jerry drinks green. always. on a monday. on a tuesday. on his birthday. on jesus birthday. green.

james is very different. 

it is worth mentioning that elaine, jerry and james are all very different. to begin. 
both jerry and james drink ‘pensioner pints’.. a discounted cost of a pint of beer reserved for pensioners. 
elaine might not even be half way to qualifying for such a reward. she’s somewhere around half way. 
the two lads are also real different. 
jerry is for example, just that. a lad. were as 
james is a gentleman.
james wears glasses.
jerry doesnt.
jerry has a more heartfelt laugh than santa claus. and he’s always doing it.
james’ face rarely allows him to smile.
elaine dances.

james.. yes james appears to have enjoyed the finer things in life. still does. james drinks scotch. scotchy scotch scotch.

three people. with nothing in common. except that they are people. and they accept eachother. as hilariously and incredibly different they are. there is a simple acceptance. as they spend an tremendous lot of hours together in a bar. being with one another. enjoying life. enjoying eachother. james on the scotch. jerry bringing the laughter. elaine does the dancing. appropriate or not.

and there’s this conspiracy that god loves people. that he created us? and that he loves us? he just loves us. just because. thats all. he loves us because..
not because of what we have or dont have..
not because of what we do or dont do. or things we didnt do..
not because of who we are. or how “good” or “bad” we are..
not because of how good we dance..
but just because!

i am loveable because he loves me
that is all.

life seems to always be a quest for acceptance and to be stuck around this idea of needing to be ok.

the conspiracy isn’t a conspiracy. its true.
you are ok.
you are more than ok.
you are loved of god.
you are accepted.

in genesis, god said that we need eachother. that it isnt good for us to be alone. (genesis 2.18) god and adam looked for a bit. did a bit of naming the animals too. two birds (thats what adam called them) one stone. efficient they were. but when the animals had names and adam was still alone. god did something beautiful. he gave us community. 

he gave us love. friendship. marriage. sex. sharing. eve.we need eachother. 

the ways we try to find ourselves has become more perverse since genesis. trying so hard to be who we are. to be different to everyone else. but yet belong. to find out “who i am?”. “whats my purpose?”. “why am i here?”. i do not think that trying to discover these things is bad. but these questions are loaded with such selfish words. 
and i believe this community we’re involved in is meant for more. why are we here? who are we?

love is something better.
and i believe that love is why we are here. why we were created. how we were created. the reason for it all. love. our purpose. i am also learning more and more. love is the solution.
love is why.. but its difficult.. to truely love and be loved if we try this alone.

living for me. we put up so many walls. its all very selfish.and often trying so hard to find and be who i am. i lose who i am.in trying to live my life. i lose out on how i was meant to live. we were not made to be alone. “its not good.” we were created for this community of ours.
we need eachother

19 july 2008

its going to be a good day..

i thought this was kind of funny.. but kind of special

every knee bowed.. and everyone saying or shouting or singing? (i dont know. but i imagine it will be loud).. you are god

and ..the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of god!
habukkuk 2:14

we’re not there yet. but we are past the start.
its going to be a good day.

“plans” are different to plans.
i rarley have a plan.
“plans” but, are brave wonderful things.
and it really doesnt even matter if a “plan” happens or not.
we want them to. and for sure they can be amazing when they do. even life changing things…
but a “plan” was still a little life changing. and wonderful. and fun. and hope giving. inside of your head and your heart, even if it never comes to happen.
i like “plans” … plans are silly.
make some “plans”

ephesians 3: 20

psalm 46: 10

and there’s silence till just over 10 weeks ago.

i get a phone call from my aunt. my dads only sister.

one afternoon my dad went missing for like 10 hours.. (looking for me on the streets of coleraine after one of his friends told him they thought they’d seen me.. it wasnt me)

but this day on his way home he took another seizure or a fall just around the corner from his home, and an ambulance gets called. but i guess he comes round, and so they didn’t take him into hospital.

but during this night.. elise [my step mum] noticed him, not good in his speech and movement down his right side. so she calls the emergency doctor, and with my dads history, the doctor sends an ambulance right away.

so now he’s in coleraine hospital with stroke affects. they run a cat scan.. and discover a big bleed on the left side of his brain.. and bruising on the right side.

the whole night suddenly falls into an emergency. my dad gets an ambulance with a police escort immediately to belfast, to the royal hospital for theatre.

all this time, elise is being told at every stage.. “he might not make it out of hospital”.. “he might not make it to the royal”.. “he might not make it through theatre”.. he does though.

and for 3 days he’s in a semi-induced coma.

by the time i learn all this and get myself to the royal.. its day 4.. and the doctors, while i’m there want to try to wake him up.

he was a sad sight, lying there in the intensive care unit.

there were tubes everywhere, and a ventilator down his throat helping him to breathe. given how he was going into theatre.. with stroke affects.. they really were not sure how he was going to come out of theatre. with speech? or with power?

they wake him up.. and he’s so confused. especially when he discovers the scar running from behind his left ear down to the base of his neck.. where it u-turns and runs back up the middle, stopping again at the very top of his head.

but he has speech, or at least a mumble, praise jesus.. and he has power on both sides. able to make fists. god is good.

dad spends just one more day in icu.. before he gets moved to high dependency and spends just one day there before getting moved onto a neurology ward in the royal hospital.

he starts to get a little better physically as days begin to tick over. but his mind is nowhere. there is recognition of myself and elise, but without names, and there isn’t even the connection that i am his youngest son colin. he really doesn’t know where he is or why.

a couple of weeks later he gets moved to a rehabilitation ward of coleraine hospital where they needed to lock down the ward soley for my dads benefit.. after two attempts at an escape, one of which ended him up at the very boundaries of the hospital grounds. (in itself a miracle of sorts given his walking ability.. or inability!?) lqtm.

but his mind isn’t getting much better. and although he is doing ok physically: walking isn’t great.. his speech seems to be getting worse.. and daily tasks like feeding himself are just not there. and still no names.

6 weeks on.. as they begin to lessen the drugs in his system.. we begin to see small improvements.

and after one night being along with him at the hospital as he sleeps.. and getting a half hour to pray over him before elise would come back in.. he wakes up.. calls me colin.. and son! we serve an awesome god.

but this kind of clarity of his mind, is still to come and go and come and go.

as well, daily stuff like speech, co-ordination, and just even the thought processes involved with daily living, just aren’t really there, and walking still isn’t really there. it was to be good days and bad. good hours and bad.

at this point the situation looked as follows according to the doctors:

there was a small hope of some intensive rehabilitation, maybe in england, that might eventually get him home and back into ‘life’. the time scale on this was at least a year.

but the realistic outcome.. was that because of all my dad’s “things” [his extreme ptsd.. his epilepsy.. the scaring of his brain.. and just his present state of mind].. rehabilitation wasn’t going to be possible and it looked like care the rest of his life.

but.. they referred him to musgrave park brain hospital (please excuse the names i give for these places).. to give him a try at rehabilitation.

he was moved there on Wednesday 15th august.

i visited him on that thursday.

and the only way that makes sense to say this.. is that my dad came back.

a miracle while we all slept.. as if god turned a small light, back on. my dad was back.

but not my dad of the past 2 and something years.. since his health really began to fail him. i’m looking at my dad as he was, when he visited me on the doulos Christmas 04.. the man i remember before he got really sick.

my dad came back.

god hasnt changed, and gods still in the business of miracles. and on that night.. my dad was one of gods miracles.

and now musgrave park are looking at this man, and thinking, what can we even do for you?

speech therapists.. “there’s nothing we need to do?”

physiotherapists.. “there’s nothing really we can do?”

occupational therapists.. “there’s nothing really we need to do?”

god is so good!

i’m keeping praying.

i can tell to look at my dad.. he’s thinking about what he’s gone through the past 10 weeks, of which he remembers nothing, to where he is now.. and he knows that gods involved. His heart is soft.

with all dads been through.. and with the ptsd, like a lot of police officers and other service men.. there is a lot still to be sorted. pray that he will get help. and that even after all these years of haunted living.. he will be able to get fixed in that sense. its a BIG challenge.

but we have a much BIGGER god.

ephesians 3: 20

psalm 46: 10

i wish i had more words

thank god who gets it all.. all the glory. medicine didn’t even get a small say in this story.

indescribable.

from velvit elvis, written by rob bell. this is a smart man.

“one of the central metaphors for god and his people throughoiut the bible is that of a groom and his bride. god is the groom; his people are the bride. i like this because it makes the church a “she”. we need to reclaim this image.

the church is a she.

shes a mystery, isnt she? still going after all this time. after the crusades and the inquisition and christian cable television. still going. and there continue to be people like me who believe she in one of the best ideas ever. in spite of all the ways shes veered off track. in spite of all the people who have actually turned away from god because of what they experienced in church.i am starting to realise why: the church is like a double-edged sword. when its good, when its on, when its right, its like nothing on earth. a group of people committed to selflessly serving and loving the world around them? great. but when its bad, all the potential gets turned the other way. from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows. sometimes in the same week. sometimes in the same day.

but she will live on. shes indestructible. when she dies in one part of the world, she explodes in another. she’s global. she’s universal. she’s everywhere. and while she’s fragile, she’s going to endure. in every generation there will be those who see her beauty and give their lives to see her shine. jesus said the gates of hell will not prevail against her. thats strong language. and its true. she will continue to roll across the ages, serving and giving and connectin people with god and each other. and people will abuse her and manipulate her and try to destroy her, but they’ll pass on. and she will keep going.”

god believes in church. in community. in people coming together and coming alive to be the body of christ.

“he is not invisble we when come alive.” – jamie twortowski

“we are an unstoppable force.” – brian sommerville

it isn’t for anyone really. but it might be for someone?

writing helps me to know what i’m thinking because it makes me think about what i’m thinking about. this is its primary purpose. its rare. but. every now and again sometimes what comes out is ok.

as it is rare. i dont imagine i will write often. i believe in writing. and if i do write. i would like it.. if it is to be read, to mean something. to be maybe more than just words.

ok. there this is. moving on…