blog ~ faith ~ family ~ heartlife
I honestly feel as though I need to write to every single person I’ve ever had a conversation with on the topic of parenting and ask them to please please grapple with the question it took me 25 years (+) to ask, and to watch the 26 minute message that opened up the answer which is linked at the end of this post.
So this letter is my start point for that 🙂
Continue reading “After 25 years I finally asked…”
I asked one of the Shalom fellas to pray for me after church one Saturday night and he asked what it was that I wanted prayer for. I told him, and he nodded once, long and slow and quietly said “ok but I should tell you, I’m going to pray as the Holy Spirit shows me because what we think we need is often not what He wants to give.” – and then he began to pray.
Continue reading “Shifting the furniture”I have been waiting to post this a long long time. Longer than a year. Longer than a decade. I wrote it nearly a year ago in readiness so there’s a little P.S. at the end. Much has unfolded and the time is right at last. It is for anyone who wasn’t already aware, has felt surprised, or is simply interested in reading some of my own backstory regarding our Cal being at Shalom House. I know that I know that I KNOW other’s hearts are breaking as mine was for so long – I pray with all my heart that you’ll find encouragement and hope in this rather long post – long even by my standards 🙂
Continue reading “My naked heart”
For to which of His children did God ever say:
1 “You’re driving me nuts”
2 “I’m going to leave you behind”
3 “What do you WANT?!?!”
4 “Shut up”
5 “I cannot believe you just did that”
6 “Stop asking so many questions”
7 “What’s wrong with you”
8 “Leave me alone”
9 “I can’t believe I have to _____”
10 “Not again”
Frustrations 1:1-10
Truth without grace crushes.
Grace without truth enables.
VSP 🙂
Here’s a “Choose Your own Post Script” to a famous story…
The next day after all the partygoers had feasted and danced at the celebration, they began to gather at the city gates to discuss the events of the previous. There were many opinions expressed and many left shaking their heads.
Continue reading ““Choose Your own Post Script””
It is a very good thing that God isn’t like me. My interest in raising these tomatoes lasted longer than in my usual horticultural efforts, but it still waned. After a couple of months I was forgetful and busier in other directions and sure as you like, I forgot to keep watering, checking, restaking. Thankfully Rod noticed my usual gardening habits had kicked in and he picked up on the watering so they didn’t die but their yield won’t be as big as if I’d maintained more thorough care in the early weeks.
Continue reading “What Tomatoes taught me about God”
I once met a mum I knew at the shops whose teenage son was wearing a T shirt with an image I’d have liked to paint ball. My brain went into meltdown and I hurried my little people by as quickly as I could.
Continue reading “Judgement – don’t be like Sam”
One day when our first grandbaby was living and in such a fragile state I had a minor but major moment in which some ways of seeing life shifted sharply – with the kind of swiftness and visibility of a camera refocussing.
Dashing through the school, driven with the desire to get to the hospital as soon as I could, another mum was in a quandary about her child. I quickly said what I thought and as I kept moving was struck with the knowledge that it was the seriousness of a life in balance that gave me clarity and speed to speak and without that, I too would have still been standing by my child’s classroom feeling so uncertain.
One of the things God has used to teach and draw me over the past year is this verse… “Seek first His kingdom and righteousness and all these things will be added to you”. (Matthew 6:33)
The context it was said within matters rather a lot as always… and I could write pages on the verse in its context but here, what I want to say is just this…
I have a tendency to chase after the very things the Father already knows I need.
I have a tendency to inflate wants and desires into the place of need.
I am a Dory. Continuously distracted.
I am also His loved child who, by His grace alone, is consistently drawn back. He takes my face in His hand and compels me to look at His face again.
When I’m seeking (with my whole heart) after God, – His kingdom and righteousness – that other stuff snaps into the background perspective.
Present.
Needed.
Seen.
Acknowledged.
Messy and in need or order – but soothed into its proper place.
“Seek FIRST His kingdom and righteousness
and
all these things will be added to you”
Forgiveness – The ideas attributed to forgiveness are often pre-packaged with a whole host of assumptions, a tonne of pain, a few shovelfuls of offence, confusion about moving forward etc etc etc and when you’re in the middle of a knot it can be pretty tricky to figure out which is what. It’s also pretty often that the knot itself is what gets in the way of being able to forgive when we assume more is meant by it than is so.
Continue reading “Unpacking forgiveness”