Teething pains

I am playing the role of housewife now, which is a strange place to be. The past few months have been a flurry of activity, and from in the space of about 2 months I have gone from being an engaged, stressed and burned out Oasis volunteer in Bristol to a married Criddle living in Buckingham, waiting to start a job with paperwork that never seems to come through. After months of waiting, I am still on the end of the phone, asking HR what the cheese is going on with my paperwork, and whether there is any end in sight and projected start date for when I will be able to start my job, to no avail. My occupational health paperwork is still being processed, and I am still here in limbo, with no idea when my job will properly begin.

In the meantime, I am finding it lonely and a bit empty where we currently are. Dave has been working for about a month now, so he is in the rhythm of employment and we are feeling the real pull of not having enough time together. Me being at home all day with no work really just compounds the lack. We love being married, love being able to wake up and go to sleep lying next to each other, love being able to share every detail of life with no sense of rush or pressure like we did when we were doing long distance. We are growing in what it means to share life together in marriage. But I think I understand now why people advise that in the first year of marriage you carve out lots and lots of exclusive time for your spouse; because you need that time, and you need to focus on your marriage, and you just miss each other and want to be together a lot! As a church employee, I feel like those boundaries can be blurred for Dave, and we are feeling the weight of the evening meetings, the long clubs. I guess it would be the same no matter what jobs we had, but I suppose it is difficult not to miss your spouse and wish you had more time with them.

I am remembering that settling into a new area can be difficult and exhausting, especially when there is no obvious social grouping that you can tap into to make friends. I have made a few friends at church but most of the people are church are demographically and personality-wise not really on the same wavelength as Dave and I. So we are missing the sense of connection and community we had each in the respective places we previously were. I miss my friends dotted all over the place, I miss Bristol, Oasis, the vision and drive we had there. It was hard and so flawed but I find myself missing it, and missing a church that was all about mission to the lost, through and through. We fight completely different battles here and Dave and I are finding the traditional, inward-looking, affluent middle-classs swathes and trends of the church here difficult and stifling. I know that change is on the brink of happening, and God brought us here to be agents and movers of that change, and I know that we are not meant to settle comfortably into a church that suits us just because it is easy. But sometimes I wonder whether this is a fight worth investing so much time and energy into, when there are so many other fights in the world that are lacking soldiers and that I would more naturally associate myself with.

I think it is all just teething pains, because some things have got easier, and we are gradually meeting lovely and like-minded people. I think it is just the sense of confusion and ennui that I have been feeling, the sense of malaise, uselessness, stasis that I have got myself into from being at home all day. I find it hard not to feel discouraged and empty, wondering where I am and what I am supposed to be doing myself. I find myself batting off feelings of worthlessness and lack, teetering on the edge of destructive self-loathing. Yet, such a call to action, such a call to being the change, to showing God's love, to fighting for those who have no voice. Such a clear call to what we are supposed to be doing as followers of Jesus. And still I cannot stand up against the yearnings and falterings of my own heart.

It is a strange place to be, but some things remain so clear. That God loves, and that love in unconditional. That God does not call us to be passive consumers, embedded in our cultural and demographic framework, but active championers of those in need, proclaimers of the good news that Jesus came to share with all people, the ones the world esteems and the ones the world despises, the ones on the right side of society, reaping its benefits, and the ones on the wrong side of the tracks, marginalized and disadvantaged by the system we are all born into. God is here, and God became flesh to come and bring hope to us all. And we are to follow Jesus into those places, in the hope of transforming and inspiring others to do the same, to walk the road of freedom and justice and mercy, of service and footwashing. We are to love God and wash the world's feet in love.

So, every day is a day that tries to make the ideal meet the reality. Onwards.

Cycles

A few days ago, I had one of the best days of my life. In the space of 3 hours, I passed my driving test, replaced my dead laptop with a brand new Mac (and complimentary promotional iPod touch), and got offered the job that I had applied and interviewed for (as a healthcare assistant in a young people's psychiatric unit)!

I was pretty overwhelmed by all this good news, and didn't quite know how to react to it all! I couldn't remember the last time I had been bowled over by such generous, abundant blessing. Pretty amazing. I felt very grateful and lucky.

It has got me thinking about cycles. It is hard to break out of cycles, habits, assumptions you build over your whole life. People who work with vulnerable populations, the 'down and out', are trained in this issue well, and 'breaking cycles' is spoken of again and again. But I think it is true of most people as well.

My default thinking pattern and expectation is to be negative. I expect bad news, or little good news, I think, most of my days. I expect to fail at things, I expect disappointment and hardship and struggle. Sometimes I don't really know where these expectations come from - I have lived a privileged life and am very lucky in the worldly sense. Dave pointed out that I have passed and got everything that I have applied for in my life thus far, and I realized that factually, he is right. Yet in my head and heart I spend so much mental and emotional energy worrying about and expecting failure. And I don't quite know how to react to the good things, or how to hang onto them and gain strength and energy. I struggle to break the cycle.

When people speak about blessing and gratitude in a spiritual sense, I have these past few years gained quite a Kierkgaardian perspective on it all. I've never quite believed in hanging on to God's blessings in the sense of good things that he gives and good things that happen, and praising his name and goodness on account of those things. Because I know that they can so easily be taken away, or bad things can happen, and if you stake the notion of God's blessings and goodness on good things and events, then it becomes frail and dependent on those things, and will surely crumble in times of trouble. In my head my default is to try and understand God's goodness in a very Job-like fashion; that he is good no matter what happens, and we must praise him whether he gives or takes away.

But at this juncture I am learning about blessings, about the good things as well as well as the bad (or neutral). That God is the author and source of those things too, and it is ok to thank and praise him for those things, all the while not becoming dependent on them for one's understanding of God's unchanging nature.

So I praise God, and thank him for everything he has done.

'When I am afraid, I will trust in you'

Reading Scripture at this time of uncertainty, realizing that the psalmists proclaim trust and hope in God like battle cries.

Trusting and hoping in God are active states. They are declared, like punches that grab at the reality that God wants us to live in. They are a running against the current, against the very real despair and worries in which the psalmists live.

Very much like we may live in now. For those of us who don't live under the relentless opposition of kingdoms wanting to kill us, we may live with the stress and strain of the future or our own inner demons tearing us apart. At this juncture, where many of us look into the future and all there is a blank, an open space of trembling uncertainty and lack of security, we must trust and hope in God.

What does that mean?

Life changes, people change, but God never changes. He is good, and trustworthy, and faithful, all the time. He has always been who He is, and always will be.

So we who live here in this strange land, in this strange place in time, we proclaim hope and trust in Him like battle cries. When everything in us and around us feels like all that we have is out of control and there's no way out of it. We remember that God is still God. We remember things like Psalm 56, and all they mean. We remember that we must fight to trust, hope, and have faith in the God of inconceivable goodness and power of whom our whole lives are praise.

And we say, Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Job 1:20-21

Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshipped. And he said, "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord."

'And the bride will run to her lover's arms...'

"The Bible tells many stories of human marriages...But above these stories the Bible tells a bigger story, the story of a marriage which includes within itself the whole history and future of the human race. It is the story of God the Lover, the Bridegroom, the Husband, and his people his Beloved, his Bride, and in the end his Wife. It is the story that John the Baptist had in mind when he spoke of Jesus as the 'Bridegroom' (John 3:25-30), and the story that Jesus himself accepted when he spoke of himself as the 'Bridegroom' (eg. Mt 9:14-15). It is the story Paul referred to when he spoke of the church being 'engaged' to Jesus Christ like a pure virgin (2 Cor 11:2).

It is the story that John speaks of in the visionary imagery of Revelation 19 and 21... At the climax of human history John hears the announcement, 'The marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready' (Rev 19:7). The Lamb, the Lord Jesus Christ himself, is to be married at last. His Bride is his people, every believer of all time, corporately to be joined to him forever in a union of unmixed delight and intimacy. This is a time of joy and amazement. And then, in Revelation 21, John sees the heavenly Jerusalem, that is, the whole new heavens and new earth, the restored and redeemed created order, coming down out of heaven as a city, but not only a city, also a bride...'the bride, the wife of the Lamb' (Rev 21:2,9). All of the people of God in the new heavens and new earth are the bride of Jesus Christ. That is to say, he loves them passionately, and they love him with an answering love.

And in that new age their love will be consummated with an intimacy and enduring delight that the best human marriage can only begin faintly to echo... This is an amazing and beautiful prospect: a time when all the deepest yearnings and longings of the human heart will be fulfilled. And it is open to all who will come in repentance and faith to Jesus Christ in this age. The invitation is open."

- Christopher Ash, 'Married for God'

What are we fighting for?

I don't know if it is just me, or if it is something that many or most people feel at some point or another in their lives. Sometimes when the challenges come like floods, and the difficulties of putting one foot in front of the other are too much to grasp, when the gap between the ideal and the reality seems insurmountable and pointless, then the question hangs like silence - What exactly are we fighting for?

Maybe it is because I have found hope a hard thing to hang on to lately, in the flurry of life and discouragement and confusion and uncertainty, of conflict and tension and grappling with grace and God. Maybe it is 'cause of these things that I ask the question, and try to figure out what it is that we are hoping for. What it is that is the hope that is supposed to be keeping me carrying on.

Our hope is for a kingdom made not by hands, not by our efforts and rewards and merits. We hope for the coming of the King, whose ministry is one that turns the tables and puts out the flame of power for mercy and suffering grace. Our hope is in the One who sees you and me and every single one of us just as we are, and loves us with a love so strong that no waters can quench it and no amount of darkness or evil can bring it to the end of its rope. We hope for the One in whom the end is just the beginning.

When He comes it will all be alright again, it will all be new again, and everything that was lost and damaged and scarred and hurt will be reclaimed and washed over by the white snow of His all-knowing wisdom and healing.

This hope that we have is not just for the cosmos, the universe, the world as a whole and the universal community of humanity. This hope is the life of each and every one of us, the individuals that make up the community, because God sees you and me and His vision cuts deep into the recesses of our being with a knowing that knows us like the back of His hand. And in this hope we believe that there will be a time beyond time when all our hopes and fears and dreams and desires will be fulfilled, and that the world we live in will be one of peace in ourselves, with each other, with God, with the new earth and the new heaven.

This hope is meant to burn in my being, deep in my soul, to set me alight with the fire of the Spirit that sears me to His glorious touch. But right now it feels far away, and I find myself in this place, desperately asking the question.

I pray for all of you that it would be our greatest and ultimate hope.

3 months

3 months til the big day, and I find myself here in this place, tired. Long distance is a sucker, everyone knows that. I find myself drained. Spent a weekend and bank holiday Monday with Dave, and was hit really hard again on the train journey back to Bristol. I really miss my fiance. And long distance really does suck.

We have a lot lined up for us in our separate lives these next three months, but I am mentally, emotionally and spiritually willing for them to be over in the blink of an eye. I am sure every couple feels this when they are in the engagement limbo, but truth be told it really is indescribably rubbish being apart and having to juggle the stresses of life and preparation for marriage when it is difficult negotiating time to spend quality time together. There are things that have been good for us to learn - communication, appreciating time together, developing as individuals as well as a couple, etc. But I feel that at this juncture in our relationship and engagement, all we want - need?- to do is be together. We miss each other so much. It really sucks.

Ah, a blogpost whiny and negative as ever. I apologise. I am just tired, and just thinking of the weekends lined up and things I have to do drains me. I am running 10k on Sunday and have literally no idea how I am going to get out of it alive (my training has been lax and I really am not an athletic person). And generally the days can feel empty when your heart is somewhere else. Life can feel such a downer sometimes.

There. A bit (or rather a lot) of honesty for my illusory readers out there. If you are reading this, I am sorry! Go after this and do something that will make you feel good...