Small joys and big ones.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. The old has gone. The new is here! 
2 Corinthians 5:17-18
Anxiety  consumes so many in the crisis of today's world. I came across  this one liner  a while ago which said: May you refuse an anxious heart and embrace  a faith filled one. Anxiety cripples our life style. It cripples our hopes and dreams. It consumes our every moment thoughts.
The first bird song of the morning, the tiny rich coloured pink wild flower hidden in  a field of green grass yet visible with love from God if your focus is on him. That tiny florescent green and red tipped feather lying on the ground you bend to pick up, a God sent gift to take home and put in a special place to  enjoy and remember its finding blessing always. When we seek out the day with God its filled with small joys and big ones. Shake of the anxiety, go for a walk with God,walk in his blessings. Our lovely world is still there in all its beauty.
May the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times and in all ways.
Anne, servant of the Lord.

A field of blessings

A small cloud full of hope

Look, a little cloud  no bigger than a person's hand is rising out of the sea. 1 Kings 18:44
Recently I heard a version of this which said 'a fist full of clouds' and it has been on my mind ever since. That small cloud was full of hope for the people who were desperate for rain. It held all their dreams and desires and prayers. They had watched a dry and 'cloud empty sky ' for a long time and then this small cloud of hope rose from the sea and went onto produce great rain. Life is like that at the moment. We look about, we pray, we trust and we hope things will change, we seek the small signs that will tell us all will be well, we believe God will come to the rescue. I believe that. Why? because I love the world. I think of the green grass, the increasing blossoms of the trees, the spring flowers, the baby animals, the sunshine, the rain (and snow!) and more so, God's great love for us. So much of God's great love for us.
Grace and peace from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Anne, servant of the Lord

A fist full of clouds

God's good deeds and countless blessings

The heavens declare the Glory of God: the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech: night after night they reveal knowledge.  Psalm 19:1-2
Lovely are those words: Day after day they pour forth speech: night after night they reveal knowledge. What a wonderful God who created birds that sing and animals  that talk their own talk. Flowers that smile and speak in perfume and stars that fill the night sky. As the changes blow into our lives with a virus in its wind instead of looking for the  signs of blame and drawing wrong conclusions and criticism and build around us a wall of fear, look to this wonderful creator God, remember his good deeds and countless blessings in your life. As its said, keep an ear bent towards heaven and God will be your guide and your comforter.
May the Lord of Peace himself give you peace at all times and in all ways.
Anne,servant of the Lord.

Proclaim the work of his hands

change comes bearing gifts

For I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun!  Do you not see it? I will make a pathway through the wilderness. I will create rivers in the dry wasteland. Isaiah 4:3:19
Its the time of the year when the garden is full of blessings of colour and perfume. What was hidden is now revealed. The tightly closed buds of the prunes blossom are open and alive like tiny pink dolls on the trees, dancing in the breeze. Change is happening from the winter into spring and change always comes bearing gifts. Even in the changed, anxious world we are living in today there are gifts. God is doing something new. I think of the blessing of zoom technology and how that has made connection possible with friends, family and church, how it has blessed so many through these tough times and drawn more people from community into a faith community. Something new is happening in our lives in many ways and it is making a pathway through the trouble.
May God use you to bless others.
Anne, servant of the Lord.

God is doing something new

A feast in front of your eyes.

May your eyes be open day and night.  2 Chronicles . 6:20
Thich Nhat Hanh would say that day by day you become aware of the feast life offers - a feast that is right in front of you. I was so reminded of this when I sat  down at my desk and looking through the window my eye caught the movement of the Wattle bird feasting on the lush red blooms of the Grevillea bush  and I was reminded of a saying I hear a few days ago 'that my gaze was a blessing.' I was indeed blessed by the sight and the thought of this bird enjoying its feast of nectar. So often our gaze is just a sweeping  glance but when we pause and look, no gaze, what we see is far more.
Grace and peace from the Lord Jesus Christ
Anne, servant of the Lord

My gaze was a blessing.

And God is in it

Grace and peace from God our Father. 2 Cor 1:2
It is a troubled world we live in. In every direction there seems to be something out of the ordinary that shakes our 'normal' so why is it that the fresh sweet small of the Daphne lift my spirits so? Is it because it transports me back to memories of days of family,of peace,of 'normal?' Is it because it has a sense of hope in that a change of season is coming? And then under the tall trees where I go walking and popping through the grass I see and smell the memory filled scent of the wild violets. I lean down and pick one so its perfume will linger with me on my walk. What is it? Why is it in all of that I am somehow filled with comfort, assurance and peace?  I don't know but what I do know is that  it is comfort and it is God.
May the Lord of peace himself give you peace  at all times and in all ways.
Anne,servant of the Lord

The sweet perfume of the Daphne

 

Looking for God

When morning gilds the sky my heart awaking cries, may Jesus Christ be praised. TIS 227
Morning comes pushing aside the last shades of the night and I like to spend that time, those last few minutes of darkness with no one except God.  Every day I look for God and every day I find him. He is in those moments of morning waking, he is in the silence, he is in the first song of the early birds . He is present in my rising and welcoming with treasured gifts of beauty, of colour, of  tiny precious sightings  along the walking path. The kiss of the new day finds me meeting God where I left him the previous evening. Are you still looking for God in whatever your situation is? He is there.
May the Lord of Peace himself give you peace at all times and in all ways.
Anne, servant of the Lord.

Morning has broken.

What does this say to you?

Break me, melt me, mould me, fill me. Spirit of the living God fall afresh on me. (New Harvest 173)

It is so amazing to know that you can  cut open a flower bulb and inside you will see the flower. What does that say to you? What image comes to mind? There it is, this beauty, tucked away hidden in the center of a plain brown bulb and planted in the right place it will emerge from the darkness into the light, unfolding  to flourish. I think we can relate this to us: ordinary people with the light of Christ hidden within us. Break us open by the Spirit of God and there will be revealed our beauty, our compassion, our love for one another  and an even greater love for God. And we will flourish. May many see the beauty within all who follow Christ. 

May the Lord of Peace himself give us peace at all times and in all ways.

Anne, servant of the Lord.

Break me mould me so I flourish.