What is pouring out of us?

Father God has done so much for all of us. He has poured out His Love and shown us at the Cross and resurrection how much, even if we don’t want to acknowledge it. This is our choice, we have no excuse (Romans 1:20)

I have been so challenged how much I allow all the Father has done for me, and shown me, pour through me OR do I keep it to myself feeling this is the God's blessing for me alone, Acts 3:6.

Very early in my Christian journey Father God showed me how my resentment was destroying our marriage. Dave and I got right with each other. Then my Bible study leader pointed out this blessing wasn’t just for me but for all other believers. I needed to swallow my pride and give my lesson away.

Never did Jesus teach His followers life lessons, so that they could keep hold of what He said. None of us would be following Jesus today if they had not laid down their lives, to share all that Jesus had done and taught them.

Am I stopping the work of the Holy Spirit Who is graciously showing me a truth and then I just hold onto it for myself. No every lesson God teaches me is to pass through me just like a stream of Living Water to change lives, giving wisdom and direction to all! Making sure He gets all the glory and not making me out to be 'holier than thou'.

There are lots of reasons and arguments in our heads that cause us to keep God’s goodness to ourselves but none of them are justified. We win the victory in life because of the blood Jesus shed, the bold word of our witness and we are not in love with ourselves but are willing to die for Christ, Revelation 12:11.

Imagine what would have happened to the early Church if the apostles had not allowed the Holy Spirit to pour out through their hands or speech, (Acts 5:12) we would be lost.

So go out into the world and set your friends and enemies free, not in your own strength but by His Spirit.

'Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making His plea through us. I plead with you on Christ's behalf, "Be reconciled to God!"' 2 Corinthians 5:20. 

Never once.......

A whole year has passed since the gates of heaven opened to welcome Dave home.He heard those encouraging words ‘well done you good and faithful servant’ And he saw Jesus so clearly and he entered into all Jesus paid for for him and he saw so clearly all that he had held onto by faith, in the last 46 years.

I can declare that I never once walked this last year alone, the Holy Spirit has been my constant companion and in times of total overwhelming grief He has always lifted me up. He has caused me to give the pain to Him. When I have felt ‘take this cup from me’ Father has given me the ‘garment of praise for a spirit of heaviness and the oil of joy for mourning’ Isaiah 61:3

I can honestly say this last year has been my steepest learning curve in my relationship with Jesus. I am mega thankful for each step. Having the confidence and complete assurance that I will see Dave again. This is not just wishful thinking, but faith in the promises of God's Word, which have helped me so much. I don’t think I would have made it to this day without knowing there is definitely life after death. 

Also without the amazing selfless love of my children, and their daily Whats App messages. 

His constant Presence, answered prayer, His miraculous provision, He has never once let me down. This is such a challenge to me to share the Truth so others have the assurance of a home in heaven. It is true there is life after death for everyone and the choice we have is where we spend it?

In the first weeks, because Dave had gone from a giant to death in three weeks, I would go to crowded places and want to shout ‘who will be dead in 3 weeks?’ all because we all live as if we are going to last forever. We are not prepared for the inevitable. We live ‘it won’t happen to me!’ We cause ourselves so much difficulty by not being prepared. I was not!!

Living again the emotions of ‘this time last year......’ with flash backs, seeing his strength failing. His excitement of going to live with Jesus and the Lord showing him about the fruit in his life. I am so thankful He protected me from this pain then, so I could do all that had to be done at the time and I now have an amazing support network around me so I am empowered to face challenges and I realise now I have never once been alone.

So time to move on to my new ‘normal’, to consider what I want to leave behind in this last year and where I am aiming to be this time next year?

I am having a very busy time at present having been to Panama for my grandson’s wedding to beautiful Marianella. Coming home alone, then driving to Scotland with my little brother to see my land and 3 business meetings. Then to Wales for a long weekend for two very special birthdays, 3yr old and 6yr old.

Now I am packing for a 7week trip to Australia for the wedding of my beautiful granddaughter and a much needed holiday.
What a busy time and I am so encouraged daily by the assurance that I will never once be alone whatever the future holds and whatever I feel.

Also if I am to have victory daily in this coming year I have to have a special time to sit at Jesus feet and worship Him, filling myself up on the Word of God, life giving food. 

Plus being kind to myself with rest and good food, so here I come Australia. More Word less waffles! Although I do have a responsibiity to certain members of the family to keep up Dave's tradition of supporting the wonderful ice cream trade.

'All you need is LOVE'

I remember organising a day about 'Love' in a gay night club called 'Outrageous'. 

We opened with the song 'all you need is love' and the opening was a clip from the film 'Love Actually' which shows very clearly the various love relationships we can give and receive, seen at the arrival hall at an airport. Lots of amazing helpers worked hard at showing love in many very practical ways. There were stories of love in drama, in poetry, in song and in some very personal life stories. Four girls who had all had wonderful victory in very tough situations in their lives. They came to see that firstly they are loved unconditionally by Father God Who paid an unbelievable price to show them how much. He allowed His beloved Son Jesus to buy us all back from death, hell, and the grave. Because of that Love they could love others.

Running a 'Joy for Life' group in Rosie's Tea Room every Monday. We are studying 1 John and it is called 'Real Love'. Also watching the celebration of the marriage of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in Windsor Castle. This has made me stop and think do we really know what 'Love' is?? It seems to be vital for all of us. We hear all the time about the trouble little children get into if they don't feel loved or have a missing parent for whatever reason. The repurcussions move throughout our lives. We all have 'stuff' going on causing us to feel unloved, insecure, sensitive, anxious even if we believe in Almighty God as our Father and have the power of the Holy Spirit living in us. We have a battle going on in our heads telling us lies, half truths and truth that we dont believe.

But I am here to tell you that 'Love never fails'. In the ten months since Dave died I have felt all the depths and heights of emotion having opportunities to think the worst about myself, my situation, about Dave and even to doubt God Himself. But He has continued to pour His love into me on a moment by moment basis. There have been phone calls, messages, songs on UCB radio, podcasts, and daily readings so spot on to where I am at that day. There has been so many answers to prayer, provision of finance, lost passwords found, all encouraging my faith in the One true God and that I am loved more than ever.

When I knew Dave was leaving to be with the Lord, I spoke to Father God, that I want to hold Him to His Word in Isaiah 61:3 that part of Jesus' work is to give 'beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for a spirit of heaviness. That I might be called a tree of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He might be glorified.' That is what any pain is for, so that people can know that Jesus is alive and very relevant to our everyday trauma. It helps to keep speaking out our trust in Jesus and the living Word that He gives us.

There is so much written about 'love' and so many questions as well in the Word. But our only measuring stick is Jesus. How does our love measure up against His? Especially loving our enemies, those who have done us wrong, who spoke against us or worse.

Do not forget we were His enemies before we bowed the knee to our wonderful Lord Jesus, and look how He treats us. The same Holy Spirit who motivated Him can motivate us as well to love supernaturally. Then the whole world, far more than 29 million people who watched Meghan and Harry, will stop and take notice of the Bride of Christ because of the way we love one another, John 13:34-35.

http://www.joyforlife.org/index.php/real-love/

SOMETIMES IT’S “BETTER OUT, THAN “IN!”

'SusieSaint' is a wonderful friend, who has invited me to write a blog, which she said she would post. My first reaction was, “Me? Write a Blog? You must be kidding?!”  I’ve never done anything like this in my life! 
My only option was to test this with our Heavenly Father, because I knew that this was something I couldn’t do in my own strength.🙏

You will notice that it has been almost a year since 'SusieSaint’s last blog.  She will need to share that with you, but suffice to say that I was sensing that this is a message for her, as well as perhaps to others?  
So often what happens in the physical, God does in the Spiritual, doesn’t He? He can also be full of surprises, even in everyday circumstances!
I awoke in the wee hours with the words, “Better Out than In,” repeating themselves over and over, so I began to meditate on them. God will often use daily situations to speak to us, so here is how I feel these words came.
  
I have just had an arthroscopy in my knee, as I had torn the outer cartilage in a fall. This is the third operation on my right knee  and hopefully the last! 

The surgeon and anaesthetist were the same as in 2013, when I had a successful half knee replacement. They are a great team, so I went into the day, looking forward to the operation, with a sense of great optimism and Peace, as there had been much prayer beforehand and I knew that many lovely Life Group friends, were praying for me too.
  
My husband and I had just returned from staying with our family over Christmas and the New Year in California, so I was joking with Anne, the anaesthetist, that I wanted her to put me “under” long enough to get over my jet lag!  We then started to talk about Santa Barbara, which she and her husband had loved.  As I went “under,” I said we were fortunate enough to visit the Old Spanish Mission in Santa Barbara between the narrow window of the “Thomas fire,” now the worst in Californian history, and the deadly mud slides, when at both times, the coast road from Los Angeles to Santa Barbara had been closed

.  It seemed no time until I was in recovery and back in my room.  The operation had gone well and I was even shown a DVD of the procedure!  Later a pharmacist arrived to offer me advice on post op medecines.  She was a young Nigerian woman and our conversation turned to God.  She was a Christian of about four years and was looking for a Spirit filled church in Reading.  I knew the perfect contact for her, so she gave me her details and, with her permission, I put her in touch with Tim, who had received the vision for the recent “Ten Days of Prayer,” in Reading.  To me that’s so like God, with the timing and that particular pharmacist, as He knew her needs too!  What Joy for both of us, with that

unexpected, “Divine-appointed encounter” in a hospital room!

I had two stitches, which needed to be removed by a nurse at our local GP’s practice, ten days later. On arriving home, I noticed that my leg was wet, right down to my sock and shoe, so we called the practice and were given another appointment that afternoon. Apparently, it’s not uncommon to have a saline leak, so there was nothing sinister. I actually began to praise God saying, “It’s better out than in, so thank you Lord, as my body won’t have to absorb this stuff!”
When I returned a few days later to have the dressing replaced, the collected saline again poured down my leg, so once again, I was thanking the Lord for my healing.…His Way…and not the expected way!
As Christians, don’t you find that it so much better to share the problems and hurts we may be carrying IN-side us and letting them OUT, with a trusted brother or sister-in-Christ, so that we can give them to God in prayer? Jesus says in Matthew 11:28-30 Msg, “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to Me. Get away with Me and you will recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with Me and work with Me -- watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I wont lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with Me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly." Do we instead, try to hold on to things on our IN-side, dealing with them in our own strength?  An old saying is: “The Jesus in me, greets the Jesus in thee.”  How wonderful it is then, to have a brother or sister-in-Christ to walk with us through the tough times in Life.
  

So this blog-thought is: When we turn to Christ with the tears that are building on the IN-side and choose to let them OUT by offering our weeping to Him, then and only then will we find His wonderful Love, Peace and healing.  May we all find that in knowing and trusting JESUS, we can experience His TRUE REST; Rest that He alone can give.  
                               

Thanks to Barbara Neely who has encouraged me to get back to Blogging and did this one to help me, Blessings.

He is not here He has risen!

I do believe that the day we celebrate as Easter Sunday is without doubt the greatest day in history. All we have to do is BELIEVE that Jesus Christ lived about 2000 years ago and was crucified for blasphemy by a group of people who felt their positions were very insecure. They thought the crowd would follow Him instead of them.

  

They didn’t realise they were totally moving in God’s plan for the whole earth. The Almighty, all knowing, all majestic King was allowing His own Son to go through this horrific death, but unlike any other crucified rogue, His Son was totally innocent and going along with His Father’s plan because of LOVE. All our messes were put on Him, not one thing was too big or horrific.

This enables me to realise that our amazing God of LOVE who allowed His Son to suffer so much can allow me to go through tough times as He knows He has an awesome plan much bigger than me. As I focus on this total unselfish LOVE I understand that Jesus endured the Cross for the joy that was before Him. We have so much to look forward to and we can be so full of hope and joy as we know our Resurrection Day is nearly here.

“He will swallow up death permanently. The sovereign LORD will wipe away the tears from every face, and remove His people’s disgrace from all the earth. Indeed, the LORD has announced it!”

Isaiah 25:8 NET

If we want to be encouraged by an amazing true story of a man who died and came back to life follow the YouTube link 'The Perfect Wave A Glimpse of Eternity - The Ian McCormack NDE'. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZbU5XQpZ78&t=117s

What is Good about Friday?

It is impossible adequately to describe the horror of that day. Events had moved quickly from the arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane to the trials and Peter's denial of his Lord, from the trumped-up charges, to the near-acquittal, to the mocking, the scourging, and then to the handing over of an innocent man to the howling religious mob whipped to a frenzy by the chief priests. Horror enough you may say, but now, Jesus whose beard had been yanked out, whose back had been laid open to the bone all over, whose flesh must have been hanging from Him like so much raw meat, was forced to carry His cross to the final place of execution.
       
This stumbling, agonising and breath-sapping procession was through streets (Via Dolorosa) thronged with a crowd which just a few short days ago was heralding Him as their king, but was now raucously deriding Him. He had been sentenced to death and was therefore regarded as a dead man already. He was fair game for all the horrors which could be inflicted on a condemned man on the public road to His death.

Was He kicked, pushed from side to side of the street, jeered, spat upon, and reviled? Perhaps rubbish and sewage was thrown over Him.... perhaps we shall never know, but human nature today allows us to think that the final footsteps of His life were more horrific than we might care to consider.

Whatever happened, Jesus could carry His cross no longer. The Roman executioners pressed Simon from Cyrene in North Africa into carrying it the remainder of the way. Finally, at the place called Golgotha - the place of the skull - Skull Hill, Jesus was flung to the cross and nailed there. The common practice was to use spikes through the forearms so that as the victim hung upright, He would not tear the spike through His hand and free His arm.

Spikes were driven through His feet - probably His ankles, rupturing tendons, ligaments, muscles and joints - you see nobody cared anymore, Jesus was just another condemned non-entity, a joke, He would be dead in a few hours anyway. And then they hoisted the cross up ............ do you think they carefully put it in the ground so as not to jar the body more than necessary!? I don't think so.................

You saved others, but you can't save yourself ................ Get yourself and us down from here ......... Perhaps Elijah will come and get Him, let's wait and see ............ What's that He said? ......... Why is the sky getting dark, it’s hardly past lunch-time? It's pitch black!! .......... Why is the ground shaking? ..........Who are those people? ..........What's happening?!!!!!!

Questions: Dare you answer them truthfully?

·                     What would you have done?

·                     What stand would you have taken in this final unfolding of horror?

·                     Do you jeer at injustice now?

·                     Who is Jesus to you?

·                     What claim does the Son of God have on your life?

See how to receive all that Jesus died to give you, He loves you more than you have ever been loved before. For the eternal value of all our lives, this Friday is the best ever. Check this new life out at 'Joy for Life'

http://www.joyforlife.org/index.php/living-with-jesus-01/

Good Grief!

Well it happened the ‘thing I feared the most has come upon me’ 😭

Having prayed 'Lord now let Your servant depart in peace for my eyes have seen Your Glory' with family round him, Dave so happily entered into the joy of his Lord, Jesus Christ, on July 29th 2017. 

Dave had a spiritually powerful three weeks as his flesh became so dramatically and quickly weaker his spirit became stronger each day. We were both unaware he had anything wrong and had done a lot of heavy activity outside. He felt that Jesus had come to him in hospital and told him he was 'going home'.

He was able to pray and thank God with each of his children as well as his siblings. He ended stronger than ever in his faith. He was so thankful to all who lifted him up in prayer and love and all the encouragement he received from all over the world. The One who calls you is faithful and He will do it. It was a truly supernatural time for the whole family with so many 'Godincidences' on a daily basis. Dave was so happy shedding 'happy tears' for all the Love God poured out on him.

There was so much laughing and memories of all the years which we all shared. Even the doctor said every time he saw Dave he thought he was 'channeling' God.

When I was with Dave in the Hospice I declared from Isaiah 61:3  ‘To all who mourn in Israel, He will give a Crown of beauty for ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, the garment [expressive] of praise instead of a disheartened spirit'. I declared in a very strong moment that I would hold God accountable for this Word to me. I love this verse so much. When I start to cry for some little thing that reminds me that Dave is not here I stop and praise Jesus; listen to some praise and worship music and am so thankful for so much.

I was given a couple of note books by the family when he first died and I found it a good habit to write down 5 things I am thankful for at the end of the day. 

I have had so much joy over the past 7 months and also had a steep learning curve in the area of money, technical activities and looking after a car! But the best of it all has been my very close relationship with Jesus and my Abba Father as my husband. He is totally reliable and always there for me, Isaiah 54:5. 

Just a few days ago the Holy Spirit opened my eyes to this amazing verse which I am making my Rock to move forward from this lost time.

'After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace [who imparts His blessing and favour], who called you to His own eternal glory in Christ, will Himself complete, confirm, strengthen, and establish you [making you what you ought to be]. To Him be dominion (power, authority, sovereignty) forever and ever. Amen'. 1 Peter 5:10-11


I will now journal my new journey about my new 'normal' as I am sure that 'He Who is comforting me in all my troubles will enable me to comfort those experiencing any trouble with the comfort with which I am myself comforted by God' 2 Corinthians 1:4

PS. The picture of the painting is Dave's last painting 'The narrow Way' 

Our security

I am so amazed that I have just gone back to Blogger and found two draft Blogs that I wrote last year but never posted!! What was I doing? Hopefully spending time with my beloved husband as two months from when I was writing this next blog my husband was dead! More about that later!

The following blog is so significant for me so I am still going to post it in the hope it will help all of us who have a daily battle with fear.

May 26th 2017. Well it happened, what every parent dreads. We hold the thoughts in the back of our mind but hope it will never happen to us. We read daily in the paper, on the television, on Facebook the murder or loss of other people's children but it won't happen to us. BUT this week it happened to twenty two families as well all the families whose lives have been changed forever in Manchester.

We must as Bible believing Christians be the first to react in love and compassion, giving posivity, to the situation as it unfolds, Responding to such overpowering hatred cannot be done with equal hatred, it can only be counteracted with God's unconditional tough Love.

Jesus Himself was destroyed by hate but that wasn't the end of the story as we know. Jesus' resurrection was God putting Satan under Jesus' feet and paying him back and reminding him of his end of time position. He wants to take as many people with him as he can deceive and fill with his hate.

More than that we do not need to walk in fear for our children or ourselves and all those we care about. We need to walk moment by moment in faith not allowing fear to dominate our decisions and being led by the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:14; Galatians 5:18) so we are in the right place at the right time.

Jesus shed His blood so we can like Rahab (Joshua 2) claim the protection of the Blood seen in the red chord. Daily claim the protection of the Blood Jesus shed on the Cross for all our precious people and property. If God kept Rahab and her family just by them focussing on a red chord when all the enormous wall attached to her house was falling down. Wow how much more can we trust in, cling to and rely on the Blood of Jesus Christ to protect us.(Psalm 91). Imagine if the children of Israel had NOT applied the blood of the lamb over the door posts and lintels of their homes, when the angel of death came they would have suffered like all the Egyptians. We have to obey God's instructions, it is the only way.

We just need to receive it and apply it by speaking His Word out and praising Him for the power.

And remember we have been given authority over all the works of the enemy, Father wants His will to be done on earth as it is in Heaven.

See Rahab the Rescuer and the Rescued www.joyforlife.org/index.php/real-women-10/