Who is Nat?

 

My name is Natalie Husk, although most people call me Nat (except my parents!). I was born and raised in Cornwall and am proud of it! I have always been involved in the church, whether going to my local village chapel in Common Moor, joining with bus loads from Cornwall at MAYC events, helping at the District Children’s Holiday or even attending Synod a few times! I am very thankful to the Cornwall District, the Liskeard & Looe Circuit and of course Common Moor chapel for being such valuable parts in my journey of faith.

 

Today I live in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, where I work as a youth worker for the Methodist Church. I run after school clubs, youth clubs, a youth fellowship, do outreach work and organise trips away. Not long ago I was asked by a youth group, to give them a weekly topic for reflection, an email containing something to focus them on God for the week. So every week I sit at my computer and write down my thoughts! It started quite small, with just the young people receiving them, and now lots of people of all ages find my thoughts in their email inbox!

 

It is a huge privilege for me to find that people enjoy and are challenged by what I have written, especially that I can now share what God has done for me with those who walked with me at the beginning of my journey. Ultimately these reflections are aimed at the young people I now work with, but if God can speak to others through them, how great is that!!

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2007

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January 29th
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January 22nd
Wind

January 15th
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January 8th
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January 3rd
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Wind
23rd January 2007

You may have noticed that it’s been slightly breezy over the past few days. It makes me think of a song I sang in primary school:

“I love the wind,
It blows round me,
God made the wind,
And God made me!”

There were several other verses all pertaining to weather phenomenon. But I think that I like the wind verse best, because I do in fact love the wind. Obviously I don’t love it when people get hurt or killed by the wind, or when property is damaged (last week’s gales blew my TV aerial off – minor I know compared to what some people have lost or had damaged), but to me there is something great about being stood in the wind.

I love going up on the moors when I go home to Cornwall. I climb up Tregarrick Tor, one of my favouritist places in the whole world, and I look out over the moorland, the nearby lake and any random passing livestock. Cornwall, although being the most southerly part of the UK, can get very cold and wet, and high up on the Tor there is no shelter from the buffeting wind. I love to stand there and let the wind blow around me, gusting my hair all over the place (never to be combed again!) and more often than not driving the rain into me! It gives me a sense of god’s power – that I am so very small, and that as I look out over His creation, He is stronger than anything on this earth and He will always protect me. When I can no longer feel my limbs I walk back down the hill into the shelter of the valley and eventually into the warmth. But as I walk down I can still feel the wind on my skin, I can still hear the wind in my ears and the power, that strength of the wind stays with me for a while after I’m out of it’s presence.

But while I’m talking about wind, I couldn’t help to mention the other kind of ‘wind’. As children we weren’t allowed to say fart, but it was passing wind, which is deemed more polite! At one of my youth clubs I asked the kids what they called it, and they actually wrote me a fart list! In alphabetical order there is:

Blew one
Bomb
Cut the cheese
Fart
Let rip
Pass wind
Perp
Poop
Pump
Raspberry
Squeak
Stink
Trump
 

Whatever you call it (and no doubt there are countless other ways of expressing it) we all fart – it’s a natural process – although some people are better at it than others! A friend of mine actually woke himself up by farting! (He is very proud of this, although for the rest of us who were in the room at the time, it wasn’t so nice!)

The thing with farts is that they can linger. You can walk into a room and still feel the after effects of someone’s release of wind. It’s never nice. It can be embarrassing for the perpetrator (unless they have no shame like my friend!) and it can be highly unpleasant for those victims who happen to be nearby.

I think that wind is a bit like the things that we do, our everyday actions. Some of these things are good and some of them are not so good. Some of them are worthwhile and pleasing to others, some of them are selfish and worthless. The good things we do – the smiles, the helpful little acts, the putting others first, all reflect the goodness of God, His love and His grace. We love others because He first loved us, and so in caring for the people we come into contact with, we are showing them God’s love. Like the wind as I come off the Tor, the effect of these positive things continues, even after we have left the situation and in some cases for years to come.

Unfortunately, like the farts, the bad things we do also linger around. The lies we tell, the hurtful things we think and say, the selfishness and greed, all have an affect on the people around us and do little to reflect God’s love. These too can influence the lives of others for a long time to come. Scary thought isn’t it?

How then do you want to be thought of and remembered? As someone who is full of the wind of the Holy Spirit, putting others first and loving our neighbours? Or as someone who is full of gas, putting yourself first and showing anything but love?