Halloween musings ...

wow when you look around the internet and chat with friends does any other celebration cause so much debate. For one evening it seems to cause hours of thinking, decision making and stress, whether you choose to celebrate it or not.

So Halloween, what are my thoughts, for what they are worth.

Firstly no one ever has the right to judge, to tell people Christians or not that they are wrong to do what they do, we are all answerable to God and make decisions based on what we feel is right.

Halloween for me is an opportunity. I hear so many people screaming at that statement that to want to embrace Halloween is so very very wrong. But when else do we get to talk so openly about good and evil, when else do we get to talk about light and darkness, when else do we get such an amazing opportunity to go ok so I don't like dark magic but let me tell you about some real magic about something amazing! Jesus answers the door to those who knock, do we? How do we respond to them? Do we slam it in their face and walk away?

So as a family we don't choose to trick or treat or go out of our way to celebrate Halloween but we don't stop others doing it. Does that mean we are sitting on the fence, no. I would never want to stop enjoying magical things, to be aware of the spiritual amazing side of life, to be able to see miracles and go wow that was magical. I know so more traditional perspectives would argue that even the words magical are sinful but to me they are a whole part of what I believe of the power of God. However I also believe that it is so very wrong to belittle evil, to make fun of it to pretend it is something insignificant and to be laughed at. Evil is powerful and devious and it worries me the view and attitude children have towards it and the rise of the spiritualist churches around where we are.

My issues with Halloween are not with those who enjoy and celebrate it, however far the get into it but with the wickedness that uses what seems like harmless things and turns them into darkeness. So I think for me and my family it will be lots of dressing up through out the year, lots of fun throughout the year, lots of awareness of the amazing things God can do and the real magic and on Halloween simply oppertunities and time as a family to thank God for the good he gives us.

Pride

Very proud people stick out in a crowd right?

Spent some time reflecting on what it means to be prideful. I worry all the time about what others think how what I do will be perceived. But who am I to think I am on their thought radar?

They probably haven't given me a second thought at that moment but my pride puts me top of their thought list in my strange world.

Instead of focusing on God and what he's doing through me, on helping others to see God through me, I get stuck thinking about me about my own inadequacies instead of Gods strengths of my own failings instead of Gods achievements. That is pride. Putting me before God. Thinking what I do and who I am matters so much more than it does to others. 

So instead of being negative and self destructive I need to focus on God more, repent for my pride and move forwards positivly.

Productive Day!

So Christmas planning finally had to start...
It scares me how many people I know who have bought, wrapped, and labelled all their presents. Sometimes I want to ask them if they have eaten their Christmas dinner too or tell them that all my Easter eggs are bought, wrapped, and labelled! Seriously though I had to bite the bullet today and make a start with some plans. Don't get me wrong there are some projects that have been underway for a long time. My table cloth is coming along

This top part is now being quilted onto a nice thick christmas green linen and a border sewn onto the bottom.  So that is all underway and other projects are finished but in terms of shopping well um...... I will brave that soon ! I popped down to our shopping centre today and wow it was busy I think I am going to take up online shopping, doesn't feel so much like spending real money which is always a good thing.

Weekday church

I sat in our church cafe today, people watching. Such a huge range of people from so many walks of life each there for their own needs, each there for their own reasons but together they came because they knew that they would find what they needed in that place. What does church mean to people? Not everyone there today has faith in Christ yet so what do they come looking for? Why there? It got me thinking about the complexities of church. So many say the numbers on Sundays in churches are dying but are Sundays the most important part of Church? Sundays to me have always been the training day, the learning day and sure that is super important but there are 6 also very important days in the week and look at how much happens then!

When I was younger, Church was a building, a place we went (sometimes not so willingly) every Sunday. Where older people wanted to know everything about you and your parents took great pleasure in filling them in, then they would wander off telling me they would pray for me, I never was to sure if that was a good thing!

As time went on Church became a place I hurried past, I look ashamedly at as I crawled out the pub opposite. Other times it was a warm building to get a good meal in. Its purpose for me had lost any connection with faith or God it had become another building made of stone that did kinda nice things. I remember two or three times during uni just something pulled me back, something made me think well maybe I should wander in just one more time and see what happens. I even made it along to a teens and twentys group. But I went along hidden behind such a huge mask that what was said and what was done only scratched the surface, a surface that wasn't me.

But when I became a mum something happened. Cracks appeared in walls around who I was. In a fight for survival over the years so much of me had died but now here was this life, a life I now know was a beautiful gift entrusted from God. How could I who couldn't even look after myself look after something so precious.

A need to care for her, prompted by my husband took me to another church to a baby and toddler group. But here I didn't find empty stone walls here I found a God. I met a God through people, through people who opened their hearts so much to him that in them I could see him. In them I met him, through what they did and how they did it. My baby girl brought me to a place for her to make friends, but in reality I made the best friend I ever could have.

So what did that teach me about church? It is not a building, nor a group of people. It is a heart, it is journey with others who believe and who are starting to believe. It is not a place to have faith and do nothing, it is a place to learn, to grow and to share, not just with those in the building but all around. Maturity in faith doesn't produce mission, maturity in faith comes from mission. We need to take responsibility in faith, just like those in the bible Jesus so quickly gave missional responsibilities to, people from all walks of life. I soon learnt church is about engaging people through caring and loving, about establishing them in faith, about equipping them and teaching them and then about commissioning, setting them free to start their journey with the people they know.

When God wrote my bible. ..

When God wrote my bible he wrote it with small uncomplicated words like love, grace, hope, peace, I am, with stories of real people like me. So why oh why do people today need to try and complicate it with big words that they think sound more important to add to what's there. They are missing the point, the big part of the word is not the number of letters but the life changing meaning! Grrrr sorry just frustrates me

Shopping bags for Mum

Here's the finished product! I tell you though I looked like a fluffball after sewing all that hessian. Did one in pinks to but not got pics of that yet. Really simple pattern and really pleased with it. Nicely lined so they are good and strong.

Who I am in God

I have been thinking a lot lately about who I am in God and where I fit in the world around me. I have learned over the last wee while that I can't be to people what someone else is and that has been something I have struggled with over the years. I see how important or valuable someone is in their role as a friend or in their role that God has asked them to do and I have tried to be that person, tried to see what they are doing that makes their way of life so 'good' for want of a better word. I guess its almost grass is always greener kinda attitude but not of material things, of levels of faith, of being needed. I have seen people doing amazing things for God and amazing things in their lives and my thought is not what could I do for God but I want to do that, I want to be that. Not for others admiration but for that feeling of being in the right place doing the right thing.

But it dawned on me lately, when a friend of mine said that she didn't want to get to know me at first as she thought I was to perfect, had it to sorted with God and it wasn't until she knew that I was just as messed up as everyone else that she could relate to me. It hit me! I can't be to people what others are but in the same respect they can't be me. And the importance of that is God just wants me to be me; that's all he is asking. We are most effective for God in the lives of others when we are where God wants us, doing what God wants, when God wants and how God wants. Not when we are trying to be what God wants someone else to do.

If we try to be someone else we leave a gap where we should be, where God intended us to be. The world around would miss out and I would miss out on the blessings that God can bring through the self-fulfilment of the purpose God has for me and only me. God has a purpose for each of us, that's why we are all so unique and if we don't do what God has made us for then and try to be something we are not then are we saying to God sorry but your plan is rubbish and I have a better idea? I need to spend more time reminding myself of who I am and reminding people I know that they too are loved and created just how God needs us.

I guess the key thing is who shapes and moulds my view on who I should be, who do I let influence me. I know too often God's voice is not the loudest in my mind and oh how it should be! Reminds me of Romans 12:2. Transforming of your mind, man do I need that sometimes! God in my everything! that includes me. I am a miracle.

A study I once heard on John Ch4 once kept stating 'to be known is to be loved and to be loved is to be known' God knows us inside out, he made us in his image. Would I call God rubbish and stupid? No. So why do I do it to myself when I am made by him in his image! By keeping the God made me suppressed sometimes in order to try and conform, I let part of me die instead of shine. God's beauty is so much greater than any beauty man can imagine so instead of hiding God to let man shine how much more could I be if I trust more, if I let God be through me and in all I do.

I recently tried so hard with a project to be fully reliant on God for everything instead of as usual trying to go alone. God sustained me at every stage, he provided at every stage and wow did he bless at every stage! When you are the right person, doing the right thing for God when God wants you to do it boy do you know about it, it feels so good. It doesn't take away the hard work, the time, any of that stuff but it brings so much more into the equation! Because if we do our job God will sure do his!

My angry conversations

Over coffee in a crowded room I chatted with a friend about how hard it was not to get angry at God when we see people we love hurting, ill and facing which may seem to us as confusing and unfair times. We both knew in our head knowledge that God didn't make these bad things happen, that it is all part of a plan and we will come out stronger at the end of it but that doesn't take away the passion, the need to fight on the person's behalf with whoever we felt was to blame and how easily sometimes that anger was directed at God.

So is it ever ok to be angry? We are taught so often that 'thou shalt not murder' translates to if you have bad thoughts about anyone its the same as murder. That if you become angry it is a sin. But doesn't anger just show passion, show a deep love, show a strong desire to change things. 

Maybe it depends on what we are angry about, are we angry about things that we should be angry about? But then is that not so hard to determine when there is so many other human emotions caught up with anger. 

So how should we respond if not with anger? Im not talking about the niggly annoying things that get under our skin, sure i am rubbish at dealing with them to but it is clear to see that I need to work on my patience, understanding, reactions on these things but does the same apply to big things. Didn't Jesus get angry when he saw wrong doing? 

I know that in anger we often do things that we regret, that we don't set a good example and that we really are just plain silly when you look at it but there are somethings that just aren't right! But why do I never direct the anger where it should be directed? Either it simmers and someone or something totally unrelated cops it or God gets to hear me rant away. So maybe getting angry isn't the issue its whether I direct it in a good way, into changing something I see as a bad, anger making thing into a work for God. And to allow the righteous anger in me about wrong doing, fuel a fire to want to see God in everything. The tough one though will be the unchangeable  the illness, the hurts, the things we have no control over the things that tear at our very outlook on the world. At least even when there is dark there is always light, when I cry I know God cries with me, I know he gets the pain I feel and oh so much more and that is why I know its ok.

Here goes

Wow ok so I thought I'd try this blogging to see if it helps me make sense of the ups and downs of life. I've often wondered how I manage to stumble through day to day still mostly in tact. I am just so grateful of God's giant sticky plasters! So who's me and why am I doing this, well I am a happy married mother of a princess (most of the time!). I am usually found either in complete chaos running kids groups at church or school or escaping somewhere quiet with God and my craft works.