Thoughts for the day from my carer and others

There's a lot of nonsense in the media about particular days, like "Black Friday" and "Blue Monday", almost predisposing us to a particular mood for the day. Stupid! A friend put this on her Facebook status today. That's more like it. Thanks, Emma!

 

My carer was a few minutes later than usual this morning, but it didn't matter. I enjoy times of waiting. Our Bible notes today began: "'But I have stilled and quietened my soul; like a weaned child with its mother...' (Psalm 131.2). Still yourself before the Lord, and listen for his voice."

Whether my carer was speaking something of the Lord's voice, I don't know - I try not to dismiss the probability that God will speak in unexpected ways, ever since he used Balaam's donkey. Anyway he quoted something he'd read in a weekend supplement: "There's a danger of us becoming human doings rather than human beings." And later he quoted Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk saying: "Don't just do something; sit there!" which is, as they'd say over the pond, a "kinda neat" way of saying it.

courtesy - the Eddy family

Our local curate's family have just brought home a lovely spaniel puppy, which no doubt has periods of frenetic activity, but also has the gift of stillness. It's something that dogs are very good at - relaxing. I suppose that's what we also need, a balance between doing and being - but we need to avoid measuring our value or our importance by our doing. God values us all, because we're his children, and his love is the measure that matters. "It's so high, you can't get over it; so deep, you can't under it; so wide, you can't get round it. Oh wonderful love!" as we heard on Sunday.

Will my rope break?

Today, when I was dressed, my carer asked me, "How has your illness affected your faith?" Oh, crikey! as Billy Bunter would have said. But it was a good question.

"Well," I replied, "it's got thinner. It's like a rope that was fat, with lots of strands, and now it's thin, but it's not less strong. I think it will still hold me. Before a lot of the strands were made by me - such as being useful, doing things for God, like being a vicar, praying. Now those strands are fraying. For example it find it very hard to pray."

"Really?"

"Yes. When I hear of good friends with terminal cancer, I really don't know what to ask for. I can't find the words to pray. I just feel upset."

"Isn't that the best kind of praying?" asks my carer, who doesn't go to church. "It's honest." He's not wrong. I continue musing. I agreed.

"Are you worried about the future?" he asks, meaning the inevitable shutting down of my muscles.  

"I don't think I am," I reply. "There's a difference between worrying what might happen and worrying about what will happen, isn't there? The first is understandable; the second is pointless.

"Although my strands have frayed, what's left are God's cords and I reckon they are utterly reliable. It's a bit like abseiling with a safety rope. Even if you let go of the brake rope, you're still safe. Of course," I admit, "I don't know what I'll feel when I can't speak or do anything for myself. Maybe I'll think differently then. Maybe my faith will give way."

"I don't think it will, somehow," is my carer's comment.

"I hope not. There's a great verse in the Bible: 'If we are faithless, He remains faithful' (2 Timothy 2.13). I might let go, but God won't, because that's his character. That's where my faith has got to now."

 Our conversation had to end as my legs were locking up and I needed to move towards the lift. So off I tottered hanging on to the rollator. Oh yes, and at some point I'd commented that my faith was less cerebral now, less a matter of ideas or doctrines. I didn't doubt God's existence or his love, but I didn't understand it at all. There's much more mystery about God and everything than I'd ever imagined. And somehow I'm comfortable with that too.

I love this picture from the National Geographic. I trust I'll be as free as that when I am left entirely suspended on the rope of God's love.