Shiny new car feeling

I recently crashed my car, into a silly little wooden post in a car park. And I've lived with the dent and the associated shame (yes, careless driver shame) for about 5 months. But finally this week I decided to have it 'dealt with'.... professionally. My little silver motor arrived back in near perfect condition. In fact, it had additional dents ironed out, so it's much better than prior to the actual traumatic event.

High fives all round.

But I had to pay someone to fix it. On my own, I would have made it worse. I did try to fix my grandmother's broken keyboard once - with fimo. I was actually responsible for breaking it - i dropped it the day before Christmas.... and I don't think she ever noticed that there was some squidgy black substance around the end of the casing.

Restoration is a bit of a theme in the Bible. Nehemiah weeps over his city, that the walls have been destroyed and is so moved to do something about it. Restored walls - that beautiful picture of being built up again. And relationships, and people, constantly we read about hurt and anger and suffering and brokenness. And it's this mess that God steps into and restores. God, our creator and designer, is also our restorer.

Last week a few of us got together and prayed for an end to violence against women across the world. Restored is a new alliance in the UK which seeks to bring a biblical perspective of, and to equip the church to respond to gender based violence. And the church do need to address this issue, to talk about it, because violence, whether it's physical, or pyschological, of financial, or verbal or sexual... is not how God intended his world to be. It happens behind closed doors and we might not even know it's happening. It might even happening in our churches and perhaps we'd prefer not to talk about it. But I think it is time for the church to do something. Exactly because our God cares deeply for restored relationships, because he knows about the brokenness and the hurt and the suffering in our beaten up world.

So we prayed, and actually, it was hard. Really really emotionally difficult to read the stories of women and young girls in the DRC who have been gang raped and left for dead, physically abused to the point where they know longer feel they are a woman was just heartbreaking. In this immense and brutal darkness, there are a few glimmers of hope, or reconstructive surgery, of healing both spiritual and physical. Read The Times online for the story of Panzi hospital.

I mentioned Restored in an earlier blog, their official launch is on 26th June - if you want to find out more you might be interested in their launch event. The Bringing Hope conference, organised by Faith and Freedom is in Colchester on 26 June.

I'd encourage you to go along if you're interested in knowing what the church can do about this issue. Or if you've been affected, then please do seek support. Contact the National Domestic Violence helpline. Restoring relationships is not a one-sided thing: restoration requires both victim and perpetrator to learn to live in a pattern that doesn't repeat these actions and break out of the cycle.

We all need someone to help us with our mess, our brokenness. We just can't do it on our own. As a church, we need to start talking about these things and to support those experiencing emotional, or physical harm. And as we do this, we start to bring restoration to our families, to our church, to our towns and cities. God speaks in Jeremiah 31: I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving kindness. I will build you up again and you will be rebuilt.

How awesome that we can be part of bringing a little bit of heaven to earth, with God's help.

Hunger and Thirst

Earlier today, I got up from my desk and walked down the corridor, and had a funny sensation of being lifted on air.

But, nooo it was not some amazing uplifting divine experience. Just light headed-ness. Which is that basic human physiological need: hunger. I started to think about lunch.

Which... today was ... quiche. Yep. The same one I've been eating since Monday. But it's very rock and roll and I was very excited. Aren't eggs great? And who knew scones could be SO versatile??


But I was thinking, about hunger mostly. It's not very often that I actually experience hunger. Like proper I've-had-nothing-in-my-stomach-for-hours type emptiness. Yesterday we had an amazing day at work. One thing I love about my job is that I work with a tonne of inspired individuals, who interceed daily, hunger and thirst for an end to the injustices of this world, for people to have access to basic medicines that can prolong their life; for people who live without the basic necessities like - clean running water - like education. And yesterday, us 'Fund folk had time to hang out with God and just really seek him, and and discover those 'penny dropping' moments. And I think that was pretty cool because I do feel sometimes feel like we're doing so much and seeing so little progress. We hear these stories about transformation and lives restored. But sometimes... it feels like nothing more than a drop in the ocean.

I am a bit of a stat-freak. My team sigh in desperation when they see me whip out a spreadsheet, well who can blame them. But seriously, charts are good. (And I especially like little drop down menus and conditional formatting... ) But I was overwhelmed when I read those stats that 50% of the people we share this fragile planet with... live on less than $2.50. A day. That's frightening because we know that poverty is cyclical and incredibly difficult to get out of. Poverty shares a poorly lit back street with sewage contaminated water, sickness, lack of education and career choices limited to slavery on the streets.


I've had a podcast on my ipod for a little while. It was a sermon which is part of a series looking on the Sermon on the mount, where Jesus stands up and says Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. And I've just been thinking a lot about this lately, I guess it ties in a lot with the idea that our lives, although we are thousands of miles away from people who have actually never experienced what it is to have their kids go to school, or don't have a source of clean water, or don't have a safe place to go to the toilet, our lives... are connected. They share the earth with us. But we don't know them. We don't see their faces and rarely do we know their names. But we're connected. And the things that we do here, have an impact on the way they live their lives... in another continent. Far far away.

And so - what?

What does this mean?

To be honest, I think it means more than I'm even able to say. I think God experiences the pain that we do. I think he knows far more than we're able to say, that thirsting and hungering and chasing after just simple things that we know are right and shouldn't be difficutlt... is tiring. We all get tired from saying the same prayers, again and again. Don't we?


God's word says this:

Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins
and will raise up the age-old foundations;
you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,
Restorer of Streets with Dwellings. Isaiah 58:12

I'm choosing to believe that God knows what he's doing. And chatting to a friend last night, I've remembered how powerful it is to keep on interceeding. To keep petitioning, keep asking, keep on going. And this week, yes I've been a little bit hungry at times, but that feels so insignificant when I think of what real committed, long-term interceders experience. But.... God has heard those cries for justice and an end of violence to women in Sudan, for spiritual renewal in Haiti, for peaceful relations in DRC. I know that he's heard and I know that as a result of people coming together in unity, there's been a shift in the heavenlies. Jesus finishes that sentence by saying - those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will be filled. There's no indication of the immediacy. But the promise is simpley: they will be satisfied.

An excellent book on the power of life-long intercedory prayer by Pete Greig, is called Red Moon Rising. If you haven't yet read it, it will change the way you think about prayer.

And one more thing about praying. Prayer is happening on your doorstep, and if you want to get involved in praying for London, go visit the [prayer for london collective]
Be part of something amazing. Even if it doesn't happen in your lifetime.