Rachael Newham's Blog, page 8

Catching Contentment

Liz Carter is the author of Catching Contentment and she was kind enough to answer a few of my questions about life, lament, writing, faith and living with a chronic illness.

Can you tell us a bit about yourself and how you came to write the book?

I’ve been ill all of my life with a lung condition, and I struggled to cope with the reality of this in line with my Christian faith. All around me, I was hearing stories of healing and restoration, of lives turned to happiness and joy, and all I felt was a stark sense of disappointment. I wondered if I was getting it all wrong, if others were right when they told me I simply didn’t have enough faith. The word ‘contentment’ seemed far from me, an unreachable concept that only applied to those whose lives seemed more perfect than mine. For me, my reality was chronic pain, repeated infections and a career that I had to give up because I was too sick.

But when I read the book of Philippians, I noticed Paul talking about contentment which he had found in all situations, and I was intrigued, because it didn’t look like he was talking about the transient kind of contentment I’d associated with the word before. Paul wasn’t living an easy life, all mended and fixed by knowing Christ – quite the opposite, in fact. He was regularly in chains for his faith, seeing his friends persecuted and murdered. 

How did you find the writing process? What were the best parts and the most difficult?

I’ve always loved writing, and there’s nothing better than those times the ideas flow, the words spilling out in a great exhilarating tidal wave. Some of the time it was like that, but much of the time it was harder work – especially at the editing stage, when I had to go back in and get rid of all that flowery language I loved too much! For me, the best part of writing this book came when I was crafting the third section which is all about being captivated by God. Writing about worship, yearning and surrender fired me and filled me with the contentment I was trying to represent. 

I found a couple of the chapters particularly tough to write. The first was a chapter about being confident in our identity, because for so many years I thought of myself as nothing, useless, and hopeless. In this chapter I wrote about how I was bullied as a teenager, and that was a vulnerable place to write from – I found that as I wrote, some of the feelings came rushing back in, leaving me emotionally wrung out. And the other section I found more difficult to write was the chapter about focusing on God through our ‘dark nights’. When I first wrote it, I wanted to give all kinds of solutions to this problem so many of us experience – that of not being able to ‘feel’ or ‘sense’ God, of feeling almost like we have been cast out from his presence. But I found that the more I wrote about solutions, the more I realised that this was not the way to go – it somehow took any nuance away from the problem, without actually addressing the lived pain at the centre of it. So instead of taking this approach, I simply looked at Jesus in his dark night, and I found him right there in my own darkness.

What does contentment look like in the context of chronic illness?

It’s easy to think that contentment can only be for those who have perfect lives. But the biblical narrative offers something up which replaces this circumstance-based version of contentment, which can never go further than the next thing or the next relationship or the next holiday. In God’s story, contentment is on offer when we choose to chase it and catch it, because contentment doesn’t come in the form of a reward for things going our way, but as a result of looking to Christ in all we do. Paul says that he counts everything else as loss when compared to knowing Jesus (Phil 3:8), and talks about rejoicing at all times (4:4), whether things are going well for us or not. He then says that he has learned to be content, implying that it isn’t something that just happens, but something he is intentional about. So contentment in chronic illness doesn’t look like a shiny happy smile, a pretence of joy when there is pain, but a soul-level knowledge of a God who has gone through the worst of pain, and who sits with you in that deep pit, holding your hand. Contentment in chronic illness is a confidence in God’s nature and a courageous decision to pursue and love God.

You talk about a number of experiences being prayed for – some helpful and some less so! How do you think we can pray well for the healing of those with chronic illnesses?

I think that everyone who has struggled with chronic illness – whether physical or mental – has probably come across the kind of prayer which seems to lessen them as a person, and focus only on the presenting need. Instead of offering to pray for healing, I think it’s so often more helpful to listen to the person, to sit with them and understand their need, to ask what they would like. Imposing a loud healing prayer can be intimidating, or even aggressive, because it can be so very exhausting to sit through the same words, once again, and feel like you are somehow disappointing the person praying. The prayers which have blessed me most have been about praying for God to comfort me, to bless and hold me, to speak to me and to pour out the Spirit upon me, assuring me of his love and presence. Somehow, those prayers have been incredibly healing, even when ‘healing’ isn’t evident.

I love how you talk about the need for lament – how can we practice lament more fully in our churches?

I think that lament is so crucial, and it is grounded in scripture. Somehow, in our churches we have forgotten what it means to truly lament, and instead concentrated on the ‘Jesus helps me feel better’ narrative of salvation and Christian life. While this can so often be true, and Jesus has come to heal and save, when we leave out the weeping we are at risk of a very grey brand of Christianity which doesn’t speak to the pain in our communities. Many of our worship songs have ditched lament in favour of quite a self-centred brand of worship, praising God for all he has done for us. Yet the Bible is littered with lament – there is even a book named for it. We are given permission to lay out our agony in all its stark reality, to hurl out our pain before God, to scream out our disappointment and our lack of understanding as to where God is in it all. We have all this biblical material immediately accessible to us. I love that I am hearing more songs of lament now, such as Rend Collective’s ‘Weep With Me’. 

The phrase “doubt needs room to breathe” really resonated with me; how do you think we can best make room for doubt in our faith?

I think that we all need to entertain doubt in order to build our faith. If not, our faith will be built on a kind of pretence, a shifting sand of refusal to question. Yet when we let our doubts surface and let them breathe in us, we will so often find that our faith is strengthened and underpinned with greater confidence. For me, allowing doubt room has involved voicing the doubt, perhaps writing it in my journal, and praying about it. Most of all, I find that reading – scripture and Christian books – has given me so much more of a firm foundation for my faith. I’ve become a big fan of apologetics books, and I am so grateful for the internet, when there is so much information and wisdom at the tip of our fingers. Often, through the doubt, God is teaching us so much more about who he is and who we are in him. And sometimes, those doubts will be unresolved, but they must be aired and examined in order to balance them in our minds. Sometimes, we must make a choice to live in ambiguity, always knowing God is holding on to us and knowing that God is faithful, unchanging and loves us passionately and unconditionally.

Liz’s book Catching Contentment is published by IVP and available online from Amazon* and other retailers.

*Please note this is an affiliate link.

A New Story

Our births were both induced.

Our births both spanned three days.

We were both tested in a Special Care Baby Unit.

We both had antibiotics and stayed in hospital for a while after birth.

Our stories are similar, but they are not the same.

There are undoubtedly parallels, and it’s hard not to compare the way I came into the world with the way my son came into the world twenty eight years later.

The events of the first month of my life have, in many ways, set the course for the years which followed. The multiple antibiotics affected my immune system, being woken every few hours for medication affected my sleep, the worry and uncertainty marked my family.

But that first month has not defined my life – and my son’s first days will not define his. I feared so much that his first chest infection would mean that he would always be unwell and prone to catching every infection he is exposed to – but then I was reminded that his life is not my story – he’s got a brand new one.

The life God has given to him is his own – his story only just beginning. It will have its own joys and challenges, it’s my prayer that he will know his heavenly Father and know that he is loved by us.

All too often, I’ve allowed the worst bits of my life to be defining features, but as I look at my son, I see that the best bits can be defining too. I’d forgotten that we have a God of creation, as well as a God of redemption. He gives a brand new life to each and every person.

As Don Herold so wonderfully put it:

“Babies are such a nice way to start people.”

Best Books of 2018

As 2018 ends, I’ve linked* some of the books I’ve read in the last twelve months and included the standout quotes from each book which have stayed with me, challenged me and shaped my own thinking and writing.

Luminous Dark – Alain Emerson

“The wounded places in our hearts, the silent caverns of our souls, the dark tunnels of our minds, are the hiding place of God.”

I read this book near the beginning of the year as I was trying to come to terms with miscarrying our first baby, and the idea that it was in the darkness – not despite of it – that God could be found was a great comfort to me.

Everything Happens for a Reason (And Other Lies I’ve Loved) – Kate Bowler

“Everyone is trying to Easter the crap out of my lent”

This book is worth reading for this one sentence – but it’s amazing throughout. How often do we rush people’s grief and lament because we want to get to their victory story?

The Girl Deconstruction Project – Rachel Gardner

“Our bodies matter because they are the place where are able to experience God.”

I read this book whilst I was pregnant and it made sense of my changing feelings about my body, it’s goodness and it’s purpose.

The Prodigal Prophet – Timothy Keller

“Jonah wants a God of his own making, a God who simply smites the bad people, for instance, the wicked Ninevites and blesses the good people, for instance, Jonah and his countrymen. When the real God—not Jonah’s counterfeit—keeps showing up, Jonah is thrown into fury or despair.”

I re-read the story of Jonah as a part of my church doing the Bible Course and I was captivated by it in a way I’d never been before. The discomfort of our desire for justice against God’s lavish mercy challenged me to be less judgemental and more merciful.

Catching Contentment – Liz Carter

“Contentment is based not on our wholeness, but on God’s holiness.”

There were many things about Liz’s book that I loved, but these words summed it up for me. The idea that contentment really isn’t about me was one which has stayed with me.

The Language of Tears – David Runcorn

“Resilience is a gift learned in the wrestling and struggling with life. It is forged through our fiercest and most vulnerable tears.”

I’ve always been fascinated by tears; namely because I’ve cried many of them and this little book was a brilliant look at the science and theology of them. It shows resilience as something more hard-fought and less shiny that I’d thought it was previously.

*I’ve used Amazon affiliate links in this post, so if you click through my links I get a small percentage of the sale; if you’d rather not, then feel free to just open a new tab to purchase them

Let There Be Light

“The people walking in darkness have seen a great light, on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned.” Isaiah 9:2

Let there be light.

These words were the beginning of everything, the light came and God’s creative power was revealed in all its splendour for the first time.

They are some of the most powerful words in scripture – we cannot deny the power of light.

Sometimes its as comforting as a night light for a child, at others its a harsh glare of realisation.

In John’s gospel the account of Jesus coming to earth in human form begins with light.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.  In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

Light bids us to wait in hope for the day when the light will shine in all its fullness.

Christmas tells us that the Light of the World was and is willing to descend into the darkness of our humanity for our sake and will not be extinguished by it.

Tim Keller writes that:

“He is a light for us when all other lights go out.”

I pray that this Christmas, whatever darkness you may face, that you feel God’s presence with you as we remember that the God who formed the stars descended to us to come close – and to draw us closer to Him.

Remembering Scripture

I write this, not from the kitchen sink a la “I Capture the Castle”, but underneath a baby who has  finally decided to succumb to sleep.

He’s two weeks old and I’ve never felt more inspired and yet unable to write.

Babies do strange things to your brain.

It was a difficult start for us as a family; a long labour followed by a chest infection for the baby and soaring blood pressure for me meant a week long stay in hospital and now we’ve finally had a whole week at home, Phil’s gone back to work and we are trying to find a new normal.

And amidst the madness, I’ve relied on memorised chunks of scripture like never before. It’s not something I’ve ever done to be honest; recited scripture, I’ve always preferred to read it. But in the semi darkness of the a hospital ward at three in the morning, I leant on the words that I’d memorised by accident.

Psalm 40 (or an approximation of it) circled around my mind for hours on end and I chewed upon each verse, drawing something that looked like strength from its contents.

“I waited patiently for the Lord;

    he turned to me and heard my cry.

 He lifted me out of the slimy pit,

    out of the mud and mire;

he set my feet on a rock

    and gave me a firm place to stand.

He put a new song in my mouth,

    a hymn of praise to our God.

Many will see and fear the Lord

    and put their trust in him.”

I didn’t wait very patiently to be discharged from hospital – quite the opposite in fact – but I felt tangibly that God was hearing my cries and that He would put a new song in my mouth.

I’m beyond grateful for the scriptures my mind stored away for a rainy night and for a God who speaks through ancient words remembered in the dark of night.

And in this new phase of life; when time is both short and plentiful, I want to commit to memorising passages, not only so that I can call on them in times of need, but so that I can soak them up and experience more of the God of scripture that I may be transformed by Him.

As Eugene Peterson wrote so beautifully:

“Christians don’t simply learn or study or use Scripture; we assimilate it, take it into our lives in such a way that it gets metabolized into acts of love, cups of cold water, missions into all the world, healing and evangelism and justice in Jesus’ name, hands raised in adoration of the Father, feet washed in company with the Son.”

Mercy

Recently, as part of our church small group, we’ve been doing the Bible Course by the Bible Society which despite some questionable jokes has been a wonderful way to go back to basics, looking at the shape of the text as a whole and the glorious beauty of the story pointing to Jesus from the very beginning.

One of the weeks that struck me most was on Jonah – the reluctant prophet swallowed by a big fish – it’s  a story I can’t say I’ve studied much. It was a part of my Sunday school teaching, but as an adult, it’s not a book I can say I’ve read avidly.

In a wonderful alignment of timing, Tim Keller then released his own book on Jonah entitled “The Prodigal Prophet” and as I read it, and reflected again on the text I couldn’t help but be captivated by the mercy which sits right at the heart of Jonah’s story.

So much of my life (and probably yours) is focussed on justice; for the poor, the neglected, the wronged and yet I feel that in that pursuit I’ve forgotten mercy.

It’s so easy to be outraged – but so much more difficult to be merciful.

And yet we are here but for the glorious mercy of God. Jesus’ crucifixion was the greatest act of mercy there ever has been – because despite being deserving of God’s wrath – we received a pardon and Jesus himself took on our punishment.

Jonah is the antithesis of mercy, and, as Keller points out, very much like the older brother depicted in the parable of the Prodigal Son.

It’s a role I’ve found myself in, I’ve been a christian for well over twenty years and when bad things happen to good people, or good things happen to bad people I want to know why, I want to have a silent tantrum because it’s not fair!

But over the past few weeks, I’ve been reminded that mercy isn’t fair.

Jonah had a good point when he didn’t want to witness to the Ninevites – they’d shown themselves to be a despicable people – and his God-given mission was more than a little dangerous. Yet even when he eventually went to the Ninevah to give God’s message – he was outraged when the people believed God and were spared the promised disaster!

He rants to God and speaks of God’s mercy not as a blessing, but a curse.

“Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.”

And then the book ends, as the parable of the Prodigal Son does, with a cliffhanger, without conclusion and without mercy.

As Tim Keller writes:

“Jonah wants a God of his own making, a God who simply smites the bad people, for instance, the wicked Ninevites and blesses the good people, for instance, Jonah and his countrymen. When the real God—not Jonah’s counterfeit—keeps showing up, Jonah is thrown into fury or despair.”

It’s in the reading and re-reading of this book that I’ve caught a glimpse of the God I’ve made in my own image; one who, like some kind of superhero swoops in and catches the bad guy, who characterises us heroes or villains.

When in actual fact, in the eyes of God there are no heroes or villains, we are simply His children.

Justice has it’s rightful place in society and theology; don’t get me wrong, and I won’t stop fighting against injustice, but I will try to remember that God is one of mercy, that Jesus died for us when we were still sinners. As Romans 5:6-8 proclaims:

“You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

That is mercy, and this is our God of mercy, that we might not forget the mercy shown to us.

Replay and Regret? Responding to Shame #IThoughtThereWouldBeCake

When I first read Katharine’s book it was the chapter that had me crying “I do that too!!” So I wanted to explore a little deeper the idea of replaying conversations again and again, squirming with shame at what has been said.

Shame leaves us stuck in replaying and regretting what has gone before, preventing us from moving forward and dealing with what has passed.

Brene Brown writes that:

“Shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable of change.”

I’d go a step further, because I believe that shame corrodes our belief that God can restore and redeem us.

Shame tells us that we are worthless and unredeemable; it can make us think that the very worst parts of ourselves overshadow anything good about us.

Shame fails to live up to the standards of the law – but the gospels show a new way of looking at ourselves and our sin.

It doesn’t minimise or deny our sin, but reminds us that despite our sin we are still worth dying for!

I can’t help but think of Simon Peter here; his denial of Jesus was shameful; but Jesus neither denies his sin nor shames his sin – he confronts it and forgives it.

In John 21:15 we read that Jesus refers to him as Simon; and yet when he was called from his life as a fisherman, he’d been given a new name. No longer Simon – he was Peter, the Rock. Surely Jesus was reminding him here that his faith hadn’t been so rock-like recently.

But the conversation doesn’t end with Peter stripped of his new identity; Jesus redeems each of Peter’s denials by repeatedly asking, “Simon, Son of John, do you love me.”

Jesus restores Peter’s denials, and through that He’s showing Peter that he is forgiven.

Shame keeps us stuck in our sin – forgiveness and redemption move us on – and they moved Peter on.

The latter part of Jesus’s conversation with Peter is a re-commissioning. Jesus gives him a new role as a Pastor, the imagery shifting from fisherman to shepherd, giving a fairly succinct job description!

Feed my lambs.

Take care of my sheep.

Feed my sheep.

This is the calling for Peter’s next stage of ministry – to take up the role of a shepherd, a pastor – in spite and perhaps in part because of all he had done. I personally don’t know if I would have trusted the “top job” to someone who failed me so badly.

It’s a beautiful reminder that where shame sees only sin – Jesus sees through our sin straight to our identity as sons and daughters of God – redeemed and restored by Him.

Replay and Regret is a thing of the past because in Jesus we find our Redemption.

After Awareness

There are, it seems, awareness days for everything under the sun in 2018. A quick google revealed that this month alone there is a World Sepsis Day, a Pension Awareness Day, International Talk Like a Pirate Day and a National Doodle Day.

Everything has it’s day; and don’t get me wrong, it’s wonderful that lesser known or stigmatised conditions are being recognised (although I’m not particularly sure that doodling really needs awareness!).

Indeed, we make an effort at ThinkTwice to get involved with days like World Suicide Prevention Day and Mental Health Awareness Week, but we also talk about suicide and mental health the rest of the year too!

And that’s the challenge; do awareness days and weeks actually raise awareness and build understanding? Because they only really work if the awareness leads to understanding.

I think in Britain most of us are now aware that mental health conditions exist and that they’re common. But I wonder if our understanding of mental health condition, of the way they tear through lives and the damage they leave in their wake is really understood.

Mental illnesses are often chronic, and their effects are felt not only by the one with the diagnosis; but by family, friends and colleagues. Our understanding of mental illness has to include understanding how far reaching their impact.

So this year, instead of marking every awareness day in the calendar (although, if you do manage that you probably deserve some kind of reward!) but pick one or two and commit to developing your understanding now you’ve got some awareness.

 

Finding Our Story. Guest Post by Andy Frost

I’m delighted to be hosting Andy Frost this week as part of his book blog tour! Andy  is the director of Share Jesus International. He loves helping people explore the Christian faith and has recently launched his new book Long Story Short and an adventure video series: YouTube.com/gvbbadventures

Finding Our Story

It’s an incredible library of books. It’s not just information or rules or philosophical ideas. The Bible tells the spectacular story that frames human history. As the story evolves, we glimpse the character of a just and loving God, who desperately wants to be in relationship with his creation.

Each of our lives tells a story. And it’s this big story that we find in the Bible that helps us frame our lives, helping us make sense of our time here on earth.

The challenge is to work out how our own personal story fits into the larger God story. Here are five thoughts that help me live the best kind of a story, wrapped up in God’s great narrative.

 

The story has already begun.

Choosing to live in God’s story isn’t just a decision we make once, but it’s a daily decision to find out how we can be involved in seeing God’s will being done here on earth. With God as the central character, we are invited to partner with him in restoring all things.

He wants spiritual renewal and invites us to help others discover who he is and what it means to live in relationship with him. He wants social renewal and invites us to transform structures and institutions so that people are empowered to live well, free from the strongholds of poverty. And he wants cultural renewal and invites us to create better ways of being in our different spheres of influence.

Our life stories are about joining in with what God has been doing for generations and begin with a recognition that God is central and that he is already eat work.

 

There will probably be no burning bush.

Many of us like very specific instructions. We would quite like God to make every step of our lives very clear but that is not the way that God works. We are called to work by faith.

The scary thing is that many of us are waiting for a burning bush experience to kick start our story but we can end up spending our lives waiting for some dramatic revelation. The truth is, God rarely speaks in such dramatic ways. He often speaks through convictions, through nudges.

God created us with desires that can not be fulfilled exclusively in him and finding our story is about working out the godly passions that God has put inside of us. The passions that go beyond us and serve God’s kingdom priorities.

Some helpful questions may be: What makes you come alive? What keeps you up at night? What has God been teaching you through your life experiences so far? What pain in the world do you notice that you just have to do something about?

It’s as you tease through some of these big themes, that you can then begin to think about what they look like in the here and now. You don’t need to be CEO of a large corporation or a respected MP. You begin now, in the roles and the responsibilities that God has already given you.

 

Good stories cost.

The comfortable life is very attractive but the secret to any good story is that there needs to be some kind of conflict or challenge. It’s not that we go looking for conflict but that the vision or the passion we carry, will require it.

Some of the best biographical stories from history are about leaders who’s vision cost dearly – think Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi or Mother Theresa. Ultimately, the God story reveals the cost that God was willing to pay as Jesus went to the cross.

Finding your story in God’s is about be willing to pay a price. It might mean risking failure as you step into something new; or turning down lucrative career moves to follow God’s prompting; or being willing to be hurt by those that you want to help.

What are you willing to surrender to God to live the best kind of story?

 

Who the character becomes is more important than what the character achieves.

I’m the kind of guy that makes lists and loves to tick things off. I have to ‘achieve’ things every day and when it comes to life, I often set myself targets. But an interesting thought is not working through what I want to do but who I want to become.

One day as people sit around ay my wake, do I want to be remembered for what I achieved or for how I treated other people?

Each of outlives will be littered with both good times and difficult times. Wrapping ourselves in the God story is about punctuating our lives with moments that help us frame our lives. It’s so easy to become bitter and cynical and its imperative that we are people of love.

An important question to think through is, what rhythms of prayer and Bible reading will help me centre myself on Jesus, no matter what life throws at me?

 

We know how the story ends…

The last book in the Bible, Revelation, paints this incredible picture of a new heaven and a new earth. Tears are wiped away. Things are as they should be.

Reminding ourselves of how the story ends is vital because there is always hope. We live in a dark world and its easy to become disillusioned when there is so much pain and suffering. Finding our story in God’s story is ultimately about remembering that God is sovereign, that we never need to despair and that we know how the story ends.

Head to Amazon to get your copy (if you use this link I get a small commission).

‘Twas the Day Before Publication

And all through the house not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse…

Well, the first part of that is true, but in reality I’m definitely stirring part in panic and part in excitement.

Learning to Breathe has been an idea, a hope, a dream of mine for a decade, and tomorrow it becomes reality as anyone, anywhere, can choose to buy it, borrow it and read it.

There is something particularly terrifying, because people are not just reading my words, they are reading the story of the worst days of my life.

But as I sit here, with a pile of books, that I wrote and that others have turned into this beautiful looking book; I can see that the promise of restoration and redemption on which I pinned my recovery for all those years, finds some fulfilment in the book that I began to write when I was at my darkest.

I began to write because I wanted to make sense of what I’d been living through; but I finished writing and started editing,  preparing it for publication because I believe that whilst the church has come a long way in terms of mental health awareness, we still have a long way to go in terms of understanding.

We may know that 1 in 4 have a mental health problem each year – but do we understand the effect it has on them, their families and their work?

We may know that suicide is the leading cause of death for young people – but do we understand why- and, more importantly – how to hold out hope?

I have only written my story, my perspective, but it is my hope and my prayer that it will lead you on to listen to the stories of those in your midst who are struggling, to equip yourselves with understanding so that you can begin to know how to help.

And whenever the terror of the reality that my story is there for anyone to consume – that’s what I remind myself of – that ‘Learning to Breathe’ was not written merely for my own catharsis – but so that others may glimpse something of God’s compassion and kindness for those whose minds are lost in their own darknesses.

Because, as Psalm 107 proclaims: “Let the redeemed of the Lord tell their story.”

I’ve told mine, not because my story is anything but ordinary, but because the God of our stories is beyond extraordinary.

You can pre-order it from SPCK, Aslan, Amazon, and Eden