Being Thankful

Yesterday we had our harvest festival at church and a sermon filled with all the little things we should be thankful for, like blueberries in porridge. Now personally I wouldn’t thank you for that – I love blueberries but the thought of soggy oats in warm milk poured over them turns my stomach – bleugh!

I’m fortunate I can have my breakfast of choice, most days that’s crunchy nut cornflakes without milk to turn the crunch to mush – I think I was put off milk at primary school, those little bottles with pink straws that sat in the warm classrooms waiting for breaktime still give me nightmares. #firstworldproblems

Scrolling through Twitter this morning I came across a tweet about more bombs dropping in Kyiv. pausing for a second in comfort and silence I glanced up at a patch of blue sky out of my rain spattered window and let my thoughts meander.

The grass has only just recovered from the parched summer, the rain drops are most welcome. Sadly, there are places in the world where rains never fall and places that get far too much more than they need.

The world is an unfair place and sometimes it sounds trite to say we SHOULD be thankful. Almost disingenuous to be thankful for NOT suffering like so many others, but then our thoughts turn to prayers to lift the less fortunate out of their suffering – Oh God when will the madness cease?

For what it’s worth I offer you these words of thanks I wrote this morning – a prayer, a poem? Not perfect, maybe not as eloquent as I’d like think they are. As we say in our Open The Book assemblies – if you want to make this prayer yours say Amen after me…

Thank you that I live

In a land of blue skies

And gentle rain

 

Thank you for the softest breeze

To tease my hair

 

Thank you that my life

Is not filled with greater cares

 

But I pray for those who live

Their lives on a precipice

With daily shocks of bombs

Stained with

Grey rubble and dirty red blood

 

I pray for those

In lands parched and dusty

Children with hungry bellies

Or in lands where

The water rises high

Sweeping life and livelihood aside

 

So many lives in turmoil

And I wonder why

 I got to be so fortunate

By just a quirk of birth

To live in a land of plenty

Although there are still great extremes

Troubles and tears

Many hidden in plain sight

 

But today, just for this moment 

 

I have so much to be thankful for

In this land of blue skies

And gentle rain.

Remember, Remember the Fifth of November

How can I forget? Today a year ago I was “officially” diagnosed with bowel cancer.

I say “officially” because one of my GPs had already spilled the beans when I wasn’t feeling well as he could see the scan results and knew exactly what was causing my intermittent stomach upsets.

But the fifth of November was the day it all became REAL.

“We need to operate as soon as possible.” Said the consultant.

Petrified of any kind of operation I blurted out, “But I’m moving later this month.”

“What’s more important, moving or your health?”

Well I could have swung for him then.

He took me to another room and showed me the scan photo as proof that an operation was imperative, not that I have any sort of training to interpret the grey and black blobs of my internal organs. I gave up biology in third year preferring chemistry, much more maths involved and pretty coloured reactions to play with!

The image was bad, on so many levels, and at that point I totally lost if and got hysterical. My boys had already lost their dad it was inconceivable that they should lose me too.

The prospect was bleak and I couldn’t compute how I could both move and have an operation at the same time. I’ve double booked myself on many occasions and I knew this wasn’t going to work.

Fortunately, I had a friend with me, she took me to a nearby café, I had a cup of tea and slice of cherry pie while she calmly worked out possible scenarios for me.

She is very much the planner and as I sat savouring the pie, squishing whole cherries between my tongue and roof of my mouth, drying my eyes at the same time, she sorted out how I could rally around my local friends from church to help out. There must be someone I could stay with in this situation?

Mentally I went through a list of everyone I knew nearby, very dear friends, with spare rooms who might accommodate me while I recuperated and regained my strength after a lifesaving operation.

I discounted every one!

Moving nearer my parents was the best thing for my health – the consultant didn’t have a clue about my personal history, why moving was the important for my mental well-being and it finally sunk into my friend that family was the most important part of the equation.

My dad was, and still is, having regular chemo. There was no way him and mum could keep coming up to see me. They’d already made two trips in the past month.

On my way home I called in to see a friend who is a retired GP and told him what the consultant had actually said. He talked things over with me and agreed I should put the medical stuff on hold until I moved.

When I got home, I rang my own GP surgery. I wanted to speak, not to the doctor who had originally sent me for tests who was a fairly new addition to the practice but the one who knew me and the boys and had known Andrew and all we had been through.

He rang me back and was very honest with me about my chances. He even came around that evening to see me and give me the strongest hug I have ever experienced! Subsequently he wrote an amazing letter to my new GP practice, which the receptionist told me had her in tears!

And so my path was set before me. November was filled with things to do, excursions and visits to friends that were already planned and a moving date fixed in stone.

Somehow, I managed every single one before the trauma of having to be diagnosed all over again before finally ending up with emergency surgery.

I have to thank God for the way things worked out. On paper it all seemed unlikely and impossible and yet I’m still here a year on to tell the tale. But I’m crying as I type this, amazed by the miracle of my journey, from North to South, through cancer diagnosis, lifesaving surgery and beyond.

I’ll always remember that fifth of November, the fireworks, family and friends.

Pansies in my garden for thoughts and remembrance.
They are also sometimes called heartsease.

STUCK, SILENT & STUBBORN

I feel STUCK in so many ways…

Firstly as I stare at this blank page in front of me I wonder how I am going to fill it. I’m trying to catch my ideas and pin them down but they fly off in all directions.

But I know deep down that writing may be profitable, it will help me align my thoughts and perhaps allow me to move forward.

The biggest sticking point is, as it ever was, the house!

If you had told me when Andrew died that I would still be living here five years on I truly would have wept.

I love my house dearly, it is our forever family home but circumstances have changed to a point where it is no longer fit for purpose. It far exceeds adequate, therefore I desperately need to move to somewhere smaller and more manageable. It is more of a burden than a pleasure to live here.

I was out shopping yesterday and when I returned home I checked my mobile, I never hear it ring if I am out, and discovered I’d missed a call from the estate agent.

Calmly I put the kettle on and made a cup of tea before I rang them back.

“Was it still possible to be moved before Christmas?” I pondered as my mind raced ahead imagining a potential buyer had found the money and was ready to proceed.

Of course it wasn’t anything as exciting. They were updating their records and wanted my email address. Sounds to me like they were bored in the office and made up something to do to pass the time.

The housing market is as dull and dreary as a wet Wednesday in winter!

I receive Bible readings as an email every day and some days I even open and read them! 

Yesterday’s was called “Get into place!” Well how could I resist reading that one?

I desperately want to know where I should be and what I should be doing. To be honest I am STUCK in a rut in more ways than one, so aware that there is more out there that I have yet to grasp or comprehend.

‘Get into Place!’

18 November 2015

‘There was not a man to till the ground.’ Genesis 2:5 KJV

The Bible says, ‘The Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.’ At the beginning of creation God caused a mist to come up from the earth and water the ground. Up until that time there had been no downpour from the heavens. That’s because there was nobody to do the prep work and ‘till the ground’. There’s a spiritual lesson here! There are things God has planned to do, made provision for, and desires to do – but He won’t until you ‘get into place’ where you can receive what He longs to give you. The blessing is there, safe in God’s keeping. The need is there, persistent in its pain. But the blessing can’t come until your heart is in the right place for God to act. Right now you may be enjoying a ‘mist’, but you know God has more for you. You’ve a frustration that causes you to say, ‘Why am I not further along?’ Rather than blaming people and circumstances, you need to pause, look up, and ask, ‘Lord, are You waiting for me to get into place?’ When you ask that question, be prepared to hear the answer and obey it, even if it means rearranging your priorities and paying the price to receive what God wants you to have. What does He want you to have? Not a mist, but a downpour! He’s willing and ‘able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us’ (Ephesians 3:20 KJV). But first you must ‘get into place’.

                                                                                         Word for Today -18th Nov 2015

The answer in the text above is predictably to take your burdens to God and pray “are You waiting for me to get into place?”

Of course place is not just geographical, if it were I would be stuck until the housing market picks up, which as it stands could be FOREVER!!!!

I do need to come before God and ask what He would have me do but I find praying on my own so difficult and I confess I don’t do it often enough. I honestly can’t remember the last time I really poured out my heart to God with my own personal petitions.

It’s been five years since Andrew died, I feel my life is STUCK, every time I get proactive trying to move my life forward it feels as if a door slams in my face.

I have come to equate each slam of the door as a sign from God I should WAIT. The timing is just not right. One day a door will open but not now. I keep taking the wrong turn and trying the wrong door handles.

I worry if I really pray that heartfelt prayer God will be SILENT. I will get NO answer and still be here treading water and waiting for the echo of the final door slam to die away….

So I dig my heels in and shake my STUBBORN head. It's better to bury my head in the sand than cope with the painful silence.

This is obviously how it has to be, if God wanted my life to be different He could change it!

I’ll admit it’s not a great attitude.

As I see it I have 3 choices.

I could sit and wait forever until something gives, all the while feeling sorry for myself or I could run around chasing my tail trying to make things happen and getting more and more frustrated in the process of busyness.

But somehow I’ve got to choose option 3 and fit God into the equation and ask Him properly what I should do instead of second guessing His great plans.

It sounds clichéd and stale. I'm sure I've written this before....

This week’s Open the Book school assembly was a story called “A Long Journey” about the Israelites wandering in the wilderness.

No wonder my own story sounds clichéd, I am not the first person to walk in circles, not listening properly and being STUBBORN. Ignoring the good things God has provided and moaning instead.

My wise friend told me “God is our hope and He will keep you SUSTAINED until the time is right.” 

Of all the words I’ve highlighted today beginning with S – maybe SUSTAINED is the best.

It doesn’t mean an easy life or that everything will go your way but SUSTAINED is a soothing word. It keeps you going when times get tough.

Maybe that’s what I need to remember at this time.

I need to make time and space to really seriously pray, believing God will listen. Perhaps he will be silent but maybe if I listen hard for more than 5 seconds I will hear something that will keep my going and lead me a few steps further on so I am in the right place to receive His promised blessings.