It was the culmination of months of toing and froing with God. I lay in bed in the wee small hours wide awake, wondering how on earth I was going to get my family home from holiday. The wild fires in Sicily and an airport closure meant that we had less than 24 hours notice to change travel arrangements to depart from a different airport, a two hour drive away from where we had planned to be. The clock was ticking. I now had less than twelve hours. My husband lay beside me fast asleep. Why wake him when I could carry the worry on his behalf? Mike had booked an airport transfer the night before but we had not yet received email confirmation and the question mark loomed larger- what if we now needed to get there another way? I picked up my phone and started to research. I had visions of us going cross country on buses and trains like a mad episode of Race Across the World. Only this didn’t feel like a grand adventure. Thankfully, Mike stirred and rose from the bed and I could finally whisper my fears and offload my burden. He checked his inbox- what I had feared had come to pass. Now what? He proceeded to try another taxi company whilst I lay in bed pondering who would be awake at 2am to take our booking and have a car waiting for us in less than six hours?

I thought of Jesus lying asleep in the boat, His disciples panicking as they tried to rouse Him as the winds whipped up a storm and the waves battered. Oh yes, I am that one of little faith. I forced myself to see what I hadn’t wanted to admit for months. This holiday brought it to the fore. I couldn’t ignore it any longer. I had spent the last two weeks worrying constantly- about the risk of skin cancer, dehydration, a car accident, slips on the water slides. You name it, I was worrying and it wouldn’t take someone with a psychology degree to put two and two together. Past trauma had left its mark and even though I had navigated my way through it- my body still remembered. My mind wouldn’t let me forget. This is what I was left with. The opposite of faith: constant worry and fear, ultimately fear of untimely death. Not mine, but those I love.

Jesus how did you manage to sleep in that boat? I can’t even sleep for worry about a two hour drive. I am so tired of this. I’m done. So I said the only word left. The word that fights against every instinct in my body: ‘Help’. Suddenly it was out there. I had said it. For me, a cold, icy word that admits defeat. But I couldn’t control this situation. I was all out of options. Thoughts of ‘Now what are You going to do?’, reverberated around my mind.

Mike checked his phone again, the booking had gone through successfully. And in a matter of minutes, despite the doubts I had uttered moments before, email confirmation followed hot on its heels and provided the name and the number of our driver. Hallelujah! A familiar scripture came immediately to mind, ‘ Before they call I will answer; while they are still speaking I will hear’ ( Isaiah 65v24). Relief flooded my body. I could feel the worry start to trickle out of my body like a small stream, gathering momentum as time passed and the acceptance that all would actually end up being ok.

This morning, I get up early to sit with God and reflect. We got home a few days ago and I am still annoyed with myself. An image of a dessert came from nowhere and flitted through my mind. One of those modern ones that is assembled haphazardly on the plate and politely called ‘deconstructed’. I feel a bit like that God. A deconstructed mess. I am not what I thought I was or hoped and wanted to be. Where was the faith I had built my life on? I started this year not with a resolution but a word I knew you were going to unfold in my life. Yes, you’ve guessed it: faith. I even bit the bullet and got ‘walk by faith’ tattooed on my right ankle. Ha! You have a sense of humour, Father. I thought you were going to build up what I already had, not take it apart to start all over again. But I concede, perhaps this is what is needed right now. Like the potter at the wheel, You have the right to start over any time You want. Reduce, reuse, recycle. Less of me, more of You-the ingredients are there, but maybe this dessert needs to look a little different.

I see my Father standing before me and He beckons me closer. I look down at my hands and hold them out. It is with feelings of great shame and embarrassment that I realise they are empty. I look up helplessly, ‘Bring me your nothing’, He utters softly. He hears my unspoken thoughts and adds, ‘Bring Me your I can’ts’. I think about this for a moment. I have been whispering unspoken ‘I can’ts’ in my mind for the best part of two years when I chose to leave a job I had been doing for nearly twenty years in order to step out in faith (ha- that word again!) and find my stepping stones to purpose and destiny in God’s plans. I was so far out of my comfort zone I was almost ready to claw my way back. I consider His request carefully and then slowly list them:

I can’t … because…

I am not able

I am not clever enough

I am not brave enough

I am not beautiful enough

I am no eloquent enough

I am not educated enough

I am not confident enough….

I see myself open a shopping bag filled with large, coloured plastic shapes, the kind a young child would play with. Arbitrary shapes that somehow should fit together and provide fun in putting the pieces of the puzzle together. But none of these shapes connected. I looked on with confusion etched on my face. ‘These are meaningless, they don’t fit together’, I told Him. Surely He knows this already so what is He trying to tell me here?

‘These are your Nothings’, He explains. ‘You are trying to build Something with Nothing. None of these pieces fit, He acknowledges. You cannot build with ‘I can’ts’. Suddenly I see the futility and the penny drops.

‘It is time to put away the childish things. You only see in part: it is Love that builds. Do not look down and disregard Love. It is NOT a feeling. Love is your building brick. It is your motivator and your sustainer. You cannot work without it. Before you proceed and embark upon this journey you need My Love. You need to be marked and seared and burnt with My Love. This is how you will learn to see differently. Love is not the giving of Things. Yes, I am your Provider, but you don’t measure My love by the Things I give you or how many Things I give you. It is the giving of Me, the Giving of Myself to you. When you feel your Nothing, I want you to see Me giving you Myself. You have My strength, My beauty, My capability, My wisdom. You have Me. That’s the difference. It’s not the Thing you need. Don’t seek after The Thing. Seek after Me. Put Me first in all Things and above all Things. See Me, giving you Myself. You have Me. You have capacity for more of Me. Let Me fill you with Me. Let Me breathe more of Me into you. It’s the breath that brings life to the dry bones. Nothing more, nothing less. Don’t overcomplicate this. Receive My breath’.

So I lay down and breathed deeply, in and out, in and out, in and out… ‘I receive’, I said over and over. ‘I receive’.

1 Corinthians Ch13 v2 (NIV)

 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.

John Ch 20 v21-22 (NIV)

Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.”  And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.