Find the joy

Before lockdown I would have said l was a full time mum but now I realise that this wasn't quite true. I did have time to pray, ask what God wanted of me and do what I felt at that moment he was calling me to. Now I am finding it difficult to find a moment to myself and to pray.

I have found comfort in Julian of Norwich and her view of God as Mother.1  I can think of God nurturing, holding my hand and guiding me through everything. I may slip up but God is there to pick me back up again when things don't go quite the way I imagined.

Julian of Norwich saw a vision of Christ on the cross in pain. He smiled and said 'All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of things will be well.'1  

I take comfort in this especially now as I know God is taking care of us; God is with us in every moment and I just need to trust in God.

Julian also said 'the fullness of joy is to behold God in everything.'1
  

At the moment, I find this especially important. Just stopping and looking for the joy allows me to carrying on knowing God is there.

So next time you feel stressed or anxious, stop and find the joy - it is always there; a glimmer of light showing the way forward.

By Megan D

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References:
1. Julian of Nowich, Barry Windaett. Revelations of Divine Love. Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2015.

Write it down

Just a top tip today...

As we've seen this week from our lovely HA women, the bible, worship music, prayer and friends are all ways God can be speaking to us. Although these things can seem so clear when they happen, it often surprises me how quickly I forget what God has been saying. I let His words fade away just like the thing I'd been worrying about.

When you do find God is encouraging you - and this can be in lots of different ways - record it. It becomes your own store of encouragement; remembering where God has been at work and that you are highly valued by Him.

I normally write things down to help me remember them but a few years ago I took a photo instead...

It was a time when I was completely overtaken by fear in a way I'd never experienced before. It affected my eating, my sleeping, my working - everything. Then one day doves came and nested outside my office window. They would fly above the road as I drove to work and be outside my office windows all day long. I had never (and haven't since) seen doves in so many places. I was literally surrounded. It reminded me that God's Spirit would never leave me or forsake me (despite how I felt). I took a photo and to be honest it's not at all artistic but... it's my precious reminder of God's love for me - all the time.

Let God encourage you and when he does, treasure it.

By Jo P

God's word

I am an anxious person. I wish I wasn’t, but I can’t seem to help it. I worry particularly about things that I have no control over and I assume that the worst possible outcome is the most likely, even if my logical brain tells me that probably won’t be the case. Like many of us, my anxiety comes and goes – it’s often worse when I’m tired, or when there are big life changes on the horizon.

How does faith help when anxiety threatens to overwhelm me?

For me, there are two things that help a lot. I ask friends I trust to pray God’s peace for me and it makes a difference. And I try hard to remind myself of biblical truth. I saw a useful blog post the other day which rightly cautioned against taking Bible verses out of context. But I think that the Bible is pretty unequivocal in what it says about worry, so when I feel anxious I read verses like those below - not to make me feel guilty about worrying when Jesus tells us not to (!) - but to remind me that I don’t need to fear and to ask God to help me to trust Him.

In John 14:27 (NIV), Jesus says:

"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid."

In Matthew 6:25-34 (NIV), Jesus says:

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labour or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendour was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. "

In Philippians 4:6-7 (NLT), Paul writes:

'Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.'

By Anna S

Trusting

When I’m deeply worried or anxious - I stew on it! I stew at night and much of the day. I say arrow prayers ‘Lord help me’, ‘Jesus, I don’t know what to do’. 

I find it good to share with close ones I trust - Paul (husband) is often very helpful in putting things in perspective. But when it really comes down to coping with anxiety, prayer and trusting God are key. 

One of my life foundation scriptures is Proverbs 3:5&6 -

‘Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do and he will show you which path to take’. 

I stand on this verse and God is always faithful. 

I also love King Hezekiah’s decision when faced with a huge threatening problem (2 Kings 19.14) - he took it and ‘spread it out before the Lord.’ Thank you Lord!

By Barbara K

The Throneroom

I don’t consider myself to be a particularly anxious person. But there are occasions, for all of us, and especially at this time of lockdown during the Coronavirus, when anxiety can hit. When it does come, it can really knock us off our stride, and if we don’t have good practices in place, we can find ourselves in a downward spiral of anxious thoughts, behaviours, and even depression.

When Ash was diagnosed with cancer in 2018 there were times during his treatment that we were both full of anxiety and fear. As soon as you hear the ‘C’ word, all sorts of dark thoughts can flood your heart and mind, and before you know it you’re thinking of the worst case scenario, and anxiety takes a grip. There were days when we couldn’t even muster enough energy to work out what to pray. In the very dark moments all we could do was cry out to Jesus. What sustained us through this time were the good practices that we both had put in place, and became our default behaviours.

The first thing we did was to gather our dearest and closest friends, share our news with them, and just ask them to pray, pray, pray. This group of people we have known for many years and are our ‘go to’ wise bods for times of crisis. We knew that there would be times when we didn’t have the words to pray, but that they would stand in the gap for us.

Secondly, listening to worship was so important to both of us. Worship brings us into the throneroom of the Father, where we can sit at his feet and allow the music to wash over us and be our prayer, and this is what we did on a daily basis. There were two songs in particular that we would listen to: ‘Tremble’ and ‘King of my Heart’ - often crying as we worshipped.

Peace, bringing it all to peace

The storm surrounding me

Let it break at Your name

Still, call the sea to still

The rage in me to still

Every wave at Your name

Jesus, Jesus, You make the darkness tremble

Jesus, Jesus, You silence fear

Jesus, Jesus, You make the darkness tremble

Jesus, Jesus 1

Declaring and worshipping the name of Jesus does silence fear and pushes back the darkness, especially at times of storm and chaos. We would declare the name of Jesus over our thoughts, and push back the lies that the enemy would whisper to us in our vulnerability. The Holy Spirit replaced anxiety with peace as we declared the name of Jesus as King in our lives:

Let the King of my heart

Be the mountain where I run

The fountain I drink from

Oh, He is my song

Let the King of my heart

Be the shadow where I hide

The ransom for my life

Oh, He is my song

'Cause You are good

You are good, oh oh

You are good

You are good, oh oh  2

Finally, we would bury ourselves in scripture and in particular the Psalms. When we had no words, the psalmist gave us words. When we needed to cry out in anguish, we did so in the knowledge that whatever we faced, whatever we needed to journey through, however hard and frightening it might be - through it all God is good, all the time, He is good.

During this time of lockdown, my hope is that we all will be able to pray, worship and through it all declare that “God is good, all the time. He is good”.

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your heart be troubled and do not be afraid” (John 14:27).

By Alex C

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Footnotes

1 Hank Bentley/Mia Fieldes/Andres Figueroa/Mariah McManus Tremble, Mosaic MSC (2016)

 2 John Mark McMillan, Sarah McMillan, King of My Heart Meaux Jeaux Music/Raucous Ruckus Publishing (2015)

Afraid...

In some ways we are all so different and yet there is a 'theme' (or perhaps the word burden would fit better there) that comes up over and over again…

"I feel stressed..."...

"I'm overwhelmed..."

"I'm anxious..."

"I just can't seem to relax…" 

"It'll be ok when..."

"What if...?"

Do any of these sound familiar? For many of us, they are well walked paths in our minds.

This is not a new problem.

Jesus didn't cover all the topics we would probably wish he had (!) but worry is one he did address
more than once. He knew it was a message that would be needed for generations to come.

Over the next few days, we will be hearing from some of our wonderful HA women about how they tackle anxiety and fear, with practical spirituality, in their lives.

We hope this helps.

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