Leaning

So, here it is. I have prevaricated and procrastinated for long enough. It's time to tell about that experience. You know, the big one, the one where I wondered if I'd see 2012 through.

What a fellowship, What a joy divine
Leaning on the everlasting arms
What a blessedness, what a peace that's mine
Leaning on the everlasting arms

This is me in the 2nd week of December, or thereabouts.

I suddenly went down with pneumonia in both lungs and went straight into hospital. I was there around 2.5 weeks. I don't have an awful lot of memory of the first week, it's a tad blurry. I remember being really, really scared. I was on constant 02 and still couldn't suck enough air in. I felt like I was drowning.

Lord I'm leaning, leaning
Safe and secure from all alarms
Leaning, leaning
Leaning on the everlasting arms

I only remember calling out to God once. 'Why?' The answer was in the silence and the struggle for every breath. In the recollection of Jesus' own agony. In the ministrations of the staff, in the love of my family and friends. No awesome glimpses of heaven or visions of angels. But a God who was next to me, in it with me, who knew.

What have I to dread
What have I to fear
Leaning on the everlasting arms
I have blessed peace with my Lord so near
Leaning on the everlasting arms

This was the worst exacerbation of my disease in at least 12 years. I cannot remember before such a desperate fight. I would wake up and be unable to move. The pain came with the lack of breath. I'm still recovering from that bit.

Lord I'm leaning, leaning
Safe and secure from all alarms
Leaning, leaning
Leaning on the everlasting arms

I'm aware that this is sounding somewhat melodramatic. But it's cathartic to get down how it was, exactly, and come to terms with that. I was too busy battling to reflect an awful lot, and then too busy recovering. I think I wrote on Facebook after the first week 'I feel like a piece of driftwood washed up to the shore.' I felt exactly that - like I'd been bashed around on the rocks for a week or so, and now it was time to rest. I'm still there, really. I've left the house a few times now, but normal life is still on the housebound side.

Oh how sweet to walk in the pilgrim way
Leaning on the everlasting arms
Oh how bright the path grows from day to day
Leaning on the everlasting arms

It puts a lot of stuff into perspective, something like that. Obvious stuff like the importance of good relationships, like being so very grateful for the love of family and friends. And less outward stuff like realising the importance and even sacredness of each moment. No point trying to live for the future. I could be straining for when I am 'better', whenever that may be, without taking each day for what it is, for the beautiful moments therein. For the laughter with my children over daft YouTube clips, for an evening with Adventure Bloke watching a favourite programme. For each moment with friends who visit. Life doesn't need to be so quick, so furious. Slowed down things can be appreciated.

Lord I'm leaning, leaning
Safe and secure from all alarms
Leaning, leaning
Leaning on the everlasting arms

I'm pondering on contentment at the moment, and what St Paul meant by 'the secret to contentment'. A lot of people seem to base it on circumstance, on health, on relationships. When one of those things is stripped out is it possible to be content? Is it possible that contentment could be to do with the moment, and finding God in the moment? More on this to come as I ponder.

So I'm Leaning. I was Leaning in the hospital, leaning further in than I had perhaps done ever before. The everlasting arms were there, as they always are and always will be. I think that in leaning, far from losing my own independence, I gain all that I am supposed to be, and the further I lean, the further the truth of this is revealed. Try some leaning yourself :)

With thanks to the amazing David Crowder Band.

 

Line in the Sand

I haven't blogged for a good while. I'd kind of lost my blogging confidence, muttering such thoughts to myself as 'no one really wants to read your meanderings anyway' or 'people are just being nice.' You know the kind of stuff. So it got longer and longer since I blogged and I got less and less inclined to.

Added to that, my faith was taking somewhat of a bashing this year. Looking back, there was always a (wobbly) certainty and peace underneath it all, but certain events gave me extreme difficulty and I didn't do the thing that would help the most; ie pray more. I looked back on this year as a bit of a wasted time. Two hospital visits and numerous infections, severe shortage of spoons and general exhaustion took a lot of the life and strength out of me. I was functioning at a fairly good level for much of the year, feel settled into my new community with lovely new friends but something was missing. It seems my poor health ground me down to an extent that apathy and hopelessness often reigned somewhat.

Then there were a couple of things that happened to friends and friends of friends. The loss of beautiful children from senseless disease, the loss of jobs, the loss of faith, Much loss and no sense in it. I got bashed.

So I went to New Wine this year a little fearful, in all honesty, a bit bitter possibly? Wondering how I would cope with emphasis on physical wholeness and healing when this pain had pervaded much of the year for me and my friends and acquaintances. When God had blatantly not healed a 9 year old girl with Leukaemia despite the fervent prayer of thousands. What could I do with that at New Wine?

So it was with a certain amount of trepidation I went into the Impact venue on the first night. Wasn't sure how my bashed faith would cope with the intense worship and teaching, while knowing deep inside was a longing for such which I'd possibly squashed a bit of late.

I needn't have worried. I walked into that venue and that was it. God was there. Well, he's everywhere, yep, but he was just there in this huge and powerful and awesome and stunning way that slammed into me with force and left me trembling. I turned to Adventure Bloke and said something akin to 'oh. So there is a God, then' and then fell into the most amazing week where somehow everything came together and all was well.

Somewhere on that first night the lovely Nicole Brown sang a new song, 'Line in the Sand'. These words struck me as a line for me, between the bashing and the wastedness and the loss of confidence.
'There's a line in the sand, and this is the end, for all that is broken, we know you can mend, And this is the start, the start of the new. For our God is able and oh so good, so good.' In a rush I knew again the truth of this, our God is able, and good. I never really thought this wasn't true, but had lived in a difficult time of doubts and fears where the questions sometimes outweighed the answers.

I'm not saying that God makes all things OK again. He blatantly does not. Suffering happens. The world is broken and we all suffer the consequences of that. Grief, loss, pain and illness pervade the world. But there is a hope we can grab in the midst of it all, a knowledge that God did the ultimate - got in it and suffered too. Wow. This is what I hold to, this is why my life is a great adventure, because I have a purpose. As someone said to me this week, this year was not a wasted year in God's economy. I will keep on doing what I do and being who I am, a person with cacked up lungs, who still believes fervently in God's goodness and faithfulness.

I saw healings of all sorts, physically and emotional and spiritual, some pretty profound stuff. Actually God healed acute lung pain in me that was threatening to mess up the week big time. There was no denying it. I also saw many people who carry their diseases and disabilities with strength and grandeur and who touch lives of all those around them with their honesty and their transparent love of God. Amazing.

So it's a line in the sand for me, and I'm back blogging, whether anyone likes it or not ;)

New Year - New Hopes

This is me at the beginning of 2012. Not the best start, possibly, to my fortieth year on earth? In some ways, not really. But in others, perhaps I can see it as the best start, because if this lot works well I may feel better than I've done in months and months, and that is a hope I am reaching for right now. I may be somewhat naive, I know myself what I am like and how often I suddenly fall, even when having a 'well' time, but I still want to hope. I suppose if I didn't have that to reach for things would look much worse and maybe I wouldn't even get as better as I could do. Maybe. So I'll keep hoping for healthier times.

I'd love to get some exercise this year, if I could. Early last year my physio put me on a pulmonary rehab course which I found so helpful. It wasn't the most rigorous of exercise and you weren't going to break any records, form any muscles or lose much weight, but it was the whole thing I think of starting to take some control again of your body when it had been so battered. I love the thought of being able to do that once again. Until the next battering, I suppose...but I won't give up, and stop. I might even get out that dusty Wii fit...

A big hope for me this year is that I will finally write my first book. It's been forming for a long time now, and I think I just need to go for it in order for it to come together. Themes of healing, the church and disability, wholeness/'usefulness', all that kind of stuff. I'm excited about starting.

And then of course there is our work here in Priorslee....I'm excited about what this year will bring.

So bring it on - good and bad. And hopefully I'll not need those IVs again soon.

Christmas De-Trimmed

I’ve been somewhat of an observer of Christmas this year. The me that usually partakes fully in everything Christmassy I can possibly fit in has been overcome by the weakness of my body and so I’ve been sitting on the sidelines; firstly at home, watching as my family took part in carol singing, parties, services and school events; and now in hospital, hoping very much for a get-out-of-hospital-free card for Christmas Day.

So where does this fit into the Great Adventure? What can be possibly said to be of any good about this situation?  I’ve cried myself out, ranted and rallied, and then given in to the good of finally getting IV treatment (and that’s another story I won’t bore you with right now.)

It’s made me think about a few things though. What is Christmas when it is all stripped down? What is it when observed from a sofa or sickbed? What is it when someone cannot join in the festivities and the events, save in their mind and spirit?

Perhaps when Christmas is stripped down to its bare bones the truth is revealed. Perhaps behind the tinsel and the mulled wine there is a glimpse of something much more profound, much more thunderingly awesome. To avoid the use of the <too> much-used phrase ‘put the Christ back in Christmas’ we can find that Christ was always in Christmas, and Christ was always in everything. The incarnation of the Son of God is there at the heart of it all.

Not that carols and parties are mindless frivolities and that I am somehow rising above them in a martyr like fashion – I’d far prefer to be an active partaker. More that sometimes sitting back and being hit again by the ultimate truth behind the season can be important. It would be good if everyone could find time in the midst of this fraught last week before Christmas to think on these things – it’s easy for me, it’s writing blog posts under the influence of IV meds or watching endless Jeremy Kyle. Hmmm. <sulks at not having internet>

What is it about the incarnation that makes it so incredible, that somehow makes everything work, brings peace to those in the most desperate of circumstances? Possibly the simplicity of God loving the world so much; possibly the mind blowing way that Jesus lived among people, walked with them in their sorrow and sickness and pain. And still does today. It’s not only that, though. It’s something in the way Jesus was born not as a king in finery and riches. He was born in poverty and weakness. God identified with all that was not strong and successful. In the weakness of beginnings God showed that God is with us in more than just a cold and theoretical way. God really is with us in the mess, and however weak we are, whether in sickness or in other ways, knowing that can change everything.

I can’t say I am happy to be here and content in suffering and all that malarkey. But when I look at this beautiful celebration I’m amazed, and I’m living in hope, and I’m finding peace in the brokenness. I hope you all, in all your life situations, can find something of the immense love of God for you this Christmas.

And so the lonely, the sick, the downtrodden can know that Christmas is good. Please remember them in your own busy lives. I wonder who I can bring this hope to this Christmas.

Now, bring on the tinsel and mince pies, because the food here is rubbish and the decor somewhat lacking...;)