From the sidelines

There’s a sequence in the film Valentine’s Day where Reed, having been left by his girlfriend, discovers none of his friends thought they were a good match in the first place. Enraged, he says to his best friend, “Apparently everyone and their mother felt that way but nobody had the guts to tell me!”

Reed and his best friend Julia in Valentine’s Day
(Photo by Ron Batzdorff © MMIX New Line Productions, Inc.)

There are certain people in life I like to think of as being like soap opera viewers: they know all of the characters, but they’re not involved in the plot. These people vary depending on the situation, but they are the ones we can turn to when others are too involved to see it objectively.

Several such friends gave me the same advice about a certain situation recently, advice I was reluctant to take. It seemed easy for them to offer it, for the same reason that they were the first ones to see it – they were not involved in the plot. But when I eventually saw that they were right, I realised that other more plot-involved friends agreed with them. My reaction was similar to Reed’s: why did nobody ever tell me?

So I suppose the moral of the story is this: if you’re the soap-watcher on a friend’s life and you find yourself shouting warnings at the screen, do them a favour and gently tell them. They probably need to hear it, even if they may not be able to see it yet.

Bargain hunter

“If others don’t love me, I would rather die than live […]. [T]o gain some real affection from you, […] or any other whom I truly love, I would willingly submit to have the bone of my arm broken, or to let a bull toss me, or to stand behind a kicking horse, and let it dash its hoof at my chest.” – Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë.

People sometimes say, when faced with the prospect (real or imagined) of a not-so-good situation, “I would rather die”. We know death is usually not an option, and that the proposed deal is meaningless, yet we continue to make this kind of deal, regardless of its power.

I frequently attempt this myself, especially when it comes to dealing with pain or discomfort. I struggle periodically with anxiety issues. Thankfully, the effect this has on my day-to-day life now is small, but there have been times when I have tried to make deals to get rid of it.

A common “bargain” I used to propose when the anxiety seemed too much went something like this (for context, I also battle on-and-off with runner’s knee): I would rather have pain in my knees every day for the rest of my life – but please take away the fear.

(I’ve always been a deal-maker – apparently, by the age of two, I was bargaining with my mum about bedtime, and suggesting what she would have to do to make me agree to go to bed.)

But physical pain (to me, anyway) seems much easier to handle than emotional or mental pressure. Perhaps the more tangible nature of the pain makes it easier to manage. There’s a physical problem with a physical solution – be it a hot water bottle, painkillers or physiotherapy. But a problem that you can’t point to and say “that’s where it hurts” seems much more difficult to approach.

Who was I bargaining with, anyway? God? I’m pretty sure that’s not the way he works – he wouldn’t need to make a deal with us, to exchange one kind of pain for another. In fact, he’s made a deal to exchange all that’s bad for all that’s perfect. He’s already offered the ultimate exchange in Jesus – the only one we’ll ever truly need.

Let go

I can be quite an anxious person, a quiet in-the-corner worrier trying to see the bright side. I have lost count of the number of times this verse has been given to me (thanks, if one of those times it was you): “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”

 

You might think that’s easy to say – but I find this verse very reassuring, because this isn’t twee advice, this is God. This is God telling us through Paul that we do not actually need to be anxious. At all. Things trouble us, but we don’t need to drown in them.

 

We had a helpful discussion in our Bible study group last week, based on this verse, about letting go of anxieties and burdens. Somebody famous apparently once said, in response to a concern about constant prayer seeming to make no difference, ‘Stop praying’. Not because we shouldn’t take the things that trouble us to our heavenly father – of course we should – but sometimes we can think we are letting go in prayer and all we are doing is reminding ourselves of the problem and going over and over it in our minds. We can get stuck in a loop of telling God all about this situation we’ve been in for months and analysing how and why it is the way it is – but without actually giving it over to him. One member compared it to the classic “Don’t think of an orange”. (Are you now thinking of an orange?)

 

Don’t think of an orange. Especially not this one.

 

Prayer isn’t magic – we won’t necessarily feel any different, and the problem itself may not disappear. But if we believe God is capable, kind, loving and fair, then part of praying about these things should be letting go of them. We are dependent on God, and that’s the point. 

A leap of faith

Before Christmas, a friend challenged me to do something I “wouldn’t usually do”. So this week, I agreed to go climbing (this is where we went). It was much chalkier than I expected, but the crash mats at the foot of the walls were reassuringly bouncy.



The Depot: Nottingham

 
From the off, I banned the word fail (it’s not too confidence-building), and we opted instead for “deferred success”. A very appropriate term for an activity like this, where quite frequently at first you don’t succeed. But you try, and try again.
 
The moment of deferred success that has most stuck with me was my second attempt at a particular course I hadn’t managed first time around. There was a point where I knew in theory what had to come next, but just didn’t believe I could do it. I was about ready to give up, when I heard the words “I have faith in you”.
 
What was intended as an encouragement served instead as both a guilt-trip and a challenge for my pride. Still not brimful of confidence, I just had to take a leap of faith – and it worked. I reached the top and felt I had indeed done something I wouldn’t normally have done.
 
How often is this true of all us, in all sorts of things! To get any further up the metaphorical (or in this case, physical) wall, we sometimes have to let go and remove our feet from their safety ledge. We won’t necessarily succeed the first time, and we might not even enjoy the process. But true deferred success and a sense of retrospective fun can make it all worth it.

New year, new start?

 

 
Happy New Year! New year, new start, new me... The year has just changed, which means we’re all now new people, much more capable of doing good things than we were last week. Or something.
 
The trouble is, as we discover every year, resolutions are like rules: made to be broken.
 
It’s not that setting ourselves goals of healthier lifestyles, tidier houses, better friendships, more organised work lives, or whatever it might be, is not a good thing to be doing. It’s just that we are human, and we make mistakes. By creating a list of ideals at the start of each new calendar year, we seem to be setting ourselves up to fail. With all the sincerity and effort in the world, we’re not going to be perfect people in 2014.
 
If we could fix ourselves by trying harder, there’d be no need for God to send Jesus to rescue us. (We celebrated that just last week, remember?)
 
But that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to ignore our shortcomings and simply live our lives ever more selfishly. Instead, this year, I’m humbly advocating identifying “themes” to work on – areas of life where there is room for meaningful improvement that we can talk to God about, and work out together how to glorify him in them.
 
It being a new year becomes irrelevant – it’s never a bad time to work on being holy. What is more, whenever we fall down, we can rely on God’s grace to help us back up.

Cake-mixed metaphors

Family and friends will know I like to bake the odd cake. My most frequent cake is a chocolate one – a family favourite with reliable results. The trouble is that baking is an art, not a science, and while you can follow the recipe and control the variables fairly well, no two home-made cakes are identical. (Not even this pair I cooked up with a friend recently, though they came pretty close...)

Things go wrong sometimes (that’s life). And the last time I made my usual cake, the poor sponge couldn’t quite take the weight of the icing I poured on the top.
 

 
The icing on the cake was the straw that broke the camel’s back, I thought. Which just goes to show that I don’t actually think about the things I put into words. If George Orwell was alive today he’d be turning in his grave. (I wish I had come up with this line, but it’s actually a misquote from the film Brassed Off.) Orwell lamented the decline of the English language, noting (amongst other things) that “incompatible metaphors are frequently mixed, a sure sign that the writer is not interested in what he is saying”.

But isn’t that part of what makes language fun?

Days like this

Some days it’s hard to climb the stairs.
Each step seems far too high,
My legs too weak
To carry me.

Some days it’s hard to finish a task.
I struggle to see a reason why
I should not put it off
Until tomorrow.
 
Some days it’s hard to keep worry at bay,
The anxious thoughts, 
The nervous tension,
Panic, guilt and shame. 
 
Some days it’s hard to stand up tall,
Pinned to the bed or couch
By a small voice of fear that says 
There is no point at all.
 
Some days it’s hard to climb the stairs,
And some days I bounce up them
Two at a time.