Sometimes it seems that nothing in life is easy doesn’t it. We battle to achieve things. We battle to keep things. We struggle to earn money. We struggle to spend it wisely rather than waste it on temptations that last a few moments and do not bring lasting results. We know we should do A B and C today but we do something else because we cannot face doing those things. Then sometimes when we do them we think that was silly there was no reason to delay doing that and feel we have really achieved something for overcoming the procrastination that had held us captive.

My battle is not your battle. After nearly thirty years of being a homemaker I still struggle to keep my home to a standard that many people seem to achieve effortlessly. It is not just a case of lack of discipline either it goes deeper than that. Some of this situation is caused by the way I see myself and some by the behaviour and attitudes of others.

My first home like many people’s first home was put together from a selection of second hand items and hand me downs. My husband did not see spending money on carpets and furniture as big a priority as spending money on drink to help him cope with life. We had the basic essentials and that was sufficient for him. I was not sure of my own self worth so wondered if I really deserved pleasant things around me. I was told that my desire to have better things was really me being over materialistic and that I ought to be thankful for what we had and not desire anything else. In other words, we both had issues that interacted and hindered rather than helped each other.

Fast forward 25 years. I live in a house that some people think looks big enough to be a pair of modern semi-detached houses. My husband has been diagnosed as having obsessive compulsive disorder and I have been told by a psychiatrist that this is why he struggles to maintain our home. I have a list of things that I want doing around the house that runs to three or four typed pages some of which have been on that list for 15 years or more. I am told that I am in the wrong putting pressure on him to do things so try not to do so. As a result, I feel crushed by the slow decline of my home as when things go wrong or otherwise decline over time they stayed that way. For example, the spring on the garage door broke and it was not repaired for many years so I was not able to get the car out on my own. He puts things down and expects them to be left where thay are because of his irrational overwhelming fear of moving them. Sometimes I am told not to touch certain things because of his fear or even go into certain rooms for fear I will touch something he is frightened of. I become overwhelmed by his fear and struggle to cope with it myself. What is worse there are times (mercifully many) when his fear of something not being clean means that he stands over me dictating exactly how something should be cleaned. That does not sound that bad but once when I explained in detail to someone why it took 5 times as long to do something his way rather than the way I would normally do it they saw it as him abusing me.

What made things worse was that I could not live in the state of constant forgiveness that was required in this situation. I retaliated. When he struggled to maintain our home from a male perspective I did not bother cleaning it as I should. When he made the couch and the floor at one end of our living room into his storage area then I used the floor at the other end for my storage area. Here we go again interacting with each other in such a way that we make the other’s issues worse. Between the pair of us, our home was an absolute disgrace. In the end, he decided that he could not cope with my behaviour anymore so he decided to divorce me. I on the other hand felt that most of the things he listed as my unreasonable behaviour were due to my inability to cope with his issues. By the time the divorce took effect I had improved my behaviour and managed to explain to him why I had struggled. But it still went ahead because he could not manage to deal with his issues sufficiently well to stop me getting hurt all over again.

Where am I today? You will have to wait to next week to find out.

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History makers need to have a positive attitude towards money. In other words they need to know how to handle it and make it multiply for them. This is not an easy thing to do. Many struggle just to manage money. Few actually manage to mind make money work for them rather than them having to work for money. 

This can take a radical change in attitudes and means learning a new set of skills. How can you do this?  Most of us have been taught that we should be aiming to get a job or work for others. Some have gone a bit further and looked at the possibility of becoming self-employed and giving themselves a job. Many people have set up organisations that learnt to survive on grants and donations rather than developing such a level of income for themselves that they can use this to fund the organisation. In these days of huge competion for grants and donations it is useful to be able to developing alternative ways of funding the work that you want to do. Therefore it is useful to learn how to use money to make money.

Those who have learnt how to make money make money have had to change their attitude towards money. That can be a quite a difficult journey. This game was developed by Robert Kiyosaki as a way of helping people develop the skills and attitudes that are necessary to make those kind of changes.

If you have not heard of Mr Kiyosaki then you will not have heard of the Rich Dad Poor Dad series of books. In these books he compares the things that he learnt from his natural father (his poor dad) and his best friend’s father (his rich dad). One had many academic qualifications and had a good job but still died poor. The other was street smart and employed others to help him make money that made him rich. In the past few years he has built a business based on the principles he learnt and then used in his own life to become rich. His current businesses run seminars and a coaching service using the principles he has written about in his books. In addition they sell three cashflow games. One for children and two for adults, one extending the skills learnt in the other.

I have managed to obtain a copy of the children’s version and the first level adult game. Problem is I need people to play them with. Is there anyone in the Bishop Auckland area who would be willing to play them with me? If so let me know and we can make arrangements to do so.

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CIC stands for Community Interest Company. What on earth does that mean? It is a type of limited company but one where the aim is benefit the community rather than to make money for those running it. It is not a charity although there is a regulator who by law needs to see the year end accounts and the annual report. The annual report has to explain what Lily the Pink Ministries has done to benefit the communities that the legal documents say that it is going to do. These will both be made available on the regulator’s own web site so anyone can have a look at them.

The legal documents have to say who will benefit from the activities of the CIC. There are two groups mentioned. Firstly, anyone who can access the web site and understand English. Secondly, those living locally who need support to improve their emotional or mental wellbeing.

Before agreeing to register Lily the Pink Ministries CIC the regulator also wanted to see a list of ways that these communities could benefit. This is what they were sent.

1 Provide a Christian environment for online courses.
* Those who are subject experts will be given an additional opportunity to share their knowledge with others.
* Those who wish to study will have the opportunity to take the course of their choice.

2 Provide courses and support for those who wish to improve their mental or emotional wellbeing.
* An example of the courses that will be offered is Think Right which mixes ideas form scientific research, biblical teaching and practical experience to help people reconsider the way they think about situations and people.
* It is highly likely that clients will have a variety of practical needs. Ways will be found to help them meet those needs either by signposting them to other services or providing for them from the resources within Lily the Pink Ministries.

It is a not for profit organisation. The documentation also had to state what use any surplus would be put to. The answer to that was “The range of possible needs that clients may have means that it is unlikley that there will be any difficulty finding ways of spending money on clients.”

So now you know.

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Have you ever noticed in the Bible that Jesus did not use the same technique to help everyone who came across His path who needed help? Some were helped in practical ways by being given food or money. Some were healed using various approaches. I have a feeling that there is as many ways of helping people as there are people.

Some people are depressed because they are struggling due to the debts they have built up. How do you help them? One way is to do something practical and help them deal with the debt problem. Another is pray for their situation to change. Another is to give them medication that will alter the chemicals in their brain so that it can function better. Another is to be their friend and offer a listening ear. If truth be known all these approaches have their place but in reality if they all were available at the right time in the right doses so much the better.

What some one’s greatest need is depends on the person and their problem. It is a bit easier to provide practical support in some situations than others. Sometimes it is necessary to refer people to specialists who can help them more than you can. So if they are in debt one of the organizations that offer to set up debt management plans for free may be very useful.

The speed of the help can vary as well. Some people can receive quick miraculous responses to their prayers, others may need to wait many years. Sometimes there may be a quick breakthrough that is followed by a long time of readjustment.

His way of helping people is multi faceted and as such is in line with what Lily the Pink Ministries would like to achieve. One of these facets is dealing with practical problems such as helping them get out of debt. Another is providing them with the opportunity for to be healed by prayer. Another is supporting them while they are ill and helping them to build up their strength.  Another is of course making good use of the medical resources available.

Problem is how do you know what the right approach is for any one person.

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Some nights it can be a struggle trying to sleep. All sort of memories and thoughts can bubble up and keep my mind so active sleep becomes impossible. The problem with the past is that it does not stay in the past if affects the present and it will affect the future if it is not dealt with properly.

I could bury it and try and forget about it. The problem is that it still be there and it may still impact the present. Teachers talk about constructivism. By this they mean that as we learn we construct information from different sources into a whole way of thinking. So when you are at school what you learn in English lessons is used later to help you write the geography essay which is based on what you learnt in geography lessons during the last month or so.  As we progress we are helped to develop more skills and told more facts and we are expected to put them together and construct a way of understanding the world. In other words to a teacher it would be no surprise that what we learn from one experience is built upon by the next.

How then can we bury an experience? We may “forget” the actual experience but what we learnt from it will affect the way that we react to something else. Sometimes we can do things in a certain way and not realise why we do it that way. The past may be buried but it can still affect the present and the future. If this is the case is do we have any choices to make on a day to day basis? Determinists suggest that our present and future is determined by what has happened in the past. 

There is another way. We can be held captive by the things that have happened in the past. However, my bible says that Jesus came to set the captive free. It does not say what sort of captivity people could be struggling with. My captivity last night was due to old painful memories. Things from the past that were shaping the way I saw things in the present.

The only way I know how to get out of that kind of captivity is forgiveness. The problem is that old memories like this become part of us and it is like letting go of old friends. Some things, no matter how harmful they are to us, we just cannot seem to let go. Sometimes we think we have let go and then something happens and we realise that either we have not let go properly or we have picked them up again. I suppose that is why Jesus advice was not to just forgive 7 times but 70 times 7. It is possible but it takes time and effort. I have managed to do this with other things but I still have some way to go with these ones.

Susan

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I have been trying to plan a new project and I knew that I could not do it alone. I needed some helpers. I asked some of the Christians I knew and they were all too busy. I asked some non-Christians and they said that sounds like a good idea when can we start!

I was worried and puzzled. If this is supposed to be an organisation with a Christian bias why are those who are most interested in working with me not Christians. They are simply people with a heart to help other people in the kind of ways that this project is expected to do.

The light dawned when I heard a teacher put a slightly different interpretation on the parable of the kingdom in Matthew 22 than I had heard before. The story goes like this some people were asked to go to a wedding banquet but they had other things that they wanted to do instead. The king then said OK if you won’t come along I will look amongst the homeless and people who are not as well off as you and find some people who will come along. Those that did come were even rewarded coming by being provided with new clothes. In other words, if those who were invited first will not join in with God’s plans then He will go out and find people who will. He will also reward them for joining him.

This helped to explain the situation I had found myself in. It also explains why we have so many organisations that are providing health or social care within our communities. This was once the responsibility of the church. In fact the early forms of social care legislation in the 18th and 19th century were based on the parish system. It became law that those who were in charge of running the parish church also had to hand out money to people who needed it as they had no work. Those who were disabled or ill or too young to work were cared for in the workhouses. Attitudes have changed as at that time it was more unacceptable to be dependent on others and not to be able to work yourself. Today we have a National Health Service and local councils who provide social care for those who struggle because of either health or disability. Being too ill or disabled to work is also less of a stigma so as a nation we are not as unkind to those who cannot work. However during the 20th century the church retreated from providing many of these services and now they are provided by the state.

Problem is we are now beginning to feel the squeeze financially and the government does not have the money to pay for as many of these services as it once did.  In fact some would say that the need was so great that it never had enough money to do all that was needed. Now the church has got weaker and who is there left to provide these services. Some faith groups support their members much better than the church does so are they going to expand the services that they provide for their own into the wider community?

God will find a way of providing for people whether it is his first choice of people or his second choice or even his third choice. If those who believe that they are amongst his first choice do not follow him and set up ways of helping others then He will move on and they may find that they regret it. In fact in some ways that is where we are at the moment as people of faith struggle against those who deny them opportunities to display jewellery that reflect their faith or suggest that it is a sacking offence to mention words like God or church during working hours.

The teacher emphasised the idea that God could anyone for his purposes by reminding us that if in the Old Testament He used a donkey to help him achieve what he wanted. In other words if those that He wanted to work with him to fulfill his purposes would not do so then it would not matter who was willing He would use them.  

I was sad that this had happened with the project that I am working on. However, I knew that God was in control and that He was teaching me things through this experience.

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One morning I woke up seeing a picture of a necklace. This necklace was a bit like a charm bracelet in that it was a chain that had shapes hanging from it. Each of these shapes was the same, a flower. The flowers were like clear crystal, with no sharp corners on them. Each flower was the same shape a circle in the middle with six petals around it. There were many of these flowers fastened to this chain but not so many that they overlapped or even touched. I wondered if it was the sort of necklace that would be worn by a bride.

I then remembered the strategy that I felt God had given me regarding how Lily the Pink Ministries CIC would grow to provide the range of helps to people in mental distress that I recognised was needed. The idea is to help people grow their own projects. This could include personal development or by building their practical skills or improving their education. This would mean that each project would be represented by these flowers and the chain would be the means by which Lily the Pink Ministries links them all together and provides the structure that would help them develop.

Susan

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One reason why we have limitations is that we have been taught them or have learnt them from experience. It is said that fleas are trained by putting a cover over them they then learn that when they jump above a certain height they will hit the cover and get hurt. Consequently they stop jumping so high and only jump to a level where they can trust that they will not get hurt by hitting the cover. After they have learnt this the trainer can take the cover away and they will still not try to jump any higher.

We can be taught that we cannot do things in the same way as the flea. It does not matter whether those things are right and proper things to do or not. This is why those in teaching roles carry a lot of responsibility. It is not so much how they teach people that they are judged for but what they teach people. They can be the ones who put the limits on or take the limits off people. They are trusted as people who know what the right thing really is hence the responsibility that they carry.

In one sense we are all responsible for what we learn and in a sense that is true. We should go on and check what we have learnt against primary sources and use our own common sense to work things out for ourselves. However, we have this habit of simply accepting what the teacher says and following whatever party line that they take. Sometimes we even see flaws in the evidence presented to us about a particular view point and still accept it because we trust the person who told us about that view point knew that it was right.

Teachers can only teach people the things that they know for themselves. If they do not know how and why something happens they cannot explain it to anyone else. One reason why we have to take responsibility in terms of who we learn from. That includes what TV programmes we watch, mp3 files we listen to, books we read and the company that we keep.

Teachers are no less biased than the rest of us. Some have seen people hurt by the mistakes that others have made and as a result will say that doing xyz is wrong because it hurts people. If only life was so simple. How many times have you looked at something and realised that you see it in a different light to someone else? Truth is truth but you can stand in one position and see it in one way and stand in another position and see it in another. They are good people and want to protect others but by doing this they put limits on people.

I am reminded of the letter my primary school headmistress sent out before the annual school trip. Every year one pupil had an accident with a drinks container and every year the list what drinks containers were unacceptable increased. The aim was to find some way of preventing someone having an accident with a drink. No matter what the limits were somehow someone always seemed to have an accident. Gradually the freedom to take what we wanted was diminished as we had to follow the rules.

Our ability to choose what we learn increases as we develop and mature. By then though we have spent many years learning from our families and the people they have trusted to care for us or teach us. Some of us have learnt many limitations by then, not all of them useful ones. Some have learnt that if they talk to someone then they will not be heard. Some have learnt that the only way to feel secure is to hide away from other people.  

Time some of us went back to the primary source and did some proper investigation of what we are capable of doing. People will hear us if we have the courage to make the effort to speak to others. We can still be safe if we come out from behind the barricades. We can do things if we take the limits off ourselves.

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