Tag Archives: God

2023 – The Year of Resilience

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In a country, many centuries ago, 3 teenage boys were sentenced to be thrown into a fiery furnace due to the fact that they made a decision to not compromise their beliefs and doing what was right. The country in question was a superpower of its region and ruled by a feared dictator who had very sadistic tendencies. In spite of the proverbial ‘poo hitting the fan’ for these lads, they had something about them that enabled them to endure and as a result they were released unscathed.

If there is one thing that I will leave 2023 thinking about, it’s the fact that I had to smile when I reviewed my entries for the end of 2022 and 2021. I decided not to look back at my entry for 2020, because, well, you know…

I was going to start this blog post with the usual line of how difficult this year was etc but instead I am extremely thankful.

What’s that you say? Thankful? (Is she actually ok?)

Yep, I am actually thankful in a very weird way. I have felt over the recent years that I may have missed a very important jig-saw piece to life. I would typically reach the end of a year, hopeful that the following year would be better than the last, that my luck would change, that there might be a degree of reprieve to the many ‘poos hitting the fan’ moments. But with this mindset came the disappointment – disappointed that the cares and issues of life would hit, one after the other, feeling as though I’m constantly in ‘survival mode’, existing more than living.

So it is with great pleasure that I leave 2023 learning that whilst I cannot escape these problems, I can bolt on an additional mechanism to assist with how I deal with them. I thought I’d “smashed” it with having those quiet times in prayer, meditating on God’s Word, setting key boundaries and limiting what I could physically deal with. But this year has taught me that as well as what I’m currently doing I have realised that it has enabled me to recognise and develop resilience.

Now you’re probably thinking “Well, you have been doing this throughout all these years” and in some respects you are absolutely right. I guess the difference with this year has been the fact that I chose not to recognise it as an after effect but to be more assertive in facing challenges with the tools – or some might say weapons – at my disposal.

For me, ‘Resilience’ was my ability this year to face a challenge with the knowledge that I will eventually come through it. The challenges were tough, brought me to my knees (work, just….work), even traumatic (watching Mum in October fight for life in A&E after another heart attack). Through God’s grace I dealt with each situation knowing that I had a Saviour who understood – who would plant ideas/solutions into my head which then worked. Who flooded me with a sense of encouragement during the particularly challenging moments. Who influenced and changed the timelines of projects to enable me to deal with the emergency with Mum.

Image by Bruce from Pixabay

Recalling all the other occasions when I managed to get through trials helped, along with maintaining healthy boundaries at work and basically making significant use of saying “No” when to say “Yes” would have been so much easier and less confrontational. It helped a lot and for that I am thankful.

From my last post entry I had invested more time in my hobbies this year as a pressure release from all the drama. I’d even begun looking over the book that I have been writing.

So, today my mind recalled the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, 3 Jewish teenagers taken into captivity approximately 300 or so BCE. I can imagine these kids having experienced quite a significant level of trauma, rotten days, where the proverbial “poo hit the fan” for them. Yet the account of them refusing to obey a king who demanded that they forfeit the very thing that helped them cope with life by kneeling and worshipping a statue, being thrown into a fiery furnace as punishment, and then subsequently surviving against such impossible odds, spoke to me of how – over time – they developed such an enviable resilience to make it through to another day. What they had is what we’ve all got at our disposal too.

How amazing is that?

So today, I celebrate being a child of the Most High God who never said life will be a bed of roses but who did promise that He is with us every step of the way.

This has equipped me to recognise and look forward to 2024 and all that it will bring.

What is My Purpose?

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I have been very thankful as of late in terms of overcoming the challenges that 2022 had thrown at me earlier in the year and particularly last week when I truly was able to ‘catch my breath’, being able to pause and stop to enjoy the things around me.

Lady looking out over a mountain range, thinking
What is my purpose?

So it came as some surprise when towards the end of last week, culminating on Monday (which was a Bank Holiday in the UK), I woke up a little perturbed. As I sat up in bed, I reflected on what in actual fact am I doing with my life. Procrastination had now become my middle name, in fact, if you were to look up that word in the Oxford dictionary, you would see me. Well you wouldn’t really…. but well you know what I mean! I had slid back into a little nasty habit of comparing myself to others which typically sends me into a spiralled sense of not bothering to do anything since there wasn’t much point. Now that Mum had stabilised and was more stronger, I could not longer use the ‘excuse’ that after working a 5 day week, I had neither the energy nor time to devote any time to anything else (including this blog). And yet there I was lamenting on the fact that I hadn’t devoted any more time to anything else.

So last week, I was sat at my work’s laptop having completed a meeting, I muted my mic and switched off my camera. It was just me and God. Whilst here I quietly asked Him, why am I here? Now I hasten to add, it wasn’t a doom and gloom, “why am I here” but more of a “what is my purpose because I seem to have forgotten” kind of question.

An overwhelming flood of love washed over me (which I’ve not felt in a long time) and I was quite taken aback by its strength. Immediately afterwards I was reminded of the things I had done thus far last week which pointed to my purpose – the Executive PA who was stressed out/close to tears, that I quietly listened to and helped so that she could set up her Teams meeting for her Director, the laughter and time spent with my kids and the group hugs, the singing in the car when I thought no one was looking (to the amusement of a passing driver who was looking), the 63 year old administrator tasked with building her department’s web pages again close to tears but who nonetheless was able to build her web pages while on a call with me. Essentially I was reminded of all the times I had just done – what I perceived to be – just normal day to day things. But looking back what I saw instead was the ‘thank you’ emails, the remarks thanking me for being that listening ear, the smiles. I hadn’t noticed them in the moment but looking back I realised the impact I had on those individuals in just that one week.

I had read somewhere that what we believe about ourselves will have a massive impact on how we live out our purpose. If a person doesn’t think much of themselves or loses sight of who they are, they run the risk of grinding to a halt, slipping into a sense of apathy. One of the Bible verses for Monday was taken from Ephesians 2 verse 10 which says:

“For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

(NIV UK)

Now the Greek word for ‘workmanship’ or ‘handiwork’ is Poiema and I hadn’t realised this but it is where we get the word ‘poem’ from. In the context of the verse above it means we have been made by God himself. It’s who we are and beautifully crafted we are too. To dig a bit deeper (this was me on Monday) – whenever I see the beautiful creations that writers do when they compose poems, it struck me how intricate and beautiful we are.

But the answer to my original question followed – my purpose in Christ was to do good works. Simples! Especially when it was in front of me in black and white, but yet I hadn’t immediately seen it in myself. Now, this is not a green light for me to purposefully run outside and help that little old lady across the busy main road to gain brownie points somehow. But quite literally to just keep doing me – the things that I hadn’t considered to be important but which had impacted on those around me and was important to them. I was never meant to start that remote missionary somewhere in a deepest darkest Amazon jungle, I just needed to continue to make a difference in my home and workplace.

That was what God had prepared me in advance to do.

So the next time you pick up that kid’s scarf from the ground and place it on a garden fence for that Mum on a school run to see, that quiet nod of good morning to the bus passenger on the No 55, the word of encouragement to a stranger not realising just how crappy their day had been – you know those tiny acts of kindness that we don’t think about when we do it? Keep doing those things.

That’s part of our purpose while we walk on this earth.