I had a revelation this morning...so obviously I'm going to inflict it!
I don't like Christmas...I'm not the only one. Bad things happen to people at Christmas...and it's a lot of work for little return, unless you like stuff...I got a house full of stuff, it doesn't really do it for me. This Christmas we thought we might not be able to get to Manchester because of the weather and Arriva trains...this I explained to my kids is not a Christmas disaster, even without presents...family or turkey...I have the worst Christmas ever to remind me that this Christmas, is a good one, and we make it home, we have presents and turkey! Result.
Sometimes like this morning, I wake up grumpy, and determined to be un-polite. Arriva trains have given me a reputation of being unlucky with trains! I don't believe in luck. I don't believe in trains.
I don't feel at home anywhere, this is not new, in fact in many ways it used to be much worse, like when I was married...
People get on my wick. Seriously!
I often feel depressed and I don't mean slightly unhappy, I mean physically aggravated, aggrieved and mentally, emotionally, spiritually confused, which is what it's become after two and a half decades, a kind of physical/mental wrongness, an emotional malaise.
If I don't wake up depressed, I wake up right! Lol it's hard to say which is worse.
While we're at it...I don't like the rain, rain makes my day three times harder than normal. There's only two places that have as much or more rain than Swansea, and they are Scotland and Manchester.
My life is traumatic. That's why I'm funny! Traumatised people are hysterical.
So the revelation???
The revelation!
Home is where the heart is.
Good that isn't it? Home is where the flamin' heart is! So this morning I found my heart in a funny place...again. My heart is in Mount Pleasant Baptist Church Swansea. How weird is that? You see it's not my heart, not really, my heart died ages ago, long, long, long ago! But anyway that's where this heart is, that's my revelation...it moved me! I even, I even feel better, and it's raining, and Arriva trains are robbers and rubbish and I'm not home, not yet, but you know I found a heart and I've had worse, believe me I've had worse x
Sunday, 30 December 2012
Wednesday, 19 December 2012
happy new year
It's always nice to say good bye to an old year,and hello to a new one, recharged, rebooted, re-gigged! ( I just broke my new phone btw...I'm writing this to stop myself from getting a hammer out of the shed...)
But the very end of the year, the last leg, is very stressful, very dark and very busy just when all you really want to do is hibernate...plus " 'tis the season to be jolly!" and there's nothing so certain to depress a depressive than being told to be in a good mood, is there? I think all this conflict usually leads to some sort of overload, followed by some inward collapse, and anything with anticipation attached, just takes longer...(I mean I know I don't even get Christmas presents any more and I'm still too excited to sleep on Christmas Eve.) What a strange time of year! I feel like I've been writing lists, and packing presents and shopping for an age....and I haven't got anything for anyone else yet.
Always there is good and bad, highs and lows, shit and sugar, but this is a particularly heightened time of highs and lows- and as such might make you feel like going off your head till it's all over.
So my year 2012, the year I was forty, the highlights and low lights.
1) Alfie turned four, and I have to say my life is a lot easier, and he finally admitted that, on occasion, he can be naughty. But on the flip-side, he also discovered attitude...so instead of just saying no to everything, he now says no to everything with swag, eg. "No, no, no cream, I not itchy, it's not necessary, Mum you're nagging."
2) Holiday at Porth Cariad with both boys, Mum, Dad and niece, and bezzie mate. Low- made to play scrabble, and watch Lord of the Rings Trilogy.
3) Turned forty, and very pleased about that. Started to hate things that never bothered me before such as buses, technology and radio four comedy...
4) Went on a weeks writing course with Carol Anne Duffy...stopped writing poetry.
5) Went to Poland, started drinking double espressos.... with sugar.
6) Started new job, miss friends at old job.
7) Elis turned 17, Elis will be 18 next...
You see where I'm going with this, you can't have the light without the grey, murky, slightly annoying, disappointing dark, darkness etc. Except...actually you can!! Did you ever get it when Jesus talks about the new wine and the old wine? Cos I know I didn't. (And if you hate me for this- I can't help it...) not until I read Ezekiel that is!!! O yes my favourite book! You see in Ezekiel, or rather just after, it occurred to me that when God gives you a new heart...though you do your best to bring it down, when God lifts you by his Spirit, though you do your best to dampen the flame...it's not a one stop shop my friend, not even a two stop... You know that saying, 'There is power...power, wonder working power,' you know that?...Usually what brings you down is something daft ....like the world. And we are in the world, but we ain't staying in it x I fixed my phone, btw, who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks...wotevs.
And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins.”
Mark 2:21-23
Neither do people pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.”
Matthew 9:16-18
Ezekiel 1:25-28
New International Version (NIV)
25 Then there came a voice from above the vault over their heads as they stood with lowered wings. 26 Above the vault over their heads was what looked like a throne of lapis lazuli, and high above on the throne was a figure like that of a man. 27 I saw that from what appeared to be his waist up he looked like glowing metal, as if full of fire, and that from there down he looked like fire; and brilliant light surrounded him. 28 Like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the radiance around him.
This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. When I saw it, I fell facedown, and I heard the voice of one speaking.
Ezekiel 3:23-24
New International Version (NIV)
23 So I got up and went out to the plain. And the glory of the Lord was standing there, like the glory I had seen by the Kebar River, and I fell facedown.
24 Then the Spirit came into me and raised me to my feet.
Ezekiel 21:17
New International Version (NIV)
17 I too will strike my hands together,
and my wrath will subside.
I the Lord have spoken.”
But the very end of the year, the last leg, is very stressful, very dark and very busy just when all you really want to do is hibernate...plus " 'tis the season to be jolly!" and there's nothing so certain to depress a depressive than being told to be in a good mood, is there? I think all this conflict usually leads to some sort of overload, followed by some inward collapse, and anything with anticipation attached, just takes longer...(I mean I know I don't even get Christmas presents any more and I'm still too excited to sleep on Christmas Eve.) What a strange time of year! I feel like I've been writing lists, and packing presents and shopping for an age....and I haven't got anything for anyone else yet.
Always there is good and bad, highs and lows, shit and sugar, but this is a particularly heightened time of highs and lows- and as such might make you feel like going off your head till it's all over.
So my year 2012, the year I was forty, the highlights and low lights.
1) Alfie turned four, and I have to say my life is a lot easier, and he finally admitted that, on occasion, he can be naughty. But on the flip-side, he also discovered attitude...so instead of just saying no to everything, he now says no to everything with swag, eg. "No, no, no cream, I not itchy, it's not necessary, Mum you're nagging."
2) Holiday at Porth Cariad with both boys, Mum, Dad and niece, and bezzie mate. Low- made to play scrabble, and watch Lord of the Rings Trilogy.
3) Turned forty, and very pleased about that. Started to hate things that never bothered me before such as buses, technology and radio four comedy...
4) Went on a weeks writing course with Carol Anne Duffy...stopped writing poetry.
5) Went to Poland, started drinking double espressos.... with sugar.
6) Started new job, miss friends at old job.
7) Elis turned 17, Elis will be 18 next...
You see where I'm going with this, you can't have the light without the grey, murky, slightly annoying, disappointing dark, darkness etc. Except...actually you can!! Did you ever get it when Jesus talks about the new wine and the old wine? Cos I know I didn't. (And if you hate me for this- I can't help it...) not until I read Ezekiel that is!!! O yes my favourite book! You see in Ezekiel, or rather just after, it occurred to me that when God gives you a new heart...though you do your best to bring it down, when God lifts you by his Spirit, though you do your best to dampen the flame...it's not a one stop shop my friend, not even a two stop... You know that saying, 'There is power...power, wonder working power,' you know that?...Usually what brings you down is something daft ....like the world. And we are in the world, but we ain't staying in it x I fixed my phone, btw, who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks...wotevs.
And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins.”
Mark 2:21-23
Neither do people pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.”
Matthew 9:16-18
Ezekiel 1:25-28
New International Version (NIV)
25 Then there came a voice from above the vault over their heads as they stood with lowered wings. 26 Above the vault over their heads was what looked like a throne of lapis lazuli, and high above on the throne was a figure like that of a man. 27 I saw that from what appeared to be his waist up he looked like glowing metal, as if full of fire, and that from there down he looked like fire; and brilliant light surrounded him. 28 Like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the radiance around him.
This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. When I saw it, I fell facedown, and I heard the voice of one speaking.
Ezekiel 3:23-24
New International Version (NIV)
23 So I got up and went out to the plain. And the glory of the Lord was standing there, like the glory I had seen by the Kebar River, and I fell facedown.
24 Then the Spirit came into me and raised me to my feet.
Ezekiel 21:17
New International Version (NIV)
17 I too will strike my hands together,
and my wrath will subside.
I the Lord have spoken.”
Tuesday, 18 December 2012
Rescue me.
Recently we read Ezekiel and it reminded me all about how I used to live and it was very painful and upsetting and I couldn't sleep much because that's what sin does, it makes you cry and keeps you awake at night. But then after we finished it was great! I felt so much better. If Ezekiel suggests God will break your heart and I think it does ( Ezekiel 5:8-13, 6:9-10, 14: 4-5) the Gospel of John says Jesus can fix it.
And that's pretty much the story of my life, I first met Jesus aged 11 when I went to see Billy Graham, and then again crossing a road when I was 36. It's shocking to me how I could completely forget him in between, but then read Ezekiel!
It's very annoying when Christians say things like they met Jesus crossing a road. My eldest questions that, 'Like what? You saw a bloke in sandals with long hair and a beard...?' But really if a Christian says they met Jesus, I think it means they have experienced what's called 'the conviction of the Holy Spirit', that is they recognised their sin and realised their need for a Saviour.
That's why I love John 8, where Jesus rescues the woman accused of adultery, everyone knows the line, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”
Jesus says perfect things doesn't he? Anyway the passage is also famous for the fact that he writes in the sand...
"But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. 7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground."
...and so people say he was writing the sins of the men waiting to stone the woman, or the Ten Commandments or a Psalm or whatever...but he could have been doing a Sudoku for me, that's not the way my mind works any more, my mind says if Jesus had wanted me to know what he was writing in the sand...then it would have been written in the passage and anyway Jesus isn't in the business of showing you anyone else's sin, just your own.
To me the most fascinating part of that passage is the power of that pause. The authority of it. As if he may be waiting...or praying...and what happens next is astonishing because the crowd of angry, self-righteous, blood lusty men all experience the conviction of their sin...9 "At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there." They just met Jesus.
I think if I'd have been Jesus I'd have left me dangling for a bit just because I forgot about him for so many years...fortunately I'm not Jesus. And Jesus always gets it right, read John.
Do you ever get things wrong? I do. If I were a footballer, I'd be Vinnie Jones, if I were a character in a film, I'd be played by Joe Pesci....If I were a book of the bible... I'd like to be Ezekiel, but I'm none of those things, I'm just a born again, twice, weak-willed, sinful woman looking to Christ to show me the way, because Jesus always gets it right...and if you need a Saviour then you'll want to meet Jesus too.
And that's pretty much the story of my life, I first met Jesus aged 11 when I went to see Billy Graham, and then again crossing a road when I was 36. It's shocking to me how I could completely forget him in between, but then read Ezekiel!
It's very annoying when Christians say things like they met Jesus crossing a road. My eldest questions that, 'Like what? You saw a bloke in sandals with long hair and a beard...?' But really if a Christian says they met Jesus, I think it means they have experienced what's called 'the conviction of the Holy Spirit', that is they recognised their sin and realised their need for a Saviour.
That's why I love John 8, where Jesus rescues the woman accused of adultery, everyone knows the line, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”
Jesus says perfect things doesn't he? Anyway the passage is also famous for the fact that he writes in the sand...
"But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. 7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground."
...and so people say he was writing the sins of the men waiting to stone the woman, or the Ten Commandments or a Psalm or whatever...but he could have been doing a Sudoku for me, that's not the way my mind works any more, my mind says if Jesus had wanted me to know what he was writing in the sand...then it would have been written in the passage and anyway Jesus isn't in the business of showing you anyone else's sin, just your own.
To me the most fascinating part of that passage is the power of that pause. The authority of it. As if he may be waiting...or praying...and what happens next is astonishing because the crowd of angry, self-righteous, blood lusty men all experience the conviction of their sin...9 "At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there." They just met Jesus.
I think if I'd have been Jesus I'd have left me dangling for a bit just because I forgot about him for so many years...fortunately I'm not Jesus. And Jesus always gets it right, read John.
Do you ever get things wrong? I do. If I were a footballer, I'd be Vinnie Jones, if I were a character in a film, I'd be played by Joe Pesci....If I were a book of the bible... I'd like to be Ezekiel, but I'm none of those things, I'm just a born again, twice, weak-willed, sinful woman looking to Christ to show me the way, because Jesus always gets it right...and if you need a Saviour then you'll want to meet Jesus too.
Tuesday, 11 December 2012
lets talk about addiction...
You might be sitting there all smug, and I hope you are.
You might not be addicted to anything...some people aren't!
Who knew?
Whereas some people are what you call addicted. You'll see them drunk at 9 o'clock...walking with sticks, with ghost faces, you'll see them on the bus, paralytic, you'll see them at taxi ranks, shouting...you will see them.
Some people are what you call, addictive personalties. which is like being an addict, only slightly up-market.
An addictive personality, basically gets addicted to like everything and anything because it repeats the same behaviour over and over again...what ever the thing.
Let's say Espresso coffee, or facebook, or suduko or football or shopping or boys or sex or flamin' table clothes...I don't know.
But you will be addicted to something...even if you don't know.
It's not a reserve of High Street.
Does it ever strike you that Swansea is such an 'addiction' afflicted town?
It does me.
For such a little place. It does have a grand reputation...
Is it that addicted people like to live in the same vicinity?
Or is it anything to do with Swansea having once been a Gospel city? That is that once, not so long ago...most people in Swansea went to a bible believing church.
Wow! Amazing! Truly....
Ok so the behaviour of addiction is repeated patterns of thought, and of action...but basically it's in your heart..it's what you love...It's what you love, love, love...it's who you run to, where you go to...what you do, do, do.
It's the wrath of God.
That's what I believe addiction is....
In RBT I learnt
1. Obedience is not as hard as you think.
2. Repentance is not a one time happening....
3. share the Gospel of Jesus...even to addicts...even to single mothers, even to boys....
Ezekiel 14: 4 Therefore speak to them and tell them, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: When any of the Israelites set up idols in their hearts...'
Because you might think addiction starts in your head...or in your past...or in your hurt...but it doesn't, my friend, it starts in your heart, heart, heart.
You might not be addicted to anything...some people aren't!
Who knew?
Whereas some people are what you call addicted. You'll see them drunk at 9 o'clock...walking with sticks, with ghost faces, you'll see them on the bus, paralytic, you'll see them at taxi ranks, shouting...you will see them.
Some people are what you call, addictive personalties. which is like being an addict, only slightly up-market.
An addictive personality, basically gets addicted to like everything and anything because it repeats the same behaviour over and over again...what ever the thing.
Let's say Espresso coffee, or facebook, or suduko or football or shopping or boys or sex or flamin' table clothes...I don't know.
But you will be addicted to something...even if you don't know.
It's not a reserve of High Street.
Does it ever strike you that Swansea is such an 'addiction' afflicted town?
It does me.
For such a little place. It does have a grand reputation...
Is it that addicted people like to live in the same vicinity?
Or is it anything to do with Swansea having once been a Gospel city? That is that once, not so long ago...most people in Swansea went to a bible believing church.
Wow! Amazing! Truly....
Ok so the behaviour of addiction is repeated patterns of thought, and of action...but basically it's in your heart..it's what you love...It's what you love, love, love...it's who you run to, where you go to...what you do, do, do.
It's the wrath of God.
That's what I believe addiction is....
In RBT I learnt
1. Obedience is not as hard as you think.
2. Repentance is not a one time happening....
3. share the Gospel of Jesus...even to addicts...even to single mothers, even to boys....
Ezekiel 14: 4 Therefore speak to them and tell them, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: When any of the Israelites set up idols in their hearts...'
Because you might think addiction starts in your head...or in your past...or in your hurt...but it doesn't, my friend, it starts in your heart, heart, heart.
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