Life

This week's Five Minute Friday prompt is: LIFE.

Life is a funny thing....

After a relationship ending in my early twenties a friend assured me, 'You never know what's around the corner. You could be married with a baby on the way this time next year.'

I nodded along, not really believing a word she said. All I could see was a life of singleness stretching ahead of me and that's not what I wanted.

But it wasn't long before my lovely husband came along and we have now been happily married for a couple of decades.

A little over two years ago, we were hit with a juggernaut full of heartache and pain which brought with it mental ill health among other things. Twelve months in and I felt like I'd had enough. I was sick of traumatic memories from the past returning and throwing me into fresh mental and emotional turmoil.

I angrily yelled at God, 'I hate life!' I couldn't see any way out of the dark tunnel I found myself in. I wanted God to know how much I hated life because one of Jesus's titles in the New Testament is 'Life'. There were times I hated God.

Thankfully, Jesus is steering me through the dark tunnel and there are times now that I can even see a pinprick of light at the end of it.

Still, there are some days I'm less thrilled about being alive than others. But I do know now that Jesus is the meaning of life. Without Him I can't see the point, but with Him my life does have meaning.

Direction

After a very long break, I have decided to start taking part in Five Minute Friday again. This is an online community where we each write for five minutes on a weekly topic.

This week's topic is DIRECTION.

A little over two years ago, my life fell apart as I broke into what felt like a thousand pieces. Life would never be the same again and I am still working on coming to terms with it.

One day I was happy in a job I loved, busy in church and other ministries, and researching to write a book.

Then a traumatic memory that I'd blocked out from the past came back to haunt me. Everything changed; the direction of my life changed dramatically.

The last couple of years have been the toughest I have ever had to face. For a long time I was angry with God, regularly demanding that He 'just annihilate me!' Life didn't seem to be worth living.

But I feel I've finally turned a corner. There's still a long way to go. I have real hope that there might be light at the end of this tunnel.

And I have tentative faith in God that He is directing my life and maybe - just maybe - He might possibly have a purpose in all of this. I don't want my suffering to be for nothing. I don't know where He's headed but, today (and it might change tomorrow), I can trust that He knows.

Inspire Bible

In late September, I read a tweet by Mary DeMuth saying that one of the best spiritual disciplines she has found is to read her Bible cover to cover every three months.

The tweet appeared at just the right time for me. I have read my Bible cover to cover in a year many times since the age of thirteen as well as enjoying mooching through passages in a more contemplative fashion.

But for the last couple of years since struggling with my mental health, I've found reading my Bible difficult to nigh on impossible at times. Some days all I could manage was part of a verse, other days nothing at all.

When I saw Mary's tweet, it lit me up inside and I decided to give it a go. Not necessarily in three months as that seemed a really tall order but maybe four months and I resolved not to be legalistic about it. If I had a bad day or bad week with my mental health, I wouldn't beat myself up about not reading my Bible.

I chose my NLT journaling Bible which is an easy translation to read as well as having inspiring pictures and verses to colour in.

On 1st October, I began. And I loved it. Reading big chunks at a time helped me keep track of the different characters (especially who was on what side during King David's time), as well as helping me see the bigger picture again.

God is absolutely fair and cruel, wicked people will pay in the end. Selfish rulers who are mainly interested in power and money are nothing new. Some people have always rewritten the past to suit themselves. Suffering is part of life. But God is in control. Jesus has overcome the world. One day He will come back and put everything to right - there will be justice and peace.

Granted the timing was right for me as I couldn't have coped with this challenge earlier in the year, but my mental health really benefited from this and I'm so glad I did it. It was so good to remind myself who God is and what He's like.

I've restarted from Genesis 1 today and am excited to get back into this fascinating, awesome, life-giving book.

5* is a no-brainer!