Peace,

AH

Forgetting You

I tried to forget your face / I moved away and found a place / where no-one even knows your name.

I tried to erase that sight / clean out your space in my book of life / but it simply didn’t wash away.

Hey, boy, you’re hard to let go of / did anybody ever tell you that, boy? / that your mark doesn’t melt like the snow?

‘Cos trying to forget you is like / trying to ignore the sun when / there isn’t a cloud in the sky,

So go ahead, just waltz back in / like you own the place, back into your space / in the deepest corner of my heart.

I tried to replace your name / with ones I met and then forgot about / ‘cos they weren’t you.

I tried to eliminate your impact / on my heart and mind and life and soul / but it just won’t go away

Hey, boy, I tried to let go of you / but I find that I can’t do that, boy / so I’ll keep on hoping that you’ll come back some day.

‘Cos trying to forget you…

So go ahead, just waltz back in…

It kills me to know that you were almost mine / for a time / as I watch her face shine

When she looks at you / so I look away / but the picture in my mind won’t fade

‘Cos trying to forget you…

So go ahead, just waltz back in…

I was thinking about this concept of ‘finding oneself’ the other day, as I’ve been contemplating (in my spare time) where people derive their identities from and what makes someone ‘me’ as opposed to ‘you’ or ‘him’ or ‘her’. And the thought occurred to me, what if you find yourself, only to discover that you don’t like yourself? What happens then? Is that why Bohemian hipsters from Shoreditch move half a mile to the west and lose their doubts in a haze of city-made money, or top themselves in their grotty one-room flats, or drink and adulterate away their insecurities? Does Shoreditch, a culture that outwardly praises individuality and self-expression, have so many people who look and sound like carbon copies of each other because, when they finally came face-to-face with themselves they didn’t like what they found?

I’ve had both space and cause for some self-reflection over the past 4 weeks, and after that time I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m not a very good or nice person. In fact, I’ve discovered that I’m a bad and evil person. I am self-centred and deliberately cruel, frequently lie and pander to my own selfishness, talk behind people’s backs and have horrendous tendencies to jealousy, arrogance, vanity and laziness. I may be better at hiding these tendencies behind a veneer of decency than others, but that just makes me deceitful as well as all the above. And that list doesn’t begin to cover the deepest, darkest faults and secrets that I don’t admit to myself, never mind anybody else.

Please understand, I am not demeaning myself or attempting exaggerate my flaws in order to fish for compliments or favourable comparisons. I have no doubt that you, my reader, have a list of faults, flaws and sins just as long as mine, whether or not you choose to admit it. Which, if you and I are so badly flawed and yet would probably be regarded as decent human beings – unless the readership of my blog has expanded to loan sharks, drugs barons and serial killers, which would surprise me greatly – makes me wonder why anyone would want to find themselves at all. It seems like setting yourself up for disappointment.

As I was turning some of these thoughts over on the bus – which is a great place for deep thinking, unless you process aloud – I remembered that I’d originally been considering identity from a Christian perspective. The Bible has a lot to say about people being rubbish, but has a lot more to say about God being extraordinarly gracious, and the general gist of it all is that the evil we’ve done is no longer held against us, and that we are accepted as we are by God, because of Jesus’ sacrifice. This realisation hit me anew like a brick thrown through the bus window at my head: we are accepted as we are, faults and failings all. Including the things you’re ashamed to name, including those things you like to pretend don’t exist. God not only sees these things, He accepts you with them, because of Christ’s sacrifice and His grace.

What does it means for the deepest of our secrets and flaws to be accepted in Christ? What if the behaviour even you abhor in yourself is forgiven by God’s unimaginable grace? What if, when it comes down to the base line, all you are is an evil person who’s been shown immeasurable mercy?

I grew up in church and was always the good girl in church, in school, in the youth group. When I first came to God, I brought my life to Him because I understood that He loved me and that He’d died for the things that I’d done wrong. So I guess I always knew that I was what Christians called ‘a sinner’, someone who got stuff wrong. But I suppose I never really thought of myself as ‘sinful’ – I was a good person who, most of the time, behaved to a reasonable standard and somtimes got things wrong. It’s taken me nearly ten years since the night that I first met Jesus to realise that I am not a good person who occasionally does bad things. I am an evil person who, on rare occasions, is capable of actions prompted by the Spirit, done in the strength of Christ to the glory of God. And yet, God accepts me anyway.

For just under 2 years, I have been severely unhappy with myself, because I have not been living up to the person I thought I should be. This month’s revelation of my badness does not depress me – it frees me. Freedom because I am a bad person and do not have to live up to the reputation of a good person. Freedom because God does not have a bottom line for His love. Freedom because I am accepted and forgiven. Freedom because Jesus loves me and that love does not depend on me being a good person. And it brings me the freedom to do good things because I want to, not because I should.

I’ve been reading recently about two types of freedom – freedom from and freedom to. I once thought that being a Christian was about freedom from sinfulness and hell; I now know that it’s about the freedom that motivates and allows bad people to do good things. The word ‘Christian’ first originated as an insult in the first century AD, and means ‘little Christ’ – it aimed to poke fun at the similarity of Christ’s followers to their Lord. It strikes me that to be a Christian is a lifestyle rather than a belief. The belief is that God loves me and Jesus died for me, and that if I choose it I can trust Him and be saved for eternity. The lifestyle is not a requiste or condition of the above offer. It is a choice, made in response to our understanding of our evilness, God’s goodness and Christ’s sacrifice. A choice to glorify God, in the attitude of Christ and the power of the Spirit.

Although it was never my intention to do so, I came to Shoreditch and found myself. I was bitterly disappointed with the person I found. But I’ve also found that grace goes deeper than I could have contemplated and that the freedom that grace offers me is more encompassing and inspiring than I could have imagined.

So I am a bad person. But I know a good God who accepts all that I am. And that’s enough for me.

Peace,

AH

At the End of It All

At the end of it all, I stand here.

Standing naked as Adam and Eve

On the day they fell to their own greed

And realised all they’d done.

Standing alone as Hagar

On the day she was cast out for her closeness

To the one she was told to love.

Standing defenceless as Elijah

On the day You broke down all his constructed defences

To get him alone before You.

At the end of it all, I stand here,

Watching You break apart the walls I’ve built for my protection

From sorrow and lonelieness and my own wretched company.

You find me alone, naked and defenceless before my God.

My God who is terrible and powerful and gloriously good.

My God who gave it all up become alone and naked and defenceless for me.

At the end of it all,

When my heart is broken and my eyes have run dry,

I stand here.

At the end of it all,

When my selfish will must bend to Your heavenly designs,

I stand here.

At the end of it all,

When I’ve nothing left to give but my praise for Your Name,

I stand here.

Will You come?

I have to admit, I wasn’t ever keen on the kid. From seeing his speech on the evening news, I thought ‘meh’. I know better politicians and although his story
was moving, it was by no means the only one I’ve heard. But that was evidently not the media’s perception of him – he was immediately labelled as te future prime minister and the person to save Labour from years of opposition.

As I said, I’m wasn’t personally that impressed. So it made little difference to me to find out that Rory is the son of a self-made millionaire whose business collapsed two years ago, hence the house repossession. He was educated at a private school until said business collapse, when he qualified to attend a local grammar school in Kent. His parents are now separated and he lives in a semi-detached house, still in Kent, with his mum. One of the articles I read quoted a supportive grandmother who professed no knowledge of her grandson’s interest in politics but was very proud of him all the same.

I would hate to go through a house repossession, parents separating or anything else that Rory has gone through in the past 2 years, and I think he absolutely should speak out about the impact the government’s cuts are having on the welfare system and young people. But, ultimately, he had a great start in life and opportunities from birth that many people will never have. Despite the recent troubles his family have faced, he is still a middle-class white male with an excellent education, a supportive family and a passion for socialism. Which is great for him, but bad for the Labour Party, because that describes most of their male MPs.

Despite all their attempts, the Labour party is still male and public school education dominated. They have been intentional in their search for equality, more so than many other parties, but, as my female friends who attend party conference tell me (with some measure of glee, it must be acknowledged), it’s still a majority male environment. In ten years, Rory Weal will be one of many enthusiastic, left-wing, well educated and well meaning Westminster hopefuls which the middle-class has always turned out.

I think the reason that I was initially unimpressed with Rory Weal was that I know someone who was on the list to speak at conference that morning who, had she had the opportunity to do so, would have far surpassed him, taken his media spot and, as it turns out, done the Labour party conference a lot more good than he has ended up doing. My best friend Amy Mercer-Bailey is the youngest female county councillor in the country and, at 20 years old, is one of the most mature, driven, caring and genuine people I know. If you know me, you’ll know that I talk about her all the time because I find her simply amazing. She is the pride of her local Labour group and impresses everyone she comes into contact with, whether they’re a local resident, a fellow councillor or a Shadow Cabinet minister, with her intelligence, maturity, humility and passion for justice and helping people achieving their potential. Add into that mix that she has a wicked sense of humour, an ability to laugh at herself and an inherent coolness and you begin to see why people respect her so much.

But the thing which sets Amy apart from most other politicians is that she is distinctly not middle-class. Amy grew up in Northwich, which is not the most desirable place to inhabit, and had one of the worst upbringings I’ve ever heard of. By her own admission, she was subjected to 6 of the 7 forms of abuse in the first 16 years of her life, mostly from her own family and household. At the age of 14 her house had become a drug den and she was effectively fending for herself and her three younger siblings. Some people who grow up in those situations pull through, manage to find a job and a mate and live a normal life – others fall into a life of crime, addiction and repeating the mistakes of their parents. But Amy has such extraordinary potential within her that even that upbringing couldn’t knock it out of her.

Amy is the only person I know who has gone through 15 years of hell and come out on the other side unwilling to let it define her, slow her down or squash her passion for serving and helping others. Part of that is due to her faith in a God who redeems and gives second chances, and part of that is due to her uncompromising desire to make the world a better place. She has overcome her family, her background, dyslexia, bullying, stereotyping and the expectations of almost everyone she knew, including her own family, in order to reach her potential, and I do not know one person who has met and spoken to her for more than 3 minutes who doesn’t see that potential and leadership and believe in her ability to change the world.

Rory Weal is probably a fantastic guy with great ideas and a real love for people. I’m not knocking him for any of those things, and I’m sure he’ll do very well in whatever career he goes into. But Amy is a remarkably talented woman with the experience of life that enables her to connect, understand and help a group of people who think politicians have nothing to offer them, and that sets her apart from everyone I’ve ever met. And that’s why I’m probably her biggest fan, but certainly not her only one.

Peace,

AH

P.S. In case you were wondering, Amy isn’t paying me to write this – in fact, she’ll probably want me to censor at least half of what I’ve written as untrue, exaggerated or unimportant. Told you she was humble.

I haven’t mentioned anything about Troy Davis on Twitter because I wanted to understand the situation and circumstances as well as I could before making a comment either way. But this morning I opened a BBC News article on the execution (found here) and a little paragraph at the end caught my eye.

Another man was executed on Wednesday night – a white supremacist gang member called Lawrence Brewer from Texas. He was found guilty of the murder of a black man, who was chained to the back of a pick-up truck and driven along the road until he died.

I want to make a couple of things very clear before I go any further – I believe Troy Davis’ execution to be a miscarriage of justice, and I am against execution for any crime, be that rape, murder, genocide or war crimes. The latter is because I serve a God who died to redeem a lost world and who holds no judgement against anyone who comes to Him in humility and recognition of what they’ve done, whether that’s telling a lie or killing a child.

With that in mind, I just began to wonder how many of the people on Twitter who condemned Troy Davis’ execution would have called for the halting of Lawrence Brewer’s execution. I have a feeling that some of those who spoke out against the death penalty in the former case may have had more trouble condemning its use in the latter.

Evidently, this is an unfair parallel. Davis is widely suspected to have been innocent of his crime, whereas there seems to have been little trouble convicting Brewer. Shooting a police officer in the middle of a brawl and driving a truck with a man chained to the back of it are two very different crimes with very different motivations, which people would say deserve different punishments.

Jesus told a story once about a moneylender, who was owed 50 denarii by one of his debtors and 500 denarii by another. That’s about the equivalent of £2,500 from the first debtor and £25,000 from the second. Neither of them could afford to pay back the moneylender what they owed – so he cancelled both of the debts. His point was that the man who had been forgiven more was more grateful to the lender for cancelling the debt. (You’ll find the story in Luke 7:40-43 if you want to look it up)

Jesus didn’t say what the two debtors had used the money for. An investment that went wrong, the treatment of a sick child, gambling, prostitutes – it didn’t matter. The point was that they had been forgiven, both of them equally. Despite their different debts, they were both pardoned.

I fully support those who campaigned against the execution of Troy Davis because he was innocent of the crime for which he was executed, not only because I believe he was innocent but because the death penalty leaves no room for redemption. Because I serve a God who redeems. And that means that I have to also support those who campaigned against the execution of Lawrence Brewer – not because he was innocent, but becaue the death penalty leaves no room for redemption.

I guess my point is, if you’re going to campaign against the death penalty, you can’t pick and choose who to pardon. Jesus sure doesn’t, and I for one am very glad of that.

I fully expect this blog to be condemned and controversied, that’s OK, but if you do leave a comment calling me a bigoted fundamentalist who is completely out of touch with reality, please don’t swear or your comment won’t be approved and your opinion will be lost forever.

Peace,

Anneka Hannah

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2025930/Huge-rise-intensely-sexualised-pictures-women–men.html

When you think about it, it’s a silly comment really. I mean, of course you could do better. Anyone can do better at anything. You say you did your best in that exam, but did you really? No. You could have prepared more, paid more attention in lessons, maximised your learning by not having Facebook open while revising. That report wasn’t the best you could have done – you could have proof-read it twice more and double-checked the objectives in that ten-minute phone call you made explaining why you were going to be late for dinner.

Everyone could do better at any given thing. Provided that they don’t mind doing worse at other things. You can do better at netball if you dedicate your time to netball practice instead of finishing your history project. You can do better in your exam if you dedicate your time to note-taking instead of sleeping. You can do better at work if you choose to stay late at the office rather than picking your kids up from school.

At the start of my final year at university (or college, depending on which side of the ocean you happen to reside), I decided that I wanted to try my best for a 1st, a top mark, one that I could be proud of. But I also wanted to commit time to my college community, building up friendships and being a help to people who were struggling. Then I got a part-time job, which meant I committed to working and earning money. I had to choose where to place my time, where to invest it and where not to invest it.

So really, it comes down to choice. What will you prioritise – work, family, health, relationships, sport, religion, friends? What do you choose to invest in? What will you be happy to leave as a ‘could do better’ in order to focus on another area?

It’s so easy to allow time to pass by without deliberately choosing where to invest it. Do that enough and you’ll reach a point where you look back and realise you could have done everything better without doing anything worse. That’s when you realise you could have lived better.

At the end of my university degree, I came out with a 2:1. I was 2% off the mark I needed for the grade I wanted. But it was my choice to invest time in friends, in work and in worship, as well as in simple things like food and sleep and cleanliness. So although I could have done better in my academic studies, I couldn’t have done so without taking time away from something else in which I chose to invest. And, you know what? I’m quite proud of my last year at college. Because I think that I lived it well.

So, yeah, you could do better, probably at everything. But that’s not important. What’s important is choosing your priorities and investing full energy into the time you allocate to them. That way, even if you ‘could do better’, you will know that you chose to live the way you did, and that you couldn’t have lived better.

Make sense? Yep. Great. He’s with me. Nice and simple. Next line.

No. Read that again.

‘The Lord is with me.’

The Lord, God above and beyond all things, the Lord who needs no introduction other than ‘the’ because He is the only One like Him, is with me.

The Lord is with me right now. Not when I’m in church, not when I need Him around, not when I feel particularly aware of His presence, but now. He is with me.

The Lord is with me, little old me in my little insignificant life. When He looks down to earth, He sees me. When He hears the prayers of the world, He hears my voice and my concerns distinctly. The Lord is with me.

Still fairly simple? Thought so. Read it again.

‘The Lord is with me.’

What does it mean for God to be with me?

With me by His Spirit, His all-encompassing presence and power. With me constantly, always present. With me, not against me, supporting my cause of righteousness and fighting for me. With me as my help, my guide, my strength and my protector.

Because the Lord is with me, I am never alone, I am never defenceless and I am always provided for.

Psalm 118:7 – ‘the Lord is with me.’

I am never without my God.

Sounds good, right? The adverts are unrealistic and so can’t be used – a victory for self-image and real beauty. But read the article again – sentences like ‘L’Oreal admitted retouching [the images] but denied that the two adverts were misleading’, and ‘Ms Swinson [Liberal Democrat MP who has been a big voice on this issue] said that while some retouching may be acceptable, the adverts were “particularly bad examples of misleading advertising”.’

It really annoys me that retouching and airbrushing images has to be ‘excessive’ before it becomes an issue. Jo Swinson admits that there’s a ‘big picture’, citing that 50% of 16-21 year old females would consider cosmetic surgery – and yet the ads were banned on the grounds of being ‘misleading’, because they were ‘false advertising’. It pays no regard to the effect that these adverts can have on the self-image of hundreds of women who will see them every day, only to the satisfaction of those who will actually buy the products.

A girl I was at college with recently told me that she wants to lose weight because when she looks at adverts and magazines she ‘feels fat’. She is 5’7″ and weighs less than ten stone, a reasonable amount of which is on her chest, not her hips or stomach. There is no way that she is overweight, and yet the standards of advertising would have her believe that she needs to lose weight because she can feel a slight (and I mean slight) line of flesh above the top of her jeans. Which is so small it’s invisible, by the way.

There is a culture of beauty in our society which insists that being outwardly beautiful is an excellent way to spend your time, money and effort, because it will make you happy. Whether it brings you confidence, love, success or money, it will bring you happiness. Look at those models – they all seem so happy. They can have anything they want – the world is their oyster. Maybe if you looked like that, you could have anything you wanted too.

I wrote earlier about airbrushing and retouching of images to make them look more alluring. No, I don’t agree with it and yes, I think it should be banned entirely. But, to be honest, whether these images have been airbrushed or not is not the major issue. The major issue is the pressure on men and women to look good, pressure which they will never feel like they live up to.

I applaud Dove’s campaign for real beauty, but it’s simply not enough, because it still focuses on being beautiful. As long as beauty is a focal point in this society, there will be abuse and hurt, eating disorders and cosmetic surgery which are unnecessary.

‘What matters is not your outer appearance—the styling of your hair, the jewelry you wear, the cut of your clothes—but your inner disposition.’ 1 Peter 3 (The Message)

I’m currently doing research into the link between self-image and self-worth, looking at how the physical appearance of a person can make them feel etc etc. So expect more blog posts along a similar vein sometime soon, and please comment below! I’d love to have your input – remember, all in the name of research =)

Peace,

Anneka Hannah =)

Peace,

Anneka Hannah =)

Lose yourself in the work you do or lose yourself in play,

Lose yourself in the here and now, lose yourself in yesterday

Lose your own identity and create a new one from scratch

Then lose your clothes and music tastes if the two don’t seem to match.

Lose your dreams and lose your hopes and make new ones to fit the moulds that

You want to fit into so that you can do just what you want to.

‘You’ doesn’t count for anything when you can redefine yourself

So go and get lost and then recreate yourself.

Has it ever crossed your mind that you’re good, just as you are?

Has it ever occurred to you that you don’t have to go this far?

Could you ever believe there is someone who loves you, just as you are,

Even with the mess and the mistakes and the breaks and the hurts and the scars?

Lose yourself in the words you say, lose yourself in the games you play,

Lose yourself in the lies you tell, lose yourself in the things you sell

As truth, even though you can’t remember who you are,

Just carry on, don’t think it through, just go and get lost.

Has it ever occurred to you that you don’t have to go this far?

Could you ever believe there is someone who loves you, just as you are,

Even with the mess and the mistakes and the breaks and the hurts and the scars?