February 28th

February 28th
This is the last day of the FebEx – though as Emily-the-Wise pointed out, it’s Lent now, so I can carry on through Lent as well! And I think I will.
It started with…inviting you in, Jesus, inviting you in to do the creative together, just for the joy of it, and with no outlines or deadlines.

What has it shown me?

That it was hard to invite you in. Opposed.
That in order to invite you in to joy, I have to invite you in to grief: knowing the one is essential to knowing the other.
That there were voices in my life that said I was supposed to cope on my own. And I ought to be productive. And that actually, joy was a bit of a self-indulgence, wasn’t it? Compared to Getting Things Done.

And two very unexpected things. One right at the end of the month.

About last June Jesus, you said to me, “Will you invite me into those post-natal depression years?” And you have been healing a lot.
During those years of undiagnosed post-natal depression, I felt like you were shutting me out of intimacy with you. because all the old ways of finding it – praying, reading my bible, going to church, seeking you out – they didn’t work any more.
Unexpected discovery one: intimacy comes in many shapes and forms. The intimacy of grief is not the intimacy of happiness, or joy.

Unexpected discovery two: I thought I knew what you were inviting me into, when I got pregnant. And I didn’t have rose-tinted ideals either: I’m the eldest of four with an eleven year gap between me and the youngest, I was a primary school teacher. I was expecting a mixture of hard and joy.
That wasn’t what happened. Rob says, the enemy sabotaged it. The original plan got de-railed, blown up…
But I do believe that as soon as something gets sabotaged, you are at work to redeem, restore, rescue. You invite us into a different onwards. So – my unexpected discovery two?

I don’t know what that invitation was – and is – into. There’s a huge gap inside me. And I need you to fill it, to answer it, to tell me and show me what you are inviting me into.
I’m ending the month on a huge question, looking for an answer that feels like it will open a door onto a new landscape, a new depth of intimacy with you.
What were you inviting me into back then?
What are you inviting me into now?

I’m still trying to work out what the pieces are and where they go…

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