Quiet whispers in a hurricane..

"What if your blessing comes through raindrops? What if your healing comes through tears? What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know you are near? What if the trials of this life are your mercies in disguise?" 

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

It's no major secret that the last few weeks have been somewhat 'challenging'. With various different things going on around family life, with my host family, friends, and just in myself personally I am genuinely surprised I've held myself together so well thus far. As I was spending my time last night watching the second hand on the clock tick instead of sleeping I took some time to think and remember how much my life has changed in the past 3 years and despite the difficulties I face now, how good God is in the middle of it all, whether I feel it or not.

Three years ago I was half way through my first year in a nursing degree, I lived off alcohol, cigarettes & toffeecrisps, I was badly depressed and a chronic self harmer, I had terrible friends (I was in England by the way, my friends in NI were great..) and amongst various other things I was in the middle of an abusive relationship.

At the time I wasn't sure why I was still alive or why I needed to be for that matter and I think I surprised myself at just how bad I had let things get before I did anything about it.

Looking back now however, the action path I chose wasn't the best one as i soon discovered (but recovered from).

Two years ago, I was thankful for my life and nearly all that was in it. God had started me on a journey of growth in learning about who I was, and what he had for me. Never in a million years would I have said two years ago that I would be here right now. but ANYWAY. Different story for another time. I was so thankful for where I was and the people I had around me and that I wasn't in some of the same situations as I was three years ago, but things still weren't easy. I still struggled with eating, I still self harmed-no where near as often but it was still there-and I hadn't quite shaken the depression but things were getting better and that was enough to keep me going.

One year ago I had quit self harming, I was free of depression, and I had 99% shaken the eating problem. I genuinely felt a whole lot better in myself, in who I was, why I was here, and the plans God had for me. I was applying for a full time internship course at my church and for the first time in probably my whole life I was really excited for what was going on.

That's not to say I didn't have any difficulties or issues at the time, I did, and plenty of them,  but I was learning how to handle them in a less destructive, more constructive kind of way. Yes I still had bad days where I would 'forget' to eat or I'd 'accidentally' slip and burn myself, or I'd have a 'headache' and hide under my duvet all day, but everyone is allowed a bad day. It's part of learning and growing.

At the end of the day we're only human and we're going to make mistakes and that's ok. It's what you learn from them that counts.

This year I have encountered various different 'challenges' and they haven't been easy. Whilst they haven't been the same as the challenges I had to overcome 3 years ago they've been just as difficult to face most of the time but I've learnt to be strong and I guess   one of the things I've had to learn more recently, or rather, last night, is that it's ok to NOT be ok sometimes.

Admitting that you aren't ok isn't actually admitting that you've failed, or that you are weak, or anything like that, but really it's your chance to tell the hurricane going on around you to shut the hell up so you can hear God's secret whispers in the midst of it, encouraging you to keep going, that He loves you, that He's proud of you, that He sees you, that He cares.

It's funny how easy it is to drown out the hurricane with the quiet whispers when you take the time to listen to them.

Sometimes life can feel so completely overwhelming in the middle of a current situation but yet when you remove yourself from it and change your perspective it almost seems worthwhile to fight through.

aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh

So, last year our church (as in the staff and congregation-rather than the building) took on the challenge to read the entire bible in a year, a plan was devised of different readings from different books for every day of the year. This year we decided to shake it up a bit and do the plan again but with a twist. We have a blog now, each day somebody new uploads a devotional to the blog for that days Old Testament passage. (If you want you can follow the journey found in my wee about me section on the right :)) 

As an avid blogger and professional writer (haaa, excuse me while i re-inflate my lungs) i thought it would be a fabulous idea to sign myself up as a devotional writer for a couple of the dates.

Here lies my problem. date of first blog-22nd feb. Old Testament passage? Leviticus 13-"Regulations about infectious skin diseases" how does anyone even relate to that? i mean really? aahh what a difficult passage.

I can't even find one key verse to choose that "jumps out at me" is the Old Testament really that irrelevant to todays culture?

-Maybe not, maybe I'm just not looking at it from the correct perspective.

In those times you got sick because you were sinful...

oh look the Old Testament just got relevant?

So essentially in those days skin disease=sin

so I'm totally not saying that the same is true for today but what I am saying is here we have a list of regulations that instruct us on how people in that time dealt with what we assume is their illness but in fact its about how they dealt with their sin.

In this time holiness and being at one with God was all about cleanliness and it was only a priest who could decide if you were clean or unclean. In order to make yourself clean you had to (obviously) wash yourself with water. If you were clean on the outside then essentially you could be"friends" with God again.

I don't know about you but personally I am mega relieved this is not the case today. (It's good to be clean and all but I don't live a perfect life so I would spend my whole time visiting priests and washing myself dodgy.com

I feel so privilidged to serve a God that is a personal God, that loves me and wants to be my friend regardless of my sin (not that this is a permission slip to live a life of jerkness/sinfulness) All I'm saying is that with Jesus we have the opportunity to come before God ourselves and repent and be cleansed. In OT times they cleansed the outside with water but in New Testament times Jesus told them that being clean came from the heart. Matthew 15 tells us that it is not what goes into our mouth that makes us unclean but rather what comes out of it. What comes out of the mouth comes from the heart and it is those thoughts that make a person clean or unclean.

If we can keep our hearts pure and remember that there is abundant grace from God then maybe we don't need to worry so much about whats on the outside...maybe thats the problem with today? People are too busy trying to make their outside look presentable their insides are rotting.

How is your heart today?