Forgiveness

There are many excuses as to why blogs go silent for a while. The main issue that I’ve had over the last few months is that the thing I’ve most wanted to blog about I haven’t been able to.

Over the last few months I’ve been involved with supporting some children and a family in a big child protection case. I’ve done more child protection cases in ministry than I care to mention, and all of them are tragic. This was the first time where not only did I know the children and family involved but the person who is the abuser (he has now be convicted and sentenced) was someone I trusted. I’ve taught child protection to people so I know it’s very rarely a dodgy looking stranger from the street corner but is far more often someone you know and trust. When it actually happens though it’s devastating.

The abuse of trust of the children is awful and I do not in anyway under estimate that, but I’ve shocked about how much it has effected me. Over the six months of the case I’ve hardly slept and have had difficultly concentrating on anything, have found myself in tears (even more often than normal) and hardest of all have really found it difficult to trust anyone. At it’s worse I’ve had panic attacks when I’ve found myself alone in a room with someone and couldn’t cope with having people in my house. Now before you all start worrying about me falling off the edge again, I’ve had and continue to have some people who are supporting me and helping me recover from it all. But it’s so hard when you can’t tell someone why you’re completely broken and falling to pieces. It’s been a bit of relief to be able to speak about it now.

Trust has been something that has broken before by people in my life before and so to have it happen again, has been painful, and I’m not sure how long it will take to recover again. Each time it seems to take longer.

Forgiveness is the next thing on the agenda. It’s been humbling to see the children involved so willing to forgive him, they will happily tell you they have and I believe them. I’m determined that I will, but to say that I had would cheapen forgiveness. I know it’s important and I’m committed to doing it, but I want to give it more than lip service. I hope forgiving is an important part of his recovery but I also think it’s an important part of mine. It’s been difficult to preside at communion knowing I haven’t, but I’ve found it helpful in helping me to forgive (hope that makes sense). God has held me in all this and coped with my tears and my anger and I hope he’ll help me through this next phrase and continue to support and guide me as I still try and support those involved. Prayers still welcome!

I’m part of the conspiracy are you?

Worship Fully, Spend Less, Give More, Love All

www.adventconspiracy.org

Caution Swine Flu

Hello everyone.

I don’t like starting blog posts with sorry, but I am.  I really want to blog about something that’s happened over the last six months and I thought this week I would be allowed to, but I’ve been now told I have to wait other 3/4 weeks  before that becomes a sensible thing to do.  It’s not been a pleasant thing to have to deal with, and I’m not sure how or what’ll say yet, but it’s been the thing which has affected me most over this time and it has been difficult to think about anything else.

There has been plenty else happening but as ever, as soon as you are told not to do something, it’s all you want to do, and concentreating on anything else is really difficult!  The latest event is that I have swine flu!  So I have been in quarantine for 4 days now and have at least one more to go.  It’s not nice, try not to get it (these people who are having swine flu parties are crazy!).  One of the difficult things is being ill when you live on your own.  On the positive front, it is unlikely that I will give it to anyone else.  Generally I really don’t like fuss when I’m ill but this time I’ve actually needed help, so deciding who to ask and what to get them to do is really hard.

The people I would normally ask (for really good reasons) haven’t been able to help.  So had to tell some Church folk, which meant that slowly but surely the entire Church knew and lots of people wanted help.  Which was lovely, but I just wanted to sleep and was meant to be keeping contact with people to a minimum.  Then you get people coming to help but deciding that today is the best day to tell you that deep pastoral issue that they have been carrying for months. 

As I’m getting better I’ve thought about how much I value my independence and value the community I’m part of.  It’s hard work to make those things work together, most of the time I would like to be less independent and yet I can often get prickly when people try to help.  It’s not that I don’t want them to help, it’s just I’m used to doing it myself and wonder how I get people to help with stuff when I’m not wanting to crawl under the duvet (although I appeciate all people do for me when I’m in that state too!).  I’m not sure I’m making sense – blame the tamiflu.  Hope you get it, if only a little.

Happy Easter

 

Ok so it’s a little late, but it’s meant with love.  I’ve never been quite so exhausted through a Holy Week and Easter before but for the most part it was wonderful.  I need time to think through lots of it but for now, here are a few highlights.

The Maundy Thursday evening service.  This service holds lots of precious memories for me, it’s always been a service I’ve managed to sit in  rather than lead and often have had quite intense moments of God speaking to me.  So to be involved more in the leading was a different experience but I loved it.  Washing people’s feet is an odd thing, it’s not top of my list of things I want to do, but increasingly I find it more moving and emotional than I can keep a lid on.  This week was no different and I wept as people let me have the priveldge of washing their feet and praying for them as I did it.  I so wanted some people to let me who didn’t, but part of the joy is that someone invites you to serve them and you can’t force them.

Friday was mad.  most of the things we’d planned came off and the things that didn’t most people didn’t know about!  Even Brett’s handmade cross shaped trough didn’t leak too much.   But for me the highpoint was being trusted with two children for the day, it’s difficult to explain now, but being able to make their day a good and relief filled one was such a treat.

More to come (but I need to go and see someone now)…

Holiness

I often feel I need to start posts by apologising to Ben.  I’m sorry I don’t write often enough and I honestly would like to write more and so therefore your gentle harassment to get me to write is welcome even if it doesn’t always get the best response!  So apology over.

As ever in St George’s we have to a have a theme, and over Lent, this year, that theme is holiness.  Coming up with a theme can seem like a process if torture at times, we have to be happy that we think it’s what God is calling us to think about, but on a more practical and honest level we have to be sure we won’t go mad preparing and presently a million one sermons, events, etc, etc on the theme.  This year Lent really sprang up on us, we had planned to spend lots of time thinking about and praying but it didn’t happen.  So 2 weeks before Lent began we had lunch and a natter and decided on holiness.

I realise to think about holiness in lent is hardly a new thing but the reason we chose was, I think, a good one and worth sharing.   so often when we think about holiness we think of a wall, wall that seperates, a wall that divides those that are in from those who are out.  And part of the meaning of holiness is set apart and so it can seem a really natural way to think about it.  Before we even began to think about Lent, just after Christmas, whilst we were praying Brett had a picture of a well. 

A well has a wall.  The wall is really important to the well, but it’s not about protecting it from people.  The wall’s function is to protect the water from what might make the water dirty and undrinkable, so the water can be drunk by all who comes to it.  The well gets to be the centre of the village, a force for life and a blessing.  That’s how we want to think about holiness this year.  As a wall for a well, that means it’s a place people come to, a place of purity – not a place of not good enough – that is a blessing, a place of life and a place of blessing.  I don’t feel I’ve done our idea much justice, but it’s important and I hope you get to understand it, a little if not a lot.  So holiness is what I’m thinking about, I’ve just read struggling to be holy by Judy Hurst and I’ll like to write some thoughts on that another time too but we’ll see. 

God is up to stuff here at the minute and my head isn’t quite keeping up.  Apologies for the slight cheese factor in quoting narnia but it’s like when people say ‘Aslan is on the move’, nobody is quite sure of what is going on, they all have ideas, but we trust that God is doing something and something good.

Children

It is no secret that I have a lot of time for children of all ages (and spend a lot of time trying to convince myself that I’m not broody), but over the last couple of weeks there have just been a few moments when they have made a huge difference, that I thought I’d share.

We had a special needs school come to visit Church the other week.  It was crazy chaos, some of it good and some less good.  My highlight was when I filled the font with water and let my 8 boys come and put their hands in the water.  They all enjoyed having a bit of a splash around, but when I got them to sit down again one boy got very upset, I asked him what the matter was and he delcared that he was sad that I got to bless everyone in Baptism but nobody got to bless me.  That would have been enough of a highlight but he then he insisted he take some water and draw a cross on my forehead and ask God to bless me.  It was incredibly moving and his teachers had no idea he could be so gentle and sensitive.  I won’t be forgetting it anytime soon.

On Sunday, our service was longer than normal and we had a lot of children taking part.  Over the last few months Brett and I have been amazed at how two girls have engaged in worship.  I can’t describe it really but they are more in to it than any adult in the room.  This weekend though, they were not alone in leading the worshippers, we had the 2 year old who shouted Amen at the top of her voice all through the Eucharistic prayer (in all the right places) and then we had the 3 year old who manged to find his way to the drum kit without his parents noticing and when the president declared ‘hear the cry of our hearts’ he clanged the cymbal with the drum stick.  It was magic!

At a prayer service another 3 year old who had played around our feet for the whole service turned to me at the end and said ‘isn’t it lovely being with Jesus’.

Nissan

The lost of jobs at Nissan is big scary news up here.  Despite what the news might tell you Nissan is only half in Sunderland the other half of the factory is in Washington.  We reckon about 1/5 of the working population of the parish works in Nissan or in supporting bussinesses.  We’re working out how we can best support what’s going on.  Your prayers would be gratefully received.

New Year

So granted I’m a few days late, but I’m a busy lass, so Happy New Year!

So I’ve been thinking about 5 things that I’m grateful for over the last year and 5 things I’m looking forward to for the coming year.

I guess firstly I’m grateful for a house to live in.  This time last year I was still commuting across from Gateshead after the Diocese ‘forgot’ to sort me a house in Washington.  But now I have a cute little end terrace which is all my own to call home. 

I am now a very proud Aunty to the very handsome young Joshua, which is a real treat and not at all making me broody!

It’s been lovely to see two very delighted friends get married this year – Nao and Becca – and it was great to be part of their special day, even if it means I’ve lost my holiday friends.  My ordination was certainly a hightlight to, who’d a thought it!

One of the things that I’m very grateful for is that I have been blessed with some wonderful people, who love me enough and are gentle enough to say ‘you can be better than this’.

This coming year I’m looking forward to my priesting.  The thought of in 6 months time being able to say the ‘magic’ words at communion and give a blessing makes me unbelievably excited.  Looking forward to doing some consistent youth work again, spending time with young people is a real treat and priviledge.  Having a house means, hospitality is back on the cards again.  Having sussed the new oven, baking is now back on form and people are welcome to make their way North to the joys of Fatfield to be spoiled a little. 

My crafty side has been taking a back seat for a little while so I have a little wire work project to get underway.  Sparkly shiny things are hard to resist.  Finally I’m looking forward to a holiday, having not taken a proper holiday for some time, this year I will get one!

 

Themes

 

Each year I try and pick up a phrase or picture that helps me focus on something through the year.  Sometimes these things are planned and thought hard about and other times it’s only when I’m in the middle of something that a phrase sticks out and I find it useful to cling onto.

A few years ago now, it was ‘Jesus saved the world so I didn’t have to’, which still makes me grin.  It may seem greedy but over the last year there has been a few which have grown to be important as things have happened.  The one I started the year with however has come back to mind over the last few days.  It was from a poster that Jen Lemen sells from her Etsy shop and reads.

Today is a new day!

You can start fresh, wipe the slate clean and begin again.

Today you can embrace kindness

Practice Compassion

stand up for justice

talk to strangers

ask for help, offer hope

Listen with your whole heart

Work for the common good

Love well

You can be the change you wish to see in the world.

I like lots of it!  But because I am lazy and have a mind that floats around like a butterfly I’ve tried to live with one particular line (granted slightly altered) ‘ask for help to offer hope’.  I’ve never been great at asking for help and that has meant I’ve fallen over in a heap – in all senses – when it has not been necessary.  I think I’ve got better at asking for help this year and I think asking for help has empowered others to realise that they have skills they didn’t realise and allowed them to use them.  I realise there are some situations where it is not best to give people power over you because they will abuse it, but for the most part I think it is a good thing and has helped me, hugely.

If you know me well or have read my random mutterings on here often enough, you’ll know I have suffered from depression and have to work hard at looking after my mental health.  I’ve never kept quiet about it but this year I have talked about it more honestly with more people than normal.  Lots of people suffer or have suffered from depression and yet so few people talk about it.  I know it can be a really painful and personal thing so I understand why some people choose not to. 

This year I have spent a lot of time talking to someone whose relative is in a really nasty bought of depression, assured them it’s not their fault, shared coping advice, told stories about what depression and it’s treatment was like for me and I hope offered some hope that you can get better from it. 

I’d never met the relative who was suffering from depression until Christmas eve when they came to a Christmas service and asked to talk to me afterwards.  Unknown to me all this chat had been shared with the person sufferring and they wanted to thank me for my honesty and said they had felt encouraged to know other people had depression (even ‘Church’ people), and had done all the crazy things depressives do (like bursting into tears when the window cleaner arrived), and was still standing at the end of it.  I came home and cried happy tears that sharing stories had benefited someone else so much.  So if you’d experienced something difficult or painful think about whether you can share it with others.  But be brave enough to say you won’t right now, if that’s the right thing to do.

So Christmas is about here.  The last few months have been very crazy.  We’ve seen God do some great things and wept when we haven’t seen the answers to prayer we’ve longed for. 

The prayer course went really well, we’ve had some encouraging feedback and are looking forward to running it again in March.  It was refreshing to see people being honest about what was hard and what was good in prayer, to see people taking risks with new and old ways of praying and to see people exicited enough to talk to others about it. 

The pastoral stuff is still big and difficult and often overwhelming.  I’m still waiting for the course that tells me what to say/do/pray when the world seems to be falling down on top of someone.

The schools work is amazing.  I am still in shock about how welcoming the school is being about what we can offer and who we can be to them.  We’ve regularly done lessons for the last 2 months and have just completed the mammoth set of carol services for the whole school.  The new year heralds a return to a more regular presence in school, an alpha course for the pupils (which sounds like it might be full already), more assemblies, the possiblities of an alpha course for staff (they have asked for one!) and some space for us in the new build.  I continue to be excited by the way God seems to be opening doors.

Other things have been more difficult.  There are people at Church who are frustated that Church doesn’t seem to be meeting their (or what they perceive to be) the communities needs.  This has meant lots of difficult conversations, with plenty of people feeling the need to let off steam – and even throw things at me.

This weekend was particularly difficult with a lot going on (plenty of which should be celebrated), but another batch of pastoral crisis alongside.  Advent 4 is always a bit of a funny one for me.  I’m a Mary fan and so love the opportunity to think about her part in the story, but always find talk of women and child bearing a little painful.  So was very disappointed when the person preaching seemed to ignore her story and head straight to Joseph.  Why are we so scared of her?  I don’t think we’re at any risk of worshipping her at Fatfield but I do think she has an important place in the story and should be remembered.  That was enough to get me in a bad mood, but then when we had the preacher talking about how Mary didn’t stay a virgin forever but was a ‘real woman’ because she had sex and had children I was about to leave.  I left the evening service in a mess, went home and had a good cry and am trying to work out whether this is my body telling me I need a rest, am heading for being ill again or just the preacher was out of order and I need to go and speak to him.

 

So don’t leave Mary back in Nazareth this Christmas, remember the lady who was scared but did it anyway, who was blessed and shared her blessing with the world and who sang with joy at the news of the King. 

Merry Christmas