The February Experiment

February 26th I want to go on with this. I don’t want it to end. This has brought me so much life, I don’t want to give it up. I don’t want to go back to “everything you do should have a meaning and a purpose and be profitable if it’s going to have God’s blessing on it.” I had slid into a mindset – been conned into a mindset! – that said if I was just doing something for me and the joy of doing it…well, that was okay for a little bit of time, but it was just a stopgap thing, a pause until I got back into the game. It was like you sort of tolerated it Jesus, were willing to wait until I’d finished (as long as I didn’t spend too long over it) but it wasn’t a real thing to be doing. It wasn’t a place where I would meet you in deep intimacy. But it is.

February 25th Inviting you in, doing something creative for the joy of it, with you Jesus… That was where all this started. That was – is – what this month has been about. And what has it shown me? That I had forgotten how to do that, lost that skill. That I thought you wanted me to cope, to gut it out. That I thought you were only really present when I was Doing Things For Other People. It showed me how battle-weary I was, and how hard these two years of covid have been. Because the whole covid thing hasn’t been the hardest thing I’ve ever experienced, then I’ve tended to dismiss it as lightweight, as something that shouldn’t really have affected me. Something I should have coped with, no problem, because it isn’t as bad as… It’s shown me how battle-weary I was, and it’s shown me your rest, Jesus.

February 24th. No matter what is happening in my life, no matter the season, no matter the landscape… No matter what is happening in my life you, Jesus, are always inviting me into deeper intimacy with you. But it’s going to be a different type of intimacy in different times, isn’t it? The intimacy of grief is not the intimacy of joy.

February 23rd I’ve just realised something huge, something that all this inviting-into-joy has shown me. Two things, actually, both about the post-natal depression years.. One, I stopped believing that you wanted to come in to what I was doing. Two, and much bigger, I couldn’t see what you were inviting me into. I thought you were just giving me a load of things-to-do in those PND years: love your child, take care of her, protect her childhood: bring love and laughter and play and care and being present to her into it. Which I did, because I did love her. And I wanted to do what you were asking, because I loved you too, God. But you weren’t inviting me into anything desirable. That’s the message that got in. You weren’t inviting me into anything, you just wanted me to do a load of stuff. So did you really love me, care about me? Emily messaged me again, and sent me this song link. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSIVjjY8Ou8 And what it showed me was this: it’s all...

February 22nd Inviting you in, Jesus – into the FebEx things, into making bread early this morning, and into painting tiny cabbages and cauliflowers onto a game tile… I lost the ability to feel joy, to know joy, in the PND years. Lost it so thoroughly that I thought you took no joy in me at all. And then it came back a little – I could take joy in other people’s joy, be genuinely delighted for them when something worked out well, rejoice with those who rejoiced. But did you rejoice over me? The huge message was: “You are getting it wrong. You are failing.” And I know, I know – it was attack; that’s what depression does to you; you can’t hear God clearly when you are depressed. But I didn’t know that, back then. And if I was failing, then you wouldn’t rejoice over me, or with me in anything. That’s straight from my earthly father: unless you’re a success (which means being first in everything, all the time) then I’m not interested in you. In fact, I’m disappointed in y...

February 21st I thought inviting you into joy would be as easy as opening a gate or crossing a stile and going for a walk in a field or by a stream. Going back to a place I hadn’t been to for a while (and there’s been a lot of that with covid). Taking time out to go there with you, Jesus and rediscovering a place I loved. Sharing joy with you. Setting aside the time: that would be the challenge. Prioritising it. I wasn’t expecting this spring-loaded fire door that I’m trying to keep open. Wasn’t expecting to find that I don’t know how to do this any more. I was expecting…easy? Not lightweight, because I knew this mattered. But I wasn’t expecting this much depth, Jesus. Today’s pop-up? Inviting you into “doing something for the joy of doing it” has revealed my deep conviction that I have to Get It Right, otherwise I’ll be rejected. And I’ve multiplied that by minus one and turned it into “If I’m rejected, then I must have got it wrong” as well. How do you do this, ...

February 20th So here’s a message I picked up in my early Christian life… If I am miserable, if I am unhappy, than I am living out my faith wrong. Okay, if a major tragedy happens, I am allowed to grieve. Within certain parameters, and I should still be okay singing happy songs in the Sunday worship time (I remember one time in particular: a young couple in our church had just been involved in a really serious car accident. He’d been killed and she’d been left paralysed from the neck down. And a couple of Sundays later, the church leader started up “I am H-A-P-P-Y” and was actually less than chuffed that people weren’t joining in. They did things differently in the eighties). But actually, the rest of the time I’m supposed to be happy. Because I’ve got Jesus! If I’m feeling sad, then I’ve lost sight of Jesus. And – more pernicious than that – I’ve lost contact with Jesus. Because he’s only to be found in the happy places. But what if that’s not true? What if, when it...