Category: faith

The garden of souls

Lots of lovely wildflowers are coming into bloom this time of year, sometimes in unexpected places.

I found some especially bright poppies by the supermarket:

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Where I grew up we called this one cow parsley!
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The other day I stumbled across this stunning rose in an otherwise unkempt garden.

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I love how sometimes you find brilliantly coloured, delicate flowers growing in the most unlikely places, like little purple blossoms growing across a stone wall or this poppy springing up from arid, grey, hardened soil.

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The little blooms are not as fragile as they appear. They thrive in barren conditions. They draw their life and water much deeper than we see.

Perhaps it’s the same with our hearts and souls when we have travelled a hard road of suffering and abandonment and pain and are trying to find the way to recovery. Gradually  or suddenly the path bears fruit and something beautiful comes to life at the most unexpected time. As we draw deeper and deeper strength we bloom like that poppy in arid, unstable soil, finding something unshakeable that lets us flourish. Exactly what it is, is probably different for each of us. Then we can even inspire and strengthen others.

Ginny xxx

….

“Every flower created by [God] is beautiful; the brilliance of the rose and the whiteness of the lily do not lessen the perfume of the violet or the sweet simplicity of the daisy. I understood that if all the lowly flowers wished to be roses, nature would lose its loveliness. And so it is in the world of souls, which is the living garden of the Lord.” – St Therese of Lisieux

Not that girl

Alert for stupid self indulgent sad post :/ …

I wrote this post a few days ago. It’s a struggle to admit to these feelings and to how it’s hurting me. It’s one of those times I feel so childish and needy and that I should just get over it. I’m taking a risk and posting this and maybe I’ll see what happens and see what you think. Maybe it’ll help me let it go too.

….

I’m trying to accept that my ex has got married. That though he left me saying the thought of marriage made him want to run, and he never wanted children and had no understanding of the meaning of marriage or the idea of being open to having children, he didn’t want the changes to his life that a relationship would bring, he didn’t want the personal social or financial implications – despite all this he now has a wife and two young step daughters and an extended step family and he’s arranging his wife and daughters’ immigration to the UK.

Everything he told me he wanted and believed he now has the opposite. He was so utterly against having children and he now has two. He was against any change or disruption to his routine but he’s maintaining a transcontinental marriage and arranging all the immigration process and naturally bringing his new family to his home, which will completely change every part of his life. And so on.

At the same time as I learnt this I learnt he saw me as a financial drain. He resented the slightest extra expense he saw our relationship (ie me) as causing, even a taxi or bus fare because with my disabilities I couldn’t walk everywhere as he would. He thought I drove his friends away and cost him his friends and lodgers  (at one point I along with two other people rented rooms in the house he owned and we did not always get along and there were arguments and as my and his relationship progressed ams so did that of one of the other lodgers with her boyfriend, she moved out). He resented time I wanted us to spend together. He was more and more angry if I wanted to try to build the emotional side of our relationship or pray together.

I don’t think there was anything good for him in the relationship apart from the physical side. He admitted he was physically drawn to me and had been for some time before our relationship started, and that he continued to be since. That terrified me. And I felt used too. That he resented anything emotional or spiritual and saw me as a drain and source of anger, yet had some physical want for me. I feel revulsion the two are separated and disgust at myself that I was so repulsive to him as a person but there to be taken physically. No we didn’t go “all  the way” or go against our faith’s teaching but there was intimacy and it is enough to terrify me. I don’t understand it properly yet. Perhaps it’s something to do with my childhood abuser’s hate of me but control and use of my body.

Anyway. … it’s also harder to accept because I found out the lady he has married has been a close friend and correspondent of his for over 10 years, that is to say well before my relationship with him began. I knew of her and thought she was an occasional penfriend. I didn’t know the depth of their friendship. I don’t think he was unfaithful but all the bonds that were lacking in my relationship with him were there between him and her all along. Everything he resented and wanted to run from with me, like time spent together or having children, he had and wanted with her. So it felt like it was so clearly me that he wanted to run from, not the things themselves.

It’s ironic that I found all this out at a time I was already thinking that my mental health had greatly affected my relationship with him (my Borderline was not yet diagnosed at the time). I had been planning in any case to tell him about my diagnosis because I did already feel responsible for a lot of why our relationship failed, because of my emotional instability, crying, anger, intense need of his presence and reassurance. So what I found out should have come as no surprise. Yet it is still a shock.

I’m not that girl. I’m not the right person to share his life or bring him joy. She’s got him. She always had him really. I am glad for them. I am happy for them and for the stability they will share. Despite his resentment for me I still feel an ache and painful sadness when I think of us or hear of them. Despite how much he disliked me, basically, and how little it seems we shared from his point of view, in my heart I can’t accept we didn’t share anything genuine in our companionship.  Then again it seems we didn’t from his point of view. There is not going to be an answer to that really.

I told a trusted friend about how I’m feeling and what my ex has now told me about our relationship. She said he sounds like a complete jerk. And the thing is, reading this,listening  to me, perhaps you would think that. But I don’t think he is. A lot of the time I was with him he acted understanding and kind and generous. That was partly why it was such a shock when we broke up. He was committed to his work and the church and gave a lot of help to several people in need. It was only when we broke up, and then now as I’ve found out about the wedding and his wife and daughters and he’s admitted what he actually thought of me, that I feel both used and guilty he resented me so much. It feels like nothing I thought we shared was genuine somehow because all the while he was feeling something totally different from me and totally different from what I thought he was feeling. I don’t want to make out he’s a nasty person. I was so sure he was and is a good person. I’m so confused.

When he brings his new family to the UK, there will be another wedding ceremony over here, and this will be important, as this ceremony will make them married in the Church body as well (at present they have had a civil ceremony in the law of her home country; they have not sealed their vows in the church). I will hear of it, I must be prepared and accept and learn to wish them well. I do wish them well.

I’m not that girl and I must not allow myself any more self indulgent lingering in the pain I’m feeling. There are many questions that won’t be answered. They have found each other as it should be. There is another place for me. I need to give them to the Lord now and keep looking forward to the good relationships that I’m in today and what I can do, not back to the questions and pain I can’t solve.

Ginny xxX

 

Sad for what we cannot heal

I don’t watch the news very often. I feel bad about that. I worry it’s irresponsible, running away from the world, detaching or not caring enough. I think lots of people would say I need to be more engaged. But in fact the reason I can’t watch is precisely the opposite of not caring enough. When I watch all I see is danger, anger, loss, violence, threats, pain, instability…. all I feel is dread, fear, sadness, grief, shaken, panic, disintegrating… and I don’t know what to do with it. I don’t know how to carry the feelings, or what the proper response is. What do we do with this hurt we can’t heal and trauma we can’t stop?

I don’t know if the world is on the whole becoming a more dangerous place. On the one hand I can’t say there’s no hope. Our God has assured us of His love for us and that no war, disaster or loss can separate us from Him. There is always something in this world to give hope. I think there’s always somewhere in each crisis where you can find some tiny piece of good. On the radio a while back I heard someone say when we are afraid of the bad things we see happening, look for the people who are trying to help and do good because they are always there somewhere.

On the other hand, there does seem to be more and more danger, terrorism, violence and unrest. What was once distant and occasional now seems a real and present danger. So many people are suffering and afraid and trying to escape threats to their homes and their lives. The scale of it scares me too.

Other people sometimes say, we have come through worse and we will get through this. Especially people who lived in the Cold War era. Perhaps it’s a great difference of perspective.

It all still leaves me with the question of what to do. How are we supposed to respond when fear seems to be taking hold and when we see so much suffering that we can’t do anything directly to heal? How do we cope with the scale of such unrest, when we don’t know what good we can do and it feels so out of control?

These questions really shake me at the moment.

Ginny xxx

Not being there

In the past few weeks I have been struggling more physically with a lot of pain, exhaustion and several viruses one after the other not helping. I’m learning slowly to not get frustrated or panicked when there are things I just can’t do at the moment. This is a very slow process of learning about what I can do – it’s been over 15 years now since my physical health conditions started. It still makes me feel very useless when I compare myself with other people and see how much less I seem to manage to achieve day to day than they do and comments that bring it home, deliberate or not, hurt.

However the hardest part is feeling that I can’t be there for other people (friends, family, people I work for, and so on) in the way I would like to. At the moment I manage to work part time. Usually after work I am exhausted and dealing with too much pain to do anything else. I get behind on simple things like housework. I’m behind on replying to comments and messages on here – I’m really sorry all the more because I am grateful for the time you take to stop by and read and comment and you are all far more supportive to me than I manage to be to you. I had to stop most of the voluntary work I used to do and I feel I’m not there for my friends or family in the way I’d like to be. Most live a long way away and the journey can usually be too much, plus I can’t even write or telephone as I’d like to when I’m very low physically or mentally.

I really feel like I’m selfish and should push harder (though I know I can’t) and that I’m really failing in friendship. Even in my dreams – which have been really disturbing lately – there seems to be a theme of not being able to help people or watching bad things happen to people and screaming out but not being able to stop it and the not being able to stop it comes with a sense of horror and judgment on myself that lasts quite some time after waking.

I try to take courage from remembering that it’s not grand accomplishments that are necessary and even little actions done with love and care can be meaningful even if we don’t see how they are at the time. I don’t have a high powered or even full time job but in the work I do I can still do it with dedication and care and going that bit further to help those I’m serving (literally, since I work in a shop!).

But when it comes to not being able to be present in the way I should be for others in relationships – I’m not giving the time or the help I should in practical ways – I feel I’m failing. However much I care for someone, if I can’t do the practical things (visiting, writing, helping and being there when they need it) then aren’t I really failing, from their point of view?

I know we don’t earn a genuine friendship any more than we earn God’s love. We aren’t loved by God because of what we do or because we have earned it or made ourselves successful or good enough. We are loved, still in our weakness, because His nature is loving. The more we admit our need for Him the more He fills us with His love. The good we do is the work of His love through us and every little act and prayer we offer is this love, gives this love to other people and gives love back to Him. “We love because He loved us first.” He even says it is by this love we will be known – people will say, “see these Christians, how they love one another.” In their work with the poorest people, Mother Teresa’s nuns made it their aim not to begin by preaching but by care, love and selflessness in their actions. If someone asked them why they acted as they did, then they would speak about the Love that led them to it.

Actions aren’t what make us good or acceptable people, though I can certainly tend to feel that. They are the fruit of being loved and wanting to love. But what if I can’t do the things that are needed and expected in friendship, that bring care and support to the other person and show to them that I care? In the past I’ve even ended relationships because I’ve felt so strongly that I’m not a real friend because I can’t be there as the other person needs. Recent ways relationships (one or two in particular) have gone wrong because (I think) the other person doesn’t find anything good in the relationship and thinks I need too much, make me think this even more.

Perhaps it’s something to discuss in therapy group.

Ginny xxx

All I want is to be your harbour

Sail your sea, meet your storm. All I want is to be your harbour. The light in me will guide you home, all I want is to be your harbour. Fear is the brightest of signs – the shape of the boundary you leave behind….

I love this song by Vienna Teng, “Harbour“. I feel it will inspire a couple of posts over the next few days 😉

I pray I can grow stronger and be able to be there for the people I care about so much, as a safe place and a harbour and a faithful, un-judging, unwavering, companion. I pray we can all find our own harbour.

To everyone who sails this turbulent sea and just by being here, helps me meet this storm –

THANK YOU.

Ginny xxx

 

Happy Easter to you, with love

Happy Easter to you, with love

I should have posted this yesterday, but better late than never!

Wishing you a very happy Easter! I pray that this time bring you good in all the little things, and that each day something brings you hope, something makes you smile, something makes you remember good times, someone shows you friendship, someone helps you know that you are dearly loved, and that peace enfolds your heart.

Thank you so so much for taking the time to come by here. I am very thankful for you. You mean more than I can express.

Sending big hugs.

Ginny xx

This is My Body broken for you – Good Friday of the Passion of Our Lord

Today is Good Friday (for another 40 minutes anyway, as I’m so late posting!).

Today we remember Our Lord Jesus’s suffering and death and begin the watching and waiting with Him – in His prayer in Gesthemane, in His arrest, scourging, crowning with thorns, trial, carrying the Cross, crucifixion, death and burial. At the Cross and at the tomb we wait and watch with Mary his Mother and the disciples.

Today tells us Love came down to us. Our Jesus suffers with us and we with Him. He too cried out in desperation, feeling forsaken. He too wept. He too hurt and bled. Today tells us that in the hardest and darkest times when everything seems lost, everything covered in darkness, everything of you poured out – in that very moment love can still be at work and hope, though yet unseen, can be falling to the earth. At the Cross, all seemed lost, all seemed hopeless, in terrible pain Jesus our hope – died. Yet in that moment His love is poured out and His saving work accomplished.

We wait. We kneel with Mary, watching and waiting. Hope is hidden. Our Lord is in the tomb.  Yes, we wait.  We trust. Today tells us, even in this darkness, even in despair, hold on, because you are beloved of God, and nothing is lost. Love and hope fell to the earth and was hidden – but then love arose! We wait in sure and certain hope of the resurrection on Easter morning and when Jesus is lifted up He calls us to Himself.

When we see so much suffering as there is throughout the world right now, when we are struggling with our own pain, when darkness covers everything for us, we don’t know how to respond. It can seem so huge our efforts seem to be of little worth. Perhaps first, part of holding on is learning to wait, and kneel, not in a passive waiting, but in certain hope that though we cannot yet see it, through our time of darkness, love is at work.

We are never alone. We the church are the Body of Christ. As He suffered so do we. At times He draws us closer to His Cross. Just as He is fully present with us and fully sharing every moment of our lives, so He gives us an active part in His Father’s saving plan. In His suffering on the Cross His love poured out and so in the suffering we – His Body – go through,  so His love also pours out. We cannot see the way out of the darkness but we can be sure love is at work and love has won the victory.

“I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice, and noone will take your joy from you.” John 16 v 22