So much has been going on and so little of it I understand. ok so its like this...on Sunday evening the preaching was on the Lord's prayer and I couldn't really get past the first part "Our Father". The Fatherheart of God. That's what keeps coming into my mind after that teaching. I know for sure that although we sometimes limit our expectations of our heavenly Father due to our experiences of our "earthly" fathers, this isn't something that I figured applied to me, because God is so far removed from what my parents are. But on Sunday night I was just overwhelmed with the feeling of actually being "parentless", an orphan. I know Mum and Dad are just down the road but in my day to day life I just don't feel as though I have any parents. I don't have them to ring up to for advice, I can't chat to them, they aren't interested at all in me or my life - unless it would look bad on them. So they can show up for things like weddings, dedications, funerals, but thats about it. Seriously. They just aren't there. I can't even get them to babysit the majority of the time. I have to absolutely beg them to do just watch the children for an hour. Yet I keep putting myself into that place of rejection. It hurts. Each and every day, it really hurts. BUT regardless of that I do remember that God is a Father to the fatherless, that he takes care of the orphans and so that gives me some hope and reassurance. It doesn't take away the pain right now, but it does give me something else to look towards. But the question is how do I relate to my parents? How do I even have relationship with them when every occasion I call or visit is an opportunity for them to hurt me again? AAAGHH! it makes me want to scream.

Weary

I know its been such a long time since I last wrote. I've been rather busy with the "humdrum" of life so to speak. Children to play with, wipe, feed, get to bed, chores to be done; all examples of good and neccessary things that whilst indeed humdrum, make life all the more pleasant for having done them. I'm just beginning to realise that I'm not superwoman! That I don't have to be able to do anything and that life with 3 small children (5, 3 and 1) is indeed long, hard and tiring. Yes its fun, yes its wonderful, priceless and I wouldn't swap it for anything; but the daily "stuff" is sometimes physcially hard going.

When people ask me how I manage with 3, I just smile and say its fine. Which indeed it is. What else can I do? I can't give one of them back, so I just keep going forward knowing that things will change, that the days of little ones will pass me by all too quickly. The reality of life is that Yes, life is fine, we are all healthy, we are all happy, we all have the things we need and indeed some of the things that we want; but on top of that, I have a 3 yr old daughter who has rarely slept a night in her own bed since she was born, a 5 year old who I don't get to spend nearly as much time with as I should, reading to him, playing with him, cuddling him, talking with him, and a 1 year old beautiful son who spends most of his day f0llowing me around because Mummy never sits still long enough for a long cuddle!! I love my children each and every one of them. I am incredibly proud of them and thank God each day for the blessing that he has given me with 3 relatively uncomplicated (although quirky in their own ways!) children. But right now, I feel wearly. The reality of life with 3 babies (yes, I still think of my 5 yr old as a baby) is hitting me and I think my body is saying enough! enough! enough!

Its only March and I am already in need of a holiday! I am desperately looking forward to our annual trip to New Wine, where we are physcially and spiritually rested and refreshed each year. I can't tell you how much of a blessing it is to be able to spend one week watching the children grow at such a rate in their relationships with God, to sit and rest a while with some very dear friends, to "get back to nature". I do love camping, it is relaxing, it is wonderful with no t.v., no phones, no "gadgets" (except the camp cooker which I'm sure you'll agree is an absolute neccessity). I love being able to just sit, read, watch the children play, pray with friends, chat with friends, play swingball. I think I need it now. God - can you just speed up a time a little bit???

Alternatively, I'll go back to the place where I find my rest. I'll delve into my bible and sit and be still with God and allow him to refresh me right here, right now.

God's Will

I have just finished reading an article and am dumbstruck. It was an article based on the book waking the dead by John Eldredge. He was basically saying that unless we realise that we are in a battle situations then it is easy to misinterpret things, it is easy to misunderstand and misrepresent God. He went on to say that it is easy to believe that bad things that happen to us are because it is "God's Will". Now whilst I would never have said that God had bad things happen to us because he wanted to inflict pain or cause us distress; it pains me to realise that at some point along the way I have been holding God responsible. I didn't even realise it up until this moment but I have most definately been thinking that the reason I went through all that stuff was because God wanted it not to hurt me but so that he could bring me to a place of greater compassion, greater understanding etc. that I wouldn't have been able to get to without going through it.

The truth is that it wasn't God who co-ordinated that full fronted attack but Satan. It was he who conceived the idea and put it into place. God merely desires to turn bad for good and to not allow Satan's attck to be the end of the story. How could I have thought otherwise??? I'm so astounded that I had so obviously must have thought that without even realising.

I see I need to delve more into this and get it firmly established in my head and my heart that it was at no point and in no way from God.

The Power of Speech

James 3 v 6 "The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell." v9 "With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God's likeness."

I was visiting Mrs Wibbz in cyberspace today, reading her blog that included a section about the appropriateness of how/when/how much of your life you share and thought I would follow that up with some thoughts of my own.

I never liked going to bible studies or group situations where people share part of themselves. I used to think it was pointless talking about the past. More recently I started to get jealous of people who were able to share their history, to share their story. I wanted to do the same, to be able to say...this is me! this is what I do! this is who I am! And yet I couldn't. I could never speak out anything about myself, about where I am coming from, even sometimes just my thoughts and opinions on things. For years I have never been able to do that, I get uncomfortable, even at home group situations. I used to think it was because of me, because I was basically rubbish that I could never share that same level of stuff. And yet now I realise differently. I just simply wasn't ready. God had to bring me to a place, put godly people around me and have His Holy Spirit show me, how and when to share. You see for me the time is now, the time to talk is now. I'm entering into a new place with God, with my friends, even with my husband.

I used to think that if only I could share, if only I could get it out, then I would be a better person, then I would feel better. It was all about me. Now I see and understand that yes, God does desire my healing, yes God does want me to be free...but its not about me. Its about glorifying Him. You see in my healing, I am free to serve God, I am free to worship Him, I am free to do His will. Thats what it is about. Not about me, not about you. I realise now that at some point in my life I had made a sort of pact with the devil (unconsciously!) not to talk about stuff that I'd been through....and over time this just covered more and more areas until I just didn't talk about anything beyond the weather (seriously!). Having spoken out I know already that bonds have been broken and that Satan has taken a huge blow. No longer will I remain silent, no longer will I allow the evil one to rob me. Yes there is more healing to come, yes there are layers upon layers of things to peel back, to pray through, to seek guidance from godly, wise people (Praise God that He put these wonderful people around me!). No doubt there will be more to share.

But in all this, I exercise caution. I only share because I know that it is God's purpose to refine me. One day I will stand in front of my Lord and Saviour and be accountable for my time spent on earth and I want to be able to say that in everything I did, I glorified God. I want to experience that healing in full to bring further glory to Him who has such abundant and everlasting love for me. Its in no way about me and it is in no way about other people. Thank you Jesus for bringing me to such a place!

Hearing from God

I warn you in advance that this post may well be long and convoluted.

I’m truly feeling as though God is taking me through a refining process at the moment. There is so much going on in terms of me hearing from Him and subsequently my life being transformed by Him. Its hard to explain it all, but I will try and perhaps you will be able to understand a bit more of where I am coming from.

I posted a very cryptic blog a while back about a journey I was taking; little knowing where that would take me and what route that would take. God has been challenging me to speak out more. In speaking out more he has been dealing with some old hurts in my life in a very gentle and loving way. For someone who doesn’t much like talking about themselves it has been a real challenge to even get a far as asking for some time from my friends to talk through and pray through some “stuff”. Wanting to be obedient I did what I heard God tell me to do, I spoke out just a little bit about where I am at and what has been happening in my life and I know that God desires to see me whole, to see me healed from my past hurts and to see me transformed.

Anyway, that was a bit of an explanation as to the background of this post. One thing I’ve been struggling with the last few weeks since being so honest, was the worry that I would sink into depression or that I would start to feel sorry for myself and that I would therefore no longer be focusing solely on God. It was a genuine concern based on paths that I’ve walked down before. I have been praying about it and trying to fill my time with good things; praying more, listening to God more, listening to some sermon tapes, worshipping, being with my children more. All of which have been great. It has stopped me from focusing on me and my hurts and raised my eyes higher and towards heaven.

But God, being our loving Father wants more for me. He yearns to talk to me and to teach me and to guide me. As I discovered this weekend He loves me so much and is so concerned with my wellbeing, with my life, with encouraging me that He will often use other people to speak his wisdom to me.

So, I was at SPACE training on Saturday. The training itself was excellent and the day was great. During the worship time I really felt that God had given me something to share with the group, which I did (altogether unusual for me to do that in a large group of people!!). After which, the team that had come to do the training for us said they had been listening to God all day and have some words to share, both for us as a team and also for some individuals. You can picture the scene; here I was in a worshipful attitude, hearing from God and my immediate reaction was great….I’m going to hear from God through these ladies. Anyway, they shared their words for the group as a whole and then shared words for individuals…as they shared with each person, I kept thinking…ok, God, I know you want to talk to me….I must be next! But they kept going and in the end every person there had a word or a picture from God…except me!! I wasn’t impressed and I was just about to start telling God how unreasonable He was when just before we disbanded one of the ladies stopped and pointed to me saying that she had a picture. It was a picture of me wearing a belt and that belt was the belt of truth and she felt that God had given me an amazing ability to speak truth. To speak truth to other people and in different situations, to speak out what is true. Fantastic I thought: a word from God. I was almost more excited that I had been given a word like everyone else than being concerned with what that word meant. A few seconds later I was given another word by another of the ladies. It went along the lines of telling me that I had a deep wisdom with regards to what is right and wrong for the children (it came across as being not just for my children but for children in general), that it was such a deep and abiding wisdom that it ran through the very core of my being and was what God had placed in me for a reason. Wow God. Thank you so much for speaking to me. As if that wasn’t enough I was then given a 3rd word. I was walking down a path and it was such an incredibly narrow path, there was no veering off, nothing stopping me from walking in such a determined and deliberate way to reach my destination.

As I got home I was so excited to have been given such clear and encouraging words and went out in the evening, not thinking too much more of it at that time. On Sunday evening I went to church and went up for ministry, the pastor’s wife was praying for me and she said that she had an impression that she thought was from God. Here we go again I thought! The impression was that God had given me an amazing ability to speak truth to people. I couldn’t believe it! To have been given 2 words exactly the same within 24 hours was almost unbelievable. Ok God you definitely have my attention now. What is it you are trying to say to me?

Yesterday I was listening to some teaching on prophesy and the gist of it was that there are different types, a prophetic word, an impression, a picture etc. and that there were different reasons for prophecy, some things were to encourage, some to convict of sin and some to give direction (I think there were more things as well but these are the ones that stuck in my mind). But, the important thing was to take the words you have been given and go away and pray about them, to weigh them up and to see what God further reveals to you. So that’s where I’m at. I am going to weigh them up, see what God reveals to me. I have an idea about the speaking the truth already…I was pretty much certain immediately what that was about but the more I pray about it, the more God shows me that it is more than what I originally thought.

And there you have it…my blog for today. God speaks to us!! He longs to talk to us and to reveal more of Himself to us. What an awesome God we have.

Friends

As someone (thank you Mrs. Wibbs!) so kindly reminded me, a post on here is long overdue.

Today I have spent a lovely morning with an old friend. I have quite a few friends (yes - really!!) but there is something very special indeed about Carolyn. We don't see each other very often despite living in close proximity. Carolyn has been my friend for 14 years and in the last year I have seen her only once. We have the sort of friendship that doesn't mind if we don't see each other for ages...when we do get together its wonderful.

I love just sitting and being with Carolyn. She oozes God's grace and wisdom. I love talking with her and learning from her. When I sit with Carolyn, I feel as though I am in God's presence. She is the wisest woman I know...truly gracious and incredibly gentle and patient. We've been through a lot together and I always am reminded of just how far God has brought me when we get together.

So..to you all, I pray that you will have a "carolyn" in your life. Someone who teaches you more about God (despite your age), someone who is wise and gracious, someone who never reminds you of your failings but always encourages you.

Lets start at the very beginning.......its a very good place to start.

I guess I had an ominous start to life, being born on Friday 13th August 1976. A year to the day since my brother was born. My brother who died before I had a chance to know him. We share the same birthday. Maybe that's why my parents never saw fit to celebrate my birthday, why we always had to be away on that date. There was never much to celebrate for them, I understand that in a way. And yet I have grown up always thinking that I wasn't the child they wanted. They wanted the one they had lost and without a doubt if they still had him, I wouldn't be here today. Maybe that's where my lack of self-esteem stems from? I've never been able to relate to either of my parents and they seem to have been completely unable to talk to me for the most part of my life.

to be continued...............