Welcome to my attempt to live fully and honestly, to sing out the song of myself, to truly know who I am......

.....either that or the ramblings of a barely coherant, tired out mum of two!!



Thursday 22 December 2011

Christmas? Already!

Time seems to fly by and how can it be nearly six months since I last posted?

Christmas is a heartbeat away and it seems the year has flown away carrying us along with it. Usually in Advent I try to find some time to pause and reflect on the year gone by but it seems this year I have barely had a moment to draw breath.

Shane spent most of the Summer sleeping after a serious collitis flare up that landed him in hospital for a week. He is still not fully recovered and is back on the steroids. As a result we didn't get a holiday this year - tho Shane and the little ones went to Grannie and Grandads for a week.

My health as always has been up and down but I am inally on insulin and carb counting and once I get my head around all of that I think it will be a good thing.

The children are doing very well and growing at a phenomenal rate. They have the ability to drive me crazy one moment and laugh out loud the next. They are a joy and a challenge, a gift and a blessing.

The Ordination process proceeds slowly. I have now been passed from the DDO in Southwell to the one in Derby. I am optimistic that 2012 will see progress at last.

Work continues to go well though the commute is a pain. I look forward to being able to work locally if and when something suitable turns up.

So I wish any passing readers and all my friends and family a very Merry Christmas.

God Bless us! Every one.

Wednesday 6 July 2011

Sunny with Showers

The weather forecast is often 'sunny with Showers' and that seems an apt description of our lives at the moment.

The kids are doing well and are very well settled after our move. Sunny!

Shane has just had a spell in hospital with an enormous and severe collitis - at one point he was being told that he would lose two thirds of his bowel. Definately stormy.

He is now on the mend but it is going to be really slow going. Thanks to all who prayed whilst he was in hospital and please dont stop! Sunny spells.

I am tired still but the insulin is definately having a good effect and I am feeling more in control which helps! Cloudy with meatballs.

Summer is here and the sun is shining through the rain clouds - I am looking forward to sunny weather ahead!

Wednesday 23 March 2011

Spring has sprung!!

The sunlight is finally here - I'm in short sleeves, the windows are open, the flowers are looking beautiful, so many blessings.

In the midst of the beauty of the sunsoaked English countryside I pause and thank God for his many blessings and bring before him the needs of those here and around the world for whom the sun does not shine so bright.

For my friend and colleague and her husband enduring the grief of separation brought about by alzheimers.
For Japan - the bereaved, those made homeless, those affected by radiation, those bravely facing life threatening danger to make the nuclear plants safe.
For Libya - for those standing for justice, for the wounded, for the bereaved and yes even for Gadaffi.
For the People of Bahrain and Yemen.
For Israel and Palastine.

So much sorrow and violence but our God is bigger and stronger and loves all that he has made. Amen.

Wednesday 9 March 2011

New Wine Ladies Day - Harrogate.

It would be impossible for me to describe the New Wine ladies day in Harrogate last Saturday. Oh there are plenty of superlatives - fantastic, wonderful, awe-inspiring, amazing etc etc. And whilst all of them are true none seem quite adequate to the task. They are not superlative enough.

It was my first ever New Wine event and so I didnt really know what to expect. In many ways it offered the standard fair for this type of event - Worship, talks and call to prayer. Nothing out of the ordinary for a big, Christian get together.

I guess the thing that made it so great for me was the state I entered the venue and the state I came out.

I did not realise how depressed I had become. For months now I have been going down hill - finding each day harder to cope with than the last. I had thought that after my last bout of depression I would be able to spot the signs if it ever came back. I was wrong.

The depression slipped in one day, unannounced, unnoticed, uninvited. It slipped in like a sleek black cat and made a nest in my heart. Slowly over the months it spread its influence, blocking the light and sucking out all the colour in my world.

The tiredness grew and grew until I was barely functioning. I lost the ability to enjoy my kids and just grew more annoyed by their noise and exuberance. I forgot how to laugh and enjoy life.

Then I went to Harrogate.

As we entered the building I was aware almost immediately of the atmosphere. The place was heavily packed out but my usual fear of crowds stayed away. There was a buzz of excitement and expectation and a palpable prescence of God.

We found our seats and the worship began. I didnt know any of the songs but was able to sing them anyway. There was a talk and then a break. I felt safe and happy - a feeling that had not been mine for quite a long time.

Then there was another talk and a call to prayer. Usually with this kind of thing I sit in my seat thinking 'I'm not going down there - you can't make me'. But this time I was up and clambering over the back of the seat before I knew what was happening.

A week or so ago I filled in a 'Spiritual Gifts' questionnaire. The session had been about spiritual gifts. My questionnaire result had placed 'Prophecy' at the top of my gifts list - much to my surprise. I told the lady - her name was 'Sharon' too - about the questionnaire and she prayed and I prayed and everyone was praying. Afterwards she said she had seen me dressed in armour with the words 'Warrior of God'. Me?, a warrior?, lol! I wondered how this could be since I am so unsure of myself, so lacking in self confidence. Then we had lunch.

After lunch there was another session. It was about how women often suffer self confidence issues.....
She told us that we are daughters of the King of Kings.
We are clothed in righteousness.
We are strong and courageous women.
and we are commanded to be confident.

Another call to prayer and again I was keen to get to the front. We were prayed over. We were encouraged to take a step forward - to step out of the chains and the shackles of the past and to step into a new reality where we see ourselves as God sees us. I stepped.

They prayed that we may have Gods steel in the core of our being. That our backbones would fill with steel to make us strong and courageous. My neck felt warm despite the fact I was standing under an air conditioning unit. The warmth grew and flowed down my spine. I unfurled and felt 10 feet tall.

I entered the venue under the cloud of depression. Tired, bowed down, deeply unhappy.
I left several hours later into the bright and shining Son light. walking on air a daughter of the King of Kings, clothed in righteousness, a warrior of God, strong and courageous.

I am still smiling, though the tiredness remains I know His grace will give me strength enough for today.

Our God is a great big God and He holds us in his hands.

My humblest and most heartfelt thanks to the facillitators and speakers on Saturday but my biggest thanks are to the God who loves us and will not let us go.

Lent 2011

I decided this year not to give anything up for Lent.

I decided instead to do more of the things that are good for me.

I have bought Tom Wright's 'Lent for Everyone - Matthew - Year C'.

I have dug out my 'Common Worship - Daily Prayer'

I am listening to and singing with two New Wine worship CD's.

I am being more aware of God - attempting to walk more closely with the God who loves me. I am trying to listen harder for that still small voice and when I hear it to do or say what he tells me to.

I am learning to cast off all the baggage that has held me captive and step into a new reality.

Pray for me, with me as I begin this new way of doing Lent.

Thursday 10 February 2011

phew!

Spent too much time redesigning the blog but I am happy with the result.

Now time for bed!

Wednesday 9 February 2011

The Song of Myself by Reallivepreacher.

The Song of Myself
Tue, 07/17/2007 - 12:44
"What is truth?" Pilate
asked Jesus. And Jesus answered him not.

One of the poems in Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass" is called, "Song of Myself." That poem caught my attention the first time I read it, and I have contemplated its meaning many times since. Singing the song of yourself has a thrilling and dangerous appeal, like skinny-dipping or hitchhiking across the country with only twenty bucks in your pocket.

Many times I have wanted to sing the song of myself, but I’ve never been willing to take the time or pay the price.

What would it take to sing the song of yourself? What would it cost you?

First, you would have to know yourself. And that is quite a thing to consider. You would have to take a long, careful look into what is deep and hidden within you. What is lurking around the corners of your mind? What memories and obsessions haunt you? What causes your glands to seize? What gets your blood moving so that your veins and arteries swell and push to the surface of your skin? What comes from your gut? What do your instincts say? Who or what speaks to you at night when the raw cuts of your home movies are shown on the screen of your mind?

Knowing yourself takes a long time, but even if you take that journey and arrive knowing yourself as well as a person can, you still might not sing the song of yourself. What would stop you?

Cowardly fears and righteous obligations.

Because…

Singing the song of yourself means telling the truth, and the truth has a way of severing ties to people and places and things. The words are spoken and a gleaming scalpel flashes. Living cords are sliced away. There are howls of pain and then silence.

Because…

Singing the song of yourself is like removing your clothes and standing naked before the world. Clothes do not make a person; they make the image of that person. Underneath the clothing lies the vulnerability of flesh. This is my true body. This is all I was given and all I will take with me. There will be no more hiding.

Because…

Singing the song of yourself creates a flash of white-hot fire in the kiln of your life. Everything that is not you is burned away. You lose it all, all the stuff you have accumulated over the years that follows you from house to house, wailing like a wraith. It would be gone forever. Burned away.

Because…

You might lose your community. Few relationships can withstand the song of yourself. People don’t want to hear your song. They don’t want to hear their own songs. They want to sing little love ditties filled with undefined words all the days of their lives.

So if you dare sing the song of yourself, be aware that you might be standing alone at the end of it. Maybe there is one person in the world who can bear the flames and will sing his or her song beside you. This is the person you've longed for and can't get enough of. The person whose voice you would recognize in a thousand voices. The one who draws you out and brings you forth. Perhaps you will find that person.

But probably not. You will probably be alone at the end of your song. The last refrain will echo back slowly, and there will be silence and solitude.


“So what would be so great about singing the song of yourself?” you ask me.

I’ll tell you. Singing the song of yourself would be the closest you could come to real truth. Descartes knew this. He knew that the only truth you can know and sing is the truth of your own existence. And maybe truth is the Siren whose song has charmed and tempted you all of your life. No one knows how you have longed for her, wanted her, pined for her, sought her in the hard places.

When I began Real Live Preacher back in 2002, I had an insane dream of singing the song of myself. I couldn’t do it then, even though I was anonymous. What held me back was your opinion of me. Within days my blog had already formed the crust of a persona, a crust that has thickened over the years.

And persona is death to the song of yourself.

Every time I sit to write, I flirt with the melody of the song of myself. I can feel the song. I can sometimes imagine the words I would lay down on paper, were I to sing it. I also count the cost. Singing the song of myself would hurt people, and that would hurt me. Truth is brutal. The cost too high, and it is getting higher every day.

So I push the edge a bit. I pull a few things out of my gut that are risky and lay them down with language that, ironically, gets its beauty more from what I left inside than from what I put on the paper.

But I tell you this ferociously and with bared teeth. The song of myself echoes in my ears every day. I’m in love with the idea of that song, though I have never even hummed it to myself.

Because I would like to write the truth about one human being. And I’m the only human I will ever truly know.

rlp

http://www.reallivepreacher.com/node/1216

I Can Make you Thin.....

....so claims Paul McKenna.

So a 90 day success plan starts today.

I weigh 96.4 (I think!) At the end of 90 days i am promised phenomenal weight loss if I just follow some simple rules and listen to a mind reprogramming CD.

Paul claims I dont have to believe just follow the instructions and thats good because io am sceptical - I struggle to see how this could work for me even if it has worked for 70% of all those who have tried it.

I get the psychology of it though and he talks a lot of sense - enough to think that its got to be worth a try - as the man himself says - I have nothing to lose but the weight. (and the six quid the book cost!)

Anyway - part of doing it is to keep a journal so I will blog my progress from time to time - watch this space.....

Thursday 3 February 2011

They Call it Democracy

padded with power here they come
international loan sharks backed by the guns
of market hungry military profiteers
whose word is a swamp and whose brow is smeared
with the blood of the poor

who rob life of its quality
who render rage a necessity
by turning countries into labour camps
modern slavers in drag as champions of freedom

sinister cynical instrument
who makes the gun into a sacrament--
the only response to the deification
of tyranny by so-called "developed" nations'
idolatry of ideology

north south east west
kill the best and buy the rest
it's just spend a buck to make a buck
you don't really give a flying fuck
about the people in misery

IMF dirty MF
takes away everything it can get
always making certain that there's one thing left
keep them on the hook with insupportable debt

see the paid-off local bottom feeders
passing themselves off as leaders
kiss the ladies shake hands with the fellows
open for business like a cheap bordello

and they call it democracy
and they call it democracy
and they call it democracy
and they call it democracy

see the loaded eyes of the children too
trying to make the best of it the way kids do
one day you're going to rise from your habitual feast
to find yourself staring down the throat of the beast
they call the revolution


Bruce Cockburn covered by Martyn Joseph

Wednesday 2 February 2011

Is there anybody there....?

Hello?

Its so long since I blogged I wondered if there was anyone still in the blogosphere or have you all faded away whilst I was gone!

I havent really got mucxh to say today. The blog family have moved from Nottingham to Heanor and are settling in to new schools and a new church.

Peter now 7 and Ellie 5 are both doing very well.

Shane is tired and working far too hard.

I am still tired but trialling a new drug which is meant to reduce blood sugars and give me a bit more oomph - I live in hope.

I am hoping to get back to blogging more regularly but we shall see how that goes!