“I love you” is everything and yet not enough.
Q: When you’re full to bursting point, how do you express it?
VSP 🙂
I love you thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis much and more
John the Baptist and his name
Someone asked me (for her son) why John the Baptist is called that. This is the kind of question I love having the chance to answer 🙂 Here’s what I wrote…
Continue reading “John the Baptist and his name”Paris in the summer – clothes
I have an inner Pinterest for clothes and crafts which was greatly aided by our days in Paris last July. Here is a list of 20 French fashion matters of notice though not of any great consequence (Miranda Priestly would slay me for that [and much more besides])
Continue reading “Paris in the summer – clothes”Bringer of Light
Not by any particular design of my own, I’ve happened to read the story of the man possessed by a legion of demons (in Luke 8) several times in the last few weeks. The demons recognised Jesus, understood his authority – and were terrified.
Continue reading “Bringer of Light”Big thought from a little person
“I think women like Amelia Earhart and Susan B. Anthony are very good role models for women and girls because they didn’t just sit around wishing things were different, they actually got up and did something”
Taryn McEwan age 10
Shalom Church
Tonight I sang in a congregation where the force of voice volume was an experience in and of itself. To hear a couple hundred male voices ‘cling to the old rugged cross’ and actually mean it was awefilling to me… and then I sat under the preaching of a bald, tattooed tough guy while tears coursed down his face. I am dancing on the inside.
VSP 🙂
“We argued once”…
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”…”Sleepless nights
Have you ever noticed a difference between night-time thoughts and daytime thoughts? By ‘night-time thoughts’, I specifically mean the ones that roll around in your head when you’d rather be asleep? I usually sleep like a slab of concrete. Head down – BAM – that’s it till Rod turns on the shower in the morning but sometimes… no.
Continue reading “Sleepless nights”That thing you believe
Everything we believe can have all these questions as layered factors within our systems.
The first thing we hear cuts the deepest track. Like a dribble of hot water on the surface of a jelly. All other returns to the channel that is pre-cut. Which is fine if the pre-cut channel is right, and not so fine if it is faulty.
Continue reading “That thing you believe”Ignorance might be bliss but…
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?