in exploration of a vision

Deciding to live in a field..

2011-02-13T19:36:00.003Z

Well I am actually supposed to be studying for an exam right now but I reckon this is as constructive..

I am certainly on here a lot less that I used to be but I am going to try my best to keep this wee blog up this year as it is a great way to vent the many ponderings of this little overactive mind of mine. I think a lot!! Too much my hubby would say. I love it though.. I love thinking through something to the point where you discover an entire new dimension beneath the surface. There is so much more than what meets the eye in practically everything we encounter in life. I am going to make it my job to try not to miss too much of it!

I was reading a bit tonight. Ding is away to a worship practice so I have time to kill.. the bible out, the lap top and a wee glass of wine on the sofa.. great! Don't get me wrong its usually spent watching trashy tv.

Here is the verse that has got my attention tonight..

"The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it he hid it again and then in his joy sold all he had and bought the field" Mat 13:44

I have tried to understand exactly what this means and I think I have made it more complicated than it was meant to but sure have a read anyway..

There is something special about the treasure in this story, it is not applicable to silver or gold. This story only works if you really are talking about a supernatural treasure.. The kingdom of Jesus.

This young guy in the story would have just been going about his normal day. I don't think it seems like he was out hunting for treasure. Minding his own business, getting on with his life, something happened that would shape the rest of his life.

He found treasure. He must have stopped and thought for a bit.. Is this really happening? What do I do?

He had options...

He could have left the treasure there, went about his normal day and just come back to get what he needed from the treasure when he was a bit short for cash..

He could have picked up that box and brought it with him. He could have used the treasure to buy another nicer field or to spend on just general stuff.. a new car..or donkey I suppose it would have been.

He could have thought.."Someone else who is more in need should find this treasure so I will just leave it here"

He didn't do any of these things. He sort of went all out to ensure that treasure was his. To take full ownership of it.. and the land surrounding it. To secure his right to have that treasure so that he could not be accused.

It says that in his JOY he went away and sold out.. everything he owned.. the things he had worked for. These things must have seemed like nothing in comparison to the treasure.

He wanted to dwell where this treasure was. He wasn't going to carry it around in his own strength he was going to live in that field.. go out from it and go into it. The was something special about the treasure.

The kingdom of God is not about silver or gold. It is not like earthly treasure and when it has your name on it you cannot pass it up.. you know it is yours .. you know you are called.

I suppose that sometimes we try to do some of the options that I have said above. Sometimes we leave the kingdom of God over in one field (or area of our life) and then live in another place. We visit it and take from it when we need to clear our conscience or need to prove to people or even to God sometimes that we are up for it.. We are sold out God.. really! ?

Sometimes, and I am particularly prone to this, we take God and we try to carry him with us in our own strength. Living out of a place with no real power or anointing. Its a bit flat and certainly doesn't come easy. If we live where the treasure is God carries us into our lives. It is much more supernatural when we are by the source. His burden is light. You can carry earthly treasure but we cannot carry our gift from God.

Trying to live life in your own strength is the most exhausting task.. You wake up in the morning and look wiped.. because the joy of the Lord is meant to be your strength not your own works!!

Then at times we think... ah thats not for me. Someone else would be better at that. God isn't really calling me its just my imagination. I will go back to my own wee life.

By the way.. It is for you. It is for me and I am not missing out on the kingdom life in that filed.

Of course Jesus said.. "Go into all the world". I am not for one second suggesting that Kingdom livers stay separate from the world. I actually cannot stand people with that attitude. I am saying we cant live out of the world. It simply doesn't have the resources, the joy we need to strengthen us to truly live freely!

So we are meant to go sell all our stuff and buy the field.. What does that even mean?

Well I feel that it means that we do everything we can to ensure that we do not loose out on the treasure that God has for us. That we decide to simply live in God. That we experience the blessing that comes from moving to that field and going in and out of it and most importantly bringing people into it.

This is not works. Trying to carry this thing ourselves is work and human effort. Selling out and opting to buy the field is easy because then we trust the supernatural power and calling of God to carry us through life and I feel that this is something God has been speaking to me about.

I believe that God has called us to this type of stuff...

" break the chains of injustice...free the oppressed...cancel debts....share food with the hungary... put clothes on the shivering...be available to our families.. Isaiah 58 :6 -the message

So we find Gods kingdom. It calls us.

We experience joy.

We sell out for it.

We live IN it and go OUT from it.

We do not carry it in our own strength.

It carries us.

The joy of the Lord is our strength.

We dwell in it for ever.. It is eternal.

And mostly its about serving the poor and weak of this world and finding God in them.

Getting my head around God..

2010-09-15T09:42:00.004+01:00

No one has ever seen god but if we love one another God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

I have spent a little bit of time reading 1 John this morning. Its been a long time since I have blogged and I guess blogging in general has died out a bit but I wanted to vent some of the thoughts that have been milling around in my head for the past wee while.

As many will know I have chosen to follow a career in psychiatry. A deep subject of the mind, the will and the emotions. Its a complicated thing our minds.. (understatement) I have been trying to get my head around the science of how we think and feel for the exams I am doing. I must say God made the part of us that was meant for understanding so complex that its impossible to fully understand it!

With all my working in psych so far I have struggled a bit with my faith and have been open about this with many people. My husband amazes me as he is always so sure about God and about what life is all about. I on the other hand think too much and try to understand too much.

I guess the thing is that no one has actually seen God. I certainly believe I have encountered God and seen glimpses of him in creation and as I have always said, in the poor and broken of the world. However we will only see God face to face when we are out of these earthly bodies.

As I treat people who suffer delusions, a lot of which are based around God and the devil it starts to make you think...Is this God thing all just madness? Do we really "hear" from God or is that just a mind game? I look back at times in my life when I was so sure about it all and I have started to ask myself some scary questions. Was I just imaging it? Was it just to give me a sense of security in a lonely world?

I have also really had to think hard about it because of what certain so called "people of God" come out with.

I really do cringe sometimes at the way christian people act. It embarrasses me. I do not want to be thought of as judgmental, no craic and a bit square.. I really really don't!

I also though don't want to be complacent and middle of the way with a faith that I would really need to be going 100% with.

I think everyone thinks about God in some capacity. Everyone needs hope and everyone needs love. So even people who don't claim to be good living are muttering prayers to God in times of need and are experiencing those inspiring heart pounding moments when they see Gods beauty in creation.. connecting with the one that created them on some level. Generally though connection with the church is not really happening mostly because of the focus on peoples behaviour which is often labelled as sin. I look back at Jesus and who he was on earth. He wasn't just a member of church... he was God... and yet he never gave the attention to right living and acceptable behavior that many church goers do today. He just loved. He just gave. He seemed like a good guy to hang out with and I can not find a place in the bible where he put anyone off church by being judgmental and stuck up.

As I have wondered what this whole living for Jesus thing is all about I have made a small discovery on my journey. Living for Jesus is not about who we say we are. Its not about how many people we manage to coax into following God in exchange for their normal life. Its definitely not about being better than anyone else or about not being able to have fun.

Living for this cause, a cause that is more supernatural than the day to day drudge of life is simple. It really is about love.

My favorite part of the bible is that it says God is love. People wonder what it means when it says we are made in Gods image... It means we were made to love. And we do.... everyone has that capacity.

So I have never met God face to face but I know what love means. I know that I want to give my life to help others. To love my husband. To love my friends and family and importantly to love those that are around me..

I know that in our churches it is often said or sang "It is finished..the cross has done it, the work is over". Thats such a comforting thing to know that there is no more struggling to be done to get right with God... its sorted. However as the verse at the top says, his love is complete in us when we love others. As we love one another the work that has been done is brought out into the open in its fullest form. It becomes visible on earth. Its not just a bible story. It comes to life as we express it. So the work is over but that doesn't mean there is nothing left to discover and experience.

So my intellectualising cant answer that. I cant understand love. Its too deep. Its supernatural. It is God and God is love.

As I have doubts milling in my mind I feel peace today because I know that love is real. I know that God is bringing me to a place where I was more sure than before. A place where its all real and not fake. I will be stronger and I will be still and know that he is God in that place of peace and rest.

faith love and bickering..

2009-11-18T11:47:00.010Z

Was just sitting reading Galatians last night and just felt that parts of it were really relevant to some of the stuff that I have been thinking about and some things that have had me a bit confused.

Gal 5,6

"What is important is faith expressing itself in love"

"Use your freedom to serve one another in love....the whole law can be summed up by this love your neighbour as yourself"

"BUT if you are always BITING and Devouring one another watch out beware of destroying one another"

I know God is telling me something through this.

I have been confused recently by some of the division, back biting and sheer malice that goes on within and between christian communities. I often wonder who is in the right? Who is in the wrong? Does it even matter? What does God think?

This verse has reassured me and in a way summed things up for me.

In this passage Paul has his work cut out for him trying to convince a nation that were used to rules and regulations as their religion, that religion now had a new meaning. The message of Jesus was evolving and people had to accept the fact that now there was grace and forgiveness....freedom. Everyone did not have to agree on the minor details of doctrine. They were to work out their own way of following Jesus in freedom and integrity.

We can either decide to be legalistic or we can follow Jesus. trying to be both causes unnecessary guilt envy and harsh judgement against others who don't do their walk with God the way we do.

Paul advised the Galatians not just to be free for the sake of it, not to use their freedom to do whatever they wanted but they were to use their freedom to love and support others.

These people had been so caught up in sacrificing the right animals, wearing the right clothes to the temple, talking the right religious talk and Paul is saying.... the whole law in a nut shell is actually just to love your neighbour.

I don't know but maybe its actually easier to be religious and follow a list of dos and dont's than it is to love people, especially people who we disagree with.

The measure of our faith therefore is LOVE.

It is not face value..

"He leads a church, he must have an amazing faith"

"He is always up at the front...he must be really close to God"

I think that is shallow.

Yes a lot of these people are truly close to God but unless we know them we probably shouldn't judge.

Faith is expressed in love. Ever met someone who leads people amazingly from the front but has very little love to give off the platform. I have. I think a loving, outreaching, outwardly focused heart speaks more than a thousand of their sermons and "christian practices"... I would rather see a sermon than hear one any day...

We can be stuck on rules and on the way things should be done. Especially in our churches. The rules have even moulded themselves to be more modern and subtle but even now in our trendy church services we still have codes and boundaries which to me at times seem a bit religious.

We have pride, opinions, tradition, intellect....

often to our detriment.

I wonder what God thinks when we spend a lot of time and energy bickering over doctrine and different ways of doing church. When we spend our time gossiping about how wrong some people are.

Will he not just ask...why did you not just love?....that's the law in a nut shell.

I know a lot of Christians and some have very different ideas about things than others. I also know Christians....members of Gods family...whose faith is doubted by other Christians. All I can say is that I think faith is expressed in love and as long as these people continue to carry the fire of God in their heart and I can continue to sense the love and compassion of Jesus from them...they are part of Gods family no matter what the doctrinal differences are. I am not talking about false teaching,

I am talking about people who believe in the life death and rising of Jesus. Who believe in salvation and grace and freedom, who long and strive for kingdom advances and who to be honest are expressing their faith in love more than most.

Maybe God has a more relaxed approach to our differences as long as our common denominator is the same. I have seen many sides of Gods character in different circumstances of my life and in different parts of the world. God has eternal dimensions. He enjoys diversity and probably prefers that to a load of cloned churches... perhaps different interpretations of different parts of his word and the expressions of that are to be celebrated and supported.

We need to learn to love brothers and sisters in Jesus regardless of the path they have chosen.

Otherwise we can and will destroy each other.

What about being happy for people who are doing something new and different rather than waiting and secretly hoping for it to fail...."I knew it wouldn't work".

The body of Christ has been divided for centuries due to the "tut tuts" of self righteous members who don't like change and don't like anything different to what they think is right. Who don't like to loose control...

God enjoys our diversity and longs for us to do the same...

Supporting one another

Equipping one another

Loving one another

Freely

Regardless of who gains more success or recognition.

That's my rant over...

Am off to have my wedding dress fitted....... yippeeee!!

I have not forgotten

2009-11-15T10:21:00.004Z

Well i have been swallowed up in wedding plans over the last few months....Getting married is very exciting but the actual wedding day can become the focus and its really not. Trying to keep everyone happy can be a big old pain in the ass.... but Its all good.

I am still working in Psychiatry. I'm on the dementia ward and It has been a strange but valuable experience.

Dementia is a disease that effects a significant amount of elderly people and some younger people. There are lots of different types but generally the story goes like this...

A coupe have been married for a long time, they have travelled the world together, they have had children and watched them grow up and have their own families, they have grown to love each other more and more even as their bodies age. Then one day he notices that she has started leaving the back door open, started putting things in the wrong place or started buying ives things twice because she forgot she already had...

This they joke about because it doesn't really cause any harm and doesn't effect their lives.

Things then start to progress. She goes out in the car and suddenly forgets where she is going. They have to go and look for her, she is lost in her home town. She leaves the cooker on before bed time, if he had not have smelt the burning smell the house would have burnt down...

This is usually the time when they present themselves to a clinic to see someone like me who does all sorts of memory tests and breaks the news about Alzheimer's disease. He looks frightened and has all sorts of fears.

Then eventually the situation progresses even further, the patients then loose the ability to recognise their loved ones, at times they become suspicious of them and become aggressive toward them... hitting, kicking.

Now he is repeatedly told to go away and never come back, she hits, kicks. She believes he is a thief and an alcoholic as he illness has given her a paranoia. Quite clearly he is just a lovely man with a broken heart.

What is he to do? He explains to the doctor that he wants to try to take her home with him again rather than to a nursing home. He made vows all those years ago that for better of for worse and in sickness and in health....as long as they both live.

He has not lost the ability to remember and so while he is able he will be loyal and true to the words that he spoke all those years ago.

I find that so beautiful. These people are literally part of each other. When one turns away due to mental sickness it must be devastating and many may loose heart but this man has decided that commitment is commitment regardless of the time that has past or if the person has changed. He loves her. He can see the real person even if he has to look back in order to look forwards.

I love how this reflects Gods love for me....that sounds cheesy but really recently due to busyness and life I have at times worried if God had forgotten about my dreams, my gifts, my heart. He made me a promise and more than any human God remembers and never turns his back on us or changes his mind. He is the same yesterday today and forever. He does not age and fade away he is eternal. How reassuring to have something so solid under our feet when may face all sorts of difficulties due to our health or our situations.... God wishes to prosper us and give us a hope and a future. It would be awsome if that meant life was easy but the more Isee the more I realise that the road is tough but God has not forgotten he is right there beside us every step of the way....God with us... that is hope and prosperity no matter what we are going through.

Free to live, free to give...

2009-09-16T18:50:00.004+01:00

Well blogging seems to be a dying art but I reckon I will pump another few posts out before i consider calling it a day. I have moved jobs now and have a bit more time on my hands. I am doing Psychiatry now which some other doctors like to call Psych-a-holiday. Its not as chilled as I expected but it sure is a nicer lifestyle than working in a slog job like medicine. Saving lives is rewarding but It comes with anti social hours.

I on other other hand spend all day asking people how they feel, if they see hope ahead and if they think life is worth living. I try and find out what the voices are saying to them, whether the voices are male, female, speaking directly to them or in third person and the list goes on... Mental illness is a reality and it breaks the hearts of the sufferer and the carer alike. It is rewarding to make a difference in this. Maybe saving lives in another kind of way.

Anyway I have been traveling to downpatrick every day in the good old c2.... which I bashed the other week but its OK... I have had lots of time in the car to think and pray which is cool cause its hard to make the time sometimes. I have just sensed God telling me a bit about freedom and what it really means to be free.

I am the worst for getting bound up in worries, stresses and negativity. Sometimes I will think of the worst possible outcome and expect that so that anything else is a bonus. This is not from God.

I was listening to a song by tim hughes in the car which I cant even remember the name of but there is a part that goes

"I am free to live, free to give, free to be, free to love you"

Love it!!

This has changed my heart this week. We are free to live, not just drudge along expecting things to always be the same but to really really live. I went for a glass of wine with a friend on Monday night and she said..."If there is no growth we are not alive". We have to live. We have to be constantly moving forward into the dreams and revelations of God. Moving forward in prayer and in God's word and most of all moving forward in faith.... believing for more and more.

If I ask myself.... do I believe God for more stuff now that I did 5 years ago? The answer is possibly no.... its probably the same.... that needs to come alive and grow.

We are free to give. Flip this has really challenged me over the past couple of weeks. Ding and I were in Dublin a couple of weekends ago to chill and get away from wedding buzz. We were walking past homeless people who were begging. Each one of them made me feel sad and sorry for them.... but what is sympathy really. Ding said to me when we were sitting having a wee cocktail that he felt really challenged that he almost would hesitate to give money to people like that.... that sometimes he thinks to much about it like.... what will they do with the money? was it their own fault they ended up in the situation they did? why don't they try to get a job??

Ding is the kindest person and would give away his last penny. I realised he was being honest and that I too shared the same reasons for not giving at times. We both concluded that God says....give....just give...

God gives to us and continues to give even if we waste what he gives to us....we must give freely not bound by the ifs and buts...just giving because its better to give than to get.

Free to be

Some times I find it hard to just be. Sometimes its hard to be still, not rushing to work, to meet someone etc..

We almost like to be on the go because it means we don't have to sit and think and reflect on our lives. I feel God saying that this is something I need ...time out just to be and to be free in the silence outside of the hustle.

Free to love you. We are free to love Jesus despite our sin because he has taken it all....we are free to love others and we should do so freely again not needing them to be cleaned up first...rough round the edges is actually sometimes more lovable to me anyway. I admitted a guy yesterday who has been addicted to speed and cocaine since he was 12 years old. He is now 26 and wants to stop. He was lovely in a rough round the edges way. I felt the love of Jesus go out to him and I also realised that with love comes hope because I saw hope that he could climb the mountain he was facing and I told him that.

So freedom is the word in my head at the minute...Satan tries to hold us back but I feel that its important to live and move forward with a "nothings going to hold me back attitude" with a vision that we can only keep if we encounter God daily. We need to give ...without thinking about it too much, We need to be still without needing to rush and we need to love God and our neighbour as ourselves.

None of this is law or rules....that's the point no one can tell me I must do this....I have to experience God then I am free to do these things and love it!!!

Joybell

2009-07-18T19:54:00.007+01:00

Ok so there have been a few developments in my life since I was last on here, there is the fact that I have a new job come August in Downpatrick, there is the fact that I have been on 2 very lovely holidays with some very special people and most significantly there is the fact that I am getting married.....ahhh....the excitement!

I have been very blessed to have met the man I love, who was made to be my other half, who looks after me... cause lets face it I need looking after, and who makes me laugh a lot!!

I am full of hopes and dreams. God is good.

Togetherness is such an amazing thing. Someone to journey life with. Someone who will be your number one fan and you theirs.

I once heard a guy speak at a church service. His talk was pretty deep and was about serving God and loving others. He said a lot of stuff that challenged and that made sense but I remember significantly what he said in conclusion.

I think his exact words were, "I could talk all night but I want to sum things up by saying, I want to love my wife and my children and serve them as Jesus would."

This is a new time for me. I have always dreamed of serving God in lots of different ways. I have a fondness for people that have less blessing in their life than me. I also want to make it a priority to love my husband with my whole heart and serve him as best I can. I know that then God can use us together and individually to serve him in who knows what ways. He already does.

I am amazed at the beauty of togetherness.

Joy Bell....Is that not the happiest name ever!!!

Bring on the Dings!!!!

Joy

2009-06-07T00:07:00.003+01:00

No I am not being self obsessed I actually have been thinking about joy...not just me the person but the whole concept of this wee word that has been with me for a good few years. People sing joy to the world or Ive got that joy joy joy joy down in my heart on a regular basis at me and each time think they have come up with something really original...torture! I always find that if in church when we sing a song with the word joy in it I cant help but feel weird...I think it feels weird to say your own name out loud...anyway enough of my rambling.

The Joy of God is a phenomenal thing.

Real joy comes from knowing our maker and being one with him. It comes from a deep knowledge and security in Jesus. When the storms come and the boat rocks it gives us the ability to know, not just hope but know that everything will be good, not just ok. That's hard sometimes.

Joy makes us feel the warmth of Gods love deep down in our very bones and gives us a peace and calm that happiness just cant muster.

Joy and happiness are not the same for me. I have felt joy before even in sad times.

I remember about 3 years ago when my Granada got sick. I loved him so much.

I just happened to be off for the summer before I went back to do my finals at queens. I had free time.

He was nursed in a side ward on the ward where my mum has worked for years in Craigavon and her friends were the nurses that looked after him. I had the privilege of holding his hand for quite literally a whole week. I was there when he breathed his last as were a lot of my close family. As was Jesus. We were so sad to loose our wee granda. He was such a good man. A man of God who lived a good, full life and who was the perfect male role model for all the generations that followed him. His death was sad, heart breaking but we felt the presence of God and even the Joy of God with us as we all came together.

I have felt joyful at work on many occasions...yes you heard me right at work. When you feel your cheeks burn with concentration and interest into figuring out whats wrong with someone and then making them better. Or by just holding someones hand when they are scared.

I feel joyful tonight as I spent time with friends and laughed a lot.

I have struggled a bit with my mood over the past year. Possibly linked to stress and tiredness but I have found that something that I really need to keep close to God. Yet even on those low days when you could just lie in bed and not face the world I find it so amazing that God has grace and we can still know that it will be OK. We still have Joy even if our faces don't say it.

I love it though when my face radiates joy and God. you don't need to look in a mirror you can just tell that he is burning in you and its bursting forth.

As I choose to spend time with God and people who love him. As I serve others and give myself away, as well as looking after my health and my mind I can sense the deep Joy of God inside.

As women and maybe this applies to guys too our looks and weight....the list is endless can sometimes effect our joy...when we feel like we are having an ugly day or we don't feel good about ourselves. This is something that unfortunately comes with our flashiness. Maybe when we are old and grey we will drop all that and just be content when we realise it doesn't really matter that much. We need balance. We need rest. We need work and fun. We need good times and to a degree hard times. Above all we need the Joy of God to be our strength like a huge tunnel that runs under our lives that we can walk through even when things pile up..

Joy and happiness are not the same but they are lovely in combination. Joy though is the part that we can rely on. Its strong and firm and it wont move from under us with circumstance.

Love is Strong..

2009-05-31T11:38:00.007+01:00

I consider myself to be a bit of a sop. I mean I just love a real good romantic movie, and I get that warm fuzzy feeling when there is a happy ending. I always say....ahh when i see a nice wee baby or a wee old couple holding hands when they walk down the road. Lovey dovey!!

Its funny though that sometimes our impression of the word love and God's love can make us cringe or make us think its a bit soft or girly. Where is the grr in us Christians...where is the fight in us....surely its not in our love??

The more experience I have of loving people the more I am aware of the power and strength that comes with that. It takes courage to love at times and it requires self sacrifice. It also coincidentally makes the enemy nervous.

I have talked before about the experience that I had in Thailand working with organisations that reach out to those involved in the sex slave trade. When I was there I got a really clear grasp of the idea of love being a weapon. Instead of feeling warm and fuzzy I felt the deep love and heartache of a father for his children, I felt the strong force of compassion drawing me closer to people and I felt the anger of God towards the enemies destruction....It was strong and deep and it had impact.

Some of the places we visited we quite literally hell on earth where sin was rampant. Darkness even in the scorching sun and the only light i could see, and I am not just being Christian about it, was the love of Jesus.

I reminded myself of 3 things.

1.There is a God

2.There is an enemy...I believe i stared him in the face.

3. Love changes peoples hearts.

As we love people with the heart of God we provide a light to guide them to the path God has for them...towards their hope and their future.

I have many dreams about my future. I would love to do some of the things that i have dreamt of. However as I continue on the journey and as at times i get a bit disheartened, I have realised that the best way to remember , refill and refresh your dream is simply to love those around you. As we love the least and the not least we remember...oh yeah this is what I am living for.

Proverbs 3 the msg

"Don't loose your grip on love and loyalty. Tie them around your neck, carve their initials on your heart".

No mater where we want to go in life, we actually can conclude that if Christ is in us then the bottom line of our dream will be the same...to love others.

My house mate told me that she was praying with some people recently and they all started to call out their dreams one by one, She was blown away as every ones dream involved loving others, from homeless shelters to African clinics.

Love is the strongest force that lives, Its not weak it has the power to make change. God is love

God you are my future

2009-05-18T11:24:00.004+01:00

Well its been a while since I have been on here...my new job has properly swallowed me up. I have started in cardiology and have been flying around the east in the cardiac ambulance or the van as I call it. Its been stressful and my poor boyfriend has never heard the end of the moaning...

Only up until August then I am back to my much loved psychiatry.

Made it to church last night since I was off all weekend. It was so refreshing to hear about the spirit of God and how when we are filled life is so much fuller. I think i have been running on empty recently. I bolted to the front last night to get refilled with God and with passion. I can feel the good of it even if I am off with the female version of the man flu..

I just have been thinking a lot recently about my future. I think I have become a little disillusioned as I have been working in a job that takes up all my thinking time and doesn't leave much time for reflection. Its been a while since I have really considered where I am going.

Then again I feel that God at times tells us just to trust that he has it under control and we don't have to be under pressure to always be sure of what is next.

God you are my future. As long as this is true surely everything else is just a by product.

I love that once we encounter God and once we feel his heart for the least...there is no going back...I am not and cannot go back.

Ding and I watched secret millionaire a few weeks back...I tend to go on about things and yes three weeks later I am still going on about what God said to us through this. The programme is basically about people who have lots of money but generally feel unfulfilled with it. They desire to go and give something to people who don't have much in order to make a difference. This particular guy went to a really run down part of England, an industrial town hit by the recession. He visited different organisations that tried to support the community. He found a little organisation called head light which was run by a guy who had schizophrenia. It was a mental health support group. People from the community came with their issues, fears and illnesses to share and to participate in work shops. It was so moving...Obviously I cried the whole way through and although he wouldn't admit it I reckon I saw a wee tear escape from under dings glasses...

The guy who was the secret millionaire himself had had a breakdown a few years back when his wife left him. He was lonely and broken. He himself seemed to enjoy engaging with this group and sharing his story. He donated them a load of money to expand their service and admitted that he had found so much fulfillment in doing so.

God has used that to speak to me about the fact that he knows where he is taking me. What if some day I could be involved in helping people in this way? What if I could use my profession to help people who aren't given a chance to grow and develop and share. Surely all this hard work will be worth it.

At the minute everyone at my stage in work is planning their future...surgeons, Gps, anaesthetists...I never really thought I could find a future in medicine. There is something about the clinical side that leaves me craving contact and conversation with the individual patients and their families without having to run off to the next drama. Yet God has reminded me that he not only plans and knows my future he is my future and he has led me in the right steps to get to my dream.

Striving towards a calling can be dangerous because we can end up blaming ourselves if we don't end up where we thought we would. People might give us some powerful prophetic word about where we will be in ten years...and if that doesn't happen we are likely to be disappointed.

Its not about how great we become, Its not even about how many people we effect...its about giving God your life and rolling with it. Being filled with him so we don't go off on a tangent of disillusionment.

I am not going back, no way...God you are my future. That makes me so peaceful today.

Truth

2009-02-23T18:56:00.005Z

I have spent a bit of time this avo reading and writing. My favourite chill out tasks that I have neglected a bit recently. I can blame work but then that's a bit of a lame excuse.

Was just reading through some of my old journals from times that were good and times that were hard. I found this wee random statement that I mustered up one day this time last year..

Jesus is the way the truth and the life, the truth sets us free.

As we allow honesty to surface, as we drop the act we become more beautiful, more free and more like who we were made to be.

I have to say I have realised that some of the things I say and do come from a place that is a bit false. Doing something because I feel I should. Afraid of causing a stir.

I have realised that people in general have a desire for the supernatural and a desire for the things that are unseen...but even more so people deserve and demand the truth.

I think sometimes as people of God we are too quick to force the deep hidden stuff and less willing to fess up to being real, normal and ordinary. Yet its that very place of vulnerability that God can use us most. Its in that place that people will see the truth in us, rather than be distanced by our ability to live like saints all the time

I sometimes am a fake- a- phob...Like I cringe in situations where things seem fake. Yet I am bored with just living in the real world. There is that tension that pushes me to keep asking for more.

Jesus really has shown me how to live and I am really thankful today for this reminder.

I reckon sometimes we think of Jesus as mister nice guy who just smiled and laughed and never hurt any ones feelings. But that is actually a fake image of him. As are the paintings of him just sitting idle doing nothing but looking happy. Yes he did that from time to time in the right rhythm but through and through he was an activist, he rubbed people up the wrong way when he really had to and he was a real man with the right balance of testosterone driven grrr and the beautiful gentleness that any real man should have.

Jesus didn't fake it. He was real. He worked hard, he struggled at times, he felt pain and heartache. He didn't hide behind a false smile when exploitation hung in the air...he called religion for what it was and kicked a few tables out of the way in the process. Actively reacting to the righteous anger inside. Yet his heart softened with affection towards little children and pounded with gentle compassion for the underdog and poor. I want to be like him...accept the female less kicking tables over kind!!!!

He was real

People were attracted to him and were not ashamed of their sin...

How many people would be completely open with us knowing that we were followers of God. Do they see us as the passive Jesus that is sometimes portrayed or do people know we are real...just like them searching for something a bit more fulfilling in life than just living.

Jesus had wounds and still does because those wounds are his glory and the part of him that we can relate to. No matter if we are at the front of a church or telling people how much we love God we must keep it real, continually confess our own human weakness and cut the act of squeaky clean living. We all have fallen short. Jesus is truth and he sets us free because we no longer hide behind a label. We are still us...trying to find his way and our way and combine the two...reality and the spiritual interacting perfectly when we manage to see it.

Psalm 32

Oh what joy for those whose disobedience is forgiven,

Whose sin is put out of sight.

Yes what joy for those whose record the Lord has cleared of guilt,

Whose lives are lived in complete honesty.

When I refused to confess my sin my body wasted away and I groaned all day long.

My strength evaporated like water in the summer heat.

Finally I confessed all my sins to you and stopped trying to HIDE my guilt.

And you forgave me and all my guilt is gone......

For you are my hiding place...

Counting and Calling

2009-01-22T15:38:00.006Z

If each grain of sand on the sea shore were numbered and the sum labelled chosen of God, they would be numbers still, not names. Salvation comes by personal selection. God doesn't count us he calls us by name. Arithmetic is not his focus. Romans 9, The Msg

I read this the other night and it brought me a bit of peace and reassurance. I think the world we live in can really make us feel like numbers. I mean the job i am in for example. There are so many other people at the same level with the same skills competing for the same thing. At the end of the day you can easily become a number...one of the crowd.

I was chatting to Ding the other night about music and how musicians often seem to get so deep with the words they use. Even simple phrases, sung with the right soul can create such an atmosphere and stir up so many emotions in us. There music displays who they are and what they believe in their hearts about love and life. I am sure at some point they felt like a number and still do to a certain extent, but I reckon that its those songs that save them from that. Even if only a few people here them. Even if they don't get the deal they want...they can express who they are inside.

We all want to feel unique, individual and called. I know that when doctors are asked why they do what they do and why they are so driven, a lot of them say that they want to be able to do something for people that no one else can do. Not just run of the mill but needed.

The grains of sand on a beach are just numbers to me...I cant even start to think about seeing the value in each individual grain. The number of musicians, doctors, business men, teachers, hair dressers etc are also too numerous for me to appreciate each one but God does. He asks us to imitate him and build each other up.

Do you know someone trying to make it in their thing, trying to go from being a number to having a role and a calling?

I do

I have a friend who is starting to work for a children's charity, leaving a potential legal career to do something that she feels called for.

I have a boyfriend trying to establish a company that will serve people and equip people in a way that will make him fulfill his dream.

I have a friend who really wants to be an anaesthetist so she can literally save peoples lives.

I have a friend who longs to build prayer communities in Ireland and despite hardship has vision and motivation for this.

I have friends who want to travel, who want to go to Africa and teach or who want to stay at home and do peoples hair for a living to make people feel good about themselves.

The point is its not about how big your dream is. Its about rising up from the pile of numbers and coming into your own. You may always be a number to some people, most people probably but this is the gist of what God wants.

That we see ourselves as he does.

That we rely on those close to us to see us that way to. To believe in us, to fight for us, pray for us, support us.

Mel, a friend who sings. I love going to her gigs when I can. I love her soulful music and I also love how her "crew" are around her. Her friends who love her, who now know all the words and know her heart on a personal level.

Support the people you love and help them to feel more called and less like a number.

I know I appreciate it.

I have to say a lot of the people I work with don't really get the whole church and christian thing. For the most part I understand why. Often we can be pretty critical and unsupportive old so and so's. Salvation comes by personal selection. It doesn't count.

I suppose to help God in that we need to stop counting the things we need in people before we accept them or find them interesting.

People, including me are under a lot of pressure to become something in their own right....even in the church lets face it. But I like that God reminds us to chill...he dictates who we are and where we go. He likes to find the unique quality that we possess.

Success is over rated but love and support is vital in order to feel like a somebody.

Expression Frustration

2008-12-01T18:12:00.007Z

I have lots of different people in my life with all sorts of amazing ways of expressing who they are, who God is and how they feel.

Expression is God's way of enabling us to vent the image of himself within us. I love the different forms that there are of doing this and it is very much a case of "each to their own".

For the record I am in no way musical or artistic...much to my dismay. For those of you who are, you have been blessed with such a special form of expression.

When you write a song, put your own music to it and sing it for others to share. The depths of your heart, even the brokenness becomes tangible in the atmosphere where it is heard. Simple words become so much deeper because we feel your heart. The word love, hope, peace...they mean more when they come from somewhere deep inside and from a place of personal experience and even pain.

Those who paint. How amazing to take an emotion or a stirring that you can feel brewing deep inside and watch it trickle up through your spirit, into the coordination of your body and onto a canvas. I imagine there is a strong air of content with each stroke of your brush in expression.

I get frustrated sometimes when I cant express myself or if I do not take the time to do it. I have to make the space...that morning alone with my journal in a coffee shop...keeps me alive in many ways.

To put pen to paper.

To talk beneath the surface.

To give away love to those who don't know much of it.

To get inside someones head by asking exactly the right questions.

To cry when I feel broken. (Its very frustrating not to be able to cry when you need to).

To laugh.

To have little red cheeks when I am in the thick of what I love.

We all need a vent. We need to let the spring go from time to time. A lot of the wound up tension within ourselves is often the product of an expressionless life. Not engaging with the people we love, not opening up our hearts, not being honest with God and telling him exactly what we think about life and love and dreams.

I guess I have always had dreams...we all do. But when I loose my expression these dreams end up being the very things that bind me. Dreams are meant to free us. Whilst there is no outlet the potential gets trapped, explosive almost. Have you ever felt wound up like a spring??

We can be full of dreams and full of potential but if the potential doesn't convert to some sort of action or energy then we can become unhappy and frustrated with the tension created.

Jesus always poured out the potential inside. He didn't miss a second. I have learnt though that it wasn't all about giving. That leads to depletion and some of you will know how that feels. Its about the balance of pouring out your heart yet being continually filled and inspired.

He carved wood.

He shared conversation, deep truths, food and wine with close friends.

He reached out to the least.

He had angry outbursts in response to injustice.

He cried out to his father when he was in pain.

He sweat drops of blood.

He took time out to himself to contemplate, regenerate and receive.

I can see how he constantly had input and output in a perfect flow which caused him to be so free and whole. I would like to discover the parts of myself that reflect him and I would like to let that loose and express it. I also want to be filled, not running on empty and expressing depletion but continually regenerating life.

That's the beauty of knowing and expressing Jesus.

Good church, bad church

2008-11-26T13:54:00.006Z

Back from my wee hol...was chilled to the max but now back in the stress zone. Moving jobs next week...eek always a nerve wrecking experience.

Anyways have been talking to lots of my friends recently about church. I often hear people refer to churches as "good" and I wonder sometimes what we mean when we say that. What do we use to measure how good it is?

If we are talking about an organisation or business there are obvious measures of "success". We can measure it by how much money they make, how many members it has, how fast it grows, how popular it is, how big their premises are....

Sometimes I wonder do I personally use these markers to measure the success of church. I reckon church, any church can be popular and fun and rich and fancy but what if there are things missing that are the parameters that God uses to measure us.

Love.
What if we do not love each other.
Peace
What if we do not strive for a peaceful society.
Patience
What if we do not know how to wait on God to move and try to rush things
Kindness
What if we do not give to the least.
Goodness
Do we consider the good in everyone and reflect it back to them...even those on the outskirts?
Faithfulness.
Are we committed to each other and to the dream of God for the world?
Gentleness
Do we make things easier in our community by being a gentle presence that takes the edge of the bitterness we live amongst?
Self Control.
Do we do what we want when we want as long as we tick the church boxes?..I do this a lot!

I guess I sometimes think we forget that the church is us. It really is not the bricks and mortar as cliched as that sounds. I don't think there is anything wrong with big buildings as long as the motivation for it is right.

I struggle to accept though that people should all come to the same building. I personally get lost in crowds sometimes.
If there was a revival in the falls, the shankill or in our club culture..just for example..
Would I want to put those people in a bus and ship them to my church on a Sunday. I love my church and am not having a go but I guess it would make sense for communities to be developed in the heart of were the birth is. Imagine being born and then being shipped to a foreign land. I reckon the church I am used to would be pretty foreign to the church others might expect and that's OK.

I would never want someone to find their church community irrelevant and foreign. If the community grows where the birth takes place it becomes more natural and more importantly it becomes home...and has more potential to attract those who "get it".

So I guess some day in the future ...not too distant I would say the church in this country will look different. Maybe not so many people under one roof...many only spectating and feeling a bit lost, thinking, "what is all this stand up, sit down, bow your head stuff about anyway?"

Maybe as people are reached they will form little settlements in their familiar and natural environment that they relate to.
Maybe some will meet in chapels, some in Churches as we know them, some in pubs or clubs, some in their living room and some in a coffee shop...I know this already happens to a degree which is cool.

But the point is not to be cool or controversial. The point is to be relevant and intentional.

Then our churches cant be good because they are big....they might stay small but be more numerous. They will be good because they bear fruit. They make the place a bit brighter, they include people and they help change our day to day lives. I am still thinking about all this and I am not being critical of any church...I think that the church leaders that I know at the minute are amazing people.
As Pete Greig puts it...the best way to go forward is to aim for something in the distance but always look in the rear view mirror...learning from the past and knowing fully where you come from.

The changes in church as we know it are coming and its not about scraping the old. Its about using the old to shape the new whilst not being too stuck in our ways to accept changes even if they seem a bit crazy.
When you really look in the rear view mirror from when the disciples were doing this stuff it gives us a bit of a clue how it should be but its not exactly how it should be because this is today and that was then.

Prosper Each Other..

2008-11-11T21:12:00.005Z

Well its already nearly Christmas... and I just found out I am working all day Christmas eve and Christmas day... boo hoo... feel sorry for myself. Ah well I suppose I will get my reward in heaven and at the end of Dec when I get paid.

I am feeling the major need to get out of here for a wee break. My man and I are heading to Barcelona to sample the food, vino and general chilaxedness of the whole place next week....cannot wait!

Sometimes a holiday is what you need to recharge and to get motivated for the stress ahead.

I said in my last post I would come back to the whole Gospel Crunch thing..It has been on my mind a lot but I have decided that I am sick listening to it and thinking about it. The main thing I have learnt is that I need to have more faith. I know I cant produce it within myself but I can ask God for more and I can expect more.

I have started to notice that when I ask God for something and I see change in that situation that it is not just the gift of answered prayer that comes into being...It is also the gift of faith. As I see God come through in the little things I begin to believe him more for the bigger hurdles I am trying to jump.

I guess its like exercise, not that I do enough. But the farther you run, the more you can believe you can run and then you run even further.

I have had a really positive experience working in Psychiatry. People often ask me if it gets me down. It does at times. And I know I need to be careful not to take too many of the issues I am confronted with home with me. One thing it has taught me though is that people need support.

When someone is mentally ill they will almost certainly decline without the support of others.

Friends, family, doctors, nurses, social workers.... people who care.

If you take the time with someone and listen to their story and if you give them the chance to process things out loud and then emphasize that they are not alone... they feel a great weight lifted off their shoulders. They may not instantly get better and they may face a long journey of recovery but in general time and people help as much as tablets. Tablets still help though.

I am very thankful for the people that I have in my life who love and support me and who make life better.

When it comes to division in our churches, families, group of friends or whatever, I think it is so important to remember the principle of community and of loving each other as we do ourselves.

It is never good for anyone to stand alone or to be isolated. Its important to have support.

Its not even a spiritual thing its just a life thing... we need other people more than we realise.

I suppose my prayer is for unity, not in a cheesy christian...we all smile at each other but back bite at the same time kind of way. But in the true, seeing the best in each other kind of way.

If you believe something different to what I believe that is so way down the list of priorities. at the top of the list is love and acceptance and grace. Seeing the best despite the disagreement. Disagreements are not wrong, they are healthy sometimes. Disunity however is crippling and leaves people bitter and depleted.

God is good. He brings people into our lives and asks us to work on the togetherness of it all. He asks us to believe him for as much as we are able to and he will cover our human disbelief with his grace.

As we see him answer the little utterances of our hearts then the gift of faith will grow inside us. We will see more and hope for more and ask for more.

The thing is that the "more" wont necessarily be for us... me me me.

It may not be God heal me, make me prosper...It will be God heal them, make them prosper and above all God unite us together so that no one stands alone. And as God's word says we prosper as our souls prosper.

A challenging topic that has made me realise that Its not about me anyway. My blessing is a biproduct of what happens when I love other people.

Roll on barcelona I neeeeed a holiday....

The Gospel Crunch..

2008-10-23T01:34:00.010+01:00

Ok so i am starting to think that the term prosperity gospel is up there with the credit crunch. My boyfriend has come up with a good way to prevent the credit crunch...charge everyone a pound for every time they flipping say it!! Rich Mcrich you would be.

Same goes for this prosperity gospel term that I keep hearing.

I'm good with the gospel just being the gospel to be honest.

I'm a bit worried and saddened that us followers of Jesus here in Ireland have started disagreeing over more theology.

I reckon the only theology we really need to agree on is that God is love. That Jesus died to prove that and that we can have eternal life if we trust him.

Recently there has been a bit of debate...not just here but in the world I guess as to the idea of prosperity and suffering. I hold my hands up and say I am not that well informed in all this stuff that is floating around but I do have a few things to say about the issue which you may like or loath or be indifferent to.

I have been reading some of this stuff and basically it appears that there is a belief that as Christians we should not have to go through suffering, that healing is a must for every illness and that it is our faith and belief that determines the outcome of our prayers.

If we don't get healed it is because we don't have enough faith...

Whatever enough faith is.

I personally struggle with this. Not that long ago I, we lost a friend to a brain tumour. Of course God did not give it to her, of course God did not want her to die, Of course God was not just trying to build character in those who suffered loss...but to say that if we had more faith then...

I am aware of the damage that that could do to the minds of those who have laid it all on the line for those they love and have not seen the result they so desperately wanted. I refuse to allow the enemy to condemn you through all this and that is partly why I write and stand in prayer in all of this.

Faith in my opinion is a weird old thing...yes it comes from within us. We must actively utilise it.

But as my friend pointed out to me tonight Hebrews 12 12 says "It is he who initiates and perfects our faith". The very faith we take ownership of belongs to God...It is a gift.

It is not measured on a scale..It is measured by the motive of our heart.

God does not care how much we believe in him....even a mustard seed is enough...he cares why we believe in him...

Because he is the all knowing, all powerful, all present God who is good in his very nature.

Who do you say i am??

I don't know how you can get more faith. How could my friend who fasted and prayed for yonks that his wife would not die...How could he have had more faith. If I am relying on having more faith than the most I could ever have in order for God to answer my prayer I am a bit screwed.

We can only be what we can, do what we can, pray what we can. It is God who takes our seeds and makes them grow. How dare we take on the role of God in answering our own prayers.

Yes God provided the ultimate sacrifice in Jesus. Yes it covers all the sin of all of humanity. And all the sickness and sorrow and pain. We will not live with these things for eternity and we are free from their claim on our life.. Our life is hidden with christ in God.

However we live in a dirty messy world. While our shoes still get covered in mud we will always have things to deal with. Jesus walked the streets with dignity and love as the very son of God yet he himself sweat drops of blood...As a psychiatrist these days I can confirm that he was pretty stressed out...as stressed out as you can be really.

We cannot live in this world and not carry some of the wounds from the battle. But why is that such a shameful thing. By his stripes we are healed. Yes. However it is inevitable that we will face troubles and if we are putting all the pressure on ourselves to control the healing we receive we will end up bitter and disappointed and even more self loathing and condemning than ever. That is not edifying. That is not encouraging and that is definitely not God.

God is God. He is not a conditional being.

How can we with conditional minds expect to get inside his and say that we will receive according to how much we believe...That's law. I believe in a God who is outside of logic and condition. A God who is God no matter what. How can we say that if we don't go through the no matter what stuff, the stuff that hurts and burns and purifies.

In the middle of heaven is a lamb covered in blood as though it was slain...As our pastor said a couple of Sundays ago...some would think it should be a fluffy lamb without blemish..

Why are his wounds in glory?..

His wounds are his glory..

The wounds that we may acquire on this journey of life in the battle field are the wounds that like a soldier who has been to war will become our Glory.

I obviously do not ask for or want suffering but I realise that before I get to heaven where there is no battle, i remain in world that is dangerous and dirty and in dire need of Love.

I will have ups and downs...its a healthy rhythm. I hope for more ups but I trust God for whatever.

The main aim of the game is to see as many people in the kingdom as flipping possible, not to see how blessed we can be, not even to see how God can heal those we love...that's important but unfortunately not as important as the dream of salvation.

If we make this our first priority...which by the way i really need to work on then we will find a unity in our walk. If we seek individual and corporate prosperity more than this dream then that's when we will begin to see cracks and division.

I have more to say about this I just haven't in any shape or form processed it yet. I am not ranting back at anything or trying to cause a fuss....I just love the gospel.. I feel we need to realise that its not about us...Its about Jesus and the two guys either side of the cross (the lost) first and foremost. What happens to us in our lives matters a lot but its not guaranteed to always be Rosy no matter how much faith you muster up...if you can muster faith...I am not sure its even doable.

Foy Vance sang the other night that the world killed Jesus but the church killed love.

I am praying that things like this do not add to the hostility the church has reputed. A spotless life is a myth and it alienates the broken hearted of the world from church. In fact it would alienate me from church because I am broken hearted in many ways...people identify with us in our most weak states.

Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God so I will try that for now.

Until part 2...please don't think I am just joining some debate...this stuff has properly grieved me and shaken me this week.

Lets all try to believe as much as we can for as much as we can and then leave the rest to God.

Eyes to See

2008-10-06T16:42:00.005+01:00

Well yet another month has begun. Where the flip is time going..I want to be 25 forever!!

Have just bought myself a wee present.. needed a lap top... bought a mac book...love it!!

It shamefully lives in a pink case which makes me love it even more!!

So now that I have my wee mac hopefully I will be better at keeping my thoughts flowing. Have thought about writing a book at some point but would need to employ someone to edit my poor grammar. English was in fact my worst subject at school. Am more of a science and maths nerd really.

Anyways lets not get ahead of ourselves I need to give this whole doctor thing a good whirl and see where it takes me. Am enjoying psychiatry so who knows... maybe I will be a shrink!!

Its been a while now since I have really felt connected to God in the way that I did last year.I have been doing all the right things but its like I was stuck in a rut with it all. I guess I have struggled to find the passion that I need to cry out to God for others and for my own desires. I have struggled to want to really properly worship God.

Slowly though my eyes have been opening bit by bit and while I have God to thank for that I also have amazing people around me who inspire me to be more, to ask for more and to expect more.

Last Wednesday some of us went up to Ballysillan in North Belfast ,where a friend of mine, Miriam runs a drop in centre for YFC. We basically went up to see around the centre, to find out more about what they do and to pray for mims and the other leaders there.

I was struck with a deep sense God as I listened to the stories of the young people from one of the roughest estates in Belfast. These young people have been given opportunities to be loved and to learn and grow. They have a wee prayer room and we were hearing how they never question the need to pray. If something is wrong they pray about it. Mirium told us of some of the powerful moments they have had with these kids. God is moving. Prayers from the deepest parts of this little broken community are being written down and pinned up on a wall...the honest cries from ordinary broken lives are powerful and covered in Jesus.

I sensed that presence of God that permeates your skin right into your soul. Wholesome and peaceful.

I could see what God could do.

I could look out of the window and see a day when there would be no more paramilitary activity.

I could see a day when these people become a people of prayer.

I always knew God would start something in the least of this land.

It was clear that God had given people the eyes to see hope for this community even years ago.

We heard about how a local man from one of the wee gospel halls near by, in the middle of the troubles, saw three empty council estate houses and heard the voice of God speak into his soul that this would be a place for peace and a place for God to move. He bought it and it has now become this homely centre that is full of God.

Think about it.

At the time this must have seemed impossible.

The building next door was where paramilitary beatings happened. Soldiers manned the gardens around the area.

How would anyone agree to do outreach in this place... and even if they did how could it bring about change?

People did come.

People have stayed for 15 years in a job that they are alive in and have been given the eyes to see a hope and a future.

It seems that after a long hard toil there is a harvest that is ready.

How amazing when god gives us the eye of faith to see a hope.

For that drunk lying in the street, for the down and out, for the criminal, for the addicted..

I have always thought that God gives us according to what we can see. Not with our natural eyes, but what we can see in our hearts. If we can look out into a community and see how one by one these broken lives can be made new and we are willing to get stuck in to the muck then we can be sure that God will meet our vision with a supernatural reality.With change of some description...a supernatural thing in this country I am sure you will agree.

We will find him in the oddest places.

If we have the eyes to see we will see the things we dream of for the least of our world. If we don't see it we need to try...God's word is a good lens to look at people through.

Of course grace covers our feeble inability to believe. There is so much power though if we see something, it seems impossible and then even if it takes years...God comes through...its good for the faith muscle and it kind of makes life worth living.

Grace, the third way..

2008-09-26T12:44:00.006+01:00

Its been a wee while since I have been on here. I have been otherwise preoccupied...IL say no more.
Things are going well with me and I feel that I have reached a really positive point in my journey.
The last few months for me were a little difficult. I had a few things going on and those of you who know me will realise how much I appreciated the support of friends and family.

I have started to feel stronger and I can sense an awakening inside to dream again. I went through a period where my mind just would not engage with God. I couldn't read his word, I couldn't pray and I didn't really feel the need to. In a way it was like God was giving my mind a complete break at a time of exhaustion and confusion. I had at one stage almost been over spiritualising things in my life to the extent where I didn't really feel earthed...in the clouds you could say.
Since the beginning of August though things have been much brighter and I, especially over the past week feel alive inside again.

I have been thinking a lot about the grace of God. It has astounded me the past week that God's grace is sufficient for me.
My brother as some of you know has been unwell for around 15 years. He developed Schizophrenia as a 20 year old man and his condition has continued to deteriorate throughout this time frame. He has been in hospital for the last 2 months to have his medication changed and for respite.

In my numb spiritual state I have missed praying for him during this time. I have prayed for him daily for 15 years until the past couple of months.
God is not a God of Karma. Sure you reap what you sow but God doesn't forget about everything you have sown in the past just because you have a blip.

The past two weekends he has been clear minded, conversational, is not hearing loud voices in his head that always tortured him, he is sleeping all night, he is happy.
This is the best we have seen him in a very very long time.
My hero, big Jim aka my dad said to me that its so typical that God answers our faithful prayers at a time when we are not so faithful...Even when we loose faith....he is faithful.
God remembers.
God cares.
God wants the beast for us and for our families.
The answer often comes at an unexpected time, when we aren't even tuned in!

We were talking about grace in our cell group with church the other night. I love how the grace of God is loving but fair. It always accepts us but it makes us aware of the changes that we need to make. It doesn't just give us the licence to do what we want when we want. It does not ovelook our sin but it loves us despite it....as Rob Bell puts it its like a "third way".
Sometimes we have two ways of dealing with things...lie down and take it and be a walk over, or blow your top and get angry.
What Jesus showed us was a fair, just and gracious way to live...a third way.
I believe that when someone wrongs us we must confront the problem. We must say the thing that has hurt us and we must stand up for what is right...not just for ourselves but on behalf of others. However there is a way to live that will include the love of God in the whole process and that will end in forgiveness and clarity.

I think that the past few months have strengthened me in trusting the grace of God for times when I feel a bit cut off. I also think I have learnt through various hurtful situations that there is a third way to live...in love but also in truth and fairness.
When we have confronted the issues that we have with others and we we forgive and love we can truly be free from regret. We can dream again by the grace of God.

Hey Jude!

2008-08-26T12:47:00.008+01:00

Well I am enjoying having my life back with evenings and weekends to spare. I have enjoyed catching up with my friends and being involved in their lives rather than saying sorry I'm working!

I eventually got to call and see baby Jude on Sunday. Gareth and Emma are good friends of mine...Their child is now 9 weeks old...how bad a friend am I? The running joke was that I'd get to meet Jude when he was getting ready for secondary school. Needless to say I'm hooked and will be dying to get a cuddle from him at every given opportunity.

What a miracle. The beauty of new life...

As I held little Jude I could feel the very presence of God in the form of affection. That strong pull that makes your heart melt. Its the innocence and purity of a baby that makes them so stunningly beautiful.

After a bit of baby babble and a well overdue nurse Jude started to get a bit restless and had to go for a wee sleep...I had to hand him over!! The concept of the cry of a newborn baby is something that has always fascinated me. Right for the moment we are born. Before we have developed the art of verbal communication....we have a deep desire for expression and connection.

This baby wants to express how he feels, he wants to let his mum know that he is hungry, he wants to smile and let them see that he is enjoying all the attention. Without words he gets his point across very clearly.

This deep desire for connection, expression and communication never leaves us.

The cry is always as deep as when we are a baby. Its just in that time that it is the pure deep soul cry...as we get older and as we develop insecurity and barriers in our communication we loose the honesty in the cry. We are "fine" when actually we are dying on the inside.

Truth is the more ways we can communicate often the less honestly we express our souls.

Think about the ways we communicate with each other...there are vast numbers of ways.

Sometimes though more is said in an honest cry, or in the silence. I love sitting with someone I love without having to say anything....and yet something real is said in the end.

I am not suggesting we all start to cry like babies, nor am I suggesting that we reject the English vocabulary..I am more than thankful for my ability to communicate in ways that some can't.

However I do think baby Jude has taught me a little about raw honesty, bearing our souls and not hiding behind our screens of okayness.

God is amazing. He gave us the ability to create life. He longs for us to truly live...for that child like longing to be fulfilled and deepened. He longs for us to connect with him and to be honest with him and each other....surely that is freedom. I went through a rough patch a while back and I know that the most important lesson I have learnt is how to be honest with myself, with my family and loved ones and with God. Its more pure, its simple and it brings more clarity...As a wearied child rests at the end of the day so then can we rest in the peace and acceptance of our Father.

Cringe and Compromise

2008-07-17T18:59:00.008+01:00

July already how did that happen? I was supposed to be in Africa for the past couple of weeks with a group from church. I made the decision not to go and instead to go on holiday...selfish perhaps but self preservation is a wise choice at times. I'm coming to the end of my first year in Medicine. It has been enjoyable but difficult at times. I'm heading to newtownards hospital at the start of August to do Psychiatry so I'm looking forward to a change.

I have been trying to take time out with friends and family over the past few weeks. It has been good to spend time with the right people. God has been present but in many ways silent. I haven't heard him speak and I haven't really been listening that hard. My walk with God has probably suffered a bit and been a little lazy. I had lost a bit of my sparkle.

Lazy faith is an experience that is worse than no faith at all. I'm a passionate kind of person and I need that kind of fire between me and God for it to feel alive and real. It frustrates me to be stagnant.

I have become really aware of how much I cringe..Christian events, Christan music, Christian jargon. Some of the cliches used by all of us, myself included make me cringe so much that I often just shy away from engaging. I have just been reading a bit today and trying to ask myself what it is about this life with God that I love, what is the part of it all that I grasp?

I suppose the answer is love. I understand, appreciate and crave the love of God inside me, completing me and changing those around me. I love to see God's love bring hope to the hopeless, and freedom to people in chains. I guess I haven't seen enough of it recently for it to be fresh in my spirit.

I think as people of Faith today we can be so cringey about Jesus stuff that we can compromise our faith at times. We don't enter in as much as we could, or be as bold as we should for fear of being cheesy or "carried away". Come on we all know people that we think are...out there!!

Jesus and his disciples were carried away. Not with emotion or airy fairness but with the truth of God's love. Injustice made their blood boil so much so that they could never be part time spectators. They were in the thick of it. Tearing down narrow mindsets and inequality.

Cringey Christianity may be almost nauseating at times but not as nauseating as the part time Christians that we can easily become. Its all or nothing really.

I am going to enough things.

I am talking to the right people.

I am reading enough stuff.

But I am not giving 100% right now..I have changes to make to be more like Jesus. Not just in my actions and lifestyle but in my whole outlook on what it means to live for Christ. If I am not striving for that I am simply wearing the label just to ease my conscience.

I am in a job with lots of potential. I can become a successful independent woman with lots of money and confidence and attitude. So much as I love the new Audi A3 and the thought of a villa in the South of France, and while in themselves those things are not wrong, I fail to see how I would find fulfilment. Sounds obvious as a Christan maybe..."only you can fill my deepest longing" and all that but the reality is that there are times when we are all prone to being sucked in.

What I really want is depth.

Deep connection with God, loved ones and those I encounter on my journey.

God is love.

He is nowhere to be found in hypocrisy, jealousy, laziness, pride....

He can complete us and the broken hearts around us.

Its like I have this first aid kit packed full of plasters that heal. But its closed, its not even at the ready.

Wounds are everywhere. People need us to be all that we can be for the sake of God's kingdom. Being part time only leads to people loosing faith in God rather than finding him.

The risk of being in the thick of it is considerable but fulfilment is not only a romantic idea its the truth of living for Jesus. So instead of criticism and cringing, which at times are fully justified, I need to be sure that I am not settling for a faith that doesn't even scratch the surface.

There is so much more out there. So many more people to impact, more dreams and more blessing. The blessing of God differs from earthly success as it has a third dimension. It sparkles and is covered in peace. That's what I want...the beauty of his presence in my life every day, carrying me to the next point and independent of my own reasoning.

Mark 9:50

"For everyone will be tested with fire. Salt is good for seasoning but if it looses its flavour how do you make it salty again? You must have the qualities of salt amongst yourselves"

Holy Blindness

2008-06-11T17:22:00.006+01:00

Acts 22

"I was blinded by the intense light and had to be led by the hand to Damascus by my companions"

Paul's life was divinely interrupted. Jesus broke through his normality and ruined him in a good way.

Blinded by the strong light of his calling Paul was suddenly found by the king of kings, his creator. Yet physically he was lost. He would never find his destiny alone.

At times in our lives God breaks us. Its sore and deep. Its hard to understand. But in the falling to the ground and in the brokenness we are guaranteed to hear the call and to be blinded by his light.

Paul needed his companions to guide him to the next step. It could be said without them he may never have found the purpose of his journey.

My companions, I believe at this time in my life are patiently holding my hand, guiding me to the next point. Soul friends that will not let this holy blindness, this deep call go to waste. They are giving me the freedom to be lost for a while. Lost in God. Lost yet found and caught by his call.

Paul had no idea what the next minutes, days or years held. If he had would he have continued?

Chains, stones, persecution, pain.

Ultimately though his heart was ticking for the overall and underlying reward of liberation.

He made it to Damascus. At each point after that God instructed him on his next step.

Destination wasn't the focus. The journey with God was the whole point...yet living in the tension of the longing for home, heaven.

Time was irrelevant.

God lives outside time.

As soon as Paul got to Damascus Ananias said to him "What are you waiting for,go and be baptised". Our call is not about waiting a sensible amount of time, its about the perfection of the timing. If we are in the right place then we are in the position to be taken by God at the moment he chooses.

Paul stayed in some places two years, in other places two minutes. Yet what can be achieved in a thousand years can be done in a day in Gods kingdom.

If God calls us we cannot get away from it. No matter where you go, even to the ends of the earth he will be there and you will sense that deep longing to follow. Its in all of us.

I am determined more than ever not to waste the call of God.

How sad to let a part of yourself die just to settle.

God is blinding me with a bright light at the moment. Amidst confusion, exhaustion and brokenness, this holy blindness and the hands of my companions are convincing me that actually this is a timing thing. I am in the right place at the right time.

The future is uncertain. Like Paul our futures may be risky.

God has given us a spirit of adventure to be used by him and for him. Directing this into experiencing the world and living for ourselves is great but we find that if we adventure for God we reach our destiny and we experience fulfillment that is a far cry from a boring life.

Holy blindness, astounded by the intense light so much so that I have lost my way. I cant work it out. People are guiding me and in due time he will lift me up so I can see clearly the path ahead.

A bright light that ruins our lives in a good way.

Stones

2008-05-28T23:29:00.005+01:00

Was out tonight at cell in Belfast. Adrian and Jenny led the night and asked each of us to bring a stone with us to use to build an alter. We laid out a very spiritual Winnie the pooh rug on the living room floor and each in turn told a story of something significant that God had done in our lives. A point in time when we look back and remember stepping into something new or when something fell into place.

The stone in a way signified those special moments and we laid them down and gave thanks. It was powerful.

God has done a lot in my life. He has told me a lot, and given me so many blessings. He has shown me glimpses of the photograph that he has of me and of my life. I never want to loose sight of those glimpses, rather I want the picture to become clearer and clearer on each glance so that I become who he has intended me to be and for his purpose.

Revelation 2v17

"To everyone who is victorious I will give some of the manna that has been hidden away in heaven. And I will give to each one a white stone, and on the stone will be engraved a new name that no one understands except the one who receives it".

I believe that in life we can merely be stones, build our house with stones and have hearts like stones.

Or we can be living stones, expecting more than a hardened heart from life. Expecting the secret places with God. God has a name for me, its just for him and I to know. He has a special store of Manna, a provision that can satisfy and empower me for the journey. The secret intimate places that God has for our hearts cannot be over estimated. There is always more.

What if we, perhaps not in a physical sense but metaphorically built our houses, our lives with living stones. Each brick signifying a God moment, something we are thankful for. What if we surrounded our lives with thanksgiving and praise. What if we choose to ask God for the hidden manna and for the special personal name that God whispers to us. The photograph would soon be a motion picture it would come to life.

I'm aware tonight of the times that have been significant, the times where I have encountered God. I am also aware though that sometimes I forget to lay those things before him with thankfulness.

Thank you God for blessing. Thank you for the Manna. Thank you that you change my heart of stone into living flesh that beats to a rhythm that is only heard by you and me.

Thank you that I will one day see clearly what I now see in part and Thank you that the stone the builders cast away has become and will always be my chief corner stone.

Stories

2008-05-01T18:26:00.003+01:00

I arrived home from work yesterday with a sad and heavy heart. I am overwhelmed by the amount of pain and brokenness that exists in the lives of people in our very own communities. I rarely feel the pain of it as strongly as I have over the past couple of days.

A young man was wheeled through the doors of the hospital in what I can only describe as a sorry state. I have been to some poor places but I have never sensed such emotional, spiritual and physical poverty from a person before.

This man was the true "waster" that the educated and wise deem hopeless.

An alcoholic who had fallen a few days ago under the influence. He fell onto a hot electric radiator and had lay there for 2 days without anyone batting an eyelid. His hands burnt to bits, his dishevelment reflecting his longstanding self neglect.

When it came to finding out about him and taking his history I couldn't get any sense out of him. I tried to get in touch with family....none to be found. No friends either. Just him, his empty bottles and his weeping blisters.

Despite the smell, despite the dirt...I loved this man. Not because I am anything special but because Christ is in me...the hope of glory. The one who brings princes from ashes. the one who looks at this man and sees beauty and potential.

I smiled at him and he smiled back. In that moment I saw that image of God, the love that existed inside him, crushed as it was. I saw it. I sensed the presence of God there. I turned to the nurse and said..."I wonder what his story is".

Today I got onto the ward and he had started to come round a bit...demanding a packet of smokes...I gave him a patch to try and appease him.

I watched how the nursing staff were with him. They treated him with respect and showed him love and compassion. I watched how he lapped it up, responding to the deep craving for affection.

I remember someone telling me once that its hard to hate someone when you know there story. I know this guy has a background. His journey has led him to a place where any one of us could be if enough things culminated against us.

I am keen to find his out, to try and understand his plight, to see things from his point of view.

I was chatting to friend last night. He was telling me about a talk he went to recently where the guy speaking spoke of "right" and "wrong".

We all have a sense and deep knowledge of what is right and what is wrong. We know that this guys lifestyle is definitely on the wrong side. But as my friend pointed out, this is not the correct lens with which to view the world or more importantly individuals. We always need to know the story or we become critical and judgemental.

How dare we sit on our well educated, well brought up, affirmed high horses and claim that people are wrong...or other names.

If we use the eyes of Jesus, the lens of love we realise that the heart of the person is beautiful but their sin, like ours is wrong. Jesus is no soft touch. God is just and cannot abide sin. He calls a spade a spade when it comes to sin....its wrong! But Jesus is not as shallow as us. His vision penetrates the surface, even the hardest, dirtiest surfaces to see a potential prince, heir to the throne, son of God.

Idealism is often naive. I'm guilty of it from time to time but when Jesus lives inside us and causes our hearts to thump with desire to see the lost found and the broken mended, we cannot deny the compulsion to love even the wasters of society. Jesus would waste his time and energy on these people and call it time well spent. Eternity has no time anyway.

I'm touched, I'm broken, I'm amazed at the power of God inside my simple sinful heart.

This thing is worth more than millions.

Loving people and knowing their stories, taking a stand on their behalf when they have no voice to defend themselves. Having hope and vision for their lives despite the cloud of hopelessness that surrounds.

I'm not sure what my point is or what I'm learning. I guess there doesn't always have to be a point...just experience shared.

STORIES...lets get to know them and use them to change our critical judgement into loving acceptance.

Comfort

2008-04-13T11:34:00.004+01:00

I have been working on a smaller ward in the hospital over the past couple of weeks. It has been great to have more time to spend talking to patients and getting to know their families as they come in every day to visit. Time is a wonderful thing.

I have had a lot of moments with people that I will never forget. People who have been given awful statistical information about how long they will live. People who are frightened about the result of the next scan and people whose lives have been stolen because of the horror of past experiences. People who need Jesus and comfort.

I had one patient this week who we found had 300 tumours in his lungs, spreading from his stomach. Riddled.

How can I comfort this man?

He already knows chemo or surgery aren't options. He already knows all the information.

I had no words for him.

I could only listen to him talk about his children, his business and how much he loved his wife.

I realised that life becomes all the more beautiful when faced with the possibility of it ending soon...bitter sweet. My eyes were full but I managed to keep the tears inside. I think he saw the sparkle of the water inside them. I hope it brought a little of Christ's comfort to him.

I spoke with another patient who was drinking too much at home at night to make him sleep...he was tormented with nightmares since his youngest son was brutally murdered down the road from their house. He landed up in hospital with doctors nagging him to stop drinking so much....its really important to know people's stories.

I suppose I have realised that their is power in comfort. I have also realised that words often don't feature. Sometimes there are no words.

But there are hands and eyes and smiles and prayers.

I have started to pray for God to comfort people that lie on my ward. I have asked him to comfort members of my family and my friends who need a special touch. Prayer has transformed my life this year....God answers.

We are surrounded by a comfort craving society. People who need a sense of peace and security in their core that isn't shaken by the circumstance. Can I be a know it all and say that I know where it comes from? God, the God of all comfort.

2 Cor ch1v3

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort that we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also from Christ our comfort overflows"

Praise God for the chaplains in the hospital who on a daily basis approach the sick sensitively and with the love and comfort of Christ. I hear their prayers all the time..

Their prayers have never risen a dead body on my ward.

Their prayers mostly go unnoticed by others.

But I know that their prayer makes a difference and brings comfort, what a gift to give someone.

Is there anything better than a strong arm of comfort just when you need it. God gives me that arms wrapped round tight feeling where I feel secure and at ease. I want this to overflow as I approach the needy stranger, the friend or the loved one.

Comfort-The God of all comfort chooses to dwell inside us.

Sourced

2008-03-26T18:20:00.005Z

After a manic week at work last week I have enjoyed the Easter break. Time with family and friends is precious. My Sunday was spent at my aunts with my family. Awesome food and laughter...I'm talking kinks...roughly every five minutes. My father is a funny man and kept us entertained. Good times.

I have never felt so thankful for God's rest. I can say with certainty that by the end of last week I was tired. A bit burnt out maybe. What better way to revive heart and mind than with the spirit of God. I am parked on the sofa with a coffee, my journal and wearing my slounging gear.

Was reading about Jesus' miracles this morning. A healer, a prophet, the son of God and yet in Mathew ch 12 it says, "No one will hear his voice in the street".
He didn't make a song and dance about himself. He just was himself.
Sure, he "did" things that were pretty impressive but my feeling is that his focus was primarily on "being" rather than "doing".
He lived an honest, full life and out of "being" himself flowed the wonders of God that he ended up "doing".
I think I often get that the wrong way round!
I guess its all about the source.
My friend Alain always used to say.."Instead of trying to change our acts we should just find the right source".

In Math ch 12 v33 it says,
" Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad. For a tree is recognised by its fruit".
I personally know that when I am sourced in the good stream, goodness flows form my mind, my mouth, my hands, my eyes, my life.
When the stream gets murky I end up with fruit that can look OK but doesn't taste too good..or just nothing. There is nothing worse than an unproductive life, an unproductive day even!
Jesus was sourced in the Father. He laid aside his flesh, time and energy to dwell in and not just visit that source. From there the water and life of God flowed through his very veins producing a life that was much more than just air in and out.
A life of Spirit. A life covered and saturated in the glory and presence of God.
That presence that creates beauty from dirt.
The sick touched....and healed.
The poor touched.....and provided for.
The hungry fed, the lost found.
Not found by human persuasion but actually sought out, chased and captured by God himself.
I love it when people don't give you a choice on their love.
God does that. He tells us how it is...he just loves us...he pursues us.
Jesus left people with less of a choice than what we do sometimes as "evangelical" Christians. People only needed to experience the fruit of his life and they couldn't resist but to seek out the source.
I love the simplicity of that.

Source yourself.
Sit down at your seat at the table-not someone elses. Be satisfied with where you are placed and find the right people to sit and share with. Understanding who we are is vital to a life sourced and settled in God.

He has gifted you.
There are ways that you can hear and see and feel him that no one else on earth can.

I experience the presence of God as an actual physical touch on my skin. I cant describe what it is like but I know it so well. I recognise it every time its on me. I believe that no one else in the world experiences it in the exact way I do.

I hear God speak, not audibly as others do but in my thoughts. I hear deep truths about life and love and freedom. I see down into people through their eyes and down into their soul.
I look out at creation and I feel the strong pull of adventure and euphoria towards my creator. Sitting on a beach, standing on a mountain with my arms towards the sky like a lunatic, ready for more and anticipating the fullness of heaven.

We are each unique...to hear and feel and see God in our own individual way.
Even when we read God's word we each interpret and imagine what we read in different ways. Instead of arguing over doctrines maybe we should simply wonder at the beauty of our diversity.

Sometimes I am too busy trying to "do" more for God and miss the idea that I just need to be myself....sourced in Him. Positioning myself to be at the right place for him to infuse me.

What will it take?
It might start with a whisper, a pen, a notebook, a friendship, a trip to somewhere beautiful, a risk, a gift.
Whatever it takes it excites me to imagine a life sourced in God, producing and cultivating a freedom and joy that provokes a curiosity about the source.

Expectant Preparation

2008-03-10T22:43:00.008Z

Well I'm just finished my killer week of nights which has left me a bit of an insomniac.....feels like jet lag getting back into routine.

Nights were tough this time. A few daunting experiences but now I have a few days off to chill and to meet up with friends who recharge and inspire me. The best way in my opinion to re imagine.

I was at church twice this Sunday..

My christianometer is off the scale.

The guy speaking was making a lot of sense. I came home and thought a bit about what he said and I have now decided to plagiarise. He was talking about Jehovah Shammah which means "The Lord is Here".

He pointed out that quite often in our lives God's presence is a bit like background noise. We know its there but it can get ignored.

Jehovah Shammah moments are like when the volume is cranked up and we stand back and say undeniably- "God is Here".

I love these moments, I strive on them. Without them I would loose hope in my pursuit, forget, fade.

You see I guess we have no control over the Shammah. God is God.

But we can prepare the way.

As the speaker put it we should "do all that we can to allow him to do what only he can do"

The story of Lazarus was used as an illustration.

Lazarus lay dead in a tomb....hopeless...right?!

But the people were instructed to make a path clear for the Shammah- The revelation of God, the "God is here moment".

The people were instructed to roll the stone away.

At the end of the day what else could they do? Human strength not even a defibrillator of 2008 was raising Lazarus. Not sure if they knew CPR then either.

They did what they could to allow God to do what only he could.

He rose up.

The miracle of life came forth from the grave...unhindered by the rocks of restriction.

My friend Jayne and I sat up to the wee small hours at my house last night chatting...another symptom of post nights insomnia. We talked about how we both believe that in our different difficult situations we believe that "God can"

I believe that God can move a mountain...no problem!

The thing is we both agreed that our problem is that we don't believe we can.

I fail to believe that If I ask God to move a mountain that it will move.

Like Peter on the water it was self doubt rather than Jesus doubt that made him sink.

I am reminded again that God can.

However I also see clearly that I have a role. A role to be confident and expectant in.

To take those tomb stones and roll them back with all of my might, expectant that something alive will emerge.

Look around.

The stones are everywhere.

Friends, Family, Colleagues, Patients, Strangers...

I said to Jayne that a good way to tell if you have enough faith, even when you feel like you have none, is if you pass someone who is "down and out" on the street and you have the ability to look and see hope, a future. If you can see that that person can be somebody in the kingdom and on earth. Even a smidgen of faith is enough for God.

Faith without works is dead.

What can I do to prepare the way for someone like this? How can I roll the stone away for the Shammah moment of God to show up and bring life.

Saying hello would be a good start.

God can

We can through him

I was sitting at the back of church on Sunday morning and I saw two of the ladies from town that sell the big issue magazine at the back with their kids. I got excited.

Probably some day someone decided to live like Jesus and took the time to speak to these ladies, rather than making narrow minded judgement. saw the potential, the beauty. Rolling stones away one by one...expecting God to show up in their lives.

Every word, action, prayer for the sake of God's kingdom counts towards his presence. The volume is cranked up, we sit back and say God is here and we watch him transform death to life as only he can do.

I need to expect that God will appear. When he shows up in the small things my faith will grow so that maybe one day I will believe him and myself for the mountain moving.

Hope

2008-02-29T11:03:00.004Z

On Wednesday there was a dark cloud over Craigavon Hospital as a young girl was robbed of her life after a lorry and a school bus collided.
We were aware that there was some sort of upheaval in the hospital as there were tear stained faces and kids in uniforms with shaky hands. We hadn't heard many details at that stage.
All of our seniors were off the wards as they rushed this 16 year old girl to theatre...we hoped desperately.
We hoped that she would make it.
We prayed in our hearts in whatever individual way we do that..
Please don't let her life be snatched.

Then we heard.
We bowed our heads in disappointment.
My friend Al banged the wall with his fist...venting the frustration we all shared.

Foy Vance has a song called the two shades of hope...He describes how on one hand hope pulls us through but in the end it deals the hardest blows.
From the theatres came a slow walking, silent crowd of doctors and nurses still in their gowns surrounding a broken Mother with caring arms and tears.
I only felt an infinite fraction of this brokenness and even that felt like my heart had stopped for a while.

Her most precious gift...her child...where is the hope now?

Please pray
I know nothing about these people, its not my place to know.
I just know that I care and that these people need something to get them through this.

I have watched some pretty hopeless situations recently.
A man on my ward was diagnosed with cancer 4 weeks ago. I have watched him become a shadow of his former self...deteriorating rapidly. No energy to walk, talk or eat. His wife reads him the psalms as he lies and listens with a smile on his face...I guess that very smile is hope. Hope that there is something, that the verses he listens to are alive and that he is preparing to meet his Jesus.

He has Jesus, some don't.

I have prayed for him every day for the last month. I just say to God that I don't even know what to pray for..just something.
You see sometimes our hope is what hurts us the most in the end...when we hope for something that doesn't happen....when we get our hopes up.
Does that mean then that we shouldn't get our hopes up....just don't expect good things and then everything else will be a bonus?
I will not live like that.

Hope can disappoint but its what gets us through...it changes and moulds itself to provide what we need when we need it.
For my patient its not necessarily a hope in healing...although I know he believes God can. Its a hope that NO MATTER WHAT everything is going to be OK.

I have concluded that I can only hope in God as my rock. I can only hope in him for others.
I cant put all of my hope in the skill of the amazing but human surgeons or the medicines or the life support.
There has to be something that will not fail me. Jesus.
Even when the outcome is as grim as in these cases I have to believe that God is somewhere, doing something. That his heart breaks even more than ours.

I have so many fears, loosing loved ones majoring. Hope in God is what I know will mould itself around the situations I will find myself in.
I will never loose hope. I will never settle to expect less of God. I will not stop thumping the walls in my spirit and stamping my feet....demanding blessings and being expectant about my future and the future of others, even strangers.

Even if our faith is like a mustard seed it can grow a tree.

Can you see a small hint of hope for that guy at the side of the street with a bottle of wine and a dirty face...that small seed can become the tree of salvation in his life. You could meet him in heaven, he could be seated higher than you and me.

You see at the minute I see so many impossible things that I honestly don't have a lot of faith for...but I have a little. Enough to hope that God is somewhere in it all.

I am sick of living in a world that hopes in stuff, in relationships, in money, in success, in religion.

I want a faith that will promote the shift.
A shift of individuals stepping out of the emptiness of their own hopes and centring themselves on Jesus.

Because we have this hope...

It is easy to hope when we are in hopeful places. What about this Mother I speak of...I have no place to comment...I just pray that she finds something, somewhere to help her through. Its time to pray as though our prayer, weak and all as it may feel, can make the difference. It can.

Big Jim.

2008-02-24T16:01:00.009Z

Well the end of Feb already. This month has been a bit crazy for me as I have started a new job...I'm in surgery

now and finding the eight o'clock starts a bit hectic.

I was at cfc last Sunday....traitor I know Lurganers. Anyway, Paul was talking about finding a rhythm in life. He spoke of sacrifice and the concept of laying your life on the altar.

One of my favourite little verses from the message is Psalm 5,3..

"Every morning I lay the pieces of my life on your altar and watch for fire to descend".

Paul made a great point about living sacrifices. He reminded us that compared to animal sacrifices that were dead as door nails and never had a choice but to be burnt on an altar, we as living sacrifices have a mind of our own. We can jump on but we can also jump off again. He demonstrated this well by flinging his leg over the pulpit every now and then....very amusing.

It has made me think though. I have discovered that when I lay my life down for God, its often only pieces of my life. Parts of my life get hidden or sneak off the altar discretely.

In the old testament the burnt offering was one of the most important sacrifices. Everything had to be burnt to a cinder...nothing falling off the edges. I imagine they even burnt the ashes to make double sure.

Complete sacrifice.

I have learnt a lot about sacrifice in my life from my Dad. Big Jim as my friends know him, a bit of a legend and as it happens my hero and best friend.

He and I went for a walk in Lady Dixon park last Sunday afternoon....It was such a beautiful day and I took his arm and felt his strong protection. I, being a sucker for all things sentimental just decided to be really open with him about my life and my dreams. I thanked him for his example and for how he has always lived his life for us and not for himself....sacrifice. I am so thankful for a Father that has loved me unconditionally. I never struggled to believe that God loves me or that God has good things for me...I guess its always been reflected to me through a great Dad. It breaks me to think of the many people who dont get this priveledge...

He looked at me and said " Joy, the only way to truly live is to live for others". He reminded me of a verse from Romans...Ch 15..."We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. Each of us should please his neighbour for his good, to build him up. For even Christ did not please himself"

I guess the idea that the path to true life is through a door of sacrifice is something that astounds me. I guess the cross is the ultimate example. But its a principle for every day "living".

The paradox of the altar and the free life is beautiful.

I am reading a book by Erwin Mcmanus called Uprising. He claims in this book that in order to be truly free we must be disciplined.

Freedom and discipline to me always seemed opposites....

I think we all crave freedom.

Sometimes though we go the wrong way about getting it.

We think we get free when we ditch self control and just grab whatever we want when we want it.

How often do we see people sucked dry with this principle...left empty, realising that what they grabbed for wasn't even what they really wanted.

Now I'm all up for letting my hair down...ask my friends! I also though believe passionately in discipline.

This year I have had an hour to drive to work every morning. I made a decision to use this time to pray. I pray for my family and friends that I love. I pray for the people lying in the hospital who are dying, sore, lonely, addicted...

I love those hours in the car. I don't have any words to explain the deep freedom I have experienced form having this little discipline. It is something I have to decide to do in my will...it doesn't just happen. Its a sacrifice I guess but its a door to real life.

This is where religion is different for me. If I was given a list of rules to stick to I would be enslaved by them. I would definitely pack it in and just rebel against them all for badness.

But I CAN CHOOSE.

I can lay myself on the altar....no one killing my soul with religion and throwing me on...its up to me.

Its up to me if I go the whole hog and give God the burnt offering of my life...where even what gets burnt gets burnt. Sounds like it could be a bit painful but I know with all I have that it would lead to heavenly liberation.

So each morning, not just once in a while I will say to God...here are the pieces of my life on your altar...ALL of the pieces.

I will wait

I will watch for his fire to descend.

The fire of God creating a scent of freedom and provoking curiosity.

New and Living

2008-02-02T00:44:00.000Z

Was speaking in my wonderful youth group at church in Lurgan tonight. Was great to be back and to hang out with the guys and girls that I worked with every day on my year out.

It was amazing to look around the room and see faces looking back at me smiling with love and desire for God. Some of them have turned their lives around and have God all over them... It made me feel alive.

I was chatting to them about the tabernacle in the old testament and in particular about the table of shewbread that sat in the holy place, a table with 12 little loaves of bread representing the twelve tribes.

As I have been reading about it this week I have been fascinated at God's gift of salvation.

The old way would have been too hard for me.

The bread on the table was called "the bread of the presence". It represented God's desire to connect with people and his desire for people to connect with each other....community.

The thing is though that things were strict and rigid.

Only the priest could go in...and thats only if he had been on his best behaviour.

The priest went in on his own.

He wasnt allowed to sit down.

He could eat the bread....but only at the end of the week when it was stale...as a ritual.

Sounds like a lot of us wouldnt have had a look in.

Imagine you were standing outside the tabernacle looking in and thinking..."God is in there". That would have frustrated the life out of me.

Imagine a table with stale bread that you cant even sit down at.

A table for me is sacred and a place where community and love rule...seats help with the comfort thing.

Anyway I am reminded of how thankful I am for the new and living way that God provided through the "bread of life", Jesus.

The new way says when your standing outside looking in at the bread on the table, looking in at God;

You are free to come in

You are good enough to come in...no matter what...you dont have to be somebody.

You can sit, eat fresh bread, and you dont have to go alone....bring friends, soul friends....its incomplete without other people.

The new way also adds an extra. Jesus commanded that we GO. We run into the holy place with confidence and freedom, we do it together and then we go and we share our bread with the least of them...that is after all sharing it with Jesus himself.

I encountered a young man in a serious state of lonliness this week. A 24 year old, abused as a child, homeless, addicted to alcohol, without a friend in the world. He swallowed razor blades and a fews packs of paracetamol to try and escape it. He refused our treatment because he didnt want to live.

Do you think he needs some of the bread on that table...Id say its his only hope. I cant describe my heartache. I could only say...he needs love, he needs people, and he needs Jesus. Hell is his everyday life..right now all Im doing for him is praying because I have no idea what else to do.

God's desperate quest to connect with us has been glorious. He completed it.

We must help others connect through Jesus-we must tear off chunks of bread and put them in the hands of a starving world.

I am astounded that God chose the tent to dwell in rather than the temple. Solomon built a palace for God.

God prefered to be close to the dirt, in a make shift tent that moved from place to place.
God isnt like what we think sometimes.

Jesus was not like the temple of solomon. He wasnt frim and upright in a religious sense. He wasnt grand in status.

He was a bit like the tent that David made. He was never far from the dirt of humanity, he was real and yet he was not only full of God he was God in his fulness.

I reckon that the way to be most like him is to live in the new and living way.

Running into his presence every day, having community with soul friends and most importantly connecting with and serving the least. I guess this new and living way might be a bit like the tent...not as classy but deep and beautiful. Thats what I want.

Hebrews
Since we have confidence to enter the most holy place by the blood of Jesus Christ by a new and living way, opened for us by the curtain that is his body…
Let us dray near to God
Hebrews 10:19

Pure

2008-01-17T19:03:00.000Z

"When he appears we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is.

Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure".

1John3v2..

When we fully see someone we cannot help but become like them if we love what we see.

Naked truth can change the soul and the world.

If our hope is not in the flesh but in him...in the naked, dressed down, real, Jesus. Not the one that the statues portray but the one who spits in the dirt to heal the blind, hangs out with prostitutes and loves the leper.

If we hope in him and trust in his way we are purified. Our heart is dipped into a bucket of water, the thirst quenching stuff...real holy water.

How could we not be crystal clear?

Do you ever have a better day than when things seem pure?

When you feel connected with others, when your day has mattered, when you give of yourself.

Purity...is that not what we long for in our messy lives..

What does it mean to be pure?

In our wee country of religion automatic words spring to mind...virgin, t total...

O.K people with these qualities have good morals but does it qualify us as pure?

A "fast" as the bible states is to loose the chains of the oppressed, bring liberty to the captives, love the least.

You see our world needs a church that sees Jesus...the real one not just the religion. The heart of God.

Naked and Pure.

If we see him we WILL change and be like him. We will have a purity that will burn the eye like the sun. Then the world can see past our fluffed up good living, boring as watching paint dry christianity and catch the dream.

People are in prison.

People are starving.

People are abused.

People are in chains.

All over the world and even on our door step.

I would love chains to be loosed by God through his people.

I personally would love to see a few more people in hospital give up their suicide attempts.

I'd love to see a few more kids in Thailand rescued from the brothels in which they are chainned- literally.

I would love to see a few more families in Africa eat a decent meal every day and put shoes on their feet.

I would love this more than a lot of "stuff".

I guess I want to live in the life that God had ordained for me which is much less selfish than it is now. Its a life that sells out and gives it all away in order to gain an invisible, supernatural wealth of spirit.

Is it just me...are we all longing for this somewhere inside?

Are we truely satisfied with our "me me me" lifestyle. Personally it leaves me a bit clogged up , the water gets mirky and i feel incomplete.

I know what gives me real joy as opposed to just happiness.

So Im pencilling in some changes in 2008. These things will likely go unnoticed by others and definitley wont win me a seat at the high achievers table but Im looking forward to an eternal table that will never be empty. A table where last is first.

Thank God that one day I will see him FULLY. Accept then I will have eternal eyes to look at him forever without even a blink.

Cant wait.

Sexy is..

2008-01-10T12:19:00.000Z

Well January 2008..how did that happen.

I had such a great Christmas and New Year with family and friends. January really has started with a bang for me. I kind of wrecked my car in the snow on my way home from work on Friday morning..had just finished 7 nights of work and was feeling all smug that I had a whole week off. Slightly scary experience. People say though that it makes you think about life and how you really ought to make the most of it but for me I just got out of the car, drank a cup of tea and then went to bed. Leaving my poor father to deal with the mess.

I now have a new car and just a couple of bruises to tell the tale.

Anyway I was at church on Sunday night. It was nice to be back after not getting for ages. Phil was speaking and he was nearly leaping of the platform with Passion. He said that when he gets to meet Jesus he wants to be totally wrecked saying...."I gave that my best shot"

I left church asking myself....What makes you tick Joy, what are you going to give your best shot?

I am determined to spend my life on the things that make me catch my breath, the things that make my heart thump inside me.

I have just started thinking about what makes us tick as humans....sex, fame, flattery, attention, money, success...etc etc.

About the sex thing.
Sex is a gift from God, not that I am an expert but I guess God has been speaking to me about his idea of what it means to be sexy in the true sense. I read Sex God by rob bell a while back...no John I am not trying to be the female rob bell but his take on Sexuality and spirituality is really interesting.
The title of my post is not some sort of on line dating scheme..well..

I reckon sex that the world lays on a plate is easy...satisfying for a while but leaves people a bit empty I guess. 2D in a way.
God offers a 3D life when our connections with people in friendships or even sexually are fulfilled. There is something deeper where we feel secure and full of peace. There is a sparkle, a twinkle in our eye that is more than mascara and eye glitter...soul,love,passion.

A sexy person in my opinion is someone who is comfortable in there own skin, someone who connects deeply with others and someone who loves the least.

You see when you figure out what makes you tick and live in it you will be sex on legs!
You will attract those around you as sparks fly out of your life. Living in your purpose. Living by giving your life away and taking risks that cause others to think your a crazy ass.

I'm writing like I'm on drugs, I realise, but I have decided this year to just say what I think,
to live in my purpose of speaking truth and cutting through religious crap.

Part of who I am is loving the poor. I cant shake it. When I hear a soulful song on the radio my soul takes my mind to places were there are beautiful people who have very little, who are sick, lonely, lost. And there am I in the middle of them. If that's not a dream I don't know what is.
Will I settle for an OK life....i could and it would be OK but I'm pretty determined to get a bit of the supernatural stuck in there. Where things happen that make me wonder if heaven is already here.

Sexy....well I'm single as ever but pretty sure that as I live in my purpose, comfortable in my own skin I will have the depth of God that will speak more than just superficial surface stuff. And I'm not afraid to express how sexy I feel on the inside, on the outside.. within limits.

When it comes to finding my guy it will definitely be about the 3D, the depth and connection that is good on the surface and the soul...

God is good.
As Bono who also is a pretty sexy man says,
"God is with the poor
and God is with us if we are with them. "
(see my links for his full speech)

God inside people is sexy. Physically and spiritually..in fact it stops me separating the physical and the spiritual as it all just rolls into one.

Seeing is Believing

2007-12-08T12:18:00.000Z

I'm sure you are familiar with the term "blind faith". I use it pretty often, like when I'm trying to wing something!

Its a phrase that I used to think made sense as a christian, believing in God without actually being able to see him. I used to think that the fact that I continued to believe in God without evidence of his existence somehow made my faith stronger. I have since changed my mind.

Blind faith is weak...too weak for me. If I don't see something I end up just pretending to believe.

The other night in work one of the guys I work with asked me why I believe in God. "Joy, have you ever seen him?" I think he was taking the piss, expecting an answer that started with a "no, but", followed by a long justifying excuse for my faith.

That's not what he got.

Nor did he get the God is like electricity..."you cant see him but you can see his effects" line.

So have I ever seen God?

Well YES as a matter of fact, I HAVE!

My faith is not based on things unseen. I believe in God because I see him every day and their have been times in my life where I have looked him in the eye.

So have I had earth shattering experiences in the holy spirit and mind blowing prophecies? Not really. I haven't shook in a "meeting" in years. I also don't think I have ever fallen over in the holy spirit...OK maybe once or twice but not lately.

God has not been in the quake, more often in the whisper.

I asked my friend on Thursday a question that could only come from me in response to his seeing God inquest..

I asked him if he had ever been to Africa. I honestly think that Africa would make an atheist uncomfortable. You see on one hand their is so much suffering that you are left thinking....."how can God allow this?". But then you meet the people.

I have yet to find a stronger source of God on earth than in these heavenly people.

People with HIV, a few shillings if any, little food, a mud hut and dirty water to match their feet. No stuff. Nothing to hide behind.

So when they smile, they mean it. They don't smile because of what they have, they smile love from their souls. God is love and he dwells in the least.

Jesus in disguise.

One young man in the hospital in Kenya where I worked took me so close to Jesus that I know I will recognise him when I see him. I have seen him since in similarly broken people.

I have seen him during my work this year. Usually in the drunks...this doesn't mean you will see him there too...your source may be totally different to mine but eventually if we all switch our eyes on we will collectively see him painted over our world.

I told my friend I wasn't so much a fan of prim and proper religion. Think by this stage his head was melted.

Jesus did not embrace religion. Jesus embraced those that religion rejected. He trashed the grandeur of the temple and chose to visit the poor, touch the leper, respect the prostitute. Things I find hard to do because of pride came naturally to the king of kings.

I remember a day on the ward when a young guy was dying. His entire family were around his bed with candles lit, prayers on the wall, a priest praying with them and rosary beads in their hands. To be honest these things are a bit alien to me but none of the religious symbols took away or added to the fact that God hit me in the face as soon as I walked in through the door. The kingdom of God is at hand not in the sky, not in the future but here and now. Where people are together in love...

You know I have also seen little glimpses of hell on earth..no I don't mean when I have to work 90 hours a week, though that comes close.

When I was in Thailand I visited a prison. In the dark cell of the prison I saw a glimpse of the kingdom of darkness. Little children that had been prostituted to older men...in a dark,cold cell.

I simply said I never want anyone I know to spend eternity in a place like that.

I guess what I'm saying is that I have a fresh reminder in my heart today that this thing is REAL.

This is not just good living religion for the sake of a clean conscience. Its not about living an abstract life on the "narrow way". The world is the broad way. So instead of disappearing up some narrow christian path a million miles away from reality we have to hit the dirt.

We have to SEE God in the least

SEEING is believing.

The more you see the more you will believe that God and you together can change things. Rescue people from those prisons.

Remember though that with revelation comes responsibility. I'm challenged that since I have seen the truth in this, I have a responsibility to live it.

That is the hard part.

Ignorance is bliss but seeing God is heavenly and worth the sacrifice.

Greener Grass

2007-12-02T02:14:00.000Z

I feel like at the minute God is teaching me a little about waiting.
The bible is full of waiting. people in the desert for years accusing God of forgetting about them...yet he never did...not even to spite them for their lack of faith.
God remembered.

I have come to know a God who remembers, even when I forget.

Recently I have been stressed to the point of depletion. Work has literally over ruled a lot of the normality of my life and so I on many occasions have felt a bit lonely and disillusioned. God why am I here, what about your promises??
God has not forgotten...I have.

I have experienced love beyond comprehension at work over the past months. Some of the stories I have shared on my blog, many I have kept to myself. People have literally broken my heart this year...people who are dying in their bodies, people who are dying in their souls.
I am more aware than ever that each soul is precious and lovable...even the untouchables...in fact in my experience especially so.

Even amidst these little glimpses of beauty I have still been looking for the next big thing...an adventure, an escape, excitement, a journey....I have even thought about going away to work next year in a different country...why?? Because the grass is greener...right?

I guess I have just come to a conclusion that the colour of the grass is not the issue. It is more about appreciating the beauty of the different shades, even if it is the dried up areas that don't appeal to the senses. The beauty of God is in the dirt...almost sounds irreverent but its true.

The alcoholics that society shuns have spoken and reflected more of God to me this year than any preacher on a platform. They are honest. They screwed up but at least they can admit it rather than hiding their problems under a moral blanket.

Simple things like encountering people with real problems and getting to smile at them and make them laugh is what has kept me alive through a difficult time.

God dwells in unusual places. Not necessarily in the places with green grass.
God is in the desert. God is in the night. God is in the storm.

I am trying to stay put.. to appreciate the things I could so easily want to escape from...maybe it is here that I will find part of my destiny,

I believe that we will never loose our salvation once we have it..but we can loose our inheritance. Like the bowl of stew in the bible that stole a young mans inheritance...a need for a quick fix to satisfy, an escape to the greener grass could rob us of our purpose.
Maybe my encounter with a "no hoper" from where I am at is the green grass, maybe through them I will discover more of my destiny than if I was in Africa right now doing "mission". Again a case of christian labels and narrow mindedness.

Yet there are dreams in my heart for Africa and for other things that I want.

Wait. Embrace the now. Take God. The journey will unfold, the grass will be different in different places but always the right place at the right time.
Thank God for this reassurance. Thank God their are too many examples of this principle proving true for me to be wrong.

So I'm waiting but I am in no rush, not watching the clock. Why would I want the greener grass if its the season for other things...It is possible to wait and to be content at he same time.
I will never settle for a normal life...its just not me. But I am learning that the spectacular is not all flashing lights. Often its hard and sore but deep and saturated with love...worth the wait.

God Refractions

2007-11-12T12:00:00.000Z

Haven't heard the word refraction since fifth year physics with Mr Houston. Those of you that went to Lurgan College will smile when you read his name...lets just say he was entertaining. Only I could derive some sort of depth from such a source!

I have been thinking a lot recently about my faith and my motives. I sometimes wonder how much of my views are due to distortions rather than the original truth.

In Galatians ch 1 Paul says regarding the message of Jesus..

"I didn't receive it through the traditions.
I wasn't taught it in some school.
I got it straight from God..received the message directly from Jesus Christ".

I find myself asking questions. Why do I go to church? Why do I sing the songs...sit stand sit stand? Why do I go to home groups? Read Pray??

I know why I should do all these things..to get something straight from the heart of God. To catch him.

However sometimes I come away feeling like I have been to Christian school..."here is how Christians say I should live"

Alain, one of my pastors and friends was speaking in my church last night. His message was straight from God, you can always tell. He told us that Jesus not only came to die but to show us how to LIVE.
Do I live like a "christian"? Yes probably.

Do I live like Jesus..sometimes I'm not sure I take enough time to think about this part as I'm too busy trying to live a peer pleasing religion.

Traditions don't always come with banners and public holidays. There are so many little rituals in our lives, taught by others that we can easily forget to question our motives in. Some are good , some fundamental to life. Yet a learnt ritual should never get between us and God and more to the point should never cause us to refract God into the world. We should reflect him as he is...love and justice. Way too often we make him out to be as into status as we are.

God asks us to love the world. Why do we complicate it with our labels and religion.Maybe our mission weeks could be replaced by individual and corporate Jesus living.

I do believe we live in tension between structure and spontaneity. The organisation and activity geared towards mission keeps us accountable. If I were to depend on being led by the spirit to reach out to people I may never reach out at all. Set times, groups and "meetings" can sometimes keep us accountable to our "talk".
However I also long for spontaneity..a child like faith. When do kids ever arrange when they are going to meet up or what game they are going to pencil into their diaries. Yet they live life to the max and have a better social life than most! I long to be radical and allow God to be unleashed without being refracted for the sake of tradition.

I guess the tension between spontaneity and structure is a place that we all struggle to be in. That is if we are determined not to just live as we are told.

I believe in the individual living in love, coming together with friends also living in love, sharing stories to keep the dream alive.

My fire goes out without people and their stories.

I am spending the next couple of days off work meeting up with friends that inspire me to be more like Jesus. From those chats I know their will be fruit born for God in my life over the next days and weeks in the hospital and in my life.

Thank God for people. Being with people makes me feel alive, listening to their hearts helps me remember that its still ok to dream.

Lets live in the tension, not too structured and not so spontaneous that we have no accountability and drift off. Above all lets rediscover receiving straight from God and not from some school of tradition. We don't need to change anything about God we just need to reflect rather than refract.

Simply yourself

2007-10-22T23:01:00.000+01:00

"If you are content to be simply yourself you will become more than yourself" (Lk Ch14 msg)

The story in Luke ch 14 about the banquet has struck a cord with me this week. Its basically about a big bash where misfits are invited along with the higher classes. The basic message is that the stuck up folk fall flat on their faces, even losing their places. Those that are humble and accept their place settings end up exceeding themselves, being elected to greater positions. Those that are happy to be simply themselves become much more.

What a difficult task in the world that we live in, even the "christian culture" that we can become a part of, to be content with "simply ourselves". It has been a difficult concept for us humans to grasp for centuries.

I am fully aware that it is in that place of self acceptance that God has his best grip on me. I know that God will never let go of me but I believe that its my responsibility to position myself at exactly the right angle for him to scoop me into his will and into my destiny. For him to be my JUSTIFIER.

I often try to justify myself. I open my mouth and empty prideful words come out that conjure up a picture of me that is a bit skewed, a bit more clean cut. There are times when we should just sit, be still, quiet. Maturity in God can provide us with the inner confidence that makes us realise that we don't have to spout all the time. We don't have to let people know how many mission teams we have been on, how many speaking events we have coming up or how many christian books we have read that month. I give these examples as I don't think that it is flashing our money and our status that is always the problem. Sometimes it is how celebrity we are in the christian world, not what you know but who you know....a VIP at the banquet.

The real you is special.

Not special because of what you have achieved, what you look like, what your job is, who you date, who you know...

Special because you were created in the image of God. Its not about you..its about who he wants to be through you.

God says I am his

God says I am worthy

He is my justifier...He says I'm OK so I don't have to prove myself, I'm not sub optimal.

When I allow him to play this role I become more beautiful than when I have a thousand impressive words to say or pretty dresses to wear. I become the real me, settled in who I am, grounded in God...simply myself.

I then figure out the this simple girl that I am can become so much more. Just a girl but full of the resurrection power of God.. I can touch people with God. I can love people with his beautiful heart.

Sometimes this simply yourself concept involves being vulnerable. Not pretending that you are too strong to need help, not being too ashamed to admit when we have screwed up.

The powerful thing about this is that when we become happy with our simple selves, we drop the act. We are real.

People that are real are attractive.

Perhaps we hold people back from embracing God when we make ourselves out to be more then we are. A little reality may push those who feel "not good enough" to just lay themselves bare before God too and accept themselves...soon to realise that when God gets involved they become much more than they ever thought possible. A high seat at the most beautiful, eternal banquet.

Second glances

2007-10-13T09:54:00.000+01:00

I have been going to Belfast Bible College to do a module on The Lord's Prayer. All sounds pretty "christiany" but to be honest the guy who takes it (Desi Maxwell) has the most open minded view of the Kingdom of God that I have heard in a while. Its refreshing.

The kingdom of God is different from any other kingdom. The powerful, political kingdoms on earth may be impressive but when you think about it they are under our human control. We have to be in charge on an individual and corporate level. Its up to us how much we grow.

The kingdom of God is much less definable, it is inclusive and it is under the control of the highest power that exists...yet status is not a prerequisite.

In Mark there is a story about a guy that goes out to sow seed.

"This is what the kingdom of God is like: A man scatters seed on the ground. Night or day whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows. HE DOES NOT KNOW HOW.
ALL BY ITSELF THE SOIL PRODUCES GRAIN. First the stalk, then the head and then the full kernel. As soon as it is ripe he puts the sickle into it, because the harvest has come.

In the world we look for spectacular. Yet in a world plentiful in information we lack awe and wonder at the simple things. The spectacular miracles of God are in the every day things and people that we walk past without a second thought. The kingdom asks you to think twice.
The bread on your table is a miracle.
It was a seed, somehow all by itself it grew, it was harvested, it was made into flour, it sits on your table and it sustains you. The problem is we have never had to be without it so the miracle in the story can be less inviting to our senses compared to our big mac and fries....same concept of the grain and soil there too by the way.

We live in the miracle of God...life. We are not in control of how the seed grows. I try to remind myself of this in the hospital. I try my best for people, I try to use my head and my heart to help people but at the end of the day I am not in control..."all by themselves they grow" just like the seed. They grow sicker sometimes but I have to realise its not in any ones hands.
My knowledge is the slightest scratch on the surface of what is really happening inside people. God only knows!
But I am there with my hands stretched out scattering seeds of hope. I am willing to stick the sickle in and work hard but at the end of the day other forces push the seed up from the soil.

Lets start laying hold of the miracles around us. Lets lay hold of God in our situations. A guy cried with me the other day and said " I have no hope, I have wasted my life with drink". I told him that there was always hope, that there was always a second chance.
The kingdom asks you to take a second glance at what the world takes for granted, throws in the rubbish tip even. Life tells this guy he is a looser but Jesus fundamentally disagrees and so do I, if I don't I have big questions to ask myself! I stuck my hand in the bag and scattered seed. Thing is I have to leave it, pray for it and nurture it but ultimately realise....I have no control over how it goes or grows from there.

Zion and the villages

2007-09-30T15:31:00.000+01:00

No blogs for a few weeks as we still haven't got t'internet in our new house. So as blogging is my main way of venting deep stuff prepeare yourself for this one...catching up to do!

Psalm 97
The Lord reigns let the earth be glad. Let the distant shores rejoice.
Clouds and thick darkness surround him. Righteousness and justice are the foundations of his throne.....
Zion hears and rejoices. The villages of Judah are glad because of your judgements O Lord..

I have a bit of a "thing" about Zion at the minute. It's a word that I cant shake and it carries a deep sense of a home for me.
I guess I have been thinking that while I already dwell in a place of righteousness and eternal life through Jesus as a child of God, I await, I anticipate ZION in all its fullness. We can glimpse more and more every day and these glimpses are as important as the destination.
I can only describe this as the feeling you get before Christmas when that very first coca cola add comes on..."holidays are coming". I remember as a kid the amount of emotion and excitement that little add conjured up inside me.
I think its that season in my life where the adds are on for Zion. There is something in the air that resonates with my soul...pangs of hunger for Jesus...for his ways on earth!
"The distant shores rejoice"
I am praying that this spark will spread to the distant shores...that a song will rise.
The verse says that Zion, us, will HEAR...

Are you listening? If you are you will hear the whispers of God in the footsteps of the lost, in the cry of the broken and in the silence of the lonely heart. When you hear you cannot stay quiet. You have to make a shout about it.
You will look upon injustice with the eyes of Jesus. You will not contain yourself...you cannot be static in the face of injustice. The Joy of the Lord wells up and we the church make a song and dance...or should do, demanding the right ways of God.

As the verse mentions the villages are as significant as the city. The small groups of individuals who feel too weak to walk alone. It is vital to choose fellow travellers on this road to Zion that sharpen us. Those in your village must encourage you to be centred down on the righteous and just foundations of God.
I know a few of my travellers. I am still discovering others along the way.

The path to Zion will involve death. As John Piper says "Fleeing from death is the shortest path to a wasted life". Our path may get painful and sore, as some of you know already. But it is a guaranteed win win situation. JOY PEACE LOVE.

Can you hear it? The sound of heaven. A sound that at the end of the day is so down to earth it takes us to the dirt. It reminds us of why we love life. We love to love.
Lets not turn a blind eye to the injustice at the side of the road as we walk to Zion. If on a daily basis we remind ourselves that actually we have already arrived, that the kingdom of God is at hand in the dirt and filth and beauty that surrounds us then we can start living like the earthed heavenly beings we were created to be. Anticipation balanced with awareness of today.

Zion, Perhaps not a city on a hill but a state of living in the ordinary but with the undertones of God holding us in Love and demanding equality.

Rocks on the Road

2007-09-11T20:56:00.000+01:00

Romans ch 9: 30-33
"And Israel who seemed so interested in reading and talking about what God was doing , missed it. How could they miss it? Because instead of trusting God they took over.
They were absorbed in what they themselves were doing. They were so absorbed in their God projects that they didn't notice God right there in front of them, like a huge rock in the middle of the road. And so they stumbled into him and went sprawling.

Isaiah gives us the metaphor..
"Careful! I have put a huge stone on the road to Mount Zion, a stone you can't get around.
BUT THE STONE IS ME! If you are looking for me, you will find me on the way..not in the way".

This wee passage from the message brought me fresh excitement about risks and distractions.
How often do we miss God in the midst of our desperate quest to tick all the christian boxes, to please people and to do all the right things, or not do the wrong things as the case may be.
I have started to consider "distractions" with a little less scepticism. Perhaps distractions, obstacles, a stone in our path, could simply be God starring us in the face.
If we seek him we will find him, though he may not look the way we thought he would.
I'm sick of logic and reasoning in my journey to Zion. I'm open to these distractions that appear from a place of freedom and love.
I am jumping on the band wagon, screw the predictable road to Zion. Lets embrace the stones in the middle of the road. Lets see them as meeting God on the way....not an obstacle in the way.
This means lots of different things for different people. For me it means taking risks that could be interpreted as mistakes getting in the way of a normal, successful life. You know what your rocks on the road are. Don't bump into them and go sprawling...embrace!

Deep Love

2007-09-02T16:07:00.000+01:00

Just finished my week of nights at work...7 nights in a row was a bit of a marathon but I actually really enjoyed the adrenaline and the fact that I was thrown in at the deep end and challenged. I'm now trying to work out what day it is as my body clock is disorientated.

Obviously lack of sleep ain't good for the old emotions and a few nights during the week I got a bit teary eyed. The patients that were sick literally broke my heart. I have never really experienced such deep love for absolute strangers before. My heart at times was pounding with compassion. Surely this is God inside me. This kind of force is inexplicable, the force that compels us to love deeply.

At about 3 am on Thursday morning I was called to confirm a death in one of the wards. On my way over I met this elderly man in a fluster ringing the bell to get into the ward. He was upset and I asked him if he was OK. He replied with a shaken voice, "my wife is dying". I knew in the back of my head that she had already died as I had been called to confirm it. I let him in and he ran, limping, up the corridor in desperation. When he got to the ward the nurse said to him, "I'm sorry but you didn't make it on time". He wept like a baby and then went in to see her. I stood outside the door with tears rolling down my face.

I went in too and put my hand on his shoulder. He told me that she had been ill for 11 years and he had hardly ever left her side. That evening he decided to go home for some sleep and he missed her passing.
I cannot describe the deep love I felt for this man. God is love...I think it was God in his essence.
How privileged to work in an environment that provokes and cultivates this love. How honoured to be a vessel for God to express his broken heart to the broken hearted. This man was devoted to his wife to the end, he was faithful and loyal to her.

God is faithful. He never leaves us, he loves us deeply. At this moment I have never been more thankful for this simple yet profound truth. I am almost beside myself with desire to sell my life just to love people like this. It's hard to know how sometimes but usually its pretty simple. God's love reaches deep, deeper than our eyes. I choose to believe that my love for this man on Thursday penetrated him deeply and in some small way helped ease his heavy heart. Is there anything more beautiful than touching someones heart with the deep love of Jesus. No matter what field we find ourselves in we are surrounded by opportunities to channel the depths of God into the lives of strangers.

Choices

2007-08-23T09:59:00.000+01:00

During the past few weeks I have been thinking a lot about choices. I have started a new job and I suppose I have been back tracking and looking at how on earth I ended up where I am now.

We are the sum total of the many choices that we have made along the way. The thing that we often fail to admit though is that some of these choices have been wrong, based on pride and selfish ambition. And so we live in the consequences .

This can be small scale like choosing the wrong sandwich in the canteen or it can be a big deal, leading us to "situations" where we can feel lost and confused. Even as Christians, we still make wrong decisions. I say that with slight mockery as I know sometimes we think that if we put he word christian in front of something it is automatically good. Christian music..always good, right?!?

Lets face it we are stuck in the middle of a fallen world tangled at times in our own and other people's lousy decisions.

However (and this is a big but) God sets things right.

He doesn't take us away from our tricky situations as many of you know only too well but he becomes present within them. As natural as a breath he brings beauty, weaving together a fabric that could never be manufactured. And so we embrace this promise every day...God setting things right for us. Not making things easy but creating a peace and assurance that he is with us.

Romans 10, 11-13

"It is the word of faith that welcomes God to go to work and set things right for us. You are not "doing" anything -you are simply calling out to God, trusting him to do it for you. That's salvation. With your whole being you embrace God setting things right for you and then you say it out loud, "God has set everything right between him and me".

Right now I can feel the hand of God setting things right. As I have been given the privilege of getting to hold the hands of the dying and embrace their loved ones who are in despair. I have realised that things are very broken, humanity is fallen. Yet I can sense the spirit of God in these thin places. Bitter sweet. Death is dark and bitter, yet there appears a love and devotion between people that demands a long look below the surface and into the things of the soul.

I will never comprehend life, God, death but I can be a channel between them. I can bring God into death and bring life. It is pretty amazing that I can experience the "God setting things right" salvation and then allow him to set things right through me.

This is how God is showing me that no matter where our choices lead us he can always bring love, beauty and restoration.

Salvation excites me. Its stronger than any wrong choice man has ever made, stronger than death even, and yet it in itself is the most important choice of all.

Down to earth

2007-08-10T19:01:00.000+01:00

Well this week has gone a lot better then the last. In tiny glimpse like moments I have found satisfaction and enjoyment in my job. I have had little epiphanies of God that have been down to earth yet profound.
I had a moment today when a guy from our ward was being discharged. This guy is a long term abuser of alcohol who has had multiple admissions with the same old story. This time things got a bit more serious for him and he came in with a serious bleed. It took him a while to recover and so he became a well known resident on the ward. He would get agitated on a daily basis and security were called on many occasions, as was I to administer some sort of "calming" effect....sedatives!
Anyway today my consultant told me to discharge him. I wrote his letter and he got his plastic bags of inpatient belongings to take with him. I met him on the corridor on his way out and I was struck with an overwhelming burden for him. He seemed to have so little hope, given a two day supply of a drug for withdrawal and then what? Wouldn't he despite his promise to abstain return to his old ways? I realised that during his two week stay he had not one visitor. Can you imagine that? He was in that ward all that time without one person coming to see if he was OK, no one to bring him lucozade or grapes.
Where would he go? What would happen to him when he took his next drink? Who would be there if he got sick again? What would happen if he knew about Jesus...would he change? Would Jesus care about his sin or would he just take him home?
I think we know the answer to the last question.
I am Jesus to this guy. I may be the only person he will ever meet that will smile the love of Jesus into his soul. While I treated him with tenderness and compassion I did not dream of taking him home.
A step too far? Beyond the call of duty? Dangerous? Ridiculous?
If Jesus Christ (the person I am supposed to imitate) was standing in that corridor watching that guy hobble into a world of hopelessness with nothing more than two plastic bags full of stuff I know he could not have refrained from intervening, offering a lift, a shelter, hope. Jesus was never just moved with compassion on the inside he moved by compassion, reached out his arms across social and political boundaries and transformed the lives of the least.

I had a similar experience on Saturday in Starbucks. I was there with my friends trying to chill out on my day off. This guy was sitting beside me who was clearly intoxicated, this was made more apparent by the large bottle of vodka that he brought out of his bag every now and then to top up his coffee. He chatted to me a bit, not much of it made sense but I felt an affection towards him. He got up to leave and I realised that beside the chair was a bag of IV fluids that he had just removed from his arm....obviously an absconder from A$E and by the look of him a liver disease candidate. He was young but weathered by years of self neglect.
I didn't offer him a lift home either. I did think about it but chickened out.
As I continue to ask God for a compassion and love for people I realise that i need to take steps and risks to unleash that compassion into action. Where is the line between radical and ridiculous? Is there a line? or are the two words synergistic, better together than alone. I often think it makes for healthy spirituality when we provoke a tut tut for time to time. Perhaps if we met Jesus we wouldn't like or respect him much. His hobbies and company may cramp our style.

Mundane life can provoke some extremely profound truths. It can lay bare reality for what it really is. It has shown me so far that God doesn't always promise everyone an easy life but he does promise us himself. To have God inside us is much more down to earth than what we can be laid to believe. God longs to dwell with the least. It is no surprise then that when we are full of God we are drawn to those that the world repels from.

I am challenged and praying that in the words of Foy Vance "when I see someone defiled I should look them in the eye and smile, take their hand or better still take them home".

Glory strength

2007-08-06T19:54:00.000+01:00

My first week of working life is now over and I must admit its been a tough one. I'm struggling and doubting myself on many levels.

I suppose you could say I am hard on myself and expect way too much too soon. Over the past week there have rarely passed ten minutes when I haven't been thinking, "I'm crap", "I can't"...

The only person putting pressure on me is me...God has been speaking and I have heard him loud and clear.

In Collosians ch 1 in the message it says "We pray that you will have the strength to stick it out over the long haul. Not the grim strength of gritting your teeth but the glory strength God gives.

It is strength that endures the unendurable and spills over into joy, thanking the father who makes us strong enough to take part in everything bright and beautiful that he has done"

I can say that I have experienced this glory strength. It is what I am relying on and it somehow ends up spilling out of my spirit and my countenance as joy.

Last week I relied on my own "grim teeth gritting strength", I felt like there was so much pressure in my head that I couldnt think striaght, sleep or function. I was weary and discouraged.

On Sunday I asked my Pastor to pray for me. He did and I have felt the benifit of his words. I told him that I was confused about where God was taking me and that I needed strength. Phil looked me in the eye and told me that I already knew where God was taking me, his promise had not changed. He said that I just need to settle myself in the mundane and stop looking for the spectacular. He also reminded me that if I wait and endure God will honour me. In the mean time I need to rely on the glory strength of God.

I am blessed to have people in my life who can cut through the crap and say it straight. We need to focus on the promise not the problems. We need to realise who we are...not believing the lies of the enemy. As a child of God, born of spirit, water and blood I am able. I am promised glory strength that spills over into joy. I am realistic and know that some days life is a bitch but maybe thats when it counts.

I also realise that Jesus lives in the mundane not the spectacular. Everyday I see the alcoholic, the dying, the broken...As mother tereasa said, "each one of them is Jesus in disguise". Surely to love these people is more important than success. Surley the kingdom of God is at hand in these ordinary people. Surely the glory strength of God is enough to heal their hearts.

The first day

2007-07-31T19:10:00.000+01:00

First day on the wards. It was a tad crazy and it's definitely going to take me a while to get into the swing of it. I hate looking like a prat but for the next few months I am going to have to eat my humble pie.

The picture above is a good representation of what happened today. The cardiac arrest bleep went off and about 15 of us charged through the hospital and gathered round a patient. The phrase too many cooks spoil the broth springs to mind. In our case though we are not even proper cooks but amateurs...more of a stew than a broth!

My first call was to see a patient with itchy elbows! I joke you not. I prescribed her E45 cream and piriton..Rocket science!

Anyway I am tired and have sore feet. The life of bumming around is over but I will look on the bright side...I have a salary! Scary, prat like moments to come. I will keep you updated on the most embarrassing ones.

Before I left this morning I was reading Colossians remix

"So chosen by God for this new life of love, dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you: compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline. Be even tempered, content with second place, quick to forgive an offence.....And regardless of what else you put on, wear love. It's your basic all purpose garment. Never be without it...

Do your best. Work from your heart for the real master, for God, confident that you will get paid in full when you come into your inheritance. Keep in mind that the ultimate master you are serving is Christ."

It is easier said than done but I'm hoping for a few defining moments with regards to serving the sick this year. A lot of people need love and that is our basic principle.

I have this little prayer stuck in the first page of my new journal for this year:

"Help me to find my happiness in the acceptance of what your purpose is for me. In friendly eyes, in work well done, in quietness born of trust and most of all in the awareness of the presence of your presence in my spirit" (Celtic prayer book)

Here goes my mad year as a junior doc. If you get sick don't come to Craigavon hospital, at least not for a few months.

Awakening

2007-07-23T20:22:00.000+01:00

Well I'm just back from France chillaxed to the max. I am all set for the stress of working life now that I have indulged myself on daily seafood, vino and sunshine. Going to work in a skirt is never quite as painful when your legs are not like milk bottles!

We were staying in Saint Jean de Monts, I highly recommend a visit there sometime. Its in the Von Die region and there is lots of beautiful places to go see. Family got on well apart from the obvious bit of tension.

While I was away I kept singing that song "beautiful one" over and over in my head. It actually started to annoy me. It sort of reminded me of when the telly tubbies first came out and I couldn't stop humming the tune...out of control...La La and Po....

I actually remembered that I wrote an entry in my journal last year about that song (not the La La and Po one!). It was when we were on a retreat in Rathlin Island for a meditation day. That sounds like geekitis I know but this is one of the things I scribbled in my book that day.

For those fortunate enough not to have a brain like a christian duke box here are some of the the words..

Beautiful one I love

Beautiful one I adore

Beautiful one my soul must sing

You have opened my eyes to your wonders anew

You've captured my heart with this love

Because nothing on earth is as beautiful as you...

The beauty of you majesty awakes my soul to sing

How wonderful, how beautiful you are

The beauty of God is breath taking but our eyes often miss it. We are out of focus.

When we focus the lens of our soul by fine tuning our relationship with him...we begin to see. We can suddenly see God in the ordinary. Our eyes open even more and our field of vision widens.

When we catch a glimpse of this beauty our souls are awakened. No amount of self motivation can achieve this freedom. Its Christ inside us, the whisper of hope, of glory.

His beauty begins to radiate through us. Our faces, our hands, our lives.

People notice it, stand to their feet and gaze up.

That's why we are here, to make people look at Jesus not us. When its all about us we make presumptions that are probably false. If we see Jesus in each other there can only be truth and love.

So God opens our eyes, we see his beauty and we are awakened!

Awakened for what? Whats the point in waking up to lounge around? What are we spending our awakening on? Are we allowing this energy to reach the surface and become a living, walking, breathing resurrected Jesus?

His beauty awakes our hearts to sing. What does it mean to sing?

Sometimes its just as shallow as our lungs.

But the song of the Lord, the song within is deeper than just flesh. It's the reason we were created.

Sometimes though the well has been stopped and we become numb in spirit. We loose the ear to hear and the voice to worship. Not just a sing song but the song of our lives radiating his beauty to the broken, cups of water to the thirsty.

We no longer make a song and dance about ourselves but about this mystery.

Nothing on earth that impresses us can come close to the beauty of God. Yet how often do we forget to look for him in the things we see. When we get a glimpse we cannot stop the song escaping our lips, our hearts, our lives. ( A bit like that stupid telly tubby tune...flip sake now its in my head!)

Hope this reminds you, as it has me, not to waste those little moments of awakening.

Oh and about the line "whats the point in wakening to lounge around"...well I have done it in a physical sense for 2 weeks solid and it ain't all bad!

High Places

2007-07-08T09:41:00.000+01:00

Just sitting in the airport waiting for a flight to France with my family. Its a hard life! I'm away for two weeks and I am going to rip the backside out of chilling out as I return to begin life as a Junior doctor (can you hear my palpitations?)

This is a time in my life where there are changes. Changes are good but scary! I feel a little unsettled but I am more aware than ever of the tangible presence of God. I can even feel it on my skin.
I'm anxious about the next year and I'm also a little confused as to where God is going to take me. I can't say that medicine has stolen my heart. Its not my deep gladness and I don't think that its my "calling" whatever that is! What I do know is that God is taking me on a journey into my inheritance.

Last year I took a year off medicine to do an internship with church. During that year I had so many clear pictures from God of the high places that he would take me. I dont mean high in terms of importance or recognition but rather a state of spirit and connection with why I am here.
This year have become a bit lost and bewildered about the words that God spoke to me. I started to think, "maybe it was just my imagination" All those times God was giving me dreams for the future, were they just my own dreams? were they unrealistic?

But God has spoken "Joy, you have seen reality"

God is more real than our own human reality. Sometimes a mist forms on the mountain where we once saw the high places clearly. This mist can be any form of earthly "reality"...exams, hurts, stress, bills, stuff.........
What we need to remind ourselves of though is that the world is fading away, there is no real substance.
In the daily prayer book I'm reading it describes this mist as an illusion.

What if we really grasped this.That what God says and his kingdom are more real than our own physical existence. It would and should transform our attitude towards life, our future and our faith.

God is on my case. He weaves things in at just the right time. The thing is that even though I am starting to work in a job that hasn't necessarily won my heart and although I know it will involve heart pounding moments, I need to remember the high places that God has shown me. I also need to bring those high places into my every day life. To see beyond the mist, not just looking forward to when the ship comes in. I can live in the high place on the wards of a hospital as much as on the platform of a church if not more so!

We need to keep walking in obedience until God intervenes. Then we don't need to worry about manufacturing our own destiny. God will lead us into beauty. He will set us down at exactly the right seat at the table. We wont need to look around at other people's position. I know that the place where I am appointed will be where I will find my deep gladness.
The dream of the high place is not about the geography..Africa, Outer Mongolia..
The dream isn't a job, a church, a ministry.

The dream is Jesus. To know him and to meet him every day in whatever I do. To be who he says I am. To be beautiful in him. To stand in my destiny.

TS Eliot defined a pilgrimage as

"The precise directions to somewhere often awkward to find and your not quite sure why you came or what it is that your looking for. If you find it, or it finds you, words cannot easily convey what has happened but it becomes part of the journey that continues"
Lets go on a pilgrimage to the high place. Lets bring it into our normality so that we can change the mist into the reality of Jesus.
I'm aware how deep this may sound. Hey I was up at 430am so I'm allowed to ramble. I'm off to find my family and hit France for some more sunshine. Factor 25 all the way this time...keep the wrinkles at bay!

Does my bum look big in this?

2007-06-30T11:11:00.000+01:00

Was chatting to my house mate Ruth last night after her cell group. They had been having a discussion about Christian attitudes to clothes, make up and image.

Both of us felt challenged and convicted a bit by the whole thing and we realised that it has been a long time since we questioned ourselves or checked how free we are in this area.

I realise that I rarely ever leave the house without make up. I realise that I feel in a better mood when I look good. I realise that I love it when people tell me I look nice and also I have realised that, without noticing it, I am competitive with other girls-even my friends about how I look. If I go out for the night and one of my friends looks more attractive or gets more attention than me it bugs me! I don't even realise this all most of the time but when I really think about it these issues are present. I'd probably feel that a guy would like me less if he saw me "just the way I am"

To compensate for all these fears I strive.

I have some dinners and weddings coming up soon. Trying to find an outfit was like trying to find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. What will no one else have? How can I turn heads? How can I be noticed? Me me me me me me me me ....

Does all of this just lead to self obsession? I was thinking about when I was at school. No fashion sense, bad skin, awful hair and about 2 sizes bigger than I am now, yet, I was happier with myself. I never gave diets or make up a second thought. Maybe I was more beautiful then in the real way.

This is an issue that as Christians we need to tackle. I have tried to exaggerate my experience, mentioning things that I would never notice unless I made myself reflect. While a hint of this exists I cant feel the fullness of the freedom that Jesus offers me.

I lead a cell group of 16 year old girls in church. How can I lead them in this if I am struggling myself.

Ruth and I being as intense as we are got really into this at ungodly hours of the night! We started to talk about how we decide on what to wear each day. Often it is about-do I look fat in this? Lets be honest for most of us it is about how what we see in the mirror matches with what we have been conformed to believe is "hot" or "not".

I remember nights in our house when none of us wanted to go out somewhere because we had "nothing to wear"or "in an ugly mood". Surely to embrace life and to spend time with people is more important than how we look. We live in a dirty, dying and broken world. What if we cared as much about it as we do about how we look.

On the other hand I believe that it is a good thing to respect and look after yourself. I like to try to make the best of myself and to enjoy being feminine. As in everything there must be a line, probably an individual and personal one and yet a difficult one to find.

Why do I wear make up?...To hide my insecurities? To attract attention? To feel more beautiful? to enjoy being girly? For me? For others?....For God?

I honestly don't know but this is the only sort of conclusion that I can come to on this right now...

When the source of the tree is a good stream the fruit is lush and the fruit tastes sweet. When we are in the right place we radiate God. At these times make up and nice clothes can be a complementary elements in helping us reflect and celebrate the beauty within.

We glow- not just the blusher and lip gloss but we really mean it!

When we are sourced in ourselves the stream gets contaminated. The fruit may look o.k but it doesn't taste good.We can be all dolled up and yet no sparkle, no joy. The world is sexy but it doesn't sparkle.

How can we be truly beautiful, sexy and living in God's will? All are good. It just goes sour when our body is the focus and when it controls the state of our mind and spirit. Surely it should be in the reverse order.

This is a tough one. As soon as you feel free in this you can end up back at square one again. Sorry for my brutal honesty but I am challenged to try and work on this.

Boys you're not exempt but I'm aware that this post must be like the blogger equivalent of a virgin vie party...

All and in all

2007-06-25T10:43:00.000+01:00

Got up this morning pretty early. This is a rare occurrence these days as I get lazier and lazier during my pre- work relaxation stint. Read the good old Lurgan Liar which was as mundane as ever. Then I saw my wee bible sitting beside the tv…remember the daddy or chips add on tv? She chose chips! Well I surpassed myself and read Colossians. Just want to write what I scribbled down as I read through it. I fear this post may reveal my brethren tendencies.
Here are a few of the verses that struck a cord with me.
Ch1: 29 “To this end I labour struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me”
Ch3: 15 “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace”
:16 “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly”
Ch4: 2-3 “Devote yourselves to prayer being watchful and thankful….that we may declare the mystery of Christ for which I am in chains”
Ch4: 12 “That you may stand firm in all the will of God, mature and fully assured”

These words resonate with me at this time in my life. The first verse particularly reminds me that when I labour for God in my own strength I grow weary. However, when I source myself in all his energy he is able to work powerfully in me. There is no striving or comparing. Things click.
Not only are my “works” affected by "God energy" but also my spirit. Recently I have struggled to discipline myself to spend time with God. I have felt that unsettling restlessness- probably the route of a lot of the world’s anxiety. I need to let God’s peace rule in my heart. In a way this just happens when we position ourselves to receive God’s light like the branches of a tree.
This energy affects my mind. When I submerse myself in the words that come from God's heart they dwell in me richly and lead to pure, intentional and effective thoughts. The careless slowness is transformed into clear connections. My thoughts towards myself, others and God are much more healthy and productive.
My relationships are also impacted. Devotion replaces halfhearted promises. I begin to love people from my core and so I desire to pray for them, demanding blessing and believing for change. I am compelled to be watchful for people always thanking God for those who surround me.
The supernatural energy of God pushes out my boundaries. How far will I go…chains? Even though I will never figure out this “mystery” and even though I always have more questions…I will loose myself to it. It doesn't fit logic but it makes more sense than anything I have ever contemplated. These chains are not always made of metal. There are many ways that we can become God slaves, beaten into submission and yet free and alive.
Finally this energy affirms my identity. A child of God. I become mature and assured in this. Absence of his presence leads to a wavering, wandering down paths of discontentment and insecurity. I start looking for affirmation in all the wrong places. I come to a dead end and then I come back. Thank God there are always open arms to greet me.

Christ is all and is in all. I guess if we remain in him there is nothing missing.

Good times at the van..

2007-06-21T18:48:00.000+01:00

I took my wonderful youth cell group from church up to my sister's caravan in Kilkeel this week...banter!

We made our way up to the land of mourne on Wednesday evening. On route we stopped in Tesco and got stuff for a BBQ. We also got our C.O (Carry Out)....not buckfast you will be glad to know. They talked me into joining them in trying Teso's answer to red bull, Kick, and boy did it give us the kick we needed to stay up all night long! We ended up on Cranfield beach at 1 am having a camp fire and toasting marsh mallows...gotta love it!

These girls have been such a blessing to me this year. Its amazing to watch them grow into the young women of God that they are being called to be. I have watched their hearts break for their youth pastor this year, I have heard the prayers from their hearts for their friends and families and I have personally experienced their warm encouragement. They think I'm their leader but they have lead me to places of truth and to a deeper understanding of faith.

We sang a few songs around the fire ...totally out of tune but it was amazing to hear the girls express their love for God...

Pastor Kirsty read us a bit from the notes in her iconnect bible which we all got quite excited about..

"As I listen to the groaning of creation for its creator, heard in every alley, every bar, every church, every home and every heart, I will hope that for every human cry there is an answer. Hunger was not created for the sake of being hungry but for the sake of the experience of being filled with what is good"

These girls have all experienced a hunger in their young souls and they are now sure that they have found the source that will satisfy down to the inner core. They have been filled with what is good and they want more! They can hear the hunger groans of the world and they long to spread this good thing around. Watch this space these girls are armed and dangerous!

Jinners aka Jayne Clarke came with us this week to help me keep the teeny boppers under control. Ever pray that someone would get to know Jesus and then go beyond you? Well I'm watching it happen and its exciting.

Recommend the kick for a lethargic day...it does the trick...even if it is rocket fuel.

Seeking the Island of Promise

2007-06-12T22:21:00.000+01:00

Just back from Spain..sun exposed to the max and it is now certain that I will look like a dried prune by the age of 30! It was such a good time with friends...exams and stress are long gone.

I have been reading/borrowing one of my friends books. Its the celtic daily prayer book from the northumbrian community. Part of this book focuses on a call to risky living. It records an account from one of the ancient saints known as Brendan the navigator. He wrote about his sea voyages as he followed the call to bring Jesus to different parts of the world. His account provides an approprite analogy of the spiritual journey that we are each called to.
Brendan's Mountain Prayer

"Shall I abandon the comforts and benifits of my home, seking the island of promise our fathers knew long ago, sail on the face of the deep where no riches or fame or weapons protects you, and nobody honours your name?Shall I take leave of my friends and my beautiful native land, tears in my eyes as my knees mark my final prayer in the sand?King of the mysteries will you set watch over me? Do I assume that the storms will be stronger then me? Christ of the mysteries can I trust you on the sea?The sea takes me where I do not know but I gladly go"

This prayer callenges me to ask:Have I got the courage to leave the familiar and journey into the unkown, beyond the sensible and the secure?I don't know why but I have a feeling I will face important decisions regarding this kind of stuff. I want to develop a level of faith that leads to abandonment to God...After a week in the sun I am growing pretty comfortable in my nice wee life...What am I willing to sacrifice? How far will I go on this exploration of God?

Beautiful Soul

2007-05-29T15:12:00.000+01:00

"I'm tired of all this nonsense about beauty being only skin-deep. That's deep enough. What do you want, an adorable pancreas? "
Jean Kerr

Over the past few days I have spent a lot of time chilling out as I do best. I have just finished the dreaded finals and its been great to spend some QT with friends. Starbucks has featured quite a lot...think they will start charging me rent soon. My two wonderful housemates and myself spent all day Monday drinking coffee and chatting about life.

I cannot put a value on the deep friendships that I have with beautiful people like these. I love it when you talk to someone and you can see right down into their soul. I love it when you experience the presence of Jesus by sharing how your day was over dinner. In my opinion I have the best friends anyone could ask for.

Beauty is much more than what we are led to believe. True beauty is that of the soul and it causes us to look deeply and then to look up. True beauty glorifies God and doesn't just flatter the subject. I have been brought to a deeper understanding of true beauty by some of the people that I share life with. I am convinced that we are never more beautiful than when we live in the calling and purpose of God, when we have the courage to walk around in the open place of who we are, when we live from our souls.

I love being a girl...do guys tell each other how beautiful they are? Or do they say it with a macho back pat?? Im hoping for the majority its the back pat!

Fish out of water

2007-05-26T18:09:00.000+01:00

Well I have now finally realised it is the 21st century and time to start blogging like the rest of the world. I suppose you could call it peer pressure.
I feel a bit like a fish that has jumped out of the bowl. Who knows maybe I will develop a flare for cyber space. I ask my friends to make sure I stick to this as I am a good procrastinator.
I want to use this little space to share the goings on in this little head of mine. To make them subject to public viewing may or may not be advisable.