sanctification | Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

In Which Jesus Gives Us A New Name And A New Character

To the one who is victorious, I will also give a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to the one who receives it. Revelation 2:17

And so, we heave up our cross,

And follow him,

Oh, not spectacularly at all.

Dropping it,

Meandering off course,

Sometimes forgetting we had resolved

To take up our cross,

And follow him.

But each time we remember,

We apologize,

And pick up that old rugged cross,

And follow after Jesus again.

And Jesus sees.

For that is one of his names,

El Roi, the God who sees.

Where others see our failures

Jesus sees also,

How much further we would have slipped

Had we not clung to him

* * *

And somehow through the decades,

We change.

We are different.
Though still so acutely aware of,

So sad about our failures.

* * *

And then one day,

We meet him,

And he gently opens our palms

And places in them a stone

With our new names.

And I read, tearfully:

The prudent one

The discreet one

The wise one

The self-controlled one

The kind one

The diligent one

The consistent and persevering one

The financially gifted one

And I say, “Jesus!

I think you’ve given me someone else’s stone.”

And he says,

“Though decades of following me,

Though you did not notice it,

You’ve changed.”

“But I always saw what you would become.

Welcome home!”

The Power to Change Comes from Christ in Us, Our Hope of Glory

By Anita Mathias

A mosaic in Ravenna, made of millions of broken tessarae of glass and enamel

The principle runs through all life from top to bottom.

Give up yourself, and you will find your real self.

Lose your life and you will save it.

Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favourite wishes every day: submit with every fibre of your being, and you will find eternal life.

Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours.

Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity).

* * *

“Christianity can only be caught, not taught,” they say. I caught a lot while I was discipled from 1997 to 2002 by a spiritually deep Christian writer and leader.

He said that as he found himself becoming intense–a sign that self was on the throne, not Christ–he’d say, “Take that too. I surrender that to you, Jesus,” and so on, until it became a habit to surrender everything precious to him, everything he worried about, to Jesus.

We swapped my editing of his first book for spiritual guidance. He was a naturally gifted writer, and I think I helped him find his natural speaking voice and rhythms in writing. He thanked me in the acknowledgements for teaching him how to write!

Interestingly, he said that he did not own his writing. He had given it to God. And whereas I wasted a lot of time on false starts, he wrote to just three publishers, one of whom took his first book. Several reviewers have said his next book was one of the best books on prayer of all time, and that’s because it sprung from the heart, spirit and experience, not from study, reading or thinking.

What impressed me was that someone who did not seem naturally gifted as a writer could so rapidly write two good books. Was not “owning” his writing a factor? He said he wrote as God provided time, whereas I was then always trying to grab, steal, wrangle and fight for time, which caused me a lot of stress.

Interestingly, he said once that he owned the Christian organisation he founded far more than his writing. And that, 16 years on, has never really taken off, perhaps for this reason.

* * *

I was thinking this morning of the similarity to things in my own life. Things which I do not own, which I have turned over to God, and do reliant on his strength are blessed—things like our family business, my blog or even little things like my Twitter presence where after two years I chosen as a runner-up for the Tweeter of the Year by the Christian New Media awards in 2014, (and was a Finalist for Blogger of the Year in 2015).

The things which I do by worry and self-effort are not so blessed. My attempt to finish my memoir, say.

I am reading a book by Duncan Smith called Consumed by Love. It is about our oneness with Christ, how we are safe in Christ–as an astronaut in his spacesuit is safe from being bumped in a zero gravity spaceship–and how Christ is in us.

And in that lies the power to overcome long-standing battles: Christ in us, the hope of glory. Relying on the guidance and power of Christ, step by step.

Kim Walker Smith of Jesus Culture puts it well:

Where you go I go
What you say I say
What you pray I pray.

Jesus only did, what he saw you do.
He would only say what he heard you speak.
He would only move when he felt you lead.
Following your heart following your spirit.

How could I expect to walk without you

When every move that Jesus made was in surrender?

Two verses are speaking to me: “You will not have to fight this battle. Stand firm and see the deliverance the Lord will give you.” 2 Chron. 20:17. And, “The Lord will fight for you. You need only to be still” Exodus 14:14.

So that’s where I am spiritually at present. A disciple, a learner. Turning over these areas of my weakness to him, relying on him for strength and guidance. Letting Christ in me, my hope of glory, act in me, guide me, change my tastes, my habits, my mind and spirit.

Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis on Amazon.com and on Amazon.co.uk

A Praying Life on Amazon.com and on Amazon.co.uk

On Magic, Moonshine, Personal Change, and Healing in the Body of Christ

By Anita Mathias

To change, really change, is magical.

And to be a Christ-follower is to change, because he is in constant motion, a strong walker, blowing like the wind, and sometimes we need to walk briskly to keep up with him on the winding roads of holiness.

Change can happen dramatically, or slowly. God can speak to us directly in an emotion-packed worship meeting. He can progressively heal our emotions. He can set us free by teaching us to forgive. He can use counselling and prayer ministry.

* * *

I have had an intense couple of months. At Cwmbran, I asked God’s help for my weight problem, and I felt him forcibly say, “Take up your pallet and walk.” Stop eating sugar, and white flour. Stop eating between meals. Stop eating when you are not hungry.

And reader, I did. I felt an intense yearning for sugar and chocolate for 3-4 days, and then sugar cravings faded. Similarly, I fiercely battled the urge to eat when bored, sad, stressed, whatever, for 3-4 days, and gradually the urge shrivelled. And I am 22 pounds lighter–through lifestyle change, rather than dieting.

* * *

I had an experience last month in which God hijacked me into further healing. I realized I was tired. It was taking me longer and longer to settle down to write, and longer to produce work.

We usually go away every six weeks during the school holidays, to Europe mostly, and completely recharge—sleep in, walk, taste local food, explore gardens, museums, beaches and impossibly winding cobbled streets, and come back re-invigorated–new people, really. I hadn’t done that as a daughter had had exams, and now I was flagging.

So I decided to go away on my own, and googled Christian retreat centres. All I wanted was to sleep, eat and walk, a sort of Elijah cure.

There was a vacancy at the Harnhill Centre for Christian Healing, and so I went, wanting to rest, hear from God, and just enjoy Him. And found I had got myself into a full-fledged conference, very regimented: elderly volunteer ladies coming to your room and waking you up if you napped when they had planned fluffy activities; bells rung outside your room at meal times, etc. Breakfast was served in bed at 8 a.m., which meant you had to be up at 8. Trays to be left outside by 8.45 a.m. “This is gulag healing,” I said to Roy.

So I was in a very grumpy mood indeed, and certainly not in a conducive frame of mind for life-changing anything.

But the prayer-ministry—3 hours of it!!– was life-changing.

* * *

I knew the way for me to lose weight was eating mainly vegetables and fruit. Severely limiting carbs because they pack in too many calories for the nutrients. Eliminating meat and eggs, and limiting cheese, because again the calories are high for the nutrition, and besides, I am not keen on ingesting the hormones and medicines fed to the animals, or the animal’s toxins stored in their fat. But I felt rebellious about dramatically reducing my bread, carbs, cheese, eggs and meat. I would say to myself, “For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving,” (I Tim 4: 4-5).

So I went to prayer ministry. “I know a fruit and vegetable based diet is the way forward, and I do lose weight on it,” I say plaintively, “but I like something nice at every meal.”

“Everything God made is good,” the South African counsellor says bluntly. I stare. My verse. That I had been using to justify all sort of delicious meals which took time to prepare and were not optimal for my body.

But if everything God made is good, then I could savour the taste of simple fruits and vegetables and still lose weight. While eating things which are a blessing to my body, rather than a curse to it.

Why, I could even eat like a billionaire.

Mona Simpson describes her brother Steve Jobs’ eating habits, “Dinner was served on the grass, and sometimes consisted of just one vegetable. Lots of that one vegetable. But one. Broccoli. In season. Simply prepared. With just the right, recently snipped, herb.”

So that’s what I have been doing. Eating simply. Tasting and savouring the broccoli or asparagus or watermelon. Losing a pound a week, more or less effortlessly.

The word of God, wielded prophetically—wow! Just a sentence can set you free.

In which I am Learning to Master Anger

By Anita Mathias

(Reuters/Mike Stone)

14 years ago, I was furious with my husband Roy for some just-discovered crime or misdemeanour, and since he was teaching at the moment (in those pre-mobile phone days), and I couldn’t call him, I called our pastor. (No, I am not joking!)

Had Roy been at the end of a phone, it would have gone somewhat like this: I would have yelled, explaining all the things he had done wrong, exaggerating his wrong-doing, my very words making me angrier. He would have answered in kind, raking up my past wrong-doing, an eye for an eye, his very words making him angrier.

If the row had had shades of Armageddonish, the nearest object might have become a projectile missile—and occasionally did!

* * *

So, I tell the pastor all about that now-forgotten, but I am sure absolutely heinous offence—his messiness; something he’d said he’d do but did not; lack of adequate and suitable domestic help probably. I express my rage.

And he says, “Okay, you’ve told me. No need to tell him too.”

I, “But I am still so angry. What can I do if I don’t express my rage to him?”

He, “Don’t tell him. Tell Jesus.”

* * *

Cheesy, huh? Except this particular man was a cool Midwesterner, and the opposite of cheesy.

And over the years, I realized that that is, probably, the best way to deal with anger.

Tell Jesus.

* * *

Biochemically, anger is a build up of adrenalin. The fight-or-flight response says “Fight.” We have to do something about this build-up of adrenalin. Somehow discharge it. Many women clean when angry, apparently. (Effective or not, you, at least, get a clean house!)

When I am sensible, I walk when angry, getting times among my personal best. I mentally compose withering, scathing emails on my walk and when I come back, I am so calm, I’m like: “Now what was that I wanted to say?” My fury has dissipated.

* * *

But having a walk-and-talk with Jesus is the best. Express your anger. Don’t minimize it. Anger is like a red light on your car: “You’re out of gas,” it says. “Stop. Refuel. Change the oil, perhaps.” It can be the impetus to overdue changes in our lives and relationships. We ignore this powerful emotion at our peril. Ignore it, push it underground, and it surfaces as depression, or as the sudden fit of rage and irrational actions which trip us up (Prov. 4:19).

Having expressed it your rage to Jesus: Go to his healing fountains. Let them flush out and cleanse your soul.

Call out as desperately as the man who wakes his friend in the middle of the night, “Jesus, you see my soul. You see how angry it is. Send your Holy Spirit to soak, drench and saturate it. Maranatha.”

And if you can get calm enough to pray about the sources of your rage, sometimes words are given you to resolve the problem without all the shouting, all the sin. When you speak the words given to you by Him who is the Word, they achieve more than hours of fighting which, in general, achieves precisely nothing (positive).

* * *

Sometimes, we need scripture to flush out the darkness of our soul. Once, in a dark November, when a fellow Christian was annoying me, I put on I John and James on repeat on my ipod, and listened to it, again and again, grace rushing through my soul, calming it, sweetening it.

* * *

Sometimes, we just need a little bit of sanctified intelligence or Jesusy thinking to deal with our anger.

On my travels, I sometimes encounter rudeness, or snootiness, or dishonesty or attempted or successful scams.

And I am cross. And for years, I have been telling myself the same thing, “Why should I let their bad behaviour, their sinfulness, rob me of my peace?”

I tell myself that often. “Why should I let X’s sinfulness deprive me of my peace? Use your brains, Anita. You are not without sin. Why should you expect other people to be blameless? Anita, just release the rascal into the waterfall of God. Step into God’s waterfall of grace yourself.”

* * *

Yes, sanctified intelligence and faith help us deal with our anger.

Think of the greatest injustice you personally have experienced. Which made you the angriest?

God know that was going to happen, from the beginning of time. That event, that injustice is just seed, neutral raw material in his hands, from which he can, at any time, bring something beautiful.

* * *

I have another solution to anger. Remember God.

Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? ⁷If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? (Gen 4:6)

Have you been cheated, defrauded?

Who creates wealth? Creates the world and everything in it. Bestows wealth on whom he pleases. Cannot God give you at the snap of his fingers far more than you’ve been cheated of? Forgive.

Have you been betrayed, slandered, lied about, back-stabbed? Tell God. If God is for you, who can be against you? (Romans 8:31). No one can block a career or a vocation which God ordains.

Have people wasted your time, used your energy, used you to further their own agenda?

Goodness, girl. Who created time? Who can stretch it, infuse eternity into it, so that you are astounded at how much you got done in an hour, a day? Who can ensure that the work of minutes is read for centuries, like Pascal’s Memorial is?

God can give our work wings.

* * *

Hey, whatever is annoying you, the sheer annoyingness of the person, the situation, the injustice, it’s all in God’s hands.

He may have deliberately put that person into your life for you to learn the one thing which all the law, and the prophets and the teachings of Jesus come down to: Loving kindness.

* * *

Much anger is selfishness, stemming from blocked self-centred goals and desires. And then we need a heart-transplant. We need repentance, literally metanoia, to change one’s mind.

We need God’s magic: grace to change, soften, and convert our souls.

Grace alone, which God supplies. Strength unknown, he will provide.

Yes, Grace: God’s magic. Flood my soul with it. Maranatha, come Lord Jesus.

Five years have past! When a retrospective glance consoles

By Anita Mathias

Tintern Abbey

Five years have past; five summers, with the length

Of five long winters!

Wordsworth writes, as he revisits Tintern Abbey, and muses how he has matured over the last five years.

For nature then

To me was all in all.

But now, he sees something else in it. Dare he say it—God?

And I have felt

A presence that disturbs me with the joy

Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime

Of something far more deeply interfused,

Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,

And the round ocean and the living air,

And the blue sky, and in the mind of man….

* * *

Five years have passed. Looking back, if we are Christians, should bring comfort. We should have grown, matured and deepened over the last five years of walking with Jesus because of the working of his mercy and grace on our souls.

About 12 years ago, I was telling my mentor, Lolly Dunlap, that I was frustrated about my marriage which was mediocre then, rather than excellent (and oh, how I hate mediocrity!!) and my temper, which I then hadn’t learnt to control. (But now I have, I am glad to report!!) And my mothering was distracted, and my housekeeping haphazard, and as for exercise…

“Think about 5 years ago,” she said. “Have you improved in any way over the last 5 years?”

I thought. I brightened. I began to tell her how amazing I was in 2001, compared to what I had been in 1996. I was actually showing off about the progress over which I had been so despondent a few minutes earlier.

So if you’ve been a Christian 5 years, think back to what you were and thank God for how far you’ve come under his loving eyes, with the action of his grace in your soul.

I am not what I ought to be.

I am not what I wish to be.

I am not even what I hope to be.

But by the cross of Christ,

I am not what I was.

~John Newton

* * *

So, Christian, compared to April 2008, how is it with your soul today? Does the answer console you?

The Light and Easy Way of Sanctification or Transformation

By Anita Mathias

I strayed onto an acquaintance’s blog, and started feeling tired.

Oh, it was all so bossy, so prescriptive. 10 ways to be a better wife; 10 ways to be a better mum; 10 ways to lose weight in a Biblical way; 10 ways to read more spiritual books.

It made me feel so tired. I scrolled through the blogs she had blogrolled, even more prescriptive and bossy, and began to feel even more tired.

* * *

18 years ago, when I lived in Williamsburg, Virginia, I had taken a theological course called Sonship developed by the brilliant Westminister Seminary Professor and founder of World Harvest Mission Jack Miller. It was the most heavily theological material I had encountered to date, and gave me a taste for theology!

At the outset, Miller reports someone raving about Richard Foster’s“The Celebration of Discipline.”

And Miller, a big, hearty, larger-than-life man, laughs a big booming laugh and says, “I am too big a sinner to be fooled by the Celebration of Discipline.”

* * *

Huh? I did not understand what he meant then, but understand it perfectly now. Discipline cannot save us. 10 ways to study scripture, fast, give, serve are not going to change our selfish, self-seeking, ambitious, twisty old hearts. If anything they might just make us more self-righteous. For our hearts to change, we need a heart transplant. We need God to pour his Holy Spirit into us and give us a new heart (Ez 36:26).

* * *

We do need strategies—for ensuring we pray every day, spent time soaking in Scripture everyday, and for our own particular battles: eating healthily is one of mine.

But strategies cannot save us. For me at least, lists of food rules, or domesticity rules or spiritual rules or time-management rules get a bit boring and feel like too much of a strait-jacket and I soon drop them. They are the law, a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors have been able to bear? Acts 15:10.

What helps me, and fills my days with sweetness is going through my day with Jesus, sharing the easy yoke.

* * *

I do have food rules, as for much of my adult life, I have medicated boredom, low spirits, stress, anxiety, and even happiness with food. So my two rules are: Limit eating what is not a blessing to your body (sugar, white carbs, chocolate). Do not eat when you are not hungry.

I was energized when I first formulated them, but now, especially that I am walking 6 km. a day, I sometimes buy chocolate or pizza or Indian takeaway after a long walk. The law, my strategies, weren’t strong enough to save me. On the other hand, slowing down, and asking Jesus for help and grace and the filling of his spirit does help me to resist things which are a curse to my body.

Slowing down. I wondering if that is a major secret of the spiritual life.

It’s the same with exercise. I know I will be stronger if I do it. I know I will be happier if I break up my writing with housework breaks (pomodoros) but this is very hard for me, for really, I like to work till done—and if what I am working on takes 3 to 4 hours it is quite painful almost for me to leave it and switch gear. So I need Jesus’s help to get up and get moving more than rules.

* * *

Hudson Taylor after continued spiritual failure, and self-excoriation stumbled upon the secret of abiding, which is known as Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret. He writes:

“Not a striving to have faith, but a looking off to the Faithful One seems all we need.”

Here, I feel, is the secret : not asking how I am to get sap out of the vine into myself, but remembering that Jesus is the Vine-the root, stem, branches, twigs, leaves, flowers, fruit, all indeed. Aye, and far more too! He is the soil and sunshine, air and rain-more than we can ask, think, or desire. Let us not then want to get anything out of Him, but rejoice in being ourselves in Him-one with Him, and, consequently, with all His fulness.

” I have not got to make myself a branch. The Lord Jesus tells me I am a branch. I am part of Him, and have just to believe it and act upon it. If I go to the bank in Shanghai, having an account, and ask for fifty dollars, the clerk cannot refuse it to my outstretched hand and say that it belongs to Mr. Taylor. What belongs to Mr. Taylor my hand may take. It is a member of my body. And I am a member of Christ, and may take all I need of His fulness.”

Perhaps this is the easy way of sanctification—to see yourself as a branch in the vine of Jesus, and pray, relying and drawing on the wells of his strength and sweet life when tempted to indulge your temper, your gluttony, your laziness, or any of the deadly seven temptations.

The Process of Sanctification: A Guest Post by Kris Camealy

By Anita Mathias

Holey Wholly Holy

I am honoured to host this excerpt from my blogging friend Kris Camealy’s first book, Holey, Wholly, Holy. The best title of the year, isn’t it?

“We are brought down to the dust; our bodies cling to the ground. Rise up and help us; redeem us because of your unfailing love” (Psalm 44:25-26).

We begin collecting wounds and piling on scars from birth. Ejected from the safety of the womb, we immediately meet with a sinful world ripe with suffering. We grow and endure hardships of varying degrees from the mildly wounding to the most atrocious cruelty. We survive deep cuts and gashes and sometimes, if we can manage, we block the memories, and the pain dulls just enough.

But God has something better in mind. We can do more than simply limp along—His desire is for us to be complete. He longs to restore us, to strengthen us for the call He places on our lives.

In pursuit of life, of our own dreams, of our own magnificent imaginations, we have a knack for running right into the boiling furnace without even seeing it coming—“We sow on bright clear days the seed of our own destruction” (Capon 52).

God’s desire for closer relationship with us requires us to be purified. Though He accepts us as we are, He has even better for us. He loves us too much to leave us in our mess. He collects our broken shards and creates beauty from mere fragments, but the process does not come without pain.

The truth of the Christian life is that we grow most in our faith through adversity. When our faces are pressed against the dirt, that’s when our eyes are most open. The weight of the world presses us lower and it’s there, in the spaces where we can scarcely breathe, that we find He is closest, holding our hands, lifting our spirits, filling up the holes in our cracked-up hearts.

Restoration is a process. It’s not that He doesn’t miraculously heal, certainly there’s plenty of testimony to this kind of miraculous, instant healing. But for most of us, soul healing comes slowly—painfully. You’ll know it when He’s calling you toward His refining fire. The smooth surface you’ve long stretched over, covering the cracks underneath, begins to ripple from the heat. Memories surface, old wounds begin to weep—the cracks widen and hurts spill.

This is not a time to turn and run, though that may be our instinct. This is the time to stand still, to listen to what He’s whispering, and to allow Him to strip you of the covers you’ve been hiding under. Trust me when I say you’ve not got anything He hasn’t seen before. Stand in this fire, let Him purify you—this is how He loves us. This is the process of sanctification.

An excerpt from: Holey, Wholly, Holy: A Lenten Journey of Refinement

* * *

Kris Camealy

As a sequin-wearing, homeschooling, mops-coordinating mother of four, Kris Camealy is passionate about Jesus and her family. Her heart beats to share the hard, but glorious truth about life in Christ with anyone who will listen. When she’s not writing, she gobbles up books like they’re going out of print and plays in the kitchen. She’s been known to take gratuitous pictures of her culinary creations, causing mouths to water all across Instagram. Once upon a time, she ran 10 miles for Compassion International, a ministry for which she serves as an advocate. You can read more of her heart-words in her new book, Holey, Wholly, Holy: A Lenten Journey of Refinement, and on her blog Always Alleluia. Find her on Facebook, twitter and Pinterest.

In Which I Decide to Forgive a Frenemy; For Nothing is as it Seems

By Anita Mathias

The view from my bedroom window: The fields and hills covered with hoar frost.

The snow fell over our Oxford garden and transformed it. I sometimes look at my garden, and think it’s getting rather scruffy, and resolve to get out with shears and secateurs come spring.

But then snow falls, and the garden, a little bit overgrown, much in need of a prune, is transformed. White, magical, still and quiet. Cobwebs, laced in frost, glisten.

Nothing is as it seemed yesterday.

Nothing is as it seems. That’s a great lessons my garden teaches me as it changes from season to season—bulbs burst from the barren ground come spring; there was rich life beneath the frozen year. The bare branches sing with blossom; where had that been hiding?

The earth suddenly turns rich green and bursts with flower and birdsong in summer. Then it morphs again, gold-vermilion, followed by winter, austere and stark.

‘You thought you knew me; think again. You thought you had me pegged; think again.” We can only understand a fraction of reality.

And we too shall be changed, just as our earth is. ^“Our bodies sown in dishonour, shall be raised in glory; sown in weakness, shall be raised in power. We will all be changed— in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and we will be changed.” (1 Cor. 15)

Beads of ice transform a spider’s web

Change, metamorphosis, metanoia, or changing one’s mind. Repentance. For me, these are magical words, full of hope and possibility.

Day by day, we can change the seeds we put into the soil of our lives, resisting negativity, and judgement and meanness, sowing instead mercy, and kindness. And what we sow we reap. And gradually, the very substance of our hearts changes. Because of the mercy of the gardener.

Icicles on the leaves of a contorted willow.

Nothing is as it seems. I wrote a harsh email earlier this week to an old frenemy I kind of like whom I first met 18 years, and who has been making a nuisance of himself on my Facebook page, and sometimes blog, leaving several negative, hostile, almost slanderous comments daily. Replying or deleting; replying or deleting: How time-consuming it all became.

Was it just envy, hostility, insecurity, sadness over his own failures? Relative success reveals whom your true friends are, just as relative failure or poverty. I blocked him, unblocked him at his request, and then when he was back with his undermining, hostile comments, reblocked him.

I wrote a harsh email explaining why (after being patient for months and months), sent it, and then a minute later, as many writers do, saw how I could have said the same thing in a dignified, restrained way in just two or three sentences. And without judgement.

His put-downs and contentious comments sure looked like envy and hostility and malice, but they may not have been. Some people are just nuts, high-functioning nuts perhaps, but nuts, not evil. “Do not judge,” Jesus said, for nothing is as it seems. As adults we can decide whom we want in our lives, and whom we’d rather block, but without withering character judgements as to whether they are mad, bad or merely sad.

I feel too ashamed to re-read that email. How will my friend, or frenemy feel? I felt dreadful.

Frost on a rose

Oh, there is only one place for such as I to retreat. To the fountain of forgiveness that falls, falls like blood, magic blood that turns its recipients as snow.

Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
blot out my transgressions.
²Wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin.

Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.

And so I return again to the cleansing fountains, to the love of Jesus at Calvary when he, inexplicably, heart-rendingly, offered his beautiful life as a payment in full for every sin of mine.

And the mercy from the Great Heart, the life-blood of that Great Heart pours over me, and I feel the sweetness of that great love, and I feel his love and acceptance, and I snuggle into the recesses of the Most High, and there am I safe.

Such forgiveness, for a cranky woman who blew it. Incredible. I am made new, forgiven, washed white as snow.

Ice fingers on the twigs of a contorted willow.

* * *

And I forgive the man whose been trolling my Facebook page so insistently.

And become Facebook friends again? Oh no! He was consistently judging my theology, my reading of the Bible (he has a mercilessly inerrantist reading) and my politics. The continuous contemptuous putdowns were very annoying. And being exposed to people’s judgements is bad, dangerous and harmful. Judgments can be a self-fulfilling prophecy, and being judged in a heavy weight to bear!! As we are not to judge, we are also not to expose ourselves, our ears, hearts or spirits to other people’s judgements. For nothing is as it seems. They too only see in part.

Envy is dangerous, and the leading, hostile questions he was asking me on my FB page were almost slanderous–“Do you support abortion for any and every reason,” (in response to my posting, without comment, a Guardian article on the medically unnecessary death of Savita Halappanavar)

Anyone who experiences increasing business success or career success will face putdowns and envy and snideness from old friends, acquaintances or frenemies whose own life has been disappointing. It’s a sad fact of life.

How do we deal with this? Do not boast. Certainly. Disguise your relative success? Perhaps. Drop them? In some instances, where is not much fondness in my heart for them, or vice-versa, and we still meet up out of old habit, this might be the best solution.

Iced rosehips

I love being a Christian adult. I do not have to act reflexively. I can act with wisdom, after consultation with my Lord. My forgiver.

“When such as I cast out remorse
So great a sweetness flows into the breast
We must laugh and we must sing,
We are blest by everything,
Everything we look upon is blest.”

William Butler Yeats

Frosted fennel in seed