Ode to the Hopefuls

This is for us
Who are still fighting
Holding on to wavering and (at times) blind, hope

That today and yesterday and the day before do not have to be the pattern for tomorrow
That yesterday's thought does not have to dictate tomorrow's feeling

That love is not just for the lucky or the strong
But for those of us who are still waiting, still hoping
with the scaffolding around us, still Under Repair

To hope against hope that the future can be different
even when the past trails a twisting pattern
of breaking and restoration

To hope, because hope is the only thing
between ourselves and admitting defeat

To hope in the face of deafening, unrelenting fears
at which dreams crumble to dust
leaving you winded and bent double

And even then to hope, because you know
the One who conquered death and lives to make you new again.

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.

But why is it Good....?

Out of few inevitable things in life - y'know, death and taxes - a lesser known inevitable is the fact that this one-carriage, thrice-daily train across the Welsh border will always smell of wet dog and Monster Munch. But the sky is blue, the sun shines, it's the beginning of the 4-day Easter weekend.

I'm excited about going home, seeing my family, and I am definitely excited for 4 days of rest and my mother's roast lamb.

I'm trusting that this visit, and the beautiful countryside, will be a healing time. All is not well in my heart. Two weeks of goodbyes, packing, cleaning, moving, living out of bin bags and attempting to make sense of a new job have left me bruised and drained. I have nothing to give. And in the hubbub of my self-centred chaos, I barely hear the whisper of Easter approaching. I feel completely disconnected to what it means for me; yet aware that it's for people feeling just like me today.

In a brilliant book I've been reading by Shauna Niequest, she comments that one of the central messages of the gospel is the cycle of death and rebirth; beautiful sunshine and then rain; losses and new beginnings. She also commented that change is hard, and that if we fight it, it can break us. I read that, some weeks ago, sitting in the sun, thinking 'Well... Yeah, course'. What else is new?

And yet, as I stood dejected in my bare, bin-bag-filled room, I realised that fighting against the change, rallying against it in my heart rather than being open to the new things God might birth, was exactly what I had been doing.

So what does this have to do with Good Friday, with God himself taking on all our sin and pain and loss and destroying it? Well, (as ever), it means there's hope. The hope of rebirth. Things can and will get better. Hurdles can be overcome; joy can be clung to. Death is never the end of the story, and though we might wait 3 days or 30 years for the rebirth, the new hope - it always comes.

On Birthdays

Tomorrow heralds yet another change in life, the transition from one age to another. My 24th Birthday.

Now I realise it's probably very uncool to get excited about my birthday by 24. I think by now I'm meant to be at the 'I'm over that', 'Oh, I don't really celebrate my birthday anymore' stage.

But, screw that.
I am turning TWENTY-FOUR tomorrow. And given that I spend most of my life still feeling like a ten-year old, 24 is a pretty big deal.

Now maybe this is just the childish narcissist inside me (it may well be), but I find it sad when people don't celebrate their birthdays, or shrugg it off as 'any other day'.

Your life is no less of a miracle than it was when you were a child. Sometimes, your life is even more of a miracle than it was then. Sure, it's old news perhaps, but it's BRILLIANT news. You've lived another year!

Maybe the idea of celebrating it with a certain person missing just feels impossible, and I respect that.

Or maybe it's just been a really tough year.  But if so, even more reason to mark the day in some way: you made it through, or, at least, you're still standing. As the years go on I imagine that the birthday may become a time of mixed feelings - am I 'where I should be'? Every year, reaching an age where it's more normal to 'settle down', get married and, in several years, start popping out children.

BUT for me, and I hope for you, the Birthday will be a day of celebration, joy and thanksgiving. I am alive; nothing has destroyed me or my hope. I know Jesus (and this is surely enough reason to celebrate on its own). I am happy, and I am free. I don't know what lies ahead (except for the next month of changes), and I'm peaceful about that. I have health and I have people whom I love and who love me back.

Sure, it's only twenty-four; no big milestone for the card-makers. But it's another year of life, and for that I will rejoice.

Letter to an unknown friend

Dear friend,

Do you ever sit at work and wonder if you're wasting your life away? 

I stare across at my colleague's equally blank face, and I wonder if she's thinking exactly the same thing. We spend 70% of our lives doing something we don't enjoy. We work 9 till 5 until we're 70, and then what? When I stare out the window, am I actually watching my life ebb away?

I spend my morning reading e-mails from people saying they don't want to receive our e-mails. I sever the communication ties. I know I shouldn't complain: someone has to do it, right? All things for the glory of God, right? Graduate employment is high, and yet I've been given a job.

I know I need to be humble about mundane tasks. But there is a 'but', I'm not sure what it is, BUT... I'm not okay with this. Life is fleeting and short - far too short, surely, to spend many minutes staring out the window wondering if I ought to be doing something else.

Because there's a whole world out there - full of people and problems and emotions and social structures and need. What am I doing about it? God gave me a brain and I intend to use it to change the world for the better.

Now I know that I'm one of the fortunate few that I even have the chance to consider that there might be something wrong with this, and that I have opportunity to do something about it. But I intend to take that precious opportunity and do something about it.

When I woke up this morning, I said to myself, "Today is going to be a good day". But then, I did quite a bit of crying today, so I'm not sure how that works.

I don't want to spend my life waiting and wishing and living for the weekend. Because that's only like 30% of our whole lives. And then sometimes you get to the weekend, and you still feel crap, and then what?

I remember I was in science class once and I was chatting to my teacher. I told him, "I want to get finished with school and college, so I can get on and start living my life". And he said, "but you're living your life right now". I hate to think that one day I'll look back at this time and wonder what I was doing waiting around.

But where do I go from here?

Yours,
Bewildered and Confused

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

One Year On: Things I've learnt.

Today marks one year since Hannah and I arrived at our new home in south-east London to start the next stage of life. I cannot get over how much has changed since then – cue some emotional nostalgia.

We arrived in the middle of the Olympics, the whole city revelling in sun and sporting success. The playlist of those weeks was Emeli Sande and Florence & The Machine. We were introduced to Blackheath and watched Usain Bolt's 100 metre win on a sunny evening on the heath with locals.

A whole year on, I think I’ve learnt a few things about myself, the world, London, and life. I thought I’d fill you in....

1.      People DO (occasionally) smile on the tube. In fact, a man did actually speak to me once. But he was American, so maybe that doesn’t count. Similarly, in the early days I informed a colleague that I relished smiling at strangers on the tube – and that some actually smiled back. I was bluntly informed that “That’s cos they think you’re mental”. Well, at least she was honest. 

      Another thing I’ve learnt is that a morning commute essentially means you will be forced to share a highly un-British and uncomfortably small amount of space with complete strangers. This inevitably results in the unsociability that pervades London transport: the only way you can get through a train ride with your face in someone else’s armpit is to avoid all eye contact.

2.      After a whole year, working near travelling past the London Eye, South Bank and Westminster hasn’t got old yet. But having to shove through huge crowds of tourists all taking the same shot of Big Ben did, really quickly.

3.      I can manage a whole month living alone in a new city, without being found half-eaten by Alsatians (a concern at one point – see here)

4.      One of the most valuable things for getting settled into a new place is good friends and family to show you round – thank you Emily and siblings.

5.      No matter how cold it is outside, when on board a train you will need to remove almost all clothing to avoid sweating profusely.

6.      A good thing about our location is that people often want to stay over for the night. Guests include: Mim, Shepka, Luke, Fran & Miller, Lydia, Hannah, Tingley & Pete, Becky and Colette. Fortunate guests of Chateau Cope-Randerson will have become accustomed to Hannah’s ridiculously loud coffee maker, and my loud singing in the shower (actually, my loud singing full stop).

7.      Don’t dress up in a dragon onesie in front of your boss – unless you decide you care more about having fun than getting a promotion. Ditto, dalek costumes.

8.      The best place to go and think about the Big Things of life during your lunch break is Parliament Square. Even if it’s sleeting and 2° outside. Parliament Square is also a brilliant setting for a motivating walk to work – walking along past statues of Churchill, Abe Lincoln and Nelson Mandela really gears oneself up for a day of e-mails and stapling.

9.      On that note – unless you do a grad-scheme or ‘get lucky’, your first job out of uni will likely be occasionally interesting, but often boring. Once you start, you will realise just how little you know, and how young you feel (although dressing up as a Dalek probably didn’t help my case). The more you learn, the more you’ll realise your ignorance. But God has been showing me this year that it’s not what I do but who I am doing it for.

10.  The only way to walk in central London, is quickly. If you’re not going to walk quickly, get out of our way.

11.  In addition – something about London makes me more impatient. And perhaps, people generally. Maybe it is that Londoners have become so used to accessing whatever so quickly – materials, food, transport, entertainment – that even a brief wait is too long and perceived as an inconvenience.

12.  Google maps, Google maps, Google maps. Forget the London A-Z. This little treasure was the one thing that (usually) stopped me getting completely overwhelminghly lost in London, and the one thing that means I turn up to vaguely the right event venue at vaguely the right time.

13.  Going to church on your own for the first time is really daunting, even if you’re a Full-On Extrovert. Be especially friendly to the people who turn up looking awkward and new-ish. Unless you stay in the same place your entire life, one day it will be you.

14.  If your flatmate comes home excited after a wedding, chances are she got engaged whilst she was away.

15.  Don’t travel through central London, on your own, on New Years’ Eve. You will be forced to traipse up and down the Strand following policemens’ directions and be immersed in a shoving crowd of drunk revellers all trying to get home.

16.  Living with a hyper-organised person will, on the whole, make you more organised. Lists can be useful. Planning can be fun. (Oh gosh, who have I become?) Living with Hannah means making sure the toilet lid is kept down at all times (except, when you’re using it) and the DVDs are alphebetised – Richard, take note.

17.  In a similar vein, the past year of living with Hannah has also taught me that: 1) salad can be a tasty meal (provided it involves meat and the word ‘Epic’ is placed in front);  2) One can apparently never have enough couscous; 3) Made In Chelsea is ridiculous, but also shamefully addictive; 4) if your flatmate rearranges the entire living room furniture, the world does not actually end; 5) Don’t Ever Touch Hannah When She’s Hot; 6) The only way to plan a wedding 18 months in advance is with multiple spreadsheets.

18.  Things I have taught Hannah: 1) Spontaneity CAN be fun; 2) If I go too long without a hug I am prepared to chase her around the living room until she gives in; 3) I will happily shout ‘HANNYBEAR, WAIT FOR ME’ in public if I want to embarrass her at any point; 4) The Guardian is a normal newspaper and not only for hippies; 5) I am remarkably calm in a panic situation, say, when the brakes stop working whilst Hannah is driving.

19.  Working in central London will expose you to people who have a lot more than you and people with a lot less. Trying to remain content in every situation is difficult but valuable.

20.  Trafalgar Square is a fantastic location for a game of Where’s Thea.

21.  The journey between London and Birmingham is not all that long and completely worth it when there are lovely people to see at the other end.

22.  If the landlady tells you that your flat is in a quiet neighbourhood, what she means is that you won’t speak to your neighbours all year (except a fateful evening after the first day of the new job where upstairs’ flood leaks through to your flat). You will, however, be sharing a neighbourhood with people who get arrested under the terrorism act, and a man who enjoys blasting a single reggae song from his penthouse at bizarre times of night.

But I guess more than any of this, the most important thing I’ve learnt over the past year is that God is so incredibly, immensely faithful. He had to ‘throw me out of the nest’ (so to speak) for me to fly. A year ago, I was bewildered, daunted, fearful, and totally doubting what I was doing here (read my blog here). My mum pointed me to Exodus and the Israelites’ doubting God’s purposes for them after Egypt. I was forced to hold on and trust that God had a plan in this. Being dragged (kicking and screaming, as it sometimes felt) to London, by God, was exactly what I needed to get stronger, grow and have loads of exciting adventures. I’ve seen for myself that God can bring us out of the valleys, that he is the one who ‘restores my soul’. It was by being thrown so totally out of my comfort zone that I have flourished and come to really full-on love life again.