Great Christian Diaries

2003-11-09 - 3.02pm  previous entry  next entry

Thank you Siobhan for the lovely guestbook message! *hugs*

Yesterday we went to a fireworks display with Granny and Grandoug. It was soooo good! It was at a 17th Century manor in Surrey. We went to G and G's house first for a cup of tea (glass of water in my case!) and to look at some of their holiday photos before we went to the fireworks which was nice. I got my period last night and it has been making me particularly nauseous and giddy and crampy this time round, so I didn't get a great night's sleep and felt kind of sick at G and G's which is a shame. But oh well. I was all loaded up on painkillers so it wasn't too painful during the fireworks :)

We had to walk miiiiles from where we parked the car, and all the pathways were lit with flaming torches, and there were people dressed up in 17th Century clothing and stuff, it was so cool. Along the way there were some people doing fire acts from that era, juggling with flaming things and swinging fire about and stuff like that. Later on there were people dancing with fire-lit sticks attached to each finger, and they did fire eating as well. It grossed me out so much!! I did not stay to watch the fire eating very long!

The lighting wasn't that fab when you have two elderly people who could break their ankles at any moment in there's a dip in the badly lit path! So Neil and I let them hang onto us a lot and made sure we shone our torch right in front of them all the way.

Down by the lake (which was where the lonnnng walk was to), there were food stalls everywhere and massive queues. There were portable toilets en route which I would not consider using in a million years! They looked okay but by the time we got to them, about 500 people had used each one, so hmmm, no thanks! I was glad we all went before we left!! The police said they expected 10,000 people!!!!!!! Wow! And judging by the enormous sea of people stretching beyond my vision by the time the fireworks started, I can believe that they got the number they expected. We got there pretty early, and there were hay bales to sit on down by the edge of the lake. Most of these had already been taken but we found four spaces and sat on them. This guy got all stroppy with us because apparantly he was saving them for some friends, but I don't know, I felt like you can't really save four spaces for people when there's 10,000 people coming and your friends have all swanned off somewhere else and you're standing there with two old people with joint replacements and no other seating available. So we stayed sitting there.

But then about 20 minutes later the friends came back and this one guy argued with us for ages, and Grandoug told him he had two artificial knees and had to sit down, and the seats were empty so we had sat in them. The man said Grandoug was rude and inconsiderate, and then he wished him bad luck. How mean is that? I could have cried! Poor Grandoug, he said he wasn't going to let it upset him but I could tell he was really bothered by it all evening :( He has no choice but to sit down because of his knees, and Granny is the same with her replacement hips. They are nearly 80 years old and it's not fair of perfectly able middle-aged people to sit their fat arses down and expect their seats to wait for them if they go off somewhere, and then get angry at an innocent old man for sitting down when his knees hurt him. My emotions get flung everywhere lately, and I was absolutely seething with anger and hate towards this man. Even this morning, I couldn't shake it. We went to church today and that was where I was finally able to release my anger to God and ask forgiveness for thinking badly of this man, but it still angers me to think about it. Urgh.

Neil is a natural-born peacemaker, he was always breaking up fights and soothing arguments in pubs when he was student. He insisted on giving up his seat so that another of their party could sit down, and it would look like we didn't mean any harm, etc. So he stood behind us. We had a couple of hours to wait till the fireworks started, so in the end I needed to stretch my legs and gave up my seat too. Granny and Grandoug stayed seated the whole time though, and the air seemed at least a little clearer with the people next to us after a while. Neil and I went for a walk for a while. I had cramps and felt kind of giddy and like lying down and sleeping, so we sat on empty spaces in the grass now and then. I took some photos of things but it was so dark that they didn't come out too well.

The fireworks were delayed by half an hour so they started at 8pm in the end. We went and stood behind Granny and Grandoug. We had a great view of the lake and that's really good because the whole hill was crammed with people behind us so we did well to be that near the front. The fireworks were amazing. It was all done to music (waaay too loud, it made our rib cages vibrate!). It was better than anything I've ever seen, even on TV, so it was well worth any hassle we'd had to be there. Granny and Grandoug said so too. It was only afterwards that they told us neither of them had EVER been to a public fireworks display before, and they both love fireworks so much! I'm amazed they are 78 and 79, and this is a new experience for them :) I'm so glad we asked them, because they had such a lovely time, despite the horrible people next to us. They are like little children about fireworks, it's so sweet!

I didn't take any photos or anything during the fireworks because they just came so fast, one after the other. They went off in time to the music. It was incredible. They just filled the sky.

So we had a nice time. Massive queue to leave afterwards but never mind. Granny and Grandoug seemed okay, just a bit tired. We went home with them afterwards and had tomato soup and bread rolls, and then we came home. They are flying to France tomorrow to visit Mummy and Daddy, and we saw photos of M & D's garden when we were at G & G's yesterday. It's so pretty. We haven't seen it since they've had all this stuff done to it. They have a beautiful home. There was a photo of Mummy and Daddy in their garden just looking at the plants and they had their arms round each other. They looked sooooo happy and relaxed, so I am pleased. Even though it means they are a whole country away from me, I am so happy that they are so relaxed and happy. Seeing the photo helped.

Today we went to church. It was horribly difficult. Worship time was good but I couldn't find much feeling to sing with, or focus on God very well. After worship we had some notices, and this guy from the Alpha course that Neil has been getting friendly with lately came up the front to tell us about the weekend away. He was not a Christian when the course started, he was just curious and had lots of questions. He told us he invited God into his life at the church weekend away and the poor guy couldn't carry on because we all started clapping and cheering, and some were crying, it was such a lovely moment. He was going, "Stop!! I'll cry!!" Hehe. He told us he felt like he had been driving through life like when you have driven the same route to work for the past few years and you think you know it so well. He said he never realised there were things at the sides of the road he was passing by, and now he sees them. He thinks that is like how his life has been and what it's like now with God in it. It's so great to hear someone say stuff like this! :) He says he has lots more questions but then he reckons even people who have been Christians for a long time will still have questions. I really admired his honesty and willingness to get up there and tell us about it. Then Gordon told us that two people recommitted their lives to God and another person became a Christian at the church weekend away, as well as Philip (the guy who had spoken to us). There are still going to be people who come on Alpha and don't become Christians, because that's what Alpha is about - letting people find out for themselves what Christianity is about, with no pressure, and they can make of it what they will. Many find that confronted with the evidence, they end up choosing to believe and commit their lives to God. Alpha is a great thing because it just presents the facts and gives space to discuss anything that comes up.

Anyway so that was good. Then Paul told us that a lady in our church is having difficulties at the moment. She is a single mum and her mum is sick and her brother is in the hospital at the moment. She is in pain from a medical condition herself, and things are so hard for her right now. She wasn't at church today, and Paul led us in prayer for her for a while. There was a card at the back to sign for her, but I forgot to sign it before we left :(

I like how we are a family at church, and how much we love one another. Paul cried as he told us how much this lady was suffering. There's never any shame or awkwardness about that kind of thing at our church, and I think that's good.

Neil went out to help with the youth group today, after the worship time. Pete did the sermon today. I love this because Pete is younger than me, and is soooo down to earth and gifted at preaching God's word. Everything he says is so..... attainable, if you know what I mean? Today's sermon was about living in a compassionate way towards the poor. I've heard some sermons about reaching out to the poor that make me feel like I am either a really bad Christian because I'm not doing any of it, or else I feel like I can't possibly be that giving, and therefore I must be a bad Christian, etc!! But Pete's sermon was so down to earth, it was great. He made me feel like, yeah, I can do that. I AM doing it already, in many ways. Giving to the poor isn't always about giving financially. He grounded everything in what the Bible says we should be doing and having a heart for the poor, and then he talked us through WHO the poor are. Not just the homeless or the destitute. There are poor people on our doorsteps, in our churches. Physically poor - I have been there. Emotionally poor, spiritually poor, all sorts of poverty. He had us shout out ways that people could be "poor". It was really good. But he finished early to give us time to minister to the emotionally and spiritually poor people who might be at church today. He said if you are feeling emotionally poor or spiritually poor, come to the front and people will pray with you.

I knew I should go forward, but I felt like I would cry if I was prayed for, and being out there at the front felt too exposed. I just can't do that, not with emotions. Everyone's eyes were on the front of the room anyway because we went into a time of worship and the words are displayed at the front. So I thought, fine, I'm staying here. Someone is going to have to come to ME if I am going to get prayed for, not the other way around, and they won't do that because they are not mind-readers, so I'll just stay here. So I thought I would focus on the words and sing them as I saw them, that sort of thing. But the songs we sang were like God pushing on my emotion button. We sang "The Lord's my shepherd" - not the version from Cameron's funeral, but the more contemporary version with two part harmony. It's beautiful and has always made my heart squeeze. I sang it but it was hard and it kept making me want to cry. Then we followed that with "Jesus, Lover of my soul" which for some reason was even harder to sing. I had to look all over the place to squash my feelings down, because if I stayed looking in the same place for more than a couple of seconds my feelings felt like they would overwhelm me. So I figetted.

I looked over at the prayer team. They were praying with a few people who were crying and talking to them while we sang. Every time I sang the words, "endless mercy" or "all consuming fire is in your gaze" or anything like that about God, I felt like I was breaking apart with pain. How is that? I don't understand why those particular triggers, but there we go. My chest would fill with pain, I mean FILL, I don't even remember it being this painful at the funeral. The whole of my ribcage felt like burning sharp crushing pain, side to side and front to back. It took my breath away and I couldn't bear it. If I tried to carry on making the words march out of my mouth or distract myself by looking from place to place, the pain got worse. When a song ended, the pain lifted enough to bring relief, but if another emotional song started then it came back full force. I got through "Jesus, Lover of my soul" but then we started "How deep the Father's love for us" and I knew I couldn't bear to hear or sing the words, so I made a hasty retreat. I stood in a toilet cubicle and shook, and then I went out onto the playground (we meet in a school) where it was pouring with rain, and stood under the plastic roof and cried.

It seems to me like I can't bear being exposed to God's love right now. That doesn't make sense to me, but that's the only thing I can think of, given my reactions to the words in the songs. The more he loves me, the more I want to break down and weep. I believe that is what God wants me to do, he knows how much I am hurting and he wants me to let it all out and know how much he loves me, and that he shares my pain, that he understands and weeps with me. Because knowing that he loves me is making my walls soften - do you ever get that? Like when you are having a hard time and someone says they love you and they're there for you, it makes you cry like you've needed that little nudge to let the walls down? Or something. But I can't bear to let out what I'm feeling, and most definitely NOT in front of so many people. It's too big and people don't understand. I would be too vulnerable, I might break. That sounds stupid, but my fears underneath it all are things like, maybe I will burst in some way with all the emotion, and then I will have this ugly ragged raw wound that will never heal and never stop hurting. Maybe when I let it out, it will hurt more than it even hurts now - which I can't bear at all - and then it will never stop hurting. Maybe I won't be able to stop crying if I start, and I mean maybe it will go on and on and on and on, like long after everyone has to leave and close up the building, and people will start getting tired of me for going on so much, and nobody will know what to do with me and I will be out of control completely. I have such a difficulty with my emotions in this way, as you probably already know if you've been reading my diary for ages.

When I was outside I talked to God a bit, not really praying as such, just telling him the odd question that came to mind, like why does it hurt this much? And when will it stop? And how come it is still going on this bad? And all the usual stuff I seem to ask him these days. I sat there thinking I was not coming back to church if it was going to be this hard. I would rather stay at home and deal with it there than have pain like today. It's painful at home, but nothing has been as painful as this morning in church, I don't know why. Maybe God wanted me to cry, so he brought alllll the things that hurt me to the surface, and I refused him, so the pressure caused the pain? I don't know. I know I shouldn't refuse God when I know he's nudging me to do something, but I couldn't bear to, I didn't feel safe to let my walls down. I didn't feel safe with my own feelings.

There is more to write but I am hurting and crying writing about this so I am going to stop for now. I will finish later though, because I want to finish what I was saying at some point before I forget it.

Recent entries.....

Cameron's first anniversary - 2004-09-24
Update - 5th Anniversary and other stuff! - 2004-08-16
Church picnic and being happy and things :) - 2004-06-27
Barbeque at Cameron's house... - 2004-05-18
To Tara... - 2004-04-19