Tag: jesus

Please tear down the curtain.

On By rebelwithkindnessIn Uncategorized2 Comments

Give yourself time, be kind to yourself, the pain will ease. I know people mean well and I love them for it, but in all honesty I don’t want time, I don’t want to be kind to myself and the pain, well shouldn’t I always feel it? They say that grief is the love we cannot give so this agony feels right,

As it should be.

I know I’m not helping myself but right now I don’t want to. I’m missing Daniel with such an intensity that I can barely breathe. Everything I see, every room I walk in his absence is suffocating. Everything reminds me of him and how my heart is forever broken missing him.

I just want to scream at God to bring my boy back.

Please.

If you have a faith the pain of losing one you love often lands you in two camps of thought. The first is closer to God, you feel him closer, you find your comfort in his promises. You know that Jesus catches ever tear you cry. You know with a certainty that you will see you loved ones again.

Or the second camp, you are angry, so angry that you cannot believe God had taken the one you love. You tell yourself you cannot believe in a God who does this. One who is all powerful but didn’t save the one you hold in your heart. Faith becomes lost in the pain.

For me I think I’m actually going to make a camp number 3. One where I love God and I know Daniel is with him but one where I really am angry that he didn’t save my son. How or why is my beautiful boy gone from me.

I was thinking as I was writing this that often people speak of a curtain between us. That to trust that Daniel is still close to me and it’s only a curtain that separates the living from those gone before us. Yet I often thing of the scripture when it tells what happened when Jesus was crucified that the curtain was torn in the temple. I want my curtain to be torn. I want Daniel to be here not behind a curtain or in another room, I want him here in my arms.

I want that curtain torn down.

I want to kiss the top of his sweet head and I want to feel his heartbeat next to mine. I want to hold him in my arms once more. I want it as it should be.

I want

I want

I want.

Please

“At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split. “

Matthew 27:51

In the brokenness

On By rebelwithkindnessIn Dear Daniel, grief, UncategorisedLeave a comment

I’ve never been one to follow the calendar. I often don’t know what day of the week it is let alone the date, this has especially been the case in the last two years due to shielding. I mean who cares what the date is, we aren’t going anywhere. Yet since Daniels death I have found myself coming slightly obsessed.

When April turned to May my heart was aching, a new month that Daniel won’t be part of and today we begin another month that won’t hold him in it, it’s so very hard and feels so wrong.

How do I do this life without my beautiful boy? I really feel the need for direction. Nothing makes sense , the things I loved are now too different without my son. Alan suggested I join him in keeping the house tidy but even thinking about it makes me tired. I mean we are just cleaning up our own things when I’m so used to changing beds because Daniel had peed on the sheets, often literally after I had just changed his pad. That boy loved a clean nappy. I should be cleaning up milk when I forgotten to clamp the tube. Weighing pads, chasing prescriptions and so much more. What i am not doing makes what I should be doing feel so out of reach.

I know it’s going to take time and it should, shouldn’t it. You don’t move on from losing your heart in a day, week, lifetime. I’m just so lost it’s crazy, I think that may be my forever statement. “I’m lost.” Then I think of one of Daniels favourite hymns “ i was lost but now I am found” maybe I will be found or find myself again.

Who knows?

Alan and I are struggling so scared about the future. It’s hard trying to make a life you so didn’t want. Everything is different, everything is hard, everything is missing Daniel. People keep telling us of the holidays we can now take, the places we can now visit, the freedom we now have. I know they mean well but this so called freedom came a high cost. Plus I never felt so free when I got to love on Daniel.

I remember so vividly when we lost our beautiful Livvy my anger, I was so angry that the world continued to turn without her in it. I feel that same anger with Daniel but with an extra element of bitterness, we lost him to what we tried so hard to protect him from. His life was stole by a virus the world wants to forget. He is just one in million statistics that we just have to accept. It’s shocking, it’s cruel and it’s so very wrong.

I’m never going to be the same person again and I don’t think Alan will either. Sometimes the spotlight is too powerful to not see the truth. I don’t want to stay bitter but the brokenness of my heart allows it to creep in.

My wonderful friend reminded me at Daniels celebration of the Japanese art of embracing brokenness, Kintsugi. Kintsugi teaches you that your broken places make you stronger and better than ever before. When you think you are broken, you can pick up the pieces, put them back together, and learn to embrace the cracks. Kintsugi teaches you that your broken places make you stronger and better than ever before. She reminded me that I had once before filled my brokenness with gold and that I will do again.

I’m beginning to think I may end up with a bowl full more of gold than china but that’s ok every crack, every bit of brokenness was made because I was blessed enough to have loved and to be loved.

To be so very loved.

Dear Daniel

On By rebelwithkindnessIn Dear Daniel, grief, Uncategorized1 Comment

I did it again, I pressed my phone to call your Daddy to ask him if he had put you on your milk yet. Why is my body still waking me a month after we have lost you? Why is my normal no longer my own?

Oh Daniel there are not enough words in the languages of the world to explain how much I’m missing you. Even now as I lie here unable to sleep I know I haven’t accepted the fact that you have gone. I’m a mess, a complete utter mess and for once in my life I do not care. My mind isn’t full of wondering, afraid if others are judging me in my sorrow, I don’t give a monkeys it hurts, it’s agony.

The house still echoes of you, our home, your home, your scent still lingers on the air. I’m still using your shampoo as a body wash so I can smell your sweet scent of strawberries all around me. It’s running out, would it be weird to buy it again? Maybe I will search for an actual strawberry scented body wash. Maybe that’s a compromise. How I hate that word right now “compromise” it feels that’s all I am having to do. Grieve whilst trying to move forward. Rest whilst job hunting, always having to give a little when I really haven’t got a lot left anymore.

I don’t have you anymore.

Oh Danny, I know they will call me soon to collect your equipment and whilst I know you are free from the disabilities that made you need them, letting them go is part of an acceptance I have yet to reach. I’m scared of the emptiness their return will leave behind. I know I have to do it at some point, there is so much to sort out. Your wardrobe is full of new summer clothes you have yet to wear. No sorry clothes you will never wear. This sucks!

Your toy box is still in the living room, your book case full to the brim. Talking of books the new book written by Jacqueline Wilson came today, it shocked my heart. I had forgotten that we had put it on pre-order, “ A new adventure of the Faraway tree” do you think Moonface will still be in it ,maybe Silky too. We loved reading the original written by Enid Blyton together, I’m sure we would have loved this one too. Maybe when I get you home I will read to you. Is that a strange thing to do? Maybe I will just curl up under your blanket with Edgar and read it. Yes I’m going to cry, come on everything is making me cry. Do you know how hard losing you has been?

I guess I need to try and sleep, the irony is that now I have no one waking me at every two hours but I’m sleeping less than ever. I am hiding in my bedroom more than I should be, I’m not sleeping I’m just pretending you are downstairs with your Daddy. I know it’s not helping but let’s be honest nothing does.

Hey beautiful boy, I’m trying I promise I am. Giving up would be easy but I know you and Livvy didn’t teach me that way. Your both fought to live; I promise I will try to honour that. You guys need to help though, sprinkle me with some heart healing dust from heaven, how I wish that was a real thing. I remind myself that I “grieve with Hope” well I’m working on the Hope part, but I’ve got the grieving down perfect.

Oh my gorgeous handsome son, missing you is so so hard. Just to hold your hand in mine once more, yet I know once more is never enough, would never be enough.

So it’s been a month my dear boy, one whole month since your took your last breathe this side of heaven as you lay in my arms. As I held your body close to mine your spirit ran to Jesus.

Until my time comes, until I can run to you and Livvy.

I will miss you

Forever heartbroken

Your Mommy

Xxxx

My beautiful boy xx

Christmas present.

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I cannot believe it’s Christmas in a few days. I have struggled with Christmas for as long as I can remember without going into details I have finally started to understand how childhood trauma can create a fear that may not seem reality to most but to those who have PTSD can be often overwhelming.

This is me.

I’ve tried for so many years to create the perfect Christmas to break the patterns of fear in my mind and to make sure those patterns were never created for my children. I wanted their memories of Christmas to be filled with wonder and excitement. I believe for them I have done this for myself it’s still a game of pretend.

Whilst I love the illusion of Santa I have never played the you better be good card on my children. The gifts they receive on Christmas Day are those bought by those that love them. We honour the tradition of Santa but also we celebrate the birth of Jesus. Yet there is no guarantees on what will be under the tree, yes we have listened to your wishes but also it is what can be afforded etc etc. But for me it’s about teaching the children about the love of the season, not making promises I cannot keep.

I listen to my children and live to see their faces when they receive something that had mentioned a while ago, it’s not about the gift it’s about the being heard.

This Christmas I’m struggling, it’s seems fear is the only thing I’ve managed to wrap and place under my tree. My anxiety has been on steroids I’m so tired of being fearful. So fed up of the nightmares of Christmas past I really wish Jacob Marley would just past to the light and leave me alone.

Christmas spirt just seems to be further away then ever. Yet for some reason this year my acting skills have left me I cannot pretend anymore I’m broken. Please don’t ask me what I want for Christmas I cannot cope with expectations. I was working on them but that Covid bitch stole my progress along with everything else.

I just don’t want to engage with the excess of Christmas I just want to hold Daniel in my arms and read him stories, watch some Christmas films and just be. I don’t want the noise, I want the calm and the peace. I mean Christmas is the celebration of the birthday of the prince of peace so why shouldn’t it be tranquil and gentle.

What do we have to go big and loud?

Why does it have to be too much?

Why does it have to be so full of fear?

Covid of course has done a dirty again on the season along with Christmas carols came the rising numbers. New variants, new restrictions and a new dose of blooming fear. I mean can Santa even visit if he has to quarantine after every sleigh flight? Seriously though how can people build joy without knowing what will happen.

It’s sucks it all sucks.

Yet I’m going to try and fight back, fight through the memories and try and change my own thought patterns. Try to learn to love the season again. Maybe understanding and acknowledging the past will allow me to fully embrace the future. Obviously working hard on your mental health in the middle of a pandemic hasn’t been easy but what else do I do with all this down time it’s not like I’ve been able to go anywhere (yes there is bitterness there). Covid is like a dodgy ex you think he is going away but no comes back with all the extra drama, showing up when unwelcome, bringing chaos and pain with it.

Yet allowing myself to feel has been worth it, sometimes the memories and emotions have felt more than I can face, but face them I have and although I may have boxed a few for another or never time, I have learned more about myself than ever. I know who I am deeper than ever before. Which is a mixture of bad and good, I mean we all have things we wish to change about ourselves.

So I am going to enjoy Christmas not in the excess way of the tv adverts or holiday promotions say it should be but our way. I am going to curl up under a blanket with Daniel and so many stories to share. I am going to veg out on the sofa and watch Christmas films that are cheesy and full of hope. I’m going to enjoy good food without the expectations of fancy tables and decorated plates. I’m going to cook extra and bless my elderly neighbours with a Christmas dinner I hope they enjoy and I’m going to breathe deep.

I’m allowing the past to wash over me and build myself memories that are different. The past doesn’t have to haunt you, you are allowed to leave it when it belongs in the days gone before you.

So bog off Christmas past and hello Christmas present, please leave the chains behind you.

Still

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My head hurts, the noise level just seems to be getting higher snd higher.

People talking, screaming to be heard over one another. It really feels like it’s a world of who shouts the loudest, wins.

When did we stop listening, holding out for the sweet silence of a moment. Waiting for the small voice of our intuition to speak to us before we spoke?

Holding our own counsel?

I know I can be the same reacting before thinking. Engaging my tongue before I engage my brain.

I think lockdown has changed me, the silence whilst often isolating was also freeing. I don’t have to be anyone but me, no illusions to fulfil beyond the ones that hold truth.

The quiet, the time to be still. I realise now how much I need it and how much it calms my heart.

I sometimes wonder if my heart is attached to my life the crazier it gets the harder it beats. Yet that would make some kind of sense, yet as I lie in my bed praying for sleep my anxiety has other plans.

I’m breathing deep but insomnia is becoming a fast friend. I know we all have periods of this but recently the noise has begun to hurt my brain.

This is this

This has to be

Covid, petrol shortages, empty food alises. Why does 3am feel the best time to worry about them?

Hospitals struggling, NHS at mass. Drs and nurses once being clapped are now being condemned.

Unfair, unkind, untruth

People reacting without researching, laying blame at the accessible rather than at the feet of those that hide away. Those that hold the responsibility.

Oh mind please

I just want to sleep

I just want to be still.

I see the dawn is coming and before long the sun will rise.

I need some rest

I need my mind to just quieten down.

How do I be still in this crazy world, how can this fallen world learn to stay true?

Joining in with Five minute Friday

Gentle?

On By rebelwithkindnessIn Uncategorized2 Comments

Oh my goodness when I read the word prompt for five minute Friday this week I just smiled at the irony, gentle on a day that was far from gentle for our saviour.

He was beaten

He was mocked

A crown of thorns placed on his head.

The nails hammered through his hands,

The spear pierced through his side.

Not gentle, not kind, not right.

Yet this man so gentle and kind bore this pain, bore this torture, died for us.

I struggle through Good Friday, I mean how can you find the words to honour this sacrifice. To breathe life into the holiness of the love Jesus had for me. I often find myself looking forward to Easter Sunday excited to celebrate the resurrection. Yet this time inbetween needs to be felt, this closed tomb needs to be understood.

How often in life do we focus on the good that’s coming. A journey is always about the destination, but is it? Shouldn’t we sometimes slow down and view the world that we pass As we start towards our end. Maybe we would see some wondrous sights or maybe not , yet to look is never a waste, to rush is to miss.

So as we sit in this in between time I often think of those that loved Jesus. How did they feel? Did they know without doubt that he would return? Did they trust? What would I have done, I mean I know I will be reunited with my daughter one day but I still grieve. This time in between feels hard. I know that come Sunday the tomb will be empty but this space is hard.

Yet I know without a doubt that I will hold my girl again.

Because of a gentle man who suffered a horrific death

because he loved me.

Jesus the gentle breath than fills my lungs with salvation. From nail pierced hands to my promise of eternity.

Not a gentle love, a saviours love.

Join in with five minute Friday. Write for five minutes on the word of the week. This is meant to be a free write, which means: no editing, no over-thinking, no worrying about perfect grammar or punctuation. Just write.

Mother’s Day love

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Mother’s Day, a day where we come together to celebrate all things that are Mom in whatever form that comes, stepmoms, adopted moms, grandparents being mom and so many more.

Being a mom is one of the hardest jobs in the world. The exhaustion of pregnancy, the labour of delivery, feeding, sleepless nights and so much more but yet it’s often the most rewarding role we will ever get to hold.

It’s tough and this last year has been a real struggle , ‘wow’ is pretty much all I can say about the last 12 months. From home schooling to the deep pit of fear that has been in your stomach since the words Covid 19 were first spoken, it’s been a year.

Still if I wish to challenge all moms a little now in fact probably all parents regardless of gender. What do you think is the one thing that is the hardest to cope with when being a parent?

Exhaustion, worry, finances,

Shall I share what I have placed on my heart this week. What God has wanted me to share with you all.

The hardest thing about being a parent

Expectations

These pesky little things that penetrate our minds and hearts.

I should be

I could be

If only

All turn into

I failed

I’m useless

I’m letting them down.

Now I’m coming to you as a mom of a five so a little experience here and also as professional of therapeutic childcare and I just want to state something here and I really want you to hear me.

You are enough

You are enough.

Our children enter this world with only a few needs, to be fed, to be warm and to be loved. Speaking confidently right now I am sure that each of your children are having those needs met. They are either grown and off living lives that you have encouraged and nurtured. They also could be there in your arms snuggling tight or even kicking out in your precious womb. They could be causing complete mayhem running around the house but all done in the knowledge that ‘they are loved’.

You are enough.

Yet we only have to look back the last 12 months and the changes this virus has brought into our lives. Homeschooling, isolation, exhaustion, fear. How many of use have felt lost, that they are failing?

My hands are right up in the air, me me.

I have watched social media posts of moms with beautiful converted classrooms with their children willingly working away. Houses spotless, make up perfect and I’ve literally cried. I have cried as Daniels homeschooling paperwork fell off the printer for the 15th time, cried as he completely ignored me as I tried to encourage him to work, sobbed at the state of my house and as for being perfectly made up, well I’ve had a shower and I’m saying Amen to that.

You see I couldn’t reach the expectations I had put upon myself and that’s ok. Because Covid 19 or not, being a mom is hard.

We mess up, we lose our temper and we suck at patience some days. Because motherhood didn’t come with super hero powers just the responsibility.

Anyway where am I going with this, well I’m leading to something I have personally took a long time to learn.

You don’t have to do this life alone.

As friends and family we are there to walk alongside one another. Reach out to friends, not only those at your stage at life. We have a wide breathe of generational wisdom to tap into.

But most importantly

Reach up, reach out to Jesus and ask him to walk alongside you. Ask for wisdom, hope and a big one for me, for patience.

Ask him to free you from the lies of the enemy that you are not enough. Free you from the untruth binding of expectations. To be beside you as you raise the next generation and to guide you as you walk this pathway of parenthood.

I ask you to look now at your child or if they are not with you bring them into your mind. As your heart swells of the love you feel for them as the love you have warms you to your very core, I want you remember.

I want you to remember

“We love because he first loved us.”
1 John 4:19

He loved us first,

He loved us first.

Remember that Jesus loves us as we love our children, that warmth you feel for your children he feels for you. He loves you to your very core.

and I want you to say this loud

“we are enough. “

I am enough.

With more…

On By rebelwithkindnessIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Our God is a resurrection God. We believe in the resurrection of Jesus so we need to believe in the resurrection of our world, our country our people. 

Dont waste this time praying for what you had, pray for what you want your future to hold.

What has this time of fear, trouble, disease taught you?

What have you learned about yourself?

Are you going back into a job that you love, will you go back with renewed vigour? Will you look for a job that will fulfil you more?

When your children go back to school, will they go back with a more intense desire to learn, will you as their parents understand their way of learning better, be better advocates for them with a renewed understanding.

Have you learned of what you really need to survive? What is truly valuable in your life or maybe more importantly who is valued.

Will you understand yourself more, cherish your time more?

So often in life we forget that we live with the gift of resurrection. That we have the promise of more. So many right now will be heartbroken and believe me when I tell you I understand the pain of lost so deeply, so raw as if it was yesterday but I hold on to the promise of forever, the promise of our every tear being cherished.

May we come through this awful time and strive to live with more clarity, more truth, more time, more love and more hope. 

Seasons change.

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“there is a time for everything

 and a season for every activity under the heavens”

Ecclesiastes 3:1 New International Version (NIV)

I have walked many seasons in my life, and I know one of the longest and hardest of these has been my season of grief.

From the time my daughter Livvy was diagnosed I have grieved for what should have been, the life she should have lived or it in reality the life I had expected, planned, wanted her to live. 

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Then when we lost her 11 years ago, I grieved for her physically, grieved for her missing, her smile, her touch and the blessing of her spirit.

My grief felt like darkness.  

My whole spirit crushed by the pain of missing. 

I didn’t understand the why and I was often angry screaming at the ‘why her.’

This was my season of darkness and no matter how hard I tried to pretend I wasn’t sure I would live a life with light anymore.

Yet Jesus knew. 

My dear friend sent me a link to Christian singer songwriter called Steven Curtis Chapman.  Steven and his wife lost their daughter the same year I lost Livvy. Through his grief he wrote and produced an album called Beauty will rise. This cd, these songs, the words broke through my darkness.  In the midst of my pain I could not see God in my Bible, the words lost as my tears blinded me from his love. Yet in these songs, in the lyrics, hope started to grow once again, and the promise that I could hear in the melody slowly healed my heart. 

One of the songs is called ‘Spring is coming ‘and this week as we have faced 11 years without our beautiful girl, I have held on tight to this. Not because I am waiting on the Spring though this cold weather is already getting to me, because I know the blessing of the new.  I have felt the new life burst inside of me. I give thanks and praise to the changing seasons and the love, the hope and the promise each one brings. 

So today I am sharing this with you, sharing my heart and my journey, because God has asked me to share my story. He wants all to know that he is the light in the darkness. 

“I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

John 8:12 New International Version (NIV)

Jesus was and is my light. 

So, if any of you are now struggling in the darkness and if you are feeling the crushing weight of fear, doubt or anger, hold on to the fact that this time is a season and that seasons change. Life is a journey often full of pain and loss believe me when I say I know this but whatever you are facing, know that you are not alone, that Jesus walks beside you. 

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If you had asked me 11 years ago if I would know joy again, I would have said no easily, my heart was broken. I still miss Livvy so desperately and often still fall under the weight of grief but now my heart knows the promise, the promise that one day I will be reunited with her. Yet in this life whilst I walk it without her physically right now, I know that Jesus has great plans for me and joy it does come in the morning, not promising what morning but it does come. 

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So, I just want to remind you that whatever you are facing you are not alone. That you can do this and even in the crushing darkness there will be and always will be a light, the light of Jesus. 

Compassion Sunday

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Today I want to introduce you to two special members of my family.

Nyiranzayakira and Diana.

I may have never met these beautiful girls but they are my family.

They both have special places in my heart and are always in my prayers.

As a family we sponsor both with the charity Compassion UK

I have mentioned Compassion UK here on my blog before but as today is Compassion Sunday I really wanted to share with you the heart of the charity.

 

The children

 

We first started sponsoring Nyiranzayakira about 5 years ago.

My youngest daughter Brodie just felt she was the one for us from the profiles we got to view.

Nyiranzayakira is now 11 years old and she comes from Rwanda.

 

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She loves to learn and help take care of her family.

 

Diana is 5 and from Tanzania.

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She loves to colour and play.

 

We choose Diana for a very special reason.

Diana was born on the day we lost Livvy.

By sponsoring Diana we hope to give life when one was lost.

 

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Sponsoring these girls has been true gift for us as family.

We love receiving letters and learning about their lives.

Reading about school and how their families are.

 

Compassion UK are a wonderful charity they work through local churches in poor communities around the world to release children from poverty in Jesus’ name.

Compassion’s Child Sponsorship Programme is the heart of Compassion’s ministry to children living in poverty. It aims to disciple, equip and enable children to develop into fulfilled and responsible adults.

We are so blessed to sponsor these two beautiful girls and having them both in our lives has really enriched them.

Reading and watching these girls flourish has impacted on us as a family.

We value the little things so much more.

I ask you today to consider sponsoring a child with Compassion UK.

For £25 per month you can transform a life of a child.

 

Tell a child today that you are here for them.