Things Too Wonderful

My young daughter had her first experience of The Deep End this weekend.

Not that she hasn’t been swimming before: but the pool we regularly go to is one depth all the way across, so she can stand up.  This weekend she opted to join in my son’s ‘Stupid O’Clock’ (7am) Triathlon training in a different pool.  She set off quite happily doing a slightly wonky front crawl, but stopped abruptly halfway across and when the coach walked back to see what the problem was, she informed him in no uncertain terms: “That end’s deep.  I don’t go deep.” Continue Reading »

I love the book of Habauk.  It’s only three chapters long, hidden away among the minor prophets, but it contains one of the greatest statements of faith in the whole Bible, and lessons you would pay a fortune for online!

Habakuk was around about the same time as Jeremiah.  Tough time in Israel’s history! It was probably at the end of Josiah’s reign or soon after.  Josiah had found the book of the law in the Temple, and for a while God’s people had turned back to Him and were living according to His instructions… but not for long!  They were back to their old ways: sin, degradation and a total disregard for God (sound familiar?) Continue Reading »

My car is dead.  It was a terminal case of head gasket and cracked cylinder and a few other things (mechanics not being my best thing I am unable to supply the details)  but it has driven its last journey.  Needless to say, this was unwelcome and expensive news, given our current circumstances.   I need a new car. 

I don’t think I mentioned here that a couple of months ago, a very polite gentleman drove into the back of me while I was driving Steve’s car.  At least, I wasn’t driving it at the time so much as Continue Reading »

I have to say that as weeks go, this one hasn’t been the best.

• Steve went to another healing meeting, and as he lined up with the others to be prayed for the guy next to him went flying over, hitting him in the temple with his elbow and nearly knocking him unconscious.  Steve had a blinding headache for the next three days! And no, there was no miraculous healing for him.

• We had to cancel our family holiday to the South Coast because of the leaky radiator on Steve’s car.

• In an attempt to make it up to the kids, we decided to drive to the water park in a nearby city (in my car).  The head gasket blew and we spent most of the afternoon sitting at the side of the duel carriageway waiting for the RAC to rescue us. Continue Reading »
  

God has really been challenging me recently through Isaiah 45:3 

“I will give you the treasures of darkness, riches stored in secret places”

Which I take to mean that there is treasure to be found when times are difficult and you feel like you’re going through dark places. 

There is something about suffering which makes us more receptive to God.  Maybe because we are crying out for answers and maybe because there is nowhere else to turn.  I know that on the days when Steve just can’t get out of bed and I’m feeling weighed down by the responsibility and difficulty of it all, that I am more open to hearing God.  Probably because I need His help so much on those days just to get through.  Continue Reading »

There was a time, when Steve was at his illest in hospital, when I wasn’t sure if he would live or die, and when the whole world just seemed black and cold.

I was angry with God - incredibly angry!  I felt abandoned and desperately disappointed: I was in the very worst of bad places. I didn’t even really know if I believed in Him any more - but if He did exist then part of me just didn’t want to know anyway.  To be honest, I hadn’t been in a great place in my relationship with Him before Steve got ill.  Now, it was a thousand times worse. Continue Reading »

Have you ever been on google maps?  I’ve spent hours on it just recently - it’s fascinating!  We (the kids and I) looked at our neighburhood yesterday then zoomed in on our street then our house.  We recognised our car in the driveway and the trampoline in the garden.  It was all so familiar - but from such a different perspective so unfamiliar too!  From that perspective we could see just how huge our neighbour’s garden is, and how much gree there really is even in the city, and how that funny road meets up…

It did occur to me that stuck here in the middle of my circumstances, I do have a very limited perspective.  I only see the immediate: what’s right in from of me and I wonder sometimes how God can allow me to stay stuck here?

But God’s perspective is entirely different! He sees the whole picture.  He knows what’s round the next corne; He sees not only where I’ve come from, but where the road ahead leads to, and He knows the best way I should go.  He knows, from Continue Reading »