Post Surgery June 9, 2009

Thanks everyone for the faith filled prayers for Jo’s healing. Many people prayed and fasted yesterday, we’re grateful to you all.

The news post-op is that Jo has come out of the surgery well. She was chatting and moving all her limbs yesterday which is great and an answer to those prayers for safety etc.

She has a headache but is bright and hopeful.

The surgeons could not actually clip the aneurysm, as it was too close to certain other blood vessels and they would have risked inducing a stroke.

As plan B, they covered it in a mesh which should promote scar tissue to act as the cap.

We need to pray that this bonds it well and that natural healing processes take their course.

Please continue to pray for Jo – that the mesh bonds well, that there are no further complications and that she continues to improve.

Please also pray for strength for the whole Norton family at this time. Ruth has important exams next week, so please pray for her in those, especially.

Thanks for all your support, love and prayers. God is faithful.

Holding onto Hope June 5, 2009

Late on Tuesday night I received news that my church leader had been rushed to hospital with an aneurysm (a bleed in her brain). I don’t think I can articulate how stunned we all were, and the feelings of unreality and denial that accompanied each text that came to update us with the news.

On one hand, when something like that happens, you go into coping mode: get people to pray, check everyone has heard, hug those who are sad and bewildered, maintain the ‘information switchboard’, encourage the community to believe for miracles, just keep going.

And at the same time, you’re expecting at any moment to get a message saying it has all been a horrid misunderstanding, that she’d woken up fine, with a bit of a headache, a bit worse for the wear but, fine, and cheery and, herself.

It felt like a daze. It felt like normal life stopped. It felt like things changed in an instant. I’d been with Jo just an hour and a half earlier and it had been incredible. We were both encouraged by the things that God is doing at present, she was buzzing with ideas fresh from an inspiring conference and a refreshing prayer meeting. She was exuberant, hopeful, energetic. How did things change so quickly? I found myself running through every stage of the evening in minute detail: the discussion we had about suncream, our complaining about mouldy blueberries, eating tea together, hugging on the corner of the road to say goodbye. It had all been so so normal, so everyday, and now things were very different, and very wrong, and very un-everyday.

And in some senses we’re still working through that as a community. We’re still praying and believing and daring to hope and trusting in our Abba Father and beseeching him for miracles and holding each other up through difficult and dark days.

But I wanted to share a couple of things that have struck me over the last couple of days, things I have held on to. And it’s not the time for deep wrangling theology, but there is still a ‘God is good, God is in this’, on my heart.

Working was pretty tough on Wednesday, and many times I found myself picking up my battered copy of ‘God on Mute’ – Pete Grieg’s starkly personal and honest exploration of unanswered prayer – from my bookshelf. He writes about the time his wife had a severe and life threatening brain tumour, and the wrangle and heartbreak and hope, and the place of prayer in all of that.

I picked it up because I found that I didn’t know what to pray. All I could pray was random incoherent sentences, like “Please heal her”, and “Oh God”… over and over again. And to begin with I felt bad – my job is prayer, I train people on it, but when it counted I was praying like a five year old. And I was comforted, opening the book, to read the same sentiments expressed there – the same bewilderment. And that made me realise that that sort of prayer is ok – is just as effective as a long well phrased liturgy. It reminded me that God knows my heart, so when I couldn’t even utter a word, my sense of pain and grief was a plaintive and amplified prayer that he heard directly.

I was blessed by this quote:

“Our hope in the face of suffering is not to reject God, but rather to rely on him even more, choosing to call him Father with a mix of desperation and hope, militantly believing that although our prayers remain unanswered, it is not because God is callous or uncaring, because he is love.”  

I think I’ve had to hang onto him tighter this week than I can remember. We’ve really experienced that mix of desperation and hope. And all we can do is keep relying, keep hoping, keep believing in his goodness.

The other thing I have noticed this week is the value of community. The Boiler Room and the wider Church have pulled together in a way I’ve never known it to before, the prayer chain multiplied and spread quickly, people in Iceland, Latvia, and the US heard the news and texted messages of support. God began to do surprising things – athiests prayed for Jo’s healing, people showed up at an inpromptu prayer meeting, others invited others for tea and support. It’s been incredible.

As I write, we hear that Jo is the brightest she has been- making jokes and smiling and testifying to God’s goodness. And he is good. We are praising him, we are believing for more, and we are holding on to hope.

Metaphors and Methodicality May 26, 2009

I think I made that word up?!

I’ve been musing about what would be a good analogy to pick for a ‘what is God doing’ sort of a post.

2009 has felt like the year of the metaphor so far, these days I regularly find myself sitting in one hot beverage emporium or another wrestling with fitting all that he seems to be saying and doing into the bigger picture of life, and then words fail, and so we resort to pictures of houses and jigsaws and radishes (ok… I made that one up, but I needed a third example and I’ve always wanted to create a metaphor involving radishes…)

I guess I’m all too aware that the next six months are going to bring change change change, and I’m excited, really I am. Often these days I find myself lying in bed and in those moments before I drift off to sleep just feeling toe-curlingly expectant about everything.

And I’m such a ‘now’ person. I want to wake up and it all be happening today. And I want it all to fit into the nice 17 point schedule I’ve arranged, and I want it all to be perfect, and I’m mentally running around the place trying to work out if there’s anything I’ve missed, and if there’s anything else I can do to ease the proceedings along. And then I come to God at the end of the day, with my list of questions and a report of the day, and instead of responding to my debrief like an employer, he just seems to want to stop for a while and listen with me, and he’s pointing out the sound of the rain bouncing off the rooftops all around my (now sparse) attic room.

And so we sit, and suddenly the rest doesn’t seem so important after all.

Yesterday, during the great spring clean/sort out/room transformation, I learned that people approach such tasks very differently. I am definitely in the ‘clear everything out of the space, pile it up in the bathroom and bring it back in piece by piece. Try it in four different places before moving it back to the first’ camp. My lovely friend is definitely in the ‘it will save all of our backs to just pile it up by the fireplace and work with it all around’ camp. You could probably psychoanalyse that, or deduce something remarkable about our learning styles or something, but it made me think about me, and God, and my reactions to all the ‘renovations’ he seems to be doing in my life at present.

I loved the moment when my room was empty of pretty much everything, and it was fine (as long as noone wanted to use the bathroom… or get down the stairs without risking life and limb, for that matter). I enjoyed the order of building up the space bit by bit, and it made me think that I often find myself wishing healing was like that – wishing that God got rid of everything that was wonky and dysfunctional in one fell swoop, so everything could be reassembled neatly and in an ordered fashion, piece by piece. I think lovely friend was slightly terrified by my ordered methodicalness (which may have crossed the line into dictatorship only a few times), and I was smiling thinking about how much I strive for that same order in much of my life.

And then I was smiling some more thinking about how God doesn’t seem to keep things in the same neat lines, he doesn’t seem to be methodical in the way that I would rate. It’s like he listens to my plans and values my ideas and then responds with something that makes a whole lot more sense anyway, (and I am only ever a little disgruntled… really).

It seems that his way of doing things is much closer to my lovely friend’s. And I’m there feeling a bit flummoxed because boxes are half unpacked and the floor is only a third hoovered and where is the wardrobe going to go, and surely we have to get this done before we’re allowed to drink tea. And he is like ‘let’s take a break and go get some cake’, and it’s in stopping that I can take a deep breath, and see how much change has already taken place, and he energises me to keep going. He surprises me with his insight and wisdom, he knows when I am tired and just carrying on because I think I should, he isn’t restricted by my sense of pressure and deadline. It’s refreshing.

These past couple of weeks I’ve kept getting a passage from Exodus 35 resounding in my mind. The tabernacle is being built, and the Israelites all go off back to their tents in order to create something to bring to be ‘built into it’. I love the imagery in the passage about different coloured yarns, and linen, and brooches of silver etc. It’s a strong picture for me. I really do feel like I’m sitting in my little tent, crafting something to bring, but it’s like when you start sculpting with clay, and you don’t really know what it’s going to be yet, and more than that I can’t really even picture what the tabernacle is going to look like, so I’m not really sure if it’ll fit with the décor… but I’m sure God’ll be able to work all that bit out. This really does feel like a season of preparation – what is ahead is beautiful and good, but for now it’s just kind of nice to be able to sit in my dim but amicable tepee and muse about it all.

On wallpaper and procrastination May 26, 2009

Ok, so much as I love writing inane posts about gerberas and fighting duvets, after a while I start to feel creatively stunted and like I’m not writing about anything of consequence to my life. Like I’m skimming over the surface and ‘disney-fying’ something that is much more nuanced and complex.

And then I get to a place where there is so much to say and I don’t know where to begin, and I feel like jumping on a train and sitting on a hill with a notebook and scribbling and scribbling.

And then I get frustrated because I’m blogging about not blogging, and then it’s like ‘I bet you think this song is about you’, which is the most frustrating song lyric in the world, because by saying that she makes it about him… grr. So enough with the procrastination.

I want to write about what God is doing and saying, because there’s lots, (even if it does feel a bit like being dragged through a hedge backwards sometimes… or at least spinning round on a very fast fairground ride – that’s probably a less disturbing image).

I want to write about all the things I am excited about, because there’s lots, (even though some of those things feel fragile and frail and like they could shatter if I try and hold onto them too hard, like a tree branch I’m walking on and I’m not sure if it’ll bear my weight).

Last week I had a picture of a room in heaven, and all the words I’d ever spoken or written or typed were wallpapering it. It was a lovely place and Jesus said he loved to spend time there. It inspired me to think that is true for all of us, and I went off into an ideal-home-show-esque reverie about what all of those rooms would look like.

So yeah, in a nutshell… I need to post a bit more honestly.

‘Fullness’ – Emptying ourselves to be filled May 12, 2009

On Saturday 2nd May, fresh from our Durham trip, we found ourselves in the creative quarter of Birmingham, setting up for the UK Territory’s first ‘Fullness Retreat’.

These retreats were first pioneered in the USA Eastern Territory, they basically involve a room, plenty of coffee, and a bunch of hungry people waiting to meet with God.

We set the room up with some prayer focuses, some art space and lots of comfy corners for people to do business with the good Lord.

At midday, people started arriving from far flung corners of the UK (like Bristol and Banbury). There were about sixty of us in total, as well as 50 others who couldn’t be there in person, but were kept in the loop with live text updates, and who prayed alongside and fed back prophetic words and pictures they received.

So what did we do? We fasted; we worshipped by singing, by praying loud, and by mumbling quiet praise. We listened to fab, inspired teaching about fasting and prayer, and then went off on our own for a bit to meet with God. We listened to him and shared what he spoke to us about the Salvation Army in the UK, and we chatted in groups about the exciting things God is doing around the country. We prayed for the new Directors of ALOVE (The SA’s Youthwork expression), and we doused each other in anointing oil (which was probably perfume). We painted on the walls, and danced about, and made things with clay. It was great.

And what did God do? Well, he showed up! It was so weird, in that the location was, to put it politely, intriguing. It had been a nightclub venue the night before, so it was all a little sticky, and on the Saturday night it morphed into a nightclub venue one more. We were praying alongside a sound check playing hardcore trance for a bit, and the whole place felt quite soulless and sad, but after a bit of praise and worship, our little area felt warm and transformed. The walls were made of cold white breezeblock, but soon heartfelt prayers and prophetic pictures danced across them, bringing a real life and vibrancy to the place.

The stories coming out of the weekend are exciting. People heard God speak about new directions for their lives. Others encountered the healing power of his Spirit. Some made new commitments and for many the passion for prayer was fuelled and revived. It felt like a line in the sand, one of those weekends you look back on and say ‘that was significant.’

The stuff God said was amazing too. I was awed that you could ask 60 people to listen to God and they would come out with pretty much consistent stuff. There were some common themes – the call to holiness, our mandate to partner God in

setting the captives free, the heart cry to see the Salvation Army become all that God intends, the need to make costly sacrifice, to lay down what is passable and strive for the best.

The bit that was most powerful for me happened on Sunday morning, when we split into two groups, and the ‘parent generations’ spoke words of blessing and affirmation over our generations. It was a powerful and releasing moment.

I loved the conversations over coffee, the undercurrent of excitement that came from giving 24 hours over to God like that, the sense of solidarity in knowing that we were ‘going without’ as a corporate body, in order to find a new place of intimacy with him. I loved the sense of corporate responsibility, the sense that sixty people gathering like that really could make a massive difference.

And the conversations since the weekend have been inspiring. It’s been fab to open my emails of a morning and read more stuff that God has been saying to people, new ideas for going deeper in prayer, and feedback from those who were challenged and inspired. It seems that this was not just another event, but something that was and will continue to be catalytic for prayer in the Salvation Army.

So it’s a watch this space thing I think!!

Setting the Captives Free May 12, 2009

(in an attempt to work through my blogging backlog)

Two weeks ago a bunch of us trundled up to Durham for the above course. It was run by the SA’s in service training people. It was the first one of its kind, and was set in the beautiful (if remote) setting of a Durham seminary college:

Location wise it was incredible, the place had a real austere and grand feel about it, without being cold and overbearing. The long sprawling corridors were inspiring, and the refectory looked like something out of Harry Potter:

It was great to be in a beautiful place with 25 or so others who really wanted to learn and to understand more about how God can bring freedom and healing to people. It was great to hear different teachers – a fresh perspective on this stuff is always helpful, and our speakers were informed, helpful and most of all ‘normal’ – they made the topic sound like something accessible we could all be doing, rather than some weird ministry that only a few are called to.

At the beginning of the week, I thought a three day long course would be a bit of a slog, but the length of time seemed to be just right, and by the end of the course there seemed to be a real tightness about the group. It was the kind of community that is formed when a bunch of people really journey through some stuff together. I felt like I’d known them all for ages, there was a real deep level of trust, and the sense that it wasn’t a random accidental group of us that just happened to end up there, but a selection God had brought together for a purpose. I am excited to see what comes out of that and how things develop as a result of the conversations and connections we made that week.

Most of all, I was again encouraged and reminded that God truly is all about saving, healing and redeeming people’s lives from the darkness. I pray that he will use me, and all of us to partner him in that.

I don’t think I’ll ever forget our tour of Durham in the most persistent driving rain. I’d have liked to see more of the city in the sunshine, it looked like a lovely place.

Tat, Sausages, and how to navigate country roads April 26, 2009

This weekend held all the glorious components that a weekend should, in my humble opinion. I have arrived at the end of it feeling like much was experienced and much was achieved and much fun was had in the process.

It started well on Friday, with an amusing train journey southwards. Then a jolly taxi driver took us to the glories of the second ‘tat for tat’ party. This time there were lots of people and much more tat. In fact it took about 3 hours to work through it all. My haul of tat (so much for spring cleaning and minimising) was as follows:

• 4 books
• A roman bath sponge
• 2 bags of mongolian wooden animals
• A purple and gold cushion
• a garland of paper flowers
• a wire photoframe
• a dangly 5 photo holder
• a pair of faith sandals
• Some posh cleanser and body lotion
• Some more body lotion
• 8 bags of small beads
• a little star ornament
• A mug with pink roses on
• Some purple hand and bath towels

So all that was very lovely and impressive. I learned some important things too, like (from a good friend) the dangers of drinking tequila before attending a tat party – “oooh yes I’d love that silver handbag” and (from a new acquaintance) the need to be selective about which tat to opt for – “I’m sure my dad would love a new corner shelf”… pure entertainment!

Saturday dawned bright and sunny and was welcomed in the only proper way – with breakfast in Starbucks. I had toasted fruit bread whilst my esteemed companion checked out the brand spanking new chocolate muffins and a strawberry yoghurt. We mused together, putting the world to rights and laughing about the joys and complexities of life. And then spent a while wandering the sunny streets, before we both decided that a sausage sandwich was necessary. The sandwich in question was everything a sausage sandwich should be – thick white bread, brown sauce, well-cooked sausages sliced lengthways… it was bliss.

The next phase of the day was spent walking to the house of some other good friends, who live in a small village. In fact that doesn’t do it justice… they live in the most beautiful village I have seen in a long  old time, but I’ll return to that in a minute.

The walk there was lovely too – just over three miles, in blazing (but not burning) sunshine. Fields and sheep and bluebells and trees. I did however learn that three miles in London is nothing in terms of walking (I’ve done about 25 miles this past week), but three miles through the English countryside is a little more challenging. I realised I have become quite city-fied at the point where the pavement ran out after about a mile and there was just road. I stopped, momentarily flummoxed, but then I dredged up from somewhere in my mind that you were allowed to walk on the edge of roads in the countryside, and that the correct etiquette for doing so was to keep right and face the oncoming traffic. Anyway, I didn’t die, and it was lovely and scenic!

Once I had recovered from my orienteering, we drank tea and ate yummy homemade profiteroles. Then we chatted about multitudinous exciting future plans. After this, I was treated to a scenic tour of aforementioned gorgeous village. I saw the community orchard (where village residents are allowed to pick fruit in the autumn), an amazing water mill, some huge geese sitting in someones front garden (Guard-dogs are so last century…) and countless picturesque cottages. We wandered through some woods down to the clearest stream I’d seen for ages, (I so wanted to paddle) and then back (getting momentarily lost in a nettle field in the process which made it all the more fun!). Then we explored the tiny village church, having been let in by the sweetest, kindest (and probably oldest) church warden I’ve ever seen. Back out into the sunshine we peered through the bowed beams of a real live Tithe Barn with a thatched roof, I’d never seen one before. We both commented that it’d be an ace place for a reception. Then it was back, past more lovely flowers and herbs, with a quick peek into the quaint (but well stocked) village store, and a quick scan of the minutes of the last parish council meeting (where the ’scourge of water voles’ was discussed at length). Genius.

After this, and another cuppa, we headed back and I found my way to a chugging train which brought me safely back to the buzzing metropolis. I unpacked and adored my tat acquisitions a little before heading to bed.

Today has held the usual mix of church, awesome roast dinner with friends, and then youth group. It’s been a nice day, and I’m looking forward to the week ahead

The End of an Era April 22, 2009

I’m feeling gutted today.

This weekend just gone I was up in Oldham, visting friends and staying in the house I lived in from 2003-4. It was a great weekend, and I loved being on Fitton Hill again.  I did a lot of walking, drinking in views I used to see everyday but are now vastly different to my London surroundings. I headed back on a coach on Monday evening, and didn’t really think very much about the estate I’d just left.

Then on Tuesday evening I got a text message from my old housemate saying that the mill at the end of the street was on fire and they had been evacuated. I was intrigued. Maple Mill was probably one of the first landmarks I saw when I visited Fitton Hill. It stood proudly on our street, I could see it from my bedroom window every morning and you had to walk past it to get anywhere. There was something about those old mills that really inspired me, something I could never put my finger on. Maple mill was quite decrepit, and there was some dodgy deals that everyone knew went on in there, giving it a somewhat sinister feel, but I still loved it.

On Monday I walked past and looked up at the mill. I saw the broken glass and the decades of rubbish and the graffiti and the mess. I saw the blackened windows and the discarded cardboard and the spray cans. I saw chaos and rubble but somewhere in it all I felt affection.

Today the story was on the BBC news website as well as the Oldham Chronicle site. Apparently there were 60 ft high flames, and the smoke could be seen this morning even ten miles away. Part way through the blaze, the 60 x 40 metres main front wall of the mill collapsed into Dowry Street, my old road, literally where I had been standing just 24 hours earlier.

I’m not sure why it’s made me feel so sad. It just feels really wrong that the mill won’t be there any more. Like next time I visit the landscape will be altered irrevocably. I think it’s like how I’d feel if my old school got bulldozed or something. I’m just glad I’d travelled home on the Monday and not the Tuesday evening!

So it’s goodbye to Maple Mill, and lots of prayers for those who worked there, and the residents of Fitton Hill as they get used to the new landscape. If you’re a praying type, please offer one up for the Eden youthwork team based on the estate too.

   

  

(photos from Oldham Evening Chronicle)

Highlights from Holy Week (so far…) April 11, 2009

I feel a bit bad that most of these aren’t Holy Week related, they just happened to happen in Holy Week. Anyway….

1) Yarns

I randomly banged into a friend… I happened to be at a Mainline London station at a loose end and she happened to be in a road about 100 metres away. Since we live 70 miles apart this was a feat. I went to meet her at this amazing knit shop, where they had this amazing knitting group, and lots of amazing yarn. I loved the different textures and colours and patterns, I loved meeting random people and talking about everything from Harry Potter socks to what you could knit with Possom wool. I will definitely go back (even if just to pick up Rainbow coloured Schoppel Wolle Zauberball for said friend ).

That leads me onto point 2:

2) Giraffes

Not real ones, sadly. Myself and aforementioned friend decided to make the most of the marvellous coincedence and partake of some tea. We wandered around looking for a suitable establishment, but were a little flummoxed. Then via the marvels of iphones (which cleverly tell you where all the nearest restaurants are), we found ourselves in one called Giraffe. I had an amazing Vietnamese chicken and prawn curry and my friend had a scrummy schitzel burger. There were so many lovely things on the menu we couldn’t decide and so will be returning to try out other things. It was lovely to sit and chat and eat and watch the sun go down on the river. A splendid evening all round.

3) Aunts

For the last couple of days I have been staying with my lovely Aunt. It was nice to see her, to sample much home cooked food, to see people at church who remembered me from when I was five, to sleep in a luxurious and very pink bedroom, to go for a long walk in the sunshine (while it poured in Wandsworth. hehehe), to run screaming from huge spiders, to stroll in the grounds of the local castle, to go to various Good Friday-related services, to see my cousin again after about ten years, to put the world to rights and to plan future exploits. She also taught me to Purl… which I have yet to perfect (it makes more sense that plain stitch knitting, but it messes with my head and then makes me forget how to do plain… more practise is required I think), oh, and how to cast on… I will knit a tank top yet!

4) Watermelons

When I was in Latvia last I stocked up on some Watermelon flavoured Mentos. Like Mango, Watermelon is one of those things where I love the flavour but detest the actual fruit… so when my friends told me they’d got me a watermelon-related Easter present I was a little skeptical!! It turned out to be a quater of watermelon & apple fizzers, and a quarter of watermelon jellies. Top marks for nostalgia,  for taste, for ingenuity, and for actual-watermelon-avoidance there!

That’s enough of the excitements for now I think. Will post more post-Easter!

Office Joys April 6, 2009

Today I found myself sat at my desk in THQ (The SA’s headquarters, affectionately referred to as the Mother Ship). I spun around on my chair a few times and found myself thinking how much I enjoyed being there and how much I am looking forward to the weeks ahead.

I spent a good half hour clearing junk from random corners of my desk. I’m really good at keeping stuff, thinking ‘I’ll need that again’, and then it just sits in a dusty desk tray for weeks and weeks. Today I shredded loads of that sort of thing. I couldn’t bear to throw away the odd Bible verses scribbled on post-it notes that had obviously jumped out to me one day or the other, so I stuck those in my journal.

I spent another good while catching up with some of the lovely people who work on my floor. We’re a bit of a motley crew, but there is genuine affection there, and today it felt good just to be chatting over steaming cups of coffee.

A good Monday all round!