Rest

Okay, so I am not best known for my ability to rest. In fact, the opposite is probably true, I spend a considerable amount of time running around like a headless chicken! The 'headless chicken' look is something that I do quite well...for a while. 

I like being busy, I like working sixteen hours days, because, despite my persistent protestations; I am a workaholic. Yet recently I have been challenged, nagged, threatened, encouraged to rest more. Because despite my desire to keep busy all the time, I know that it isn't really good for me. I can work myself into the ground with ease, but rest? Resting for me feels like harder work than rest. 

It's been exam time at LST, everyone has been stressed and pushed up against and far beyond their limits. For third years, it's been the last push towards a degree they have been working towards for three years. For second years it's that mid-period lag, the time when you most want to give up because you're already exhausted and yet you know you still have a long way to go. For us first years, it's looking back at a whirlwind of a year, wondering how we did it and looking forward to a long summer to recover and return for the serious work!

When trying to argue with a friend that a Sabbath was not needed, my points were, quite frankly, feeble. I think I said something along the line of

"There was that one time when Jesus tried to rest and got followed" and 

"The slaves didn't rest in Egypt" - my responses were greeted with incredibly derisive replies. 

My excuse: "I'm tired!"

Unsurprisingly, they weren't convinced by my argument!

The thing that really got me, apart from my incredibly strange theology, was when I was reminded that God wants the best for us. Resting enables us to be the best we can be. God wants His children to be the best they can be. 

So, I took 26 hours off. I didn't quite know what to do with myself, but I did it. Then I threw myself back into everything with even more work than I had put in before! 

Now, exams over, I write this in bed because I have a chest infection which has made me miserable. It has also made me rest - in every sense of the word. I have leant on God's almighty strength because I have had none of my own. 

I sometimes wonder why on earth I wait until I have nothing left to lean on God. 

Stubbornness? Pride? Perfectionism?

Whatever it is, I think that God commanding us (and He does - it's in the 10 Commandments and everything!) is a way to remind us that He is Holy and the Sabbath is to be His day. The day when everything else fades away. The Sabbath is also about our well being. It is a sign of the love God has for us. God doesn't want burnt out, wrung out and strung out followers. 

This is about us having the life God planned for us. It's not the legalistic 'Sabbath' that means you can't pick up a sock, it's about setting aside time for God, for honouring Him and the body and mind he gave us. 

So, when was the last time you had a Sabbath...? 

Mud, Stars and Glimpses of Glory

I have quite a few revelatory experiences recently. It's been a strange time. Maniacally busy with work, committee, friends, home and family; I have found myself writing poems and songs to try and evacuate my mind.

The following was written in response to a song written by my friend Amy:

For those children who do not sleep for fear, 

For those girls, seeing pain beyond their years

For those men, polluting what they fear

For the lives, stolen at night.

Those who sit in wait for the morning light. 

There is a voice, whispered

A song, that lingers

Soaring through the stars

Crying for the light

For the boys, not knowing their Dad

For the child, with mouth open wide

For the scars that cannot fade

For the victims who cannot speak out

For the rage, that chills deep within

There is a voice, whispered

A song, that lingers

Soaring on eagle's wings

Longing for the light

----------------------------

The idea of light and glimpses of glory have been prevalent recently. Yesterday in chapel it dawned on me that humanity is a glimpse of glory. God's glory is found in each of us, and yet so often I think of the glory of God when looking at the majesty of the sea and the beauty of the night sky. During the chapel service I wrote the following;

The glory of God is in the fragility of humanity - how strange. The Father looks down on each of us and says,

'You. In you, is my glory'

'But I'm a sinner, broken, ugly, rejected.'

'I know', he replied

'Just look at my Son, scarred, rejected, alone, in agony - 

King of Glory. In My image he is made, you were created in the image of the same.

-----------------------------

I was thinking about the glory of God when I attended a meeting to arrange my vacation placement that evening. I'm pretty sure I saw the Glory of God in the two ladies I met, who worked in the chaplaincy service at Watford General Mental Health ward. There was something very beautiful about the work they were doing and the encouragement they gave me, in being able to be a little part of that work as part of my degree. They recommended a book called 'Mud and Stars' and there seemed to be a strange juxtaposition between the dirt, darkness and ugliness of mud and the beautiful shining light of stars. The ugliness of mental illness and the pain it causes, the beauty and creativity it can create.

This has been a bit of a mish-mash of writings and I'm going to leave you with another poem I jotted when in yesterday's chapel service after we had been talking about how we cannot see anything but a glimpse of God's glory because it is so beautiful, so wonderful and so terrifying that nothing can ever stay the same.

This is Glory

If only a Glimpse

This is Glory

In the power of a King

And the suffering of a Servant

This is Glory

In the faith of sinners

In the cries of slaves

Who bow to you.

This is a glimpse

Of heavenly praise

Glory not self-seeking, but

Glory seen in love divine.

Locusts

A weird title for a blog you may think - and you would be right. In the reading I've been doing about mental health and theology, its an image that crops up again and again. In the book of Joel there are many references to locusts - there is a promise, that one day, God will repay the years the locusts have eaten. There have been a lot of disagreement between scholars about whether these were literal locusts who had eaten crops, or, in the way the verses are often used now - whether it is the promise that God will restore the years that have been eaten away by pain and suffering. The idea that, whether in this life or the new earth - what we go through will never be in vain. I have often found myself referring to those years when I was so ill as 'lost'. The weeks that passed me by when I was trapped inside my head, the darkness. I'm longing for the day when those lost days, weeks months and years are restored.

Sorry seems to be the hardest word?

Apparently. I think it is an overused word. When I was ill, I said sorry ALOT! I thought that my mere existence was a pain and so I apologised to doctors, friends, family - everyone, and then I apologised for apologising.
I catch myself doing it now. I have to think about whether I have anything to feel sorry about and stop myself apologising for everything and anything.
It is something that rears its' head when I am going to be ill, as my friend found out when I apparently apologised after every sentence. It is one of those signals that I have to notice and take note of. It's a new way of living life, somewhere between paranoia and ignorance. It's a learning curve. As are a lot of things, things I might have learnt earlier. Sometimes I feel cheated that I am having to learn these things now, rather than when I was younger - then I remember the incredible grace I have received in the fact that I am still here, writing, talking, laughing. I wrote a poem about the fact that I felt I was learning to breathe a while ago and now I feel like I have to learn to live. To learn things about myself and other people that I perhaps should have learnt when I was living in the underworld. To learn things about God now that I am seeking him in earnest and not just praying for a way out. They are important lessons and maybe they are mildly easier for me because I am no longer a child. I feel so very young sometimes, the life I have led seems a little immature. At other times I feel old, and tired, battered. I am slowly learning that this is ok. That I am ok. I do not have to apologise for being. I have been given a life and I intend to live it fully. Of course I muck up and sometimes need to apologise, but I am realising too, that messing up is not the end of the world. It is part of life. I am not, and never will be perfect - but that doesn't matter. What matters is that I keep my eyes fixed upon the cross, the symbol for all of mankind that we can draw near to God despite all we are and all we do. We are 'ok' because we have were made out of love. I seem to have gone off on a tangent, but that's ok - because we are all, with our pain and joy and struggle, our strength, weakness and sin - we are ok because we were invited 2000 years ago to draw near - and we are still being invited today....

Love

I've been thinking a lot about love lately. When I was younger, I always thought that love was that funny mushy/butterfly feeling you got when the boy you had a crush on brushed past you in the corridor. I knew I loved my Mum in a way that was different from that, in the way that I was (and am) devoted to her. I thought love was a feeling. Either the butterflies or the devotion.
As I've got older, I've come to realise that love is no small number of things. It's the hammering heart, the cuddle, the quiet consideration, random act of kindness, patience, endurance, trust, nearness. It is something that has been put in everyone's heart. We all want it, seek it, fight for it and wish for it. Sometimes it is elusive, other times it is snatched, it can be everlasting and...perfect?
Love brings security, identity, joy...salvation? You hear sometimes, people describing their partners as their 'saviours', the ones who have saved them from some pain or desperation.
If love, as the songs say, is a many splendoured thing that makes the world go round - how can it come from anywhere except the region of heaven and the Father enthroned there?
Father, Saviour, Lord, Yahweh, Love. If God is Love - it can be perfect and everlasting, it can bring security, peace and nearness. What we see of Love on earth is nothing - not compared to what God gives. As we open our arms to embrace the ones we love, we are a reflection of the arms opened wide begging 'Father Forgive'. As couples say their vows on their wedding day, they are echoing the promises of love from God. When our faces light up at the sight of old friends, we are showing the least tincture of the smile that lights the face of the Lord when we turn towards him and give him our praises. Thats the love I want to show to people...do me a favour...remind me of that next time I am moaning..?

I've been incredibly lax with blogging this term - its' been a bit manic. We started the term with fun in the (snowy) sun, cancelled lectures and not a lot to do was a fun time to catch up with friends and just enjoy being back in the lovely land of LST.

It's been a term of being ill a LOT (and lots of fervent praying for something at least resembling an immune system!). I ran for the position of Welfare Sec on the Student Committee which was, in itself a rather incredible achievement for me. It has been years since I last put myself forward for something that involved votes and suchlike. It felt very right, to be talking about something I am passionate about and being able to say out loud, 'I might be good at this'. I did not get the position - it went to Paul Wragg who I know will do an amazing job and is one of my LST big brothers :) I wasn't sad I didn't get it, I knew, from quite early on that it was running for the role that was important - not whether I got it.

So, when I got approached by the President - Laura, to be the secretary of the committee I was a tad hesitant. I had spent the last year doing admin, and it seemed not to be in line with what I felt I was called to. God had other plans. I did a pro and con list. I showed it to Luke, and he crossed most of my cons out! I had a lot of items on my pro list.

So I said yes. I began to get excited. I began to see that this was God using something I was good at, to aid his work. So I am officially, the Secretary on the London School of Theology Student Committee.

I also sang, as a performance, for the first time in five years. The LST Spring Ball was a somewhat strange experience for me. I sang my heart out. I wasn't as nervous as I thought I would be. I loved it.

These things seem to me, to be ways to grow and stretch me. Things I have been so very afraid of, because I have been so afraid of living. It's not easy. There are things I am still fighting for, fighting through. The dark clouds still loom, the rain still pours sometimes. Yet I, tentatively, am pushing the boundaries of my life.

I'm home again now.

That's it for now...it's been a crazy term. I'm looking forward to the next one :)

The Beautiful Mind?

Is the name of a conference I am going to in March; I have often wondered whether the Mind is, in fact beautiful. Whether that is because my mind has so often launched attacks on itself, let me down and taken me to some dark and dangerous places.

I often find myself speaking of my mind as a separate entity - and that is because it has so often felt like it is not my own. I have felt as if someone or something lurks in my mind, waiting to strike whenever I let my guard down.

At the same time, it amazes me that despite the desperate times when my mind has turned against me, it also allows me to live, laugh, love, write and read. It can keep me connected to the world as much as it can carry me away into its' own recesses.

The conference is a to help me in my work with ThinkTwice. It is still so much still in the planning stages and yet the passion I have has not wavered. I was reminded again today that God promises to restore the years lost. In Joel it talks of restoring the years the locusts have eaten. I feel as though my teenage years were stolen from me, I was stripped to someone unrecognisable from the child I was, and the woman I am becoming.

I am, after drowning in life and retreating from it, finally dipping my toes in the water again. I am living again. And you know what? It feels really good.