Every week the Five Minute Friday community free write for a limited time inspired by a given prompt word. It’s also a fantastically supportive groups for writers. You can find more inspirational writing here: Community – Five Minute Friday
KNOWLEDGE IS POWER pronounced my T shirt in bold giant letters. I wore it to college to give me confidence. A reminder of why I was cramming a degree into my life alongside a full-time job and a new marriage.
I’m not sure the qualification led to the new career I’d hoped (an unexpected pregnancy took priority!) but now I realise I use that T shirt phrase regularly with my patients.
Sometimes my job is straightforward: I visit a patient who tells me they are having difficulty with something practical, like getting in and out of bed, and I suggest a simple piece of equipment, which they welcome and solves the problem quickly.
But some patients don’t want equipment in their house for a variety of reasons. It reminds them of what they can no longer do easily. It brings back painful memories of a loved one who had such equipment. It doesn’t match their décor. They don’t want their house to ‘look like a hospital’. They don’t admit to having any difficulty in the first place.
If only they’d taught us sales techniques when I was training!
But one thing I’ve learned working in palliative care is that my patients have had so much control taken away from them – by their disease or by the treatment regimes. So I try to give them back some choice and control.
I tell them that my job is to give them information about what solutions are available for their problems. It’s their job to decide what to go for, or not. If they have the mental capacity, they have the right to refuse my recommendations.
But by giving them the knowledge and power, I think they are often more open to accept my suggestions. Or it may be about just giving them time to consider it. And that’s ok. But if they don’t know what’s possible, how can they make any choice?
I think perhaps for Christians, that’s what witnessing is about.
It’s not about forcing God or our beliefs on others but about giving them information, whether that’s through our words or our behaviour.
And then they can make an informed choice about whether they want to know more or not.
So let’s spread knowledge and enable choice. Let’s tell our faith stories – in all their messy realness rather than a sanitised fairy tale. Because knowledge is power.
Every week the Five Minute Friday community free write for a limited time inspired by a given prompt word. It’s also a fantastically supportive groups for writers. You can find more inspirational writing here: Community – Five Minute Friday
I read a dreadful story in the news this week about an inquest into the death of a blind man who fell onto railway tracks. The coroner decided the tragedy could have been avoided if there had been tactile paving along the edge of the platform.
We’ve all seen that paving, haven’t we? Or felt its bumps at the edge of a pedestrian road crossing?
But it made me think what are the tactile pavings, the boundaries or warning signs, in the rest of our lives that tell us stop or change direction? Not always because danger lies ahead but at least to tell us that this step is not for us.
I’m a great believer in gut instinct. How do I feel when I make a decision, whether it seems straightforward or troublesome? Is there a sense heaviness or lightness? I think sometimes that lightness can be part of God’s peace about a choice.
In contrast, a sense of increasing stress or dread can be a warning sign that this isn’t the way forward.
Gut feeling can be a good indication but it’s wise to look for other
I remember reading about nautical navigation: lining up three lights in order to journey safely into harbour, avoiding hidden rocks. The article talked about lining up God’s three lights to aid decision making: circumstances (nudging a door that appears to be opening), wisdom from godly friends (who can bring the objectivity we may lack), and what God’s Word says.
If one of these lights is out of alignment, we need to pause. Perhaps it’s a case of not yet, wait for things to fall into place. Or perhaps it’s one of those boundary warnings, leading us down a different fork in the road.
These signals, like the tactile paving under our feet, can seem uncomfortable, unpleasant even. We all prefer God to guide us by clearly saying: “This is the way – walk in it” (1) to His alternative strategy of saying “No, not this way,” We’d rather be Joshua, following God’s map into the Promised Land, than Jonah, directed off the wrong path by storms and sea monsters.
But God has a far bigger perspective than us of what lies ahead, what will be to our best benefit, and how we can best benefit His world. And we know that His plans for us are for our good, “to prosper [us] and not to harm [us], to give [us] a hope and a future.” (2)
So let’s pay attention when we feel those disagreeable bumps under our feet, pause, and ask: “Which way?”
(1) Isaiah 30. 21
(2) Jeremiah 29.11
Every week the Five Minute Friday community free write for a limited time inspired by a given prompt word. It’s also a fantastically supportive groups for writers. You can find more inspirational writing here: Community – Five Minute Friday
I had this title in my head going round in a circle, which somehow morphed into this poem:
His joy and fun and pride in me,
His glowing smile of love at me,
Not just the shoulds
And being goods.
Growing strengths, investing talents,
Colouring outlines, building patterns,
Rather than correcting faults
Not concentrating on the oughts.
*****
I think that I’ve been hearing wrong
A list of rules instead of song –
Some logical and some inventions –
Instead of life in three dimensions.
Stuck with my short sighted vision,
Before I saw through divine prism
My rainbowed life suffused in glory,
God given dream to aim for surely?
Every week the Five Minute Friday community free write for a limited time inspired by a given prompt word. It’s also a fantastically supportive groups for writers. You can find more inspirational writing here: Community – Five Minute Friday
thestufflifeismadeofblog 