If you’re stranded in the snowy Alps

Light a flare.

 

Often, a helicopter

Closes in, dropping

A flask of hot chocolate

Toblerone, brandy.

 

With luck, a St. Bernard might be on his way.

* * *

 In the steamy forests

Cut off by a tsunami

 

Light a flare

Wait for the air drop,

Water, rich in electrolytes,

Yoghurt drinks, protein bars.

* * *

And

In the English countryside

On a lovely April day,

Unaccountably low-spirited,

Running out of Go,

Light the flare of prayer.

 

And the same power

Which raised Jesus from the dead

Comes.

 

The living water of the Holy Spirit

Slowly fills you.

 

You become aware of Jesus,

Your brother walking beside you,

And the Father smiling down on you.

 

You ask,

Believe,

And receive the Spirit.

 

He will brighten your depression,

Help when you don’t want to get out of bed.

Help you get on with exercise,

Stay off the sugar,

Bite back that mean retort.

 

Light the flare of prayer,

Oh bankrupt one,

Bankrupt of kindness,

Bankrupt of energy.

 

Your soul needs surgery

But you are no surgeon.

Light the flare of prayer.

 

And He, ultimate plastic surgeon

Will pare the tiger-claws of acridity,

Implant sweetness.

 

All livings things grow and change.

 

Light the flare of prayer

To grow into your inheritance

To become One who lives in Jesus,

And in whom Jesus lives.

 

 

My beloved home

 

In your distress you called and I rescued you,

“I removed the burden from your shoulders;
your hands were set free from the basket. (Psalm 81: 6-10)

My life has had many zigzags, and almost all the upward spikes happened  because of direction received in times of prayer. This verse marks one of the turning points.

* * *

 I had been praying for my dream house when we moved to England from the US in 2004. I had a list of ten eccentric things that I was asking Jesus to give me (because he said: Ask anything in my name) —a pond, stone walls with roses, a detached study to write in, a conservatory, a garden of over an acre, an old rambling house full of character, but in excellent repair, with no work needed… and when I saw “my” house on the internet, I recognised it was the house I had been praying for, and bought it, though we really, really couldn’t afford it, and though I had only viewed one other house.

And then we put a second daughter in private school, and the financial burden was insupportable, and it was clear that I too would need to work—work as in “make money,” not work as in write or keep house.

So I started a business which I always thought would be romantic.

* * *

I love books, as physical objects as well as mind-and-world- expanding things. I had been a haunter of used book stores and library sale tables and charity shops all my life, and though my father always pooh-poohed this notion, actually do have a stubborn ingenious business streak, inherited from my father’s father, Piedade Felician Mathias, Surgeon, Hospital  Superintendent, medical school professor, honoured with an OBE—but also a shrewd investor in real estate. (The sale of one of his houses helped with the purchase of my first house, as the sale of my maternal grandfather’s house helped with the purchase of this one.)

* * *

And so I started selling used books on Amazon and Ebay. It was the hardest couple of years of my life.

We have many fun memories of it though, like the time I walked past the junk shop of a house-clearer, closing down, and asked the price of a book. “Ten pounds,” he said, gesturing grandly at the entire room. He had another two rooms. He would be relieved if we’d rid him of them.  Immediately. We got three wall to wall rooms of thousands of books, for £40, precious libraries of 20 years of Oxford dons and denizens, have sold hundreds, (but have unfortunately retained hundreds I couldn’t bear to sell!).

* * *

Another time, I asked for bookshelves on Freecycle and the lady asked,  “Do you need more books? Godfrey, her husband, a minor poet, left fifty thousand.”  Does one need heroin?

What books!!  Rare first editions, many signed, furred with dust, in every nook of a four-floored house.  “He didn’t know when to stop,” she explains. “When he wanted me to build an arch over our bed for books, it was a health and safety issue.  ‘It’s the books or me,’ I said. “I can’t part with my books,” he said.

Three times we load our mini-van with the fruits of his choice, then stop, weariness prevailing where good sense does not.

* * *

 But selling them (after I retained hundreds of precious, antique books that I could not bear to sell) was another kettle of fish. I made money, of course I did, real money, equivalent to my husband’s professorial salary, but my hands were giving out with all that typing, and my mind felt as furred as those books.

My dream of writing was receding, receding, but I could not bear to pull the girls from private school, academically, the best girls’ school in Oxford.

* * *

 In your distress you called and I rescued you,

“I removed the burden from your shoulders;
your hands were set free from the basket.

I read this Psalm and called for a solution, in distress, in despair and he gave me one,

An idea dropped into my head like a electric pearl, a minor electric shock, and I knew it was real, practical, and from God. It was a simple scalable business plan, with largely passive income, once it was all established, with concrete ideas on how to proceed with each element of it.

It had the immense practicality that is often the hallmark of ideas from God, and it worked–though as our knowledge and experience grew, we have refined it.

That business now solely supports our family.

* * *

But this story is not the point of my post.

It’s this: Last year, everything melted down. Our business was down by a third. My blog was down. I worried–about the business more than the blog. Worried constantly. What if the decline continued, continued, and I had neither a business, nor a blog?

As I was walking down the stairs of our rented seaside villa in Sicily, I realised, like an electric shock, “Silly, you haven’t prayed. You’ve worried, but not prayed. You’ve fretted, but not prayed. You’ve hoped, but not prayed.”

“Silly,” I said to myself, and there were tears in my eyes, for I had indeed been silly.

* * *

For prayer is my thing. My goal is  to  pray instinctively, as a first resort, as a flower turns its face towards the sun and the butterflies.  Why on earth had I endured those months of vague unease without really praying about the dropping stats?

I’d prayed generally “Bless my business. Bless my blog,” which is like a generic “love you,” but wouldn’t we rather be told a specific, “I love you for your grace under pressure, and I love you too when you are a fiery prophet under pressure.”

So I say, shyly, as I walk on the beach, “Lord, do something about our business. Do something about my blog.”

And I sense him smile.

And I knew things will be different.

* * *

And yes, eventually, both turned around. I am writing less than I did before, and perhaps not particularly  better, though I have changed a couple of blogging practices, ideas which probably came as a result of the prayer on the stairs.

The business is on the upswing…both because of the sweat and intensity we have poured into it, and because of God’s guidance and good ideas.

God’s intervention is like an invisible catalyst. We might not be able to figure out how exactly things have changed, but change they do.

“And I won’t forget to pray about something important to me again, will I, Jesus; will I?” I ask.

And Jesus smiles, cryptically.

And the smile says, he’ll love me anyway, even if—heaven forbid—I once again resort to worry instead of prayer.