Most of us have received a parcel by post at some time, often in a huge cardboard box.

On opening the box, there even more packaging inside: bubble-wrap, paper, lightweight polystyrene shapes, tightly packed polystyrene covers.

It can feel like a Russian doll, as layer after layer of packaging is removed, often to reveal a tiny object in comparison to the size of the box!

The packaging is intended to protect the item inside, but quite often we are confused by the packaging. You can’t guess the size of the item within from the size of the box, for example. What you see does not necessarily correspond to what you get.

Mental health is a little like the valuable item packaged in very different ways. You can’t tell from someone’s outer packaging – what they look like – if they are mentally strong or fragile. They may look fine on the outside but feel broken and in despair within. There may well be clues in their appearance – dullness of complexion, a lack of expression in the eyes, tension in their demeanour – but all too often there are no visible outward signs of the struggle within.

Just as we are urged not to judge a book by its cover or we may find it hard to guess an item from its packaging, so too we must avoid assuming that the outward appearance is all that matters in a person’s life. We all have many layers (like Shrek!), onion layers of hurt, confusion, rejection, misery and bewilderment which affect our mental health.

May is Mental Health Awareness month in the UK.

Let’s have the courage to accept the parcel of love and friendship God offers and be aware that within each person lies a precious, complex individual, made in God’s image, loved by God, unique. Let’s not be deceived by the packaging, but be willing to open our lives up and to understand that Jesus brings hope, healing and wholeness, even when our inner selves have been damaged in transit. Life has a way of knocking the packaging so that some of us feel very much like broken, damaged goods.

God does not reject anyone as unfit for purpose. Instead, He goes about restoring what is broken and making all things new.

It was encouraging to be at the first ‘Churches Together’ prayer meeting yesterday and to join with Christians from 4 local churches to pray for our churches, community and wider world. The next ‘Churches Together’ prayer meeting will be on Tuesday 20th June at 10.30 a.m. at GPCC and thereafter, we hope to meet on a monthly basis, alternating between morning meetings and evening meetings to allow people who work during the day to attend also. It’s so vital to pray and as we pray together in unity, God hears and answers prayer!

Furlong Road Methodist Church is holding a day of prayer and fasting on Friday 19th May from 9 a.m. until 6 p.m. Pop in whenever it is convenient to pray there as well.

Helping the Vulnerable

There are opportunities to be involved in befriending people at the residential home Epworth House in Thurnscoe and taking part in a monthly service there. The first service will be led by Karen Beecham from Furlong Road Methodist Church and will be on Wednesday 14th June at 2 p.m. Contact us for more details.

Cycling Proficiency

If you’re interested in cycling, want to get fit but maybe need some repairs on your bike or some general advice on cycling, the Salvation Army will be hosting ‘Doctor Bikes’ once a month on Thursday afternoons. The first session is on Thursday 18th May from 12 noon until 4 p.m., so you can drop in and find out more!

Caring for Your Community

There will be a community clear-up along the railway embankment in Goldthorpe on Thursday 18th May from 10 a.m. until 12 noon, as part of a fantastic project to clean up this area. Come along to the Salvation Army in suitable clothing to help out with this if you want your community to look good!

There are so many ways to serve your local community and be involved in all that ‘Churches Together’ and other community groups are trying to do.

I live with people who adore science fiction and so I have spent a fair bit of time absorbing ideas about portals. A portal is a doorway, gate or entrance and in science fiction and fantasy terms, it usually refers to a technological or magical doorway that connects two distant locations separated by spacetime. It usually consists of two or more gateways, with an object entering one gateway leaving via the other instantaneously. One of the earliest examples is the ‘Guardian of Forever’ in Star Trek, where a portal could be opened to any point in history on any world in the universe.

The idea was continued in ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’, where “Iconian gateways” with angular frames and ripple effects led to other universes; in ‘Transformers’, a large round ring built on Earth would create a subspace tunnel to a destination tower on Cybertron.

Many of us secretly like the idea of portals, especially those that could remove us from the trials and troubles of this world. A portal to another world, free from suffering and pain, often seems like an amazing idea! Perhaps that is how Paul felt when he prayed for God to remove the thorn in his flesh which was causing him so much trouble (2 Cor 12:8); David’s desire for the wings of a dove so he could fly away and rest certainly conveys this idea of escape. (Ps 55:6)

The portal to strength which we all covet is found in an unusual place, however. God’s response to Paul was not to remove the thorn. Instead, he was told, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ (2 Cor 12:9) Weakness, the very antithesis of strength, is actually the pathway to strength. Paul discovered, ‘when I am weak, then I am strong.‘ (2 Cor 12:10) The portal to strength is through the doorway of our own weakness, so that Christ’s strength can be found in us. We can do everything through the One who gives us strength. (Phil 4:13)

A mental health blog to which I subscribe sent this email today, which I think has encouragement for us all.

“Hope dawns with a sense of what is possible.

POSSIBLE

Then experience and naysayers work their dark arts, and often two simple letters are added to that possibility: I and m:

IMPOSSIBLE

This is where most people stall and stop.

But there is magic in movement and in punctuation.

Keep the lessons learned from impossibility thinking – it’s a phase we all go through – but move your perspective.

“It’s just a jump to the left!”

Move your I and m a couple of spaces to the left, and a new kind of possibility emerges.

Add an apostrophe and you’ll avert a catastrophe:

I’M POSSIBLE

Shift Happens!

Shift happens, folks! It happens first between our ears in that marvellous muscle called your brain. And it takes some muscle to move the I and m to the left, and then to pull in that apostrophe that averts the catastrophe.

Here’s a muscle building question for you:

“I know what you want is impossible, but if it was possible, how could you make this work for you?”‘ (Lex, A Moodscope member)

Even if we know things are impossible for us, however, we need to meditate on Matt 19:26 and Jer 32:7. The impossible is Him-possible.

In our Bible studies, we have been looking at the penitential psalms and talking about the need for repentance as the starting point on a journey of faith, and something which is ongoing in a life of faith (see Matt 3:2, Matt 4: 17, Acts 2:38, Rev 2:5, Rev 3:19). Ps 32 in particular talks about how uncomfortable we feel about acknowledging our sin (Ps 32:1-4) and the relief that comes when we do finally confess sin (Ps 32:5).

In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve enjoyed a blissful relationship with God and with each other. This ease of relationship is described in Gen 2:25: ‘ Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.’  This state is described vividly in Phil Wickham’s song ‘Eden’:

‘When the first light brightened the dark
Before the breaking of the human heart,
There was You and there was me.

Innocence was all I knew
‘Cause all I had to know was You;
We were running underneath the trees…

I remember how You called my name
And I would meet You at the garden gate,
How the glory of Your love would shine

And I remember when the stars were young
You breathed life into my lungs
Oh I never felt so alive…’ (‘Eden’, Phil Wickham)

Sin spoilt those relationships: Adam’s response to God’s arrival in the garden after he had sinned is “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.” (Gen 3:10) Now, nakedness is equated with shame (and has been ever since.)

We hide when we sin because we are ashamed. We know we have done wrong; we squirm and try to pin the blame on someone else (Gen 3:12,13); we make excuses and rationalise what we have done (talking about our ‘needs’, our unfortunate backgrounds, our human frailty, anything which will stop us having to face our sin and its consequences.)

There is, however, a yearning for what we have lost.

‘I want to see You face to face
Where being in Your arms is the permanent state.
I want it like it was back then;
I want to be in Eden.

To be naked and unashamed
In a sweet downpour of innocent rain.
I want it like it was back then;
I want to be in Eden.’ (‘Eden’, Phil Wickham)

It is only when we turn back to God in repentance and penitence, feeling the sorrow and sadness our sin has brought, that we can regain the intimacy and innocence for which we were created. David’s joy in Ps 32 is the joy of sins forgiven. Casting Crowns sing that the redeemed have a song the angels can’t sing, for we sing of redemption, restoration, forgiveness and wholeness which the angels who have never sinned can never experience (see 1 Pet 1:12). Penitence might seem a miserable place to start, but it is certainly not a miserable place to end!

Our activity tonight was a word search on mission, with prizes associated with mission (a torch and car fresheners… it was hot in India!) and intermission (popcorn and snacks!)

Dave gave the epilogue (and we are so grateful for his recovery; it was good to have him back bringing God’s word to us!), speaking from Matt 28:16-20. Jesus was quite specific in His instructions that we are all to be involved in mission. Not all of us may be able to venture as far as India, but we all need to start where we are. Whether we are saved through being brought up in a Christian family or through the witness of a neighbour, friend or colleague, we all generally come to faith because someone else tells us about Jesus! Our responsibility is to be the friend who tells other people about Jesus… and we do that by starting right we are. Goldthorpe, here we come!