Writing and Uni...

So I have literally 2 weeks to go till I start University! Getting quite nervous now! I have bought the books, I've got my timetable and now I'm ready to go. I first applied for Uni back in February and since then it hasn't really felt real that I would actually be going but when I received my reading list I thought, "Okay this is really real now!!" Going on this course is a humongous step for me as when I left education 3 years ago I never thought I would get the opportunity to go back.

I love writing and reading but particularly over the past couple of years my writing has taken a whole new direction. It isn't just about writing it's more than that, it's become a way to express myself, it's unlocked my heart. I have written in and from some of the most painful experiences and in doing so the joy has been even greater when I started to move from that season of pain, of wilderness to that of abundance, of God's promises and of His revelation of Truth.

I am going to University to bring another experience of stepping out in this new season of restoration. I am hoping I will gain new tools for writing and grow in confidence. One of the modules I will start next year will be Creative Writing which I am super excited about. So I shall try and keep up blogging posts here and there about my experiences at Uni!

So why would I fear the future?

Regret...something I have not felt in the 3 years since I have known. I believed I was being courageous getting tested but I did not know how much the result would torment me. It tests me every day and as I stood in front of the mirror this morning putting make up on my face I felt a surge of regretfulness over the choice I made. I thought to myself, 'Wouldn't it be easier now if I had made a different choice?' I gazed at myself, 'Would I be the same person I am now?' 

I had accepted the diagnosis readily with such ease but now something is stirring inside me screaming, 'I don't want it! The burden is too heavy'. Seeing my father beginning to show early signs of HD conjured up images, thoughts and feelings of my future. There is so much fear surrounding the disease's form of attack, the way it seems to strip away a person's identity. The way that daughter must look at father knowing she must become like him. 

Wouldn't it have been easier now if I had not taken that test? I could at least put all my faith and trust in God that I would be free of disease as no laboratory results would say otherwise. Instead I have this piece of paper inscribed with my fate. Yet as I have free will I made the choice to see what lay dormant in me. Again it was confirmed as little embryos formed in me were discovered to hold the same toxic seed. 

I have another choice before me- despite all this knowledge that has come from DNA, from doctors and generations before me do I still trust God that He will work it all out for good? Do I still have hope that somehow I could be healed from what is deemed an incurable disease? I made a choice and chose this path and I don't pretend it isn't harder- it calls for my faith to be so much bigger, it calls for me to look beyond what I think I understand and put complete trust in God. 

"Then Jesus went to work on his disciples. “Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You’re not in the driver’s seat; I am. Don’t run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I’ll show you how. Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to finding yourself, your true self. What kind of deal is it to get everything you want but lose yourself? What could you ever trade your soul for?"

~Matthew 16:24-26

David may not have had a piece of paper to show for it but he had a death warrant on his life. Saul wanted him dead and it was battle that required David to put all his trust in God and in doing so his faith grew bigger and bigger each time. He reminded himself all the time of God's goodness and expressed his heart in the writing of his songs. So why would I fear the future? "Fear will never conquer me, for you already have!'"

So I pray that though this path is hard at times I will remember, "the deeds of the LORD; yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago", of how big our God is and how nothing is impossible with Him!! 

"So why would I fear the future? For I'm being pursued by Your goodness and unfailing love". ~Psalm 23 The Passion Translation.

Choosing to love...

It has been 4 months since my relationship with my Dad has been restored. I have been amazed at what God has been doing but also how He has been doing it too! I am continuing writing everything that has been happening and through my writing I have been able to express some of my most deepest thoughts. 

There has been a lot of rebuilding and through the rubble and ruins I have had to sift the old objects of my memories. Memory after memory has been resurfaced and each time I have to choose what I want to do with it. This is soul restoration - I am being completely rebuilt. Foundations removed entirely and replaced by Jesus. Sometimes I feel conflicted as I am pulled between the old and the new. 

Many conflicting feelings have arisen since building the new relationship with my Dad as my soul battles between love and fear. Love will win it out- it always does but there is pain in moving from the one to the other. Firstly I have had to get out of my comfort zone! I knew that in choosing to accept this relationship instead of rejecting it that I would have to move into places of great discomfort. How tempting it can be to run from those places and it has took all my strength not to. 

In my counselling sessions using Sozo tools many times I declared forgiveness for my father rejecting me. Yet now as I walk the journey of rebuilding forgiveness becomes an act- it moves from words to actions. Just as I declared my forgiveness in the spiritual realm it must now take place in the physical realm. I must choose in each moment to let go and let God fill me with His love. 

A flood of emotions have overcome me at times abruptly leaving me feeling heavy and oppressed. I am overwhelmed by their rude awakening. Anger, doubt, distrust, resentment, self-pity tormented my soul. I had never been angry at my Dad before and now it raged through me. I love my Father in heaven, not this father who was never there for me and left me with an inheritance I never wanted. As I filled with hatred it felt so unnatural, rebellion and self-destruction followed soon after and I was getting pulled into a greater force stronger than all this. Then God reminded me, gently and quietly, He reminded me of love and how much He loves me. 

Yet more than this He reminded me that is a choice- I have to choose to love and there is power in that. God chose to love me when I was nothing and when I was a complete mess! God restored my father to me and therefore I must choose love over fear and forgiveness over hate. God's love is stronger than any hate, his love burns with holy fire and will shine through all. 

The Life Giver...

I wrote this some time ago back in February. This is my picture of how I have seen God in my life. He has been the Nurturer and the Life Giver and I am forever changed by Him.

God planted the seed (me) into the dark warm place of my mother's womb. The seed was made up of many parts of my mother and father but it was unique, never before created. The seed grew taking shape and form in the mysterious quiet of the womb becoming more and more recognizable.

In due time the beautiful work of God was ready to be birthed and brought forth into the world. From the moment I was born roots were put down and the tiny sprout was visible. As I grew in height a solid brown trunk held my being. My roots entwined deeper into the earth below me.

I was watered by my mother's love and strengthened. Branches sprung sturdy and green with leaves. I grew and grew and grew. Yet as I got taller and my roots thickened my mother's love was not enough nourishment. I was missing something crucial, something life-sustaining. So I stopped growing, the leaves gradually began to wither and turn brown, some even dropped off. My branches became brittle and were delicate, easily broken. Some began to break under the pressures and demands of the world. What happened to the beautiful seed God had planted?

The life was being slowly starved from me. I was hungry for that living giving water...so hungry. The branches that were left were not my own, they were disconnected, broken and weak. One final blow was the discovery that within my branches I carried a life destroying disease formed in my seed and given to me from my father- the absent father who had not watered me with his love and instead had withheld all love at all.

How was I to bear up under this new knowledge? I had already grown so weak, so broken, who could help me now? Just as every last drop of hope drained away from me I looked up and saw Him who I had longed for. I almost felt like saying, "It was you all along who I was missing. I was hungry and nothing filled me but you" and He sent His rain of love upon me. I breathed. I was badly damaged and it would take time to restore and rebuild.

He asked me, "Do you trust that I can rebuild you?" I answered, "Yes". He said, "You will be a new creation and will have eternal life". I sighed, a deep sigh of peace. From that day forward I breathed in His air, I was fed by His love, watered with His grace. Some of my branches were pruned so that new could grow, dead leaves fell away and I was bare before the Lord. Some days were hard as I became impatient to see what God was doing.

Then it happened! I saw a tiny green bud and a nodule. New life was forming! God smiled at my joy. One tiny bud of hope, of life. I thanked Him. My faith was ever increasing as His love abounded me. My tree had been so barren, so empty.

Over the days, months and years many more green buds sprung up all over and new branches were created in place of the old. These new branches were thick, strong and connected firmly to my tree. My tree stood sure in the soil my Father had given me.

My Father told me one day, "These branches I have given to you are the branches of Jesus. All He is is yours. He is my Son and you are my Daughter. Your inheritance is eternal life." I was in awe, "But Father why do I deserve this?" He said, "You have not earned it. It is given to you as a gift of my love. Your old branches are gone. The diseased and broken and dead and I have given you Jesus' ones".

Still Alice, tears and letting go...

**Warning contains major spoilers!**



I have just finished watching the movie Still Alice and after crying literally through the whole thing I felt I needed to write a blog post about it. Although Alice is diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease every part of her story I could relate to. Alice realises something is wrong when she begins to forget very important things such as getting lost on her daily run and forgetting what she was talking about in one her lectures. So she goes to the doctors thinking it might be a brain tumour and was shocked to discover a rare form of early-onset Alzheimer's was what was stealing her memory. 

This wasn't the only discovery she made though, after further tests her neurologist discovers that it is a familial form of Alzheimer's. Therefore her three children had a 50/50 chance of being a carrier and if they were positive, a 100% chance of developing symptoms. One of her daughter's Anna had been trying to start a family with IUI. Two of Alice's children tested, her son was negative but her daughter Anna was positive. Her other daughter chose not to get tested. 

By this time I was completely undone with crying and it brought back a lot of memories of when I got diagnosed with Huntington's disease. Alice's character reminded me a lot of myself before my diagnosis and it runs completely parallel with the journey God has been taking me on. This quote particularly made me smile:

"But on my bad days, I feel like I can’t find myself. I’ve always been so defined by my intellect, my language, my articulation and now sometimes I can see the words hanging in front of me and I can’t reach them and I don’t know who I am and I don’t know what I’m going to lose next"

I always used to define myself by my articulation and my intellect but God's been showing me more and more how that had just become another wall to my true self within. I thought it made me who I am but it just became a barrier to who I really was. 

Later on in the movie Alice makes a speech to the Alzheimer's society. She begins her speech by saying;

"The poet Elizabeth Bishoponce wrote: 'the Art of Losing isn't hard to master: so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster.' I'm not a poet, I am a person living with Early Onset Alzheimer's, and as that person I find myself learning the art of losing every day".

Again I find it easy to relate to this as through this diagnosis in becoming broken God has been showing me to let go of so many things in my life. I am learning more and more there is beauty in brokenness. I didn't like being broken, I kept wanting to go back to the person I used to be. So I did everything I could to cover up the brokenness and hid all the cracks but God doesn't want that! He wants me as I am! So I find myself daily learning the art of letting go. It doesn't seem to make sense but in letting go I become whole. It is the complete opposite of what we are all trying to do.We think we are losing not gaining. We all want to advance, to progress, to move forward! 

“My yesterdays are disappearing, and my tomorrows are uncertain, so what do I live for? I live for each day. I live in the moment!" 

This movie truly captured my heart and allowed me to see another part of myself that I had been longing for. Sometimes I fight so hard to forget about my diagnosis, other times I believe that I should be focusing entirely on being healed but in both ways I always feel like I am clinging on so tightly, either in shutting my eyes to it, or believing it will be gone entirely. Yet perhaps God wants something even greater than that for me- perhaps He wants me to let go... 

Fighting with anxiety...

It's become quite obvious to me now that it's time I wrote about the anxiety which has been plaguing me strongly since the end of last year. It is time to declare this anxiety as being very small which it hasn't felt like as I have quietly fought with it. Doesn't something always feel so much larger when it is kept within the walls of your inner world? Yet when we lead it out into the open, into the bright stark light we see it for the first time in it's true size- tiny!

This anxiety has been a stranglehold at times, choking the life from me. It came with a suddenness into my life but with time spent in counselling I have seen how deep the grain of the anxiety lies. It had been hovering under the surface of my life for many years just below my conscious. With it being tucked away and hidden from sight it might have surfaced a little sometimes but still not enough to make me aware of the destruction it would cause.

After a series of events in my life of difficult times, illness followed by a generational disease, culminated by 3 rounds of failed IVF and this year the tearing open of an old wound by the reemergence of my father in my life - all had a snowball effect upon the fear seeded in my heart. Suddenly fear broke through strong and hard, the surface was cracked and it was released.

Anxiety attacks began after the last failed IVF round and I entered this new year with a burden I didn't want to carry. I didn't want people to see me suffering with this anxiety and would hide it as much as I could trying to push it back into that secret place it came from but it would not go back into hiding! Soon my husband became aware of the anxiety and I caved in and told him all I had been feeling. A small part of me felt relief in releasing it from myself to another. This happened on Christmas Day last year and I started then on a whole new journey of now learning to live with this risen anxiety.

At times I sank into deep pits of despair and would feel so ashamed of the fear I was carrying. I found myself crying more often and my heart felt tender. Yet something became clearer with each attack a revelation would follow closely behind from God. The attack would bring such confusion and everything would feel completely foggy and unclear but usually straight afterwards a truth about myself would be revealed. Layer after layer was being peeled away and God was restoring light into my life. Every so often it would feel so dark but again and again God would shine through with the burning truth. He never left me, He was by side and walking through it with me. This process was painful but there was something in it, something more than what my eyes were seeing. God has been taking me on the journey of fear so it can be replaced, so it can be reinstated with Faith!

He is revealing more and more to me every day and my journey is taking shape and form as I see what true restoration really means! I have so much more that I could write but I breathe a sigh as I let go of the words onto the page...My heart feels lighter..

 I must thank all those dear friends who have been walking this journey with me.

When life gets busy...

As I write today I battle with the effects of burn-out. This year has become one of the most fulfilling and exhilarating years I have ever experienced. We have been blessed in so much but one thing I continuously fight with is the momentum life can suddenly reach. 

The year ahead is jam-packed with new and exciting events and activities but I often face the question of how can I have the energy to do them all? This began when at 14 years old I was diagnosed with M.E.- an illness that robs you of your energy. I have never really written about it and have attempted so many times to keep it hidden but still the struggle is there. 

Often the lack of energy at times can cause me to feel extremely despondent as I have to navigate through all the different opportunities that are daily given to me. The last few weeks have been particularly hard as there have been a lot of difficulties to overcome. The only way I can describe to you what it feels like most of the time is in the form of a picture. I am like a person who is spinning plates, I'll get a couple of plates spinning really strong and solid and feel happy to start trying others. However I often get very excitable as those plates are going really well so I'll reach for another 5 or 10 instead of 1! Before I know they all come tumbling down and I have to start again. 

Yet I have felt God saying to me continuously over this year..."Let go, stop trying to spin those plates and come to me"...  I have began to realise that my weariness frequently heightens when I do not spend time in His presence. I need His presence. There is healing in His presence. The plate spinner madly dashes back and forth fearful of the crash of tumbling plates. Yet the Jesus follower doesn't need spinning plates, he peacefully walks past him and says, "My Father has got this because each plate is in His hand!" 

Matthew 11:28
"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest"...