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A few things I've learned

I have approximately 1500 e-mails sitting in my account that have gathered there over the last five or six or seven years, desperately asking to be deleted. Today, I started the cull. I didn't get very far after getting far too distracted by old e-mails from old friends. It's fair to say that things have changed in the last few years! In there, amongst the e-mails from banks and the physio board and charities needing money, were a few gems.

I found this one e-mail that I had sent to a girl I met during Streetworks, 4 days of serving the communities of Belfast. We were on the same team; she was a few years younger than me, having just finished school. At the end of the few days, she asked me if I had any advice for her and I told her I would e-mail her. I didn't know much and didn't have much to share at that stage, but there were a few things I had learned. Here's what I told her...

1. Take a gap year after school - whatever u do, I guarantee you'll learn a whole heap about yourself and about God which will set you up nicely for the rest of your life

2. On that note, a wise person once told me "it's not where you go or what you do that matters, but who you are when you get there." It doesn't matter whether you're serving God in Ireland or Africa, as long as you're serving him.

3. If you ever visit a waterfall (I learned this one the hard way on a trip to Victoria Falls), don't wear a white top! Waterfalls produce spray, spray makes you wet, white tops are see through when they get wet!

4. You are under construction: God's working on you so it's ok not to be 
perfect. 2 Corinthians 12:9 says "My grace is sufficient for you; my power is made perfect in weakness." I read something about that verse that helped me a lot. "Wonder why God won’t give you a skill? If only God had made you a singer or a runner or a writer or a missionary. But there you are, tone-deaf, slow of foot and mind. Don’t despair. God’s grace is still sufficient to finish what he began. And until He’s finished, let Paul remind you that the power is in the message, not the messenger. His grace is sufficient to speak clearly, even when you don’t…You wonder why God doesn’t alter your personality? You, like Paul are a bit rough around the edges? Say things you later regret or do things you later question? Why doesn’t God make you more like him? He is. He’s just not finished yet. Until he is, his grace is sufficient to overcome your flaws." (Max Lucado)

5. On that as well, God will keep working on you if you let him. If you struggle to forgive and keep refusing to forgive, he'll keep sending people to offend until you learn it. If you refuse to be patient, he'll keep sending people to try your patience!

6. Ephesians 2:10 "For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so that we can do the good things he planned for us long ago." YOU are God's masterpiece - he has a plan and a purpose just for YOU. 
No one else can do what he designed you to do.

7. 1 Timothy 4:12-16 "Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are 
young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity." Don't ever let anyone tell you that you can't do something (unless it's robbing a bank or something like that - then you should listen to them :)

8. Don't hang out with negative people

9. It's easy to forget how amazing the stars are... "As we walked down the gorge, I looked up at the sky and I saw a beauty that can’t be described. Beauty I had forgotten about because it was only when it was pitch black with no interfering lights that I could see the stars. Pinpricks of light scattered across a veil of black. Sometimes, when there’s a lot of light around, it’s easy to forget about the stars. They’re always there. I just can’t always see them…
Sometimes, when things are going well, it’s easy to think we’re strong and we are the reason that things are good. It’s easy to forget about God. So, sometimes, it has to get a little darker to show us that he is always there." Just remember that one when things are crap.

10. Always do your best at everything, even if it seems like it's 
pointless. "If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well "

11. Sometimes you just need to go crazy! I highly recommend listening to 
McFly and dancing round your room with some friends (great around exam 
time, trust me!)

After five years

This week, New Zealand and I had our five year anniversary. Five years since I got on the one way flight. Five years since I said goodbye to Belfast and all those I knew and loved. Five years since I sat at Hong Kong airport, one flight down, one to go, wondering if I'd had a temporary break with sanity when I thought this was a good idea.

It's good to look back sometimes. It's good to remember those things: the good times and how they could come out of nowhere; the hard times and that they ended; the people and the shapes they chiselled  on my heart.

So, allow me a little self-indulgence. Today, I remember...

I remember Lee and Sarah, two blessings all wrapped up in the skins of Irish physios. I was less than excited about being thrown into a flat with people I didn't know, but that would have been different if I'd known what was coming: a lot of cups of tea, Friday nights with America's Next Top Model, Irish brush dancing and more than a little inter-Ireland banter in the world's most poorly insulated house.

I remember beauty, a whole lot of beauty. From Milford Sound, to Cathedral Cove, to Lake Tekapo, to Raglan, to random little spots on the edge of the road in the middle of nowhere. It's not really any wonder that New Zealanders are proud and protective of their little patch of earth. 

I remember my first experience of the Waikato Stadium. I don't remember the result (for the record, that's a lie, but let's brush past that quickly). I was so excited to be doing physio at a big stadium that I didn't care that it was pouring with rain and about 3 degrees. It seems the stadium has now become almost my second home, and I can tell you for a fact that it's not quite as exciting at 5:30 a.m. But I am still amazed at the opportunities I've been given to get me where I've been able to go.




I remember people who have welcomed me into their homes, fed me, stopped me from being homesick, shown me around their country, made me part of their families. Special shout out has to go to the Tucks. So Kelly, Stan, Helen, Jase, Abby and Eli, thanks for turning me into Pip McTuck and treating me like part of the furniture.

In case you're in any doubt, I also remember that I've got people that I left behind, in the UK and in South Africa. And I will always remember that sometimes it's worth travelling 18155 kilometres.

There's so much more. Ski trips, Pacific Island adventures, unplanned treks, good food, midnight giggles, paragliding, cats, fellowship, cocktails, questions, the occasional answer, and a whole lot more to come.

Thank you New Zealand. It's been a treat.

'Finding Yourself'

Our modern day culture places a considerable emphasis on the process of

'Finding Yourself'

There are quotes about it, books on it, twelve-step plans telling us how to go about it, online quizzes telling us who we are... Travel, explore other cultures, religions, rituals, spend time alone, do things that scare you, analyse your emotions: the things we do to find out 'who we are'. None of these are bad things, but what about the goal they seek to achieve? How worthy is the goal of 'finding yourself'? And, if the answer is 'very', how should we do it?

I was watching a bit of 'Eat, Pray, Love' with a friend the other day and we started discussing why it is that people think they need to travel to find themselves. Is it about getting out of your comfort zone to see how you react? Or about learning new things to see if those things are what you've always longed to do?

I've travelled. I've experienced different ways of life in South Africa, the Philippines, Romania, New Zealand, Ireland. And, without a doubt, those times have made me grow, possibly more than any other times in my life, but have they told me anything useful about who I am? And has that knowledge changed the course of my life?

I'm not sure I could say yes to that.

Because, despite how much I've loved those things, despite how much I would recommend travel and exploring and adventures, I think the key to finding yourself is much simpler. 

I think the key to finding yourself is actually not about finding yourself at all.

"Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him, everything else thrown in."
CS Lewis

If you had a coffee machine (mmmmm coffee) that was supposed to produce wonderful, hot, tasty coffee to get you through the day, but instead only spewed out cold water and random intervals, what would you do? First step would probably be to get out the manual, to read the manufacturer's instructions. If that didn't help, maybe a phone call to the manufacturer. You wouldn't send the coffee machine to Outer Mongolia to fix itself (ok, so coffee machines don't have legs and eyes, but you get my point, right?)

My point is this:

Can I suggest that, perhaps, if you want to find out who you are, you need to look to the one who made you?

What I have

I've spent a long time thinking about what I don't have. Thinking about the things that other people have. The things that I want. And it has made me miserable. It has made me jealous. It has made me bitter. It has made me insecure. And it has made me lonely. 

I think I got myself stuck in a pit. As I thought about the things I didn't have, I began to dig a 'Pity Me' Pit. 

When someone else got what I didn't have, 
      I would dig a little deeper. 
                   When I waited patiently for what I didn't have, 
                          I would dig as I waited. 
                                       When I came closer to what I didn't have, 
                                          only for it to disappear further out of reach, 
                                                I would put my energy into digging. 

Eventually, without noticing it, I had dug down to a dark place with high walls, that were too hard to climb, so I sat in the dark and stewed.

Where did that get me? 

Absolutely nowhere worth going.

I'm not sure what it was that turned me around. It wasn't a bolt of lightning, it wasn't a blinding light, it wasn't a slap around the face.

Yesterday was my birthday and that's what made me think about this change. I've had a few birthdays over the years and I can clearly remember days when I've thought - "I didn't get a birthday text from that person", "that person forgot", "I thought I would at least get a card from them". 

What a miserable way to think. 

Did I ever really think that line of thought got me anywhere? Anywhere other than the Pity Me Pit.

So yesterday, I looked at What I Have. And the conclusion I came to...

...flippin' heck, does my cup overflow?

I had breakfast and lunch bought for me. All day, I got texts and messages from people wishing me a good day. I worked all day in a job that I enjoy with better colleagues than I ever could have hoped for. I spent some time with some amazing people who have been creeping into my life and I think I haven't even noticed them till now, because I had been so focussed on what I didn't have. 

I don't want to go back to the pit. It's dark there. 

I am blessed...abundantly blessed. 

If only it hadn't taken me so long to realise it.

When the story moves down the page...

This is probably a big no-no for writing, but as I start this post, I'm not really sure where I'm going with it. I just know that I have something niggling away at me and I hope that by writing about it, maybe I'll be able to process it.

A couple of days ago, I saw the news that Jordan Taurima had been killed in a mining accident in Australia. Jordan played for Hautapu, the rugby club I work with. I didn't know him well; I strapped him up a couple of times, but I'm feeling the essence of the tragedy.

This morning, I went onto one of the news websites and the first thing I saw was Jordan's smiling face. As the day went on, I looked at the site a couple more times and each time I noticed that a story that started as a headline moved further and further down the page. 
A few hours later, it was pretty hard to find.

I know that's the media; that's how it works, but it stirred something that just made me uneasy.

It made me think back over the last few years to times when I've wondered if the ache ever goes away. And not just my own ache. I've watched friends who have lost husbands, fathers, brothers and I've wondered how they could possibly cope. I think those looking in from the outside expect that the first few days will be the worst - the days when the tragedy is sinking in and the grief is overwhelming. But you know, I think the stage after that is probably worse 

           the time when the funeral is over
                          when everyone carries on with their lives
                                                 when things continue as normal.

                                       When the story moves further down the page. 

Because sometimes, things are so big, that it takes much more than a few days to deal with it. Grief doesn't go away just because you've said your goodbyes, you've accepted the disappointment, you've tried to see what the future will look like. 

And that's what's been niggling away at me today...and I don't really know how to process this. What am I trying to say? That we need to be more sympathetic with people for a longer time? No, I don't think that's it. That we should hold on and stay in the grieving period and accept that it's never going to get better? That's not it either. Life goes on? That's definitely not my point.

I think I just struggle with the times when the story has moved down the page and you keep trying to look for it, trying to bring it to mind, trying to think of the memories, feeling guilty if you can't see the smiling picture for a moment.

Maybe my point is just that it's difficult, that going through the stages of grief is necessary but it's tough and no one looking in on you really understands. No one can tell you how you should feel. 

I guess the thing I really want to say is that those of you who really knew Jordan, I hope you can and will see light and hope, that you will know that when his story moves further down the page, he won't be forgotten, that while his death will be mourned, his life will be celebrated.

Here's that smile

Talking yourself up

Maybe it's how I've been brought up. 
          Maybe it was the lessons drummed into me at Sunday School. 
                     Maybe it's what I've learned from people...
...wherever it came from, I've realised I have a real problem talking myself up, promoting myself.

I'm not talking about boasting, about telling the world that I'm better than everyone else. 
I'm talking about false humility.

Having just about finished the book I've been working on for the last year, I've been looking into avenues for publishing, which, as it turns out, is not an easy thing to do. The first step is to write a book proposal to send to an agent. This involves talking your book, and yourself, up. One of the parts you need to include in the proposal (for non-fiction especially) is your platform: the things you have in place to promote your writing. And this involves...talking myself up. 

I'm in the process of creating a facebook page, basically to promote myself. Even saying those words makes me cringe a bit. It makes me wonder what people will think of me  Pip McCracken: Writer - she's getting a bit far ahead of herself, isn't she? Isn't creating her own page a bit egotistical? Why would I want to like that? She's nothing special. Maybe people think these things, maybe they don't. But those are the thoughts going through my head right now.




But how often does it happen that thoughts like that stop us from achieving our goals, our dreams, the things that God wants for us? Yes, we're told not to be proud, not to boast, but is it boasting to tell people about the gifts God has given us and the passions He's put in our hearts? Is it proud to seek out ways to get those gifts to the people who can benefit from them?

I'm squirming as I'm writing this, but I'm coming to discover that putting yourself down does not glorify God. As Marianne Williamson said (and Nelson Mandela and Coach Carter requoted): We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. 

So, I think that's what I'm doing. I hope that's what I'm doing.