Showing-up in April

Those who follow, will know that this year I am doing a round up each month of what the month has looked like for me and where I’ve been intentional in ‘showing up’. [This being my New Year Word and theme of showing up in different areas of life, you can read more of that in that post here].

This month has been about invitation, invitation to read, study, reflect, selah.

Whilst we were away on holiday I picked up this book:

Intentional Interruptions, by Jonathan Thomas

It was very apt thing to be reading on a campsite with little Wifi where I was forever desperately checking my phone, seeing if there were any messages, any emails, missed calls etc. The first half of this book deals mainly with Interruptions of the Social Media type, and he talks about FOMO! I had never even heard of FOMO, but it is what I had been doing: ‘Fear Of Missing Out’!! I don’t know when I developed this fear or began to check my phone so much! When did I start picking up my phone on waking in the morning? It really challenged me in this regard and I am going to be more intentional at only checking my phone at certain times of the day.

But the book goes on to explain that all the things we fill our days with – box sets, social media, music, noise, etc could infact deter us from hearing God speak to us, from having a Divine Interruption. We need to pause, as he puts it, we need to ‘Selah’. We need to allow capacity in our lives for divine interruptions, that means not filling our diaries full to overflowing so that we have no time to go and see a particular person when prompted, it means having space to breathe and think and reflect, so that God can speak.

It has been an invite to ‘Selah’, to put away daily distractions to allow space for Divine Interruptions.

I also have been listening in Audio to the 4th Book in the ‘Sensible Shoes Club’, An Extra Mile, By Sharon Garlough Brown. These are classified as ‘Christian Novels’ and as a great novel reader I thought I would give them a go. They are based on the lives of 4 women who met at a Spiritual Retreat, they remain friends and the books follow their stories, their friendships, their ups and downs and struggles with life and also their inner spiritual struggles and faith. I previously read the first two, but have listened to the 3rd and 4th and have enjoyed them more as audio books I think!! This one in particular I liked for the meditations included in the book, to reflect upon along with these friends.

An invitation to spiritual direction and formational habits.

I have also been studying Nancy Guthrie’s book on the Book of Revelation: Blessed. As all of Nancy’s books, this one also is practical, relevant and takes in the whole of the Bible, a craft of which Nancy is master. The book opened my eyes to the many things which took place in heaven at the time of Jesus’ death, resurrection and ascension, the things which we experience in this ‘in-between’ comings time and also the glorious Culmination of when Jesus returns and all his enemies are conquered at last and we will reign with Him for ever and ever!

An invitation to reflect on all the wonders and blessings which will be ours in Christ Jesus on His return, but also an invitation in the here and now to have ‘patient endurance’ in the wait. And an invitation to worship the Lamb, who lives for ever and ever.

Where have you been showing up in April? What has God been inviting you into this month?

Complicate

I am joining in with the Five Minute Friday Group of writers, who write for 5 minutes on a one-word prompt. Today’s prompt is “Complicate“.

I am a master at complicate, especially when it comes to decision making. I try to look at the decision from every angle. Then I try to second guess other people’s reactions or thoughts, and I then look at all the ‘what if’ scenarios; if I do this, what will that mean, what will the outcome be and if I do that what will happen!

I can tie myself up in knots. I over complicate.

The solution – keep it simple!

If you are doing a craft activity or jigsaw or whatever, it is always one stitch, one piece at a time. You may not know all the steps, or what the piece will look like at the end, but one by one you place the next stitch and then the next one, or the next piece of the puzzle and then another one.

So, too with my decision making – I don’t always know what the outcomes are going to be, I have to leave that with God, but I can do the ‘next right thing’, take the next step and then the one after that. I don’t need to try and guess other people’s reactions, those are not my responsibility, I take the next piece of the puzzle and put it in place, and pick up the next one.

I keep it simple, one thing at a time. I keep it simple, one step at a time. I keep it simple, one day at a time. I keep it simple, with my eyes fixed on Jesus, living for His ways, His glory and His audience alone.

I keep it simple and ask, “What would Jesus do?”

He has told you, O man, what is good;
    and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
    and to walk humbly with your God?

Micah 6:8

Showing up in March

As many of you know my ‘new year word’ was that of showing up in different areas of life, you can read that post here, so every month I am doing a round up of what that month has looked like for me and where I’ve had to be intentional in ‘showing up’.

March, of course, has all been about Lent, and this year as a church and women’s bible study group we have been going through Robin Ham’s book Finding Mercy on the way of Sorrow:

This is an Easter Devotion from the Book of Lamentations, it has been hard going, it has been relentless, Lent seems to be so long this year and I have been longing for Resurrection Sunday to come. A bit like life itself, sometimes it seems relentless, and certainly for the people living in Jerusalem at the time when Lamentations was written, life, death, destruction, despair were relentless. I want to skip over those bits and get to the happy bits, like life I want times of sorrow and sadness to end, I want to get to the joy.

And yet on the way of sorrow, we must continue to show up, if not in faith and trust, then in doubts, questions and laments. We must continue to seek and press on through till we find the place of mercy, the place of acceptance and the place of surrender.

These thoughts have been hovering in the background as I have also contemplated joy this month. When you have experienced hurts , sorrows and particularly disappointments, then sometimes it is hard to trust joy, you are afraid to enter into happiness incase the bubble bursts and you are yet again disappointed.

I have had fun, joy and adventure this month, yet have found myself a bit hesitant to trust it. I had a very precious couple of days away with my daughter on a road trip! She is full of adventure and joy and it was a good trip, it was special, it was blessed, but I had to show-up and allow the day to flow, finding the joy in the moments.

And…. we have also splashed out in a big adventure:

We have purchased a caravan to go on many more adventures! We used to have one when the kids were small, but have never got round to getting a replacement when the original was damaged. Now hubby and I have the means to get away to relax, to get away and adventure, to go and have some fun!!

Fun? Again a bit of hesitancy .. ‘what ifs’ creep into my mind. Then I remember, ‘what if it is wonderful’? What if I just enter into the moment and have fun, what if I just relax and trust the moment, what if I just show-up and trust the joy?

This life is full of the tension of living in the ‘in between’, between Resurrection Sunday and the Second Coming, between living in a broken world and looking forward to a restored world, between sorrow and joy, between faith and doubt. Lament is a vehicle to hold those tensions in the messy middle of lived experience.

So, whilst life is not perfect, our expectations can get dashed and our plans may not go as we thought they would, or the unexpected may happen, still we can hold those things along with trust that God has all those things in His hands as well as the joy.

I will show-up in the place of joy.

I will show-up in the place of happy.

I will show-up in the place of adventure.