Hoax

Does everyone feel like a hoax as much as me?? I guess that sounds like a stupid question, haha. I was commuting into London this morning as I am on placement there, and sitting on the train ... this is something that I have spent a lot of my life dreaming of doing- having some high rising London job where I can dress smart and commute to a 9-5 job and just generally feel quite important. So anyway, there I was, book open on my lap, dishevelled attempt at smart clothes, a far too slovenly slouch than is proper, amongst lots of other commuters who all on appearance were doing a better job than me at looking important and interested in their various papers.

Anyway, I was not focussing well on my book, and found myself picking my face (one of my worst habbits) but suddenly I froze, thinking, 'oh no! They might be onto me! I can't do ugly things like pick my spot on my forehead on the train to LONDON! They'll realise I'm a hoax! They'll notice that I'm not really a mature, posh, wealthy, good looking, with etiquette high-rising London worker!'... It didn't take long to realise that my dishevelled slovenly appearance had probably already given me away...

Then I started (secretly) eyeing up the chap next to me. He had the times open (well, not open, it was the front page), and it took him quite a while to turn into it so I'm not sure he was focussed either. He had all the right appearance things going for him. Quite humourously he did sneak in a pick of the nose whilst I was observing... I wondered if he wondered if anyone was 'onto him' too?

I wondered if that train was full of people hoping that no one would notice that they weren't actually good enough, cool enough, popular enough, fun enough, good looking enough, posh enough...

Having always aspired to be someone who had a good job and dressed well and commuted to London, I thought that's what it looked like to 'make it' in this world. I thought it would probably feel special. And there I found myself feeling like a child in her mum's high heels at a cocktail party... but maybe that's all it is! Maybe there's some people who've been at it long enough that they've convinced even themselves that they've made it... but I'm not sure.

I'm not really sure whats the point of that, but it really made me stop. I think each time I grow up (which is happening very, very slowly) I realise that really I need to grow down, becoming great in this world's eye's is really not all that...

I am so glad that my value is in something other than making it in this world, because I would definitely be a hoax!

The benefits of having a mum in the office...

I love how every day life can bring such amazing revelations!

This week I've been on placement in a new part of Bedford's maternity unit, with a different midwife from usual. I need to give a little background, I work as a student midwife and do placements all around Bedford Hospital's maternity unit, with a specific midwife/mentor in each place. And one thing that the whole hospital has in common is computers, and as with every job we have plenty of paperwork and computer systems that we update continuously to show what care we've given to who and so on.

As you can imagine every so often 'hiccups' occur in these systems and me and my midwife/mentors are often clueless on where what we're looking for could be found, or how to undo what we've just done wrongly... you know what I mean. And there's a lovely lady who works in the office who is that person that just knows everything! She knows everyones phone numbers, she knows where things are all the time, she understands how the computer systems work and why! She's one of those people it's good to get on with, and I'm often sent to her office to try to sort something out.

The difference is that on this placement I've been working with a midwife who happens to be this lady's daughter. Almost before we encountered problems she was just saying 'call mum' or 'ask mum' or 'mum will do it'... problems were resolved quickly, phone numbers found, lost items retrieved... not that the lovely office lady doesn't willingly do this work for every midwife, but when working with her daughter we had extra permission to be a little bit cheeky in what we were asking for, to push boundaries a little, and to ask and ask again! I worked out why this was...

Because my midwife already had a good relationship with her mum!! She spent time with her, they laughed together, they helped eachother out, they had a genuine relationship that meant that asking for help was completely allowed.

I guess you figure where I'm going with this. Our Father, in heaven, is just like this office lady. He sorts everything out, and we get to ask of Him lots. But when we come as His children, with a background of relationship, we can refer every situation we encounter with to Him, we can ask of Him all the time, because He loves us and we love Him!! wow.

Good God!

My God is in a good mood all of the time! I am so struck by this right now. I am tired, exhausted, discouraged, anxious, stressed, angry, must I go on? So it was easy to get in my car and shout/whine at God about the situations and why I'm annoyed... then it just hit me, 'forget about me, look at Him!' He is SO beautiful and loving, He is full of joy and laughter, He longs to take my burdens (He never gives us situations to just expect us to cope with them - He gives them to us just so we can offer them right back to Him!)

And so, driving back from uni, I just started laughing at myself. "Rejoice in the Lord always, I will say it again, REJOICE! Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, with thanksgiving by prayer and supplication present your requests before God, and the peace of God - which surpasses all understanding (!) - will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Philippians 4 somewhere 'Version of Ryland'... His peace surpasses ALL understanding! I will never understand why I can have peace in all circumstances, but I know that I can. I want to be like the woman in Prov 31 who laughs in the face of times to come... with my family dressed in purple and ready for whatever lies ahead. Maybe not always dressed in purple!

Wow. What freedom and release. So on with my slightly manic life, but with my head held high and my shoulders back because I am not burdened but lifted up! PRAISE GOD!!!!

Relationship not function.

I was challenged recently that we should live for relationship and not function. Plenty of big stuff has been going on since that time, but specially today I'm drawn back to that same point.

When asked the greatest commandment Jesus said to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind... not to serve Him with it. If we serve God without loving Him it becomes a chore and we get pretty slack... if we love Him first we end up serving Him anyway without trying!

So much of my time is spend with my God cos I want to get something out of Him, I want to get something to share with others.. But I intend to learn to better spend time with Him just because He's great and greatly to be praised. Isn't He?!

lesson not yet learnt...

Maybe I'll never blog again?! I'm not getting over what I blogged about last time. I don't know if I can move on from that place. I don't know if I'll ever make a discovery that will become so significant in my day to day life. And yet how difficult even to put something that is so important into practice every day... the very things that He asks me to do I just don't seem to get around to, the very things that He hates, are the very things that I always stumble into! (to quote Shawn Mcdonald, probably badly!)

I love God. And I want a relationship with Him for the rest of my life that will take me through things that I daren't even dream or imagine right now, but that I will be strong enough for by His strength. And yet this shall be a daily battle.

In France right now, where the grass is green. I don't know what tomorrow holds, more than ever, now I am uncertain. I just hope to get up and run again tomorrow, and all the tomorrows after that.

So next... the experience thing. Sorry if you're reading from the top down, I'm writing a few posts today. I think that makes them the wrong way around.

A year ago I was a different person. I remember going to Christian events where people laughed or fell over or cried or shouted in the Spirit and I found it really hard to deal with. I had no idea what it was, and why I didn't have it. I knew that I was filled with the Spirit, and I spoke in tongues which is a Spiritual language God gives us to help us engage with Him in a deeper level. A bit wierd but I could cope with that. I have always read my Bible pretty religiously, well since I was 16, not that I gain loads from it every day, but I feel like a better person as I have read, I've blogged about this before. Anyway, I've not been 100% about all this Spirit stuff.

I used to think that if God wanted to move in this way in me, then He'd have to do it against my will, i.e. I actively didn't fall or laugh or whatever just so that He'd be really proving Himself if it happened to me. I didn't want to miss out on it if it was something good that others have, but I am not the kind of person to fake it to fit in. It was hard times. I used to argue that we shouldn't base things on experience, as we're just emotional people and emotions can't be trusted.

WOW.

So I don't know when, but at some point in the last 6 months ish I changed my heart. I heard teaching by Rhys Scott on the Holy Spirit, and how much like a father can say that he loves his son but the son doesn't know it until he experiences the embrace, so also it is with the Holy Spirit. The bible teaches, we know that God loves us, but it is through the Holy Spirit that we can gain the experiences that demonstrate this love to us.

So I stopped actively not responding to God. Instead I just drew near to Him, not seeking the experiences for experiences sake, but seeking from my heart to truely understand and be overwhelmed by His Spirit. and this is the journey that I now find myself on. It is so much more fun! The Bible, exposed by the Holy Spirit, teaches that we should be drunk on the Holy Spirit. It was through the power of this that Peter preached on the day of pentecost, and I want to do mighty things too so I need this power!

I have stopped taking myself, and my religiousness, so seriously. I refuse to be legalistic about my aproach to God, what is friendship when you only spend time together because you feel you should - and therefore do it begrudgingly, quickly and rarely! No, I have a Saviour who made a way for me to enter in to His Glory! And I will do so every day for the rest of my life! And as I draw near, forgetting myself and my inhibitions as blogged below, I let Him minister to me in what way He would like. Sometimes circumstances just become funny from this point of view, the heavenly perspective makes me realise how rediculous I am, and I find myself stumbling around and laughing. Sometimes His power seems to surge through me. I don't get it, it doesn't fit a pattern that I'd like to write, but it is SO GOOD! And my understanding of God grows each time I encounter Him and His Spirit, my joy in relationship grows, my desires come in line with my Fathers desires.

Please, I beg you, don't take yourself so seriously that you miss out on the experience of the Holy Spirit in it's fullness. Read your bible, desire to know truth, and dwell with God the Spirit.

What a couple of weeks!

i HAVE NO IDEA WHERE TO START!

Firstly, I shall learn how not to delete whole posts that I write before I've posted them! But now... what a couple of weeks! I may have to do several posts so as not to overwhelm.

I know where to start. A few months back I was supposed to be going for a night out at ministry of sound London, although it never happened. I was pretty gutted, I love clubbing. I remember when I was about 16 I went to a gig back home, and it was one of them where some people there know the music and just start throwing themselves around, arms flailing everywhere, eyes shut, lost in the moment... and I always envied something about that ability to get completely lost in their bodies, caught up in the music...

Since then I've had this fascination with the times when you're in a club and the music is so loud it shakes your whole body, and you're so rammed in you can barely breathe or move, and the lights are flashing so you don't know quite what is around you, and it's so easy just to get caught up in it... i LOVE it! And God spoke to me around the non-ministry-of-sound-attending day that He wants me to seek to get completely lost in my worship in the same way as this. Not just in an internal way, but externally, to lose all inhibitions about who is around me, and to dance and sing in a way like those people at the gig when I was 16.

Anyway. I shall have to write another blog about the experience thing. In the mean time, for the first time, at the Heaven Touches Earth conference in June at the worship time at the end I found myself in the edge of this place. I have never danced like that. I'm sure it wasn't much to look at, but it was joy bubbling and overflowing, presence of the Glory of God and His Spirit moving me... It was everything that I had hoped it would be. Anyway, these moments have increased in my life, and I AM LOVING IT! seek it! On you're own, at church when no one bares tap their big toe, give yourself over to the love of the Lord your God. He is worth every ounce of our energy! Whoop! Watch this space to see me doing this, I hope to not be held back by Britishness forever!