Stairway Encounters

 

   
I like to sit on my stairs at home. It has frequently been a spot where I take a few moments out to be in an in-between space, a pause in the up and down, a narrow interlude to be neither here nor there.

Something about that midway ledge brings out the deepest honesty I have to offer God in that moment. I can think of several occasions over the course of the years when I have sat on the stairs with head in hands, heavy with ashen, burdensome thoughts and I’ve told God things like, ‘I can’t’, ‘I don’t see how’ or even ‘I don’t think I really believe that’.

But here’s the thing about a stairway - it’s a place of transition, we don’t stay there for too long. A ledge isn’t a place to be secure or to get very comfortable, the pause doesn’t last and there is an eventual shift back to movement, an interlude is always followed by the next acts of the production.

My most recent stairway experience was a head bowed low moment with thoughts that I would hardly have recognised as prayer. As I sat in the pause, my heart said, “I would really love somone to tell me that it’s all going to be okay, but no-one is going to do that are they, including you God because that’s not what you say’, and I vacated my ledge low in hope and filled with despondency.

A few hours later that evening, my phone pinged with a single message. My frame of mind almost made me miss the words right there in the middle of the text, despite the fact that there were even capital letters used to highlight it. A friend reached out with care and compassion to tell me, ‘it WILL all be okay.’

‘Did God just…?’

‘Have I just been told…?’

‘Did he really hear me say…?’


I’m still blinking in surprise!

But there were the words on the screen. An iMessage from God.

If we think those frank and honest stairway thoughts are hidden from or unknown to God, we are clearly mistaken. The fact that we are whispering them so very quietly in our inner world means that he must be awfully close beside us to hear them.

To quote from the George MacDonald poem, ‘That Holy Thing’

‘My how or when Thou wilt not heed,
But come down Thine own secret stair,
That Thou mayst answer all my need -
Yea, every bygone prayer.


That text message gave me so much reassurance that evening. The difficulty I was facing had not been removed but the emotional and spiritual heaviness was dispelled. Instead I had joy and delight at the unexpectedness of God’s response. I was given a double measure of presence. Not only did I receive comfort through the kindness of a friend full of empathy but also a remarkable and uplifting affirmation of God’s tender-hearted graciousness and presence.

Maybe next time we find ourselves needing a little while on the stairs, or wherever that may be for you, we will hold on to the knowledge that every thought and feeling, every word spoken or inwardly breathed, is heard by our Father who loves us just as we are.

May our stairway meetings be a holy thing.

The Gift of Fellowship

I was sitting on the edge of the bed gazing at the moon. It was framed perfectly by the window and it felt as if I’d been granted access to a gallery after closing, for a private viewing of an Old Master original. 

This flower moon, so-called as it appears at a time when there is an abundance of flowers, was the last of four super-moon’s to occur this year and it was spectacular. Maybe you saw it too and like me, paused to exhale breath tainted by apprehension and fear.  

I sat long enough for it to move across the darkening canvas, the full, bright disc of reflected light drawing me into gratitude and wondering worship. 

The gift was not only in its ethereal beauty but also companionship in a moment marked by tears, during which a friend’s words arced across my own heart’s nightfall as they lit up my phone screen with care and friendship. 

Events far beyond my control were taking place and I wondered in the moment, about the sadness that can be felt by the human heart, while at the very same time experiencing joyful communion with the Creator. 

I wondered about the mystery of how Jesus ministers to us through the words and acts of his beloved daughters and sons, of how he shines his light on us through the window of another person’s heart, how we can see him more clearly when we are in fellowship with our brothers and sisters, who abide in his love and within whom his Spirit lives. 

This is the gift inherent in Kingdom fellowship. Love’s orbit beams tender light into the shadowed rooms of souls. As we draw alongside one another with compassion and kindness, the transcendent brightness of mirrored love becomes a personal and exclusive celestial event of beauty and blessing.

This is something I have learned - not because I read it in a book, even though I’ve read about it countless times, not because I heard it preached, even though I’ve heard countless sermons, not even because I’ve witnessed it happening around me countless times. I truly learned it because God opened the black out blind, drew back the curtains and radiated love through the framework of friendship into the dim rooms within my own heart. 

Strangely, we don’t always want him to do that though. Sometimes our impulse is to snatch the curtains closed again. It can be an uncomfortable experience to have a space within us illuminated, however gentle the light falling on our vulnerability. The trouble with that though, is that we miss out on the gift of a gallery seat and the memorable viewing. 

The moon passed on across the sky that night having wiped my tears, leaving me to sleep soundly. 

I thought of it when I read the words of Philippians 4:14 in The Message a week or so later.

‘It was a beautiful thing that you came alongside me in my troubles.’

It’s true. 

I know this because God gives the gift of fellowship and it is beautiful.

I know this because I saw the moon reflecting the sun’s light right outside my window and it was glorious.

God, The Sea and Me

And just like that, it stopped.

Only five minutes before, I had messaged my sister with the words, ‘It’s lashing!’ followed by a sad face emoji.

The disappointment of driving an hour to the North Coast, and seeing grey sheets of icy rain sweeping across the dunes of White Rocks beach, was enough to make me admit that perhaps it is worth trusting the weather app on my phone in future. 

The weeks leading up to half term had increasingly produced a relentless clamour of anxious thoughts generated by a propensity to react emotionally to everyone and everything without the safeguards of logic or reason. The urge to jump in the car and drive until reaching the end of dry land, strengthened with the passing of every worry strewn day. 

‘I just want to go and walk on a beach. I don’t even need it to be warm!’ was my Whatsapp cry the week previous, but I did definitely prefer it to be dry.

However, in less than the five minutes it took to pull into the car park at Portrush East Strand beach, the sky had cleared. Buffeted by the wind, we pulled on hats and coats, and careened over to the footpath. 

The tide was in and there wasn’t much beach to actually walk on but it didn’t really matter. It was a joy to watch the waves crash, sending water racing all the way up to the sea wall. 

The constant motion and magnitude of untameable power straining on an invisible leash is magnetic and awe inspiring.

Isn’t it just the simple pleasure of feeling the wind on your face and standing before the wide open wilderness of water that opens an inner door to let the agents of chaos out?   

It makes me think of a wonderful sea related quote, from Anthony Doerr’s book, All the Light We Cannot See;

“It is my favorite thing, I think, that I have ever seen. Sometimes I catch myself staring at it and forget my duties. It seems big enough to contain everything anyone could ever feel.” 

And then I think that this roaring, pounding, thunderous flood, belongs to God. I think I am as a speck of sand on the world’s shore, yet I belong to him too. And it makes me smile with the knowledge that just for me, he would very kindly stop the rain for a couple of hours, simply so I could enjoy this moment of staring at the sea, forgetting duties and daring to believe that there is someone who is big enough to contain everything that I could ever feel. The awareness of the might of God being exercised for the gentle care of your soul is confounding, humbling and exhilarating all at the same time. 

‘The ocean depths raise their voice O Lord; they raise their voice and roar. The Lord rules supreme in heaven, greater than the roar of the ocean, more powerful than the waves of the sea.’   Psalm 93:3&4 (GNB)

We walked along the promenade and back again, taking pictures of the waves, leaning over the wall to watch the rocks disappearing and reappearing. We gazed as a surfer caught a wave and rode it perfectly all the way in, clapping the achievement enthusiastically despite the surfer being oblivious to the audience. A little dog raced along the edge of the water, while another barked at the crashing waves. We scrambled up the grass to the top of the nearest dune and laughed as the wind tore the breath from our lungs. 

It was worth the journey. It always is. 

And just as we turned to go home, the rain began again, as God gave it permission to fall once more. 

Wonder

Over the Christmas hols I’ve been re-reading The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. It is the same beloved copy I’ve owned since childhood, now yellowed with age and dangerously close to falling apart, but I took the risk of turning the pages again after buying a card at a Narnia themed craft fair. I chose one with a lamp-post on the front and left feeling very satisfied with my purchase. ( I will assume that you know how a lamp-post features in the book). The card then flew its way overseas, dropped eventually through a letterbox amidst Christmas cards, to be read at a very precise, ordained moment in time for a God intended purpose. It now has a quiet, miraculous tale all of its own, as it sits somewhere in my friend’s home far away. 

God takes a piece of creatively folded paper, sends it across multiple time zones and connects lives with words and the Narnian lamp-post to create wonder…sheer wonder at the potential for all things ordinary to become extraordinary in the hands of God. 

Whether we are stepping into 2020 hesitantly or enthusiastically, with optimism or melancholy, full of hope or dread, or a mixture of all of it, life will be full of ordinary things and ordinary moments charged with possibility. 

‘Open my eyes so I can see what you show me of your miracle-wonders.’ Psalm 119:18 (MSG)

There are miracle-wonders to be awed by if we have the willingness to be prayerfully attentive to the flow of the Holy Spirit, who shows up with impeccable timing to colour the prosaic with new layers of meaning and beauty that didn’t exist before. 

That walk in the park turns into invigorating worship, those radio song lyrics are suddenly prophetic, that actor’s line makes your breath hang suspended in your throat without warning. A text message, a conversation, a meal, a kiss on the cheek, a book, clouds, sunlight, rain, the list is endless! Christmas is God showing up in the ordinary and changing everything and it’s not just a seasonal event. 

C S Lewis chose a plain wardrobe for his story. He chose an empty room with dead bluebottles on the window sill and a wardrobe. 

‘…they looked into a room that was quite empty except for one big wardrobe. “Nothing there,” said Peter and they all trooped out again - all except Lucy.’  (The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe) 

Lucy hesitated, simply having an urge to try the wardrobe door. She followed her curiosity that ordinary morning, only to discover a miracle and experience an adventure like no other. 

Holy curiosity quickens to wonder. 

May this year be full of curiosity and wonder. Wonder at the sheer glory of God who walks closely with us in our normal rhythms and abides deeply with us in our unexpected dissonance. 

May we be like the blind men of Matthew 20 who on crying out to Jesus were asked by him, ‘What do you want from me?’ and they said, ‘Master, we want our eyes opened. We want to see!’ 

 And on seeing we will let everyone know that God is blazingly alive among us. (Matthew 15:31 MSG)