blog ~ faith ~ family ~ heartlife
It was first through a very dear friend that I found a kind of awakening, a longing, a melting, a germinating seed of wanting… to be able to say I loved God like I saw this friend does. I’ve never not believed… and I am very frequently awed… and I love His Word deeply but do I love HIM? I’d have always said yes – but did I love Him like her?
Continue reading “Spurred”
We have a pair of very pretty but very tall bedside lamps in our bedroom which I have to grab and tip sideways to reach the switch to turn off when laying in bed – so when one of us goes to bed before the other, we leave a small battery operated touch lamp on its lowest setting so the other can see their way – and turn it off easily.
Continue reading “Love that flattens mats and leaves a light on”
A favourite moment in my memory was a day two beaming toddlers stood in front of me offering up a bunch each of yellow sour grass flowers. One bunch of similar lengths neatly held by the elder of the two. The other clutched in a tiny little fist complete with roots dangling from some of the ends. Their gifts were held up to me with certainty of welcome, surety of my delight.
There’s a massive difference between gifts of love and gifts of duty.
God is not interested in our pride based offerings. Those given to impress or those given to manipulate or those given for compulsion or tradition sake. He wants our heart. And He wants us to be sure of His welcome no matter the nature of the gift. He receives with delight.
This has been a VSP 🙂
Miss T has to take an object along to talk about in her Communication group next week. Sounds a bit like telling ‘news’ but couched differently for older kids. 🙂 She told me she was planning to take either her snow globe or Remy the rat from Ratatouille. Both were presents from her globe-trotting biggest sister Loon. Well OK – Lauren.
Continue reading “Before she was known”
“I love you” is everything and yet not enough.
Q: When you’re full to bursting point, how do you express it?
VSP 🙂
There are many marriages I admire but none more so than that of my Mum and Dad. Yes because they are my mum and dad but also because that gives inside knowledge that what you see is what you get. Always.
Continue reading ““We argued once”…”
A week ago a friend in her 60’s caring for her elderly mum along with her sister, told me how the mums behaviour was changing and making life for all very difficult, but that something that had come to the surface was that the sisters were being set up against each other and how this current behaviour revealed that the mum had done this from their enitre lives… a whole range of situations had now been brought into the light of new information and understanding.
I have wrangled many times with the verse “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world“… and in case there’s any doubt, I do absolutely believe in the actual existence of a being known as many names, including Satan, and that he’s had thousands of years to hone and implement a zillion strategies against humans. Why against humans? Well for one thing, when evil doesn’t get what it wants, it sets about the poisoning and ruin of anything good or pure – for hates own sake and for the purpose of revenge against the One in Whose throne he desires to sit.
Don’t panic – I’m not comparing that elderly mum to Satan – what I am saying though is that through many difficult situations in life I have not been able to see past a current conflict and apply how that verse makes sense. I remember discussing a situation with my sister about 20 years back “but we DO! We DO wrestle with each other!!” And it’s true… we do… but since thinking about that friend from last week I see a slightly wider view… there is a someone who is good at remaining hidden, when he finds he cannot have he can’t have our adulation, adoration or worship – is very strategic and utterly unfair, striking at our most vulnerable moments – and will actively set out to steal, kill, rob, destroy, devour and decimate.
If we will not worship him – he will set about souring our worship of the Saviour in malicious ways using relationships and circumstances in myriad ways. And because we’re often not wise to his strategies – he can make ground.
We can attribute too much to the devil.
We can also attribute too little.
So soft that only the heart can hear he whispers fear and lies, mistrust and misunderstanding, deceit and power in many shades from his place in the shadows. Perhaps remembering he is about the destruction of lives, families and worship – and will pit people against each other by whatever means – is a place to start getting wiser.
Has he been stirring your pot?
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’ve also been thinking about the story of the woman caught in adultery in Matthew 8. It occurred to me to try and imagine what her life would have been had she not been outed. The religious leaders that dragged her, possibly naked, into the public arena of the temple where they knew Jesus would be, had precisely ZERO good intentions. They didn’t care about the law, they were misusing the law – after all, where was the dude? No justice there.
They didn’t care about her reform or status or situation in life (likely a prostitute – with no other means of survival). They were fully intent on trapping Jesus with what they thought would present Him an impossible call, and used force, shame, power and the perversion of justice to bring this to a head.
Very not fair.
Outrageous in fact.
So they brought her, guilty as charged, totally shamed before her community for either a judgement of death on her, or a means to create hatred and dissent toward Jesus.
And they failed.
In the end it seems everyone but Jesus and the woman left that place with a measure of shame. The leaders themselves caught in their own trap and the woman though guilty, was freed from her condemnation and shame.
What an incredible collision of intentions, actions and people.