Poem

Thank-you to the editors at Peaceful parenting who made a feature of my poem.

Many blessings.

 

Rest

^{Matthew 11:28} Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.

I have been going through a bit of a tough time lately. I felt overwhelmed, burdened, tired and a bit down. I've felt it before at times, but it was affecting my day to day and despite prayer I felt awful. After a long time of trying to just hold it all together I spoke to a few of my friends and sought counsel of others on the matter. As I opened up and revealed my time of difficulty and weakness I was amazed at what was revealed to me. It was so beautiful that I found myself thanking God for this hard time. I found comfort in friends, healing in confessing my weakness in coping and Gods love overflowing. Admitting that I was not 'fine' allowed others to share their similar experiences and we were able to join forces to offer advice and support to one another. We chewed over the word together, shared tips and ideas on how to alleviate stress and anxiety. God spoke to me on practical issues of resting and meditating. I was so busy trying to do it all myself, that I had missed out of a wealth of strength from others. I realised something during this time also,that God  doesn't remove the pain or difficulty, but he gets in there with you. He makes you understand that he died so he could hold your hand and BE your strength in the difficulty, your LIGHT in the dark times.
Sometimes he may just get rid of the problem, but I'm learning that mainly, he walks with you through it. He shepherds us through difficult terrain and steers us to calmer waters, he leads us to higher ground where we are safe and can find rest.
To know God is not to have a trouble free life, but he has overcome the world, so will help you be an overcomer in it too. Holding his hand, as a child does her daddy.

'When you go through deep waters, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown. When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up; the flames will not consume you.'

 Isaiah 43:2

It is important that we are real with each other, that we have courage to admit when we are struggling, to be able to lean on as well as leaned upon. 

Rest in hard times and meditate on Gods faithfulness and goodness.

I found a place where you can download a few tracks of free soaking worship music here:

soaking worship for meditating and resting.

Try some of the above next time you feel overwhelmed!

Bless you.

To find more related blog entries visit: 


A wise woman

The truth of it.

My desire is to make Jesus famous.

To bring him to life to those who may not know Him.

Or who may not know him as He really is.

I believe that many people think that God is only found in a church.

It is possible to find the presence of God in a church.

Yet I know that God can be found in the gutter,

In the poverty,

In the prison,

In the brothel,

In the heartache,

The mud,

The pain,

The blood,

The sweat,

The confusion,

The beatings,

The drunkenness,

The abuse,

The betrayal,

The anxiety,

The insecurity,

Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever.

He did not come to be a doctor to the well,

But he came to the sick.

He died to bring you back to life.

He knows every word before it reaches your tongue.

Every thought,

Every motive..

He knows you.

There is no hiding from God.

He sees you.

He longs to re-connect with you.

He has been badly miss-represented,

The only way to really know him,

Is to seek him for you and find him.

In raw form,

Divine holiness,

Love beyond words,

Jesus,

Saviour.

 Let the truth cut through.

Selah- Think upon this. 

 

Merry christmas!

"For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace." Isaiah 9.6

Merry christmas everyone,

from us.

God bless,

                                                     

One thing.

One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple.

Psalm 27:4

One thing.

ONE THING.

OnE   ThInG...

1 thing...

If I could ask just ONE thing, 

what would it be?

The psalmist echoes the cry of my heart at this moment.

I long to dwell in his house, his presence, 

his love, his glory...

more than anything else.

He showed me a picture of a key, a heart shaped key and written on it were two words.

HUNGER

&

THIRST.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Matthew 5:6

This key opened the door to his presence & his kingdom.

Jesus opened the door to heaven to us, He tore the veil, he removed any obstacle,

yet even as christians we stand at the door and see it as a no go area. A private garden. 

Jesus gave us the key...If we hunger and thirst for HIM,

we enter into heavenly realms and experience his presence.

Its so amazing.

There is peace there,

joy,

revelation,

direction,

and we can bring it back with us..

all we experience in those moments and experiences with him,

can be brought into the world we live in.

Bringing his kingdom ,

on earth,

as it is in heaven.

So why do we stand at the door and wait?

RUN,

MOVE

into his presence!

Its free,

its available.

Hes given you the keys of salvation.

You are his,

whats His is mine,

and what is mine is his!

 

The heart of the matter!

I was driving my children home the other day,

when a thought grew in my mind.

"What if, I woke one day, in a different time zone?"

Much like the 'back to the future' movies.

"What if, for some unknown reason, I woke to the same life,

same household home, same car, same duties, yet with different people surrounding me?"

Perhaps a different family, similar set up, 3 girls (a baby to care for in the day,

2 girls at school) a husband. People to meet at church, school run chatter with other mums..

Yet none of them at all familiar to me.

How would this make me feel?

I realised, perhaps a thought that had been met before, that even though we are surrounded by people,

unless we have relationships with them, we can be very lonely!

What makes life have any value, purpose, joy?

RELATIONSHIPS!

I KNOW my children, I am familiar with their characters and ways,

I have connections with mums at school because our children have relationships with one another and share moments together.

Sharing, engaging, familiar, connecting...

these are the very things that make life rich.

If I was to wake and have my home, my car, my duties, my school run, my church,

but the people that I loved were no longer there to share it with me,

then I would cease to enjoy or apply myself.

My initial thought if this were to be the case would be to make friends,

get to know the new people, build friendships and relationships once more.

I just found it interesting to really think about how important relationship is to us.

We are made like God,

in His image,

so is it not also of great importance to Him?

To have relationship with us?

To love us,

share life with us,

be familiar with us and us of Him?

Selah

Hello!!!!

Hello fellow bloggers!

I have been busy with James starting med school-a holiday to france and children back at school.

I plan to make time for a bit more blogging, but stay with me.

I am keen to catch up on all your news too,

inbetween the madness of life.

Things are going well.

Its a new season and I have lots to share,

but for now.

Hope you are all well,

blessed and growing in 

HIM.

xx

 

He KNOWS

I was reading this passage the other day,
a familiar scripture,
where John baptises Jesus.
John was a prophet who had been given the task of preparing the way for Jesus.

^{Matthew 3:6} After his baptism, as Jesus came up out of the water, the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and settling on him. ¹⁷ And a voice from heaven said, “This is my dearly loved Son, who brings me great joy.”

But it was this scripture that spoke to me.

Many years before...when both John and Jesus were still in their mothers wombs:

Mary Visits Elizabeth

 ³⁹ A few days later Mary hurried to the hill country of Judea, to the town ⁴⁰ where Zechariah lived. She entered the house and greeted Elizabeth. ⁴¹ At the sound of Mary’s greeting, Elizabeth’s child leaped within her, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.

 ⁴² Elizabeth gave a glad cry and exclaimed to Mary, “God has blessed you above all women, and your child is blessed. ⁴³ Why am I so honored, that the mother of my Lord should visit me? ⁴⁴ When I heard your greeting, the baby in my womb jumped for joy. ⁴⁵ You are blessed because you believed that the Lord would do what he said.”

God is a God who knows every detail of our lives,
we see it in scripture all the time,
He prepared the way through prophets on many occasions.
God knew the future before mankind.
He is the beginning and the end.
The first and the last.
He knows our beginning, our end and everything in between!
Does that not bring you comfort?


John lept within his mothers womb when he came into contact with Mary,
carrying Jesus.
His whole life was a witness to Jesus and proclaiming the coming Messiah.
How could he have known this as an un born child?
God had set his future within his frame,
even before he had been born.


Take comfort in this,
recline into your heavenly Fathers arms,
put worry aside and rest in the knowledge that God
has it all in hand.


Jeremiah 1:5
“I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb.Before you were born I set you apartand appointed you as my prophet to the nations.”

Fishing in the day

Today I was reading the passage below, 

it is the story of the disciples when they went fishing, all through the night, but had caught nothing. Then Jesus appeared at dawn, at the beginning of a new day, and he told them to cast their nets out to the right. They did so and their nets became full of fish, to the point of breaking their nets. I have been pondering over this story for about a month or two. God laid it on my heart in a time of prayer. I had the picture of this very story. I felt God was whispering to my heart, that we may be skilled at what we do, but trusting in our own strength is not going to work. These were skilled fishermen, anyone of them knew that you do not try and fish in the daytime. They would fish at night. Yet Jesus asked them to go against their own wisdom and their success was in their obedience. 

I knew God was asking me, and the church to do the same. Put aside our own great ideas of building church, bringing people to events, putting on well organised events etc.  He wants the multiples to come by his command, not mans good ideas. So what is God calling us to do? What ways of his spirit are we perhaps overlooking to do the job in our own way? 

 It also dawned on me, that Jesus was asking them to fish in the light of day. 

He himself claimed he was the LIGHT of the world, and that no one can go to the father except through him. Religion and the law was not enough. Before Christs death, there was no forgiveness or entrance into eternal life, so this story was a prophetic statement of that. Fishing in the dark was like pre-death fishing, in darkness and reliant on mans efforts to stick to the law, but after Jesus' death, things were done supernaturally in his light, His power and his command.

 Things have not changed, we are living after Jesus has died and been brought to life and as an added bonus that power lives within us! So why dont we ask the counsellor, the Holy spirit, for ways in which we should fish? It will surely go against our own man made ideas, for it will be supernatural! Yet, our nets may burst with people who need a touch from him...what are we waiting for?

John 21

Jesus Appears to Seven Disciples

 ¹ After this, Jesus appeared once more to his disciples at Lake Tiberias. This is how it happened.²Simon Peter, Thomas (called the Twin), Nathanael (the one from Cana in Galilee), the sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples of Jesus were all together.^3 (A)Simon Peter said to the others,          I am going fishing.            We will come with you, they told him. So they went out in a boat, but all that night they did not catch a thing.⁴ As the sun was rising, Jesus stood at the water's edge, but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus.⁵ Then he asked them, 

         Young men, haven't you caught anything?

   

         Not a thing, they answered.

 ^6 (B)He said to them, 

         Throw your net out on the right side of the boat, and you will catch some. So they threw the net out and could not pull it back in, because they had caught so many fish.

 ⁷ The disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter,          It is the Lord! When Peter heard that it was the Lord, he wrapped his outer garment around him (for he had taken his clothes off) and jumped into the water.⁸ The other disciples came to shore in the boat, pulling the net full of fish. They were not very far from land, about a hundred yards away.⁹ When they stepped ashore, they saw a charcoal fire there with fish on it and some bread.¹⁰ Then Jesus said to them, 

         Bring some of the fish you have just caught.

 ¹¹ Simon Peter went aboard and dragged the net ashore full of big fish, a hundred and fifty-three in all; even though there were so many, still the net did not tear.¹² Jesus said to them,          Come and eat. None of the disciples dared ask him, 

         Who are you? because they knew it was the Lord.¹³ So Jesus went over, took the bread, and gave it to them; he did the same with the fish.

 ¹⁴ This, then, was the third time Jesus appeared to the disciples after he was raised from death.