Life has been a little chaotic of late.
I don't thrive on chaos, it unnerves me and I crave my familiar, safety net - my routine rhythms that lull me back into safety.
I've been thinking about that a lot recently, how maybe it takes true wisdom in Him to recognize that when you in the midst of the chaos, you Praise God for that time.
Because you know it will be a period of growth, that kind of growth and sharpening that only trials can produce.
I'm evidently not there yet. When faced with chaos I thrash and moan like a toddler being told to nap when she would much rather play.
So, having come out of the other side of a month away from my family, unexpectedly - in another country...I craved to come home and settle back into the normal rhythms of my everyday.
Trouble was, it just wasn't happening.
In the midst of yet more home-based chaos (at least I was home though PTL!) I realized that our blind elderly pug was refusing to go outside and do...well, what doggies need to do outside, because it was around bonfire night and fireworks were commonplace in the skies around our home.
After a whole day of her refusing to go outside because it was either raining or loud because of the fireworks, I was at my wits end.
At 10pm after all the fireworks had stopped, I carried her out to the garden and gave her the cue to go 'pee pee'
She promptly ran under a bush and hid and my heart broke a little.
Realising that she was not going to willingly undertake this mission, I decided to force things a little.
Harnessed up and lead on, with pockets of doggy poop bags - pug and I walked the streets in the rain until she was ready to relieve herself.
The more I walked, the angrier at God I became.
"I've only just got back!! I'm jet-lagged, tired and now worried that pug is going to give herself a bladder infection if she continues to hold it in..."
Stomp, stomp, stomp...more rain...
"Why are you allowing all of this??! Why can't I just have a break??! I'm exhausted, Pug hates me because I've dragged her out, in the cold and the wet in the dead of night..."
"Why can't YOU give me some direction for my life too?? I feel like I keep asking you for your will on my life and all I'm met with is silence...."
"But no, nothing...and now here I am walking a blind, scared pug through the streets late at night - she has no idea that I'm doing this for her good!! She has no idea I love her so utterly and I want the best for her, which is why I am doing this! She has no idea that I am actually leading her to something better right now..."
And then it hit me.
I'm the blind pug.
He is leading me - through uncomfortable places that I don't want to go - because only HE knows that in order to get to where I need to be, I need to walk this path.
Just like Pug can't see where I am leading her, she keeps walking and she keeps trusting that I will get her there safely - as much as she doesn't want to go there right now.
Would she choose to be out in the rain at 10pm at night having been worried by the fireworks all night?...No, she would rather be tucked up beside me on the sofa snoozing away.
But for tonight, this was the path we had to take, to make sure she was healthy.
Pug did eventually do what she needed to do so we could go home, but not without the huge lesson I learned following us.
His ways are not my ways, but trust in Him I must.
The message from a dear sweet friend, the kind of news you don't see coming.
Especially when she is just 37.
Especially when she is healthier than most of my friends put together.
Breast cancer.
The sting of those words makes me feel giddy and much of what she said next over the following 20 minutes is a blur.
I realise barely anything is going in, so I grab a pen and start to write...
...doctors meeting...next Thursday...treatment options....
a whole 8 days to ponder this vile diseases implications with no more knowledge. 8 days of anxiety and sleeplessness. 8 excruciating days to get through.
She is calm, she is factual, she sounds like she is talking about a verruca not cancer. We end the conversation by laughing at something strange - like we always seem to. We find humour in things that are often not funny, its how our friendship works, its who we are and despite the earthquake of a diagnosis which has rocked the foundations of the world right now - we laugh.
So the countdown begins. The countdown that will lead to answers - is it anywhere else? how aggressive? treatment options?
Until then we wait and we pray.
We attempt to see our sleeplessness as a call to pray. We thank God for all the blessing he has provided for us and look to Him, for the comfort we all are craving.
We seek the 'Peace that surpasses understanding...'
And we wait.
On paper, it shouldn't have worked - Jay and I.
He was raised a good Christian boy, who was temporarily rebelling. I was raised to embrace all faiths, but I belonged to none. I wasn't so much rebelling at the time our paths crossed as I was 'discovering myself'
Which apparently needed copious amounts of alcohol and partying.
Nevertheless, our paths did cross and I was awestruck with this magnificent creature that was Jay.
He was (IS!) handsome with a quiet unassuming confidence that isn't the least bit arrogant. Despite meeting him during his rebellious stage, he was humble and sweet and unlike anyone I'd ever met before.
No sooner had our paths intercepted, we became inseparable. He was the peas to my carrots, milk to my tea, steak to my pie (ooh er!)
It seemed only natural that we had indeed found our mate for life and the question was popped.
We started church-shopping to find the best (i.e prettiest, oldest and best looking in the wedding pictures) venue. We never even spoke about getting married anywhere other than a church.
There was a very historic local church that was my first choice. It was grand, beautiful, old and imposing and pretty soon we found ourselves in from of the Vicar, having a meeting.
Had I known that the 'meeting' was in fact an interview, there would have been NO getting me into that church. The Vicar started the interview by stating that IF he let us get married in HIS church, there would come a day when one of us would be stood over the others coffin in the church.
I'm not entirely sure why he began with that scenario, shock value perhaps? All I could think of how wrong he probably would be...I mean logistically, would Jay and I really live and die in this one town??
He continued on with his preaching/condemnations and eventually came to the question part of the interview.
This is where things got fuzzy.
I'm not sure if it got fuzzy because we were still a little drunk from the evening spent at the pub the night before, or just fuzzy because my husband-to-be started to shock me with his religious-talk.
Hearing Jason answer questions on his 'walk with God' 'when he came to faith' with all the best religious-talk I had only ever witnessed from Songs of Praise - was as shocking to me, as if he had sat there and started speaking fluent Japanese!
Never before had I even heard the word 'God' muttered from those lips! Yet here he was rolling out the 'church-speak' like a pro!
I realized pretty quick that it may be my turn next to attempt this foreign language in an attempt to hoodwink this very religious man into marrying us in his beautiful church.
I failed...completely.
It was, indeed a completely foreign language to me and try as I may, I was unable to string a sentence together, scattered with enough church words to make me seem like I knew this God of his.
It was embarrassing.
I left there with my head hanging low.
I hadn't passed the test, I wasn't good enough for that church or that Vicar. I sucked.
Fast forward a couple of weeks and we found ourselves in the company of a new Vicar, in his beautiful church.
I was determined this time to just be honest. The only knowledge I had of God was from bible stories I had heard as a child...Noah and his big ship, David and the giant. I wasn't going to blag it.
I told the Vicar the truth.
This Vicar, unlike the other one was very welcoming and friendly. He seemed to exude joy from every pour and always seemed to have a little smile on his face.
We told him our story. How we met, our backgrounds. I told him I knew very little of religion but I would really like to get married in his beautiful church.
He welcomed us with open arms. He told me he would love to marry us and maybe this may be the very start of my walk with God.
He welcomed me.
In that moment, I got to see a little bit of Jesus.
I saw love where I had seen judgement from the other Vicar. I saw acceptance where I had seen rejection.
The difference felt like night and day and I knew who I would rather be married by.
A year later, Jay and I were married in that church. In the church that embraced all people, regardless of where they are with their walk.
And I think about the Vicar often. How his kindness and acceptance were one of the things that started me off on this faith journey.
I think about how impactful our words are and the fact that kindness and love cannot be underrated.
Its not our job to judge.
We are called to love - Love God and love one another and if everyone is this world followed those two simple actions, think how much better this planet of ours would be.
Sweet Christian ladies are like an enigma to me.
Something completely unattainable to me, yet I blindly strived for it for so long.
My loud and obnoxious laugh, sarcastic sense of humour and occasional swearing when I get excited, all made it difficult to even try to live up to the Proverbs 31 woman most days.
I believe in God - passionately and faithfully but there always seemed to be just too much of me and my humaness and not enough holy.
In my quest to grow and become less like me and more like a good woman of faith - I have studied - read books on how to change, poured over blogs of amazing Christian ladies, with their wonderfully immaculate houses and seemingly perfect lives, trying to find the keys to how to change.
I have soaked in their presecnce in Church, hoping that osmosis will make some of their sweet, gentle nature seep into my being.
But ultimately, i'm still me.
And then it hit me...maybe what the world needs right now is some of the realities of being a Christian woman. Maybe our struggles, our vulnerabilities, our problems is what can connect us with one another in deep and meaningful ways and we can grow - together.
Buckle up buttercup, I have a feeling we are in for a wild ride!
