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Today I am giving myself a pat on the back, I have not only kicked myself out for a walk, but have also sorted out a pile of Bibles to give to those who need them and organised a collection of scarves and bags to go to a Charity Shop. On top of that I made myself cook a healthy meal this evening, and earler today I changed my bed linen! These things may seem small, and on the surface of it, and they are, but they are also significant signs that I am emerging from the fog that has recently surrounded me.

The huge thing is that I want to be well, I want to live life in all its fullness and I am not looking for another person to make that possible for me. I am not blaming anoyone else and I am not blaming myself, I am simply acccepting that I am where I am and who I am, and that is OK.

I am accepting who I am and where I am, and possibly the most surprising thing for me has been a recent diagnosis of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), this relates to three childbirth experiences and sitting with my son Chris through several Inensive Care Unit admissions. Let me say straight out that I am in no way blaming my children for these incidences, but that I also have to (now) acknowledge them. Sometimes life simply happens and we do not weigh the implications of it because we are or were just encouraged to get on with things. That may work for one incidence but it does not work for several, and again I find that I am called to be gentle with myself.

I wonder if the issue is that we need to learn to live with and not to deny our scars, Jesus bore his scars into resurrection glory, so maybe we should too, for they make us who we are, they reveal our need of grace and healing. Ultimately they identify us with the givenness of Christ, Jesus the living word, the energy behind creation, did not cling to position or power but gave himself away. He gave himslef to suffering and death, thereby bringing life to us all.

In Christ I can enter into a place where my scars become my glory, a place where regrets and hurts, pains and rejections can be healed and redeemed. In Christ what might have diminished me enlarges me, and through Christ I find the path to life, fullness of life.

So today I am giving myslef a pat on the back for I have  seen and sensed that glory working within me in decisons made and actions carried through, I know I am carried on the prayers of others, joined to a community of faith who I need, and who need me. I am not alone, never alone.

I am, like many others, on a journey towards healing and today that is enough for me.

Pat on the back!

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