Merry Christmas

Hello! Merry Christmas! As much as I wish as the card the card states, I hope you entrust your hopes, dreams, ambitions, desires and future in general to God's care. I hope you will be blessed as I have been this year, though in a much nicer way than what happened to me of course...

I did something strange today - strange for the 'me' I've become anyway... I wanted to clear my inbox for my hotmail account, but while doing it, I stumbled upon quite a number of amazing emails, a lot of them from this year and about cancer and my gran's death, but a couple from a few years ago that I must have kept when I deleted my emails before. Ok, my point? I finally understood 'natsukashisa' [na-tsu-ka-she-sa], the Japanese term for nostalgia or a 'pleasant-sad feeling' (apparently a very valued emotion to have for a Japanese person). Hmmm... This is going to be hard for me to say quickly...

I don't know who reads my blog anymore, so I'm sorry for being too personal. I think, in fact, my blogs have not been very personal at all for a while so in a way I'm making up for it. Also, when my gran died, my granddad and uncle were left with regret because they never got to say the things they'd always wanted to say to my gran before she died. On that note, I wrote a few Christmas cards to the people I love most - or could honestly say I actually loved - and told them why they mean so much to me and thanked them for all they've done. (Am challenged by the fact I am to love EVERYONE and not the select few I've chosen...) Pfff!

Goodness! I'm just really overwhelmed! I have been so loved this year and I know that that isn't just because of the uniqueness of this year. It's been great to have care and affection demonstrated over the year in a way that couldn't have been possible without all the difficulty that I had to go through. And then to look back over the uni years and see that certain people have just ALWAYS been there! I have been continually blessed by these people in particular and all the people that God has put into my life. I owe a lot of where I am today spiritually and my knowledge of God and the Bible - both intellectually and emotionally - and who I've become to these people. As you already know, I love you and I'm more grateful than I could ever really tell you.

The other side to it is how much I've grown and the woman I have been becoming - since third year especially. Some of those emails had the email I'd sent attached and I was amazed at some of the things I'd said in them - in a good way, I mean. It turns out I wasn't quite as silly as I thought and that humbled me, because obviously it was God in me and not me in myself. I guess now I know why people have such a high opinion of me, though I still can't believe it. :-S

Ok, last of all and most importantly, God is good. There's no better day than today - except maybe Easter - to figure that out! I never knew it more certainly till this year, which is odd you might think since I had cancer and my grandmother died of a heart attack three days after my birthday. You want to know how? Here:
- the cancer was caught early
- I had THE best surgeon possible to operate on me
- he was the loveliest surgeon ever and actually CARED
- I didn't have to have a hysterectomy
- the cancer was completely removed during surgery
- chemo was precautionary
- I lost all my hair, but I actually suited being bald, I had a great wig and now I have an afro! (AMAZING!)
- my friends still bless me even with the memory of all their care over this year
- my gran became a Christian 3 hours before she died - quite possibly God kept her alive just long enough to come to Him
- my one ovary is working perfectly
- I learned so much about God in all the extra time I had this year and saw Him in a completely new way
- I was vulnerable and allowed myself to be so, which does mean I cry a lot more than I used to, but that's good because I'm more feminine and womanly, which I was struggling to let happen
- I love Him more than I did before and I know Him better

Those are the major ones that continue to overwhelm me. I'm so glad to have seen this today because I can thank God genuinely. All this good wouldn't have and couldn't have happened without Jesus coming and I'm glad I can thank Him wholeheartedly and attribute all the blessing I received to Him as He deserves. Praise God for His goodness!

One last thing - sorry for such a long post - I hope you get to know God as I have done over this year. I hope that it doesn;t have to be a critical illness or a death of a very special loved one for that to happen. May God bless you with a deeper knowledge of Him and His will for you! Praise Him for His goodness, mercy and love! AMEN.

God's Refreshment

This is LOVELY! So revealing of God's parental love toward us - toward me! Hoep it encourages you as it did me:

"The journey is too great for thee" (1 King 19:7).

And what did God do with His tired servant? Gave him something good to eat, and put him to sleep. Elijah had done splendid work, and had run alongside of the chariot in his excitement, and it had been too much for his physical strength, and the reaction had come on, and he was depressed. The physical needed to be cared for. What many people want is sleep, and the physical ailment attended to. There are grand men and women who get where Elijah was--under the juniper tree! and it comes very soothingly to such to hear the words of the Master: "The journey is too great for thee, and I am going to refresh you." Let us not confound physical weariness with spiritual weakness.

"I'm too tired to trust and too tired to pray,
Said one, as the over-taxed strength gave way.
The one conscious thought by my mind possessed,
Is, oh, could I just drop it all and rest.

"Will God forgive me, do you suppose,
If I go right to sleep as a baby goes,
Without an asking if I may,
Without ever trying to trust and pray?

"Will God forgive you? why think, dear heart,
When language to you was an unknown art,
Did a mother deny you needed rest,
Or refuse to pillow your head on her breast?

"Did she let you want when you could not ask?
Did she set her child an unequal task?
Or did she cradle you in her arms,
And then guard your slumber against alarms?

"Ah, how quick was her mother love to see,
The unconscious yearnings of infancy.
When you've grown too tired to trust and pray,
When over-wrought nature has quite given way:

"Then just drop it all, and give up to rest,
As you used to do on a mother's breast,
He knows all about it--the dear Lord knows,
So just go to sleep as a baby goes;

"Without even asking if you may,
God knows when His child is too tired to pray.
He judges not solely by uttered prayer,
He knows when the yearnings of love are there.

"He knows you do pray, He knows you do trust,
And He knows, too, the limits' of poor weak dust.
Oh, the wonderful sympathy of Christ,
For His chosen ones in that midnight tryst,

"When He bade them sleep and take their rest,
While on Him the guilt of the whole world pressed--
You've given your life up to Him to keep,
Then don't be afraid to go right to sleep."
- Mrs C E Cowman

Dare to Be Alone

Hmmm... I've never thought about this concept before. What do you think?

"Yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me" (John 16:32).

It need not be said that to carry out conviction into action is a costly sacrifice. It may make necessary renunciations and separations which leave one to feel a strange sense both of deprivation and loneliness. But he who will fly, as an eagle does, into the higher levels where cloudless day abides, and live in the sunshine of God, must be content to live a comparatively lonely life.

No bird is so solitary as the eagle. Eagles never fly in flocks; one, or at most two, ever being seen at once. But the life that is lived unto God, however it forfeits human companionships, knows Divine fellowship.

God seeks eagle-men. No man ever comes into a realization of the best things of God, who does not, upon the Godward side of his life, learn to walk alone with God. We find Abraham alone in Horeb upon the heights, but Lot, dwelling in Sodom. Moses, skilled in all the wisdom of Egypt must go forty years into the desert alone with God. Paul, who was filled with Greek learning and had also sat at the feet of Gamaliel, must go into Arabia and learn the desert life with God. Let God isolate us. I do not mean the isolation of a monastery. In this isolating experience He develops an independence of faith and life so that the soul needs no longer the constant help, prayer, faith or attention of his neighbor. Such assistance and inspiration from the other members are necessary and have their place in the Christian's development, but there comes a time when they act as a direct hindrance to the individual's faith and welfare. God knows how to change the circumstances in order to give us an isolating experience. We yield to God and He takes us through something, and when it is over, those about us, who are no less loved than before, are no longer depended upon. We realize that He has wrought some things in us, and that the wings of our souls have learned to beat the upper air.

We must dare to be alone. Jacob must be left alone if the Angel of God is to whisper in his ear the mystic name of Shiloh; Daniel must be left alone if he is to see celestial visions; John must be banished to Patmos if he is deeply to take and firmly to keep "the print of heaven." - Mrs C E Cowman

Call Back

How true it is that we can encourage each other with our testimonies!

"It shall turn to you for a testimony'' (Luke 21:13).

Life is a steep climb, and it does the heart good to have somebody "call back" and cheerily beckon us on up the high hill. We are all climbers together, and we must help one another. This mountain climbing is serious business, but glorious. It takes strength and steady step to find the summits. The outlook widens with the altitude. If anyone among us has found anything worth while, we ought to "call back."

If you have gone a little way ahead of me, call back--
'Twill cheer my heart and help my feet along the stony track;
And if, perchance, Faith's light is dim, because the oil is low,
Your call will guide my lagging course as wearily I go.

Call back, and tell me that He went with you into the storm;
Call back, and say He kept you when the forest's roots were torn;
That, when the heavens thunder and the earthquake shook the hill,
He bore you up and held you where the very air was still.

Oh, friend, call back, and tell me for I cannot see your face,
They say it glows with triumph, and your feet bound in the race;
But there are mists between us and my spirit eyes are dim,
And I cannot see the glory, though I long for word of Him.

But if you'll say He heard you when your prayer was but a cry,
And if you'll say He saw you through the night's sin-darkened sky
If you have gone a little way ahead, oh, friend, call back--
'Twill cheer my heart and help my feet along the stony track.
--Selected

OK Go are amazing!

Hello, hello! If anyone is in need of mindless entertainment that is more than mildly amusing, please watch Ok Go's videos for A Million Ways and Here It Goes Again. Hee hee hee! :-)

Trust and Rest

What great encouragement!

"Trust also in him" (Ps. 37:3).

The word trust is the heart word of faith. It is the Old Testament word, the word given to the early and infant stage of faith. The word faith expresses more the act of the will, the word belief the act of the mind or intellect, but trust is the language of the heart. The other has reference more to a truth believed or a thing expected.

Trust implies more than this, it sees and feels, and leans upon a person, a great, true, living heart of love. So let us "trust also in him," through all the delays, in spite of all the difficulties, in the face of all the denials, notwithstanding all the seemings, even when we cannot understand the way, and know not the issue; still "trust also in him, and he will bring it to pass." The way will open, the right issue will come, the end will be peace, the cloud will be lifted, and the light of an eternal noonday shall shine at last.

"Trust and rest when all around thee
Puts thy faith to sorest test;
Let no fear or foe confound thee,
Wait for God and trust and rest.

"Trust and rest with heart abiding,
Like a birdling in its nest,
Underneath His feathers hiding,
Fold thy wings and trust and rest."
- Mrs C E Cowman

When We're in the Dark

Here's some encouragement for you:

"I will give thee the treasures of darkness" (Isa. 45:3).

In the famous lace shops of Brussels, there are certain rooms devoted to the spinning of the finest and most delicate patterns. These rooms are altogether darkened, save for a light from one very small window, which falls directly upon the pattern. There is only one spinner in the room, and he sits where the narrow stream of light falls upon the threads of his weaving. "Thus," we are told by the guide, "do we secure our choicest products. Lace is always more delicately and beautifully woven when the worker himself is in the dark and only his pattern is in the light."

May it not be the same with us in our weaving? Sometimes it is very dark. We cannot understand what we are doing. We do not see the web we are weaving. We are not able to discover any beauty, any possible good in our experience. Yet if we are faithful and fail not and faint not, we shall some day know that the most exquisite work of all our life was done in those days when it was so dark.

If you are in the deep shadows because of some strange, mysterious providence, do not be afraid. Simply go on in faith and love, never doubting. God is watching, and He will bring good and beauty out of all your pain and tears. --J. R. Miller

Hello! Here's another good devotion. In suffering we are made into what we're supposed to be in His kingdom. Praise God!

"Perfect through suffering" (Heb. 2:10).

Steel is iron plus fire. Soil is rock, plus heat, or glacier crushing. Linen is flax plus the bath that cleans, the comb that separates, and the flail that pounds, and the shuttle that weaves. Human character must have a plus attached to it. The world does not forget great characters. But great characters are not made of luxuries, they are made by suffering.

I heard of a mother who brought into her home as a companion to her own son, a crippled boy who was also a hunchback. She had warned her boy to be very careful in his relations to him, and not to touch the sensitive part of his life but go right on playing with him as if he were an ordinary boy. She listened to her son as they were playing; and after a few minutes he said to his companion: "Do you know what you have got on your back?" The little hunchback was embarrassed, and he hesitated a moment. The boy said: "It is the box in which your wings are; and some day God is going to cut it open, and then you will fly away and be an angel."

Some day, God is going to reveal the fact to every Christian, that the very principles they now rebel against, have been the instruments which He used in perfecting their characters and moulding them into perfection, polished stones for His great building yonder. --Cortland Myers

Suffering is a wonderful fertilizer to the roots of character. The great object of this life is character. This is the only thing we can carry with us into eternity. . . . To gain the most of it and the best of it is the object of probation. --Austin Phelps