You may wonder why these are left without daily updates: I have left them because they show processes of thinking and healing. Be encouraged to start to 'take every thought captive' and turn them into prayer, or praise or a cry to God. (9/6/2020)
The last Wednesday 10th April 2019 -
Seeking Day by Day
Thursday 4th April 2013
Half an hour ago I started writing about today, and God's teaching to me, through prayer and my inner life, and through an apparently dead spider in my dogs water bowl! I carefully and thoughtfully wrote and then shared what I was to do for the rest of the day with icon painting. I clicked what I thought was the appropriate button and discovered 2 minutes later that it had disappeared. I then wrote:
I have lost everything I wrote in the last half hour. Let us learn how to manage this editing of pages so it doesn't happen again. This is how the world, flesh and the devil take away our Peace in Christ. But in Him all things work together for good.
So glory to God I re-explored the administration of the site and hopefully can now ensure I don't lose what I write!
This is such an important spiritual lesson for me, because it has been so easy for me to lose my peace because of worldly things or people not responding to my goodwill - but I hadn't been listening or taking account of what really needed to be done.
I am reminded of when I was a child (and it still happens though less so) I failed a Latin exam because I rushed at the exam and didn't turn over the page where the things I could have done were hidden.
May we have grace to seek and knock and ask and prepare the WAy as God does. xm
Friday 5th April
I have lost what I wrote again! What am I learning? I hadn’t even finished and therefore had an opportunity to press the right button! Save every paragraph perhaps! - I’ve chosen to write on a Word file and then paste it!
Everyday is a walk to choose for God, for His ways and His work. Above all we are asked to praise, and only through praise do we find His Strength and vision for the day. So I praise God for the trials I have as a woman in the church. Through my suffering and rejection, but wanting always to seek Christ’s Heart, Mind and Will, I have had to allow Him deeper in my heart, and to purify my mind. Without the suffering I wouldn’t have needed to invite Him further in; so what a gift. Father forgive them they know not what they do. It has set me free from so many false expectations of others, and myself... and left me totally dependent on God's ways for my strength and life.
But I have to pray, knock and seek, in relation to on-going trials and temptations to despair, embodied in the two versions of the Resurrection which are common within Orthodox Churches. One shows Christ raising both Adam and Eve from hell when He ‘descended into hell’ after His death, the other raising Adam only. If people have not accepted suffering and been healed within their inner heart by the Presence of Christ, they are frequently still living the Fall in relation to attitudes towards women/men.
I would happily put this on one side and get on with prayer and icon painting, but I have to write an essay to comply with the requirements of the Orthodox Studies course I am currently engaged with! And the tutor wants me to focus on these two versions of the icons! Over to You Lord. Please help and inspire me. May Your Light Shine on this. Dear God have mercy on me.
Saturday 5th April
Would you believe it! I tried again to write directly on the page of the website and in pressing the return key (I think) it returned to an admin page and everything I had written had disappeared. So be it! I write on Word first!
Its still a beautiful morning, and the truth of the gospel is that we can choose to look at the waves of trials that could overwhelm us, or look to God’s promises and the grace we have through His Spirit to overcome. Sometimes I do not have the grace immediately to redo something, and need to do what I do have the grace for. Then I find myself coming back to the thing that failed with renewed vision and with no stress. ‘Come to me all you who are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from me, My yoke is easy, my burden is light.’ What a loving and faithful God we have. The three icons I am working on currently are living examples of this. I thought I would never get St Seraphim ‘right’ , and he is still a work in progress but by patiently taking off gold, (twice) his halo is now adequately in the right place, and the excess scraped off with the right tool. The face of the Theotokos on another icon has been redone 3 times now. Each time I learn more what is needed.
I have to say this grace is needed in all areas of my life, but through trust and prayer everything changes from being a chore, to being an act of love – even washing up!
Yet you know I find another mystery to ponder on. I delight in the sunshine and bright days when I can take Beauty, the dog, out without getting wet through. But yesterday we met the farmer who owns the sheep which are sometimes taking ownership of the fields by the river where B loves to run. I was commiserating with him about the poor grass growth, thinking this was due to the cold. However he said it was the dryness! SO my sunshine blessing, is currently not a blessing to him, and presumably not for all the other farmers in this region.
May I not be presumptive about anything. But I do thank God for the sunshine that I can see, and feel, when I go out.
Tuesday 9th April
I'm trying again to type on the web page as I haven't much time! May I be extra careful!
The last weekend saw me go through deep dark places.... struggling to make any sense of the essay I was needing to do for the Orthodox Studies course. God took me back to a time in my life when I could not make sense of the lovelessness I was living and my mind had turned off because of the pain. This sort of experience is at the root of many of our 'brickwalls' when we simply cannot face something. But in prayer, and with our 'Yes' to God....... these things get unblocked!
As a result of these rather painful (very painful) days, this morning after prayer, I was able to go to the computer and retackle the essay, which has begun to take form. Glory to GOD.
And I've already done 2 'Save Changes' and hence have not lost what I'm typing!
The weather is still cold, and despite the clouds, no rain which the farmers need for the grass to grow to feed the sheep and lambs. It also also very cold in Switzerland, none of the usual spring flowers and snowdrops still out, here also. And in Korea (S Silouani reported) they have promises of spring flowers coming out, but the forecast shows snow!! Dear God have mercy on us.
Tuesday 16th April
This last weekend I was able to share some painful truths with a priest. It was both a confession and an opportunity to simply spell out realities which had previously been locked away and blocking my life. The joy of this is that it then sets me free to move on to the next step. Spiritual pain is real, as real as physical pain.
I/We sometimes are afraid to face both emotional and spiritual pain because it seems it will overwhelm us. As children of course this may appear to be true. But as believers in Christ and the gift of the Cross we are never alone in these trials. And I have to say I have come to trust in the words of St James,'I will never ask more of you than you can bear'.... and if we are praying we are not alone - Christ's trust in the Father even in going to the cross was total. We are invited to grow in grace and trust. I have to say my faith in a loving God, 'full of Grace and Truth' grows daily as I lean on Him.
So today I have worked again on my essay, almost totally restructured since the talk at the weekend, and sense a peace I have not had before. Glory to God. What a gift confession and speaking out and sharing difficulties is. It is not a question of handing the burden on to someone else, though the prayers of others and the love of others is important, but also that Spiritually we are built up in Truth. We cannot sort things out on our own.... but with God all things are possible. (I'm quoting from the Gospels but cannot remember the place at the moment.) May I carry this Peace into the day. And may God give strength to prepare these icons for gessoing tomorrow.
Wednesday 17th April
I heard in the night that Fr J had died peacefully at 12.40am this morning. I thought I had done my weeping yesterday after speaking to Fr R. But no!
I had never known the security of being truly parented. So through this dear man, I had learned to love and be loved with blessing. No words can tell it! Above all he recognised my life in Christ and respected and built that while upholding in prayer and kindness, and rebuke, my broken or wilful heart! Glory to God.
Monday 22nd April
I'm about to step out in faith again! Going to nr Telford for tonight, then on up to Edinburgh early tomorrow morning for the funeral on Wednesday.
The car is packed with icon boards for an iconographer, a gas cooker for someone else, car seats for the grandchildren when I pick them up on Monday, and card-making stuff, clothes etc for others and me. 'I do the things I would not do, but do not do the things I want to do'. But in fact, I am no longer sure of anything I WANT to do, and simply trust in what I am asked to do, or that is service.
I suddenly, though its been hanging in my consciousness for a long time, see myself as part of a sea of love. Every wave fits in, or breaks over, another, but all moved by the Mystery of God's Kingdom.
Maybe that is what we are like when we give up our ego for Love's sake. And yet I somehow know, that 'All manner of things will be well'. And somehow all that is within me will praise and glorify God. This is my highest desire so I have to believe that He will bring it about. All my creativity is nothing if not serving His purposes.
Don't know if I will get any chance to get on line while I'm away, apart from my essay which isn't yet finished........ oh dear! Now to sand an icon board ready for when I return.
June 12 th, at Bussy So much has happened since I last wrote: Father John's funeral and his 40 day service have passed; and it has become clear how I will move up to Edinburgh. The last session of the study course has passed and the essay has been given in. I no longer seem to have the capacity to judge what an appropriate essay would be, and it was commented that it sounded more like a homily! I certainly cannot write in ways I do not think, though I did pray for coherence. So many years ago when students were praying for me, I was given the prophecy from Isaiah 43 about passing through the waters, and them not coming over me, etc ..... And that prophecy is still being worked through! All the travelling, working, serving, brings old wounds and unhealed hurts to the surface and faith, hope and love become heart felt rather than theories! Without the love of Christ and the cross how would we/I carry on? I say all that as I battle against darkness and worldly thoughts/ life and the sin that separates us from God. So here at Bussy I am given opportunity to commit to prayer in the early hours and let His Light pierce dark places of death. I am constantly being challenged to repentance and forgiveness and my rational mind saying 'its not my fault, THEY....... Etc' . But in Christ that isn't the point. He forgave those who killed Him, and although He seemed to affirm that women of God would also experience the equivalent of crucifixion, He told us to weep, not to get angry. But it seems that to come out of denial of our pain and loss, only possible in Him, we have to face buried anger and the truth in the Holy Spirit. We are made in the image of God, we are invited to be conformed to Christ, as men are, and to become whole in Him and be divinised through His Presence and grace in us. Thus we become an instrument of God's Kingdom serving Him, and like Mary become 'full of grace' able to bear the Word of God through the Holy Spirit. I seek unity in Christ, let me continue to seek and knock and ask in His Faith, Hope and Love. God will find a way. Now I must not simply write about these things but pray and seek and knock.
Wednesday 10 th April 2019
This is a new beginning. Focussing on the mystery of being a woman living for Christ alone.
The last 6 years have seen me pass even more through the dark night and have led me to greater integration, self acceptance in grace, and recognition that we can ‘not put our trust in princes nor in the sons of men.
