So long, 2015

2015 was going to be a Big Year. I planned to sort myself out, 'get my sh*t together'. I revelled in the fresh white page of a new year. I would face the monsters and overcome. 

That resolve lasted precisely 3 days before the aforementioned monsters woke up and smacked me full in the face.

I trudged through January and then February, waiting for the downpour to let up. Little hopes deflated and were washed away by the rain. 

And yet!...

[NB. This is not some Disney story with a neat ending 1 hour 30 minutes in. We're all normal broken humans with good days and bad days, areas of growth and stubborn habits we can't break. I also believe we're all in a daily process of change. So no, I'm not 'sorted' (neither are you... Even if you think you are :P) But it's encouraging to recognise progress!]

And Yet, 'OCD' is not the big label hanging over my 2015. Things got pretty bleak and it felt too hard. But it got better - as it always seems to do, despite my expectations - and there were many pleasant times. Dinners with friends, laughs with my housemate, weddings and dresses and first dates. The guys who came to hang out on Friday night even though they knew I felt sucky and would be bad company. Birthdays at the zoo (yes, the zoo), punting in Cambridge. Driving through Spanish valleys in glorious sunshine with a minibus of friends, blaring out Mumford & Sons. Actually feeling grateful for this life. 

2015 didn't go at all as I had planned. I didn't get the job I wanted; didn't maintain the relationship I started; left a hundred things undone and messages not replied to. But (and I'm not just saying this because it's the end of the blog and don't you love some sense of resolution?), it was many other things that I'd never expected. Despite the bits I just don't understand, I can see glimmers all through the year of the Father who knows me, giving me better dreams than the ones I'd set out on. No, I'm not some 'fixed' adult. But I hope I'm more real and more true: with more fight in me and a whole lot more dependence on my sustainer. Less fussed about a five-year plan and more content with being where I am right now, secure with the one who's in it for the long-haul. 

I hope this is an awesome year for you! I hope it's full of breakthrough moments and steady ascents. Be courageous to do things your own way. 
Recognise when the loudest negative voice is your own, and seek help joyfully, knowing that we were never intended for independence but for mutual support. In everything, run toward and not away from the one who created you and calls you by name. 

And if it's not such a good year for you - if you get to January 29th and you're So Over 2016 - please keep going. It can get better. Yes it's a giant cliche but maybe Florence (or whoever first said it) was actually right. It is always darkest before the dawn. I don't know what stuff you're facing in 2016, but I do know there are beautiful things to be grasped. 

Purgatory

**Disclaimer: I tend to be pretty blunt in these posts, but even publishing these had me feeling a bit self-conscious. I've tried wherever possible to be as non-melodramatic as possible. This is just life's beauty and pain all mixed up :)**


We're waiting on change, but I don't know if it's coming
Waiting on change, but I don't know if it's coming
Brooke Fraser, New Years Eve


So things have been brighter recently, and then today hits like a huge grey storm cloud.

Within each moment I'm caught between a tantalising hope of what life could hold - normality; happiness; relationships; positivity - and the slow-burn dread that this is, if anything, as good as it's going to get.

I go about the weekend, and tasks are punctuated, sometimes by glimmers of hopefulness that this is just a bad day and actually everything's fine; sometimes by foreboding clouds that threaten me with my darkest fears and whisper that I'm not okay.

My mood has been a lot better of late, but today I found myself wondering yet again, whether it will simply be a case of gritting my teeth and waiting till the day of peace that lies beyond this world. In its bleakest form, waiting to die.

And thankfully no, I don't spend most or even many days at the moment feeling like that. But does anyone else out there sometimes feel like we're just killing time, trying to remain stable?

I have no desire to live like that, but sometimes it feels like the best option life is presenting. I swerve between the faith I've believed and the blurred realities I'm faced with. There should be transformation; but change is painfully slow and I continue to be the same old broken me. There should be hope and yet I no longer particularly know what I can hope for, other than paradise on the other side.

Ultimately, I wish I was different. My biggest fear is that I will remain in this purgatory for the whole of my life, sometimes tasting joy and beauty but always carrying these big old chains which occasionally plunge me into darkest night. Never being truly free.

And whilst my mood is okay at the moment, I hope you can see how easy it is to long for eternal life, which I believe promises joy, consistent peace, freedom for ever with my Father.

There is so much beauty out there to grasp. I want to live to chase it, to behold and marvel in it. There is so much to be seen and done. I want to squeeze every last drop out of life whilst I have it. And yet I know that I am just a thought, a chance moment away from dark shadows which cloud out beauty and hope and joy and replace all around me with one thing: fear. Dark; murky; soulless; joyless: an abyss.

I fear that I will spend my whole life balancing on this precipice called life, trying to keep it together, grasping for beauty around me, almost falling at so many points.

I fear that I will spend my whole life in fear.

Learning to trust

I was speaking to a good friend tonight and it made me realise something. 

She was talking about her future and spoke with a great faith that God would guide, do the unlikely and work wonders in her lifetime. 

Sitting opposite her I felt a poor reflection of what I saw before me. I realised that, partly without even noticing, my trust in God had diminished.  Growing fears and repeated disappointments have shrunk my view of Gods capabilities - or the things he will choose to do in my life. 

I still believe he loves me and is sorrowful in my suffering, but maybe I'm less convinced that he will actually do much about it. My view of God has gotten smaller. More limited. I find it easier to trust that he's got me saved for eternity, (and boy is that going to be great) but in the meantime (the next 60 years or so) I seem to have become less convinced that he will work the impossible for his glory and for my good. 

Do I believe God is powerful? Do I believe he gives good gifts? Yes, but. 

But. 

Yes, but there are a whole lot of people suffering on our planet. Yes, but God's power + God's love does not always = happy times in life. Just check out the early church and Paul's life for an example. Did he regret his decision to face suffering for Christ? No, I'm so sure that he didn't. But perhaps he was far better at trusting God for a reason for his suffering, than I am. 

Maybe my expectations are wrong? That's what I've been telling myself over the last while. The reason I feel pain and disappointment in current life situations is because I was expecting for the most part to be happy and healthy; things that I don't believe God guarantees us in this life. 

So as a response to this suffering and confusion I guess I've tried to reign in my expectations. Perhaps this has been a defence mechanism; but whatever the cause I realise that in limiting my expectations I have naturally limited my faith. I've subconsciously stopped expecting him to do amazing things, work wonders and miracles, and am less convinced that he has good plans for me. 

So, it's sad, but probably good to have realised this. It means I can pray about it, asking God to give me the courage to trust him again, to know and trust him more deeply and not on some level resent him for recent struggles. 

Only thing is that I'm not sure HOW to do this, whilst still managing my expectations. It's somewhat of a cliche to talk about the 'now and not yet' of the kingdom, but in all seriousness, how do people manage to hold these two things in tension?

It has become apparent that I have focussed on the 'not yet' and have limited my faith as a response to this. But I've missed a key tenet of this concept: 'not yet' doesn't mean God is impotent, insensitive or too busy to answer me. And it doesn't mean he will answer in the same way for every other area of my life and the lives of those around me. 

It's hard to pray for the healing of others, for miracles or good weather or guidance, when you're struggling with God being far away and seemingly unresponsive to suffering. 

How do I trust God to do the supernatural, whilst accepting my current circumstances and their difficulties, WITHOUT believing untruths about my father? I guess, as my friend suggested last night, it comes from spending time with him and truly getting to know him. My prayer is that I will become more attuned to him and his heart, so that whether I am dealing with seemingly unanswered prayers, or praying for miracles, I can do both and erstwhile still praise Him. 

Breather

I have to admit the one good thing about the sh***y times in life. They do on the whole make you savour the good times a whole lot more.

Take last night for instance. We had our collection of London friends around to eat, drink and generally celebrate both our birthdays and one year of residence here. Nothing particularly extraordinary happened - except for a gathering of people we care about in the same room.

Yet I savoured the evening, one of normal nice things, happiness and hopefulness - one to encourage me that life can still be beautiful, that there have been and are and will be good times. And in the midst of difficult times, these moments - a day or an hour - are a relief, a respite from the daily grind and struggles to face. A breather before the next wave of difficult reality crashes over us. And I'm so grateful for these times, the breathers which offer a moment to reflect on the good stuff before we must once again confront Monday morning and all it will throw at us.

Sometimes these happy times aren't how we expected them to be - sometimes people we always thought would be there are missing from the photos - but this doesn't detract from all the good and beauty of the evening.

Life is unexpected, surprising; bumpy.  But there are moments where you get washed up on the shore and have a moment to stop, reflect and enjoy the sunshine.

Why I celebrate

I officially hit a quarter of a century - 25 years on the earth - later this week.

I've always loved birthdays, my own and other people's (more on this here). Making it a special day, marking it with something different. I never understood people who said they didn't celebrate their birthdays: why wouldn't you?

And yet this year, I've anticipated my birthday with nothing close to joy or excitement. Having a birthday and - specifically - turning such an undeniably 'adult' age means I can no longer hide behind the guise of being a 'Young Person' or '21 plus a few'. My Peter Pan-like self is forced to come face-to-face with the truth that I am, to all intents and purposes, an adult.

When I was younger and I dealt with these 'worries', I always expected that it would be a passing phase, something I'd grow out of; that by the time I was 'grown up' (whatever that means) I'd be a fully-fledged, fully-functioning adult and these fears would be a distant memory of adolescence. Marking my birthday means facing the painful reality that right now I'm kind of in a place I hoped I'd never be again.

So many people must feel similarly when their day rolls around. I can see why marking 'special' days after the loss of a loved one, a terminal diagnosis, or a relationship breakup is too painful to face.

And Yet. I'm still going to celebrate on that day. Not because life is perfect or particularly happy right now, not because I've achieved what I hoped to by 25 or that I'm where I hoped I'd be, but simply that I have LIFE. Joy may be somewhat eclipsed at the moment, but I still have family and friends who love me and a God who gave me life.

While I have breath in me, I have a reason to thank God for it. While I have life, there is reason to celebrate.
(Heck, there's even more reason after this life, but that's for another time).

When I'm coping okay, I can see the point of all of the above. But when I'm struggling, it feels far from what I want to do. Despite this, I choose to see my birthday as an archetype of the way I wish I lived every day. Not as a day where we pretend life isn't difficult and the world isn't broken, but a celebration of what we have, with a hope for what the future could hold.

Painfully / Honest

I sat in the bar, chatting with my sister. Being able to lay my heart and mind open without self-censorship was healing in itself. We were discussing how to go about talking honestly with people about our struggles.

My take on it is this: I have absolutely no desire to make people uncomfortable, and I know that there are appropriate and less appropriate times and ways to share stuff. But I cannot be part of communities where we are obliged to hide our brokenness. Maybe it was possible for me at other times, but it’s not right now. Pretending that everything’s fine is a lie, and one that’s too painful to carry on top of the other stuff. I would rather be without community than be part of one that is not real. 

During our conversation, we also talked about my frustrations with being ‘that person’ again, the one who’s not okay yet again, the one who’s still crying despite the fact that we prayed for her the last three weeks. 

The imposition. 

My sister said a hundred wise things that evening, and my memory is too poor to remember many of them. But one thing she said spoke to me so deeply. 

‘We are all broken. And that is okay’.

And it wasn’t said like, ‘that’s okay for now, but you should probably sort yourself out sometime soon’. It was from a place of complete acceptance and peace with all of our broken bits.

Some of you reading will, I imagine, feel mega-uncomfortable with all of this kind of talk. Emotions and vulnerability and being exposed etc.  But whether it’s a relative’s death or depression or a broken relationship or a secret regret, we all have our little broken bits.  Yes, mine are more obvious at the moment. They feel more like gaping sores than little scars. But that is okay. I’m still alive; I’m still valuable and loved. I still have worth and can still contribute, in the midst of and despite of my brokenness.

I’m not saying I want to be allowed to wail loudly during sermons. I don’t need people to ask me in-depth questions about the things I am struggling with. I’m just suggesting that there are things we can all do to make our communities places which welcome people who are not ‘sorted’, a space for people who are hurting as well as those who rejoice.  The Christian faith sums up perfectly the bittersweet paradox where sorrow and joy sit alongside one another. I would love for our communities to be the same.

With thanks to my little communities who accept me as I am :-) x

Sitting in the ashes

So it's here again, people. Lent. A time of waiting (or is that just Advent?) Either way, a time for preparation and reflection.

These blogs are meant to be my reflections on the world (because I know people must be super-interested in what I have to say). They're generally fairly positive. But I'm not really sure why I'm writing this because (spoiler alert) I don't have many answers right now.

So here's where I'm at. Daily life feels increasingly like a complex obstacle course that I am ill-equipped to navigate. Some days are okay; some are good; some are downright horrible. I'm pretty joy-less (fear will do that to you) and aware that something needs to change. I know God is real and good and close by, but I don't really understand what's going on here, or why.

A phrase I've heard repeated several times is, "Faith is believing in the darkness what you have seen in the light". And I guess that kind of sums up where I'm at right now. I do have some hope that I can get better again; but on days when it feels like I am losing the battle I wonder how long it has to carry on being like this before I get to be 'normal'. Right now I'm in the Good Friday bit of the Easter story, and I don't know how long it will last. Or how many times I may have to revisit it.

When life is a struggle, when the joy gets sucked out of the beautiful everyday things, when I'm in 'survival' mode, I forget about hope. I'm so consumed by my not-so-pretty circumstances that my hope in what Jesus has won for me gets kind of sidelined.

I titled this post 'Waiting in the ashes' both because of last Wednesday being 'Ash Wednesday' and because it seems to express where I'm at right now. Sometimes I don't have any wisdom or answers. Sometimes there doesn't seem to be a silver lining or moral of the story. Sometimes, it's just hard, and that time is when I guess I have to sit in the ashes and wait, hoping that joy and hope will return.

"Let him bury his face in the dust— there may yet be hope.
I called on your name, Lord , from the depths of the pit.  
You heard my plea: “Do not close your ears to my cry for relief.”  
You came near when I called you,
and you said, “Do not fear.”

Lamentations 3:29, 55-57 NIV

New Year, Old Me: a strategy for positivity

New Years Eve: so much excitement, joy, wondering about what 2015 will bring… 

Y’know what I want to say to the girl in those NYE photos?

“YOU’RE A FOOL! IT SUCKS!”

Okay, apologies, not the most cheery way to start a blog post (and my first of 2015 at that). But it is based on these two key points:

a)      I was really excited about a new year, making the most of every day, doing a new photo challenge (oops) and finishing 2014’s photo challenge ( …oops again). This was the year everything was going to be epic, full of growth and good things 

b) It took approximately three days for the new year’s high to wear off, and to wonder when January would be over. 

Again, I know this is all very negative. I try to be a positive person. I love the idea of cherishing life and living each day to the full. But when each day seems to bite you on the bum, it gets hard, y’know?

Pretty much most of 2015 so far, I’ve not been in a great place. I kind of forgot about hope and joy and all of those things, and a grey smog came down. I don’t know why it’s been like that. I think it’s partly the weather and the come-down from Christmas, some difficult conversations and the small fact that I have an anxiety disorder… but I’m not a fan of this life-hating me. 

I’m not prepared to drag myself through each day, from one anxious episode to the next, staring at the clock and looking forward to bed time. Life is too precious for that. 

This thing I’m fighting is a monster and a lot of days it feels like it’s winning. But I’m not going down without a fight. 

(Excuse the corny action-movie rhetoric – it’s true).

There’s a lot of stuff I can’t fix on my own on a Monday night, like why I get anxious or terror threats or the fact that it’s freezing and work is stressful.

But, there are little things I can do in the fight for hope – my Strategy for Positivity. 

There’s a disclaimer before I list them. I know from my own experience that all these little frivolous things will not make you feel okay if you are in a bad place. (That’s why I haven’t been able to write this blog for the last two weeks). 

But once you surface enough to find the energy to fight, like I appear to have done this evening, then little, frivolous things can bring light where gloom has set in. 

My personal list includes (in no particular order): Clearance Christmas chocolate; nail varnish colours; watching box sets (I would highly recommend New Girl); making a list of reasons to be positive/reasons to keep fighting; central heating; trying new carb-a-licious recipes (even if they don’t turn out well). 

And as for the real, less frivolous stuff? Talk to someone. Spend some time (once you’ve got the energy to) working out a plan of action, what help you might need and how to go about getting it. Get some exercise (even if it’s only on an exercise bike in front of the TV), get some sleep. If you’re a Christian, remind yourself (or get someone else to remind you) about the unshakeable hope you have in Jesus. And if you’re not a Christian… maybe now is a pretty good time to find out about that hope.

:-)

Here’s to a Happier January.

A long overdue letter to a friend

It’s been so long since I last wrote, I can barely remember what life was like at that point. The world now looks very different: different home, neighbourhood, job, office, flatmate, commute…. a lot of different.

As I write this now looking back on 3 months, it’s like looking out to a nearby mountain peak, with a small chasm between. I feel like I’ve been crossing rockier terrain to get to my new look-out. But it’s nice here. Just different. 

I’ve been reminded of things I thought were behind me; fear raises its head and looks for a new home. But I’ve also made stronger friendships; relationships built on lazy evenings watching television and drinking tea.

I’m convinced that there has been growth; I now use both my brain and my heart at work, which is a privilege (although sometimes doesn’t feel like it on a sleepy Friday morning). I feel as though God has brought me to exactly where I longed to be for the past year; and yet it all looks so different from how I imagined it.

There has, undeniably, been loss in different forms. Freedom. Friendship. And a godmother who so faithfully prayed and cared for me, remembering every single baptism anniversary and birthday, constant in faith and always believing that I could be, that I could manage, that I could achieve.

However, I’ve very slowly been learning, something that’s probably taken me far too long to grasp.

Life – any life – isn’t meant to be all roses and happiness and sunshine. Well, perhaps it is, the other side of death. But right here and now – the crap times aren’t just crap times that we must skip over, hurried through ‘til we get to the next good bit. The crap times are also life. And yes, sometimes it’s easier for me to say than others. 

But I’m slowly realising that I can’t wait until all the chains are broken and all the cancer patients are cured and all the rifts are healed before I embrace this thing called ‘life’.

I’m realising that ‘life’ is not just waiting for the happy bits, rallying against the crap and wondering why this storm is getting in the way of our day of sunshine.  Life is broken cracks as well as the sunny days. 

When I next feel low or anxious or fearful, I can assure you I won’t want to embrace life. But this is it, right now. In all its glory and beauty and sorrow and brokenness. This is what I’ve got.

Which way?

Maybe it's because it's grey and rainy, and my usually favourite season of autumn 

is showing its unpleasant damp side. Maybe it's the recent changes in my life, or a 

lack of time spent with my Heavenly Father. Or maybe it's just from spending time 

in the presence of good friends facing exactly the same sort of questions. But 

something about life right now seems to be throwing into sharp illumination the 

vague,grey form my life appears to have taken on at the moment. I feel like Rachel,

Phoebe and Monica from Friends in the episode where Rachel realises she has no plan

in life, and Phoebe assents that this stage is 'floopy'. Yes, on one hand, my 

freedom means apparent doors of opportunity, adventure, and possibility ahead - 

but in real life, it usually means a misty fog lying ahead of me, with no clear 

path or even vague light to direct the way. 
 

What is it about this stage of life - post-university, pre-full blown career, 

marriage, family - that makes me, us, feel so directionless? Is it just that we're

so accustomed to having life directed by the education system, or the ties of 

family, that we are thrown by suddenly having to carve out a way for ourselves, by 

ourselves?
 

This sense of 'floopiness' can seep into every part of life - not just work/career, 

though for many of us that's the primary example. My year was one of the last who 

was still instilled with the mantra that one should go to university in order to 

get a good job. Now we're out in the real world, and this mantra has fallen flat 

on its face. Graduates are two-a-penny; degrees appear worthless without 

'experience'; that degree exploring how to make the world a better place seems

 kind of unecessary when we find our jobs wrapped up in writing e-mails and 

ordering stationary. The great, ambitious plans of falling into career out of 

university are unmasked as foolish preconceptions of an easy life.
 

There are all sorts of brilliant talks, books, articles, on guidance, and trusting 

God. I'm aware that so many of our problematic doubts or 'floopy' feelings can 

transpire because of our desire to know what lies ahead and to be in control. 

However, right now, those things don't concern me. I'm not asking for a map-out 

of the next 20 years; I'm just asking for some vague sense of where I go next - 

in careers, in geographical location, in pretty much every aspect of life. And 

I'll admit that I'm impatient; life is too short for me to sit around watching 

life and opportunities to live pass me by. Maybe I should accept that sometimes 

God only allows the fog to lift when we force ourselves to stop and wait on Him. 
 

At times like this, it is far too easy to allow the bleakness of the weather, 

the relative loneliness of post-studenthood life, and the vague mist shrouding 

all that lies ahead, to get the better of me and be overwhelmed by it. As ever, 

my only choice is to force myself to lift my eyes to Him who has seen the end 

from the beginning, and is intimately involved and actually caring about the 

direction of my life. I have to stand, and fight as hard as I can against the 

strong current which seeks to floor me in the face of uncertainty and options. 

I have a choice about the way ahead: I can put my fears and apprehension about 

the future into the hands of him who holds it all; or I can be washed up by the 

sheer enormity of the choices ahead. I need to choose to be comforted by the fact 

that, however I feel on a Monday morning, my life is not directionless, that I Am 

Not on my own in this, and that God Is still at work in my life, even if it feels 

like He's having an extended tea-break.
 

I have to continually remind myself that my trust is in Him who is eternally 

loving, who doesn't forget, or get overwhelmed, or 'drop the ball' on us. 

And that, therefore, my future is in the safest of hands, the most reliable of 

Fathers.  

"...faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see." 

~ Hebrews 11:1