an anchor

this evening, having begun to reread an incredible book, I decided to catch up on the author's blog that I hadn't read in a while. one of the posts, entitled 'anchorman', spoke to me.
if I could cry at the moment, I probably would have. It resounded so deeply...

"1. Friends are wonderful, whatever their experience.  But there’s something in talking to someone who has experienced the same struggle, that brings special comfort. They get it – and they’re still here. Before everyone else; this is true of Jesus. Whatever you’re going through.  Depression, singleness, addiction, bereavement, joblessness, infertility.  He has walked this path before you. Just before He goes to the Cross, he doesn’t say, ‘Lord – thanks for this opportunity to suffer and glorify you.’ He says ‘is there any other way?’ And when God says ‘no’, even though everything in Him is in agony, He accepts that this is the only way. He trusts that His Father knows what He’s doing, even when the world is ending. You can trust Him and you can trust what He says. He’s got you and when you’re in the furnace, He’s right there with you.

2.It’s okay not to feel it.  It’s okay to cry out and to doubt and to question and to hit things and to be broken.  Think about a toddler that’s having the mother of all melt-downs.  Wailing like the world is ending.  and raining blows on your chest with their tiny fists. What do you do with this child? And what does God do with us? You look at them and you love them. You hold them. Tight.  You absorb the anger and pain of a little body that has no idea what life is about or what they need most. You take the force of their pain. And you pull them close. Wherever you are now: whatever you’ve done. God is holding you in the midst of the pain. You are safe. And He will not let you go.

3.Some things can’t be fast-forwarded. This is hard. Sometimes unbearable. But it will get better.There will come a day when you will want to live again.  For now,  be kind.  Give yourself space and time. There’s no deadline.  There’s nowhere you need to be.Nothing is so important that it can’t wait.  You are loved – but you’re not indispensable.  And you’re safe – even in the mess.  The Lord doesn’t want your service right now.  He can do it without you.  So let Him.

We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain,  where our forerunner, Jesus, has entered on our behalf. He has become a high priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.
Hebrews 6:19-20"

- Emma Scrivener at A New Name

 incidentally, my phone background for the last few weeks has mostly been this:

 I don't know where I am with God at the moment. I don't even know where I am with myself. But I'm clinging onto the truth that a boat doesn't always see its anchor. It doesn't feel it a lot of the time. But that doesn't mean it isn't there - or that it isn't just as firm and secure.

I'm thankful for the part of me that wholeheartedly still hopes and believes in the promise of that anchor. Even in the midst of this mess of diet coke and sugar free jelly and filling my basket with low calorie groceries that aren't quite low calorie enough; and putting them all back; in nearly crying because I can't tell if sugar snap peas or green beans are 'more allowed' and in hating myself for buying food and hating myself for not buying food. In feeling hopeless and selfish and messy. In hurting people who care about me - because they care about me. I might not see it or feel it or even be able to fathom it but the anchor is there

 I have the hope of God's promises as my soul's anchor and, thankfully, it is firm and secure regardless of where I am.

topsy-turvy

Things have been a little topsy-turvy around here recently.

My end of term exam ended up going really horrendously: it was almost on a par with GCSE additional maths (which set 1 got casually entered for with no teaching of the material on it, resulting in my E as a reward for the 3 hours' worth of rewording questions in answer boxes). I forgot even the most basic of anatomy; hopelessly muddled the positions of every ion channel in the kidney and left entire pages blank before tearfully guessing the multiple choice questions without even properly reading them and leaving halfway through. Then isolating and realizing I'd have to cancel my whole Summer for the inevitable resit. Deciding I didn't even want to resit because I was a failure at my degree so there was no point. Wondering where on earth my life was going.

It was downhill from there really. My mind grabbed the piece of 'logic' that my exam performance (and therefore life's worth of course - because that's what matters (?!)) is inversely proportional to my weight. Because obviously, my weight determines my exam performance and therefore my self worth...  It's true that my exam performance has steadily deterriorated over the course of the year, as my weight has increased. But, as my angry-stressed-triggered-post exam mind forgot, correlational evidence cannot establish causal relationships - there's just no way to prove a link like that. So many other factors have played a part, and my weight is logically probably one of the last things to influence it - aside from the opposite effect of being healthier and therefore having more concentration now...

I've been struggling a little with my faith lately as well. Not my faith, so much, but a different aspect that's harder to explain. I still wholeheartedly love God and want to follow Him. I still worship Him; do my best to trust Him; KNOW that He works all things for good and see Him in my circumstances. It's the relational aspect that's a little more absent recently - the whole 'presence' thing. I miss it horribly; everything just seems a little empty, but I'm trying to recognise that there are seasons and times when God retreats to allow us to grow and to change. But that's on a good day. On a bad day, I'm lost and vulnerable and scared. I feel abandoned and decide it's because I'm huge and worthless, and lie begging God for His presence, feel nothing and slide back into 'abandoned-and-huge-and-worthless'.

These factors combined have led to a bit of a downward spiral. I've lost weight and I don't even know if I want to gain it back or keep sliding. I'm in a tangle because if I go back to Brighton clinic now, they'll make me maintain at a higher weight than before because of our deal, so I'm having to avoid them for the near future. I don't really know what to do.

In the meantime, I had a lovely holiday in France with Jacob, spent some time with my mum in Suffolk, caught up with Brighton and other Southern folks and went to a psychiatry summer school at King's!

 Ironically, I got my results last week and it turned out I'd actually passed the exam by some miracle (hello there 'I still feel God working in my circumstances'). That's a huge blessing because it means I can still go to Soul Survivor. I'm a little scared because I'm very 'walls-up' with God at the moment, but I'm going as a leader and it'll be so amazing to spend time with my incredible IMPACT! youth again, and see how they've developed. 

My aim for the next few days is to reevaluate everything. I need to decide what I actually want and I need to somehow spin things back around so I can think more clearly. 

Over and out.