I'm exhausted. I'm going to my friends in 10 minutes, but I wanted to say that God is good. God is forgiveness. God does not forgive because he has to he forgives because he wants to. I'm going to expand on this in time after an experience I had this weekend at my friends. Its an odd expereince, it may make me sound slightly weird, and people may not believe me. But I need to write it down, if not for anything else, so I can remember it, and how it has affected me.

Finding Christ Amidst the Brokenness

The last few days have been hugely insightful. Massively painful, and I fear life may be like this for a little while... but maybe I just have to accept that right? That is not me being a victim. Far from it. It's me deciding I need to deal with things, that I have avoided. It's 12am. I'm tired, and yet I cannot bring myself to even think about going to sleep until I have written this blog.

Friday night I met with K. I told him what I wanted to do my dissetation on, and he likes the idea. Is there a link between self harm and salvation? Well, to me, yes. I think there is, and I think it begins with the word brokenness. K told me about a lady he once met who used to be a sister. She had to leave the convent because her self harm was too much for the other sisters to deal with. This lady apparantly went on to explain that she could not sit in a Eucharist, because of the pain it brought her when Christ's body was broken for her. I have to say, I am on similar lines with this lady. The idea of Christ saving us, loving us that much is beyond me. I cannot accept anyone/anything would love me *that* much. Yet God does.

Slowly, over the past few weeks, I have come to realise that Christ is there, on the cross. That in my brokenness he is there. That I just need to be willing to let Him in. This is the point I fail. i deperatly desire to do this, to stop blaming him for the things that have happened, and to move on. To lay them at the foot of the cross, as I have tried so hard to do in the past.

I'm reading a book at the moment in relation to my dissertation called 'Secret Scars'. There is one quote I read last night, and literally sobbed: '...I wasnt willing to let God work in me - I didnt want him to take my coping mechanisms away. I couldn't trust him to help me feel better - I only wanted to do things my way' (Robson, 2007:53). I could have written that. In fact when I was in Taize I wrote something so similar in my journal. The way I deal with the crap life throws at me is MY coping mechanism It's my way of coping. Maybe, I do not want to deal with it in another way. maybe it's easier to ignore God, than to accept that he/she could help...

The problem is, that ignores the reason Christ died for us. It is totally ignoring Christ standing there, beside me even when my life is in shards before me. Now I know that's painful, and I know it is not so easy to accept, as to say, but I wonder if one can truly find beauty some way or another in everything. The photo at the beginning of this blog is a picture in the ruins of Coventry Cathedral. It is a photo of two beams of wood that fell in the shape of a cross, and were found like that after the WWII bombings. Even amidst the pain, hatred, and brokenness in the war, Christ was there. I find that huge.

So often we forget, yet in those times Christ does not forget us.

I just pray one day that this blog isn't a reflection on how I want to feel, but how I actually feel. that it is no longer a painful hope, but it is something I can achieve...

Taizé 2008

On Monday morning I got back from Taizé. In truth, I am still trying to process everything it meant to me this year. But I want to try and explain it as best as I can, for my own reasons more than anything. To try and process some of my thoughts and some of the experiences I had.

As I have previously said in this blog, part of me was genuinely dreading going. I expected it to be a time where I had to face up to things. A time that was painful, and a time where I would be left alone with my problems, to deal with them, and get over them. It wasn't any of those things. OK. To an extent I had to think things through. If I'm honest I didn't ever stop thinking. But it was powerful. I spoke with God. I shouted at God. And I blamed God. But still i felt close to Him. it's hard to explain, and hard to comprehend. But it was powerful. Sitting in God's presence, recognising that in fact he had not abandoned me was immense. Sitting in silence and being able to shout to God was an undeniably necessary experience. I felt guilt over it, genuinely guilty. Thinking that this was something I should not be doing. But it was necessary.

During the time I was in Taizé we spent a lot of time studying Revelation 1-3. On passage stood out to me more than anything:

'12I turned around to see the voice that was speaking to me. And when I turned I saw seven golden lampstands, 13and among the lampstands was someone "like a son of man,"[b]dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest. 14His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. 15His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters. 16In his right hand he held seven stars, and out of his mouth came a sharp double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance.
17When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. Then he placed his right hand on me and said: "Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. 18I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades' (Revelation 1:12-17). Jesus is undoubtedly fully God. But he is fully human. That in some ways is something that is simple because Christians have always been taught just that. Yet to actually accept it becomes more difficult. I guess it is something I have frequently taken for granted, but often not recognised the implications of it.

Recently I have felt out of my depths. Like God is not with me, and that he has truly abandoned me. yet here, in Revelation we are reminded of Jesus, the friend - 'When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. Then he placed his right hand on me and said: "Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. 18I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever!'. To put a hand on someones shoulder is a friendly gesture, a sign of love, of acceptance.... safety. Something I did not feel Christ was doing to me. I saw Him as God of power, the initial description of him something more reasonable. Yet in Taizé it genuinely felt like God was telling me that I should not just see Christ as this, or in fact as someone I should receive solely through the Holy Spirit. But actually that I can receive him, and see him through my friends as well. That the friends I have are there and have Christ in them, and are willing to stand by me, listen to me, and accept me for who I am.

Maybe this sounds trite. Maybe flippant, but to me it's been powerful, and a great comfort.

I do not feel as if I can explain the feelings, and way I felt in Taizé without it sounding less of an experience than it was. But is was wonderful. Yes painful, yes, in someways lonely. But it was huge. And simply life changing once again. Taizé is so simple, yet so powerful. I cannot explain it, it would not do it justice. I do not want it to come across that my faith begins and ends at Taizé , but Taizé is a place I can almost go back to the heart of it, but with Jesus, and renew my faith in Him so that I can come back home and continue living.