For ragged edged people which is often parents.

‘I feel like this,’ I sighed, inspecting the ragged soft toy dangling by one tatty ear between my finger and thumb.

Jazzy the rabbit.

A sorry sight indeed after years of ownership. Still undoubtedly a boy’s most beloved possession but sadly no longer ‘plush’.

I cannot imagine a time when Jazzy, as forlorn a creature that he is, will not be loved. I’m no longer officially permitted to put Jazzy in the washing machine in case he doesn’t make it out again intact – my maternal outcry at the lack of hygiene falling on stubbornly deaf boy ears. (Unofficially however, without owner permission, Jazzy has danced with spin cycle death but that’s between you and I.)

Jazzy has been loved ferociously ever since he came home from the maternity ward, tucked in amongst the blankets with his swaddled owner. He has been loved so much that he haemorrhages stuffing. Denuded by years of childhood companionship, there isn’t a tuft of fur left on his floppy body, his nose has been partially rubbed off and he is coming undone at so many seams.  

Parenting can leave you feeling a bit like this. Much needed and much loved but worn out.

Some days, it might feel as if we’re splitting at the hem. Our stitching unravels and we become frayed and tattered at the edges. Human love does that. It rubs us raw. It makes gaping holes and everything inside spills out. It makes a mess of us, makes demands of us, day in and day out. Sometimes we’re weary to the point of exhaustion and our own love gets a bit shabby. It might feel by the end of the day that we have little left within us to give. A voice inside begins to whisper, ‘you’re not enough’ - ‘not wise enough’, ‘not strong enough’, ‘not good enough’.

Feeling hollowed out one day, God’s timing brings a reading of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians to a close with a final reminder of these verses.

 ‘I pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God’s power for us who believe in him. This is the same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead and seated him in the place of honour at God’s right hand in the heavenly realms.’ Ephesians 1:19-20

And a needle is threaded. A stitch is sewn.

We are not left to simply put our collar up, cast our eyes to the ground and wait for the difficulty to pass. We are reminded that the power that raised Jesus from the dead is the same power that is within us and if that is true, if that is what we believe, it makes a difference.

It means that here is the power that makes us enough. It is the power that redeems every mistake and failure. It is the power that resurrects what is dead and makes it new. It is the power of the One who is always strong enough, wise enough and good enough.

It is the power that can re-stuff us with love every morning. The power that stitches and hems us together again.

Death tears and rips love apart.

Grace mends and renews love.

Parenting is not the only ragged edged place to feel the tension.

Perhaps all of life is lived in the tension between flawed love and perfect love.

On the days when we feel the tension, may we pray Paul’s prayer for one another.

Sunday Slippers

On reaching Sunday morning at the writers residential weekend, Lucan, Dublin.

The Sunday light filters into the room, distilling and gently evaporating the unease of previous days. The door lies open, allowing the tension to escape with a long mental exhale. The classroom becomes the sanctuary. Morning worship begins with a relaxation of spirit and slippered feet under the table.

‘I don’t suppose you’ve ever been to church wearing your slippers before,’ I comment with a smile, as my shoeless companion settles herself on the seat next to me.

We all stood on holy ground during our time of devotion that morning. Spring’s warmth and brightness blending with praise and gratitude, pervading the atmosphere with the sweet aroma of worship. Ground on which to tread lightly and reverently.

I think of the slippers on the feet of the person beside me, symbolic of being at home, feet treading softly and under the family table. We are members of the extended family of Christ, unfamiliar with one another and yet a church of spiritual relatives gathered together for a brief time, feet resting at the hearth of God’s home fire.

Home is where you feel comfortable enough to kick your shoes off and just be yourself. You slide your feet into warm, comfortable slippers and sigh with relief. This is my abode, my place of rest. This is the fireside I choose.

Home is where God’s spirit lives and moves. Heaven is everywhere. It streams in through doors and windows on morning sunbeams, filling the hearts of brothers and sisters in Christ.

The Holy Spirit softly moved among us, welcoming us as we stepped into worship. A writing people offering their words to God, the great author and story teller. We sang the story of redemption. We read our confession aloud. We penned our prayers. We listened to the Word, exploring his metaphors. The things of everyday life communicating truth and speaking of the Kingdom of Heaven.

And again the slippers, reminding me that it is possible to be at ease and at home even when physically distant from where we normally live, work and go to church. Even in a place where we are being challenged or stretched, where we are being asked to live out the tension of doing something we find difficult, there is a whisper in the ordinary evoking the joy of home.

Later in the day, we each return to the place we came from.

Another week passes. A fresh Sunday morning dawns and while I don’t go to church in my slippers, I go to a place where I’m surrounded by family. I go back to the people who waved me off in prayer on the road to Lucan a week ago. We sing in praise and glimpse our forever-home as feet again rest together under God’s table.

When you have no words for prayer.

A violent gust of wind snatches everything out of my hands before I can arrange it into any semblance of order.

A host of tiny letters dances through the air, flung hither and thither by the breeze, black marks printed on a grey page of clouds. Some scatter across the grass, others fly up into the swaying branches of a nearby tree where they catch amongst the bare twigs and riotously flutter out of reach. In the midst of the type characters, I watch whole words pitching up and down high above my head, dispersing chaotically, and colliding senselessly into one another. Dry leaves of paper are tossed into the atmosphere. Torn pages blow in every direction like small tumbling birds, wings powerless to direct their flight.

I stretch my arms out, leaping and grabbing in an ineffectual attempt to retrieve the jumble of letters, words and paper scraps but they lurch further into the sky, well beyond the reach of my fingers.

I shout in frustration but I am robbed even of wordless sound as it too is seized instantly by the wind and flung aside like winter debris.

No matter how hard I try, I cannot catch all the fragments whirling round about me.

If I could just gather them all together in one place out of this wind, I can perhaps begin to figure out how to stitch them into comprehensible sentences but the wind is far too strong. Everything eludes my grasp.

As I stand buffeted and bewildered, I suddenly notice the man. He is seated on the ground beneath the tree. I hadn’t seen him before, having been too busy in my frantic activity. As he sits, he calmly plucks letters and words from the air, capturing them in his hands. The wind whips his hair across his face and as he tilts his head sideways to shift the strands, he looks up at me and smiles. He doesn’t speak, but simply carries on effortlessly catching words. My words. One by one, the pieces are carried by the turbulent currents towards him and into his hands where they remain, no longer affected by the wind.

The scene ends there, just a brief flare of the imagination. A thought that drops into my mind as I attempt to pray one day. An attempt that feels just like chasing words in the wind. 

The cross winds of life can make prayer a difficult and sometimes impossible task for us. How do we order everything that we are thinking and feeling into words that can be called prayer?

What a relief to picture Jesus smiling his reassurance to us.

‘It’s all right, I’ve got this. Stop trying so hard and instead trust what I can do. I’m out here in the wind with you even though you didn’t notice me. I am your prayer maker.’

It’s OK that we don’t know how to pray sometimes. Jesus will write our prayers for us. He knows us far better than we can ever know ourselves anyway and he knows that when stormy winds blow in our souls, we need his help. We can stop being so hard on ourselves. We can stop reaching and struggling. If you don’t have words for your heart, then simply bring your heart. Jesus takes the heavy sighing efforts of our souls and makes them pure expressions of prayer..

‘Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, 

God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along.

 If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. 

He does our praying in and for us, 

making prayer out of wordless sighs, 

our aching groans.’

Romans 8:26 (Msg)

Perhaps when strong soul winds are swirling words beyond our grasp, the best thing to do is go and sit beside Jesus under the tree and rest knowing that he has it all under control. Wordlessly sit in a posture of prayer and allow his Spirit to suffuse us with peaceful reassurance.