Looking Back

I found the space to take a look back at 2011 today - it's been a good year!  My journal-keeping is a bit erratic but thankfully I've used it enough to catch a whiff of the trail I've followed through the past twelve months:

January found me challenged by Jesus' teaching that, as his disciple, I'm called to be 'salt' that brings out all the wonderful flavours in the world around me, to be 'light' that brings warmth and shines in the darkness, illuminating the glorious colour of God's kingdom - right here and now, just waiting to be revealed...  I was in a place of dread!  To be salt and light means taking the decision to face the empty, dry, dark places. I felt in real danger of being overwhelmed, but took a step out into the dark anyway by taking up the challenge of Thursdays in Black http://thursdaysinblack.blogspot.com/ ...without really understanding what difference it might make!

February brought lots of questions around my identity in God.  Who I am as a woman created in God's image. A 'mothering' God who found me in the hurting, desert place and enveloped me with love, wrapped me in light, flooded my life with joy and colour, blessed me with beauty.  I sensed a new place with God lay ahead.

March was seasoned with prayer for boldness and courage, trust and fruitfulness, a willingness to risk making a fool of myself, for ears and heart open to the whisper of the Spirit's voice.. lead me on!

April was a time of prayer for increased understanding of what Jesus has done for me.  'Jesus answered "Unless I wash you, you have no part with me... do you understand what I have done for you?"' I found myself stumbling, stalling at Jesus' challenge to serve others freely and generously.  I read Blue Like Jazz by Don Miller that month and made a note about his idea of two 'conversations' going on when we interact with others - one of words and one of the heart.  I prayed 'Move me Lord, change my heart.  Teach me how to leap off the high places and plunge into the depths of your love... change my heart.  I want to move on.'

The end of April brought me into a low place with the gospel choir... I felt as if I'd plunged into the depths of discouragement and emptiness rather than God's love!

May began with two whole weeks off work and began the journey out of the doldrums ready for my experiment in Living Below the Line (see earlier posts for more).  Life was back in perspective!

June felt like a corner turned. SGC were mostly on board and we were moving on together.  A faithful band of pray-ers from Seaton were building and strengthening our foundations with an underpinning of prayer.  I'd determined to begin a new season of prayer with an early morning start.  Our cat Jimi sitting quietly in the garden, listening, watching, sniffing the air, sensitive to everything around her and in tune with her world, inspired me to pray for that kind of watchfulness, still but alert, and sensitive to what God is doing around me.

July brought more images of hopelessness.  We went to see the film 'Ghosts' about the clam pickers who died at Morecambe Bay in 2004.  I was deeply unsettled and struggled to know how to respond.  I find it so difficult to really look into the face of that kind of hopelessness!  I prayed 'Show me how to respond in ways that bring your goodness in.  Your light.  Your hope... Your Kingdom come!'

It was amazing today in looking back over these months to see the themes criss-crossing and threading their way through my experiences and my prayers!

August was another questioning time... who am I really?  Where is the authentic 'me'?  How can I live in the reality of holiness when I'm angry with the untidy, lazy hoarder that is also me?  Pictures of death, chaos and darkness threatened to overwhelm me again.  Bindweed smothering the garden, cobwebs, heaps of 'stuff' in our home... even packing for our holiday uncovered old, worn clothes and others new and unworn because they don't fit!  Everything a depressing reminder of the battle - our battle - with sinfulness.  'Help me pick my way through the chaos of the world Lord.'

Then a 'hanging on in there' prayer, borrowed from Gerard Kelly's twitturgies:  'May these words hold my heart.  Mark my mind.  Stain my skin: Child of Yahweh.  Servant of Christ.  Lover of the one true Spirit.' 

September and a lovely holiday in France found me with a fresh thankfulness for friends and family.  However I was still battling! I was torn between thankfulness and desperation, deep joy in the goodness of God and deep sadness at the 'lostness' of the world.  I recorded that I was in a halfway place between singing 'Be Still for the Presence of the Lord' and 'There Must be More Than This'!

October was great!  The prayer room was especially lovely and was based around Luke 11 and the Lord's Prayer.  I had an amazingly vivid dream about God taking a pencil from someone's hand and giving them a paint roller to write their prayers on the wall!  A big old door knocker also featured in my dream that weekend.  It was covered in verdigris and I felt hesitant about lifting it to knock on the door.  I woke up and took a look at my bedside clock.  It said 3:16 - a reminder (just in case I hadn't picked up the message yet!) that God loves us and wants us - is desperate for us - to ask our biggest prayers, to shout and cry and sing and knock loudly... to persist in prayer!

I was challenged to think about prayer in the light of:

Sacrifice
Generosity
Abandonment
and Trust

Later that month I prayed for a real, deep, heart-kindness for Mick.  I committed to rejecting subtle criticism in what I say, how I say it, my actions... Once again, looking back across the year I can see that even though I hadn't remembered much of what I'd read back in April with Don Miller, my prayers were revealing God at work across the warp and weft of the year!

November was full of positive stuff!  Great things with SGC and Living Stones.  Excitement and encouragement around the two Women's Breakfasts - lots of networking and good conversation.

December brought us to Follow the Star at the Prayer Room once again with a gathered pace since last year.  More than two hundred people visited our little 'Bethlehem experience' on Sidmouth's late night shopping evening.  Each one heard the Christmas story, added their name to the census, met the shepherds... and then made their way into the stable to meet with Joseph, Mary and little Jesus.  Wonderful!

And as if that wasn't enough, our first Community Christmas Lunch was a huge success!  Every door we pushed flew open and we experienced  amazing blessing as people overwhelmed us with their generosity, their longing to make a difference for others... God really did 'move into the neighbourhood' this Christmas in Sidmouth!