Words from God for today

Grace - and failure

2012-02-02T13:26:00.000-08:00

I was as good as dead because of my sin.

I used to live a life of self-indulgence.
I am not alone, but that does not help me to know that.
I am responsible for my actions.
But God has given me LIFE.
LIFE.
Not just life, but LIFE in all its fullness: life of out of this world joy.
Life full of grace - because of one amazing man. One Jesus.
This is a true gift - not because I am worth being given to but because God is the great Giver. Nor is it because of anything I have done.
There is no room for pride. No room. For. Pride. None.
Knowing this, yet still finding it hard, at times, to live victoriously in the knowledge of God's saving grace, I find this week that I need to remind myself of this poem:

Running the Race
Whenever I start to hang my head in front of failure's face,

my downward fall is broken by the memory of a race.
A children's race, young boys, young men; how I remember well,
excitement sure, but also fear, it wasn't hard to tell.

They all lined up so full of hope, each thought to win that race
or tie for first, or if not that, at least take second place.
Their parents watched from off the side, each cheering for their son,
and each boy hoped to show his folks that he would be the one.

The whistle blew and off they flew, like chariots of fire,
to win, to be the hero there, was each young boy's desire.
One boy in particular, whose dad was in the crowd,
was running in the lead and thought "My dad will be so proud."

But as he speeded down the field and crossed a shallow dip,
the little boy who thought he'd win, lost his step and slipped.
Trying hard to catch himself, his arms flew everyplace,
and midst the laughter of the crowd he fell flat on his face.

As he fell, his hope fell too; he couldn't win it now.
Humiliated, he just wished to disappear somehow.
But as he fell his dad stood up and showed his anxious face,
which to the boy so clearly said, "Get up and win that race!"

He quickly rose, no damage done, behind a bit that's all,
and ran with all his mind and might to make up for his fall.
So anxious to restore himself, to catch up and to win,
his mind went faster than his legs. He slipped and fell again.

He wished that he had quit before with only one disgrace.
"I'm hopeless as a runner now, I shouldn't try to race."
But through the laughing crowd he searched and found his father's face
with a steady look that said again, "Get up and win that race!"

So he jumped up to try again, ten yards behind the last.
"If I'm to gain those yards," he thought, "I've got to run real fast!"
Exceeding everything he had, he regained eight, then ten...
but trying hard to catch the lead, he slipped and fell again.

Defeat! He lay there silently. A tear dropped from his eye.
"There's no sense running anymore! Three strikes I'm out! Why try?
I've lost, so what's the use?" he thought. "I'll live with my disgrace."
But then he thought about his dad, who soon he'd have to face.

"Get up," an echo sounded low, "you haven't lost at all,
for all you have to do to win is rise each time you fall.
Get up!" the echo urged him on, "Get up and take your place!
You were not meant for failure here! Get up and win that race!"

So, up he rose to run once more, refusing to forfeit,
and he resolved that win or lose, at least he wouldn't quit.
So far behind the others now, the most he'd ever been,
still he gave it all he had and ran like he could win.

Three times he'd fallen stumbling, three times he rose again.
Too far behind to hope to win, he still ran to the end.
They cheered another boy who crossed the line and won first place,
head high and proud and happy -- no falling, no disgrace.

But, when the fallen youngster crossed the line, in last place,
the crowd gave him a greater cheer for finishing the race.
And even though he came in last with head bowed low, unproud,
you would have thought he'd won the race, to listen to the crowd.

And to his dad he sadly said, "I didn't do so well."
"To me, you won," his father said. "You rose each time you fell."
And now when things seem dark and bleak and difficult to face,
the memory of that little boy helps me in my own race.

For all of life is like that race, with ups and downs and all.
And all you have to do to win is rise each time you fall.
And when depression and despair shout loudly in my face,
another voice within me says, "Get up and win that race!"

by D. H. Groberg

May I always see my Father's face.

A reflection on the Good Morning Girls study on Ephesians - Chapter 2 this week...

Adventures in Ephesians...

2012-01-30T13:53:00.000-08:00

Looking at Ephesians Chapter 2...
...immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own, with no help from us! (verses 4 -5)
I found myself thinking of this Al Gordon song:

This is how I know whatlove is
This is how I know I'm free
This is how I know salvation
Jesus came and died for me

This is why I come to worship
This is why I lift my hands
This is why I now surrender
Everything I am -

Because of Your love
There's dancing in my heart
Because of grace I am free
Because of Your faithfulness
There's a song that must be sung
I will sing, I will sing because of You...

This is why there's joy within me
This is why my spirit sings
Jesus, You're my great adventure
You're my everything.

You came to save the world
To save the world, to save the world
Your love can change the world

Can change the world, can change the world.

'It is by grace - by love - that we have been SAVED'.

Inspirational photos from Renee Swope

2012-01-28T12:37:00.000-08:00

Renee Swope has posted some wonderful photos recently...
May the God our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorioius Father, give me the spirit of wisdom and revelation so that I may know Him better. I want to know and rely on the love You have for me, Jesus, and live in that love. You say whoever lives in love lives in You, and You in him. In this way, love is made complete in me, so that I can have confidence today and forever.

Hold on to this promise and live in the power of its truth: because God's love is perfect, you don't have to be!

Jesus is the only One who can meet our deepest needs to be accepted and delighted in simply because of who we are. We can offer nothing but our presence, and He will desire us just the same.

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
before you were born I set you apart." (Jeremiah 1:5)

Christianity is the only faith that offers a relationship with the living God. We don’t just know about our God; our God wants us to know Him. We were created for that kind of relationship. He wants us to find lasting soul-security in knowing we are valued and pursued by the One who knows and loves us—the One who created our inmost being and wove us together in our mother’s womb (Ps. 139:13). Have you let the gospel of God’s grace move from your head to your heart, so that you know without a doubt you are known intimately and loved completely by God?”

Change

2012-01-27T10:19:00.000-08:00

We've been chatting quite a lot recently about change. It's a topic that recurs over and over again at our monthly breakfasts. So I wanted to share this quote from Max Lucado:

Are you hoping that a change in circumstances will bring a change in your attitude? If so, you are in prison, and you need to learn a secret of traveling light. What you have in your Shepherd is greater than what you don’t have in life.

May I meddle for a moment? What is the one thing separating you from joy? How do you fill in this blank: “I will be happy when ________________”? When I am healed. When I am promoted. When I am married. When I am single. When I am rich. How would you finish that statement?

Now, with your answer firmly in mind, answer this. If your ship never comes in, if your dream never comes true, if the situation never changes, could you be happy? If not, then you are sleeping in the cold cell of discontent. You are in prison. And you need to know what you have in your Shepherd.

You have a God who hears you, the power of love behind you, the Holy Spirit within you, and all of heaven ahead of you. If you have the Shepherd, you have grace for every sin, direction for every turn, a candle for every corner, and an anchor for every storm. You have everything you need.

from Lucado Inspirational Reader

2012-01-27T10:11:00.000-08:00

Our God is an awesome God
He reigns
from heaven above
with wisdom, power and love
Our God is an awesome God.
In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul prayed - for them and for us - that believers might know " ...what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might." (ESV)
Know. NIV says "and his incomparably great power for us who believe."
We are in Christ. We have his power.
Awesome.

Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God...

2012-01-25T23:31:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking about Ephesians 1:17-22: The Message puts it like this:I ask—ask the God of our Master, Jesus Christ, the God of glory—to make you intelligent and discerning in knowing him personally, your eyes focused and clear, so that you can see exactly what it is he is calling you to do, grasp the immensity of this glorious way of life he has for his followers, oh, the utter extravagance of his work in us who trust him—endless energy, boundless strength!

All this energy issues from Christ: God raised him from death and set him on a throne in deep heaven, in charge of running the universe, everything from galaxies to governments, no name and no power exempt from his rule. And not just for the time being, but forever. He is in charge of it all, has the final word on everything. At the center of all this, Christ rules the church.

With such awesome power, why am I not in total awe, struck dumb and motionless - he is King of Kings, Lord of Lords, absolute ruler of all. In the face of such might, petty squabbles and dissatisfactions are like a blot on the face of his beauty. They assume so much importance that they loom in front of my face, obscuring him who is the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end, the lord of all...It is as if I block out the sun by holding a small insignificant object close to my face...in the same way, I block out God's mighty power by holding close to me my petty grudges, resentments, difficult relationships, unhappy memories...
I am reminded of 1 Peter 5:6 which says in the Message: God's strong hand is on you; he'll promote you at the right time. Live carefree before God; he is most careful with you.
live carefree. Care free. Not letting "death nor life, angels nor demons, the present nor the future, nor any powers, height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:38-39, NIV)
Now, there's a thought!

Open the eyes of my heart, Lord

2012-01-24T12:52:00.000-08:00

Open the eyes of my heart, Lord
Open the eyes of my heart,
I want to see you
I want to see you

Open the eyes of my heart, Lord
Open the eyes of my heart,
I want to see you
I want to see you

to see you high and lifted up
shining in the light of your glory
pour out your power and love
as we sing Holy Holy Holy...

Open the eyes of my heart, Lord
Open the eyes of my heart,
I want to know hope
I want to know hope

Open the eyes of my heart, Lord
Open the eyes of my heart,
I want to know the hope
I want to know the hope

which He has called me to
all the riches of life eternal
glorious inheritance
as we sing Holy, Holy, Holy,

Holy, Holy, Holy...

Ephesians - still in chapter 1...

2012-01-23T23:37:00.000-08:00

A prayer...
May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ
THE God of Glory
give us a spirit of wisdom
a spirit of revelation
a spirit of knowledge of Him
and fill us with power
to live lives which give HIM, not us, the praise and glory.

And a reflection...
It’s hard to really take hold of this knowledge, that each of us is a princess of tremendous worth to God – yet so true. This pearl of wisdom is echoed in ‘Captivating’ by John and Stasi Eldridge: this book is a ‘must-read’ for every woman!

A song of prayer

2012-01-22T13:09:00.000-08:00

Chad Lawson plays the prayer of his heart...

And Audrey Assad sings.
Listen.

'Newness'

2012-01-21T00:58:00.001-08:00

New Year. New challenges. What are we being asked to do – what WILL webe asked to do – that is new?

New Year’s resolutions. All very well, but we don’t keep them. But perhaps we could have new attitudes? It’s very easy, but when we have worked inthe same place for some time it is quite hard to change. We slip back into the same old comfortableways of working, ways of responding to our colleagues, clients and customersand ways of speaking.

I’m challenged to be new.

One thing that bothers me aboutthis is that, as a Christian for many years, my relationship with Jesus lacks asense of newness, of excitement. Thathas begun to make sense to me now, through the study of Ephesians.

When I was first in Kenya I was ‘adopted’by a family, long term residents. I spent my first Christmas away from my ownfamily with them, included, accepted and loved. I loved being with them,accepting the new relationships I was forming, absorbing what it meant to be a ‘member’of this particular family. I stayed with them frequently. After a while, thesense of newness and strangeness faded. I helped with the elderly mother, ran errands,helped with cooking and the housework.

I realised that my adoption intoGod’s family is a little like that. The joy of finding a new family is no longernew in the same way: to begin with, my relationship was about taking what wasoffered, not about giving. Yet now I find I help members of my Christian family;I run errands for them; I am involved with the running of the house. I am so well settled in as an adopteddaughter of God that there is no longer the same sense of ‘newness’.

Yet, however long we have orhaven’t known him, God still wants to give us a sense of excitement.

We have a new life. The first verse I ever memorised was 2 Corinthians5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come:^[^a^] The old has gone, thenew is here!

Romans 6:4 saysWe were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that,just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we toomay live a new life.

We are given new commands

John 13:34 “A newcommand I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love oneanother.

He wants to give us new attitudes: Ezekiel 36:26 says I will give you a new heart and put anew spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you aheart of flesh.

Ephesians 4:22-24: You were taught, with regard to yourformer way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by itsdeceitful desires; ²³ to be made new in theattitude of your minds; ²⁴ and to put on the new self,created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

And we have been given a new song

Psalm 40:3
³ He put a new song in my mouth,
a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear the LORD
and put their trust in him.

Psalm 33:3-4
³ Sing to him anew song;
play skillfully, and shout for joy.

⁴ For the word of the LORDis right and true;
he is faithful in all he does.

Psalm 96

¹ Singto the LORD a new song;
sing to the LORD, all the earth.

Psalm 149

¹ Praisethe LORD.

Sing to theLORD a new song,
his praise in the assembly of his faithful people.

Song of Praise to the LORD

¹⁰ Singto the LORD a new song,
his praise from the ends of the earth,
you who go down to the sea, and all that is in it,
you islands, and all who live in them.

God brings ‘newness’ to us Isaiah42:8-10

⁸ “Iam the LORD; that is my name!
   I will not yield my glory to another
   or my praise to idols.
⁹ See, the former things have taken place,
   and new things I declare;
before they spring into being
   I announce them to you.”

Isaiah 43:18-20 (NewInternational Version)
¹⁸ “Forget the former things;
   do not dwell on the past.
¹⁹ See, I am doing a new thing!
   Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
   and streams in the wasteland.
²⁰ The wild animals honor me,
   the jackals and the owls,
because I provide water in the wilderness
   and streams in the wasteland,
to give drink to my people, my chosen,

How dowe become or choose ‘new’? How do we getrid of the unwanted old? What do we each do to retain the newness of arelationship with God – that sense of becoming a ‘new creation’?

1. Substitute old habits for new

2. Do something completely different

3. Commit to regular Bible reading/study/gatheringtogether

4. Take a new position at work: develop newrelationships; take a new standpoint on issues.

Perhaps we could have a new‘word’ for ourselves. It might be ‘joy’or ‘delight’ or ‘trust’ or ‘follow’ ... what would yours be? Mine is ‘mercy’. To be kinder, less brusque...

A new word

2012-01-19T23:24:00.000-08:00

The 'buzz' on the blogs for the new year seemed to be about choosing a 'word' for the year. Others challenged us to ask God for a 'picture'. I wondered about a 'song'. All good ideas, but what?
I could only think of 'mercy'. To dwell on God's mercy, to aim to extend mercy, to be merciful...this is the word that has stayed with me.
Mercy. To be compassionate, forbearing, kind...It implies forgiveness, indulgence, clemency, leniency, lenity, tenderness, mildness.
Most of those words do not come naturally to me. I am decisive, with no natural inclination to 'suffer fools gladly'.
At least, that was definitely the teenage me. Several decades on, I am glad to say that I am far more merciful than I used to be.
Yet still, mercy is a good word for me this year. A new word in my life.
Now I have another word, arising from the Good Morning Girls study on Ephesians. This comes from chapter 1.
Fearless. Fearlessly.

Because I am because I am redeemed, saved, paid for, rescued...I am safe, and can live fear less! And because of that, I can also live FEARLESSLY.

So I pray I will respond to compassionate instincts, not hold back, examine, assess, weighing up risks...but acting with mercy and kindness towards those around me.

A good idea for a new year.

(I still haven't had a 'picture' yet.)

To be chosen...and receive a gift

2012-01-18T13:04:00.000-08:00

Studying Ephesians 1:4 I came across this lovely Gospel song:

The phrase: 'It's a mighty good thing to be chosen by God' is what caught my attention, in the context of being eternally chosen to be loved members of God's family - yet the song hints at chosen in other ways too:
It's a mighty good thing, to be chosen by God
It's a mighty good thing, to be chosen to serve
So don't ever complain, when He calls your name
The job might seem hard, but you'll get a special reward
When you're chosen by God

Yes, chosen!
Then Rose found this:

You might be the wife,
Waiting up at night
You might be the man,
Struggling to provide
Feeling like it's hopeless

Maybe you're the son,
Who chose a broken road
Maybe you're the girl,
Thinking you'll end up alone
Praying God can you hear me?
Oh God are you listening?

(Chorus)
Am I more than flesh and bone?
Am I really something beautiful?
Yeah, I wanna believe, I wanna believe that
I'm not just some wandering soul
That you don't see and you don't know
Yeah I wanna believe, Jesus help me believe that I
Am someone worth dying for

I know you've heard the truth that God has set you free
But you think you're the one that grace could never reach
So you just keep asking, what everybody's asking
You're worth it, you can't earn it
Yeah the Cross has proven
That you're sacred and blameless
Your life has purpose

You are more than flesh and bone
Can't you see you're something beautiful
Yeah you gotta believe, you gotta believe
He wants you to see, He wants you to see
That you're not just some wandering soul
That can't be seen and can't be known
Yeah you gotta believe, you gotta believe that you
Are someone worth dying for

You're someone worth dying for
You're someone worth dying for

And then I found the words of this old Shaker hymn popped into my head:

'Tis a gift to be simple,
'Tis a gift to be free.
'Tis a gift to go where you ought to be.
And when you go to the place just right.
You'll be in the valley of love and delight.

Beautiful words. A variety of musical styles. The infinity of God's creativity.

Praying for strangers

2012-01-18T11:27:00.000-08:00

Just read about praying for strangers...this is something I think I need to do.
Not an ought or a must. A need.
Need to pray and read about it, too.

And when I think of strangers, I think of Katie in Uganda. I think of her kindness, her sacrifice, her willingness to give up her life at an age younger than my daughter (who embodies kindness and sacrifice for me too).

These are women of inspiration.

I think I might start a bloggy hall of fame for them. Because I need to be inspired by such as these...

Thoughts hang out together...

2012-01-17T23:30:00.000-08:00

Starting the Good Morning Girls study on Ephesians is interesting.
Interesting because what I thought would be easy is difficult.
Interesting because what I thought would be short is long.
Interesting because what I thought would be simple is complex
Interesting because what I thought would be straightforward has twists and turns.
Interesting because what I thought would be concentrated is diffuse.
Interesting because what I thought would be individual is community.

So what do I mean?
I thought just reading a few verses each day would be easy, short, simple and straightforward. It IS all of those things, but it is also difficult, long, complex and full of unseen diversions.
Why have I never realised how RICH in meaning this book is? I've always enjoyed it, gained great wisdom and strength from: a friend of mine has even memorised the whole book. But it has somehow all been so familiar that I have taken it for granted.

It is difficult to satisfy myself that I have understood what I have read. I reach a level of understanding, but then find myself with another question, and dig deeper. Then other questions arrive before I have even answered the first one...

It is difficult to find simple answers.

It is difficult sometimes to find enough time. This is no short, tick-the-box quickly study. (Even now, before work, I find myself compelled to write this reflection as a direct result of this morning's study.)

It is difficult to just stick to the verses and read only those. The cross-references scream for my attention. Then THEIR cross-references demand to be examined. And so on and so forth.

It is difficult to stay focused just on the few verses in front of me, keeping the meaning in mind without getting sidetracked.

Yet some things are easy.

It is easy to find joy in the words of love and life, revelation and rejoicing.
It is easy to gain a wider insight when my daily devotional reading chimes in with what I am studying in Ephesians. Just yesterday, when Luke 2:49 reminded me that if Jesus has to be in His Father's house, I realised that if I am blessed in Christ I am also in His Father's house, involved with him in his father's business...My study is concentrated on a few verses but it is also wonderfully diffuse.
And it is easy to maintain the discipline when I know that so many friends, near and far, known and unknown, are also studying with me, diligently jotting down their thoughts which they might share with me...It is easy when I look forward so eagerly to reading what they too have gained from this study.

What fun!

Emergency numbers

2012-01-17T10:48:00.001-08:00

Bible references for all situations...

When you are sad, call on John 14

- When you don’t feel loved, call on Romans 8:38-39

- When you have sinned, call on 1 John 1:8-9

- When you are facing danger, call on Psalm 91

- When people have failed you, call on Psalm 27

- When God feel far from you, call on Psalm 139

- When your faith needs encouraging, call on Hebrews 11

- When you are scared, call on Psalm 23

- When you are worried, call on Matthew 6:25-34

- When you are hurt, call on Colossians 3:12-17

- When you feel no one is on your side, call on Romans 8:31-39

- When you are seeking rest, call on Matthew 11:25-30

- When you are suffering, call on Romans 8:18-30

- When you feel you’re failing, call on Psalm 121

- When you pray, call on Matthew 6:9-13

- When you need courage, call on Joshua 1

- When you are in need, call on Philippians 4:19

- When you are hated because of your faith, call on John 15

- When you are losing hope, call on 2 Thessalonians 2:16-17

- When you are seeking peace, call on John 14:27

- When you want to do good works, call on John 15

- When you want to live a happy life, call on Colossians 3:12-17

- When you don’t understand what God is doing, call on Isaiah 55:8-9

- When you want to get along with others, call on Romans 12:9-21

Stand alone

2012-01-16T23:18:00.000-08:00

Do not
shake your head
sadly tut tut
and say 'How awful'

but do
stand and pray
for someone else
in a gap that is not of your making

knowing that
you do not
stand alone

for He stands next to you
sorrowing more than you can imagine.

Good Morning Girls!

2012-01-15T23:30:00.000-08:00

Have just started a Bible study on Ephesians with a group of friends through Good Morning Girls. There is even an online Bible study application! Very exciting!
There are only a very few verses to read each day, which I thought wouldn't take too long - boy, was I wrong! Questions and cross-referencing lead to mega more questions and cross-references....!
The idea of spiritual blessings stumped me rather...then Jen wrote a superb post explaining all!

Gifts

2012-01-15T09:35:00.000-08:00

Epiphany - the visit of the wise men. A prayer.

Just as the wise men brought gifts, so do we.

We bring the you the gift of concern
for our brothers and sisters in other parts of the world,
especially those countries where they endure hardship and suffering
simply because they are called by your name.

We bring you a gift of thanks
for those who faithfully follow you.
Inspire and encourage all who seek to live by your truth.
Connect us as we seek to work together.

We bring you a gift of sacrifice
Make us hungrier for your word and
thirstier to be obedient to what you teach us.
May we live our lives for your purposes.

Just as the wise men brought riches
we ask that we be more generous.
Make us open-handed with our wealth,
lavish with our praises and
extravagant with our worship
so that we may live lives
wholly devoted to you.

The New Year

2011-12-30T13:03:00.000-08:00

Spurred on by a request to share a thought about the New Year at a gathering of friends tomorrow evening, I found this reflection by Kathy at In Quiet Places. Her story of writing devotional thoughts after her children had grown up mirrors my own dreams...
This year, I dare to dream of writing more.
I'm not a fan of New Year celebrations - every day is a new beginning in my book - but just as Christmas affords an opportunity to look back and reflect on the year past, summarising our lives into a hopefully-not-too-boring-Christmas letter, so the New Year is a spur to considering the future.
This year, Mary de Muth has challenged me to ask God for a picture.
This year, I
Then another post about praying for strangers. What a challenge. Could I, too, pray for a different stranger every day FOR A YEAR? Could I? Just pray a blessing of goodness and mercy and peace and love and joy - how difficult would that be? Surely not.
And then I came across a post entitled The Selfish Christmas Prayer by Sarah Markley
Wow.
This is her prayer for Christmas. I want it to be mine for this New Year:

Lord, make me scared

that others are hungry and let me seek to feed them.

Let me be fearful

that others do not have enough and let me try and meet needs.

Lord, make me more worried

that others are loved and cared for than if I am loved. Let me be anonymous in my giving and unnamed in my helping. Let it be Your name that is used.

Selfish as it may seem,

don’t just feed the hungry this season

but instead change me.

Work on me:

let me focus on the changing of my own heart so that in that,

I might help to serve the world.

And I started off this whole New Year idea with the words of a familiar song by Glen Campbell - here it is sung by the Statler brothers:

Let me be a little kinder
Let me be a little blinder
To the faults of those about me
Let me praise a little more
Let me be when I am weary
Just a little bit more cheery
Think a little more of others
And a little less of me

Let me be a little braver
When temptation bids me waver
Let me strive a little harder
To be all that I should be

Let me be a little meeker
With the brother that is weaker
Let me think more of my neighbor
And a little less of me

Let me be when I am weary
Just a little bit more cheery
Let me serve a little better
Those that I am strivin' for...

So, as I opened an email this morning, I found this quote (again - it came from a different source yesterday) from Isaiah, “Do not call to mind the former things or ponder things of the past. Behold I will do something new. Will you not be aware of it? I will even make rivers in the desert, roadways in the wilderness.” (43:18-19).
Something new in this new year.

Prayers on Christmas eve...

2011-12-26T05:56:00.000-08:00

We sing

But many have no voice.

Give hope to the poor, the dispossessed, to those whose future seems bleak.

Protect and strengthen those who suffer hardship and persecutionbecause they believe in and follow you.

We listen

But many do not hear the Christmas message.

We ask that unbelieving hearts be touched by this most wondrous story.

We see Your star

But often do not notice you in our fellow men.

Open our eyes to take every opportunity to serve others becausewhen we do that, we serve YOU.

We feast and celebrate

But many have no means to do so.

Spur us on to share our riches withthose in poverty, just as you shared yourself with us. May thelonely be truly comforted, thesick given hope andthe bereaved consoled inways that do not rest upon men alone.

We pray for ourselves.

May we be renewed in spirit and inpurpose. May the story of your birth stay continually in our heart and lives.We pray these things in the wonderful name of Jesus. Amen.

Thankfulness at Christmas

2011-12-23T07:35:00.000-08:00

I'm not often reduced to tears when I read blog posts, but I was recently. I was in my kitchen, cooking up Christmas goodies with a heavy heart. My daughter was not here to share: our Christmases have been filled with kitchen joy together for 23 years, until now when she is living half a world away. The emptiness of the kitchen further mocked me when her best friend, my 'other' daughter, came by on a brief visit back home - when I was out, so I didn't see her; and my husband is still not back at work after illness; I have not been able to count my blessings.
So I loved this honest post. I loved that Leanne shared 'uncomfortable' feelings of sadness. It is even painful to know what a wonderful gift we have been given in Jesus and yet feel sorrow at the same time: not just a personal sorrow, but a sorrow for the cruelty that awaited that baby thirty-three years later on the cross.
And so I WILL be thankful: for the gift of Jesus; for family - a loving husband and son; and for much better health for my husband.
Thank you, Leanne, for the support and the reminder.

Of Gifts and Giving...

2011-12-18T07:22:00.000-08:00

Gifts at Christmas – reminding us of the gift of Jesus, thegifts of the magi... tangible, actual gifts.

Gifts, giving. We think we know what that means. Jesus talked about the value of giving insecret and giving without expecting any reward for doing so: in true giving, thegiver does not expect anything in return. The dictionary gives ideas of handingover something (or someone) into someone else’s care – usually permanently.

We might not - perhaps should not – get our ‘gift’ back.

Do you think that, despite our best intentions, we can losesight of this at Christmas? Is there aninsidious demand deep within ourselves, perhaps unnoticed until it is not met,that our giving is reciprocated so that we do in fact receive some reward. Notnecessarily a physical gift, but recognition, appreciation, value, worth...?

How to give

Giving isn’t just about buying or creating actual gifts forsomeone. We can give of ourselves. We can give:

Our time – when we don’t feel we have enough of it forourselves, let alone any to give away.

Our convenience – when it is troublesome to put ourselvesout.

Our leisure – when our own plans are put to one side.

Our relaxation – when we give up our own comfort to giveJesus.

Our friendship – when it seems that others don’treciprocate.

Giving also has theidea of yielding – we talk about ‘give and take’. Maybe we could give up ourright to win arguments...?! Maybe wecould give forgiveness, especially where it is unlikely there will be reconciliation...?

Giving ourselvesgifts, too: the gift of grace

Because giving also has the idea of giving in to pressure,or even collapsing, in the sense of breaking down and falling apart, sometimeswe can be so busy ‘giving’ to others that we ‘give’ in this sense as well. We become tired, worn out - even, at times, broken. We work and toil and strive to fulfil our function and purpose as 'givers' that weforget to give ourselves gifts too: gifts of grace.

Giving also applies to giving permission. We can give ourselves permission to beimperfect, to have ‘time off’ from Christmas preparations... can we also givepermission to others to speak, behave orjust to BE THEMSELVES in a way free of demands and expectations this Christmas? Just as Jesus did...

What gift of grace could you give yourself? Grace to be imperfect. Grace of time. Graceof...?

What gift would you give Jesus? I asked this question at school, providing little gift tags for the children to write on, popping them into a bright gift bag next to the crib scene. The ideas were all very sweet, but I liked this answer best: I would give him a great big hug!

What would YOU give him?

Of slowing down for Christmas...and a special gift

2011-12-15T05:54:00.000-08:00

I teach. So end of term in December is incredibly hectic with all kinds of disruption to the timetable: carol services (and endless rehearsals); Christmas lunch, with the preparation for that; Christmas parties; nativity plays to take part in or watch, making all kinds of Christmas crafts...not to mention trying to find time to teach the children the real meaning of Christmas.
I am learning how to do this well.
I am learning to adapt the normal curriculum so we finish in plenty of time.
I am learning to choose fewer but more meaningful activities for the children to do.
I am learning not to stress if something isn't finished.
I am learning how to prepare my heart.
So this end of term was considerably less stressful than normal and so, on Day One of the holidays, I am relaxed enough to complete just one item on my 'to do' list (writing Christmas cards), spending the remaining time on thoughtful reflection.
Reflecting on what happened that first Christmas, and what it might look like today - thought-provoking versions of that story help me place myself in the midst of it.
Considering different aspects of the story: this year, it is that of giving. And gifts.
The end of term often brings Christmas gifts from the children. Some of them - most of them - have been chosen by busy mothers. Chocolates, candles, sometimes more personal gifts: I run the gardening club at school so often receive garden related presents. I have also, over the years, received some beautiful jewellery which I have worn over and over again, because it has been just right for me....indicative of a thoughtful parent. However, the ones that stand out are those which the children have obviously made, or chosen. And yes, I do get quite a few 'thank you for being my teacher' items. This year, two placards each bearing the message: To teach is to touch a life'. One has stayed in my classroom, the other is small enough to join the ornaments on my tree at home.
Teaching brings many special memories, but it is also so consuming that, once a class has left my room, all my energies go into my new class. I find it difficult to remember if I taught a child the previous year or the previous decade. So the gift I remember best is one I received from one of the children yesterday. Jack loves school - so much so that he was sad on the last day of term. He didn't want to stop coming every day and wrote in his card (lovingly handmade) to me: 'I like school and you might know it!' With the card came a little present: beautifully wrapped, with a delicate wire gift tag, it contained a pretty little bracelet in my favourite turquoise. He had chosen, wrapped and presented it entirely on his own. He is nine years old. With that gift, I feel he gave me a little of himself. That's too special for words.

I can't find Jesus!

2011-12-13T10:11:00.000-08:00

Echoing around my classroom
I heard
'I can't find Jesus!'

In a Christmas-themed wordsearch,
the children
couldn't find the Reason
for Christmas.

'Keep looking!' I urged them,
'Keep looking for Jesus and you
WILL find Him.'

I pray
they will not only find the Word on paper
but
they will also find the Word who longs
to live
in their hearts.

I pray that I, too,
will find Jesus
in Christmas preparations.

In the excitement of decorations
in the sweetness of good food
in the companionship of good friends
in the rejoicing and
in the laughter.

May Christmas lights remind us
to bring the Light of the World
into our hearts.

Not just at Christmas
but
for ever.

A favourite Christmas story...

2011-11-29T10:38:00.001-08:00

My favourite Christmas story is one which was published in a local newspaper, all about King Wencesmouse and what happened one snowy night, and how he and his servant rescued their arch enemy the cat... with a message of how even enemies can be friends at Christmas: and that made me think of the famous Christmas Day meeting between English and Germans during the First World War...

Change

2011-11-20T13:05:00.001-08:00

Change. Change happens. It’s the one constant inlife. Change happens to us, we change our environment, we change ourselves...

Let’s think about that in a workcontext: how do we handle this change?

Our job changes...more work, more responsibility...

Our role might change...

Our colleagues change: some come, somego...

Our work environment may change...

WE have to change: change ourapproach; change the way we do things; change our opinions...change ourperspective

What do we do?

I’ve discovered that, much as I paylip service to change, when it comes down to deep and meaningful changes in me,I really don’t like it much. I wonder if, deep down, I am so set on knowing whoI am, that I don’t want to changethat person. Do you think we go through stages like that in our lives?

But sometimes we HAVE to change anddon’t want to. The personal challenge to our view of ourselves becomes toogreat to ignore. Or others demand that we change – and, though we may not wantto admit it to ourselves, let alone to anyone else, we secretly agree that thatis necessary.

And sometimes we WANT to change butlack the belief that it is possible.

So, the big question: Do we trust God?

Alison Strobel in a blog post says:

Will I believe that God’s plans are better than my own? Will Irisk stepping out of my comfort zone? Do I believe the growing pains I’ll facewill be worth the blessings that will come? Do I trust God to really take careof me? What about you? What changes is God nudging you towards that have youdigging in your heels and tightening your grip on whatever you know you need torelease? Do you believe the rewards are worth the pain? Or that God’s perfectplan is worth leaving your complacency and comfort behind?

Do you trust Him? Or are you hiding and hoping He passes you by?

The unknown is scary. But ultimately—for me anyway—it’s scarier tothink of what I might miss if I don’t let go. And so I say a prayer, open myhands, and peer beyond the edge of what I know, into the vast expanse of thefuture where a giant question mark dominates the landscape. Do you see it, too?

Today let’s choose to trust God and not require that we like oreven understand what He is calling us to do. Let’s submit to Him, believingthat the path He calls us to take will always be worth the change, worth therisk, worth the effort, simply because He has chosen it for us.

Others havesaid: At times it can be a struggle toactually “Trust God” when you are facing change. As humans, we say we are goingto trust God, but Satan takes hold and we start to question God & worry ifwe are really doing the right thing.

This is a nice reminder for all of us that God’s strength &comfort can get us through those times.

When God calls usto something we are not anticipating or we did not plan, it’s always anadventure! And because it’s a God-thing, we have to rely fully on Him.

So perhaps change in ourselves can be viewed as anadventure, as something exciting... we don’t need to cling on to our ‘old self’but shrug off a bad habit like an old skin. Perhaps we are being challenged to change on the gossip front; or on howmuch we talk – or not.

Perhaps the change God is asking of us is to make more timefor him; or perhaps ‘just’ to be less self-righteous. For:

God uses discipline to heal. Our God wants thevery best for us. He loves us. He delights in us. He has a plan for us. It isonly when we willingly allow God to sanctify our hearts and remove sin…whateverit may be (pride, bitterness, fear, mistrust, shame, guilt, anger)…that God cantruly use us and accomplish His plans in and through us.

What are our ‘power verses’?

"’For Iknow the plans I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans to prosper you andnot to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’" Jeremiah 29:11(NIV)

“Therefore strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. Makelevel paths for your feet, so that the lame may not be disabled, but ratherhealed.” Hebrews 12:12

“Trust in the LORD with all your heart andlean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to Him and He willmake your paths straight.” Proverbs 3:5-6 (NIV)

Out of heaviness comes grace...

2011-11-05T07:43:00.000-07:00

My heart has been over-burdened and heavy recently. Stress has built up in my mind and body, so that I have had little energy for blogging.

But grace has been present in my life. I have listened to Louie Giglio talk about grace; I have read wonderful accounts of grace-filled, loving lives; and I have experienced grace extended to me through the kindness of friends and strangers.

So when Sarah Markley said this, I was inspired:

' If we wore peace, we might desire the quiet and not distractions.

If we wore grace, we might want to forgive others for their grave missteps.

If we put on goodness might we desire the successes of others?

And if we wore love, do you think we might crave Jesus in a way that we never have?

Peace and grace and love are far more difficult than zipping up a play dress and sitting down to lunch, but maybe clothing ourselves in these grown-up, mature things can be a way to see our hearts and minds changed in the direction of Him.

What do you “wear?” What do you want to “wear?” '

I realised this week that I am in desperate need of a change of clothes...

"I write to discover what it is I really think."

2011-10-19T13:22:00.000-07:00

Thisis what Bonnie over at FaithBarista has written. I've been really short of energy and timethe last few weeks, so shall repost her thoughts here:

"Ilove to write.

It’snot because I like to hear myself talk.

Iwrite to discover what it is I really think.

Forbetter or worse, I’ve learned to filter my words before I speak.

It’sa good thing — the practice of seasoning our words with grace to others.

It’sself-control.

But,there’s a line between being wise with our words and hidingbehind them –

becausewe’re afraid to express our true feelings.

becausewe struggle with being needy.

becausewe don’t want others to think we are needy.

So,we filter our conversations, but we’re left with the emotional andspiritual grinds in our soul.

Thisis why I write.

Iwrite to keep it real.

Iwrite to shake out soul grinds in front of God, one sentence at a time.

Somewherebetween the first word I write and last word I end with, my voice emerges andso does God’s.

Ihear my true voice –

Thegirl that laughs loud and isn’t shy about being happy.

Thewoman who thinks things through too much and feels them deeply.

Thepoet who sees art in everyday life and wax sentimental.

Thechild who is never short on questions and always looking for re-assurances asmuch as friendship.

…

WritingBecomes a Prayer

Everyday,a different part of our soul emerges as the day brings us through differentexperiences. We encounter a conversation, a book, a song.

Ifwe dare to give ourselves the space to let our soul speak through words, we canencounter God.

Writingbecomes a prayer.

Weallow ourselves to be vulnerable.

Writingbecomes a soul conversation.

DareTo Have a Soul Conversation

Ifyou enjoy this self-discovery that inevitably leads to God-discovery, Iwant to encourage you to have an unfiltered soul conversation.

Takesome time write a journal entry.

Itcan be any piece of paper.

Itcan be on your computer.

Itdoesn’t matter if you just write this one time.

Sharewhat’s on your heart.

Writea letter to yourself.

Writea letter to God.

Whateveryou do, write honestly and keep it real..."

I really like this. In fact, I love this whole post. It's nice when folk read my blog and comment, but it is in the writing and thinking thoughts into being and coherency and sense that is important. Thank you, Bonnie!

Louie Giglio and the Fruitcake

2011-10-05T12:43:00.000-07:00

Just seen a talk by Louie Giglio entitled Fruitcake and Ice Cream. And it was SO powerful. The story - the real-life, there for us all to see written in her journal story - of Ashley and how she came to underrstand God's grace.
Grace.
By the end of the story, tears bathing L's - and my - face, I felt anew the power of what God did for us.
I actually don't understand it. It's beyond my comprehension. And I realised that I can explain the story of the cross, I can go to relevant passages in Scripture, I can live my life as best I can in the knowledge that because Jesus saved me, I am his, and I want to go wherever he sends me...but I can't really understand it all with my mind or even my emotions.
It truly is a spirit thing.
And so, thinking of my dear friends and colleagues who, like Ashley, think I am slightly - or very - strange, I realise I cannot explain so they can understand. They will only 'get it' when they hear with their spirits, when they look for Jesus with heart spirit yearning, when they open spiritual hearts to feel his presence, when they experience his touch.

Jesus said 'This is why I speak to them in parables:
   “Though seeing, they do not see;
   though hearing, they do not hear or understand.
   ¹⁴ In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah:
   “‘You will be ever hearing but never understanding;
   you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.
¹⁵ For this people’s heart has become calloused;
   they hardly hear with their ears,
   and they have closed their eyes.
Otherwise they might see with their eyes,
   hear with their ears,
   understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.' Matthew 13:13-15

I get that now.

Not forgotten

2011-10-05T12:34:00.000-07:00

Ayla has written a wonderful post about how God never forgets us:

"I Am Not Forgotten [Even When I Am]

I don’t know about you but there are times in my life where I feel forgotten...

Forgotten by friends who don’t call or email or text to see how I’m doing...

And these instances of feeling forgotten tend to drag me back to a painful past of being told I wasn’t worth remembering...

Oh how excruciating that pain of being forgotten has been familiar to my frail and wounded heart.

And the Lord knows how desperately I have wanted to numb that pain in the past...

Of course many things changed drastically after giving my life to Jesus. Just the liberty of knowing I wasn’t going to hell due to my inability to measure up to God’s standard was enough to distract me from those hurting craters of my heart.

But the need to be validated by someone else lingered on...

... I was looking to others to fill voids, validate me, and determine my joy, peace, and worth rather than Him.

That is where this painful but growth-oriented journey of allowing Him to fill any voids in my heart began for me.

And as I walk (sometimes crawl) along this journey I am realizing how God is purposefully orchestrating my relationships and schedule to bring me to that place of complete dependence on and expectation in Him.

Family and friends don’t communicate?

My expectation is from Him.

My husband doesn’t surprise me with love notes and gifts?

My expectation is from Him.

People don’t respond on Twitter or read/comment on my blog?

My expectation is from Him.

And while there have been so many times in this season that my heart breaks at how forgotten I feel, God continues to remind me every single time that I am not forgotten (by Him) even when I am (by people)."

And so this was so timely, at a time when, as we struggle, good friends come alongside. They email. They text. They drop by.

I am so grateful for them.

Others, who we had thought were our friends, seem unconcerned.

Yes, it hurts. BUT GOD IS ENOUGH! ENOUGH! ENOUGH!

Thank you, dear Ayla!

Encouragement in ...difficult times

2011-09-22T11:10:00.000-07:00

I didn't expect to reach a time of ~~despair~~ doubt. I'm not allowed to feel despairing: Paul didn't, so I mustn't. He was just 'perplexed'. Still, the dictionary gives 'a feeling of uncertainty about the truth, reality, or nature of something.Distrust. A state of affairs such as to occasion uncertainty.'
That's where I am. With a chronically sick husband, unable to work at the moment, we wonder if he will ever be well. He doubts it. And with the doubt comes uncertainty, and depression.
I'm too physically and emotionally drained to even start searching for wonderful blogs for some encouragement. Which is just as well, since they pop into my mail box without my even looking.
When we married, we became as one. When he hurts, I hurt. When he is down, I struggle. So when I read some wonderful advice from Holley Gerth on 3 simple ways to help someone in my life, my attention was caught. She says:

As a life coach and counselor I'm often asked, "How do I help this person in my life?" There's a simple strategy you can use when someone shares with you--whether it's a coworker having a bad day, a relative facing a sudden crisis, or someone at church who's confiding a struggle. Think of these three steps as your trump card. They let you always play an ACE that helps those in your life win.

A - Affirm the emotion God gave us a part of our brains called the amygdala that takes care of our flight or fight response. It lets us take action quickly (like when a bear is running after us). While we don't face many physical dangers in our lives, emotional stress causes this system to kick in as well. When you're dealing with a stressed out person you're talking to their amygdala. This is not about rational thought. Express a message that says, "Hey, I recognize your emotion and validate it." That calms the flight/fight response and lets the decision-making part of our brains (the prefrontal cortex) kick in and start doing its job. {Example: "Wow, you sound really frustrated. What happened?"}

C - Call out the best in the person In our most stressful moments, we all have a tendency to feel overwhelmed by guilt and a feeling that we're not living up to our own or others' expectations. Or we simply forget who we are in the heat of the moment and act in ways uncharacteristic of us. What we often need most is someone who can see through to our hearts and remind us of who we really are--the best of us--at the worst of times. That can help us refocus on what matters most and move forward in positive ways. {Example: "I've seen you deal with situations like this before. Your strength and love for others always shines through in the end. I know it will this time too."

E - Encourage the next step Here's a secret: life coaches and counselors don't have the solutions. In all of my training, what's been emphasized most is not magic-bullet cure-all approaches. Instead it's being a partner on that person's journey with God to finding their own answers. Usually, they've already got what they need--it's just a matter of providing a safe space for it to come out. Resist the urge to give advice or tell others what to do. It's one of the greatest gifts you can offer (and much harder than it seems).

{Example: "I care about you and I wish you weren't going through this. Now that we've talked about it for a few minutes, what do you think you'll do next"?}

At this point, the person may respond with another emotion. For example, she might say, "I don't know. I'm just really hurt." If so, start back with A and go through the process again. We often try to make helping others more complicated than it really needs to be. Practice this approach and then make it your own. You are often the best gift you can offer someone who is hurting and you truly do make a difference.

Still, it doesn't work for me in this situation. But right underneath this mail was another, from Bonnie at Faith Barista: Autumn's song: what we fear and how God heals. All about change, a time to let go: of problems, people, places and even dreams that we were never meant to carry. Scary scary stuff.

Bonnie gives me hope. I can't quite believe it, that there is light at the other end of the tunnel - I suffer doubt. I suffer uncertainty about the truth and uncertainty about our future. Yet she gives me hope to cling on to a God who is good, who wants my best, who loves me. I 'just' have to surrender 'my' best to him and wait - and hope - that I recognize HIS best when it comes in the spring.

Choosing joy...

2011-09-16T12:31:00.000-07:00

I've been reminded to 'intentionally choose joy' by Ayla recently. And have heard myself saying that happiness is a choice...yet it's hard, sometimes, to actually do that.
Lysa Terkeust has some words of wisdom to help with that: when we ask:

'Why did this happen? Why didn’t You stop this God? Why weren’t my prayers answered?

Have you ever been there? Have you ever had a big situation in your life where you just couldn’t process why God would allow this to happen? Or maybe even a small annoyance like losing your keys or having a flat tire on a morning you really needed to be somewhere.

It’s so tempting to wallow in the why.

Asking why is perfectly normal. Asking why isn’t unspiritual. However, if asking why pushes us farther from God rather than drawing us closer to Him, it is the wrong question.

If asking why doesn’t offer hope, what will?

The what question.

In other words: “Now that this is my reality, what am I supposed to do with it?”

I like to call this verse “directions on where to park my mind.”

Philippians 4:8, “Finally brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” (NIV)

Instead of wallowing...say:

This is my reality, now what am I going to do with it?

What can I learn from this?

What part of this is for my protection?

What other opportunities could God be providing?

What maturity could God be building into me?

Switching from the why to the what question paves the road to parking our mind in a much better place.

Is it always easy? Nope.

But is it a way to find a perspective beyond situations where we feel God has allowed something in our lives we don’t understand and we absolutely don’t like? Yes.

I pray this helps you today. You can also download a free resource on how to change your why questions into what questions. Just go to my blog, www.LysaTerKeurst.com and click on the button “When God Hurts Your Feelings.”

Life breaks

2011-09-11T02:03:00.000-07:00

Great post over at (in)courage on Life Breaks: Bella says:

"Life breaks.

Life wounds.

This world swirls with tragedy that can pull us down, bend our human bodies, and break our spirits.

And still, through it all, God stands.
He stands willing to take all of the brokenness and raise it into something beautiful.

He stands willing to take back the sinner, to hold the brokenhearted, to comfort the lost with words of love.

He stands strong for us when we are weak.

He saves from the flood.

He saves from the fire.

He saves, because he loves.
In this world we will always be hurt. We will confront cruelty and injustice. We will be beaten down by circumstance and by pain.

The world is designed to injure.

So we look to the heavens for comfort.

And He is there, always.

He has not promised that life will never hold deep and bitter things. He has not promised us that loss won’t touch us, or that we won’t become lost.

What he has promised is that in all things, and in all circumstances, He will never leave us.

So we fear.

And we worry.

And we wait out the storm.

Because we are human.
And He watches,
and waits,
and saves.

Because He is God.
Life breaks.

But as long as we hold tight to Him, we never will."

Life breaks. BUT GOD MENDS.

Living bountifully...blessed

2011-09-06T05:53:00.000-07:00

It's encouraging how much God wants to bless us: right in the beginning, man and woman were told to prosper and reproduce (Genesis 1:25-27). Noah was blessed in the same way after the flood. (Genesis 9:1-3) Abraham was to be blessed with children, whose descendants would be so bountiful that they could not be numbered. (Genesis 22:14-16)

God has said he will bless his people.

Yet with blessing comes responsibility.

We are responsible for what we are blessed with. Responsible to use blessings wisely, to be thankful, to be generous, to be unselfish.
Responsible to train others in God's ways. (Genesis 18:16-18 )

So we can't just sit back and say 'thank you very much, very grateful' to God for his blessings. We are to use them, putting God's love into action. Saying 'Bless you' is a call to step further into God's goodness, to learn more about his character and his purposes.

A call to growth.

I'm linking to Holley's series on 'In God's heart I am...'.....blessed.

A shadow of a doubt

2011-09-01T00:13:00.000-07:00

Hmmm... phrases repeating themselves. This time, this one: a shadow of a doubt. There's a word missing: BEYOND.
'BEYOND a shadow of a doubt' ie absolute certainty. This time, the focus is on DOUBT and the shadow it is casting over our lives. My life, in particular, at this moment.
Renee Swope talks about this: that shadows
"are created all around us when something blocks light. And so it is with the shadow of doubt. When we focus on ourselves and how inadequate we feel, or what others are thinking about us, we cast a shadow of doubt in our minds and block the light of God’s Truth in our hearts.
Our thoughts end up being mostly about ourselves: how we’re performing and what others are thinking about us. It’s not that these thoughts are bad. It’s just that when we focus our attention on ourselves, we turn our attention away from God.
We become too concerned about what others think of us instead of what God thinks about us.
And just as Paul warns us in Rom. 8:6, “the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace” so something in us slowly dies when we become self-focused.
God created us for so much more than self-preservation or self-promotion. It’s just too much pressure. Even if we achieve success or have a few good days, eventually it won’t be enough.
If we want to live beyond the shadows of our doubts, we have to take our eyes off ourselves and turn them toward the Light by focusing on God’s thoughts towards us. When we feel insecure, we need to think about His strengths instead of our weakness. When we feel inadequate, we need to turn the focus of our hearts to promises that tell us who He is and how He wants to work in our lives.
...a shadow of doubt had been cast over my thoughts and emotions because I had stopped living in the light of God’s promises. That is how I ended up paralyzed by the darkness."

Renee talks about doubts of:
"I’m not good enough.
I’m always disappointing someone.
I can’t follow God consistently.
I’ll never change."
I wanted to add some more, but I think she's got it all covered in those four short sentences. All big fat lies, of course, but how easily we believe them.

How do we deal with doubt? By..
"Turning away from self – Turning toward God
Turning away from doubt – Turning toward Truth
Turning away from darkness – Turning toward Light

Instead of waiting for God to zap us with confidence and remove our doubts, let’s ask God to use our doubts to draw us into a deeper place of dependence on Him and His promises. It’s not necessarily going to be easy, because it requires turning, but it is possible and worth what it takes to turn.
Turning leads to transforming, as we allow our thoughts to be made new, and transforming leads to believing as God’s thoughts become our Truth. "

Oh yes, I thought. Definitely right. Because Jesus says: I AM THE WAY, THE TRUTH AND THE LIGHT. I read today in John 17, in Jesus' prayer for his followers:
I spelled out your character in detail
To the men and women you gave me.

They were yours in the first place;
Then you gave them to me,
And they have now done what you said.
They know now, beyond the shadow of a doubt,
That everything you gave me is firsthand from you,
For the message you gave me, I gave them;
And they took it, and were convinced
That I came from you.
They believed... John 17:6ff, The Message

A deeper dependence on God - through turning my eyes on Jesus, looking full in his wonderful face...so the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.
Amen.

A Year of Plenty, by Craig L Goodwin: a book review. Of sorts.

2011-08-19T08:35:00.000-07:00

A hobby of mine - I guess it's a hobby, as it takes up quite a bit of my free time - is following blogs. I especially like Faith Barista and join in with her Jam With Me Thursdays when I can. I also like reading: my latest book is A Year of Plenty, by Craig L Goodwin. I was just finishing this book when this week's topic on the Faith Jam came up: Small Acts of Faith. Reading a Year of Plenty, that's exactly what I was inspired to do. Make small acts of faith. This is why...

My primary emotion when I started off reading this book was intrigue. I was curious to see how a typical suburban US family could live, for a year, only by using what was homegrown, locally produced, homemade or recycled. At first glance, it didn't seem as if it would be too challenging. There would be adjustments, of course, but I considered that most of what my family consumed would fall into one of those four categories. How wrong I was. The book is a fascinating glimpse into a year of taking an alternative approach to consumerism.

I have been a devotee of recycling for many years - not just recycling rubbish, but buying used or second-hand goods, principally through charity shops. I make my own cards for every occasion; grow whatever vegetables the rabbits, which are prolific in my garden, allow; make do, mend and repair. My husband does the same, faithfully keeping our ancient vehicles roadworthy and fixing things around the house. Our lifestyle is generally not at all profligate, save for the odd winter holiday in sunnier climes and I figured that forgoing that just once might not be too hard. So I considered trying the experiment as well.

By the end of the first chapter, I was in despair. The enormity of consumerism threatened to overcome me; the ethical and philosophical questions raised by ONLY buying what is locally produced were completely overwhelming. Having lived in Kenya for many years, I was well aware of the value to local people there when I bought Kenyan green beans or roses. Were I, and others with me, not to do that, the livelihood of many would vanish. The book was, to my surprise, raising more questions and creating more problems in my mind than answers. I persevered.

By the end of the second chapter, when I read that locally produced squash was rotting while shoppers were buying squash produced in Mexico, I was in tears. The ugly question of food waste reared its head. I knew – from a paper my daughter wrote on the subject for her degree – that tackling the problem has no simple solutions. Nor, on the face of it, do other ‘green’ issues. How could one family change ANYTHING?

By the end of the book, I felt quite optimistic. Yes, the Goodwins’ experiment meant radical changes to their lifestyle, but it did seem possible. I realised that taking a similar approach helped to increase a sense of community as purchasing became much more personal. As I read about successful vegetable growing, rearing chickens or sourcing locally milled flour, I gained a renewed appreciation for the work farmers do.

I had some issues, which I suspect others reading this book might share. While I agree that consumerism is insidious in the fabric of Western society, it is a hard habit to break. Food has to be put on the table, journeys made, birthday presents found. Searching for a locally-produced birthday present for one of the children’s class-mates required a 30 minute drive which, concerned as I am to reduce my own carbon footprint, seemed excessive. Yet are the benefits of finding a beautiful, hand-crafted object, which was much appreciated by the recipient and resulted in an increased connection with its maker – increased community, which most of us long for - deemed less important?

A Year of Plenty raises significant questions about sustainability through consumer choice, about the role and identity of the church and about the global economics of consumption. But as Craig Goodwin says, this experiment was about ‘sorting out more meaningful rhythms of consumption in the small space of our lives.’ They learned to focus intentionally on the ‘little things’, having faith that what they did mattered.

And it does. We all have lives filled with ‘little things’. How we behave with those small things demonstrates our faith. As we seek to live responsibly in our world, we affirm that ‘the earth is the Lord’s and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it’ (Psalm 24:1) and that we are stewards of it. What we do IS important.

For more inspiration, go to the Year of Plenty blog!

Time for another book review...A Conversation with God

2011-08-18T00:37:00.000-07:00

Ever wondered how to answer the questions friends throw at you about your faith? Questions about why you can believe in a good God when there is so much pain and suffering in the world, just for a start...
This book attempts to help us out with our questions.

Subtitled ‘If you could ask God any question, what would it be?’, the book does what it says: gives questions and corresponding answers , taken from the Bible. The ‘answers’ are contributed through the voice of over twenty different people as well as God, including Jesus, Abraham, David, James, John the Baptist... Easy to dip into, rather than necessarily read through from beginning to end, the contents are easily accessible so that they can be read in any order. 55 chapters are divided into different areas of concern: questions about the Bible, pain and suffering, heaven and hell, Christian living, the world, each topic answering several questions.

I asked for this book in the hope that it would be a ‘manual’ I could use with friends who ask me difficult questions about my faith. And yes, it does answer many of the obvious questions. However, I found myself asking more questions as I read through, realising that I needed to study in more depth in order to find answers. So that is a good thing!

I found the language slightly strange at times – everyone speaks in the first person and I found that took a little getting used to. That aside, as a starter it’s a great tool. I would lend it to a friend, which is what I had hoped for. And I’ll certainly be dipping back into it myself from time to time...maybe even today...

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Words from God today

2011-08-17T07:40:00.000-07:00

Holley Gerth's blogpost about her new book, 'God's Heart for You: Embracing Your True Worth as a Woman', dropped into my inbox yesterday with a little challenge: to finish the sentence "In God's heart I am..." There was a cute little movie to go with it:

It was accompanied by the incentive of a cute little reward from Blessings Unlimited to complete the challenge and then post it onto facebook.
Then Cat and Sarah came home.
This is what we did:

Then we goofed around some...

Breakfast on Woman Alive!

2011-08-16T03:47:00.000-07:00

Wow, had a surprise this morning. Logged on to the Woman Alive website to see my little article about our monthly breakfasts! Woo hoo!

Worship

2011-08-13T09:55:00.000-07:00

Karen Ehman has written movingly about worship. And she asks how, where, and, most importantly, WHY we worship.
I've often read and heard 'secular' love songs as being songs of love Jesus sings...great to be reminded of that.
Yes, worship. How: with all of me; where: as the Spirit moves, but also as a sacrifice of praise; why: Jesus!

Inspiration on FORGIVENESS from Martin Luther King

2011-08-13T09:54:00.000-07:00

“First, we must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. It is impossible even to begin the act of loving one’s enemies without the prior acceptance of the necessity, over and over again, of forgiving those who inflict evil and injury upon us. It is also necessary to realize that the forgiving act must always be initiated by the person who has been wronged, the victim of some great hurt, the recipient of some tortuous injustice, the absorber of some terrible act of oppression. The wrongdoer may request forgiveness. He may come to himself, and, like the prodigal son, move up some dusty road, his heart palpitating with the desire for forgiveness. But only the injured neighbor, the loving father back home, can really pour out the warm waters of forgiveness.

“Forgiveness does not mean ignoring what has been done or putting a false label on an evil act. It means, rather, that the evil act no longer remains as a barrier to the relationship. Forgiveness is a catalyst creating the atmosphere necessary for a fresh start and a new beginning. It is the lifting of a burden or the canceling of a debt. The words ‘I will forgive you, but I’ll never forget what you’ve done’ never explain the real nature of forgiveness. Certainly one can never forget, if that means erasing it totally from his mind. But when we forgive, we forget in the sense that the evil deed is no longer a mental block impeding a new relationship. Likewise, we can never say, ‘I will forgive you, but I won’t have anything further to do with you.’ Forgiveness means reconciliation, a coming together again. Without this, no man can love his enemies

“The degree to which we are able to forgive determines the degree to which we are able to love our enemies.

“Second, we must recognize that the evil deed of the enemy-neighbor, the thing that hurts, never quite expresses all that he is. An element of goodness may be found even in our worst enemy. Each of us has something of a schizophrenic personality, tragically divided against ourselves. A persistent civil war rages within all of our lives. Something within us causes us to lament with Ovid, the Latin poet, ‘I see and approve the better things, but follow worse,’ or to agree with Plato that human personality is like a charioteer having two headstrong horses, each wanting to go in a different direction, or to repeat with the Apostle Paul, ‘The good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.’

“This simply means that there is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies. When we look beneath the surface, beneath. the impulsive evil deed, we see within our enemy-neighbor a measure of goodness and know that the viciousness and evilness of his acts are not quite representative of all that he is. We see him in a new light. We recognize that his hate grows out of fear, pride, ignorance, prejudice, and misunderstanding, but in spite of this, we know God’s image is ineffably etched in being. Then we love our enemies by realizing that they are not totally bad and that they are not beyond the reach of God’s redemptive love.

“Third, we must not seek to defeat or humiliate the enemy but to win his friendship and understanding. At times we are able to humiliate our worst enemy. Inevitably, his weak moments come and we are able to thrust in his side the spear of defeat. But this we must not do. Every word and deed must contribute to an understanding with the enemy and release those vast reservoirs of goodwill which have been blocked by impenetrable walls of hate.

“Let us move now from the practical how to the theoretical why: Why should we love our enemies? The first reason is fairly obvious. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction.

“So when Jesus says ‘Love your enemies,’ he is setting forth a profound and ultimately inescapable admonition. Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies-or else? The chain reaction of evil-hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars-must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.

“Another reason why we must love our enemies is that hate scars the soul and distorts the personality. Mindful that hate is an evil and dangerous force, we too often think of what it does to the person hated. This is understandable, for hate brings irreparable damage to its victims. We have seen its ugly consequences in the ignominious deaths brought to six million Jews by hate-obsessed madman named Hitler, in the unspeakable violence inflicted upon Negroes by bloodthirsty mobs, in the dark horrors of war, and in the terrible indignities and injustices perpetrated against millions of God’s children by unconscionable oppressors.

“But there is another side which we must never overlook. Hate is just as injurious to the person who hates. Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man’s sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.

“A third reason why we should love our enemies is that love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend. We never get rid of an enemy by meeting hate with hate; we get rid of an enemy by getting rid of enmity. By its very nature, hate destroys and tears down; by its very nature, love creates and builds up. Love transforms with redemptive power.

“The relevance of what I have said to the crisis in race relations should be readily apparent. There will be no permanent solution to the, race problem until oppressed men develop the capacity to love their enemies. The darkness of racial injustice will be dispelled only by the light of forgiving love. For more than three centuries American Negroes have been battered by the iron rod of oppression, frustrated by day and bewildered by night by unbearable injustice and burdened with the ugly weight of discrimination. Forced to live with these shameful conditions, we are tempted to become bitter and to retaliate with a corresponding hate. But if this happens, the new order we seek will be little more than a duplicate of the old order. We must in strength and humility meet hate with love.

“My friends, we have followed the so-called practical way for too long a time now, and it has led inexorably to deeper confusion and chaos. Time is cluttered with the wreckage of communities which surrendered to hatred and violence. For the salvation of our nation and the salvation of mankind, we must follow another way.
“While abhorring segregation, we shall love the segregationist. This is the only way to create the beloved community.

“To our most bitter opponents we say: ‘We shall match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering. We shall meet your physical force with soul force. Do to us what you will, and we shall continue to love you. We cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws because noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. Throw us in jail and we shall still love you. Bomb our homes and threaten our children, and we shall still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our community at the midnight hour and beat us and leave us half dead, and we shall still love you. But be ye assured that we will wear you down by our capacity to suffer. One day we shall win freedom but not only for ourselves. We shall so appeal to your heart and conscience that we shall win you in the process and our victory will be a double victory.’”

Laminin

2011-08-13T09:52:00.000-07:00

A doctor-friend wrote:
A couple of days ago I was running (I use that term very loosely) on my treadmill, watching a DVD sermon by Louie Giglio...and I was BLOWN AWAY! I want to share what I learned.....but I fear not being able to convey it as well as I want. I will share anyway.
He (Louie) was talking about how inconceivably BIG our God is...how He spoke the universe into being...how He breathes stars out of His mouth that are huge raging balls of fire...etc. Etc. Then He went on to speak of how this star-breathing, universe creating God ALSO knitted our human bodies together with amazing detail and wonder. At this point I am LOVING it (fascinating from a medical standpoint, you know.) ....and I was remembering how I was constantly amazed during medical school as I learned more and more about God's handiwork. I remember so many times thinking....'How can ANYONE deny that a Creator did all of this???'
Louie went on to talk about how we can trust that the God who created all this, also has the power to hold it all together when things seem to be falling apart...how our loving Creator is also our sustainer.
And then I lost my breath.
And it wasn't because I was running my treadmill, either!!!
It was because he started talking about laminin.
I knew about laminin.. Here is how wikipedia describes them :'Laminins are a family of proteins that are an integral part of the structural scaffolding of basement membranes in almost every animal tissue.' You see....laminins are what hold us together....LITERALLY. They are cell adhesion molecules. They are what holds one cell of our bodies to the next cell.. Without them, we would literally fall apart. And I knew all this already. But what I didn't know is what laminin LOOKED LIKE.
But now I do.
And I have thought about it a thousand times since (already)......
Here is what the structure of laminin looks like....AND THIS IS NOT a 'Christian portrayal' of it....if you look up laminin in any scientific/medical piece of literature, this is what you will see....
Now tell me that our God is not the coolest!!!
Amazing.
The glue that holds us together...ALL of us....is in the shape of the cross.
Immediately Colossians 1:15-17 comes to mind.
'He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.
For by him all things were created; things in heaven and on earth , visible and invisible,
Whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities;
All things were created by him and for him.
He is before all things,
And in him all things HOLD TOGETHER. '
Colossians 1:15-17.
Call me crazy. I just think that is very, very, very cool.
Thousands of years before the world knew anything about laminin, Paul penned those words. And now we see that from a very LITERAL standpoint, we are held together...one cell to another....by the cross..

You would never in a quadrillion years convince me that is anything other than the mark of a Creator who knew EXACTLY what laminin 'glue' would look like long before Adam even breathed his first breath!!
" Faith is not knowing what the future holds,
but knowing who holds the future."
I wanted you to know and to understand that YOU are being held together by the cross of Jesus Christ! His love! His forgiveness and His marvelous power!

Moving house

2011-08-13T09:50:00.000-07:00

We had a moving home notification in the post yesterday. Richard’s uncle, aged 87, has changed his address from Earth to Heaven.

His wish was that there would be NO tears, NO black, because JESUS LIVES, JIM LIVES ALSO.

There would be no funeral. Instead, a private cremation followed by a service to remember his life.

Job 19:25 – 27 I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God, I myself will see him with my own eyes – I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me.

Sharing a moment...

2011-08-04T04:40:00.000-07:00

Something happened recently which I recorded in my journal but didn't think I'd blog about. But Connie over at Faith Barista asked us to share a thought arising from our 'whitespace' (times alone with God). It's quite a long story, but worth recording.
Firstly, my 'whitespace' is often in a church service. I attend a traditional Anglican church: this was God's choice, not my natural comfort zone! My husband and I left our lively evangelical church to help support the vicar with a tiny, elderly congregation, finding it quite challenging. Happiest in a non-denominational, charismatic service, I often find the formal Anglican liturgy...well, less than inspiring. Yet it is often at these 'drier' moments that I have 'God thoughts' which I jot down in a tiny journal I carry with me. Occasionally, I attend services and events at another church and my 'whitespace' moments may happen in the middle of a lively worship session. They also happen in quieter prayer moments or when I am listening to the Bible reading. They happen most often in church though during a sermon or talk, when God 'speaks' to me quite directly through the words spoken.
That happened to me a week or two ago.
A visiting pastor, who I know slightly, related a story where he had been greatly encouraged. Jon had been adopted as a baby by older parents and was very much loved. His mother died a few years ago and then his father more recently. He talked about how lonely and abandoned he had been feeling since his fathers' death a few months' previously - despite having a loving wife and three beautiful daughters!
One day, Jon had to go home at lunchtime to meet some workmen. Instead of driving home directly, he found himself travelling by a roundabout route and, in the process, came across a visitor struggling with the map. The man was thin, quite bedraggled, almost scruffily dressed, and Portuguese: he spoke almost no English at all. However, he spoke a little French, which Jon is fluent in and so Jon was able to understand where the man wanted to go: to a hotel very near Jon's house. So he offered him a lift.
As soon as they started driving off in Jon's open-top car, the man - 'Pedro' - started pulling all kinds of papers out of a bag he was carrying, which almost started flying away. As Jon negotiated the narrow, winding lanes of our little island of Guernsey, he tried to encourage the man to put them away and managed to arrive at the hotel without losing anything. Arriving, the man motioned for Jon to drive round the back of the hotel into the car park, which made Jon think that perhaps the man had been there before and was maybe returning for a job interview, as our island has quite a few Portuguese people working in the hotel industry. The man got out, thanking Jon for the lift and had begun to walk off when Jon noticed a crumpled Guernsey £1 note lying on the passenger seat. He picked it up and called to 'Pedro' that he had forgotten it, whereupon Pedro motioned for Jon to keep it, shouting "Pour l'essence!" ('For the fuel'), so Jon put it in his pocket, thanked him and drove off.
Some time later, as Jon was leaving his house, he remembered the note and pulled it out. Inside, folded up into a small rectangle of a few square centimeters, was a piece of paper. On it was written, in French, words to the effect that 'you are my adopted son, you are not alone, I am with you...'
As Jon said this, he looked over at me while he read the words on the paper and I felt tears. I knew God was speaking to me.
Now, I am not adopted but I have been feeling quite alone and burdened in my church situation. I just knew this was a word from God for me, that I did not need to feel alone or discouraged. I thought there might be added confirmation during a prayer time at the end but, as the story had taken a long time to tell, there was just a brief prayer and a closing song.
It didn't matter. I knew God had spoken to me through Jon.
Yet, a few minutes after the end, Jon came over.
"I have a word for you," he said.
"I know!" was my reply. "I saw you look over at me while you were speaking."
He looked a little puzzled, but continued, "I don't know if this makes any sense, but I felt God say this to you: 'Angie —don't fear I am with you. You are not alone. I will not leave you. God hears your cry - his strength is made perfect in weakness. You are supporting someone, which is draining you, but you will not run dry. He will supply a supporting friend - so you can be supported and continue to support too.'
I couldn't stop smiling. God had spoken to me in my 'whitespace' and confirmed it through Jon. I knew I was not alone.
PS the end of Jon's story was that he then rushed back to the hotel, to find no trace of 'Pedro'. He asked us: "Do you think 'Pedro' might possibly have been an angel?"
Hmmm.....

Straightening wires

2011-08-04T00:15:00.001-07:00

Reading Max Lucado's wonderful little book 'Travelling Light for Mothers', based on Psalm 23, I read about 'wants'. Max reminds us that many of our 'wants' - a better job, a new house, a slimmer figure, perhaps children - or more children - are just that: wants. And he tells the story of a man who had 'lost everything' - yet he had not lost his faith, his character nor his salvation.
I confess to having felt somewhat smug when I have read this list, or other similar lists in the past. I have no problem recognising material 'wants'. Yes, sometimes I battle with desiring more financial security, for myself or my children. Yes, I often battle with desiring a slimmer figure or more elegant furnishings. But I do recognise that they are just material 'wants' and pale into insigificance in the light of eternal things. I nod enthusiastically when I read what Jesus said: "Take care! Protect yourself against the least bit of greed. Life is not defined by what you have, even when you have a lot." or hear Paul's declaration that 'godliness with contentment is great gain', as he warns about becoming obsessed with money.
Yet, I am greedy. Not particularly for financial or material things - that's mainly an ongoing battle which results from being 'in the world, but not of it'. But I am greedy for emotional 'things'.
I hanker after happiness
I crave approval..
I long for praise.

I desire peaceful relationships
I yearn for harmony

I want restored relationships
I want
I WANT!

Now, is this really necessary? Must I have relationships that work, that are comfortable, in which there is very little or no conflict?
The answer, in some ways, is no. I can survive if not all relationships are good and 'perfect'. I will still be able to eat, drink, sleep, work, pray...hmmm, pray...

Bent wires

2011-08-02T12:14:00.000-07:00

The summer break has afforded me all kinds of opportunities to catch up. Some pleasurable - coffee with friends, lunches with friends, evenings with friends...Some necessary...doctor appointments, hair appointments, tidying appointments, sorting and throwing away appointments...And some - well, some that are both pleasurable and necessary in varying proportions. Such as tiny mending chores, or restringing beads. Tightly wrapped bundles of frustration and satisfaction intertwined.

Sometimes I wonder why I bother. Is it REALLY necessary to mend the tiny holes in a pair of old gloves, when I could throw them away and buy another pair? I find myself listing reason after reason:
1. Waste not, want not. Why spend money when, with a few stitches, they will last a little time longer as a 'spare pair' for when I have lost the others.
2. Growing up as a 'post-war-just-out-of-rationing-baby' has seeped frugality into my soul. I have to be frugal: it's my nature.
3. Decades of my life in Africa taught me not to throw away: the shame of consigning something perfectly serviceable to the garbage when it would be rescued, redeemed and recycled - many years before that became acceptable, let alone fashionable as it is now...
4. The mantra 'Reduce, reuse, repair and recycle' is an inherent part of how I live...most stuff doesn't even make it as far as recycle. Just gets reused many times over in different forms before it is allowed to leave my ownership..
5. It's satisfying. It pleases me. In its own small way, mending and repairing things makes me happy. I'm in the business of redemption and restoration. Finishing a mending project puts a smile on my face.
So I mended gloves; repaired a string hammock (great for our camping trip later this month); kept a useful zip-up jacket in circulation with a few stitches to secure the zip; and customized a beloved cardigan into a little shrug. It had belonged to my grandmother, worn by me until my daughter pounced on it, loving it until the elbows wore through...some ribbon, a new hem, careful stitching... it's now hiding in her cupboard, waiting for her to come tomorrow.
Then I turned to different work with needle and thread. Favourite necklaces begged to be restrung, but it was the bracelet making that fascinated me. A scattered collection of colourful beads pleaded to be brought back to usefulness. Too few for necklaces, they gathered together in wrist-sized groups. A little stretchy elastic later, and I found myself with more beaded jewellery than a Rendille wife...It was fun.

But I put off the necklace repairs. Previously, I have struggled with a needle, the eye of which is so small as to be invisible if viewed in a poor light. (Or with middle-aged eyes, which is what mine reluctantly are.) But this time, I discovered a bead threader. A nifty little gadget, its design is so simple I'm amazed I haven't come across it before now. It has been my saviour in the process of necklace re-stringing. It is an ultra-thin piece of wire, doubled up on itself, and then twisted into a 'rope' with an eyelet on one end. Tease a piece of thread through the hole, then push the threader, cut ends first, through a bead and the thread follows. I repaired my necklaces in a matter of minutes.

That bead threader released me from the intense concentration needed to thread - and keep threaded - a needle. I had time to think. And so it was that while I was carefully threading nylon through tiny holes I started thinking about more important things than jewellery.

Relationships.

Because mending something physical is so much easier than attempting to mend a broken relationship. Even just thinking about it brings on a frown...

It was the bead threader's fault in more ways than one. Not only did it give me time to think, it showed me how relationships can go wonky at times. Because as I used that brilliant little piece of wire, I found that, like a relationship, I had to keep on working with it. That wire was so thin and flexible that when I pushed it through a narrow bead it started to bend. I had to stop and straighten out the kinks before I could carry on using it.

Like a relationship, really.

I noticed several things.

I noticed that, when the bead hole was large, the bead threader had no issues with it. There was plenty of space for it to pass through, and so I didn't have to do anything except, occasionally, pat it and smooth it down. The distance between the bead threader and the bead hole was so large that much could be forgiven. The sides of the hole and the threader barely touched.

Relationships don't usually go awry when I am not close to someone.

I noticed that, when the hole was narrow, the ends of the bead threader caught. I had to pull the threader out, straighten it firmly between fingers and thumb, and then try again. Sometimes I had to try a couple of times before I could thread the bead.

Relationships, when close, can cause difficulty.

I noticed that, just like the bead threader, relationships can become twisted and bent. They need a lot of work to straighten them out. It takes time and effort. Maybe a chat over coffee doesn't resolve an issue straight away. Maybe a lunch is needed, too.

I noticed that sometimes that bead threader just didn't work. It wouldn't do what it was supposed to.

Relationships,like the bead threader, are sometimes not 'fit for purpose'.

So, I wondered, what is the 'purpose' of my relationships? And what does God want to do in and through those relationships - particularly when they are difficult?

To be continued

Finding beauty in everyday life

2011-07-28T05:05:00.000-07:00

Today, over at Faith Barista, Bonnie talks about finding beauty in everyday life.

Hmmm...
Finding beauty. In everyday life.

I could give the ‘beauty in nature’ answer. The glorious sunsets and sunrises. The quiet of a cool evening. The birds singing their hearts out as dusk approaches. The exclamations of flowers: spilling out of window boxes, jostling in gardens, scattered over the fields, exploding from the stone walls which line my journey to work. The myriad shades of a turquoise sea lapping the islands where I live. I could give that as an answer.

But I find beauty in other ways. Beauty which is called encouragement, inspiration, warmth, friendship, love.

Beauty in character. Where beauty is seen which has nothing to do with physical appearance.
Beauty in an affirming email or card, responding to a tiny kindness.
Beauty in my elderly friend, courageously living a life plagued with infirmity and illness.
Beauty in an insecure child I teach, as his personality and confidence begin to blossom.
Beauty in the security of my church house group: beauty as we seek to grow together in love.
Beauty in a smile.
The most beautiful thing of all: Jesus.

Because God has made everything beautiful in his time. The writer of Ecclesiastes talks about setting eternity in the hearts of men, yet we cannot understand the extent of what God has done...except through faith. Faith gives us hope, gives us purpose, gives us direction as we live out who we are meant to be - to become truly beautiful. Even the smallest thing we do can be beautiful: Jesus tells us so.

And so, everything is beautiful – EVERYTHING. We just have to open our eyes to see beauty, our ears to hear it, our hearts to experience it. To see Jesus in everything we do, say, experience – finding JESUS in everyday life.

Comparisons are odious...

2011-07-20T01:05:00.001-07:00

We just can't help ourselves, can we? At least, I assume most people struggle with this as much as I do. Comparing myself to others, that is.
Glynnis has some sage advice: it's all about being versus doing. And Holley says:
'Whatever you're created to do, God will make it happen and you don't have to be perfect.

It's not a contest--it's a calling. Thank you for what you do. Thank you for being who you are. You matter and make a difference even more than you'll ever know. Immeasurably so.'

Faith

2011-07-14T10:37:00.000-07:00

Faith Barista's Thursday Jam is about Faith. Last week, Bonnie blogged that "The truth is, your faith in Jesus holds extraordinary value to Him....It doesn’t matter how small our faith is. What matters is that we use whatever faith we have. It doesn’t matter how little of it we have to give."
And so here I am, back to small things again. And again. Because my faith feels very, very, very small.
I can't get my head round Jesus talking about if I had faith 'as small as a mustard seed'. It's a bit like talking about trying to 'bottle' enthusiasm, or joy, or affectionate behaviour, or...well, you get my drift. Faith is intangible - but is it immeasurable or unquantifiable? Jesus commented that some people had great faith, others little...it's a mystery.
But this I know about faith. That Jesus is faithful. As Bonnie says: '...remember Jesus is faithful.
to create something beautiful in you.
bring life to others through you.

to carry you to safety.

to make a way you cannot see.

to put you back together again.

to return laughter where you taste sorrow.

to give you courage to start over (again and again).

to use every loss and every triumph for His glory.'

And this I also know:

that, however 'big' or 'small' my faith seems to me, it

sets me right with God

makes me fit for him

gives me peace with him

gives me his grace

rests on God's power

and is what I should live for.

Because faith is being sure of what I hope for and certain of what I cannot see.

My faith doesn't 'feel' big, but I know what I hope for, indeed. I'm certain of that.

For more on faith, visit Faith Barista's post Facing What You Fear to Live a Significant Life

Everyday things...

2011-07-13T09:29:00.000-07:00

Oh, I'm obsessed with small things recently. Everywhere I look, God is telling me that the small things that I do actually make him happy. I don't have to do anything big, or obviously 'worth it', or evidently life-changing. Just the small things he gives me to do.
(I don't like to admit this, but I still have a hard time believing him. Or maybe I do, but lies come in and steal this BIG truth in sneaky little bits. Anyway.)
In a recent post, Deidra says: "... have (you) ever wondered if a prayer offered up by ordinary people on an ordinary day with everyday ordinary words can ever really have an impact. Maybe you wonder if your prayer follows the right formula to ever make it past the ceiling. Maybe you think God can't possibly do anything with the words you whisper. Maybe you've stopped praying because you haven't ever heard God answer you...
(but those moments when we suddenly think of someone) ...are invitations. Sent directly from heaven with your name on the envelope. Imagine that! No fancy words required. No special formula. No expensive degree. Just you. Just as you are. God's invitation to whisper or shout or mumble words of prayer."
These are small things. A sudden thought. A few words. Perhaps a small action of love.
HUGE things in God's economy.

Church

2011-07-08T11:54:00.000-07:00

I'm sure I've mentioned before about struggling, sometimes, to experience real praise and worship in church. Sometimes, I've determined to go with a correct attitude, regardless of how I feel. Sometimes, I've come away feeling even more disassociated - it's almost as if the choice of hymns and prayers have been chosen to alienate me even further!
Yet, as Lisa notes in her post 'When Church Leaves You Dry'. it IS all about our attitude. About finding Jesus in the 'whitespace' outside of the Sunday morning gathering.
It's about listening to the words in spite of the tune, listening to the spirit in spite of the words, listening to hearts in spite of prejudices...finding crumbs of community over coffee afterwards, seeking to give... a reminder to rejoice in the 'small things', in the white spaces that 'surround the gathering'.

Small things!

2011-07-05T23:30:00.000-07:00

After blogging about small things a day or two ago, I caught up with a devotional named One Year At His Feet. A friend who works for Bible Explorer had sent it to me recently, so I have just begun to dip into it. I turned back to where I had last read - the day I wrote about 'small things'. Guess what it was about? That bringing about the Kingdom of God, as Jesus said, starts small. "...like what happens when a mustard seed is planted in the ground. It is the smallest seed in all the world. But once it is planted, it grows larger than any garden plant. It even puts out branches that are big enough for birds to nest in its shade." (Mark 4:30-32) The Kingdom of God began with small things: with one man (Abraham). With one step of belief. One 'small' act of obedience ....hmmm, not so sure about that, uprooting your whole family and leaving town to go off travelling to a place you do not know...not so small. Anyway, you get my drift.

I should have read this devotional before blogging. Because it just reflected my thoughts and feelings so well: it reminded me that we often think that accomplishing something in God's kingdom means impacting lots of people in highly visible ways, building large ministries, having lots of people listen to what we say or watch what we do. Yet we need to remember that everything has often begun with one small step of faith. I think of Christians Against Poverty, a ministry which saves debt-trapped lives, begun by one man in his spare room with a gift of £10. Of Heidi Baker in Mozambique. Mother Teresa. The list is endless.

The devotional ends with words which echo my own: "Never despise the small things in your life. Never...neglect the minute details of service. The massive doors of God's kingdom swing on tiny hinges of our faith and obedience. Focus on the hinges, and you'll see the doors open wide."

Cassiodorus said: "He is invited to do great things who receives small things greatly." Hearts are touched by one soft song, lives changed by one kind word. Nothing in God's kingdom is too small to count or too small to grow into something huge.

Perspective. Obedience. Humility. Focus. Contentment.

Small things...

2011-07-04T11:56:00.000-07:00

Lysa Terkeust got me thinking about 'small' things. The place where things in my life seem small:where my vision is grand but the reality isn’t. Things like my influence, my opportunities, my blog, my ministry...especially my 'ministry'.

BUT GOD says, in Zechariah 4:10 “Who dares despise the day of small things...?" Now, I know the context is great: God had given Zerubbabel a task - to rebuild the temple - yet nothing is too small for God. Psalm 82:3 says :Even the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself,where she may have her young— a place near your altar, and Jesus points out that, if even sparrows are valuable to God, we are even more so.

And so, when I feel discouraged that what I do is too small to be noticed and, apparently, not worth much, I gain much encouragement from realising that obedience in small things is SMALL: because it is not I who can achieve 'greatness' but God: So he said to me, “This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel: ‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the LORD Almighty. Zechariah 4:6

This is God's promise to Zerubbabel, charged with a great duty: it is for us, too.

PS: I had to go to work before I could publish this, so saved it quickly. A few hours later, another blog post from Marybeth Whalen popped into my inbox. She had been at a worship service where the 'I' was shown as 'i'. As if 'I' was too important. She asked:

what does a little i life look like? Sacrifice? Surrender? Slaying self? Setting apart? Seeking Him? Serving others instead of doing what i want?

Marybeth concludes: This little i thing could catch on. It should catch on, because it’s the life Jesus called us to. We don’t need to be capitalized. We need to be small, insignificant — just a jot and a tittle, the littlest marks in the alphabet. Instead of a capital letter that announces our importance. At least, that’s what i am learning these days — and trying to live out. Sacrifice, surrender and servanthood are hard. But i know that’s what God calls us to do; laying down our wants, needs and desires and straining towards His.

A refill of encouragement

2011-06-29T23:30:00.000-07:00

Bonnie over at Faith Barista asks in what area (e.g. work, parenting, marriage, friendship, ministry, faith, health, finances, or ___? ) I’d like a ‘refill’ of encouragement.

Hmmm... what area WOULDN’T I like to be encouraged in??

This week I’ve needed encouragement in my relationships: at work, as a parent, in my friendships. A combination of over-tiredness and difficult circumstances have left me feeling depleted, down to the dregs. I can see the coffee grounds of unkind words, ignored suggestions, excluded conversations, derogatory laughter, inadequacy and lack of understanding. The fragrance of a fresh, reviving brew has long since gone.

It all came to a head yesterday morning. A hectic time at work made me over-tired and over-busy; church commitments all came together (last week was a breeze) at the same time as my daughter came home for a brief visit, leaving less time with her. She was busy catching up with friends in any case, and a combination of circumstances left me feeling discouraged as a parent. Lies came crowding in as coping strategies fled: I wobbled and tipped over. Any feelings of self-worth I had in me spilt, trickling away, soaked up in deception.

Today, my cup of encouragement has been refilled. In small ways.

I have been reading through Jeremiah of late. Deeply depressing in some ways, but I gained a lot of strength from him as I read his complaint (Jeremiah 20:7 – 18).

& 1. I was encouraged as I realised that, whatever I felt like, things really WEREN’T so bad when I compared my ‘difficulties’ with Jeremiah’s. My friends ARE my friends, my colleagues DO like and appreciate me and, most importantly, my daughter loves me very much.

I hear many whispering,

“Terror on every side!

Denounce him! Let’s denounce him!”

All my friends are waiting for me to slip, saying,

“Perhaps he will be deceived;

then we will prevail over him

and take our revenge on him.” (v10)

2. I was encouraged as I realised that GOD IS WITH ME. Regardless of how I might FEEL, He is always there and has my best in mind.

But the LORD is with me like a mighty warrior;

so my persecutors will stumble and not prevail.

They will fail and be thoroughly disgraced;

their dishonor will never be forgotten.

LORD Almighty, you who examine the righteous

and probe the heart and mind,

let me see your vengeance on them,

for to you I have committed my cause. (vv11 – 12)

& 3. I was encouraged as I realised that GOD is great, and that all my worries and concerns pale into insignificance into comparison with his

Sing to the LORD!

Give praise to the LORD!

He rescues the life of the needy

from the hands of the wicked. (v13)

It’s easy to write this, NOW. I am sometimes too easily discouraged. When I am, I just have to remember to go back to God’s word – because that is a source of never-ending liquid nourishment. Life-giving water is the Bible’s analogy, but sometimes it might just be that first-of-the-day steaming cup of coffee.

Love

2011-06-19T01:16:00.000-07:00

One of the significant themes at Sheila's thanksgiving, which has recurred a lot recently, if that of gently loving others into God's kingdom. I like Ed's comment:
I don’t have to live in fear of his judgment because God is committed to the process of redemption.
I don’t have to worry about rules and regulations because his Spirit is able to guide and convict.
I don’t have to fear the rejection of others because I’m already accepted into God’s family.
There were glimpses and tastes of God’s grace, acceptance, and joy in my early days as a Christian. Even as the rules were piled on, a loving God continued to reach out to me.
I have learned that I don’t have to carry my pain around anymore. Because when you carry around pain, that’s all you have to give others. God’s love can heal our pain and erase our fears.
When we carry God’s love, we have a gift worth sharing.

Forgiveness

2011-06-19T00:58:00.000-07:00

Hmmm. I am astonished to see that, as yet, I have no posts on forgiveness. Astonished because it's not as if I haven't had to practise - or receive - forgiveness! I guess it just hasn't seemed important enough to blog about. Or I haven't wanted to approach that level of honesty here...

Yet Ayla has inspired me to be honest. And Lysa has at Proverbs 31 Ministries offered some superb advice.

I wish I'd seen it a year or so ago. Out of the blue, I received a long (several pages) email from a 'friend' - acquaintance would be unkind, as we had been in a Bible study group together. (You would think that should unite us, wouldn't you?). The email was long, accusatory, furious.

The 'friend' had a history of mental illness - I hadn't seen her for some time: she had, apparently, recovered and was stable. That made things more difficult since I couldn't, in all honesty, just put the email down to a 'blip' in her recovery.

As with all these things, there was a tiny grain of truth in a beachful of lies. I didn't know how to respond.

In the end, not knowing how ill she was, and not wanting to make things worse, I simply sent a short email, apologising for having (apparently) hurt her. Dropped a card and flowers on her doorstep. Deleted the email. Tried to put it all behind me.

It was a salutary experience. It opened my eyes to the demands of perfectionism - in this woman, and in myself.

It's quite hard to be reminded that my relationships are not perfect. That I am not universally perceived as being 'nice'. That there are relationships in my life that are not happy, nor satisfying. That I fail. For that, I need to forgive myself, too.

God has shone his light on this area of my life to remind me that the bad news is that I am NOT perfect. And the good news? He's not finished with me yet! Hallelujah!

Death

2011-06-18T11:06:00.000-07:00

Having been to Sheila Paine's thanksgiving service this morning, I came home to find this snippet from Max Lucado's book Max on Life. Sheila's death was sudden, tragic. This really stood out to me:
While we are shaking heads in disbelief, they are lifting hands in worship. While we are mourning at a grave, they are marveling at heaven. While we are questioning God, they are praising God.
Devastated by Death: Max on Life #148
The following is a one of 172 questions and answers from the new book, Max on Life.
QUESTION #148:
The seven-year-old son of our neighbors died last week. They are devastated. So are we. What can we tell them?
God is a good God. We must begin here. Though we don’t understand his actions, we can trust his heart.
God does only what is good. But how can death be good? Some mourners don’t ask this question. When the quantity of years has outstripped the quality of years, we don’t ask how death can be good.
But the father of the dead teenager does. The widow of the young soldier does. The parents of a seven-year-old do. How could death be good?

Part of the answer may be found in Isaiah 57:1–2: “Good people are taken away, but no one understands. Those who do right are being taken away from evil and are given peace. Those who live as God wants find rest in death” (NCV).

Death is God’s way of taking people away from evil. From what kind of evil? An extended disease? An addiction? A dark season of rebellion? We don’t know. But we know that no person lives one day more or less than God intends. “All the days planned for me were written in your book before I was one day old” (Ps. 139:16 NCV).

But her days here were so few . . .

His life was so brief . . .

To us it seems that way. We speak of a short life, but compared to eternity, who has a long one? A person’s days on earth may appear as a drop in the ocean. Yours and mine may seem like a thimbleful. But compared to the Pacific of eternity, even the years of Methuselah filled no more than a glass. James was not speaking just to the young when he said, “Your life is like a mist. You can see it for a short time, but then it goes away”
(James 4:14 NCV).
In God’s plan every life is long enough and every death is timely. And though you and I might wish for a longer life, God knows better.

And—this is important—though you and I may wish a longer life for our loved ones, they don’t. Ironically, the first to accept God’s decision of death is the one who dies.

My God-sized dreams

2011-06-18T09:43:00.000-07:00

Bonnie, over at Faith Barista, talks about ‘God-sized dreams’ being a buzz word at the moment in books, blog posts and talk among friends. It’s the topic for this week’s Faith Jam on Thursday.

Of course, I immediately started thinking about my dreams of people actually reading my blog; or my dreams of someone liking my writing enough to publish it. Then there are my dreams for my family: for good health for my husband; or for fulfilling, God-centred, PAID work for my children. (Well, two out of three isn’t bad: getting paid is a minor issue, really, as long as there is enough income coming in to live on. Especially if you haven’t reached the grand age of 25 yet.) They are ‘God-sized’: big, not-achievable-by-my-own-efforts dreams.

They might be ‘God-sized’ but they are not necessarily ‘God-centred’.

I’ve just come from a memorial service. Giving thanks for the life of a dear, godly friend. The kind of woman who is rare – someone who just oozed God’s love out of every pore. Sheila’s smile melted hearts.

The key text was Philippians 3:7-14

‘But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.’

Just before a tragic accident took Sheila from this world to the next, she wrote these words:

‘That I might know Him and the power of His resurrection,

That I might know Him and the strength of His love for me,

That I might share in the fellowship of His suffering

And understand what it cost to set me free.’

This is my ‘God-sized dream’. It is big, and not-achievable-by-my-own-efforts. I dream of becoming a woman like Sheila, and Renee, and Lisa, and Tami, and Karyn, and Sarah, and Ruth, and Esther...to know Jesus as they did, and do. Something I can do only by God’s grace and in the strength – the God-sized strength – He gives me.

A maker or a keeper?

2011-06-11T11:21:00.000-07:00

Are you a maker – or a keeper – of friends?

Some people are just really good at relating to strangers, making that first connection. They interact easily, drawing people to them and gathering friendships as easily as daisies.

Others of us are slower. We get to know someone gradually, over time. We build a friendship carefully and lovingly, tending it like a delicate plant. Phones calls are made, letters and emails sent, meetings arranged, invitations offered… And once our friendship is fully mature, we maintain it carefully. We are keepers.

There will, too, always be the folk we just ‘click’ with straightaway. Some of those we get to keep –others, it’s just for a season. Ayla, over at Holyghostgirl talked about the saying: “People come in your life either for a reason, season, or a lifetime.” She made me think about that: that some of those relationships I would like for a lifetime are only with me for a season. There have been several occasions when, as a couple, we have ‘clicked’ with others just before they have moved to another town far away. We are still in spasmodic contact, but the relationship can’t develop as it might have done had they stayed.

I suspect most of us are both makers AND keepers, to different degrees.

As I pondered over these, and other relationships (relationships I never expected to last beyond a season, but which have stayed with me for a lifetime) I started thinking about my relationship with God. Am I a maker or a keeper?

Do I initiate friendship with God? Do I seek new ways to know Him? Do I search Him out in His different persons? My friend Lisa, in her book Approaching God, talks about God as Father, Mother, Healer, Guide… but there are many more. Jehovah-Jireh – the Lord our Provider, to just name one. Do I try to get to know Him in that way?

Or am I a keeper? Do I keep the friendship going in the ways I am used to, tried and tested? Do I keep communicating, through prayer, reading the Bible, keeping company with other friends of His, studying His words?

I suspect I am, often, neither a maker nor a keeper, to different degrees.

This is a friendship more important than any other. One I need to keep. And to nurture.

Gentle encouragement: Approaching God

2011-06-03T09:59:00.000-07:00

I’ve known Lisa Borden for over a quarter of a century. I know, it sounds old. We’re not really. Well, not that much. Lisa was a really young bride when I first met her. Now you know how old she and I are, middle-aged in years, young at heart, and spiritually – well, Lisa was always the mature one of the two of us. This friendship – just one of the many Lisa manages to sustain so thoughtfully – has nourished me beyond words.

I was reflecting recently on how gentle Lisa was, all those years ago when we met with our husbands to study the Bible together. She was so patient with this young Christian who really didn’t know much about the Bible at all and certainly not how to live a like a Christian.

Lisa taught – and continues to teach - me a great deal. Back then she taught me, without many words, just by her kind nature and her lifestyle. And now she teaches many others with her words too. Beautiful words, thoughtful words, insightful words. In her book, Approaching God.

Now I know a little more than I did then. I know the Bible better. I have some idea of how to live like a Christian. Sometimes, I feel I actually achieve it for a moment or two. And sometimes, I can pass on a little of what I learned from Lisa.

So I’m ordering another copy of her book to give to a friend. A friend who longs to know and serve God better. A friend who, through Lisa’s book, will discover God as father, mother, artist, healer, guide...not just head knowledge of God, but discovering God personally. Because Lisa opens up the way to God through metaphor and imagery, in poetry and prose, in pictures and gentle questioning.

This is a bedside book, a being beside me book, a carefully bagged handbag book, a desktop sojourner book. A dip-in, dive-in, delight-in book.

Approaching God.

And yet more...

2011-06-03T01:39:00.000-07:00

Ed Cyzewski, as part of Bonnie's Faith jam on encouragement, suggests that encouragement has to be specific - and that we should encourage before being critical. I had to be specific, so I had to say what a great idea that was! However, when I started reading the post, my first thought was that even ‘blanket’ encouragement is DEFINITELY better than none at all. But Ed IS right: encouragement needs to be specific or it doesn’t mean anything.

I think building an atmosphere of encouragement has to be a priority, then varying our responses within that. Sometimes a general ‘thanks’ or even just an ‘I love you’ is enough; sometimes it must be for something particular. We humans just love variety!

Then – and only then – can we offer ‘critique’ or suggestions for perhaps doing things differently. Generally, my ‘better’ is the other ‘different’. I really, REALLY need to remember that.

More encouragement - 8 principles from Celebrate Recovery

2011-06-03T00:48:00.000-07:00

I've just read these amazing principles over on Katie's blog:

Eight Recovery Principles of Celebrate Recovery based on the Beatitudes

Realize I’m not God; I admit that I am powerless to control my tendency to do the wrong thing and my life is unmanageable. "Happy are those who know they are spiritually poor."
Matthew 5:3
Earnestly believe that God exists,that I matter to Him, and that He has the power to help me recover. "Happy are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted." Matthew 5:4
Consciously choose to commit all my life and will to Christ’s care and control."Happy are the meek." Matthew 5:5
Openly examine and confess my faults to God, to myself and to another person whom I trust. "Happy are the pure in heart." Matthew 5:8
Voluntarily submit to any and all changes God wants to make in my life."Happy are those whose greatest desire is to do what God requires." Matthew 5:6
Evaluate all my relationships; offer forgiveness to those who have hurt me and make amends for harm I’ve done to others when possible, without expecting any reward. "Happy are the merciful" Matthew 5:7 "Happy are the peacemakers" Matthew 5:9
Reserve a daily time with God for self-examination, Bible reading, and prayer in order to know God and His work for my life and gain the power to do it.
Yield myself to be used by God to bring this good news to others, both by my example and by my words. "Happy are those who are persecuted because they do what God requires." Matthew 5:10

Feeling invisible...

2011-06-02T11:24:00.000-07:00

Bonnie over at Faith Barista has a jam on 'encouragement'. She says 'No matter how old we get or how strong we’ve grown, we can all use encouragement.
We all find ourselves stuck in hard places –
– we wonder if anyone notices.
– we wonder if anyone cares.'

So yes, I guess I agree that it is at times when I have felt most 'invisible' that encouragement has mattered most to me.
I'm going through a period of invisibility in my workplace at the moment.
I haven't felt encouraged. (Yet. It will happen sometime. Probably - certainly - when I'm not looking for it.)

So it occurred to me, today, just before reading Bonnie's post and all the wonderful comments that followed, that to be encouraged is a little like 'to have a friend, be a friend.' So to be encouraged, I need to actively look for ways of encouraging others. I like to think I do this normally, but when feeling invisible it is just that little bit harder.

So this faith jam has been an encouragement, a prod to get going and encourage others. Great!

Purify my heart...

2011-05-29T14:54:00.000-07:00

Leading prayers at church this evening, I always worry that I will not 'do it properly'. I don't like to pray specifically for world disasters; nor for other churches; nor even for the sick and bereaved in our own community. I am afraid, sometimes, to name them for fear of forgetting someone important or upsetting someone else if I omit their loved ones.

Today, I jotted a few notes. I focused on the work of Compassion, and on renewing hearts to love God and serve his people.

I prayed, and choked up, touched by the plight of millions of children all over the world. I almost couldn't carry on.

And then, all I could think of was God's people, sitting in churches, hearing His Word. I so desperately wanted them to respond.

Brian Doerksen's song Refiner's Fire sums it up so beautifully:

Perfectionism

2011-05-25T13:40:00.000-07:00

There’s a Faith Jam going on today over at Bonnie’s blog on perfectionism.

Perfectionism. What an ugly word.

The world worships it.

We Christians must renounce it.

Perfectionism means I must ALWAYS be right, ALWAYS be perfect.

My life must reflect perfection or it loses worth.

My work must be completely fulfilling; my life full of marvellous friends and adoring relations; my home spotless and beautifully decorated and my menus delicious and apparently effortlessly planned; my appearance flawless.

I cannot allow any imperfection, defect or fault to exist in my life.

So career moves must ALWAYS be ideal: if they are not, my life is ruined.

Relational problems are always the other person’s fault, never mine.

Anything not quite up to ‘magazine standard’ in my home is explained away as a temporary glitch as I plan the next home move or redecorating project.

Any flaws in hair, clothes or make-up will be quickly rectified.

I am perfect.

Of course, I won’t say I am. I will excuse any sense of stress or appearance of becoming – oh, ever so slightly of course – uptight with a sweet little smile and the explanation: “I am a perfectionist, you know,” as I flutter my eyelashes in demure modesty.

This is wrong.

Perfectionism DEMANDS perfection. It cannot accept ‘pretty good’ or ‘almost there’ – it must have EVERYTHING. It is all about ME and ignores others. It depletes others of energy, burdening them with the demand that they recognise how wonderful I am – or would be, if circumstances/other people had not ‘done something’ to cause me to be slightly less than completely marvellous.

Perfectionism is an ugly word. We must see it for what it is, and renounce it. Admitting mistakes and failure is the open door to true spiritual growth.

Psalm 51:16-18 (The Message) says

Going through the motions doesn't please you, a flawless performance is nothing to you.
I learned God-worship when my pride was shattered.
Heart-shattered lives ready for love don't for a moment escape God's notice.

Or, in the NIV:

My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise.

We need to be broken. We need to fail. We need to make mistakes. We need NOT to be perfect.

PS Attaining perfection is indeed to work towards becoming all we are meant to be, while acknowledging that we are not yet there...we mess up.

Understanding this is complicated, even paradoxical. I should probably have started with the dictionary definition of perfect: complete, not deficient, faultless. PERFECTIONISM is the UNCOMPROMISING pursuit of excellence: to me, perfectionism does not allow for mistakes. The repercussions of perfectionism on our relationships with others – family, friends, neighbours, colleagues, God – are countless. I aim to improve, I work towards becoming better, but it is only Jesus who can make me truly perfect.

A kind friend has sent this link to John Wesley's sermon on being perfect...

Truth and lies...

2011-05-19T10:33:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about lying a lot recently. As a Christian, with many Christian friends, I don't come across lying very much. Generally, my friends speak truth - not just an absence of lies, but truth-inspired wisdom. Wisdom which inspires, illuminates, encourages... But that's another story...

I've jotted down these notes to share at a breakfast I host each month...

Now, lie can mean, as the Oxford English Dictionary says, 'to make a false statement with the intention to deceive'. Lying can often mean much more than that.

I come across lying in my job quite often. While many children tell the truth, it is my experience that others lie almost automatically. They second-guess an answer, and, without time to evaluate the implications for them, 'play safe' by just lying. Along the lines of 'Did you do this?' they will answer 'No,' regardless of whatever 'this' might be. Usually, it only takes the lift of an eyebrow or a simple 'Really?' to get them to change their minds and 'tell the truth'. Usually. Occasionally, there are individuals who find it very difficult to 'tell the truth' - in fact, 'truth' as they see it may seem far removed from facts and reality. That's a bit harder, with children, but I usually get there in the end. And it is incredibly satisfying to see a child blossom and develop into a 'truth-teller', emerging from the darkness of hidden lies.

But lying by adults I find very difficult. Especially when they lie to my face, thinking I don't know the truth. I like to believe what people tell me. I like to rely on their words, to take them as true, to depend on them. I trust others to tell me the truth, whoever they are: friends, colleagues, acquaintances... Naive, but trusting. I'm learning to take some statements with a 'pinch of salt' and check out the veracity - or otherwise - of the information. And I don't necessarily expect 'truth' from some quarters - double-glazing salesmen perhaps? But the greater the degree of trust, the greater the betrayal.

It's happened to me recently. I'm growing up. I'm learning to live with it. But my trust has lessened exponentially.

It's not a nice feeling. It's made me even more determined to try to tell the truth as I know it - not as I see it, for there are always different opinions and sides to every question - as much as I can.

There are degrees of lies, of course: many of us say a 'white lie' is fine - said to spare someone's feelings. Or when truth is simply withheld, for the same reason, or because it might be embarrassing, or get someone into trouble, or...And those kind of lies are stories in themselves. Yet I'd like to suggest that even white lies, or withholding the truth, can cause as much harm as telling the obvious whopper. Because lying is a fundamental betrayal of trust. The person lying doesn't trust the person they are speaking to with the truth - and so they hide it. Yet, when the hearer KNOWS the truth, as happened to me recently, it is a huge deal. Ignorance is indeed bliss, for with knowledge of the truth come the piercing arrows of deception, distrust and disloyalty. Proverbs 25:18 in the New Living Translation says:
Telling lies about others is as harmful as hitting them with an ax, wounding them with a sword, or shooting them with a sharp arrow. In The Message it is: Anyone who tells lies against the neighbours in court or on the street is a loose cannon. Psalm 57:4: I am in the midst of lions; I lie among ravenous beasts--men whose teeth are spears and arrows, whose tongues are sharp swords.

Jeremiah 9:8:Their tongue is a deadly arrow; it speaks with deceit. With his mouth each speaks cordially to his neighbor, but in his heart he sets a trap for him.

It’s not ‘nice’!

The last wish of a dying man, reflected in Proverbs 30: 7-9, gives great importance to truth. It says And then he prayed, "God, I'm asking for two things before I die; don't refuse me—Banish lies from my lips and liars from my presence.

Unfortunately, we live in a world of lies, subject to the influence of the Father of lies...so:

1. How can we live so that we ‘banish lies from our lips’?

2. How can we deal with those who lie to us?

I think the key to any life question is to memorise what the Bible says:

1. We must make sure, whatever others do or say, that we speak the truth – for our own sakes. Heed the warnings:

Proverbs 4:23
Keep vigilant watch over your heart; that's where life starts. Don't talk out of both sides of your mouth; avoid careless banter, white lies, and gossip. Keep your eyes straight ahead; ignore all sideshow distractions. Watch your step, and the road will stretch out smooth before you. Look neither right nor left; leave evil in the dust.

Proverbs 6:16
[ Seven Things God Hates ] Here are six things God hates, and one more that he loathes with a passion: eyes that are arrogant, a tongue that lies, hands that murder the innocent, a heart that hatches evil plots, feet that race down a wicked track, a mouth that lies under oath, a troublemaker in the family.
Proverbs 12:19
Truth lasts; lies are here today, gone tomorrow.
Proverbs 14:5
A true witness never lies; a false witness makes a business of it.
Proverbs 14:25
Souls are saved by truthful witness and betrayed by the spread of lies.
Proverbs 19:9
The person who tells lies gets caught; the person who spreads rumours is ruined.

2. Make sure, whatever others do or say, that we speak the truth to win them over:

Friends, this world is not your home, so don't make yourselves cozy in it. Don't indulge your ego at the expense of your soul. Live an exemplary life among the natives so that your actions will refute their prejudices. Then they'll be won over to God's side and be there to join in the celebration when he arrives. 1 Peter 2:12 (The Message)

3. Make sure, whatever others do or say, that we do not contribute to a deceptive atmosphere.

As the previous verse says, it's easy to join in and 'indulge' ourselves. 'Sinful desires, which war against your soul' (I Peter 2:11, NIV) are easy to give in to. Exodus 20:16 says: 'No lies about your neighbour'. We may not tell outright lies, but we may pass them on, distort the truth and contribute to rumours and 'whispering in corners'.

So we need to speak the truth for our own sakes, and for others’ good – both individually and corporately.

When we speak straight-forwardly, truthfully and keep away from gossipy discussions – we earn the right to speak THE TRUTH about Jesus into people’s lives.

But that’s another story.

Practising gratitude

2011-04-24T13:42:00.000-07:00

My children are grown up and gone. Is it too late to help them increase in gratitude? These are ideas from Ann Voskamp's blog:

6 Reasons to Focus Ourselves, our Children, On Seeing Grace:

The research can only support Scriptural Truth:

1. Better Attitudes:

Children who practice grateful thinking have more positive attitudes toward school and their families (Froh, Sefick, Emmons, 2008).

2. Better Achieve Personal Goals:

Participants who kept gratitude lists were more likely to have made progress toward important personal goals (academic, interpersonal and health-based) over a two-month period compared to subjects in the other experimental conditions.

3. Closer Relationships, Greater Happiness:

Professor Froh infused middle–school classes with a small dose of gratitude—and found that it made students feel more connected to their friends, family, and their school: “By the follow–up three weeks later, students who had been instructed to count their blessings showed more gratitude toward people who had helped them, which led to more gratitude in general. Expressing gratitude was not only associated with appreciating close relationships; it was also related to feeling better about life and school. Indeed, compared with students in the hassles and control groups, students who counted blessings reported greater satisfaction with school both immediately after the two–week exercise and at the three–week follow–up.”

4. Better Grades:

Gratitude in children: 6-7th graders who kept a gratitude journal for only three weeks, had an increased grade point average over the course of a year.

5. Greater Energy, Attentiveness, Enthusiasm:

A daily gratitude intervention (self-guided exercises) with young adults resulted in higher reported levels of the positive states of alertness, enthusiasm, determination, attentiveness and energy compared to a focus on hassles or a downward social comparison (ways in which participants thought they were better off than others).

6. Greater Sensitivity:

Children who kept gratitude journals were more sensitive to situations where they themselves can be helpful, altruistic, generous, compassionate, and less destructive, more positive social behaviors, and less destructive, negative social behaviors…

“Gratitude is good for the giver, and good for the receiver,” Professor Emmons said. “This has been documented in friendships, romantic partners and spouses. One study showed that the mere expression of thanks more than doubled the likelihood that helpers would provide assistance again.”

And if We Don’t Practice Gratitude?

On the other hand, research shows that youth who are ungrateful are “less satisfied with their lives and are more apt to be aggressive and engage in risk-taking behaviors, such as early or frequent promiscuous activities, substance use, poor eating habits, physical inactivity, and poor academic performance.”

Standing on the Rock

2011-04-21T12:43:00.000-07:00

From Renee Ann Smith's Easter thought...

Bonnie's Faith Jam: What Easter Means To Me This Year

2011-04-20T01:57:00.000-07:00

OK, it's Wednesday. I'm new to this Faith Jam thing but I do know that I link to it on a Thursday. And today is Wednesday. But I can't wait.

Over at facebook I reposted this classic paragraph: Greatest man in history, named Jesus... He had no servants, yet they called Him Master. Had no degree, yet they called Him Teacher. Had no medicines, yet they called Him Healer. He had no army, yet kings feared Him. He won no military battles, yet He conquered the world. He committed no crime, yet they crucified Him... He was buried in a tomb, yet He lives today. And I've been reading Philip Yancy's book What Good is God? And what has struck me most is that Jesus came and spent time with the marginalised. The outcasts, the sick, the disabled, the poor, the immoral...and that, in contrast, I spend my Christian time with the comfortable, the accepted, the wealthy, the healthy...easy to do when one lives in the Western world.

Now, nothing wrong in having soul-restoring times of sweet friendship with devoted followers of Jesus who are comfortable, accepted, wealthy, healthy...but my focus has to be to the folk Jesus hung around with.

So my prayer this Easter is to recognise and relate to the sick, the hungry, the prisoners - all those afflicted not just physically, but spiritually. To hang around with them. Because when I do that, I'm with Jesus. Really with him.

The Father's Love Letter

2011-04-14T02:50:00.000-07:00

My dear friend and prayer partner Sarah (I am blessed with many friends with the name Sarah, all awesome women of Christ) just sent me this link to The Father's Love Letter. A little like the beautiful story Sarita in Uganda tells which I posted yesterday. Wonderful

Bible excitement!

2011-04-14T02:08:00.000-07:00

Now, this is just so exciting that I'm going to post this over on Mama's as well. I have just stumbled across a tremendous Bible reference site - thanks, Bonnie! It has parallel translations, cross-references, the context, chain references, commentaries and many different translations such as Bible Gateway has. It has all kinds of other study aids too which I can't even begin to understand! Interesting that there are different web addresses - I've added them all on here. The author of the sites has many other useful references as well.

And here are more sites: Bible study for children, free online Bible study courses, Bible research...And then there is the largest online Bible study, apparently!

I'm always a little bit careful about what I read on the internet - testing the spirits, and all that - but this does seem to be OK. It looks SOOO exciting! I feel God is just asking me to love him more and more: to do that not just by seeing him in people and circumstances in my everyday life, but by hearing what he says to me by reading his words. I've been reading the Bible just straight the way through, but know I need to stop sometimes and dive deeper, or consider particular themes or topics as they crop up. These resources referenced above should now be easy to find and a great help along the way. Can I use any other word but exciting? Inspiring, exhilarating and mind-blowing will do for a start!

(Do I want to go back to work after Easter? There just isn't enough time to do everything!)

The joy of time...

2011-04-14T01:29:00.000-07:00

Oh, the joy of having time to read blogs and gain such wonderful encouragement. Look at these: from Ed at inamirrordimly and Bonnie Gray faithbarista - notice her link on my sidebar, I like her blogs so much, so I was thrilled to stumble across this in Crosswalk. Bonnie runs a 'faith jam' on Thursdays, and this was from last week when I was still enmired in the hectic busyness of the end of term, so I missed out on that. I still wrote a comment, though:

I’m with you on ‘safe’ joy – probably not as good as you are at celebrating on a beige day, but certainly ‘I can’t imagine a better way to spend time with people in everyday life and hearing them share stories of faith.’

But I have yet to truly discover real joy. I’ve gone through hard times and others have seen joy in me, but I didn’t FEEL joyful.

This looks like the beginning of a very serious journey on joy discovery!

The love story

2011-04-13T09:14:00.000-07:00

Here's another post about the same blog. And I just have to repeat part of it here because it is just such a hugely powerful retelling of THE Love Story. The Story of how Jesus loves us so much - with a pure, everlasting, nothing-in-it-for-me, no selfishness love.

Here it is. Thank you, Sarita.

There was a man who fell in love with a girl who was a slave. He loved her so much that he worked 7 years for her to pay the debt off her life because to him, there was no flaw in her. He married her and made a covenant with her, but because she grew up a slave, she did not understand this love. Her whole life she had been abused and taken advantage of. Her whole life’s worth had been in serving her master and trying to make him happy, even though she never could. Her husband’s devotion made her uncomfortable. So she left him and went back to the one who had owned her before and she got pregnant with his child. She lived in guilt but she did not know how to be different.

Her husband came for her, he pursued her, not to tell her how much she had hurt him, not to hold her sin over her head, but because he loved her, with all her faults, with all her mistakes, he loved her as his bride and longed to be with her again. His love for her was unconditional, it was without limit and without end. The owner said he could not have her back because the child was his and would grow up a slave in his house. The husband could have killed him. He wanted to and he could have. But deep down he knew that it would not prove his love and that his wife would only run away again to someone else. So he offered something else. He said he would give his life as a slave unto death, if his wife and child could be free. The owner hated the husband so much, he hated his love and his tenderness, so he agreed to the exchange, to take his life to pay off the debt of her sin. The slave girl found out and begged him not to, she begged him because she knew she did not deserve that kind of love, she begged him because she did not believe she could ever change. But he just looked at her, as though there was no one else in the entire world and said he would gladly die so she could be free, so she would never have to return to being a slave. When they tortured him she could not watch, she could only sob. When they beat him up and pierced his side with a knife, she collapsed in anguish. She could not understand how he could love her so much. She only knew that he did. They mocked him, they mocked his love for such a woman, but he bore it all without responding. When he died he told his wife, “I died so you could be free. You are not a slave any more. Go back home and raise our child in the knowledge that you both were loved.”

Something snapped in her, something deep in a place long shut down by the life she had lived, in a place long devastated and long given up on, a place she remembered as a child before she gave up her soul. And she just knew--no more. She was a slave no more. She was a wife, a bride who was loved, loved enough to have a man die for her and his only request of her was that she live as one who was free. She had never felt love so much, love in her that made her want to die in his place. But it was done. She left that day for good. The owner would come to her house and tell her that she should work for him to pay for the guilt of her sins, he would tell her that she did not deserve the love her husband had shown. It was hard. In her heart, she believed those words, and yet she could not return with him though she wanted to pay off her debt, though she wanted to be free of guilt, she could not return with him because she knew that she had promised not to. She knew that everything her lover died for would be for nothing if she allowed herself and her baby to be enslaved again. Love had cost him everything. And she could not make a mockery of that love. Even though it pained her, even though she rather would have lived a slave in the owner’s house just to prove her love in some small way, she clung to the belief that she had been loved and that He wouldn’t want her to see herself that way. How could she become a slave again if he died for her freedom? It was the hardest thing she ever did, in saying no. Everything in her knew, she had not deserved such a love, and yet it had been given. Though she had not asked for it, it had been given. There were days she struggled with shame, but she kept trying to remember that He had seen her as worth the price, so she began trying to live as though she was worth it. And slowly, she began to believe it, began to believe that He saw something in her she did not see and He had wanted it to live.
For the first time in my life I have seen the anguish Jesus must feel when we live as slaves even though he died for us, his lover, his bride, so we could be free. I do not yet know how to live as one who is free. How to believe in that kind of love. And yet I know it is the lack of knowing that keeps us in chains, or stuck to our church pews paralyzed to do anything or make any difference in the world because we are so bogged down in the areas of our hearts that have not been healed, we do not know how to spread out leaves of healing for others, or how to offer fresh bread to the poor. How to give when we are so empty.

But our emptiness is authentic. Our need is what draws God to us. He longs to fill the need, to put to rest the issues in our hearts that keep us from truly living. Do you not see the good the Lord longs to give to those who love Him, to those who allow themselves to be loved. It is not easy for some of us. For some of us, being loved is harder than actually loving. I think of Elisa whose face would go from stoic, to ruined. I think of how hard it was for her to not get up and run away because our love was overwhelming. She was not sure, after all that time in darkness that it was real, that it could last. I think of the girls in Uganda whose brittle arms I want to hold in mine, even if they push me away because they cannot believe in love. I think of myself, struggling to believe, fighting for my freedom, that others might be free. It is so hard to hope, to actually believe we are beautiful, that to God, there is nothing more beautiful in the world than our face. That if we gave him nothing else than our time with Him, our sweet embrace, that it would make him happier than any other sacrifice of long hours worked, or churches built, or lives saved. All He wants is us.

It is hard to believe. Hard to have faith in. And yet nothing else---no person, no addiction, no hobby, no food, no drink, no work, will heal that place in our hearts that needs to believe in it.

I spent the morning with a blank piece of paper. And I asked God what He thought of me. And always, always, I am shocked by the answer. I am ready for Him to list my faults and my failures, I am ready for Him to tell me who I should have been or what I should have done instead. I am ready for another reason to loathe myself. But he is just holding me and the answer is sweeter than I think I deserve.

Who is this coming up from the desert leaning on her lover…I pray it is me and then I pray it is you.

“Arise my darling, my beautiful one and come with me.
See, the winter is past; the rains are over and gone.
Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come…
Arise, come, my darling; my beautiful one, come with me.” Song of Songs 2:10

Love in Uganda

2011-04-13T08:54:00.000-07:00

I've just come across an interesting blog, posted from Uganda. I like it for the language. I like the way it's written. And I like the themes - this one, about loving God, for instance. Simple, encouraging, just to LOVE. To follow the greatest commandment of all: to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul and mind.

Sarita says: God is most concerned with who I am when no one is watching than what I do. There is something coming. Wars and rumors of wars. Time grows short as Jesus coming back to reclaim us gets closer. And I ask myself the question, are we ready? Are we the Bride? Do we really love Him with our whole hearts. And I ask myself the question what would I do differently if I knew I only had years left. If I knew time was not a given, stretching into infinity. How would I change my life?

That is what I would like to change. To fill my days with activities and non-activities which encourage me to just LOVE GOD. That's all. That's more than enough.

However short - or long - the time I have left.

Words from God for today

Grace - and failure

Adventures in Ephesians...

Inspirational photos from Renee Swope

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,before you were born I set you apart." (Jeremiah 1:5)

Change

Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God...

Open the eyes of my heart, Lord

Ephesians - still in chapter 1...

A song of prayer

'Newness'

A new word

To be chosen...and receive a gift

Praying for strangers

Thoughts hang out together...

Emergency numbers

Stand alone

Good Morning Girls!

Gifts

The New Year

Prayers on Christmas eve...

Thankfulness at Christmas

Of Gifts and Giving...

Of slowing down for Christmas...and a special gift

I can't find Jesus!

A favourite Christmas story...

Change

Out of heaviness comes grace...

"I write to discover what it is I really think."

Louie Giglio and the Fruitcake

Not forgotten

"I Am Not Forgotten [Even When I Am]

Encouragement in ...difficult times

Choosing joy...

Life breaks

Living bountifully...blessed

A shadow of a doubt

A Year of Plenty, by Craig L Goodwin: a book review. Of sorts.

Time for another book review...A Conversation with God

Words from God today

Breakfast on Woman Alive!

Worship

Inspiration on FORGIVENESS from Martin Luther King

Laminin

Moving house

Sharing a moment...

Straightening wires

Bent wires

Finding beauty in everyday life

Comparisons are odious...

Faith

Everyday things...

Church

Small things!

Small things...

A refill of encouragement

Love

Forgiveness

Death

My God-sized dreams

A maker or a keeper?

Gentle encouragement: Approaching God

And yet more...

More encouragement - 8 principles from Celebrate Recovery

I've just read these amazing principles over on Katie's blog:

Eight Recovery Principles of Celebrate Recovery based on the Beatitudes

Feeling invisible...

Purify my heart...

Perfectionism

Truth and lies...

Practising gratitude

Standing on the Rock

Bonnie's Faith Jam: What Easter Means To Me This Year

The Father's Love Letter

Bible excitement!

The joy of time...

The love story

Love in Uganda

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
before you were born I set you apart." (Jeremiah 1:5)