Letter to the brave

Dear brave one,

Remember that verse that you read all those years ago, that one that was read at your baptism and has been written out in pretty much every notebook you've owned since then? Joshua 1:9 "Remember that I commanded you to be strong and brave. Don't be afraid, because the Lord your God will be with you everywhere you go." I want you to know that you live that, that you are brave. Far braver than you think. 

Remember that time when things were so painful that you poured out your hurt through your arms instead, because tears themselves just weren't enough. You were scared and lonely and you hurt so much, physically and emotionally; but you kept going, putting one foot in front of the other. Remember the friends who called you brave then? You just shook your head and looked away, because who can possibly be brave when they are making so many mistakes. But I want to tell you, sweet girl, that you were brave. Maybe not on your own but certainly with God by your side, and you never let go of Him, no matter how bad things got or how angry you felt, and you knew, deep down, that He never let go of you. And maybe that's the bravest thing of all, knowing that you couldn't go through it alone, knowing that there is no way to do life without Him.

I want you to know that bravery comes in all shapes and sizes. It's not just rescuing babies from burning buildings or being a missionary to an unknown tribe in the depths of the jungle! More often than not bravery looks like the single mother working hard to put food on the table for her kids, or the person battling a chronic illness who just tries to make the most of each day. It looks like the office worker, or the stay at home mum. It looks like the person hiding at the back of church, or the pastor standing at the front.

Maybe bravery is not stopping when things get tough. Maybe bravery is feeling scared yet doing it anyway. Maybe bravery is not only adapting to your circumstances but learning to love your life within them too, to be content in all circumstances as Paul says. But I think most of all bravery is knowing you can't do this alone and clinging to God's hand and believing, trusting, knowing that He will lead you through.

I'm linking up with Sabrina over at Just Keep Singing as part of the 'Letters to' series. This weeks prompt is Letter to the brave so head over and check it out!

Letter to a stranger

Dear stranger,

I only met you twice, I think, or was it three times? I forget now, but you weren't there long. What I do remember is that I was scared and desperate for answers. I was fed up of being labelled a hypochondriac for seeking answers about what was happening to my body, so I changed doctors and I met you. You believed me, the first time anyone in the medical profession had. You saw me shuffling slowly, and painfully into your office, exhausted after a short walk and having trouble concentrating and you agreed that this was not normal for a previously active 19 year old. You referred me to a rheumatologist, but you were only at that doctors temporarily and I didn't see you again after the rheumatologist appointment. I wonder if you ever thought about me, if you ever wondered what I was eventually diagnosed with. Would you have still been so supportive after I was diagnosed with such a controversial illness? I like to think so.

I don't think you'll ever know how much it meant to finally be believed, to have someone backing me up and starting the process to finding answers. Of course I didn't realise that this was just the beginning, or know how tough this journey would be, or how much I would have to fight for the help that I need. But that doesn't matter, you gave me my first glimmer of hope. Hope that I would get answers, hope that I wouldn't always have to fight, and hope that there were some doctors who were on my side, who wanted answers for me as much as I wanted them for myself. And for that I will always be grateful.

I'm linking up with Ruth's letters to series which will be every two weeks with different prompts. Today's prompt is Letter to a Stranger, the link is open all week so head over and link up if you want to.

A word for the year

Today marks 3 years of being ill. Anniversaries of this kind are hard, 3 years is a long time to be ill! It means I am in a completely different place to where I had envisioned I would be but that doesn't mean it's wrong. It just means that God is taking me on a new route.

I've read a couple of blogs in the past few days where they have picked one word for the year. This challenged me a lot and so I decided to think about and pray for a word of my own. So this year my word is going to be TRUST!

Proverbs 3:5-6 says "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight."

Trusting isn't something I'm very good at. The verse above asks me to trust in the Lord with all my heart, yet there always seems to be a part of me that wants to hold a little bit back just in case. It seems so ridiculous to write it! Just in case of what? That I'm right and God is wrong?!
I no longer want to hold onto part of my heart. I want to go from knowing in my head to actively all out trusting in God, no matter what the outcome.

This year I need to trust in God for my healing. I need to trust that He knows best how and when it is going to happen because I certainly don't. I need to trust Him whether He says "yes now" or "not yet". I want my prayer to be "It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees" (Psalm 119:71)

I need to trust God with my future. I need to trust that He has my best interests at heart and I don't need to be anxious about anything.

I need to trust God with my degree, with my finances, with my living arrangements, with my family. I need to trust Him with my life, my heart, my everything.

I'm not saying that I'm going to get it right every time, I know that I won't. My prayer is that I will get it right more often, that it will strengthen my relationship with God, that it will encourage me to depend more on Him and less on myself. I know it will probably be a journey far different to how I envision but I hope that I can look back at the end of the year and say that I said yes to God more often than I said no and trusted him with the outcome.

Testimony

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I've always been someone who thought my testimony was really dull and boring. I don't have one of those big defining moments where I surrendered my life to Christ and there was a miraculous transformation. I gave my life to God when I was 6 or 7 and I've never really known any different.

I guess what I didn't realise is that testimony isn't just the story of how you gave your life to God, it doesn't end there, in fact it's only the beginning. My testimony is about the ups and the downs, how God has brought me through the tough times and rejoiced with me in the good times. It's about how I can stumble through the valleys and still come out praising God simply because He is.
My testimony is about the times when I've walked closely with God and about the times when, like now, I feel like the silence is deafening and I struggle to find God in the hard places.

Most of all I've realised my testimony is important. There are things that I've been through and wrestled with that I can talk to others about. It's about encouragement and honesty. It's about bringing people to a place where they can meet Jesus and ultimately it's about giving all glory to God who is able.

In John chapter 4 Jesus meets the Samaritan woman at the well and tells her that he knows she has had 5 husbands and that she is currently living with a man who is not her husband.
'So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, "Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?" They went out of the town and were coming to him... Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, "He told me all that I ever did."
John 4:28-30, 39

The woman's testimony wasn't extravagant, it was simple but powerful. It brought them to a place where they could meet Jesus.

I think that's the point, our testimony doesn't have to have the wow factor and it doesn't have to look like we have it all together. God uses the messy bits, the pieces of us we don't think will ever be put back together, he uses our hurt, our pain, our sin. Our testimony isn't about us at all but about God. Like the woman by the well it's about bringing people to a place where they could meet with Jesus and letting Him do the rest.

The question I dread...

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There is a question that I’ve come to dread. It’s a perfectly innocent question and I’m sure the asker doesn’t realise the whole host of emotions it evokes within me. The question is simple, mundane, something you ask when you don’t know someone but are taking an interest in their lives. The question is ‘What is it you do?’ I can see you all thinking that I’m a little bit weird for dreading that question, except for me the answer isn’t that I have a great job, or I’m studying the course at university that I’ve always wanted to 

do like most people my age are. For me the answer is ‘nothing’. You see because of my health condition I’m currently too ill to study, or work, or sometimes wash my own hair or get out of bed. The fact that I'm on disability benefits and currently unable to be a fully participating member of society fills me with shame and sometimes fear and hurt, I dread having to explain myself. I hate having to explain that all I’m currently doing is ‘getting better’ or at least praying that I will.

As a Christian I know that God has a plan for my life. I also know that this is part of His plan. Not that He inflicted it upon me, because despite some people’s opinions I don’t believe that God inflicts suffering, but that He is using it to shape me and mould me into the woman He has designed me to be. I know that I shouldn’t feel ashamed or fearful about something that is out of my control, if people want to judge me then that’s their choice, but I still haven’t quite learnt not to let it hurt me when they do.

There are days when I just want to yell at my 18 year old self to rest (and rest isn’t the only thing I’d yell given the choice!). 

I got glandular fever when I was 18, just three months after I started my nursing training and I was very sick. I’d always been really good at picking up whatever was going, (I think I should win an award for the number of chest infections I had whilst I was in India!) but a 10 day mad rush trip to India to visit my family at Christmas after a busy first term at uni and a chest infection that I got when I was out there, meant I was unable to fight off the glandular fever when it started its attack. I contracted a secondary bacterial infection and ended up in hospital on IV antibiotics. When I got discharged back to my grandparent’s care I was ordered to rest for several weeks but this didn’t sit well with me. I was worried about all the absences I was clocking up at uni and the placement that I would have to make up. I was worried about being kicked off the course and it was my worry that led to me going back as soon as I could physically cope with walking around. Had I sat tight and rested for as long as it took to get well again, I probably would be graduating with my class in a few weeks. However I can’t let myself think like that very often because it’s no use regretting actions in the past, all it does is hold us there and not give us a chance to move forward.

It says in Matthew 6 “Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met. Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.” (From the MSG, approximately vs 33-34)

I’ve read and quoted that passage time and time again, in many different versions but I don’t think I’ve ever read it in this version before and today it speaks to me more poignantly than it has done in the past. It’s something I wish I’d learnt at 18, it’s something I still need to learn today. I’m still inclined to worry about missing out, not just on going out with friends which happens frequently, but on getting a degree and a good job, on finding a husband and having a family. I watch people getting on with their lives; graduating uni, getting jobs, getting married and I sometimes feel like my life is on hold. What I forget is that my life hasn’t stopped. I forget that having a degree, or a job or a family doesn’t define who you are and not having those things doesn’t define who I am. Sometimes I’m so focused on what isn’t happening in my life that I miss what is. Verse 34 says “Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.” (emphasis mine)

By wallowing in self-pity, or wishing the situation was different, I am missing what God is doing in my life and I am limiting what He can do through the situation I’m in. In the past two and a half years I may not have been able to finish my nursing degree or get a job, but I’ve seen God’s faithfulness countless times. I’ve watched God provide for me when I had nothing and never once have I had to dip into my overdraft. I’ve seen Him pour out His grace and mercy and love into my life over and over. I know that He is healing me.  I know that He’s carried me through the hardest parts and never once have I felt like He’s left me to handle it on my own. I know that I will come through the other side of this illness and that my faith will be stronger for it and I will, I hope, be a little more like the woman God has designed me to be because I focused on what He is doing in my life right now.  So you know what, even if I could tell my 18 year old self to rest, I don’t think I would because I would have missed the amazing stuff God has done since then and all that He has taught me through it.

Note: Sorry it's been such a long time since my last post, with everything that has been going on I haven't been able to manage one :) Hopefully this will be the first of many again! 

ME Awareness week 2012

It's that time of year again, when I spam your facebook or twitter news feed with stuff about ME and you either just roll your eyes and ignore it, or read what I've put and I really hope you read what I put. ME is a serious and debilitating condition that affects 250,000 people in the UK alone. It changes lives and family dynamics, it leaves people unable to work, housebound, bedbound sometimes even paralysed.

My friend Kate described it in this way
"Imagine a really bad hangover, then having to run a marathon, then coming down with the flu, all at the same time. On top of that, imagine someone is prodding needles into you constantly, spinning you around on a chair so you are extremely dizzy and nauseous and shining a bright torch in your eye so that light hurts. Then also, imagine everyone has a speaker phone, so even a whisper seems like shouting. Imagine spraining every muscle in your body and having to carry someone equivalent to your own weight who is clinging on to your legs all the time. Imagine having muscle spasms almost constantly uncontrollably which feels like torture as its so painful and tiring. Imagine someone speaking a foreign unknown language to you, and you have to concentrate REALLY hard to try work out what they're saying, then you forget it. Imagine having to sit in an ice bath for a long time, freezing cold, all the time. If you think you can't get any more tired, imagine having panic attacks on top of that, & really bad anxiety which literally drains any energy you've got left. Then, imagine staying like this, not knowing if/when you're going to get better, having to deal with this HUGE change of lifestyle. Imagine how tough and heartbreaking this illness can be. Imagine a lot of your support mechanisms breaking down, some friends move on. Imagine having to deal with this on a day to day basis, not knowing how you are even going to be hour by hour. And worse of all, imagine being told 'ME isn't real' and 'it's all in your head'. Even by medical processionals. This is what I want to change. I can't control my ME, the causes, the cure, but what everyone together CAN change is its understanding."

I think this is an amazing way of describing how ME feels, although no one suffers in quite the same way. For me anxiety isn't really a problem but I think the rest pretty much explains how it feels for me, especially on bad days and I'm no where near as bad as Kate.

I'm fortunate, I am well enough to at least try and go back to uni but 3 short days on placement means I spend the rest of the week in bed or on the sofa dosed up on strong painkillers, usually with spasming limbs, extreme pain, weak muscles and a myriad of other symptoms. When I am on placement I have to be constantly finding ways of sitting down when talking to patients, taking 5minute rests when its quiet and doing my best to not overdo it which is pretty much impossible.


But I didn't want this post to be all negative, this time last year I was housebound. I celebrated my 20th birthday in the back garden with a few friends and relapsed so badly afterwards that I was hospitalised. This year I'm going to the zoo! That may not sound like much to most people, especially when you combine it with being in a wheelchair but it's something I couldn't have even considered doing last year and I'm grateful that I'm well enough. I'm grateful that I don't have to wear sunglasses every waking hour; that I can cope without needing to wear ear plug to watch TV or have a conversation; that I can sit up for longer than 30minutes without my back going into spasm. All things that I couldn't do this time last year! 

This year a DVD called Voices of the Shadows was released to make people aware of what it is like for people living with, and dying from, severe ME. You can buy a copy of the DVD here. This is the trailer for it:

Please make yourself aware of ME. Understand that it's not something to be taken lightly and it's certainly not all in our heads because every ME sufferer I know, myself included, would do anything not to feel this way.


Below are a list of blogs written by various friends of mine. Please check them out :) 

http://marlow.me.uk/thornsandgold/?p=675 - by Tanya
http://marlow.me.uk/thornsandgold/?p=583 - another by Tanya
http://networkedblogs.com/xq6ch - by Danni
http://vivaciadreamsofnome.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/me-awareness-day-2012-loss.html?spref=tw - by Jenni

Wilderness Mentality

I'm going to fess up straight away and say that this isn't a term that I've coined myself, I read it in my bible reading devotions by Joyce Meyer, and I'm willing to bet it wasn't original to her either!

This subject has come up over and over again over the past 3 or 4 weeks (maybe longer!) so I'm getting the feeling that this is just as much for me as it is for me to share with you!


It really struck a chord with me when I read it though 'wilderness mentality'. I'm currently going through Exodus as part of a one year bible plan and it amazes me that a journey that should have taken 11 days took 40 years because the Israelites chose to believe someone's report instead of the promise that God had given them! Ultimately they weren't dreaming big enough, all they could see was the size of the problem instead of seeing the size of their God! It may seem crazy to me or you that the Israelites ended up spending 40 years in the desert but when we think about it how many of us have faced the same trials or situations or 'mountains' again and again because all we could see was the mountain and not who God is?

1 Peter 1:6-7 says this 'So be truly glad. There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you have to endure many trials for a little while. These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honour on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world.' 


God uses the trials in our lives to test our faith and refine it and strengthen it, if we give up then far from our faith being strengthened we take a big step back in our relationship with God. I've often found that if I don't learn something the first time round, a little while later God will gently remind me of what He is saying again, often by using a new trial or situation.


This past year has probably been the toughest year of my life but through it all I've learnt so much more about trusting God and giving Him control over my life. These aren't new lessons for me but it took something as serious as my illness for me to learn it with a new depth of understanding of what it means to really hand it over to God and I would like to say that my faith has really grown through it.

The best thing is God is a faithful God, a loving God and a patient God. This is so clearly demonstrated throughout Exodus and He has so clearly demonstrated this in my own life too. God loves me too much to leave me where I am and even though it means going through trials, I think this is a great thing!

I think there are 2 things certain in life: 1) there will be trials. I wish I could promise you otherwise but being a Christian definitely doesn't guarantee a trial free life! 2) God WILL faithfully bring us through them.

So back to the Wilderness Mentality... What is it in your life that is keeping you in the desert? Maybe it's a dream you had once that now seems impossible, or a promise God gave you that you've waited for years for but never seen fulfilled. Maybe it's the situation you are going through that seems just so big and overwhelming that you think you'll never get through it.

I think the key to getting out of the desert and into the promised land is to go back and look at the Israelites.They had a promise given to them by God and they had a report given to them by the people sent to have a look at the land. Instead of remembering God's promise they listened to the report and panicked. To walk out of the desert and into the promised land we need to remember who God is, remember that He is bigger than anything we can ever face. By focusing on Him our perspective changes, our fears are calmed and we can realise that the impossible is made possible through Him!

Great News!

Ok so I don't normally do blogs that just focus on what's going on in my life but this was too exciting to keep to myself!

As you will already know if you read my blog, I have M.E and have done for just over 2 years. As a result of that the past two years have been really tough. I had to give up doing my nursing degree in November 2010 because I just wasn't well enough to cope with it, which was a really horrible decision at the time. Anyway the title of this post is Great News so I won't bore you with the whole sad story! :)

So here it is... the great news... On Wednesday I went for a meeting with Occupational Health to see if I could be cleared to go back to university part time to try and complete my nursing degree and they said YES! So I'm now allowed to go back to uni two days a week (pending them finding a suitable placement for me)! I've had to fight pretty hard to get to this point, both against my illness and with uni to get the help I need to be able to manage but it will all be totally worth it if I manage to finish my degree and qualify as a nurse! It's going to be a long two years and I hope I manage it but it's definitely a big step in the right direction! So in three weeks I will once again be a student nurse! :D
I just have to completely give God all the credit because without Him I wouldn't be where I am now! :)

If we are the body...

The first verse of this song says "It's crowded in worship today, as she slips in trying to fade into the faces, the girls teasing laughter is carrying farther than they know"

I don't know if you have ever been in that situation, either as the person trying to fade into the background or the person teasing and laughing at them or whispering to the person next to you 'what's she doing here? Do you know what she did?'. It just amazes me that people don't think the church is a place for people who've made mistakes, for the broken, for the 'sinners' because that's exactly why Jesus came. Not for the people who had got it all sussed but for those who were struggling! People exactly like you and me!

Despite what we would like people to think, none of us have got it sussed! All of us make mistakes and all of us sin, sometimes we mess up pretty bad. Wouldn't it be awful if someone then turned round to us and said "sorry, I saw that sin that you did last night, you are no longer welcome in church"! But unfortunately that is what some people experience. Is it any wonder then, that people see the church as hypocritical?

In his book 'What's So Amazing About Grace?' Philip Yancey tells this story:
'A prostitute came to me in wretched straits, homeless, sick, unable to buy food for her two-year-old daughter. Through sobs and tears, she told me she had been renting out her daughter - two years old!-to men interested in kinky sex. She made more renting out her daughter for an hour than she could earn on her own in a night. She had to do it, she said, to support her own drug habit. I could hardly bear hearing her sordid story. For one thing, it made me legally liable - I'm required to report cases of child abuse. I had no idea what to say to this woman.
At last I asked if she had ever thought of going to a church for help. I will never forget the look of pure, naive shock that crossed her face. "Church!" she cried. "Why would I ever go there? I was already feeling terrible about myself. They'd just make me feel worse."'


This story shocks and saddens me for many reasons but the heartbreaking thing is that her view of church is shared by millions of people, and unfortunately rightly so in some situations. If Jesus were on earth right now, I have no doubt that this lady and her daughter would be someone Jesus made sure he had time for to help her, support her and show her, her value in Him.

Luke 5:30-32 says 'But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”

Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”'

The church is the body of Christ, it's about the believers not the building and as the body of Christ we need to be reaching out to anyone and everyone around us and just demonstrate God's love! We need to be doing what Jesus did, because if people can't run to the church for help when they need it most, where can they go?

React well

There are always going to be people around us who get on our nerves, annoy us, upset us and make us mad. There are definitely people in my life who make me feel all of the above in about a thirty second time span! My problem is that I can get wound up, frustrated and angry quite easily. Not immediately but if someone is persistently trying to push my buttons then it won't take long for me to snap! This isn't a good quality to have and it's something I've prayed about and felt convicted on quite a lot and it will work for maybe an hour or two but then I'll revert back to getting frustrated and angry.

I was praying about it last night in fact and was at the point of going 'well God what else can I do?! It's a natural reaction!' And into my head popped the words 'Jesus said nothing'

When Jesus was being tried before Pilate with false accusations being hurled at him, for a decision that would decide whether he lived or died, he said nothing!

'Then the high priest stood up and said to Jesus, “Are you not going to answer? What is this testimony that these men are bringing against you?” But Jesus remained silent.... When he was accused by the chief priests and the elders, he gave no answer. Then Pilate asked him, “Don’t you hear the testimony they are bringing against you?” But Jesus made no reply, not even to a single charge—to the great amazement of the governor.' Matthew 26:62-63 and 27:12-14


I think most of the time the hardest response for us to give is silence. We automatically want to express our anger/hurt/frustration somehow be it through shouting, sarcasm, being rude, or doing something like storming out the room. Our reaction is very rarely to stay put and say nothing, yet that's precisely what Jesus did. And actually I think that's the best way for us to demonstrate love to that person. It's the reaction they don't expect, and maybe through it they will change what they are doing and the way they act but if not we are still showing them God's love and that's all he asks of us.

'Therefore, whenever we have the opportunity, we should do good to everyone - especially those in the family of faith' Galatians 6:10


This verse just sums up what I've already said. We need to do good to everyone, no matter how they treat us or make us feel because that's the real test of character. It won't be easy, it goes against human nature and what the world teaches and I know I can pretty much guarantee that I will fail once in a while, but hopefully I'll succeed more often than I fail with God's help! 

Reasons to be cheerful... 2012, week 2!

Well it's that time of week again, not sure how it comes round so fast! Here are this weeks reasons to be cheerful

1. I had lovely skype times wit Becca

I've met a lot of lovely people through the Association of Young People with M.E (AYME) and Becca is one of them. By met I mean virtually :) Don't we look lovely!

2. I had a great day with my friend Louise yesterday

I went over to help her practice for her blood pressure OSCE and we did a lot more talking and laughing than practising! In the afternoon we went and got fishy pedicures and then she came back to mine and we had food, hot chocolate and watched girly films :)

3. I managed to walk a little further today!

Ok so it was all of 5 steps further but it was still further! I'm trying to increase my mobility but it's a very slow process and can be very frustrating at times so today felt like an achievement :)

Hop over to see Michelle over at Mummy From The Heart to see more reasons to be cheerful!  

Reasons to be cheerful... 2012!

The first R2BC of 2012! My aim this year is to join in with as many as I can (hopefully all of them!)

1. It's 2012! 

This year is going to be better than last year, I'm determined. My aim is to go back to uni, and get better than I am now (hopefully completely better!)  but whether or not those two things happen, my aim is to just follow God's plan :) 

2. Had a lovely Christmas and New Year with my family

I missed having Christmas with my family last year so it was nice to be with everyone this year. Had my Mum's parents over on Christmas day and then the rest of my Mum's side of the family joined us on boxing day. Spent New Year down south with my god parents plus my family :)

3. I went to the Wedding of two of my lovely friends

It was a really beautiful day and I'm so glad I got to go :)

Hop over to see Michelle at Mummy From The Heart to see other peoples reasons to be cheerful :)

Happy New Year!

My aim was to write this yesterday but I didn't manage it so it's almost a belated New Years wish!

I wanted this blog to be a way of looking back over 2011 and looking forward to 2012. But as I was thinking about 2011, all I could think about was how awful it had been! I spent a significant amount of time in bed, I end up paralysed, spent the summer in hospital, had to learn how to walk again, my relationship ended... I kind of had the 'woe is me' mentality going on, but the more I thought about it, the more positive things God brought to my mind, things that wouldn't have happened and lessons I wouldn't have learnt if I had been healthy.

So here are all the positives about 2011: I learnt how to walk again (yes I know I wouldn't have needed to do that if I hadn't lost the ability in the first place but it was still a big achievement!)
I had a fantastic birthday surround by my lovely friends!
I learnt to rely more on God and less on myself and I hope it's something I will learn more about going into 2012
God gave me a reason to smile everyday, no matter what else was going on
I had so much support from my amazing friends, and I made new ones too :)
My parents came back from India and I moved back home with them
I started recovering from M.E and can do a lot more now than I could earlier in the year!
I went to two lovely weddings of some amazing friends!

Ok so that wasn't all the positives, but it would take me a long time to list them all!

2011 was a roller coaster, and there were many challenging times, but through it all I discovered more of how faithful my God is, I learnt more about Him and experienced Him more and for that alone it was worth it!
So here is to 2012, a year that is hopefully filled with good health but most importantly more of God. My New Years resolution is to let God take control as I know it always works out better that way! :)

I'll leave you with a quote I saw on a friend's facebook status. "The New Year doesn't just bring around another year of life, but another day to follow in Jesus' footsteps and bask in God's love."


Happy New Year xx

His Daughters - One for the girls

It's not easy being a girl in today's society. Everywhere I look I see people's ideas of how we should act, what we should wear, how much we should weigh, how to have our hair, even things like who we should date! The media portrays tall, thin and beautiful women who we are supposed to look like, but don't say that they've been airbrushed and don't actually look like that in real life. So many of us get caught up with how the world views us, we can't go out unless our hair and make up is perfect and we are wearing the 'right' clothes, that we forget that there is already someone who thinks we are amazing just the way we are. 


I sent an email a while ago to encourage a friend and wanted to share part of it with you:
"You know something, you are BEAUTIFUL, you are SPECIAL, you are LOVED, you are PRECIOUS, you are KIND, you have WORTH. But the Devil doesn't want you to know that... because he doesn't want you to feel secure in your identity in Christ. God created you in His image, and he DOESN'T make mistakes, which means he created you perfect and when he looks at you he sees his beautiful daughter who he could not love any more or any less. He sees the righteousness of Christ. He sees purity, a blank slate on which He wants to write the next chapter of your life."


This is true for each and everyone of you reading this, whether you feel like it's true or not. Maybe you are sitting there and saying 'but I'm not beautiful, I'm fat and ugly and nothing special at all', I just want to say it's not true!! That's what the Devil wants you to believe because when you know that your identity is secure in Christ it makes you unstoppable for Him, and the Devil really doesn't want that to happen!


Jeremiah 31:3 says this
"God told them, "I've never quit loving you and never will. 
   Expect love, love, and more love!
And so now I'll start over with you and build you up again" (MSG)

I LOVE this verse, especially this version of it. No matter what have done or will do God will never quit loving us, never!! That makes me want to sing and dance and jump up and down! How amazing is it to be told that?! That all God wants to do is lavish His love on us! 

My challenge to you is to look at yourself in the mirror and say over yourself  'I am beautiful, I am special, I am loved, I am precious and I have worth.' everyday and see the difference it makes. I promise I will try this too. 

Reasons to be cheerful 1, 2, 3...

I have been appallingly bad at doing this, this year! But I will try and join in the last couple before the New Year!

1. We got internet and TV back

We've been without it since we moved at the end of November and it was particularly frustrating not having it whilst I was trying to do my Christmas shopping as it's better for me to do it online! But finally the virgin media guys arrived yesterday armed with drills and belts that don't work and installed it for us :)

2. I now have my own room

Ok so this isn't something that happened in the past week but as I mentioned before we moved at the end of November to a bigger house, which means I now get my own room. We also now have a downstairs toilet which is very helpful for me as I now don't have to struggle with the stairs all the time!

3. I have been re awarded DLA

DLA stands for Disability Living Allowance and is very helpful for me with my condition. It means I can re apply for my blue badge and helps me out with buying equipment to help me etc. I've been given it for another 2 years but I'm really hoping I don't need it for that long as I really want to go back to uni! (I do hate admitting I'm on disability benefits though)

Hop over to see Michelle over at Mummy From the Heart for more reasons to be cheerful :)

Worrying

Anyone who knows me will know I'm a worrier. I worry about the future and what's going to happen, I worry about people getting home ok and always make sure they text me when they do get home.

Last week I went to Nottingham to talk to my programme leader about returning to uni. The meeting was really helpful and gave me several options but only a couple of them give me a registration in Nursing and I have to be better by a certain time to be able to do it. This sent me into worry mode and going through my head were thoughts such as 'what if I'm not better?' and 'what happens if I can't complete the course?' Then I was doing my bible reading earlier this week and the verse that it was on was 1 Peter 5:7

It says 'Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.' 1 Peter 5:7

This really spoke to me. I realised I had been focusing on my illness and the deadline to go back and not focusing on the fact that I serve the God of the universe who is so much bigger than any problem I have. The verse says we should give our worries to Him because he cares about us. God doesn't want to see us struggling along on our own, he wants us to give everything we are worried about over to Him.


“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?... Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Matthew 6:25-27, 34


I love this passage, it's really comforting. We don't need to worry because God has it all sorted, we can trust completely that he will provide for us in all areas of our lives. I know I don't have to worry about being well enough to go back to my course because God has it all sorted, if I don't make it back it just means he has something better planned for me! It's hard not to worry but my challenge for you this week is to pray every time you feel worried that God would just fill you with peace.

Just wanted to leave you with this verse: "Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God." Philippians 4:6

Reasons to be cheerful 1, 2, 3...

It's that time of week again! I've been really slack at joining in recently, I just keep forgetting! So I made a point to try and remember this week!

1. I had a day out with Mum

Technically this was slightly more than a week ago but oh well. We went to a garden centre (well two because the first one we arrived at was rubbish!) had lunch and a mooch around. I spent (more!) money on cupcake decorations and it was just nice to spend time with Mum =) 

2. I went shopping with the family on Saturday

I had forgotten how busy shopping centres are on a Saturday! I went in my wheelchair and was tired after about 5 minutes but I did manage to find a dress for my friend's wedding and some jeans that fit me! Success! Tried to upload a picture of the dress but it wouldn't work =(

3. I had a catch up with my friend and saw her newborn baby =D

Went to Nottingham yesterday to talk about return to uni (that parts still a big if!) and decided to drop in to see my lovely friend and meet Eli who is six weeks old (ok so not quite newborn!) and gorgeous. Got lots of cuddles and had a good catch up with my friend =) 

It's been a busy week and I'm paying for it now but was definitely worth all the pain =) 

Pop over to Michelle at Mummy from the Heart and check out everyone else's reasons to be cheerful this week =D 

Using your gifts

Imagine you are given the gift of a brand new car, and all it does is sit in the drive way under a tarpaulin. You look at it admiringly every once in a while but you've never driven it. It would totally defeat the object of being given a car!

It's the same when God gives us a gift that we don't use, maybe because we're too afraid or we don't believe our gift is of any value or even sometimes because we are too lazy! There is no point if God gives you the gift of compassion or serving if you don't help people out and use it to glorify Him.


"There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work... Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptised by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many. Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body." 1 Corinthians 12:4, 12-20 


I think quite often (if you're anything like me anyway) we can hold back on our gifts because we are too afraid. We may think that someone else's gifts are better than ours but as it says in the verse above, every part is important. You're gifts are just as important as the next persons and gifts that aren't used are as useless as a car is never driven. It's time to move out of our comfort zones and use the gifts God gave us in the best way we can, for His glory :)

Praise

How often do your prayers to God look like a cosmic shopping list rather than praise and thanksgiving? Or maybe you do include a 'praise time' but it's far outweighed by the 'please time'. I know that my prayers often end up like that.


Psalm 92:1-5 says 'It is good to praise the LORD 
   and make music to your name, O Most High,
  proclaiming your love in the morning
   and your faithfulness at night, 
 to the music of the ten-stringed lyre
   and the melody of the harp.

  For you make me glad by your deeds, LORD;
   I sing for joy at what your hands have done.

 How great are your works, LORD,
   how profound your thoughts!'

I read this in my quiet time yesterday and it struck me how little I praise the God who created me, who loves me, who died for me. The Psalmist here had the right idea, they start the day by praising God and end the day by praising God (vs 2). The thing is, we haven't really got a reason why not to praise God but we have got plenty of reasons to praise Him! I made a list the other day of everything I could think of, off the top of my head, that God has done for me this year. The list was pretty long and that didn't even include the smaller things that He does for me every single day! 

'When he came near the place where the road goes down the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen:
“Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!”“Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”

Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!”

“I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.”' Luke 19:37-40

How amazing is that? Being told that if the people stopped praising Jesus then the stones would cry out! To me that just shows me, even more so, how much Jesus deserves to be praised! Not only should we praise God because He deserves it but it also benefits us! It reminds us of how great God is, that in any situation we don't have to worry because God is greater than it!

Serving

Serving - It's a word many of us in today's society dislike. Our culture here in the UK teaches us to look out for ourselves first and others second. Yet putting ourselves first goes directly against what Jesus taught in the bible. He taught us that we should humble ourselves and that to be first we should put ourselves last.


Philippians 2:6-8 talking about Jesus says 'Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death - even death on a cross!' 


I find it incredible whenever I read this passage, Jesus chose not to use the fact that he was equal with God to his advantage but instead 'took the very nature of a servant'! Who are we then to put ourselves before others, to try and get ahead and only do what is best for number 1 when Jesus himself became a servant to others.



'Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him...
...When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. “Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them. “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.' John 13:3-5 and 12-17


This is a pretty well known story in the New Testament and it shows Jesus serving his disciples. In those times they would have worn open sandals and their feet would have been pretty disgusting when they arrived at their destination. It was the job of a Gentile slave to wash the feet, which suggests it was considered beneath even the Jewish slaves. By doing this, Jesus is showing an amazing act of humility.

Jesus always taught by example, he wants us to serve and be humble so he served and showed humility. It's not easy to serve, I know I find it difficult so this is definitely a challenge for me. Maybe this week you can look for ways to serve the people around you. By making a cup of tea for someone in your house perhaps, or even doing the washing up without being asked to.  See what a difference it can make, not just to those around you but to you too.