A miracle of life! Harriet Lucy, my first grandchild.
Everyone says I am too young. And they must be right!
But the surprise is - I'm not and I so love this!
God is so clever.
Imagine planting a baby factory inside a tummy!
Imagine having the perfect frothing beverage on tap 24/7!
Imagine that first puff of wind that curls up the edges of her rosebud lips to produce that first little smile!
And yes - it all melts my heart and jerks memories from the past of sleepless nights and tiredness that digs so deeply into your pshyc that you can hardly function and yet that God-given instinct propels mothers on and on and on nurturing, protecting, loving.
There is no logic to this. It is a gift. And I get to watch and share and let my heart be melted beside my son and daughter-in-law's hearts, and aunties, and uncles and other grandparents and close friends. The melt oozes out into the community and reminds us all of You Lord - the Creator of us all. The Provider of sleep and food, our Protector, our Comforter - it brings Your character closer so that as we kiss the tip of that pretty up-turned nose - we are kissing You!
Friday, May 27, 2011
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Hearing God's voice
Watching the Spirit work can be difficult when you are beginning something new.
Questions can arise such as :
Did I really hear from God?
Is this just my own idea?
What do I do with what I believe God said to me?
When do I do it?
Do I move forward or wait for God's next move?
The Bible tells us that when God spoke to someone the person He was speaking to knew that it was God. They were not confused.
However often the people around them were! Remember Paul on the road to Damacus. When God spoke he fell to the ground and listened to those powerful life changing words. God spoke actual words to give him direction and instruction. However the people around him heard the noise as thunder!
God is very personal. He knows us each by name. He counts the very hairs on our heads. Jesus says He is our Shepherd and we, as His sheep, will hear His voice. Once we have heard all we need to do is follow!
Is this just my own idea?
What do I do with what I believe God said to me?
When do I do it?
Do I move forward or wait for God's next move?
The Bible tells us that when God spoke to someone the person He was speaking to knew that it was God. They were not confused.
However often the people around them were! Remember Paul on the road to Damacus. When God spoke he fell to the ground and listened to those powerful life changing words. God spoke actual words to give him direction and instruction. However the people around him heard the noise as thunder!
God is very personal. He knows us each by name. He counts the very hairs on our heads. Jesus says He is our Shepherd and we, as His sheep, will hear His voice. Once we have heard all we need to do is follow!
Friday, May 6, 2011
Encounters
We live each day in the Spirit watching and waiting to see what God is doing and then we can join Him in His work. Recently at Easter I experienced my first houseswap and went to a seaside town on New Zealand's coast. There was a jazz festival on at the time and I went to the city centre to enjoy the music.
Later in the early evening I decided to eat at a resturant and listen to more jazz played by a band in the open air walking street. I eventually began talking to a couple next to me and after a short time the man asked me what I did. Of course I mentioned my work as a counsellor and then mentioned I also wrote books. He was interested in my KICK ADDICTION book for his daughter and also in my faith.
He asked me, 'Have you always been religious?' When I said 'No!' he wanted to know the story about how this changed and I had the opportunity to give my testimony. I have shared it in KNOW GOD MORE. I found Jesus beside the Red Sea in Israel (at the time) many years ago when I was twenty-one. If you want to know the story, which is fasinating, you will need to buy my book.
Here on holiday - a God appointment! God is wonderous!
Later in the early evening I decided to eat at a resturant and listen to more jazz played by a band in the open air walking street. I eventually began talking to a couple next to me and after a short time the man asked me what I did. Of course I mentioned my work as a counsellor and then mentioned I also wrote books. He was interested in my KICK ADDICTION book for his daughter and also in my faith.
He asked me, 'Have you always been religious?' When I said 'No!' he wanted to know the story about how this changed and I had the opportunity to give my testimony. I have shared it in KNOW GOD MORE. I found Jesus beside the Red Sea in Israel (at the time) many years ago when I was twenty-one. If you want to know the story, which is fasinating, you will need to buy my book.
Here on holiday - a God appointment! God is wonderous!
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
controlling Behaviours
I am not very good at writing on this blogg regularly. It's the whole idea of speaking to yourself. It gets a little tedious!!
However if there is anyone who this may benefit I would like to post a reply I gave to an email I recieved from someone who was having trouble controlling their eating habits in a healthy way.
...I have had emotionally empty wells over the years and wanted to fill them with various things. However once you know this and understand it you have control over where you get this fulfillment from. Some people turn to drugs, alcohol, sex, shopping etc and of course the ever so common one - food. It all goes back to those three basic needs of self worth, security and significance. One or more of them is not being fulfilled in your life and so you are trying to fill it up using an illegitimate thing - food - which can never truly do what it is 'promising' to do. God is the only Being able to fulfill your real deep need.
The trouble is - at some level we don't think He can, or don't believe He can or even don't believe He will for us - and so we go elsewhere.
But the truth is He can. I am a testimony to that! And believe me I have plenty of empty wells!! The trick is to go to Him and ask Him to fill them up and then resist any other fake 'offer' of an illegitimate thing believing that He will do it in His good time.
And He doesn't take that long. He does come.
However the temptation continues to come too - the desire to go the wrong way to empty cisterns to fill these real needs - until you have it firmly in your heart that God will come through. Every time the temptation comes God has promised in His word to give a 'way of escape' so that you can bare it and conquer the problem.
It's a fight all the way but God is with us, strengthening us and as we fight we become reliant on Him, our knowledge of His power and greatness and love and mercy and grace grow and we grow up spiritually. We become strong and eventually the thing that tempted us no longer has any power over us. Here the victory is won and Satan will have to try something else to unnerve us because that one no longer works!!!
Getting on the right track is a process but knowledge stops us fooling ourselves and coming up with excuses.
Identify the deep need(s) not being fulfilled and go to God and ask Him to fill them for you. Then next time you are tempted - fight - with a smile on your face knowing that you are the victor because God is on your side and no one, no force is greater!
My book KICK ADDICTION reveals this spiritual journey step by step.
However if there is anyone who this may benefit I would like to post a reply I gave to an email I recieved from someone who was having trouble controlling their eating habits in a healthy way.
...I have had emotionally empty wells over the years and wanted to fill them with various things. However once you know this and understand it you have control over where you get this fulfillment from. Some people turn to drugs, alcohol, sex, shopping etc and of course the ever so common one - food. It all goes back to those three basic needs of self worth, security and significance. One or more of them is not being fulfilled in your life and so you are trying to fill it up using an illegitimate thing - food - which can never truly do what it is 'promising' to do. God is the only Being able to fulfill your real deep need.
The trouble is - at some level we don't think He can, or don't believe He can or even don't believe He will for us - and so we go elsewhere.
But the truth is He can. I am a testimony to that! And believe me I have plenty of empty wells!! The trick is to go to Him and ask Him to fill them up and then resist any other fake 'offer' of an illegitimate thing believing that He will do it in His good time.
And He doesn't take that long. He does come.
However the temptation continues to come too - the desire to go the wrong way to empty cisterns to fill these real needs - until you have it firmly in your heart that God will come through. Every time the temptation comes God has promised in His word to give a 'way of escape' so that you can bare it and conquer the problem.
It's a fight all the way but God is with us, strengthening us and as we fight we become reliant on Him, our knowledge of His power and greatness and love and mercy and grace grow and we grow up spiritually. We become strong and eventually the thing that tempted us no longer has any power over us. Here the victory is won and Satan will have to try something else to unnerve us because that one no longer works!!!
Getting on the right track is a process but knowledge stops us fooling ourselves and coming up with excuses.
Identify the deep need(s) not being fulfilled and go to God and ask Him to fill them for you. Then next time you are tempted - fight - with a smile on your face knowing that you are the victor because God is on your side and no one, no force is greater!
My book KICK ADDICTION reveals this spiritual journey step by step.
Monday, March 28, 2011
Libraries Christchurch Fundraiser / Christian Writers Guild
At the library I was reading in we had six readers and their writing covered fiction, humour, biography, poetry and mine (Christian). A great array of voices from the past, imagination and eternity. I didn't count but there seemed to be over twenty listeners. There were laughs and there was pin-drop silence.
It was difficult reading to such a mixed audience. I could feel disapproval from the front right hand row. In fact those people would hardly look at me afterwards. Isn't it amazing how God's word and even words about Him convict! But there was also genuine interest. One listener came up afterwards and told me he was fasinated by what I had read. It had really made Him think and he was going to get my book KNOW GOD MORE out of the library.
This makes it all worthwhile. God is always working. He is always surprising.
The next day I spoke at the Christian Writer's Guild in the morning.I shared about my life and how God had worked in it in so many surprising ways and how He had impressed on me to transform this into books.I shared counselling theories to help them grow the depth of the characters they wrote about and dig deeper into truth so their writing made sense. I encouraged a greater depth of revelation in their work. God is always willing to reveal. The question is - are we listening?
It was difficult reading to such a mixed audience. I could feel disapproval from the front right hand row. In fact those people would hardly look at me afterwards. Isn't it amazing how God's word and even words about Him convict! But there was also genuine interest. One listener came up afterwards and told me he was fasinated by what I had read. It had really made Him think and he was going to get my book KNOW GOD MORE out of the library.
This makes it all worthwhile. God is always working. He is always surprising.
The next day I spoke at the Christian Writer's Guild in the morning.I shared about my life and how God had worked in it in so many surprising ways and how He had impressed on me to transform this into books.I shared counselling theories to help them grow the depth of the characters they wrote about and dig deeper into truth so their writing made sense. I encouraged a greater depth of revelation in their work. God is always willing to reveal. The question is - are we listening?
Friday, March 25, 2011
Pain of tragedy
So much pain! Not only in Christchurch but also Japan. My own children visited that nuclear power station only a few years ago. Their host family are alright they assure me. But so much pain! Thousands of families grieving and most of them don't know God.
And what can we do? We can give money of course but what else? Most of us feel helpless. Tonight I am reading in the Auckland Libraries Fundraiser for Christchurch. I will be reading from the Introduction of 'Know God More' and they will not be a Christian audience. I wonder how they will respond to the questions I bring up about God, the scriptures as part of that text, and my own heart as the book describes my search to know more about God, what He is like, to know Him personally so I can at least try and understand Him a little more.
'Know God More' was the result of me trying to do just this - get to know Him - in the face of pain and tragedy in my own life. And I did succeed. I still don't know Him fully of course but I do know Him so much more than I ever did before even though I had been a Christian for years and attended Bible studies, retreats, home groups, ocnferences and more.
It is a knowing, at the end of the day, that is a revelation. A gift from God. And yet locked in this longing to know Him even more intimately we can continue to explore, read, pray and yes, even in the midst of terrible tragedy we can find Him.
And what can we do? We can give money of course but what else? Most of us feel helpless. Tonight I am reading in the Auckland Libraries Fundraiser for Christchurch. I will be reading from the Introduction of 'Know God More' and they will not be a Christian audience. I wonder how they will respond to the questions I bring up about God, the scriptures as part of that text, and my own heart as the book describes my search to know more about God, what He is like, to know Him personally so I can at least try and understand Him a little more.
'Know God More' was the result of me trying to do just this - get to know Him - in the face of pain and tragedy in my own life. And I did succeed. I still don't know Him fully of course but I do know Him so much more than I ever did before even though I had been a Christian for years and attended Bible studies, retreats, home groups, ocnferences and more.
It is a knowing, at the end of the day, that is a revelation. A gift from God. And yet locked in this longing to know Him even more intimately we can continue to explore, read, pray and yes, even in the midst of terrible tragedy we can find Him.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Christchurch Earthquake
Last week a huge earthquake hit Christchurch - the greatest disaster in our nation New Zealand - and very few people are left unaffected in some way. Auckland where I live is at the opposite end of the country. My closest friend's youngest brother's wife's sister is missing - now presumed dead. She was the mother of two small children. It may seem like a distant relationship but this is just one of many, many similar connections. And where is God?
What a huge question to ask in such trauma, pain, loss and grief. And how dare one ask? But we must. For God is always present, always powerful and always loving. People can surmise. Perhaps we will never know why He has allowed this catastrophe to occur. But He has? And He is still always present, always powerful and always loving.
Lord we need more love, more grace, deep healing and Your Spirit of goodwill, of generosity, of loving kindness to permeate even the hardest hearts now at this time. Use even this for Your glory.
What a huge question to ask in such trauma, pain, loss and grief. And how dare one ask? But we must. For God is always present, always powerful and always loving. People can surmise. Perhaps we will never know why He has allowed this catastrophe to occur. But He has? And He is still always present, always powerful and always loving.
Lord we need more love, more grace, deep healing and Your Spirit of goodwill, of generosity, of loving kindness to permeate even the hardest hearts now at this time. Use even this for Your glory.
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