Posts

Showing posts from May, 2017

A Season of Grief

  There is one thing I have been most afraid of my entire life, I have had a fear of death…and not just for myself, for those who are closest to me. It’s not because I fear that there isn’t a God who promises life eternal in heaven or that deep down I don’t believe I’m saved. I think it’s more to do with a fear there will be pain in dying, and being a highly emotional person, I fear the brevity of my emotions. So when my sister was first diagnosed with stage four cancer, I was suddenly forced to grapple what I had long feared the most, the potential of loosing a loved one. The confronting realisation that all of us will die, our lives are in God’s hands, and none of us know how long we have to live in this world. It was taking an abstract biblical truth and then putting flesh and bones on it. A lot of big emotions ran through me on a daily basis, and at first I found it to be a very confusing time as my relationship with my sister was very close but at times complicated. Cancer in ...

Expectations

 There is a saying in my family, “Those who are flexible are not easily broken”. Whenever life has dished out circumstances I didn’t anticipate, my natural instinct has been to react negatively; getting upset at the change of plan, or frustrated with the person who didn’t behave in a way I expected them to. So it has been a real challenge for me, to swallow the family motto and be a bit more flexible. Being flexible certainly has its perks. It enables you to encounter change of plans with grace and can be a real asset when needing to think open-mindedly or creatively about new things. However, our response to life’s curve balls and disappointments go a little deeper than just “being flexible”. It’s also about our expectations; the conscious or unconscious thoughts we’ve believed or held onto. It must be said that unrealistic expectations are a hidden snare on the pathway to contentment. Sometimes our unrealistic expectations are wrapped up in how we view God. Recently, I was talkin...