi-Ropheka-Tsidkeenu-and they are not all.
He is my Saviour, Healer, Judge, Friend, Maker, Lord most High and Holy One.
And I’m still getting to know Him.
When is a question not a question?
a. When it is sarcasm.
b. when it is a challenge.
c. When it is a platform (like this one).
On the surface I’ve had this idea that questions are enquiries- which is a bit silly when experience tells otherwise.
The first time I learned it wasn’t safe to answer every question posed was as a child in grade one and I got the answer wrong. That kept my hand down for about the next 12 years.
Children are masters in the art of the question challenge… “Why should I” for example. And dramatic, melancholic, martyrish parents (hehem) perhaps once or twice in their lives known to employ the sarcasm question tactic. Once attending a seminar I ventured an answer the speaker didn’t want… It was too soon and he had an hours worth of material leading to that point. He wasn’t enquiring, he was planning to illustrate nobody knew what he was leading up to. I’ve since been on the other side of that and it was really hard but I learned from that NOT to ask a question I didn’t want the answer to or if my goal is participation/interaction more than information, then different words are needed.
Sarcasm, challenges and platforms posed as questions mostly dont welcome new or additional information or ideas… They are boxes designed to confine.
Questions used as thought prompts might be different in a true teaching setting… Parent and child, teacher and learner, Master and friend, kitchen, classroom, mountainside, heart – where the end point is truth. The tricky part is being sure to distinguish between truth and/or understanding revealed and a tasty sequential trail of cookie crumbs.
Some things I’ve discovered about reading the Bible in the last few years…
1. Things that seem weird, strange or boring are like red flags over buried treasure. Some hunting and persistence is required but treasure is there.
2. I don’t like being rushed. I know others follow ‘read the Bible in a year’ plans but I find this gives me a false sense of hurry. I want to read it and follow the trails that things weird, strange or ‘boring’ present to me.
3. I love to read big chunks in short periods of time- as you would a gripping novel. This gives a sense of flow and story that reading bitsy bits cannot.
4. I love to read it aloud with others. To stop and follow the trails together and see what each other knows and wants to know. To think on it in an entirely different way than reading silently allows.
5. And I love to read it silently… waiting for Him to show me new and deeper or old but fresher. Love this amazing letter
When I get to feeling lost and small in the magnitude of the earth and all its happenings I go here: “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it.’
Continue reading “White stones”
I printed this in Facets (a parenting magazine I used to Produce) years ago – was given it by my sister from our Nanna close to the beginning of being a mum. I have loved it and have come back to it periodically as it expresses my hearts deepest desire and many years on, that desire remains paramount.
Continue reading “Something that has grounded me”