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Search

Everybody’s searching for a hero…

Search for the hero inside yourself…

Song lyrics that came to mind there – why are they all about searching for heroes? Maybe we’re all heroes in our own way.

Last night we were searching. Searching for the password for the local authority site as our older girlie found out which high school she has been allocated this morning. We didn’t find the password but the email landed this morning and she has got her first choice so she’ll be pleased.

Heading to high school leads to some searching though. She’ll be searching to find her lessons and learn her way around. And also searching for her place in the school. Her place within a friendship group (I hope), her place in the pecking order. It’s not easy, and I don’t think I envy her. Teenage years in the modern social media times *shudder*. Working with young people I see a lot of issues with these and they search for their place in the world.

The search function online is a blessing and curse though. I love being able to find out almost any information in w few minutes using a search engine. I can’t work out how we lived before that really! But also we need to armed with the knowledge that all we search for may not be found. Happiness is not inside our screens. And things we post online may be searched by someone else for the rest of time. Worth remembering.

So as we search for a place, I am reminded that God holds me firmly in His hand. He set me on this path and walks with me as I search for where I am going, He keeps me safe. And I need to trust Him to hold me and my wee girl on the right paths.

Where

Where?

Where is love?

Where are you?

The last one is a question I ask my husband every day when he rings me to tell me he's on his way home. "The motorway roundabout," is usually his answer, but it does depend which roundabout as to how long until he walks in through our front door.

Where am I? Well right now I'm in my lounge. Oh you wanted more profound than that? Well ok. I'm actually in a good place. In a family I love and who love me, in a job I love and where I feel valued and worthwhile, in a place I feel lucky to be.

I remember at my brother's wedding doing a reading by A.A.Milne. "Wherever I am there's always Pooh, there's always Pooh and me." It sounds lovely until you read it out loud and then it provokes giggles. I suspect that's why he chose it for me to read. Cheers bro! But I guess I now know that wherever I am, God is with me. He stands firm against the storm for me, he comforts me in difficult times and He rejoices with me when I am happy.

I'm lucky to be where He is. And I'd like to stay there. I know it's not easy and I find it easy to wander away or to look the wrong way, but I am grateful that He gently guides me back to where He is and where I should be.

Convenient

Convenient. I found this one hard tonight.

What does convenient mean to me? I mean, I do a lot of things that aren't so convenient. My work is full of them. As a school counsellor I can be called upon to see kids about all kinds of things. And it can be at pretty short notice. My email inbox is always full of requests to see someone, "this week if you could manage it" or "quite an urgent one really". I love the ones that ask me to "work your magic" on a kid. Believe me, my dear colleagues, if there was magic in play I wouldn't need to work!

To be totally honest, a lot of the urgent requests (or people who turn up at my door with crying kids) are not convenient. Yesterday for example I cancelled 4 appointments to deal with an urgent situations. That one really was urgent, a safeguarding issue, and those are never convenient. But they are important.

But life isn't always convenient. Those messages asking for help, the moments a child spills a drink, the shouts for help finding lost things, they may not be convenient. I would like to say I always try, but I'm not perfect. There are times I try to put myself first, but for my friends and loved ones, if it's not inconvenient, I will always try to help, so do ask.

Influence

Influence. A tricky topic. Who has influence over my life? A few people have influenced it. Lots of friends do, some brave people do.

An amazing lady named Sally influenced me and continues to influence me today. She was an amazing lady of God, with such a strong faith and so much love for all those around her. The way she dealt with the things life threw at her with such dignity and grace was humbling, especially as she walked constantly in God's love.

People can influence us positively or negatively. I don't want to waste precious minutes writing about the negative but it can be a strong influence in our lives.

Where I am now I have an influence on the lives of young people. Working in a high school, I meet a lot of young people every day. They are working out who they are, what their identity is and where their place is in life. They have lot of strong influences over them. When one young person today told me they felt better when they came for counselling just because someone really listened, that showed the influence a listening ear can have.

Listening, really listening is so powerful. It is one of the greatest gifts you can ever give to someone. For me, I'm not always the greatest listener but in my job I hope I am good at it. I don't tell the kids I work with what to do (or not do really!), but I hope the fact someone listens has a positive influence.

So think today what power the words you speak and actions you do  have over someone's life. Will it be a positive influence? I hope so.

Better

Better..... What could be better than that as a prompt? Well I'm writing this on my phone sat at the station as I'm off out for an evening of cocktails with some beautiful friends. I missed the last train so I have a wait for the next one. Hope my friends wait for me.

Anyway, there's a lot of talk of better at this time of year. Better resolutions. Better diets. Better exercise plans. Loads of betters. But you know what I think would be better? If we loved ourselves as we are. Now OK, obesity is dangerous to health etc but so many people get so hung up on how they look. This time of year and all the diet ads must be awful for those with eating disorders. For some of them, cutting down on food is far from better.

I think people often want to be better at something. I'm learning to crochet. I would like to be better at that but, having only crocheted one granny square, I think there's time to improve.

This year if you feel you need a resolution, why not try to be a better friend? Or be better for the environment? Or even do something that makes you feel better.

Your mental health is so important. Just putting yourself first occasionally is vital. So treat yourself better. You don't need to be any better than you are.

Return

So it's been a while......ok it's been years. I often think about returning to blogging but never have done. Until now. No idea what made today be the day. New year? New resolution? Nah, not a resolution, I hate them!

Whatever it was, I went looking for the Five Minute Friday community today, only to find it's moved, it's not easy to get into, and there's no prompt for this week. Fabulous.  Maybe it's a sign that I shouldn't start again.

Nevertheless, I am making a return. So I made that my title today. And I've also decided that we should use the word 'nevertheless' more often. It should make a return too.

I also recently looked for my other blog - I wrote one about doing 101 things in 1001 days. Well that must be thousands of days ago, but I have no idea where I wrote that blog or how to find it. I also can't find my list of 101 things, so I've no idea how many I did complete. Certainly one of them was "Have a baby", and said baby is now 8 1/2, so there's some idea of how long ago it was. Maybe I should have returned to it sooner.

So....return. Well it's a key on the keyboard. I've borrowed said 8 1/2 year old's laptop to write this on. I have used the return key a bit. I've also returned to working in a school. Hoorah for not teaching, but loving my counselling job in a high school. That's a pretty happy return (if we don't mention the salary drop....it's HUGE!). But in doing that, some of the old Mooble has made a return. That's a good thing.

Ah there's the return of the timer telling me 5 minutes is up. I hope my typing skills return whilst I'm doing this. Nevertheless (yes, I got it in again!) I shall try and blog once a week. Not necessarily on a Friday, but once a week if I can get the prompts to work.

Storm [31 Days...Day 12]

Fire before us

You're the brightest.

You will lead us through the storm

I'm sure I've used this song before but Rend Collective's My Lighthouse really speaks to me. I've always loved lighthouses. I have some of Jean Guichard's lighthouse photos on the walls on my landing and I really love the colours and beauty of them contrasting with the power of those waves.

There are waves in life that always threaten to overcome us. Waves that look so strong, that sound so fierce. They intimidate and scare us.

To travel through those waves would be very frightening, especially in a small boat, rowing against the current. For sailors, the lighthouse shines the way. Leads them away from the rocks, to safety.

For us, God is that lighthouse. I'd always thought of God as leading us to Himself, which I am sure He is still doing, but as the lighthouse, He lights the way through the perils, the dangers and the fear, and leads us safely through the troubled waters.

Sometimes those storms look so dark, so intimidating. But there is always a light. Shining constantly in the darkness. Helping us to travel through the storm. We have to look for it. To not be battered down by the wind, the rain and the fear. But if we look, we will see it. If we trust in God, we can weather any storm.