Seeking God’s Face

Posted on December 4, 2013 by Kath

Seeking

A couple of people have asked where that prayer came from yesterday. It’s from the excellent book, ‘Seeking God’s Face’. It’s a book of set readings and prayers going throughout the church year. Each day there is a verse to start you off, a psalm to read, a section of bible, reflection time on that, free prayer time, a set prayer and another verse to end with.

 

It’s kept me sane over the last year as each day can take as short as it takes to skim read the words or as long as you have to reflect deeply on them. I’ve loved it for keeping me consistent in reading the Bible, in remembering God each day and in guiding me through the various stages of the year. We’re in advent at the moment and each page is full of passages and prayers calling me to expectantly wait for Jesus. It’s a brilliant reminder of the reality that this is God’s world each day. It doesn’t matter if you miss a day, you just go to the next day and although I miss out on a deeper study of a single book I’m not sure my brain/time would allow for that in this season of life.  I also usually manage to retain at least one thought from it to head into my day with.

My lovely sister in law also uses this and blogs her thoughts over at The Joshua Tree. She and my brother gave it to me last year knowing all that would lie ahead in this crazy adventure of parenthood and how much it would be of help. I’m very grateful.

Also it’s got a pretty cover and has a forward by Eugene Peterson. What could be better?

You can get it here.

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Advent Prayer for a gloomy dark morning.

Posted on December 3, 2013 by Kath

tree

From the prayer book I use each day:

“Everlasting God, it’s Advent once again. We’ve eagerly waited for change, but it appears little has happened. Expand in me the great hope that one day I will be raised from this broken earth- changed in the blink of an eye, and that everything bent and bruised, curdled and corrupted in me and in this world will be transformed into lasting goodness, righteousness and truth. In Jesus’ name. Amen”

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Advent

Posted on December 1, 2013 by Kath

adventAlright people, it’s advent. Advent is that brilliant time where we get to remember for a whole 24 days what the whole point of Christmas and, lets face it, life is. You might find a few adventy posts around here, or maybe just some recycled ones from previous years, there is a lot of material to draw on. Mostly I’m excited because Sufjan Stevens can once again be on repeat constantly in the house and I can dig out the Advent Calendar I determinedly sewed together in a haze of extreme sleep depravation last year.  This year I think we’ll be following along with the wonderful Alison Joy Bolton and her advent suggestion of listening to a bit of the Messiah each day with Bible verses printed out alongside.

I’m slightly sad that sonface is a little bit too young to get it all but I’m sure I’ll be reading him books about the Christmas story that he can ignore and instead throw his favourite book about Hippos going Berserk into my lap. Ah well, maybe next year we’ll do something as cool as the lovely Adele. 

I’ll leave you with Sufjan as always. Balm to the soul as we wait for our Emmanuel. God is with us. Phew.

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On women.

Posted on November 29, 2013 by Kath

The excellent Tanya Marlow has been blogging about women. You should read her thoughts here. She got me thinking again about women in ministry as did this article by Karen Soole here. This one by some people in Scotland also seems to make a lot of sense. I want there to be more women employed by churches, I want there to be more opportunities for training, development and for diverse and different voices to be heard in our churches and in the wider conferences that people attend.

I am very grateful for my church leader, grateful that he bucks the trend in the Christian subculture he inhabits and makes room for me and others to preach in church. I am glad that he values our gifts and seeks to develop them in a wide ranging context. I am glad he values the women in the church enough to make sure they are looked after and out for.

Here’s me preaching from this Sunday. I don’t think I’ll be at a conference near you anytime soon but I am glad to be able to bring God’s word to his people and be transformed by it as I do so.

There is a whole wealth of debate that goes with this. I have no brain to enter into any of it but I am glad in my small church community that good work is going on to see women valued and used.

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I’m alright…

Posted on November 28, 2013 by Kath

prettyA brief word. I am alright. The point of the last post wasn’t to gain sympathy or worry anyone. It was about voicing my complaint to The Lord. Life is hard and I think it’s good to be honest about that. I get that our instant reaction is to want to fix it, to be honest, mine is as well. I want to fix situations, find the magic sleep button, work out how to not be a sinner, make everything shiny and wonderful.

I’m just not sure it works like that.

We can’t avoid pain and hard times in this world. It’s just not possible and it doesn’t mean we’ve failed if we find ourselves constantly confronted by struggle, pain and hurt. This life is lived through a veil of tears, as some wise man said somewhere. It’s not wise to avoid pain at all costs.

My struggles, whilst real are fairly small in the scheme of things. We do have a beautiful boy who I can’t get enough of. We have a roof, we can eat, we love being married and we love our friends and family. Life is still not easy though. It’s fun, beautiful, crazy and wonderful. But there is still pain and struggle. And that’s ok.

God is here in the midst of these times. I complain to him and though he has not promised me a pain free life he has promised to help me endure, to help me know him, that one day I will live in a perfect world.  Until then we groan. He listens and then he helps me live well in the midst of the struggle.

As ever Larry Crabb is on offer with his hugely helpful thoughts about groaning:

“Beneath the surface of everyone’s life, especially the more mature is an ache that will not go away. It can be ignored, disguised, mislabelled or submerged by a torrent of activity, but it will not disappear. And for good reason. We were designed to enjoy a better world than this. And until that better world comes along we will groan for what we do not have… There is no escape from an aching soul, only denial of it. The promise of one day being with Jesus in a perfect world is the Christian’s only hope for complete relief. Until then we either groan or pretend we don’t.”

I refuse to pretend. And I refuse to let these groanings be the end. They are real and it is ok to groan. We should groan in a world so far from what it will one day be. We groan with hope but that doesn’t deny the reality of the groaning. I think it’s important to let each other groan, to affirm that it’s normal, to be less anxious to fix and more willing to sit with each other in the hard stuff of this life.

Sometimes there isn’t an answer. Sometimes all that we need is a listening ear, an acknowledgement that it’s hard and a hug. Someone gave me a chocolate advent calendar this week as a response to the last post. That’s louder than any well meaning advice. There is place for suggestions and improvements of the situation but I think they come later, or in answer to specific questions.

Life is hard but it’s also brilliant, each morning the mercies are new and I stumble on. I have a God who loves and delights in me and friends who get all the above. I’m alright.

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