But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will wise with healing in its rays. And you will go out and frolic like well-fed calves. Malachi 4.2 (NLT) Not so long back, around January, I was exhausted all the time. I would go out to work, and by the time I got home it was not abnormal for me to just climb into my bed and fall asleep. Now, I wasn't working long hours, and I'm the sort of person who is usually go-go-go, so it was frustrating and a little alarming in its almost constant-ness. The tiredness also made me get ill more often, which when you're in your first year of working in a school anyway means getting ill A LOT. So after a few weeks I decided to go to the doctor and had a blood test - nothing serious, just on the low side of a few things, one of which was Vitamin D. Unsurprising given it was the middle of winter and I live in the UK! I talked to a doctor at my church (because I didn't really understand my test results and because there was nothing terrible, my doctor never called about them...) and he suggested a daily multivitamin including iron and vitamin D, and so that's what I got! And since then, I've been absolutely fine! I've had lots of energy, done lots of things, and feel stronger. Sadly, I still caught things at school, but they certainly didn't hit me as hard. I was surprised at how much of a difference it has made!
But maybe that's like our faith too. We go about our normal lives and suddenly we find there's not as much energy in it - not as much zest or interest. We've been doing all the things we were supposed to be - exercising (doing good things), eating healthily (studying the Bible), creating head-space (praying regularly), and yet, it's just become tiring! Well perhaps just as I was so dependent on this "sunshine vitamin" that I hadn't been getting enough of, our spiritual life takes a slow-dive when we're not getting enough exposure to the 'sun of righteousness'. We can't always take our to-do lists into our faith. Productivity can't always be our goal. Slow down - soak up the rays of health and healing. God has what you need. As always, stay safe, and take care!
0 Comments
Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life." John 14.6a Maybe right now you're still coming to terms with how quickly our human-made systems are weakening and struggling. Health, education, economic systems; right now we see how fragile they really are, and how the sense of security they give us is not true.
I remember the first time I felt like I might not be able to handle this crisis. The a week before the lockdown, my house had been in quarantine anyway as I'd picked something up at the school I work in and was showing the covid-symptoms. So by week 2 of lockdown, we'd already had 2 weeks of total not leaving the house ever, and it was starting to look like that wasn't going to change any time soon. I missed people, and felt like a bird in a cage - all classic things lots of people are feeling right now. But I wasn't sad, just annoyed. Then I went to ASDA - we'd had our shopping brought to us before, because we weren't allowed out, so this was the first time I'd left the house, and there were signs up, sharing the measures they were putting in to try and help people get what they need. Certain hours on certain days for NHS staff, limits on how many of something someone could buy. They even had a similar announcement over the tannoy system. And I found I was nearly in tears at these things! It became real. I relied on these systems, and took them for granted that they were freedoms and abilities I'd always have! I didn't think I'd be in a position struggling to make a normal meal because I can't seem to get all the ingredients for anything!! Yet here I am. Here we are. I got over that falling-apart-ness, for the time-being anyway. I came to realise more and more that my life does not depend on those systems. They help my life, certainly they do. And I'm more grateful than ever for them. But I'm not dependent on them for my being, my identity, my capacity to go on. And neither are you. Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life." Follow that way. Seek that truth. Live that life. It is more fulfilling and dependable and purposeful and useful than anything else in all the world. Stay safe, and take care! God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Psalm 46.1 (NKJV) Then you will call upon me and go and pray to me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek me and find me, when you search for me with all your heart. Jeremiah 29.12-13 (NKJV) I didn't have as much time for this illustration today, but I still wanted to share it with you. At my church we do this holiday club for the kids every summer, and as part of the big celebration bit at the start, with all the kids together, we have a slot for the children to share their 'God-Sightings' from the day before. Or a wall they can add a God-Sighting brick to, or a tree they can add a God-sighting leaf to - you get the idea. The kids would come back with the most creative ideas of where they'd seen God - in each other, in pets, in a cosy bed they slept in last night, in the love of their parents, in the fun of the songs we'd just been singing together.
These two passages remind me that there's nothing that could be happening that would mean I couldn't run to God and be safe, and that whenever I look for God, God will be found. I strongly believe that God loves to reveal his character and love to us. And most of the time we're too busy to notice. So why not use this slowed time to not just get too busy again, in different ways. Keep your eyes open. Look for those God-sightings! And feel free to share in the comments below. My God-sighting today was when I went on a run earlier (I've decided to start the Couch-to-5k thing given that I'm no longer able to keep active in other ways...) and as I ran down my street I saw the edge wall of a house, just inside the window frame, where there was white tattered paint peeling off and red paint underneath. Now I'm aware if asked what that made people think of, each different person would come up with something different. But me - well, red is my favourite colour - I saw that tattered self I felt, but with something beautiful underneath ready to be revealed. Though I felt exhausted and fragile by the time I got back from my run, I also felt like there was newness and energy in this week, and confidence to have a go and new and daunting things (two such things have I've been invited to join since that run!). Keep your eyes open. God will keep you safe, and will be there when you seek him. Stay safe, and take care! Put yourself aside long enough to help others get ahead, and look out for each other, like they are the most important. Philippians 2.3-4 (translation mine) My church has started sending out daily thoughts to guide our hearts and minds back to God during this time of self-isolation, social-distancing and insecurity of what this will all mean for the future. They're callled 'LOOK UP IN LOCKDOWN' and I don't know who came up with that idea, but I love it. I'm someone who can sometimes feel swallowed up because I'm looking so intently at what's around me, or going over and over again in my head what's within me, and it's all - in my opinion - highly stress inducing.
Last week I was struggling with back pain (let's just say my home is not yet Work-From-Home-ready...), and that along with the constant changes in what we were or weren't allowed to do left me feeling frustrated and easily annoyed. I was sad that I wouldn't be able to see anyone outside of my house, and afraid that it'll last a long time. I tried to busy myself thinking of all these things I could do in my house, but every time I tried to do any of them for any length of time, my back pain got worse. I was at breaking point. And then I read these words in the first instalment of LOOK UP IN LOCKDOWN (and had some solid help (pushing!) from my husband yesterday to do something I enjoyed and which gave joy to others): "...in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of others." (Philippians 2.3-4, NIV) This is the picture it produced in my mind. A woman who's put aside the thoughts of herself, the things to do with her appearance, her actions, what others think, what others see. All that is hung up on the fence, while she gets dirty for something all can enjoy. There are many ways we can think highly of others and do things for others. My favourite right now is baking - what's yours? But my favourite part of this verse, when I looked into it, is that where we usually read it as "not looking to your own interests but the interests of others..." - the word in Greek means "not watching out for yourself, but each [watching out for] others". That's what I translated it 'look out for each other'. Who can you be looking out for this week? Those in your house? Those who might not be in a house with anyone right now? People you can message, call, email, check-in with. Look out for each other. God knows we need more of that right now. Stay safe, and take care! "Do you, or have you ever had an eating disorder?"
I was stood in the queue to the salad bar in the college canteen. I'd missed a few meals recently and been eating much less than normal even when I'd been at them, and I was starting to look unwell. I'd made every legitimate-sounding excuse under the sun, about how I wasn't that hungry, I'd had a late breakfast, I hadn't been feeling too well recently, blah blah blah. I was jumpy, agitated, frenetic - he wasn't taking the bait and I REALLY didn't want to eat anything for lunch that day. He was in front of me in the queue, but he turned to face me, shoulders square to mine, "Do you, or have you ever had an eating disorder?" People weren't usually so bold! No-one had ever just asked before. What was I supposed to say?! I hated lying, and to say 'no' would just be a blatant lie, not like just making excuses with at least a portion of truth to them. "Yes." I answered. Quietly, but securely, eyes narrowing as if to say, 'And there's nothing you can do about it.' I first suffered with an eating disorder when I was in secondary school, around age 15-16, then again for just a couple of weeks around my finals at university when I was 21, and then again towards the end of last year. I haven't told many people about this over the years; in some ways, it was something I hoped I could just leave behind completely, but in others, I guess not telling people also meant it would always be my secret to fall back on if I needed to. Well, no more! I have a story that I need to share; one of stubbornness and darkness and God's utter goodness. Here goes. My eating disorder has always come through in anorexic tendencies - restricting calories going in, and increasing calories burned through exercise going out. It has also generally been about feeling in control; counting and lowering the numbers of calories going in, taking off the numbers burned and then seeing the numbers on the scales get less each day. To me, it demonstrated a level of control over myself and my world that no-one else could have. No matter what was going on around me that I couldn't control, I could control this perfectly and that made me feel strong, even if it actually made me weaker (in body and in will). Around October and November last year I found myself, very suddenly, in a place of severely restricting what I was eating and a very strong sense of being able to do nothing to get out of that place. Where I was, I could get worse and worse and so I did, weighing less and less each day: getting closer and closer to the nothingness I wanted to be. I didn't want to die, and I guess I just ignored all the logic that told me that that was the only place what I was doing could lead if I continued - but I wanted to be nothing, to disappear, and to hide away. It made me stubborn in my relationship with God, and arrogantly proud in my relationship to others. I knew God hadn't left me, because I knew God never would, and yet I felt very sure that I could not perceive even the slightest of God's presence. I knew I was blocking God off, but I also knew that I didn't want God to make me better, and so I didn't want God! God's goodness means that God's desire is for my wholeness, and I didn't want that, so I couldn't want God at all. I couldn't pray - I felt like a liar or a hypocrite. I felt like there was only darkness around me through which I had no hope of seeing. No light. No future. No point. I felt abandoned, but that I had done it and I had to undo it but still couldn't. Mental illness is hard. There is very much a sense in which I was ill, and allowing the feelings of guilt over what I was doing consume me would probably have tipped me over the edge and I couldn't have got out of my bed. And yet there is also very much a sense in which no-one else could force me to put food in my mouth, chew and swallow, and if I was going to survive, at some point I had to accept that I would have to decide to do that. Still, knowing I had to in no way meant that I could. Not then. But it would come. I say it made me arrogantly proud. There is a point in not eating where you start to feel euphoric. Sure, sometimes the pain when you breathe or in your muscles or bones when you move override the elated feeling, but there was this point when my body was in starvation mode and I felt so fake-ly happy. I knew in some way that it wasn't real happiness, but I also didn't care! I felt like I could take on the world! Like I could do anything at all, AND I could do it better than anyone else, because I was doing it with nothing inside me! I was doing it all just from me, not like all of “them”, who depended on their precious food for energy and who gave in to their wants and hunger. Get me straight: I didn't want anyone else to not eat, and I envied them that they found it so easy to, but I also felt vainly and arrogantly proud that I was doing what none of them could. I hated what I had become. I no longer felt like I even had a relationship with God, and I didn't care about the people I loved or who loved me! I never doubted God was there and my faith was intact, but I couldn't feel it - I was going through the motions because of what I knew in my head, but my heart didn't care for anything anymore! I hated myself - I wasn't myself - and so I ignored myself. Instead, I focussed on what I had to do: restrict the numbers going in, and lose the numbers coming off. Through all of this time, thankfully, I was held in the prayers of others - for God's protection each day to keep me safe. Those people also stuck with me; they kept checking up on me, and getting me out of my room for meetings and just to chat; some who were further away video-called me every day just to talk and to be there with me. Those people demonstrated the love of the God I had made invisible. They taught me that God's love crossed the chasm even of what I was doing to myself, and that just like them, God very much still wanted to spend time with me and be there for me. Those people helped me to realise what wasn't on the table and what I hadn't been allowing myself to think and say. And also, the lies about the character of God that I had been telling myself. I had begun to feel guilty for not being good enough for God and for a changing sense of calling; I felt like I had failed and got it wrong and I was going to miss the plan! I know that this isn't God, and I know that I cannot know and plan out the future, and I know that life with God isn't about finding the most direct route to the "perfect" place but about living with God, trusting God and growing in God’s perfect love in the winding routes and adventures that we go on. God taught me that his love is greater. When I needed him most but pushed him away most, God was still there and refused to let me go. In the end, when I was so afraid - afraid of going too far, afraid of fighting back, afraid of being lost forever - God reached in and placed me at a church retreat weekend I had not booked to go on. That space became a place I could be held enough to begin the path towards recovery - God's rescuing hand on my shoulder every long and arduous step of the way since. The journey goes on! There's much more to share about this story and so much I want you all to know about the way God is so unnecessarily and wonderfully good, but this has been a good place to start. Thank you for taking the time to read it; it took a lot of time and thought and effort to write. Love, Rebekah |
Like the Facebook page to keep up-to-date with blog posts!
AuthorI'm a recent Cambridge Theology graduate now studying for a Masters in Biblical Studies and blogging about all sorts of things! I'm interested in faith, Church, theology, social action, the great outdoors and being creative, and all of those things - along with many more - come through in my posts!
Categories
All
Archives
April 2020
|