Month: September 2022

Where does my help come from?

Life brings challenges to each and every one of us.

Whilst it is not an original observation to make, it remains true that it is the trials that reveal who is really there for us in our time of need.

We all need help and support at times just as we all need to offer help and support.  Sometimes we are the one offering support, other times we are the one in need of support and sometimes we are offering and receiving!

In recent challenges within my own life, there are key people (you know who you are, near and far!) who have warned me of potential risks up ahead, supported me when such risks were realised and helped me not only to extricate myself from said risks but who also remained on hand to pick up the pieces of my broken heart and love me through the process of healing.

I shall remain forever grateful for the wonderful gift from God of all those who have helped and who continue to help me when I am in need.

Whilst life brings problems that I cannot predict or prevent, these were problems I could have predicted and prevented. 

The bottom line is that I made a bad call, in spite of the advice of loved ones. I did not want to heed their warnings much less respond appropriately, because I did not want them to be true. 

I take responsibility for my poor choice, for the subsequent damage caused, the time needed to heal and the painful but ultimately powerful sense of liberation that I have gained.

If only I could learn without causing myself such pain. 

As with every painful lesson before, I have been reminded of where my help comes from, as well as where it does not.

It has been true before and remains true today that my help has always come from the Lord, in a myriad of ways and through a multitude of people.

And whilst it has been one hell of a battle to create the time, space and energy to write, it is this provision of help revealed through every trial that my first book will be about.

Whilst I believe that help from above is available for every human in every trial, I feel incredibly fortunate that this is my actual ongoing lived experience.

The Queen: A life well lived.

Like millions of others, I watched the Queen’s funeral on Monday.

I found the service deeply moving.

The reading of Psalm 34:17:19 jumped out to me and is worthy of including here …

When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous but the Lord delivers them out of them all.

As I am yet to meet a human whose life remains untouched by troubles, I think this is incredibly encouraging for us all.

As I watched the Queen’s funeral and cried and reflected upon what I saw about the life of this woman known the world over, I concluded, rightly or wrongly, that the Queen must have been profoundly loved.  I came to this conclusion because of the multiple images of the Queen smiling, at this crowd or that, this individual or the other.  Now of course we all have our game faces.  However, the smile that she is so famous for is not forced nor does it fail to reach her eyes and the only way anyone can smile like that for prolonged periods is when it comes from within.  Hence my opinion that she must have been deeply loved to have allowed said love to shine through her so sincerely for so many decades and to so many humans.

I very much respected the Queen’s acknowledgement of and referral to her faith.  To my thinking, the love that shone through her was probably largely of the Almighty as well as from her husband and wider family.  Many have written of Prince Philips supporting role for the Queen.  A supportive love that spanned so many decades, I can only imagine her sense of loss thereafter.

As I watched Prince Charles, I warmed to him even more for the humanity he revealed over the pen that wasn’t working!  Such trivial things are irritating but in the throes of the type of new and raw grief that he will be in, usual patience and tolerance levels can dip dramatically.  I found myself wondering how he must be feeling faced with the task of following in the wake of a woman such as the Queen.  And then I found myself thinking that actually, our new King need not follow in his mother’s footsteps but the deeply original footsteps that the same God Almighty has called, prepared and equipped him to take at this time. 

King Charles will never be his mother but neither need he be.  He will be able to reign over this country in a way that only he can if he follows his own relationship with God and the steps God calls him to take.  I am curious to see how he adapts to this role that he has spent a lifetime preparing for.

I also wondered about the personal cost to all the family members who had to fulfil the roles assigned to them, so publicly, in such an early time of grief.  I only hope and pray that each will find sufficient space and time, in private, amongst loved ones, to allow their grief to be felt and processed.

Whilst we are led to believe that grief is a quick thing that magically disappears after the funeral, the reality is way messier, with no set time or pattern.  Grief is as unique as the relationship between the bereaved and deceased.  And contrary to popular belief, it is not only time that is required to heal but also space and self care.

As I acknowledged my own feelings of sadness at the passing of such an incredible, inspirational, dedicated human being, I found myself wishing for one more address from the Queen.  I wished that she had recorded a video for us with one more message of common sense and wisdom, encouraging us to work and play nicely together and to support her son in fulfilling his own commitment to us as whole heartedly as she had.  And to remind us, that we will meet again.  I wished for this whilst also recognising that this longing has accompanied my own grieving process for people that I have loved and lost when their lives have ended unexpectedly or without goodbyes.

I also noticed how the sombreness of the day was interspersed with moments of celebratory shouts and cheers.  The process of grieving is to acknowledge and honour our own feelings of sadness or anything else whilst also beginning to feel gratitude and joy for the life that person lived and the time we had to enjoy them.

Death, loss, endings and grief are unavoidable.

How we choose to engage with life is deeply personal and when I look at the life and the death of the Queen, I see a life well lived.

The Queen

What a shock this past week has been.

Of course on a purely intellectual level, it is not really surprising that a woman of ninety six who is grieving the loss of a husband of seventy years, as well as the grief of other family issues, has now died.

And yet, this was no ordinary woman in any ordinary position. 

This was a woman who impacted the masses and who was known the world over as simply ‘the Queen’.

Those who met her were struck by her radiance, smile, humour and humanity.

As one of the masses who never saw or met her, I was surprised by my own sadness.  Whilst I didn’t follow her every move, I realise now that I had internalised something of the constancy, steadfastness and calm that her presence provided.  I found myself feeling that we have lost a layer of protection somehow through her death.

I can’t fully profess to understand my grief but know only that it is part of the collective grief that we will all experience slightly differently dependent upon our own personal history around loss.

I have nothing but respect and admiration for the way in which the Queen whole heartedly walked the talk of her first speech in committing her life to serving us.  I am pretty sure we will never realise the true cost to her or her loved ones of such an unwavering dedication to the world beyond her own.

Whilst she was a woman in what was and still is in many ways, a man’s world, men in power, the world over, sought an audience with her.

Personally, I respected her open acknowledgement of her own faith whilst equally respecting people of all faiths or none.

And I find it inspiring to hear how she impacted people of all ages and stages of life.

What a woman. 

What a gift. 

What a loss.

I pray now that the God of all comfort will comfort all of us who mourn her death, especially her own family.

And I hope that Charles knows that the God who strengthened and sustained his mother can do the same with him.