Feeling Good

The week between Christmas Day and New Year's Day always feels oddly liminal to me. It doesn't feel like part of the old year, and yet it is not part of the year to come, either. This used to be a vague niggle for me, but I find it quite relaxing now. A good time to pause, catch one's breath and take stock, methinks! :)

This year, I'm not making New Year's Resolutions. Instead, I'm thinking in terms of a list of things that I would like to have achieved by this time next year. Goals, rather than 'resolutions'. The word resolution, whilst quite bracing in it's own way, also feels a little daunting. Goals seem a much friendlier concept! :D

Last month, a friend blogged on the subject of having a 'bucket list' - a list of things you want to do or achieve before you 'kick the bucket'. I've been thinking about this quite a lot, and it has impacted on my 2011 goals, which include the following:

THIS TIME NEXT YEAR:
- I want to feel fully myself again, healed up from the crap brought to me by 2010
- I want to have completed my self-help book for people experiencing similar crap
- I want to have made a good, solid chunk of progress on my novel
- I want to have built my health up and feel noticeably stronger than I do now
- I want to have managed my finances into a more stable position

It's a deliberately short list, and a deliberately achievable list. (I'm well on the way to the first item already.) It's even deliberately vague in places! For me, it's all about making progress. As long as I feel that I have made significant progress in those areas, I shall consider it a success.

I have purposely set goals which make me feel energised and enthusiastic, not ones which make me feel threatened or pressured. Goals that I really feel that I shall be able to accomplish. And of course, one can always reassess goals as one goes along. They aren't carved in stone.

2010 has been, as her majesty the Queen once put it, an 'annus horriblis'. But 2011 still lies before me. And I am going to do my best to make it a very good year.

Life will always have challenges and problems, but if God could get me through this year - one of the hardest of my life, if not the hardest - then He can certainly get me through anything else that life throws at me. I am feeling hopeful and positive about the year to come.

I feel that a new chapter is opening in my life. And I'm feeling good. :)

Being Human

' "What," men have asked distractedly from the beginning of time, "what on earth do women want?" I do not know that women, as women, want anything in particular, but as human beings they want, my good men, exactly what you want yourselves: interesting occupation, reasonable freedom for their pleasures, and a sufficient emotional outlet. What form the occupation, the pleasures and the emotion may take, depends entirely upon the individual. You know that this is so with yourselves - why will you not believe that it is so with us...

"Accepted as a human being!" - yes; not as an inferior class and not, I beg and pray all feminists, as a superior class - not in fact, as a class at all, except in a useful context...'

- from the essay "Are Women Human?" in "Unpopular Opinions" by Dorothy L. Sayers

Inspired in large part by the excellent essay I have quoted above, I wrote a poem yesterday... Well, it was supposed to be one poem, but rather interestingly mutated into two of them! :D I wrote the non-rhyming one first, then found a rhyming version coming to mind...

I guess the first version is more serious and the second more light hearted. :) Also, the chiastic structure is more important and comes out more strongly in the first one. They're like non-identical twins: they started out as one 'egg', but they've grown apart since then! :D

Anyway, without more ado:

BEING HUMAN (1)

My purpose is not to please a man
My purpose is not to keep a house
My purpose is not career motherhood
My purpose is not a successful career

I have no wish to manipulate
I have no wish to dominate
I have no wish to lose myself in a family
I have no wish to lose myself in a job

I am not a seductive temptress
I am not a domestic angel
I am not a hardened superwoman
I am not a baby factory

I am a human being

I am a complex individual
I am interested in diverse and disparate things
I am strong in some areas, weaker in others
I am sometimes right and sometimes wrong

I want to live a fulfilling life
I want to complete what God calls me to do
I want to do what I can do well
I want the freedom to be myself

My purpose is to love and please God
My purpose is to enjoy His love and embody it
My purpose is to give to the world what only I can give
My purpose is to become the best version of myself

© Ruth Fanshaw 2010
Composed 20th December 2010

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

BEING HUMAN (2)

I don't exist to please a man,
Wield cleaning cloth and frying pan,
Nor worship kids or a career –
These things are not why I am here!

I don't want to manipulate,
Nor master, rule or dominate.
I do not want to lose myself,
In family or in seeking wealth.

I am no seductive temptress,
Nor angelic household empress;
No machine promotion-taker
Nor a patent baby-maker!

I'm a human, that is all;
With my own life, and my own Call.

I am a complex mix of things:
Of interests, traits and ponderings.
I'm sometimes weak and sometimes strong;
I'm sometimes right and sometimes wrong.

I want fulfilment, just like you:
To do what God wants me to do.
To use my skills and use them well -
The freedom just to be myself!

My purpose is to please my Lord:
To be myself – complete, restored!
To give what only I can give
And show His love by how I live.

© Ruth Fanshaw 2010
Composed 20th December 2010

I hope it will be understood that I am not suggesting that marriage, kids and careers are in themselves bad things! The problem only comes when people (of either gender) imagine that any of these things are their raison d'être.

For myself, I would not rule out marriage if a suitable candidate should apply. :D (There is no such individual in my metaphorical waiting room.) I would like to be a mother, and I would like to be respected in my field and be financially independent. But if I ever get to the point where the person God created me to be gets buried or lost in any of these things... well, I'll just have to get out these poems and remind myself! :D

God WITH us!

The Apostle Paul tells us that some people see certain days as more important than others, while other people see each day as of equal importance. He says it doesn't matter which you are, as long as you're settled in your own mind and respect those who disagree (Romans 14:5-6).

I have to say that I am really in the latter group. I mean, I like Christmas, I enjoy it, but for me, God becoming a human being is just as important every other day of the year as it is on the 25th of December. That doesn't mean that Christmas doesn't have meaning. It's just that that meaning carries over the whole year.

But I suddenly feel that this 'meaning of Christmas' is coming home to me in a new way. A way that goes beyond (in a sense) the knowledge that God came to earth as a human being - though I don't mean to diminish the enormity of that for a moment. That alone would have been a staggering thing for Him to do. But that alone was not enough for Him.

God became a human being and lived a genuine human life. He showed that it can be done right. Then He chose to die a horrible death, carrying the guilt of all our wrong doing so that we wouldn't have to. And then He rose from the dead, proving that even death itself had no power over Him! Staggering, awesome, life-changing stuff! But even that wasn't enough for Him!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Isaiah's prophecy (Isaiah 7:14) about Jesus calls Him "Immanuel", which means "God with us". It's this "God with us" that is taking on a new and deeper meaning for me.

We know that it means that God entered into human experience. But I believe it goes even deeper than that. God with us. God with us. Entering into human experience was not enough for Him. He enters into our individual experience. Right here, right now.

When Jesus sent 'the Comforter', the Holy Spirit (John 13:15-29), God came to 'make His home with us' (v. 23). That means God entering into our lives. Our real lives. That means God entering into all our individual personal crap. God entering into our whole experience of living. When we hurt, He doesn't just sympathise (though He does that too) - He feels that hurt. He lives through it with us.

There are lots of songs about God 'watching' us or 'looking down on us', and that is true, and many of them are great songs. But it is only a piece of the truth. It's not just "God above all my hopes and fears" (though I love that song!) - it's God in our hopes and fears. It's God living through that with us. It's not just God looking down on our storm, it's Jesus in the boat with us, feeling the lashing of the wind and rain. It's Jesus walking on sea, and reaching out to save us when we begin to sink.

When God asks us to endure things in this life, it isn't just on the basis of what He did for us 2000 years ago - although the immensity of that alone cannot be properly put into words! It's on the basis of what He is doing right now. Because He doesn't just ask us to endure these things - He endures them with us!

Last night, a friend and I were saying how we had lost faith in "one day" - that vague future time when everything gets better. But Jesus is with us now, in this day - right in the thick of it. Right in the middle of the hurt and confusion, God is with us! He is experiencing it too. I may not be able to see "one day" with any clarity, but I can believe in this day!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

For me, this is a big and vital part of the meaning of Christmas, and Easter, and the coming of the Holy Spirit: that Jesus went through all that, not only to save us from our sin and our sinful nature - even the enormity of that undertaking was not enough for Him! His love demanded more: the restoration of full communion with us. He suffered for us, partly so that He could go on to suffer with us. He wanted to come close to us in our sufferings; so close that He partook in them.

I believe this what He means when He says (John 13:27) that He leaves His peace with us: He leaves Himself with us, through the Holy Spirit. With us. This is not as the world gives - how could it? Only God Himself can come that close to any of us; can give Himself so completely. This is why our hearts do not need to be troubled or afraid. This is the wonderful 'togetherness', with Himself and the Father through the Holy Spirit, that he promises us (John 13:18-20). We will never be left alone again. Not ever.

There are no words to describe the staggering Grace of all this. I could pile it high with adjectives and superlatives, and it wouldn't make a dint. What did I ever do, that the perfect King of the Universe should enter into my little life in that way? What could I ever do to repay it or make it worth His while? The answer to both questions is, of course: nothing. But incredibly, He thinks it is worth His while!

The Grace of God is just so BIG! The more you learn about it, the bigger it gets! And there is ALWAYS more to learn!

"Thank you" is a woefully inadequate phrase with which to respond; but it's the best one we've got.

.

The Door of Hope

For the last two or three days, I have had a real sense of peace; the kind of peace that makes you feel that you can breathe again. All the tension goes out of you, and you just relax into it. It's like God, as your Dad, gives you a big hug that makes you feel that everything will be ok after all. I have even felt stirrings of joy again.

It came on quite suddenly. I found myself in a place of acceptance again, a place where I was able to let go of the questions that have tortured me for the last few months. What happened happened, and things are the way they are.

Sadly, part of that was having to let go of my attempts to justify or excuse the person who hurt me. That doesn't mean going to the other extreme and giving way to anger and resentment. It just means accepting things as they are. There are still unanswered questions, but I feel that I can live with them now. I feel that it's ok not to know.

All in all, I feel that God is bringing me back to the place I had reached when I came home from my time away. He is restoring my soul again. :')

Hosea 2:15 tells us that God can make the 'Valley of Achor' (Achor means trouble) into a 'door of hope'. Even in our darkest times, He can take our situation and turn it around. There is no valley too dark for God's hope and love to shine into. :)

.