confessionsofcalling

[confessionsofcalling]

I am overwhelmed by the goodness of God.

The warmth of the sun, the smell of barbeque smoke, raspberry lemonade and blue sky.

The sun sets and the leaves glow golden in it's dwindling light and I feel a profound sense of peace that I just have to share.

He has brought me here. Through the countless nights where I just wanted the pain to end. Through the times I thought I had messed it all up, through the times everything fell apart. He built it back up stronger.

Through the things that seemed unsurvivable - here I am, I have survived, He wants me to thrive.

I have seen Him move mountains, and I know He'll do it again.

Nothing I can say will ever be enough to describe how loved I feel, how grateful I feel, but I hope my life will tell of His glory.

I hope I get to spend the rest of my life telling of what He has done.

God is good, all the time. And all the time, God is good ❤️❤️❤️

[confessionsofcalling]

It’s very easy to only blog about the hard stuff - the stuff I need to process and the best way I know how.

It has its place, but there are also a thousand little miracles showing up everyday, so I want to share the good stuff too.

Today I saw eight signents learning how to fish.

I saw a baby heron catch his lunch.

I handed in my dissertation after 12 months of hard work.

I ate good food.

I had a glass of champagne to celebrate.

I am grateful to God for so many things at the moment, even in midst of confusion and anxiety, He’s there, doing what He does best - turning up when we are sure there’s no light.

Friends, make sure that when you’re processing the hard stuff, you take a moment to breath and spot the beautiful stuff too, whether it hits you suddenly,y or you have tit are a closer look. God is always working.

Love M xxxx

[confessionsofcalling]

[confessionsofcalling]

[confessionsofcalling]

I'm feeling pretty broken right now.

For a good few years I have been engaged in a tug of war. Between my head and my heart, between my future and my present, between my fears and my relationships. I thought I had it sussed out, that I'd found a delicate balance. I might have been wrong, I don't know anymore.

I wish I could turn back time to three hours ago. Not said some things, said others.

A few years ago I went throught something really shitty with church, I stepped away for a good while, but I felt God calling me back. People I love also went through shitty things, they experienced it differently, decided they could never go back.

A lot of things have gone unsaid, unexplained or unexamined in the last few years. I never want to compare trauma, but there's a lot of stuff on my end I have never got to share. Their things were bigger, and that was okay for a time, now things feel even more complicated.

I am not a perfect person and I never claim to always know the right answers for things. But for a good while it felt as though I'd found a path that worked for me. Maybe it is just this cloud of current emotion that is making me feel as if I don't know what to do. I am quite sure most of this doesn't make any sense.

I have always felt like the person who came out harshest. The person held to the highest standards and the person who was the first to be left behind. There's lots of shitty things and the church is problematic but also has a lot of beauty and I don't know where I find myself right now. I love Jesus, I don't quite know where I'm following Him to at the moment. I trust in His plan even though it's painful tonight.

I don't have any good conclusions, I guess I just wanted some of this out of me and put into words. I wish this tightness in my chest would ease up. I don't know what tomorrow looks like, but I know the One who holds it.

Maybe in all this mess and pain and confusion and loneliness - that knowledge is enough. I am not the author, thank goodness, God has a much better way of handling things than me.

If you're stuck in the messy in-between - me too - sending you all my love

- M

[confessionsofcalling]

The fact that people don't think friendship is enough to justify characters doing insane acts of love for each other baffles me. Like have you never loved your friend so so much you want to live in their ribcage. Have you never been really weird about a friend. Have you never wanted to bite your friends parents or shove them down a staircase. Have you never wanted to be buried in the same grave as a friend. Have u never. How do u people live like this.

[confessionsofcalling]

“Breathe. This is just a chapter. Not the whole story.”

— Unknown

[confessionsofcalling]

I spend a lot of time feeling conflicted.

I blogged before about people in my life who have walked away from church, and about the tough conversations that have come from that.

It's hard because their decision came from a harmful experience we both shared, however we dealt with it in a really different way. I didn't feel called to leave, in fact that pain made me even more sure of my calling because even after all that I felt like God was asking me to stay.

Nuance is something I think the majority of my interactions lack. I am a big fan of seeing the grey in situations, especially about things as personal as church, faith and calling. I don't seem to have many conversations at the moment that see the complexities in those experiences. The church can suck, like a lot, but also I have found solace, recovery and transformation there.

It's difficult to articulate my complex feelings about my calling in a space that thinks those experiences are pretty black and white. I have long thought that even though I don't always understand, that there are people who confuse and upset me, God's asking me to be in this church in this place for a reason.

Perhaps that feeling is part due to the fact I don't have the same support and resources to leave, perhaps it is because of the profound encounters with God I have had there that I can't ignore. Perhaps it's a whole mess of lots of different things but a mess I ultimately trust God is sorting out for His purposes.

I don't know. I don't have answers right now. But I do know that I will always chose love, I will speak love in places that want to claim that God hates the same people they hate, and I will speak love in places that think they have all the answers and I will speak love in the places that need to know less about the flawed and sometimes harmful work of organised religion, and more about the God I worship, the man that broke boundaries and died for me.

I don't know where it's all going to end up, but I do know Jesus, I hear His voice, and my choices will always be an intent to follow Him.

Amen lovely internet humans, thanks for sticking around for the rambling. Keep on keeping on!

- M xx

[confessionsofcalling]

Juggling an intense job, dissertation writing, church commitments, complex mental health conditions and a home is absolutely kicking by butt at the moment. It's hard enough juggling maybe one or two plates in this world today.

So if you needed some encouragement today like I do. You've got this, do it cos it makes you happy and it keeps you going, drop the other stuff.

You rock, don't forget to drink water and rest.

Love and prayers always - M xx

[confessionsofcalling]

“Nothing is quite as beautiful as someone who has survived losing everything and still has a tender heart.”

— Unknown

[confessionsofcalling]

Easter thoughts ✝️

It's Easter and I have a lot of feelings.

What's new, I always have a lot of feelings, but specifically this time about Easter.

There is so much joy, He is risen! But that doesn't mean day to day life is perfect, and it certainly doesn't erase the horrors of the world at the moment. But it does mean that the horrible things don't get the last word. I have to have hope, because without hope I have nothing.

This brings me back for Good Friday. I was sitting in my serious robes talking about the pain that our Saviour suffered and it got me thinking. How is it that Christians across the world can have services depicting this pain and hardship and then turn around and suggest that marginalised communities, facing the same pain, were not made in the image of God?

I truly don't understand it.

Our God came to earth and experienced everything we experience. Hunger, thirst, love, joy, abandonment , injury, pain and death - He did that, because He cares about us ALL so deeply. But He cares especially for those who have and are experiences and a huge amount of those negative things. He took time in his ministry to comfort the sick and dying, to stand up for those shunned by society.

If you read the story of Jesus giving Himself up to death for the sake of humanity, after seeing all that he did in His ministry for the suffering - and then turn around and support archaic policies and white supremacy - I really have to question what Bible you're reading. Because when I see my Lord upon the cross, I see a God who is beside the prisoners and the outcasts and is screaming out for us to do something to help them. I see a God who could have chosen splendor and riches and instead decided to align Himself with the least of these.

The story of Easter should never lead to empty words and prayers that don't align with our actions. No, instead it should tell us we have work to do, injustice to challenge, darkness to push back.

He is risen! That means death and despair don't get the final word. But it also means we have to rise from our comfort and be Jesus’ hands and feet.

“I prefer a Church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a Church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security.”

Yeah, Easter has got to be about that.

Alleluia, He is risen. Let's get to work.

[confessionsofcalling]

“We’re all so desperate to be understood, we forget to be understanding.”

— Beau Taplin

[confessionsofcalling]

Stability is unfamiliar. Maybe even uncomfortable.

My heart has always been uneasy, restless. Anxiety is an old friend that I hate but can't shake. I have often thought about the kind of person I could be if it wasn't heavy on my back. Who would I be if I was able to speak my mind?

I'm an extravert, sure. I love people and conversations - but I will always come home and question every move. I will always believe that some part of me is defective and one day it's all going to come crumbling down and everyone will see me for the weak fake that I am. Talk about imposter syndrome.

What is stability when you've never experienced it? Growing up with a dad overseas and a Mother who was different one second to the next and never seemed to really like you will mess you up. It will make you doubt every decision, every interaction, will make you agree to things for no other reason than you're afraid of conflict.

I question the existence of stability. Will I reach that dream of becoming a parent, might I one day fall in love? None of that feels real a lot of the time. I am so used to being a rock for everyone else I have no idea how to be a rock for myself. But then, thinking about all that, I'm in good company.

Peter denied Jesus, and yet he is the rock on which Jesus built his church. Thomas couldn't believe the risen Jesus until he touched Him, Thomas needed more convincing than the others, and yet he was still one of the apostles who spread the Word across the world. Moses didn't think he could speak and now everyone knows his name. What does it mean to have stability even when things are so often unstable? What does it mean that all these people have done the most for God and we're still flawed, anxious, misunderstood people?

It means there's hope for me, and there's hope for you. It means that they truly understood the idea we now find in Hebrews 13:8 “Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday and today and forever”

When your life is unstable when your heart struggles to find peace, Jesus is there, the stability beyond all else. No matter how many mistakes you think you've made, or how many times you've collapsed in anxiety, Jesus is there standing in the wreckage ready to restore you.

I may not have known stability, I may struggle with a brain that misfires - but Jesus is my shelter, my rock, my firm foundation. He doesn't move, doesn't budge, isn't affected by the negative thoughts I have about myself, isn't changed by my fears about the world. He is the stability we all need because the world can't provide it. Only He can. He is the place that we find rest and abundant life - lean into that friends. We're never too messy for Him to do great things with us - go out there and be who God created you to be, warts and all.

Love M xx

[confessionsofcalling]

"Show love to those who cross your path. Not because they do or do not deserve it, but because at the core of you is a heart cast and fashioned by a god of love."

― Richelle E. Goodrich, Hope Evermore: Quotes, Verse, & Spiritual Inspiration for Every Day of the Year

[confessionsofcalling]

“If you have been brutally broken, but still have the courage to be gentle to others then you deserve a love deeper than the ocean itself.”

— Nikita Gill

[confessionsofcalling]

New Year 💜

Breathe in. Breathe out.

Another year.

12 months.

52 weeks.

365 days.

Along this path called 2024 there have been many footsteps, two sets, one set and I'm not going to pretend there weren't some moments where there was a straight line, where Jesus had to drag me along.

New Year has always scared me. I have become inexplicably sad, ready to end it all every 31st of January and the few days either side of it for as long as I can remember.

Maybe it was about a fear of the unknown, maybe it was about another year of just trying to survive, maybe it was another year of symptoms I didn't understand.

Some of those things remain. Some don't. I'm still terrified.

But I am also comforted, because I'm still here, which means God's not done with me yet. I hope you can see that the same applies to you.

Last year I dreamt, what if in the coming months I can love myself just a tiny bit more, be a little more present, have a little more trust.

It's hard to say if this past year has seen any of that. I'd like to think it has. I've travelled, I've stood my ground, I've set boundaries (and crossed them) and set them again. I've met God in places I wasn't expecting, learnt how to walk away, to not engage in conversations that don't serve the work of love. I have been trying really hard to put everything at the foot of the cross.

Because there is no where else that all the stress and complexity and joy and anxiety and all that stuff can find it's home.

I don't think it's fair to just say ‘focus on the good’ without any nuance. Mental illness doesn't take vacations and sometimes the dark is persistent. But this year has taught me that there is always light on the other side of that dark, and it might take a while, but you can find it, and that's a reason to keep going, to see another year in, and welcome what it brings.

God's not done with me, God's not done with you - I hope 2025 is gentle with you.

Love always - M xxx

[confessionsofcalling]

“The cost of not following your heart is spending the rest of your life wishing you had.”

— Unknown