dream about a plane crash

Just a night after a dream about my Dad I have a dream about a plane crash.

The Dream:
I am hanging with some people in an outside cafe when I look up and see something falling. Then we realise it is a plane. A big plane like a Boeing 737. It crashes and panic ensues. As I run around I ask myself "when?" and then I see signs in shops windows. But instead of saying 'Sale' or stuff like that, one signs says '24' (i think) and one says '10:30' something.

It was like the signs were saying on the 24th at 10:30am (it was day time so would not be 10:30 at night) a plane will crash. I also got a strong sense it was a Qantas flight.

Now I dont say that this is prophetic, but its strange! Unlike the other dream I dont know what it means. Maybe someone is trying to put me off flying Qantas to see my Dad?

dream about my dad...

...which is strange 'cause I hardly ever dream about him and I never remember my dreams.

The Dream:
Dad, Tali and I went to some evangelical modern large church, kinda like Hillsong. For some reason we did not sit together. The service starts with a bit of theatre which all seemed OK and then an OK sermon (I cant remember the details at all which must mean its not relevant). The general feeling I got was that it would be OK for Dad and not "too religo" for him. But then the service got into exuberant worship, loud "happy clappiness". Oh no I thought. The service ended and I looked around for Dad amongst the crowd. I saw Tali sitting in a row of seats holding a baby, smiling broadly, and the centre of attention from people close by. Then I looked two rows in front and Dad was sitting there looking grim, and the main point - his back turned towards the front of the church. The immediate thought that came to my mind was "he has firmly turned his back on the Lord - he is not happy - and the church is not relevant to him".

My follow up thought was "Dad needs me to have a personal relationship with him for the Lord to be relevant to him".

love moments

I was going to do a series of posts on God moments but the majority of them are painful memories and today i don't want to feel sad...so i've decided to write about my next favourite topic...LOVE.

TOP 5 LOVE moments...

1. when I was 16, I heard a worship song, which made me finally understand how much the LORD loved me. It hit me for the first time that the LORD not only forgave me for being a self-centered sinful little brat but he actually loved that same brat, died for that brat, and wanted me to forgive that brat. It was a new beginning for me, bringing truth to my world, and acceptance for who I really was.
2. at 17 when in a moment of madness...love made me waaay to brave...I wrote on a piece of paper why I liked a certain boy. All the other girls seemed to be taken by his looks and I wasn't. For me it was who he was...he made me laugh, he was quietly confident, he wasn't afraid to be different....I regretted writing that note for the next few years, but for him it was a highlight he never forgot.
3. at 21, almost 22...that same boy captured my heart...he came back into my life at 19 but neither of us were brave in love...until one day that boy was forced into action out of fear of losing me. We celebrate that day as our anniversary and 16 years later we are still together.
4. hillsong conference 2004, I went to that conference wondering what does the LORD want ME to do...I left that conference realising it had nothing to do with me....and it was just what does the LORD want FULLSTOP. I remember screaming out 'whatever you want LORD is fine with me' and I gave him permission to turn my world upside down.
5. seeing our baby boy via an ultrasound this week...wiggling around, touching his face. I was so relieved that he was alive and healthy. If ever anyone wants to see a miracle then look at an ultrasound of a tiny life growing in a tummy of another human being. I look at my tummy and still can't believe there is a little boy growing in there. It's mind blowing!!

BEING A HUSBAND

babe...nothing to forgive.

I don't find it easy to share my feelings. I do try to be the provider...while keeping it "all together".

I now know that while I am capable, my strength needs to come from God. And my idea of HUSBAND needs to come from God.

And by Tali's confronting honesty and truth I have been kicked down paths I did not want to go. God has not taken me quickly from A to B. He has taken me down painful paths of realisation to learn some HUSBAND lessons. And Tali has been God's discerning accomplice all along!

There is a lesson - that when a wife trains a husband...it has to be done with love. Honest love. Sacrificial love. Non-judgemental love. Tali is getting better at this all the time.

So babe, while you may feel you have treated me cruel, and made it hard for me to share and care, it's mainly cause I just did not share! It's a family upbringing thing. I am still not good...but am getting better.

Please love me while I am crap. It's the only way I am going to get better.

BEING A WIFE

I have a man who loves me so much he rushes home, barely has time to eat his lunch because he's trying to fit a job which requires 10 hrs into 8 hrs. Luckily for me, he's so good at his job and very rarely does he not cope.

Why am I writing this? Because the LORD just taught me an important 'NOT ABOUT ME' lesson. I wrote once that if I failed at everything but could pass on a legacy of God's love to our children then I could meet my Creator satisfied that I was a wife and a mother. Any other achievements would pale in comparison.....well tonight I failed at being a wife.

Of course, it's not the first time. But this wasn't one of those I forgot to do something for him or i hurt him moments. I forgot what the LORD's definition of WIFE is.

I have recently written a poem about my man and how much he means to me...yet tonight the LORD showed me what it means to walk in his shoes, to face his every day life worrying about me and how I will react to him if he should stuff up, or show any concern for himself over me.

I believe one of my gifts from the LORD is discernment. I can often cut through what people are saying and reach the heart of the matter. But when it comes to my man, I'm too busy focusing on me that i very rarely put myself in his shoes.

What I saw was a man trying his hardest to balance the many demands on his time and love. A man feeling like he can barely acknowledge even to himself that he is just hanging on to the edge of a cliff but even if he did just for a moment he would feel guilty and unjustified to even ask his wife for help.

It broke my heart and filled me with such compassion for him that I thought of many ways that I could help ease his burden within a few minutes.

The irony is I need him to share his feelings more. I need to know all this about him. But I make it so hard for him to share these things because he feels like he has to keep it together, because he can't afford to fail again.

But I love him and this has never changed. I don't want to be the cause of hurt or brokenness in him. He is my no. 1 practice ground for my purpose in life...to bind up the broken-hearted, to be his refuge in a storm. If I can't do it for the love of my life, then how can I do it for a stranger??

My work begins at home...otherwise I won't even be able to say to the LORD that I was a wife...his answer would be....' you call that a wife? Daughter, you never knew what that meant...definitely NOT what I meant BY 'WIFE'!!'

legacy of God's love....starts with God's no. 1 gift to me - my man.

Babe
if you read this public apology, then forgive me, and thank you for sharing your heart with me. I will do more to take better care of it. I love you and I know you are trying your best. Sometimes you succeed and sometimes you don't BUT I'm here to love you through both.

your wife

Crisis : a learning curve?

With God..every day is a learning curve!

So much learnt yet so much more needs to be learnt!

the more he teaches me about himself the more i realise how crappy I am at being his daughter, his creation, his eyes and ears and hands...and funny enough, the more i know about these weaknesses the more i am encouraged that he has my destiny written on the palm of his hand and wont let me wander round too long in the wilderness because he wants me to get on with it...!

I am encouraged because he still knows me better than anyone else and Im all good!

Recently I have gone through some hard moments of betrayal,anger, and sadness...and like all humans I pointed the finger outwardly instead of inwardly...instead of saying "Lord what is wrong, what do i need to do,what do i need to change to prevent this from happening again..i instantly said Lord..." i hope they fall off the face of the earth" GOOOOOD CHRISTIAN :p

The Lord tested me with what i have always considered my worst fear..and i trembled and fell apart...but he didnt leave me there for long..he picked me up after my "ME" moment and reminded me of who my rock, refuge and fortress was.........HIM!!

Its through these moments of crisis that I got to see Gods face, feel his warmth and find confidence again.It turns out...my trust in him wasnt al that stable, my foundation wasnt all that solid and yes, i still havent surrendered over full control of my life to him.

So what now?? I have my moments of sadness...but hes already given me so much more in the space of 3 weeks that my moments are just that...moments!

One day...he will deliver me completely but for now...theres much i need to learn about my GOD and much much more i need to learn about myself in GOD!

"For he binds up the wounded and HEALS the brokenhearted" (thats in Psalms..cant remember the chapter :p)

hillsong conference

the LORD's perfect timing again...I have been to Hillsong conference 4 times, 3 as a delegate. Each time it has been amazing for lots of different reasons. Last year I went and I heard some awesome messages, but for me, it felt like the conference was more about Myles - it was his first time.

Last year: Reinhard Bonnke's teaching stirred me to believe that if he can save millions in Africa then Australia was all in a day's work for the LORD. The Holy Spirit gripped my heart so much in his sessions that I wrote very little down but cried a lot. The LORD's love for the lost, the broken-hearted, to save his children filled me.

Joyce Meyer with her teachings convicted me as she spoke the truth about how we sometimes walk around with a 'DO NOT DISTURB' sign on us.

At the end of the conference, I had a sense that my conference days were over. That I was filled up with good teachings and had to get out there. The safety nets of christian church life were not for me.

So this year, being sick and preggy, was a completely new experience for me. I didn't make it to half the sessions including the last night. But I had no problems missing out because, like Myles, I had heard it all.

For me this year was more about hearing the heart of God's leaders in his body - his church. It was awesome because even though they had such big churches and huge success they had the LORD's heart - to save the lost, to help the poor, to not just preach but to build relationships even with their neighbours and people like Irene (my friend that died). That's my LORD's heart AND that's my heart.

I kept thinking of my life's purposes to be 'a refuge from the storm', to heal the broken-hearted and set the captives free, to give beauty for ashes... Isaiah 32 and 61...to help the outcasts, do all that the LORD will do to use me to remove poverty from Africa and make Jeremiah 29:11 true for all his children...blessed to be a blessing....this is my heart - a simple ordinary little christian in God's body. It was awesome to hear that the BIGWIGs in God's body have the same hearts. His message is the same for all.

It shows me how God does teach his family to be UNITED IN PURPOSE to do everything they can to save the lost and not just ACCEPT that they are the privileged few who can afford to live in comfort in their big churches and homes. They understand that they are not building a personal legacy, but God's legacy to span the generations to come. It's not enough for them to sit back and think they have accomplished great things, saved enough people and finished their race, securing their place in heaven.

If anything their hearts are even more certain of their christian purpose - they are blessed to be a blessing.

My man in his short christian life is already full to the brim of good teaching, already equiped to serve - if he didn't have all these resources at his disposal, it would have taken longer, but the LORD has given our generation no excuses to sit back and do nothing. He's equiping us faster and better than previous generations so that we can get out there and do his work - big and small.

This reminds me of one of Joyce's messages about how she equips us and sends us out, but some people are so full of teaching that it's overflowing out of them. They haven't realised that the season for learning is over and they need to actually go out and DO IT. Some of us are just collecting but not putting these teachings into practice in our every day lives.

I'm not doing hillsong next year as a delegate - I will go to some night rallies still. But that season is over - the LORD's perfect timing is that my man and I have reached the same conclusion in the same year. Another example of ONENESS - hoooraaaay!

hillsong conference challenged me

Spent the last week at the Hillsong Conference and it challenged me.

Sure it was long days, with convicting sermons etc.

What really challenged me was that I should spend less time at christian conferences but really seeking the lost, building on my visions/gifts, and using my time loving God and my neighbour.

I got sick of hearing similar stories about how to value people, how to tell them about Jesus, how to love the Lord. I know already!

I know I don't want to be a mature christian that doesn't actually do anything! I don't want to 'talk amongst ourselves and judge others'. I want to 'talk to others and judge ourselves'.

Sometimes I can be too judgemental of "mature christians" - cause I don't know what they do, what they are going through etc. I just hope I don't turn into what I perceive of some of them - stuck in a comforting, encouraging, validating christian world - and not out amongst the world!

Excuse me if this sounds like the rantings of a 5 minute christian.

cold weekend

spent most of the weekend in bed with the cold. trying to squeeze in a doctors appointment today, registering our car, and a little bit of shopping (haven't shared that with my man yet)...all before Hillsong conference starts at 4:30pm.

Myles and I have hillsong all week - will be interesting to see if I last. I must be in for a great hillsong conference because Satan is trying to keep me home. The last time he succeeded I had to fly back to NZ for my Dad. He collapsed at home the day before and was taken to the hospital where they discovered he had cancer.

I have been looking forward to the conference because it's God's perfect timing to fill me with more of his word at a time when i need it the most. I feel like I'm making heaps of progress breaking through the strongholds in my mind. I know he's changing me from the inside out. The signs on the outside that i am changing are not that visible yet...only glimpses. But I know the LORD is working it out. I am filled with hope.