The Long Walk Home

Today I got up at silly o’clock in the morning to wave my aformentioned brother and sister in law and small nephew off at the airport. They are off on an exciting journey to Canada, Regent college in Vancouver gets the pleasure of their company for the next few years. It’s brilliant for many many reasons, not least my lovely Big Brother gets to do what he has always wanted to do, and lets face it, was made to do. I am a Very Proud sister, not least because he goes with his lovely wife and son and that makes me Very Proud of him as well.  I’ve always wanted to go to Canada and now I have even more good reasons to head out there.

Obviously I’m very sad as well, I love Mark and Roz and Matthew. They are my family, but thankfully we have a good Maker who made people who could invent skype and webcams and 3 years isn’t that long really.  They aren’t my possessions to hold on to, they are loving gifts of a brilliant Dad who loves me and who is our strength and refuge through all this. He’s got good plans for them and I’m glad.

So:

“May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind always be at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
and rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand”

His hands are the best to be in.

Bruce Springsteen also says it well…

“On through the houses of the dead past those fallen in their tracks
Always movin’ ahead and never lookin’ back
Now I don’t know how I feel, I don’t know how I feel tonight
If I’ve fallen ‘neath the wheel, if I’ve lost or I’ve gained sight
I don’t even know why, I don’t why I made this call
Or if any of this matters anymore after all

But the stars are burnin’ bright like some mystery uncovered
I’ll keep movin’ through the dark with you in my heart
My blood brother”

We have a God who is in charge of all this and who has good plans for the future. Whose mercies are new each morning, whose grace is ridiculous in it’s power and scope. He has washed us clean. He has set our times in his hands, He is always glad to hear our cries, He understands the language of tears and of laughter, He is our shade, our Helper, our Friend and our King.  He set us free and He calls us to explore this world, love the broken, hold out light and beauty and the pathway back home.  There’s a whole world out there of newness to experience and we are free to trust the one who knows the future and who holds us in his hands.

Phew.

Life is due to get pretty strange around these parts in the next week. Thus to keep the black dog in the corner I think quote week should begin. This first offering from Jars of Clay:

“Collapsing was much softer
Still falling always hurt
Only after sensing your love
For always ever burned

You justified my folly
My affluent disguise
Removed revealing nothing
Yet nothing unforgiven lies
Unforgiven lies

No one loves me like you
No one loves me the way you do
No one loves me like you
No one loves me the way, the way that you do

To touch the rose unfearful
Is to meet the thorn
And pierce the hearts emotion
And feel the emptiness no more
Emptiness no more”

Around about this time of year in the last 5 years my brain has gone into meltdown at the end of the term with end of year type thoughts, long summer ahead, changing seasons and the like doing odd things to my brain.  Last year I combated with 31 daysof remembering our Creator’s brillant gifts. This year May has been weird (and brillant) for a whole host of other reasons.  Change is still rumbling on and once more I am reguarly faced with the reality that I am not in control of this world or the people around me.  Which is a pretty good place to be, even if it doesn’t feel like a pretty good place to be…

ANyway today I was reminded that usually I do a whole host of talks on Hebrews 13 at this point in the year to remind me (and maybe the people listening…) of the God who does not change.  Hebrews 13- It’s all about Jesus. He is the same Yesterday, Today and Forever. It’s all about a God who is our Helper through all this life and therefore we can live well, we can have hope and we can delight in that. Here’s some of it…

^“5Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said,
   “Never will I leave you;
      never will I forsake you.”^{[a] 6}So we say with confidence,
   “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid.
      What can man do to me?”^[b]

 ⁷Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. ⁸Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever”.

We have a Maker who does not change. Who is our Helper. Who walks with us through change, through weird times, through brilliant times, we have a God who IS and WAS and IS to come. The whole of history, the whole of our lives are shot through with the reality of Him and His presence.

That means through all the change to come and change that is happening right now He is the one constant, he is the one who is always with us and always at work in our lives. That means we are free, free not to cling to our comfort, free to let others head across far seas, free to allow friendships and relationships to shift and change because they do not belong to us.  We are free to look to the future with hope because we know that whatever it brings, the One who created this world out of nothing and said let there be light (and there was) is at work in that same future. We are free to live now, loving the people we encounter each day because our times and relationships and friendships are in His hands.  And He is really, very, strangely, wonderfully good.

Cycling down to work today, sun shining, past a lumious green Preston Park, winding through the North Lanes, past intriguing shops and many cafes I’ve yet to try. Past Anish Kapoor’s Sky Mirror (go Brighton Festival) and then onto the seafront. Crusing along with the green and blue sea to the left, both Piers looking their shabby best in the bright light. To the right the vast array of diveristy of beauty and ugly that make up Brighton seafront, the grim concrete Centre contrasted with the white flowing flats of Hove. Green Hove lawns, string of people going to a conference, runners on the front and Jack Johnson in my ears. I love this city, I love my home. I love Fridays.

Ok, ok second link to this blog in a very short space of time, but I cannot really express the hope that this brings. Or the emotions that a brother standing up for his sisters stirs in me, a male voice that isn’t crushing but seeking to be life giving and affirmative. I’m grateful that I know a few men like this in reality but oh for a more redeemed way of men and women relating to each other generally. I really really can’t stand the constant putting down of womens thoughts and ideas in some church cultures, generally done with humour so if you get annoyed you are seen as having no sense of humour.

I really really can’t stand the reverse as well, women belittling men, again with humour, laughing at incompetence and generally taking the superior line. This is SUCH an issue in our lives. We need to be SO counter cultural in the way we love and respect each other as brothers and sisters. We all (men and women) need to get a whole lot better at the stuff Glen touches on in his post, the listening, the understanding, the self sacrifice of MY point of view. The battle of the sexes is the oldest kind, we fight for power and position, seemingly forgetting that Jesus sought neither. But we fear that kind of vulnerability, we might have tried it in the past and been stamped upon, I know that’s what stops me being vulnerable, what fuels my fear of opening up to brothers in my life. There are many issues to work through. But we must, not just because Jesus taught us how real forgiveness was possible, but so we really do reflect Him to the world around us.

It seems so obvious to start with Jesus, He gives me hope, he related to women in the most loving counter-cultural way ever. He is the lead to follow in bring out the beauty in the women around him, of loving their tenderness and compassion and loving them in their brokenness. Good men do this, they help us unfurl into the beautiful women we were made to be.  And you don’t need a husband or boyfriend for that to happen, good men are those brothers who know how to listen, to relate well to and love, I’m so grateful to the guys God has put into my path over the years who have been friends, who haven’t been afraid I’m going to jump them, who haven’t feared that we’re going to enter into some kind of competition, who haven’t put me down but have valued my input and nurtured me as a sister.

(just realised this a whole new line in blog posts for me, it’s not about tea, not about heaven, not about struggling and not about the Lake District. Interesting…)