20 years ago today.

I got baptised 20 years ago today. When i was 7 years old. Some people might think that was too young, but i knew what i was doing and made the decision myself. I remember asking my Mum one night in the bathroom, and then i remember having to chat it through with my Church leader. He gave me an analogy to make sure i really understood what Jesus had done for me, and i cried my eyes out. My parents gave me a new Bible that day, and wrote this verse in the front of it:

"For I the Lord your God, hold your right hand; it is I who say to you, 'Fear not, I will help you.' " - Isaiah 41:13

Quite an appropriate verse for me, seeing as i was always a little bit of an over-worrier as a child. Anyway, what i wanted to say was that God has been true to His word, and has faithfully helped me these last 20 years... and the 7 years before that too. I'm incredibly grateful for that, and am incredibly glad to be His.

On the Edge...

I came across the photography of Yan Seiler a while back. I love the way he captures people and gives you glimpses into the life of so many different cultures... especially people groups who are more on the edge of society. I wanted to post nearly all his photos on here, but instead i recommend you check out his website. His shots are powerfully emotive and compassionate... particularly his series 'The Outsiders', which shows people suffering from leprosy in India, and his series documenting the lives of those living in garbage dumps in Cambodia.

Photos:

1. Nusa Lembongan, Indonesia 2.Ouighour Tea Shop, China 3. At the Edge - Gypsies in Romania. 4. Dreams - Immigration from West Africa, The Gambia 5. Shepherd in Uzbekistan 6. Shepherd in Uzbekistan.

His words..

In Your words there is certainty. The only words in existance that come with a life-time guarantee. I'd like to live inside Your words.. like little caves, take refuge in them. Hide away in the curls of each letter, clinging on to each stroke. Your words abide forever. I'd like to set sail in them.. in Your boat; carved and knitted from Your thoughts, Your phrases, Your promises. I'm sure such a boat could never sink. It will carry me safely to Your shores. Your words are life, as YOU are The Word. So there is no better place to abide. Let me abide in Your words forever.

- I wrote the above in my diary a year ago, i just found it and it reminded me again of the truth that is found in God's word alone.... truth that is so much richer and provides so much more security than all the World's lies...

Stoop Sitting...

Everyone Forever Now - "Stoop Sitting" from Everynone on Vimeo.

I like this little video a lot....

Hopeless??

" Your wound is incurable, your injury beyond healing. There is no-one to plead your cause, no remedy for your sore, no healing for you. All your allies have forgotten you; they care nothing for you. I have struck you as an enemy would and punished you as would the cruel, because your guilt is so great and your sins are many. Why do you cry out over your wound, your pain that has no cure? Because of your great guilt and many sins I have done these things to you.......... 'But i will restore you to health and heal your wounds,' declares the Lord, 'because you are called an outcast, Zion for whom no-one cares.' This is what the Lord says: "'I will restore..... and have compassion..... the city will be rebuild on her ruins... From them will come songs of thanksgiving.... I will bring them honour.... You will be my people and I will be your God.'" - Jeremiah 30.12-32

I have always thought this is an incredible passage. I read it again today. It strikes me as incredible because God says to Israel that their wounds are so bad that they are completely incurable.. there is absolutely no hope for them... no one who can restore them, no way for them to be healed... literally NONE.. everyone has given up on them, they have no allies left... NO-ONE cares for them anymore... basically, according to what God says, there's not a hope in the World for them.. they are afflicted, in pain, wounded and crying out and their state is beyond healing, beyond a cure.. Not only this, but it's actually caused by their own sin, it's not just a case where they are suffering because of the sin of others, or because we live in a fallen World and sometimes affliction happen to us.... but they are guilty, they are actually to blame for this. If there is an example of an utterly hopeless situation then this is it. YET despite ALL this, God then says the most amazing and incredible thing... right in the midst of declaring how incurable they are, how sinful they are, He suddenly says "BUT I WILL RESTORE YOU TO HEALTH AND HEAL YOUR WOUNDS." Just like that. Despite everything, God then declares that actually, there IS hope after all... that even though they have hit rock-bottom, even though there is no hope left in the World, even though they are black in their sin, even though they can do nothing to heal themselves, God will still come and restore them. And the reason He gives for coming to them and restoring and healing them is this: because they are outcasts, because no-one cares for them. It's not because they have thousands of people pleading on their behalf, it's not because they've suddenly sorted themselves out, it's not because they've found some worldly way to be better... it's not because they've done anything great, it's simply because they are nobodies.. they are outcasts.. they are sinners.. they are afflicted... and no-one cares for them. God is simply demonstrating the absolute depths of His mercy and compassion and love and choosing to come and save and heal and restore them, just because He loves them and because it pleases Him to do so.

This honestly gives me such a sense of hope. I was thinking yesterday about how weird prayer is.. i was thinking about how some people might have thousands of people praying for them, but others may have never had anyone pray for them at all.. and i was wondering if the way God acted towards them depended on this. To be honest, i was thinking it seemed a little unfair, that God may show favour to one person because they have had so many prayers offered up on their behalf, whereas someone else, who lives all alone with no support and no-one to pray for them, may be overlooked.. but this passage suggests otherwise... and i'm really glad about that... as much as i value prayer and think we are called to plead on each other's behalf, i'm still so glad that God doesn't ignore those that no-one cares for, that no-one pleads for. He still sees them. He still goes to them. He still chooses to heal them.. even if not a single person on earth sees or cares. And i'm glad that even if sickness or afflictions are caused by our own sin (and obviously that's not always the case), but even if they are.. then there is still hope.. and God still promises to heal and restore and declares that we are still HIS people and HE is still our God.

Skin Stories.....

Skin Stories from Becky Fox on Vimeo.

LOVE

"Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on it's own way; It is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, endures all things." 1 Cor 13:4-7

I was thinking about the word love recently and how many different ways we can use it and how it has different meanings. Often people use the word love to describe things that they like; things that they appreciate or admire or see something good or beautiful in. Like we say that we love a piece of music, or love a sunset... what we mean is that there is something in that music and in the sunset that appeals to our senses, that makes a sense of appreciation rise up within us, that makes us feel a fondness towards that thing. We might not even know exactly why, but quite simply the other thing brings us some level of joy, which makes us love it. But i was thinking how this type of love very much depends upon some merit in the object that we love. One of the ways in which we love God is probably like this... we see something good and beautiful in Him and we love Him for it.. we love Him, because He first loved us... even the Bible says that... we appreciate Him.. we admire Him.. we want to praise Him... quite simply there is something altogether beautiful and love-able about Him that makes us love Him. And i think we often love people like this too.... often we might say to a friend that we love them, and we are basing it on things we see in them which we love... certain qualities and attributes, certain mannerisms... just things that we value about them. I don't think this is a bad thing... i think it's good to love people like this, it's good to see the best in them, it's good to appreciate things about them... and there are definitely so many things to love in every human being we come across, because every person is made in the image of God. So i think this is definitely part of what love means, but still i'm pretty sure it falls short of what the Bible often means by love. The problem with this type of love alone is that it's almost inactive - it doesn't require us to do anything, or give anything as such.. except that we give praise and we appreciate what we see in the other..... infact, rather than asking us to give, it almost demands something of the other person instead... it demands a love-able characteristic in them... It requires something good in the thing being loved.

However, i think there is a whole other depth to the meaning of love that is far beyond a simple appreciation of something or someone, and i think that this it the type of love that God is getting at when He asks us to love others. It's the way in which He loves us... He didn't originally love us because of good things He saw in us.. it wasn't that He just admired us... but He loved us while we were still sinners. He felt affection and tenderness towards us not because we deserved it, or merited it in the same way that a beautiful sunset might, but simply because He chose to. I can't get my head round this. All i know is that this is what He asks us to do for others too. He asks us to love even our enemies... It's not an inactive love, He's not simply asking us to admire them for certain things as such, but He's asking us to actively show them an attitude of love.. to be patient and kind towards them, rather than rude or resentful, to forgive them, to give to them when they are in need, to bear with them, support them, encourage them and help them. It's not demanding something of the other person... but it's demanding something of US. It's the love that asks us to give ourselves to others, to feed the hungry and visit the sick and care for widows and orphans, to clothe those who are naked, to share truth with those who live under lies.

The main difference i noticed between these two types of love, is that the first requires a positive thing in the person, whereas the second reaches out to fill a deficit. And the reason it can do that is because it is actually LOVE itself that contains everything good and beautiful, because love IS God and He is the only One who actually is perfectly good and beautiful and worthy of admiration and praise. He knows that He is the only source of anything good and if we do see those things in others, it comes from Him anyway.... so what He asks of us, is not to just admire things in others, but to love others in a way which lets His very self live in us and overflow from us and impart His goodness to them. What i'm getting at, is that in a way, the fewer characteristics that someone has that we think are love-able, the more they probably need love... because love itself has a redemptive and restorative effect... it bears fruit, it's the source of life and goodness... in our act of loving others we are letting God, who is love, flood into that person.. and He is the one who is the source of anything that we may later appreciate in them. I guess it's a little like land that is completely parched.. the more dry and cracked it is, the more it needs water... it would be stupid to say that the land had to be looking lush and green and overflowing with flowers and trees BEFORE we ever watered it... it needs the water to turn out like that.. and if it's just bare, with no flowers or trees that doesn't mean we withhold water, it means we give water even more.. because it is truly in need of it.

At the same time though, i'm not suggesting that love is devoid of affection or feeling.. even though this love is more active and doesn't require anything of the other person, i think we are still asked to love deeply and warmly and to feel true affection towards the person, not just do things out of duty. And the only way that is possible is to ask God for His love for others, and to let that be what abides in us. Our own love is feeble and half-hearted and nothing at all in comparison with His. My desire is to let Him live in me so fully, that His love and His heart for others naturally overflows from me.

Skin Stories....

I had a few sleepless nights recently and spontaneously decided to doodle on my skin... maybe not the best way to spend a sleepless night, but never mind... i did several different doodles on different days and when you put them together they kind of tell a story.. at least a story that makes sense to me, even if no-one else would understand it. I was going to turn it into a stop-motion.. not cos i think it's good, i don't (they are doodles and the photos are bad and there are annoying shadows from the flash due to the fact that it was late at night...), but more cos i wasted the time doing it, so figured at least it would have some meaning for me... but i can't get the stop motion to work, so here are a few random photos from it instead!..

Light...

"I believe that every particle of dust that dances in the sunbeam does not move an atom more or less that God wishes - that every particle of spray that dashes against the steamboat has its orbit, as well as the sun in the heavens" - Spurgeon

If you could paint with flower heads..

The light today was so nice - i kinda wanted to use the flowers as a paintbrush and draw on the sky with them....

Shadows..

"They shall return and dwell beneath my shadow; they shall flourish like the grain; they shall blossom like the vine.... It is I who answer and look after you. I am like an evergreen cypress; from me comes your fruit." - Hosea 14:7-8

The shadows of flowers...

I loved the way the flowers cast shadows on my hand today... i could have sat there for hours and watched them dancing from the movement of the wind...

Masquerading signs and wild flowers....

I had to go out to get some stamps today and on the way back i was tired, so decided to follow a footpath which i presumed would be a short-cut home. But i was wrong. Very wrong. I walked for ages and ended up coming out on a main-road about 5 times further away from my house than i had been to begin with! I think i laughed out-loud at this point. However, despite the tiredness, this footpath did take me on a nice walk... through fields of cows and down pretty paths which were laced with wild-flowers and blackberries. I broke the law and picked a few so i could put them in a little vase in my room.

One of the fields that i walked past had so many poppies in it... i love poppies and really wanted to be able to pick one, but there was a barbed wire fence so i couldn't go in.... so i whispered a little prayer instead, that maybe i could find a poppy by the side of the path.. and a few minutes later i did. It was a bruised and battered poppy, but i loved it and it made me smile, cos i figured God has put it there just for me.. and then i saw a couple more unbruised poppies, which i couldn't help but pick. I know maybe that was bad of me, but i decided that seeing as God has answered my childish simple prayer, then maybe He wouldn't mind if i picked it and brought it home to put on my window-sill and to remind me that He hears even our little whispers and bizarre requests! Anyway, there is absolutely no point whatsoever to this post... except i'm grateful that even on long-detour-routes there are things to make you smile on the way.

Sitting by the sea

Yesterday, on my way home from seeing a good friend of mine, i stopped on the seafront and sat on the pebbles for a while. I didn't read much, or listen to music, or do anything at all, i just sat there. But it was nice. Really nice. I felt completely at peace and like it was good to just sit, and to just be. I watched these kids playing in the sea - personally i would have thought it was far too cold to be in the sea, and obviously the kids parents thought the same - they were huddled together under several layers... but the children themselves were running around completely free... half-naked, uninhibited and unconcerned by the wind or the temperature, or anything at all. There was another little boy who was standing on this rock. His parents were trying to change his nappy. He was obviously so excited to be by the sea that he was just standing there, twirling round and round in circles, whilst his Dad attempted to clean him up and change his pants and his Mum was trying to wipe his nose. It made me smile. The way he was so free, and so unaware of what his parents were doing for him. And i loved the way that his parents just let him twirl, and just let him be, even though they had to change his pants and wipe his nose and completely take care of him at that same moment. And i realised again how much joy children give and children have, even though they don't achieve great things, or try to prove anything - i mean they don't even take care of themselves, or know how to make themselves clean. They let other people do it for them. They are completely humble, they know how to receive. They know how to just be. You can learn a lot from kids.

I love how similar these four photos are, in their simplicity and composition and style... yet how they clearly all tell different stories and create completely different atmospheres... Actually i have purposefully ordered them in a way which tells my own story, but i doubt that order will make sense to anyone but me...

Photos by: 1. Berta 2. Coquinete 3. Nicole Lynn 4. Coquinete

The greatest good.

I was just looking through my blog at things i've previously quoted, and came across the following, which i feel like quoting again today:

"O Lord, if this were lost instead,

And all I had was you, I would

Be rich, and have the greatest Good." - John Piper

"This is the true bride, the one who says to Christ:

I do not want what is Thine, I want Thee, Thyself.

Thou art not more dear to me when i am doing well,

nor less dear when i am doing poorly." - Martin Luther

"He is indeed enough. He is not all we would ask for (if we are honest), but it is precisely when we do not have what we would ask for, and only then, that we can clearly perceive His all-sufficiency. It is when the sea is moonless, that the Lord has become my light." - Elisabeth Elliot

"Those who seek the Lord lack no good thing." - Psalm 34:!0

Upside Down

"What looks like failure, is success. What looks like poverty, is riches. When what is truth, looks more like a knife. It looks like you're killing me, but you're saving my life. All just because i see things upside down.... What looks like weakness, can do anything. What looks like foolishness, is understanding. When what is powerful, has not come to fight. It looks like you're going to war, but you lay down your life. What looks like torture, is a time to rejoice. What sounds like thunder, is a comforting voice. When what is beautiful, looks broken and crushed. And i say i don't know you, but you say it's finished." - Derek Webb

Do you see ?

"Have you seen the old man in the closed down market, kicking up the papers with his wornout shoes, in his eyes you see no pride, hands held loosely by his side, yesterday's papers telling yesterday's news. Oh how can you tell me you're lonely and say for you that the sun doesn't shine? Oh let me take you by the hand and lead you through the streets of london, i'll show you something that'll make you change your mind. Have you seen the young girl who walks the streets of london? Dirt in her hair and her clothes in rags, she's no time for talking, she keeps right on walking, carrying her home in 2 carrier bags. In the all-night cafe at a quarter past 11, same old man sitting there on his own, looking at the world over the rim of his tea-cup, each tea lasts an hour, then he wanders home alone. Now have you seen the old man outside the seamans mission, memory fading with the medel ribbons that he wears, in our winter city while the rain crys little pity, for one more forgotten hero, and a world that doesn't care. Oh how can you tell me you're lonely and say for you that the sun doesn't shine? Oh let me take you by the hand and lead you through the streets of london, i'll show you something to make you change your mind." - Ralph McTell

A classic song. I was just listening to it and thinking.... I was thinking that there are so many people in this world who are just like the people in this song.... who no-one really notices, who no-one really sees, who the world turns a blind eye to, cos it's easier than actually seeing and actually knowing and actually caring and actually loving them. And the thing is, i think there are two types of seeing. You can see with your eyes. Or you can see with your heart. We see all-sorts with our eyes every day, and barely even absorb it... but we see much less with our hearts. I want to see people through the eyes of my heart more.. or through the eyes of God's heart. And i don't just mean so i feel pity for them and cos i think i have something i can offer them.. but more because i realise at the end of the day we are all alike... in our loneliness, in our brokenness, in our sinfulness, in our need for others... the thing is, i need others and can learn from them, as much as they may need me and can learn from me... And more often than not, i think what people need is just someone to stand with them, to love them no matter what, to not judge them or give up on them, or write them off... so that in their loneliness they know that they are not alone after all. Maybe just the simplicity of loving, accepting relationships is of more value than a lot of wise words we may try to offer.

And i truly think that the most outcast social reject is as much made in the image of God and is as much able to teach me about God as some well-revered preacher. And the funny thing is, i often feel most aware of God's presence when i am chatting to someone who society would completely reject... it's almost like God so dwells with the downcast and the humble and the broken, the people who just are what they are, that actually if you want to find Him there is more chance of meeting Him in them, than there is in a Church meeting where people are striving to look holy and pleasing in the sight of others. I'm not judging Christians... don't get me wrong.. i love meeting with Christians and when i'm cut off from their company i feel like a piece of coal that's taken out of a fire and starts to go cold. But it's just that at the times in my life when i have felt most broken and most desperately in need of Jesus' presence, i have felt more inclined to find a homeless guy on the street to chat to, than i have felt inclined to go to a church meeting. I don't really understand why, i'm just being totally honest. I'm not judging the Church for this.. i am as much a part of what makes the Church what it is as anyone else.. so in judging them, i am also judging me. But i've just realised again the last few years, that when you reach a point of desperation, nothing but the real living presence of Jesus will suffice... and it's at those times that you notice how much cultivated religion there is in a Church, and how much you desperately just need that raw reality of Jesus.. the Jesus of the Bible, who sat with and ate with sinners more than law-keeping religious men... the Jesus who had no-where to lay his head, and who completely gave Himself, to the point of death, for others... the Jesus who says 'come to me, all you who are weary and i will give you rest'.. the Jesus who doesn't care about success, or money, or social-standing, or numbers but says 'blessed are the poor in spirit.. those who mourn.. the meek...those who hunger and thirst for righteousness"... and the God who delights to dwell with "him who is contrite and lowly in Spirit..."

I don't really know what the point of this post is. I guess i'm just grateful that God sees everything and notices everything.. that there is no-one who goes unseen before God, no-one who is completely alone, because God is completely aware of everything.. all our unseen struggles and all our unseen battles. Yet at the same time i want to be a part of a people who do see others, who do care.. and i want to be part of a people who are so real and raw that they truly are a vessel for the real and raw presence of Jesus. I feel such a massive awareness of the fact that there are so many people out there who's only hope is the real Jesus.. who aren't gonna tolerate man-made religion, or half-hearted attempts to show what Jesus is like.. who need nothing less than whole-hearted brotherly love... people who are so thirsty that if they don't drink straight from Jesus, they are literally going to die... like we can't be offering people a version of Jesus that is muddy with our own religious attempts, but we have to be offering the real Jesus..... like we have to be so real and broken ourselves that we just have Jesus living in us and people see Him, not our attempt to be 'like Him'...... and if i'm honest, i feel like there is a massive barrier between the white-middle-class-church and the average-thirsty-soul that i don't even know how it's going to be broken down.. even though i am in a Church and part of a Church, even i'm acutely aware of that barrier and even i feel like i don't fit there, so i don't really know what it would be like for some people..... i feel like the barrier has to be broken down though.. like there is an urgency for it to happen... like it's a matter of life or death....life and death for the people of God, as much as life and death for those who don't yet know Him.... like i'm so thirsty for the living real presence of Jesus amongst His people, and for His people to be completely absorbed and focussed on Him...

"Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me..." - Matt 25:40

"'Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy burdened, and i will give you rest,' He said. I could find no invitations towards success or superiority in the invitations of Jesus. Grace, like water, flows to the lowest parts." - Philip Yancey

With your bricked up doors and flowing springs...

Call me strange, but i actually love these buildings, with their bricked up doors and crooked beams. I saw them in Sheffield today; it's a city full of such places.... and i must have taken at least a thousand pictures in my mind. It's also a city full of water and full of springs... a good combination i think. The old, the broken, the run-down remnants of what once was.. buildings that have stories etched into their bricks and mortar, that stand as a visual reminder of what's hidden in the lives of countless nameless faces scattered throughout the streets... brokenness, crookedness, bricked up hearts and tattered minds..... but merged in the midst of this are fountains of water, like hope that springs up, declaring that one day these stoney streets and stoney hearts will break and overflow with rich life again. At least this is my prayer. And this is my plea. I love those walls exactly as they are... in all their reality, with all their marks and crumbling ways... in the same way that i love the people in that city, with all their flaws and all their heartache and all their worn-out dreams.... yet i long for restoration, i long for newness, i long for their freedom... i love that city and the faces held within it.... and i long for that city too, with a longing that's not my own..

As i drank from the sky...

The sky last night was incredible. I watched it as we drove north and let it wash over me and still my thoughts.... it was so vast that i felt like i could suddenly breathe again, like i was drinking air that unlocked my muscles and caused my lungs to move freely, unrestrained by any other force. I hadn't been aware that my lungs had felt encaged, until this point. In the same way that a city-dweller doesn't know how polluted the air they inhale is, until they stand by an ocean and absorb the fresh sea breeze. Or in the same way that you forget how much noise daily filters through your ears and fights for your attention, until you're presented with silence. Sometimes we don't even know how much we miss something, until we find it again. Even if what we miss is simply the absence of something: the absence of unwanted sound, the absence of pressure, the absence of ropes that bind.

But as i drank the sky, i experienced more than just the absence of restraints, it was like i was satisfied and deeply content. Like the expanse merged my senses into one - tasting of beauty and lightness that filled my heart with song. My insides had been given something, and not just momentarily freed from something. As i was wrapped in the sky which had no ends, i knew my smallness, i knew my nothingness, that i'm just a drop in the ocean.... yet it felt good to be so small, to be just a tiny part of something much bigger... it felt good to just be in awe of the One who is so big and is so vast. Like i existed just to drink from and glorify His vastness and His beauty and His greatness. I was looking at the sky, but in that sky i found again the One who formed it, and i realised again that our deepest joy comes as we simply admire Him.

Strangely, when i arrived home, i had severe chest pains all evening. I couldn't breathe well anymore, and felt sick, yet i still felt revived from the drive we'd taken through the expanse of beauty that was the sky, and i'm thankful for this.

Like a mighty river...

"Let justice roll down like a mighty river, let righteousness flow on and on, 'til the desert becomes like the garden of Eden, where the nations will come and be healed, and the glory of God is revealed..." - Chris Christensen

Photos by Carf

Let righteousness flow...

Breathe Life

"You turn my ashes into beauty, turn my sorrow into joy, breathe life, breathe life. You take these dry bones make them stand, put a promise in my hands, breathe life, breathe life. Before creation's time, majestically You reign, You patent Your design and all that You have made, Creator God, breathe life in us. We took eternal life and traded it for dust, Your perfect sacrifice has brought it back for us, You hold salvation in Your hands. The idols of this World will fade to shades of grey, when marked against the One who is the only Way, bright shining sun that lights my path. Wonderful, marvellous, You make all things new, i was dead, now i'm alive all because of You. So i will go and tell the World how great You are. 'Cos You turn a heart of stone, into a welling spring, breath life." - Andy Smith

Kissed a guilty world in love..

"Here is love, vast as the ocean, Loving-kindness as the flood; When the Prince of Life my ransom, Shed for me His precious blood.... On the mount of crucifixion, Fountains opened deep and wide, Through the flood-gates of God's mercy, Flowed the vast and gracious tide; Grace and love like mighty rivers, Poured incessant from above, And heaven's peace and perfect justice kissed a guilty world in love." - trad.

Love

"Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love." - Ephesians 4.2

Life

Photos by Jeffrey Ladd. He's taken some amazing and very powerful shots.

Summer in Winter

Summer in Winter from Glimpsing Light on Vimeo.

I made a little stop motion of the meadows near my house. The footage isn't great and i didn't have my tripod with me, so it's pretty jumpy, but the meadows are beautiful and so i wanted to take some photos before the flowers all died. Both this year and last year they helped me as i was recovering from being ill. Last year i went for walks in them to help build my strength back up when i was going through my drug withdrawal, and this year i was recovering from a couple of periods in hospital and felt blessed to be able to have somewhere so relaxing to walk. Basically, i am thankful to God that when i had little strength to go out in busy public places, i had meadows near by that i could venture out in.