WHAT TO DO WHEN NO-ONE UNDERSTANDS HOW YOU'RE FEELING: INSEEP STILLENT TREMBLE-WRAP, BUMPBRUSH AND RESTILAX

Have you ever felt totally alone?

It's as if no-one is speaking your language.

As much as you try to express how you are feeling, and your friends nod obligingly, you feel like you're missing the mark; no one understands.

It can sometimes feel as if even God is not on your side. 

Psalm 88 expresses the feeling of abandonment well:

But I cry to you for help, Lord;
in the morning my prayer comes before you.
Why, Lord, do you reject me
and hide your face from me?

But soon, often through the healing prayers and conversation of those who've walked the same road themselves, comes healing and we can echo Psalm 147:

He heals the brokenhearted
and binds up their wounds.
He determines the number of the stars
and calls them each by name.
Great is our Lord and mighty in power;
his understanding has no limit.

In this poem I've tried to put some of this into words:

(Those of you for whom English is your second language, don't panic; I've made up a lot of these words to emphasise just how difficult it is to express our feelings and how baffling we can appear to those around us.  But God understands.)

His stillent, smally whispers ooze into my mindconscious
like a dusk-sweet hotchoc, 
like a mocha sunrise welcoming wide
with embracements louder than fearage, 
not instructioning, but come in mending,
pushing enlightenmentations, praisements and incouragabilities
that I inseep onto my naked black and bruises.  
I tremble-wrap his echo within my born-worn soul
but he stainleaks through my weak cardio
when I bumpbrush against heartbeatings as fraggi-brittle as mine.
His hushed shade cools and breaths an enveloping: 
           "I understand." 
And so I restilax in his softly stronging arms.

Sometimes we know we're not making any sense; we just need someone to understand. I have a God for that.

If you identify with any of this, please know that you have a God who knows you and understands you to your core.  I encourage you to read the Psalms where you'll find those who have walked your path or something like it. And I encourage you to find friends who can walk with you. 

You will find fellow travellers at Redeemer, a community of Christians who value honest living and who worship a God who knows us.  You'll be most welcome.

HOW DINNER IN EALING COULD CHANGE THE MIDDLE EAST

We recently went on our first family holiday abroad – to France.

France has lovely weather, beautiful countryside, delicious food…and a language that I don’t understand.

I never did French at school, so I used up pretty much my entire vocabulary by the time we’d shown our passports.

Swapping between languages can be fun (like listening to French songs written in English – the music’s fine but the words are appalling!) and very frustrating.

Interpretation is clearly a skill, and it’s something that’s very relevant to the modern world. The Middle East has been dreadfully affected over the last few years by an interpretation of Islam that is entirely different from the interpretations practiced by my Muslim friends. The same could be said of those who interpreted Christianity in such a way as to justify the Crusades or the Spanish Inquisition, or those who interpreted atheism in such a way as to justify persecuting the Jews under Nazi Germany or the Chinese under Chairman Mao.

Please don’t interpret that to mean that I’m criticising Islam, Christianity or atheism – I’m not. The point I’m making is that the way we interpret something can be as important as the thing itself. The desperately horrifying actions of so-called Islamic State would be no less horrifying if Islam were true.

In all these challenges, surely the best thought we can take away is that understanding one another better is categorically a Good Thing.

So I wonder if I could invite you out for dinner, to do exactly that. I’m doing something called Alpha, where I’d love to share a bit about what Christianity means for me, and I’d love to hear what your faith means for you.

Sign up here, and we can interpret life together.

You can find out more about Alpha here.