It is crazy that we are still in a pandemic. I know of many people who take it in their stride, and who are going out into life and doing enjoyable things, celebrating life, as it were. You might not be one of those people, and you may be feeling that life is kind of ‘small’ as you navigate your way through the day to day, perhaps feeling stressed, worried or anxious by the news headlines, and not knowing what to make of life or how to get through your days.
It can be easy to get caught up in the ‘comparison trap’ and it can be easy to feel overwhelmed by stress and anxiety, even as we are made more aware of our own mortality, of the shortness of our time on earth, and of our concerns as to what will happen to us and to those we love.
If you’re following my blog, then you are perhaps someone who is trying to navigate through feelings of anxiety or uncertainty as many of the posts I write aim to help people with this.
One way in which we can live life better, even in the midst of it all, is to slow down and be thankful for the ‘small’ things in life, taking time to notice them, to be grateful for what we do have and what is going on in our lives, today, right now.
Yesterday I saw a beautiful rainbow, albeit faint and surrounded by grey clouds, soon to disappear from view. I saw it nonetheless and I enjoyed those moments. Today I am thankful that I can hug my mum, and enjoy her smile and laughter and the way she remembers me when I was little and still expresses these things to me. ❤ I’m grateful to be able to work from home, rather than having to go out into the colder weather of October, especially while the pandemic is far from over. I’m grateful for more time to pray and intercede for people, and to draw near to the Living God, and feel His Love and Peace and Comfort filling me from within. ❤
Sometimes we need the gentle reminder to humble ourselves, to repent, and turn away from looking at the lives we don’t have in order to better appreciate what we have been given. No doubt many of you will be going through difficult times just now, and perhaps anxiety is a big feature of that in uncertain days, but it doesn’t mean that you can’t find beauty and treasure in the small things of the day to day. You can celebrate the gifts and achievements of others, even those that you don’t have yourself. Time is short, and fleeting. You can put something of worth back into the world, something kind, true, noble, valuable, even if no one else sees it.
You can slow down and appreciate the beauty of today. This day. This miracle unfolding in which you are a part of.
It helps. It helps to change and soften our anxious hearts. Let the Light in. Let Love be greater than fear for you, in this moment, today. ❤
I have a tendency at times to be a bit of a worrier. However, there is a Peace and a Love in Christ that is beyond words, and I have been experiencing it again, and I am so grateful for how Real and tangible and present His Love Is – with a purity and cleanness and joy like nothing else.
I used to think Christians were a bit strange, I used to think of myself as morally ‘pretty good’, and a spiritual person, a Truth seeker. An encounter with Jesus Christ showed me that He Is The Truth, and I was absolutely flooded with Love and Joy and the Pure Clean Presence of His Spirit. I realised that for years of my life I had actually been taking in lies, chained by darkness, and had missed the Living God, but He had mercy on me.
Light shows up darkness. We all think we’re ‘pretty good’ until Perfect Light shows that within us is a darkness and wretchedness and that we need forgiveness. Maybe that sounds a bit hard to take in, but if you can, if you do admit to yourself and to God that you are a sinner, Whom He Loved and gave His Life for at the Cross, and receive His Forgiveness then a transformation does take place within – when you repent, and believe in Jesus Christ crucified and raised from the dead and call upon his Name – things become supernaturally Real.
Even if the people around you do not see it, you will know. And even if you are a worrier, even though we are sinners, the Love and Peace and Purity that will flood your soul will Hold you.
I am experiencing the Pure Love and Peace of His Presence again. I am thankful that when we are called to stand before Him, I will be able to stand covered in His Light and Pure, exquisite, incomparable Love, and not ashamed by my own darkness.
We all have a story. A story to live and a story to tell. And no matter who we are, we all have light and shade on our path. You have lived. You have experienced. You have done things. And you have had things happen to you. Good and bad. Light and dark.
For some blessed souls, their experience has been one with more light than darkness, more protection than distress or horror, more hope and joy than pain, despair, anguish and loss.
So, what will you do with what has happened to you, whether good or bad?
We all have a choice to make. A series of choices. A lifetime of choices.
What happened to you?
For some among us, that question will be poignant, it will resonate deep within, it will touch our soul. We have not lived on the surface of life. We have not been allowed to. We have been hurt, we have suffered, we have known the laceration of spirit and identity that we seek so desperately to be healed. Is this you? You are not alone.
If what has happened to you in life has been mostly good, then I rejoice with you, and encourage you that you can use that too. You can use your strength to help and comfort the weak and hurting. You can give the love that was lavished upon you to those whose wells are dry and empty, who have all but given up on life. You can use the good things that have happened to you too. Perhaps it is the easier path, but you are blessed in it.
What do you do next?
At some point in our lives we have to make a choice. No matter what has happened to us, we all have to make a choice. Life or death. In the physical real as well as in the spiritual realm. I know this road is strewn with complexities, with difficult issues and with choice seemingly taken away from some people at times. You only need to look at the news to see this. But we all have to make our own choice. Life or death. Light or darkness. To step into the light or to stay crippled in fear in the darkness.
As I often say, I write for anyone who will read, I write for believers and non-believers alike; in fact, one of my most interested readers is a friend who is an atheist. Nonetheless, I can only speak the Truth that Jesus Christ is the Light that has extinguished the darkness in my life. Once and for all. A new life, a new heart, a new spirit, a new hope, a new mind-set, a new future, a new Identity, a new kingdom, a new everything.
We all have to make a choice. And how we respond to Jesus Christ is the greatest and most eternally significant choice we will ever make.
What are the burdens that you carry? Shame. Guilt. Fear. Anger. Turmoil. Terror. Self-hatred. Loss. Grief. Pain. Oh the pain. Death? He has taken the sting out of Death. He can bring healing and peace, liquid love into all of our dark and broken and crushed places.
‘He heals the broken hearted and binds up their wounds’.
‘By His wounds, we are healed’.
He heals the broken hearted and crushed in spirit.
Don’t I know it? I certainly do. For some the healing comes in an instant. For others, like me, it is an unravelling, layer by layer, bit by bit, but the pain, it does ease, the chains, they do fall off, the heart that was defeated, crushed in despair, feeling completely hopeless, useless, weak, unwanted, unloved, despised, rejected…this heart…my heart….finds a home….a HOME, a dwelling place in Pure Perfect Selfless Love….in Him.
But what if you don’t believe?
Things have happened to you. You perhaps feel far from what I am saying. It’s where you are right now. Do I have a word for you?
Yes.
What will your story be?
Things have happened to you. You have done things. You have lived, experienced, survived. So far.
What do you do when the pain is so great and you’re in a fog? What do you do with what has happened to you? I understand how deep these wounds, these lacerations, this anguish can go. I understand that the darkness in the world can feel like it has all but wrecked us. But it hasn’t.
You can choose.
Will your story be to be defined by what has happened to you? Will you be crushed by it? Will you merely survive it? Perhaps that’s all we can do at times. But we can still choose. Choose to believe in the impossible, in something better, in a purpose from the pain, and choose to use it. Even today.
What will you do with what has happened to you? Will you hope, and will you push through and endure the darkest seasons of recovery so that in time you will break through to the other side? Or will you accept the lie that this is all there is for you, you’re not one of the so called “lucky ones” in life? This isn’t all there is for you. Believe me, there is so much more good things than the bad we leave behind.
Will you endure the hardships, will you allow them to refine you and not merely define you? Will you dream so much farther than the depths and heights of your pain? Will you dream of helping one person some day with what you know, know deep in your soul…what you have survived….what you one day can conquer?
We can work with the surface, but only Pure Love can heal the depths. Can transform.
So, what is your answer?
What will you do with what has happened to you? Will you push through, will you ask for help, will you seek advice, support, counsel, will you do the really tough hard work that will help you to get better, at least better than you are now, and will you pass that on to someone someday, even today?
That’s my choice. I’ve been broken hearted and crushed in spirit. Heavy laden. Giving up inside. In a way that people don’t see on the outside. But healing is Real, it is possible, and even though the journey still can be tough, it is leading somewhere, and it has purpose.
But it’s a choice, our choice, to keep taking that next step. Will you?
Do you ever have those moments, perhaps when you are doing ok, and have been working hard at your life, but something makes you feel inadequate, not quite good enough?
I think these moments come to us all, and perhaps we don’t recognise that we internalise certain false beliefs about ourselves at such times, because they leave an emotional imprint.
Maybe you have been doing your best, but then you come face to face with someone else’s accomplishments, perhaps they are younger than you, more vibrant, making changes that are positively impacting the world around them…and you suddenly feel deflated, as if what you are doing is not good enough, and wonder why aren’t you doing or able to do those things. Or maybe you’ve been working through some struggles and doing your best to get by, and make the most of what you’ve got, to have a right attitude, and at last you feel like you might just be getting there, to a place of contentment if not quite satisfaction. You’re doing ok. And then you see that someone else’s life is overflowing with the blessings you can’t imagine ever happening for yourself, and you wonder whether you’re just not good enough, not worthy enough, or why things are so much harder for you.
Maybe you feel like, despite the evidence to the contrary, you’re not talented, everyone around you is better, and those feelings of insecurity tug at your heart and threaten to bring you down.
And all the while, someone is looking at you and your life and thinking, wow, he / she is amazing. Maybe they see you as the girl who is smart, and beautiful and has many friends, who seems to breeze through life, and face struggles with strength and defiance. Maybe they wish for your home, or your talents, or to be able to travel and go where you have gone, or to be a strong independent singleton, or to have that seemingly happy family that you know is actually not that much of a fairy-tale from the inside. Maybe they see you as the guy who is always cheerful, smart, likeable, funny, attractive, with not a care in the world. And all the while, inside your mind and heart, it couldn’t be more different.
Just know that these feelings are normal, and we all face them at some point or another through life, and to varying degrees. Things are never just quite what they seem. There are things about each other we can’t see. We can’t see someone’s past, we can’t see their losses, their mental health struggles, their chronic pain, their illness, their fears, their unfulfilled longings, their low-self esteem, their childhood traumas, their loneliness. There is so much about each other that we fail to see, perhaps behind smiles and accomplishments that indicate that everything is ‘great’ for that person.
But we all are human, and we all have our ups and downs. So if you feel insecure, know that often this may come from comparisons with others, including false comparisons and negative thinking. Do we really have the right to judge and compare and make value judgements on the basis of that? I don’t think we do. It can be hard sometimes to feel as though you are enough, to overcome the lies that tell you you’re not worthy as a person, and to allow the Truth in. When Light shines on any of our hearts, it exposes the darkness that is in us all, and only by surrendering to the Truth, that we need to be set free and healed and saved and helped can we begin to be our authentic selves, unafraid to step into the Light.
You are unique, there is no one else like you, with the exact same blueprint, DNA, and intricate design as you. Even ‘identical twins’ are not the same. There is no one quite like you, and that is what makes you special. You are fearfully and wonderfully made. And yes, you’re not like that other person you admire, but you weren’t meant to be. You might not have the easier path, but are there not lessons that you could not possibly have learned otherwise? Lessons that might just help someone else in an incredible or small way. You don’t look like them because you aren’t meant to. You don’t have the same life as them, because you weren’t meant to. And they don’t have your life. So when you feel insecure, remember that you are remarkably unique, one of a kind, unlike any other, and take time to seek the Truth and the Light that will illuminate who you are and who you are meant to be – uniquely, incomparably you. x
Life as it happens to be 