Each man will be like a shelter from the wind and a refuge from the storm...
Isaiah 32:2
My man loves cops and I don't but as I was pottering around in the lounge I caught a bit of it. The police were called to someone's home where two little kids (5 and under) were locked out of the house and crying as they knocked on the door to try to get back in. As it turned out the grandma had drunk herself to sleep and somehow the kids went outside and then couldn't get back in. It upset me big time. To make it worse the little boy, 5 years old, had alcohol on his breath.
I talked to the LORD about it and said to him why couldn't he say to Satan hands off the kids. In the bible when he talks about helping the less fortunate he nearly always talks of orphans and widows. I think it's because they have no one to protect them and they are all alone in the world. Kids born into these lives are used and abused by Satan. It always upsets me that bad things happen to children. I know that they will live the rest of eternity with our God and know such love that their brief time on the planet would be gone in a blink of an eye. But it breaks their loved ones left behind.
I don't think I would be able to cope if anything happened to my son. I can't bear to think of him hurting himself even in little things let alone the horrors that Satan has up his sleeves. I thank the LORD for protecting him and all our little ones. For marking them with blood like the first born of Israel. So no weapon formed against them will prosper.
The LORD has given me a heart for poor stricken children, especially those in Africa. If I could picture myself fulfilling my purpose in life it would be Isaiah 32:2 for little ones who have no one else in the world to help them except the LORD, whose parents have neglected them, who live in poverty and have no idea what it would mean to live a blessed life.
I said to my man I would love to have the police ring me and say those two kids need a home and I would be there in a flash. I would need a home of some kind where there would be other children there too. Myles said like an orphanage, an institute, etc. But I couldn't find a word that would capture the kind of home i would create for them.
The LORD reminded me of my verse. It would be a shelter from the wind, a refuge from a storm. Like Watoto. It would be a place where they would know they were loved and precious, created specially by the the LORD. Where they would feel safe and protected always. Spoilt like I spoil my nieces and nephews. They wouldn't just have their basic needs met but they would have their dreams fulfilled.
This is a huge ask and I have no idea when or where this will be. But I know it's the LORD's doing that my heart weeps for these children. He made me this way and he will use this some way in my life. I wait expectantly on the LORD as he prepares the way.
Monday, April 02, 2007
Thursday, March 29, 2007
being a mum is not all work
I love hugs and kisses and now i have this little captive audience who can't escape my arms. So I get to spoil myself and indulge all day. Every time I hold my son I smack lots of kisses and cuddles on him. His nightmares are probably of me kissing him and his screams are him crying out 'leave me alone mum' meanwhile i'm worrying about what horrible monster has just disturbed his sleep :-)
I will be one of those mums who embarrass their cool sons in public with bear hugs and face covering kisses. By then it will be too late for me to change my ways!
I will be one of those mums who embarrass their cool sons in public with bear hugs and face covering kisses. By then it will be too late for me to change my ways!
Saturday, March 24, 2007
others...
blessed to be a blessing
why has the LORD given me so much? so i can give to others who have very little.
why does the LORD keep me safe? so i can help others who fear for their lives.
why does the LORD love me so much? so i can show others who feel unloved how much he loves them.
The LORD always reminds me that this safe comfortable life i live comes at a price. What he has put in my hands was not just for me to be grasped and clung to, but to share and give with open hands to others. I can't help everyone but i can help those who the LORD gives me a heart for...the children of Africa, the impoverished rejected of this little world of mine.
why has the LORD given me so much? so i can give to others who have very little.
why does the LORD keep me safe? so i can help others who fear for their lives.
why does the LORD love me so much? so i can show others who feel unloved how much he loves them.
The LORD always reminds me that this safe comfortable life i live comes at a price. What he has put in my hands was not just for me to be grasped and clung to, but to share and give with open hands to others. I can't help everyone but i can help those who the LORD gives me a heart for...the children of Africa, the impoverished rejected of this little world of mine.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
caleb
caleb, 3 mths old. the beautiful creation the LORD made combining me and myles' genes which span generations of our ancestors. How amazing is our LORD and this is only what we see. I wonder what he will be like. Names are no accident in the bible so i wonder if the LORD has made him to have key traits of Caleb from the bible. Strong, devoted, faithful, courageous....already i know he's strong willed the way he battles with us about the little things in his control, like when he can sleep and eat. I don't think he will be anyone's push over...that sounds like Caleb from the old testament.
Friday, March 09, 2007
faith
had a connect group last night. Someone asked why is our faith not as powerful as those first believers, why don't we experience what the apostles did when they first received the holy spirit with speaking in tongues, etc. The holy spirit moved in miraculous ways.
It has made me think of what it must have been like at that first meeting of believers as recorded in Acts. We don't share the same conversion story because we didn't experience what they did.
They gathered at a momentus point in time, beginning of a movement of faith which would shape the world, awaiting the promise of the Holy Spirit from a Saviour they knew in person, they saw ascend, witnesses to his resurrection, heard his words with their own ears, saw him heal the sick, raise the dead. They experienced first hand that all things are possible with the LORD by seeing him in action.
To me the Holy Spirit was so visibly powerful because the disciples needed this level of faith. They had the important task of setting the world on fire. They had to survive persecution, pass on this real faith from generation to generation to survive the dark ages so that in 2007 we would still believe. His deeds were a part of their personal experience, embedded in their memories so they would never give up. He met their needs.
With that level of faith came real sacrifice and real persecution. Perhaps the LORD knows that most of us are not up to the challenge. We want the miracles of old but can we walk in their footsteps? Most of the disciples suffered horrible deaths - can we carry this cross?
I don't think so. It seems only a few of us are able. The majority of us have different crosses to bear and different needs to be met.
The needs of my part of the world are on the most part not physical but emotional and mental. That's the major healing needed here to overcome evil. That's the power we need to show.
Its a worldly way of thinking that because every christian doesn't have the greater gifts of the Holy Spirit like healing the sick, prophesy, etc. that this means we lack power. I believe, we are thinking like the world when we give in to that mentality that we have to prove our faith by BIG HUGE WALK ON WATER MIRACLES. That's not how the LORD works. He performed those miracles because there was a need for them.
The Holy Spirit's greatest power to me is visible in a changed life. Believing that your life has changed is faith especially when others can't see it but you know it to be the truth. Each of us born again is a living 'walk on water' miracle.
To each of us he gives a measure of faith, a personal relationship with him through the Holy Spirit, his word and each other.
Don't get me wrong I would have loved for the LORD to heal my Dad of his cancer, to have had an easy labour and my son born on my Dad's birthday, but these things didn't happen. I believed for it and stepped out in faith and in the case of my Dad, he did get better before he got worse so I was sure he was going to be healed. But the LORD didn't give me that miracle.
Do I believe in the LORD less? Do I doubt he really exists? Do I doubt that all things are possible with the LORD? No, because my faith is built on an unshakeable truth - the LORD knows everything and I don't. I may not know his reasons but it doesn't change who he is - he is the Creator, the master planner and he knows what's best for me and all his creations. This I'm sure of.
What is faith: it's being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see (Heb 11:1)
It has made me think of what it must have been like at that first meeting of believers as recorded in Acts. We don't share the same conversion story because we didn't experience what they did.
They gathered at a momentus point in time, beginning of a movement of faith which would shape the world, awaiting the promise of the Holy Spirit from a Saviour they knew in person, they saw ascend, witnesses to his resurrection, heard his words with their own ears, saw him heal the sick, raise the dead. They experienced first hand that all things are possible with the LORD by seeing him in action.
To me the Holy Spirit was so visibly powerful because the disciples needed this level of faith. They had the important task of setting the world on fire. They had to survive persecution, pass on this real faith from generation to generation to survive the dark ages so that in 2007 we would still believe. His deeds were a part of their personal experience, embedded in their memories so they would never give up. He met their needs.
With that level of faith came real sacrifice and real persecution. Perhaps the LORD knows that most of us are not up to the challenge. We want the miracles of old but can we walk in their footsteps? Most of the disciples suffered horrible deaths - can we carry this cross?
I don't think so. It seems only a few of us are able. The majority of us have different crosses to bear and different needs to be met.
The needs of my part of the world are on the most part not physical but emotional and mental. That's the major healing needed here to overcome evil. That's the power we need to show.
Its a worldly way of thinking that because every christian doesn't have the greater gifts of the Holy Spirit like healing the sick, prophesy, etc. that this means we lack power. I believe, we are thinking like the world when we give in to that mentality that we have to prove our faith by BIG HUGE WALK ON WATER MIRACLES. That's not how the LORD works. He performed those miracles because there was a need for them.
The Holy Spirit's greatest power to me is visible in a changed life. Believing that your life has changed is faith especially when others can't see it but you know it to be the truth. Each of us born again is a living 'walk on water' miracle.
To each of us he gives a measure of faith, a personal relationship with him through the Holy Spirit, his word and each other.
Don't get me wrong I would have loved for the LORD to heal my Dad of his cancer, to have had an easy labour and my son born on my Dad's birthday, but these things didn't happen. I believed for it and stepped out in faith and in the case of my Dad, he did get better before he got worse so I was sure he was going to be healed. But the LORD didn't give me that miracle.
Do I believe in the LORD less? Do I doubt he really exists? Do I doubt that all things are possible with the LORD? No, because my faith is built on an unshakeable truth - the LORD knows everything and I don't. I may not know his reasons but it doesn't change who he is - he is the Creator, the master planner and he knows what's best for me and all his creations. This I'm sure of.
What is faith: it's being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see (Heb 11:1)
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