Making Lemonade

I haven't written for a few weeks because since going back to work I have found myself absolutely exhausted. This level of exhaustion is new to me. I've felt tired in the past but always been able to just plough on and do what needs doing. What is different this time is that my whole body aches quite a lot of the time and often I am struggling to be able to concentrate through a foggy and achey head. I am having to accept that sometimes I am just not able to do anything - as evidenced by the fact that I am currently in bed at 5pm on a Monday. 

Accepting that my capacity is limited for now is really difficult. I am a do-er and I find it hard to sit still. I'm also a thinker and switching off my brain is also really hard. But with limited energy to draw upon I am having to be ok with some things just not being on the agenda for now. It is still very much a case of one day at a time, and even that can feel too challenging. Sometimes the goal is even shorter - just get through this workshop and then it's lunchtime, just get through this meeting and then you get to go home. It's hard, as someone who is used to dreaming and scheming and thinking off into the future, to only be able to see a few hours ahead, but thinking any further ahead is just too overwhelming for now.

Thinking in the short term has it's bonuses though. The mundane little tasks of life become huge achievements and I count as blessings things that I would, in normal circumstances, take for granted. It's back to that word perspective. It seems to me that what I am learning most in this season is to see the world from a different angle. 

As the platitude says, "when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.” I'm a strong believer that it's good to find the best in every situation. In the pain and struggle of our current circumstance and in the stillness that my exhaustion insists upon, I am finding new ways of seeing the world. The platitude speaks of making sweetness from bitterness and I have always thought of bitterness as being a sinful state of the heart, but looking it up in the dictionary a couple of definitions seemed particularly fitting to our situation:

•   Difficult or distasteful to accept, admit, or bear

•   Resulting from or expressive of severe grief, anguish, or disappointment

In Romans 8:28 Paul writes, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

I can’t begin to understand why we miscarried, and I definitely don’t have any sense of the theology around it, but I know that in the midst of this bitter pain, God is working for good. I know that He can use this time of exhaustion for His purposes. I am trying to rest in Him, knowing that He has a hold of me even when I’m too exhausted to make it to church, even when all I can manage to read of the Word is one or two verses at a time, even when all I can pray is “God, give me strength”. I will hold strong to the promises I know of His goodness and I will be open to what He is doing in this season, knowing that it is Him that makes the lemonade and that all I have to do is just keep bringing Him the lemons.

How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth! Psalm 119: 103

Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him. Psalm 34: 8

Lamentations 3:22-23

Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

Lamentations 3:22-23

One day at a time, that is the key. I've tied myself in anxious knots all week feeling like I needed to find a solution that would make everything feel better. It felt like a clock was ticking and I needed the answer now, like there was a deadline and if I didn't make it all hope was lost. 

I knew that a lot of what I was feeling towards work was irrational, and I knew that a lot of that was down to the projection of my guilt over losing Grace. I knew in my head that God provides but my heart was elsewhere and, having not been able to control what happened to Grace, I was desperate to pull what I could control into line.

We've spent a lot of time watching the TV this past week and one of the films Owen put on was Soul Surfer. If you haven't seen it or heard of it, check out the trailer below and it will fill you in:

There is a scene in the film where Bethany's youth pastor is talking about seeing things from another perspective. When we watched the film the other night it didn't resonate. But today, I found myself thinking about it. And I realised that my perspective has changed today. Before, my thoughts were completely occupied with the bigger picture, I couldn't handle the thought of work because I was thinking of it long term. But then I realised that this week I have no day longer than 4 hours. When I think of each little 4 hour work day, things feel a lot more manageable. 

It doesn't mean that I'm not still considering change in the long term. And it doesn't mean that suddenly everything will now be fine. But if I can take each day one at a time I am pretty sure I can get through these next few weeks and months. I'm going to make a point of reading these verses from Lamentations every morning. I'm going to make a point of absorbing their truths and I'm going to step out into the world knowing that I don't need to be strong, because He is strong and He carries me.

Trying to Make Work Work

I never take time off work. With the exception of a couple of Detached Youth Work shifts in winter when I had a chest infection with a barking cough and that time I had Swine Flu in 2009, I just don't take time off. Working contract to contract as a self-employed or sessional worker there is no provision for sick pay. If I am too ill to work then I don't get paid. Over the past couple of years this has definitely taken it's toll as I've bashed on through from chest infection to chest infection to recurring chest infection. But this week has brought me to my knees.

I have questioned what I was doing with work for a while, in fact it has been a fairly constant topic of conversation since I met Owen, I don't think there has ever been a time when he has known me not to be asking questions about work. The good times doing what I do are always exceptionally good, but the hard times are always exceptionally low and I am constantly trying to work out whether the good outweighs the bad and whether I believe the benefits are worth the sacrifices. Right now, this week, I definitely lean towards the answer being no. 

I've been struggling over the last few days with the fact that I spent some of the time that we knew we were pregnant wondering whether I was actually happy about it. I have always wanted to be a mum, so there was no question that I wanted the baby. The questions in my mind were all about how we were going to afford it. And a huge part of that was related to my self-employment and the fact that, just like sick pay being non-existent, I would have no sort of maternity package. Now, I know plenty of folk manage with statutory maternity allowance, but once my brain got going on all the costs I couldn't reign myself back in. And I know that for a number of days this week I have been projecting my guilt about those thoughts onto my work which has added to my fear about going back. 

I've also been in a fairly major strop with work, because my situation feels unforgiving. Now, I know that I put a lot of that on myself and my bosses would be horrified if they knew I felt this way, but I was so scared to say that I needed time off. Because I wasn't just inconveniencing one workplace, I was inconveniencing several. At no point this week have I been able to just not think about work and focus on getting through this awful thing that has happened. Whether it has been the constant stream of emails and texts from different projects, or realising I haven't contacted someone to let them know I can't be in, letting people down has been in my head all week. Add to that the loss of £285 from sessional contracts where because I was off I won't be paid and it all just feels a bit overwhelming. This morning I had an email telling me not to come back until I am ready, but realistically I have to be ready next week because we can't afford another week of me not being paid. So, despite a trip to the shop to buy milk ending in tears yesterday, I am gearing up to be back in work on Monday.

But all of this has led me to the definite decision that this crazy life that I lead is not sustainable. I can't go on working this way. There's a bunch of reasons, one being my wellbeing. I have dealt with so much panic and anxiety this week over work. This is not new, but this time I feel like I have taken proper notice of the sick feeling that makes it hard to breathe. I also question whether I could still be doing this when I'm 40, 50, nearing retirement? And retirement brings a panic of its own because I don't have a pension. 

Money, money, money. Jesus warned us about not making money our master and as I write I realise it has occupied an awful lot of my thinking and worrying this past fortnight (I'm pretty sure He had something to say about worrying too!) But equally all of these questions are related to stewardship: of my gifts, my time, even my money. Am I using any of these things wisely? 

I asked the people of my Facebook world yesterday what job they would imagine I would do if I didn't do what I do now. The responses really helped me to work out a bit more clearly what I think I am looking for in a change. Because a change has to come. And I realised that making a living from using my creative skills isn't necessarily the best use of them. I feel creatively drained by the time I finish work and there's nothing left. Perhaps what I am looking for is a day job that will allow me to use my creative skills as a hobby, or in a voluntary capacity, or for mission. Maybe that won't be forever, but maybe for a while that is what I need.

So many questions. And I don't want to rush into change at a time when I am clearly fragile. But as we move forward from here I will be seeking God for His guidance on where I should be and what He would have me doing. Daily I will be choosing to trust Him as provider, in whatever shape that takes, knowing that He knows our needs and He is faithful to meet them. And I'll be holding on tight to His hand as I start to step back into the world after a week of pyjamas, biscuits, tears and exhaustion. 

He is strong in our weakness and we will lift our eyes to Him, because He is where our hope lies.

A Season of Grace

I haven't written in a number of months and a lot has happened. For starters I got married two months ago. But so much has happened even in those two short months. In fact, the last two weeks have shaken and changed our world forever.

Last Sunday we discovered that we were 6 weeks pregnant. A few days of excitement, hopes and dreams for the future followed. Lying in bed at night exchanging ideas for names, talking about how we would make our wee flat work with a third little person in our family, and laughing lots because we were just so, so happy. Then there were a few days where I was in a bit of panic about practicalities like what would happen with my work, how we would afford a period of time with me not working, whether I'd be able to pull together enough evening work at just the right time so that we would be earning enough and always have one of us free to look after the baby. And then I managed to get my eyes back onto God, trusting Him as provider and trusting that He would make our path straight. Thanking Him for the incredible blessing that He was knitting together inside of me.

Then the weekend rolled around.

Around tea time on Sunday evening we discovered I was bleeding. Owen phoned NHS 24 and we were told to go to Out of Hours. The doctor did a test and it came back with a very faint positive, so he referred us to Early Pregnancy Assessment to get a scan the following day. I continued to bleed and by the time we had the scan there were no signs of pregnancy. The midwife took a blood test, just to confirm what she suspected, and called in the afternoon with the news that we had had a full miscarriage and our baby was gone.

It's amazing how many different opinions there are when it comes to the subject of miscarriage. And for some, there is an assumption that it will remain largely unspoken and that no one needs to know about it. But, for me, I find that utterly impossible. My life has been deeply changed and I am different because of it, so how can I just hide what has happened? And why should I? Even putting that aside, I just want to hide away in a cocoon of blankets and shut the world out - but I want my friends and my family to know why I don't want to talk. Because I want them to still be there when I'm ready.

I can't wrap my head around it all. I feel a deep, deep connection to a child that I never got to meet. A child that I only knew was growing inside me for a week. But that same child has profoundly changed me. I know that I can never look at the world in quite the same way. I call into question all of my priorities and all of the ways that I spend my life. I question the way I treat my body - which I have felt changing to accommodate another life and which is now reverting back to how it was before - and, despite having eaten little more than biscuits and chocolate over the last few days, I feel determined to take better care of it. It's impossible to just go back to life as it was before we knew about our wee baby. It's impossible to forget little Grace and the season we had with her, however short.

It's hard to know how to respond to what has happened. And it's difficult to see how life is going to be in the weeks and months ahead as we come to terms with losing Grace. But we're holding on tight to God, who is unchanging. We are trusting in His faithfulness. And we are looking to Him for comfort in the midst of our pain.

"All of my life, in every season, You are still God, I have a reason to sing. I have a reason to worship"

The Mother's Day Post That I Didn't Think I'd Be Writing

I start to feel the weight of Mother’s Day long before the actual day when my email inbox is bombarded with different businesses asking me if I have sorted anything for my mum yet. In previous years I have found this incredibly painful but this year I’ve been much better with just deleting the marketing emails and not giving them any thought.

I thought I was going to be fine this year. I didn’t think I was going to find it so difficult.

One of the things that I have found particularly difficult in the past is knowing what to do with myself on this day; not wanting to sit alone and brood but not really knowing who to share the day with – gate-crashing some other mother’s celebration felt sort of awkward! But this year I am so blessed to have a wonderful  mum-in-law-to-be to celebrate and so this particular problem no longer existed. I sort of assumed that I would spend a little bit of time in the morning thinking of my own mum and then focus the rest of the day on celebrating the mother who raised my fiancé to be the man I am going to marry.

Then I went to church.

And it hit me out of nowhere.

Grief is a most peculiar thing; we’re so helpless in the face of it. It’s like a window that will simply open of its own accord. The room grows cold, and we can do nothing but shiver.

I love this quote from one of my all time favourite books (and films) Memoirs of a Geisha. The book was passed down to me by my mum, an avid reader, and it takes pride of place on my bookshelf. There is something lovely about reading a story that I know my mum has also read and enjoyed. It feels like I get to share something with her, even though she’s no longer here anymore. For a wee time I get to inhabit a world that she has walked around in too. But this quote sums up exactly how I feel today. Out of nowhere I have been struck helpless by grief. Grief that I was sure I had got a hold of and dealt with. I think that more and more I believe grief isn’t something to be dealt with and done with, and it won’t just steadily get easier every year. Some years will be easier than others. It all just depends what is going on in life. Perhaps I was a little complacent to believe that I would just soar through today because it was another year on and last year had been ok.

Instead of trying to master grief,  I've decided that I’m going to try to just let it run its course. In each of its little episodes. Not to be bowled over by it, or brood in it, but to just let myself feel it and carry on. My mum will always have a super special place in my heart, and I will always wish she could have been here longer. That she could be at our wedding in a few months time. But I will also always be thankful for the twenty years that I had the privilege of getting to do life with her, to be loved by her, taught by her and cared for by her.

And Mother’s Day is changing for me. It’s not just a bitter day anymore. Having a mum-in-law is a very sweet thing and I’m so excited for our relationship to grow. Now I have something to look forward to on Mother’s Day again. It’s like I always seem to write here, life is never black and white. And I want to experience it in all its colour, even the icy blue of grief. I won’t sweep it under the carpet and I won’t pretend it’s not there. But I won’t let it hold me back either.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the Motherless Daughters out there, to my beautiful Mummy Mo in heaven and all the lovely ladies who have stepped in to mother me in her absence, and to my lovely mum-in-law-to-be, Carolyn, I love you very much. I really am one very blessed lady.

'Tis better to have loved and lost

Than never to have loved at all.

Tennyson

Proverbs 16:9

In their hearts humans plan their course, but The Lord establishes their steps.

You almost couldn't write it. Three years in a row now I have begun the year with an unsuccessful interview for a more stable job. And each time the feedback I receive is that they really liked me, they just liked someone else a wee bit more. Three years of starting out the year feeling not good enough or feeling second best. Being the runner up sucks. I'd much rather be absolutely, definitely last. With rubbish interview technique and some solid feedback that I could actually work on. But instead I'm just not quite as good as the chosen candidate. 

We all know I love a good bit of reflection, and something like this is a perfect opportunity to reflect on what I think might be going on in all of this. It is in this area - jobs - that I am most aware of the gap between the now and the not yet of God's Kingdom. The reality is that if any of those three jobs were truly for me then God would have made a way. But I am painfully aware of my humanity in the response I feel to the outcome of these interviews. Rejection, upset, panic and fear over the future. Failure.

But are these words "failure", "unsuccessful", "the preferred candidate" actually just all a bit distracting?

How am I measuring success and failure? And does it matter if the people with the hiring power prefer someone else? Especially if the One with HIGHER power is for me?

Despite not getting the job in these three circumstances (and a few more times in between), I have never been without work. In fact, my freelance CV has never looked healthier. In freelance terms, you could definitely say I've had a successful few years. I have known and continue to know God's provision for me. He has consistently made a way for me and opportunities have come to me in abundance. Thing is, I can't rely on myself. I can't do it in my own strength. I need him constantly. I need to trust that He provides. And that He will lead me down the path He has for me.

But my prayers are inconsistent. 

I know that the deep prayer of my heart is to be where God wants me.  But in the moment of the here and now I throw up prayers of circumstance, "God please, it would make things so much easier if I just had some stability".  But why have stability when I could have the fullness of God's plan for me? (That's not me saying that should I find myself in a stable job in the future that I wouldn't be living in the fullness of what God has for me, or indeed that I think stable jobs are not good with God!) But what if what He has for me right now is what He has me doing? Well then I wouldn't want to be doing anything else.

But still pain. Still upset. Still seasons of doubt and fear about what lies ahead.

I know the incredible provision of God and yet still I feel all the human responses to uncertainty. 

And so I am starting out another year putting my eyes back on God to remind me who I am, to affirm my identity and to provide for my needs. I'm putting my eyes back on God and asking Him again to put me where He wants me - not where I might want myself. And I'm continuing to push doors of opportunity, trusting that He will hold them open or close them shut in accordance with His will.

Savour the Moment

Life is never, ever black and white. Nothing is ever straight forward. 

Just short of 3 months ago I got engaged. And so the last 3 months have been such a precious wee time with lots of really exciting and lovely things happening in preparation for getting married in June. But honestly, the past 3 months have included some of the most painful times too.

Today would have been my Mum's 61st birthday. But she is still and will forevermore be 53. Writing it in numbers like that makes me realise just how long we've been without her, but as if it were only yesterday I can vividly remember the evening before she passed away, when we had just found out that her diagnosis was terminal. I've never been very good at doing emotion with my family (although I think in the past 7 years I've got better at it?) and so when Dad told my brother and I the news I immediately put on my shoes and left the house. I had no idea where I was going and I could barely breathe let alone see through the tears, but I just had to get out. I ended up on a bench in Rouken Glen park and the thought I can remember most clearly was the realisation that my Mum wouldn't be there on my wedding day. 

As the years passed that thought slipped from my mind as no such wedding seemed to be on the cards. Now, of course, that has changed. Almost daily at the moment something wedding/future related makes me wish she was here. The most exciting time of my life has brought with it a resurgence of grief. And the reality is that in the excitement and celebration there is always going to be a part of me that hurts because she isn't here. And I can't ignore it.

Following a walk up at Whitelees Windfarm this afternoon, we stopped in at Whole Foods for a spot of cake. The lid of the little jam pot that came with my scone said "Savour the Moment". The words really hit me. It's something I'm often guilty of forgetting. Sometimes it's because of busyness but sometimes I think it's because of fear that it will hurt too much because if I let the good stuff in, then the hard stuff can get in too. 

And yes, in honesty, there's a lot that feels a bit painful right now. But there is a heck of a lot that I am super excited about and hugely thankful for. Avoiding the pain would mean missing out on the fullness of the good bits. Life is full of great things and hard things but the hard things make the great things all the more great.

I'm going to try harder to savour the moment. The great bits and the hard bits that are all bound up together. All of it. And by doing so I'll be choosing love and gratitude over fear.