FIX YOU (Sorry, Coldplay)

I’m not a Coldplay fan, to be honest, unless it’s a reworking by the Vitamin String Quartet.

Vitamin String Quartet – Fix You – YouTube

I’m not sure why but I’m beginning to think it’s the lyrics. You only have to watch the Gavin and Stacey episode where Pete and Dawn recite songs as vows for their wedding renewal to think again about ‘Fix You’:

Gavin & Stacey – Pete & Dawn Renew Their Wedding Vows – YouTube

I understand Chris Martin wrote it as a heartfelt wish to console his then wife, Gwyneth Paltrow, after her father died. But loving someone doesn’t mean fixing them.

Love is about listening, accepting, walking alongside.

Or, put more famously, love is about being patient, kind, unselfish, forgiving, protecting, trusting, hopeful, persevering. (1 Corinthians 13). No mention of correcting, improving, or changing the beloved there.

That doesn’t mean I think we’re already perfect and don’t need to change. I am a firm believer in growth, renewal, and transformation. It’s just the idea of being fixed, like a faulty toy that grates.

And I rather suspect that our definition of perfection needs changing.

To be whole and beautiful doesn’t mean surgically erasing wrinkles and dying away grey hairs to appear forever young. It doesn’t mean feeling permanently content and happy. It doesn’t mean being physically able or tackling all life’s challenges with ease. It doesn’t mean being independent all the time.

To be human is to be unique and vulnerable.

Life will batter and break us at times. But, if we let Him, God will take those wounds and weaknesses and fill them with His kintsugi love, not disguising them but acknowledging and transforming them as part of our history, a part of us. Just as lines on a face map a life filled with jokes laughed at, kisses impressed, tears shed, evidence of a life fully experienced, beautifying it along the way.

We don’t need fixing. We need loving.

Matthew West – Mended (Official Lyric Video) – YouTube

(Joining other writers on the prompt ‘Fix’ at FMF Writing Prompt Link-up :: Fix – Five Minute Friday)

A Musical Recommendation – please indulge me

Those of you who have read this blog for a while may remember that my younger son is a musician.

It’s an indulgence, I know, but what kind of mum would I be if I didn’t use the means I have to encourage and promote his talent?

So here’s his first full album, available on Spotify, if any of you Lovely Readers would like to listen, download, and even share more widely:

https://open.spotify.com/album/2uMRTXJ0xSMldwDe0CFYdw?si=ScPuD–kROG3H45J62U4XA&fbclid=IwAR2Y8QPDnWnWJ_fb8RLlDjTscZfz4CND9DVRya7s-lsztmR4z0ncfEZ2MeQ

WIDE, WIDE AS THE OCEAN (Five Minute Friday: Deep)

It seems I am in a (writing) season of songs.

But this time I am taken back to my childhood, to the days of going to her Monday afternoon Sisterhood meeting at church with my grandmother, where I was spoiled with extra biscuits and intense interest in the minutiae of my life by all the older ladies.

Sometimes they sang hymns from the old Methodist Hymn Book and sometimes they sang choruses. And that was where I learned this song with its accompanying actions making it more exciting and memorable.

Wide, wide as the ocean

Stretching arms out as far as possible to either side, I remember the same gesture as an answer to my boys’ question, ‘How much do you love me?’ ‘This much,’ I reply, to show that it’s too big for me to reach and quantify, and then wrapping them round into a cuddle. ‘This much.’

High as the heavens above

On tiptoes for this one as a small child, I remember stretching up, trying to make myself taller to reach the skies. Later my father told me stories of the constellations above, so much further away than the clouds in the sky I had originally reached for.

The vastness of space seems incomprehensible to me the more we learn about it. Those models to demonstrate the size of the solar system with different size fruit make some sense but after that, the distances become too amazing to me. And yet ‘The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands’ (Psalm 19 verse 1). If space is this extensive, what does that say about its Creator?

Deep, deep as the deepest sea

Crouching now and pointing down, imagining dark waters beyond the floor beneath me, I remember my love of swimming and two particular holidays: the wonders seen snorkelling in Sal’s Old Harbour in Cape Verde; and the miracle of scuba diving around an old wreck off Corfu.

Nowhere near the depth of the deepest sea of course. The Challenger Deep in the Pacific Ocean’s Mariana Trench is 11,034 metres down. If, like me, that number doesn’t compute much, then that means if Mount Everest were put in it, there would still be over a mile above it to the surface. And despite the distance and high pressure, there’s still life down there – and, sadly, pollution.

Is my Saviour’s love

A finger pointing to me then up, followed by arms crossed over my chest, the song pulls back from the vastness. Somehow the actions speak to my heart more than the words. This immense God with His boundless love is concerned with me, loves me. It’s personal.

I, though so unworthy,
Still am a child of His care

Shaking my head and rocking an imaginary baby, I think of how inadequate I often feel. Then I remember the story of Jesus welcoming and taking children into His arms. And I picture His arm around me, curling up on His lap, head resting against the solidity of His chest, and feeling utterly safe and at home there.

For His word teaches me

Unfolding my hands like a book, I think of how my prayer times anchor and reorient me, how the Bible is full of struggling people like me but God doesn’t leave them to cope on their own. I think of Elijah – lonely, frightened, and exhausted more than once by doing what he is called to – and how God sends him food and companionship and quiet reassurance. Or Peter, overconfident, failing at a key moment, but forgiven and recommissioned. Or Naomi, engulfed by the bitterness of grief, restored and given a new future through the love and devotion of family.

That His love reaches me
Everywhere

Point up, cross arms, point at me, arms flung wide – actions repeated in a new order, the last the same as the first to make their own rhyme complete, the pattern reminds me of Hebrew poetry.

‘How much do I love you?’ it asks again. ‘This much.’

Hello My Name Is (Five Minute Friday LISTEN)

I’ve been listening to a lot of Matthew West recently. A number of his songs are both pulling me through sludge and anchoring me in a storm. How grateful I am for Spotify and Android Auto in my car.

One came on this week, ‘My Name Is’, and the lyrics caught my attention:

‘Hello, my name is regret
I’m pretty sure we have met
Every single day of your life
I’m the whisper inside
Won’t let you forget’

I am an overanalyser. I am also a perfectionist. And a natural pessimist. So I am very familiar with the voice of regret – all the ‘shoulda, woulda, couldas’ as I think back on how I could have handled major or minor events better.

Regret is like Poison Ivy, smothering the past so I can’t see it clearly.

‘Hello, my name is defeat
I know you recognize me
Just when you think you can win
I’ll drag you right back down again
‘Til you’ve lost all belief’

I have a tendency towards depression (not surprising with my other personality traits). I know the voice of despondency far too well. I have felt defeat like a weighted blanket or overheavy rucksack pulling me out of good posture and making every step a struggle.

‘These are the voices,
these are the lies
And I have believed them,
for the very last time’

When these feelings come knocking, or rudely letting themselves in without, this is the first thing I need to remember. They are lies. They are just voices. They are not facts. And it is my choice whether to listen and believe them or not.

‘Hello, my name is child of the one true king
I’ve been saved, I’ve been changed, and I have been set free
Amazing grace is the song I sing
Hello, my name is child of the one true king’

This is the perspective I need. I am the child of the God of New Beginnings, the God of New Creations, the God of Restoration, the God Who Sees the Whole Picture, the God Who is in Control. I might need more changing, re-freeing, but my own meagre resources are not the whole story – I have His Amazing Grace and Strength to call upon (which I am reminded of by another Matthew West song, ‘Strong Enough’).

‘I am no longer defined
By all the wreckage behind
The one who makes all things new
Has proven it’s true
Just take a look at my life’

Well, be patient, God hasn’t finished with me yet. I’m not sure how well my life proves how new God has made me so far. But He’s working on it.

You can find the whole song here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuJWQzjfU3o

Joining the Five Minute Friday community each week. You can find more inspirational writing on the theme of Listen here: https://fiveminutefriday.com/2019/10/03/day-4-listen/

Challenge (FIVE MINUTE FRIDAY)

Sometimes life sucks. Hopes, plans, routines – so easily derailed. The direction we thought we were heading in – the path suddenly crashes away into an abyss like in those adventure movies. We stand in shock and then face the fact that we have to divert, turn back, take the long route. And off we wearily tread. It’s the Mines of Moria for us.

Sometimes we, I run out of words. So I turn to others’ instead.

Here’s some that have helped recently:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6fA35Ved-Y Even If by MercyMe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVHrkYBEgFM God’s Not Done With You by Tauren Wells
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Otg-5p7qug Mended by Matthew West

And I reread and repeat the old truths to make them my own:

‘I’m absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.’ (Romans 8. 38-39)

I don’t like or want these challenges but at least I don’t have to face them alone.

Once AGAIN (Five Minute Friday)

Those Matt Redman lyrics keep circling in my head, with hints of the rest of the tune:

‘I’m in that place once again, I’m in that place once again.’

And I wonder what place I am in again?

Sometimes it’s a geographical place, or a longing for one, Cornwall in particular. The sound of seagulls, the salty smell of the sea, the reassuring rhythm of the tide as the river rises and falls in the harbour, that sense of a more peaceful pace in the wild beauty of the landscape.

Sometimes it’s the repetition of an emotional place – grieving the loss of my parents again, a monthly mood drop for no other reason than hormones, or the familiar fight to loosen anxiety’s tentacles that come back as reliably as bindweed.

Sometimes it’s social: the routine of a family get together, the joy of having my kids back together with us, the familiar strength of my husband’s arms around me.

But the song is about something, somewhere different. It’s about being back in a place of awe for all that Jesus has done for us, for me. It’s about remembering His ultimate sacrifice. It’s about never taking Him for granted.

And, like anyone else we love or who loves us, it’s far too easy to do just that, to forget the enormity of it all, to step out of our daily routine to express our gratitude.

And that’s the place I need to be in again most of all.

Here’s the full song and lyrics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkK4YHy-wNg

(Joining the weekly five minute free write with the fabulous Five Minute Friday community. You can find more on the prompt word AGAIN here: https://fiveminutefriday.com/2019/08/08/fmf-writing-prompt-link-up-again-guest-post-by-niki-hardy/ )

Soft in the MIDDLE (Five Minute Friday)

Before all the chains spread along our high street like a rash, there used to be an independent coffee shop, decorated in all the shades from Americano to Latte, squeezed into a narrow gap between health food and book shops. It was the only place then where I could, occasionally, find Rwandan coffee.

Great cans with bronze lettering lined shelves on the left as you entered, a travelogue of destinations with names like songs: Sumatran Blue Lingtong, Monsoon Malabar, Mexican Chiapas Altura, Kenyan Peaberry, Brazilian Java. At Christmas, we treated ourselves to something extra special: Jamaican Blue Mountain, Queensland Skybury, Hawaiian Kona, or Kopi Luwak.

At the back were three small cramped tables for those who wanted to stop and savour, with perhaps a cake to lengthen your stay.

The rest of the shop was taken up with a curving glass counter with shelves covered in handmade chocolates. No standard brands here. Instead, a choice – of box size, type of chocolate, and filling. Collating each white cardboard carton transformed it into a delicate treasure box of individual confections nestled in tissue cases and tied with ribbon.

It was such a treat to buy these as presents, to personalise the gift, knowing that the recipient would love all the contents. No forlorn coconut bar or green triangles abandoned at the end like the standard boxes!

Me, I always go for the soft centres. I don’t like hard chocolates and I can’t bear nuts in them. But a coffee cream, a strawberry or orange fondant, or a simple chocolate truffle? Yes please.

Actually it was a Paul Simon lyric that put me in mind of this shop:
‘Why am I soft in the middle
The rest of my life is so hard’
(You Can Call Me Al)

He was singing about midlife crisis and a beer belly. But it made me think about how we can feel inadequate to cope with hardness of life.

So sometimes we coat ourselves with a hard shell as a barrier to pain. We smile. We say we’re fine. We distance ourselves from the griefs of others to protect ourselves. We keep busy, distracting ourselves from the ache of losing someone or our fears for the future. We daren’t stop and feel because we might cry and then, as one of patients said to me, ‘If I cry, I might not stop.’ We harden our hearts.

Having a soft centre seems a poor way to deal with the difficulties of life.
And yet, doesn’t God call us to exactly this?

We are meant to feel, to experience ‘life in all its fullness’. St Paul calls us to ‘be good friends who love deeply… laugh with your friends when they’re happy, share tears when they’re down’ (Romans ch. 12).

In Ezekiel (ch. 36 v. 26), God tells Israel He will ‘give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you…remove your heart of stone and put in a heart of flesh.’

And isn’t that the best soft centre of all?

BOB, ADELE, AND THE STRENGTH OF LOVE (Five Minute Friday ‘Willing’)

I love Adele’s version of the Bob Dylan song, To Make You Feel My Love. But when I listen to the lyrics (or sing along loudly, let’s be honest!), I don’t think of romantic love, as the original may have been intended, but of the lengths I am more than willing to go to for my sons.

Have a read:

When the rain is blowing in your face
And the whole world is on your case,
I would offer you a warm embrace
To make you feel my love.

When the evening shadows and the stars appear
And there is no one there to dry your tears,
I could hold you for a million years
To make you feel my love.

I know you haven’t made your mind up yet
But I would never do you wrong.
I’ve known it from the moment that we met,
No doubt in my mind where you belong.

I’d go hungry, I’d go black and blue,
I’d go crawling down the avenue,
There’s nothing that I wouldn’t do
To make you feel my love.

The storms are raging on a rolling sea,
Down on the highway of regret.
The winds of change are blowing wild and free,
You ain’t seen nothing like me yet.

I could make you happy, make your dreams come true,
There’s nothing that I would not do,
Go to the ends of the earth for you
To make you feel my love.
There’s nothing that I wouldn’t do
To make you feel my love.

The fierceness of parental love was a shock to me when I first became a mum. And, even though my boys are in their twenties now and my parental role is more advisory than hands on, I would still ‘go to the ends of the earth for [them] to make [them] feel my love.’

That sense of protectiveness is such a deeply ingrained instinct. When life throws hardships or unfairness at them, I want to take it away from them, do some cosmic deal so that I have the problem instead of them. I’m sure I’m not the only parent who feels like that.

But some of their difficulties, many of their difficulties, we can’t remove. They have to face them, grow through them even. The thing that we can do as parents then is pray for them and reassure them that they are loved no matter what.

I think it must be the same for God. What wouldn’t, didn’t He do to reassure us of His love for us?

Embrace us? Tick.

Dry our tears? Tick

Go black and blue? Tick

Go to the ends of the earth (and hell and back)? Tick

He did that cosmic deal of taking our pain and mess on Himself when He died on the Cross and we ‘ain’t seen nothing like [Him} yet’.

When problems assail our children, we yearn as parents to give them the strength that comes from knowing they are loved.

God does the same.

He longs for us to know without doubt that we are deeply, unendingly, unchangingly loved. And never alone.

Read the song again – God’s singing it to you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljawHxBl_Rk