My Saviors love

He alone stretches out the heavens and treads on the waves of the sea. Job 9:8
I  think on this text and straight away I find myself singing the old Sunday school favorite 'Wide wide a the ocean, high as the heavens above deep deep as the deepest sea is my saviors love.' Some things never go from our memories and how blessed we are to have been taught by faithful people the grounding  of a Christian life. The ocean so vast, so wide  that its horizon meets the sky and its edges wash the uncountable grains of sand onto its shores. It gives me a sense that if God can encompass such a broad creation and control it, with its beauty and its storms then we his creation  are well included in his care through our beauty and our storms.There is a saying: I can face the waves for I trust the one who made the ocean.
Grace and peace from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Anne, servant of the Lord.

Shine Jesus shine.

Your time - my time

Martha complained to Jesus because Mary visited with him while she worked. Luke 19:41
Prayer and work are two elements of faith that so often get out of balance. Sometimes its all work and little prayer, sometimes its prayer and a little work. I think of this and a picture comes to mind of a person in a dingy  rowing with one oar. Whats he doing? He is going round and round in circles and getting nowhere. Give him two oars and he rows with rhythm, the boat balanced and going in the right direction. There is no point  complaining to our brothers and sisters or to Jesus if the balance isn't right between work and prayer and really, you cant have one without the other! How do you know when you have the balance right? Is it something to do with an inner peace and quiet?
On this matter St Francis De Sales says: Each Christian needs half an hour of prayer each day, except when we are busy: then we need an hour.
Grace and peace from the Lord Jesus Christ
Anne, servant of the Lord

Take time to smell the flowers

In the light of Christ we go.

O send out your light and your truth. Psalm 43:3
I love the still, quiet mornings, they have a real sense of peace as I imagine the Lord completing his daily task of creating yet another day. He puts the night stars away and brings out light from darkness with the rising sun,  often in a kaleidoscope of colour, that spreads across the morning sky.. The picture it creates reminds me of the light of Christ breaking through into a dark world as we his followers carry that light wider and wider into the world to those special places God has given us  to serve in.
May the Spirit of God
The Spirit of wisdom and strength
rest upon you and fill you with peace.
Anne, servant of the Lord.

The sun rises through the darkness over  the sea of Galilee 

Bless and be blessed

Blessed are those who have not seen, yet believe. John 20:29
Remember this lovely song we sang in Sunday school? Count your blessings name them one by one......
I woke up in the night to the loud sounds of the crickets 'singing' and I thought to myself, why are they singing in the middle of the night. Their song seemed to be very joyful  and there was another sound , a magpie warbling  from the branches of the tree near my window, why at 4 in the morning?  And then I heard another sound and realised it was raining. Steady, big drops, falling on the parched ground. I wanted to stay awake to listen to these songs but instead fell back to sleep so blessed  from  the blessings.So much of life is a blessing. I see blessings as something we receive or give away. In the morning I  was still full of these blessings I had received in the night and ready to share the joy of blessings in my day. I like these words from a hymn by I.B.Wilson.
Make me a blessing.
Make me a blessing.
Out of my life may Jesus shine:
Make me a blessing, O Savior I pray,
make me a blessing to someone today.
Grace and peace from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Anne, servant of the Lord

Double blessing

Let us pray

There was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon: this man was  righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit rested on him. Luke 2:22
Sometimes we hear a prayer and it resonates with us. We feel like it is 'our' prayer. We feel like it was  worked on with God's love and meant just for us.
 Take just a moment to slowly read the words of this beautiful, life giving prayer and once read, read it again slowly and let it sink in.

I will not die an unlived life.
I will not go in fear of falling or catching fire
I choose to inhabit my days:
to allow my living be open to me:
to make me less afraid, more accessible
to loosen my heart until it becomes
a wing, a torch,a promise.
I choose to use my insignificance to live
so that which comes to me as a seed
goes to the next as blossom
and that which comes to me as blossom, goes on as fruit.
(Davana Markova)

Grace and peace from the Lord Jesus Christ
Anne, servant of the Lord

so that which comes to me as seed, goes out as blossom

Shinning light

'........and your right hand shall hold me fast. If I say, surely the darkness shall cover me and the light around me become night,even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day for the night is light to you.  Psalm 139:10-12
I shared these thoughts with an elderly lady who could not see her way through some anxieties and 'darkness' They were starting to overtake her especially at night time.  How often have you been scared of the  dark? I recall as a child running down the long hallway to my room where there was a light on. I recall waking up in the night and hiding under the bed covers because it was so dark. There I would hid, clutching the bed clothes, frantically pleading with God to be under the  covers with me. I was scared stiff. Then as I grew older and God filled my life more, I felt such fears  leaving me. Even when I  was rescuing a miner  many years ago down a very deep dark hole, sure I was anxious in the dark but not terrified because I had learnt to reach out for God's hand in times of need.
If fear or uncertainty creeps into the 'dark of life' I find myself reaching out to God and can almost 'feel' the light filtering through the dark. There is heaps in those few words from psalm 139, heaps of comfort.  - - and your right hand shall hold me fast.....darkness is not dark to you.....its as bright as the day.
Grace and peace from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Anne, servant of the Lord

Shining light in the darkness

Morning light

I will bow down towards your holy temple and will praise your name for your love and faithfulness. Psalm 138:2
Often I am lost for words when I am out walking. There is just me, and those I take with me in prayer, and God. If its a morning walk or a quiet time sitting in the garden I see the last of the night stars fading into the day . The rising sun is still in its process of creating light for the new day bringing dappled colours  through the trees and all is quiet. It warms my heart, stills me, takes my breath away. It takes my words, leaving me in awe and I want to take my shoes off and slowly,  and beautifully a song rises up in my heart. With the coming of a new day new opportunities are opening up. I have sung. I have prayed and I have been in the presence of the Lord. I am prepared to' be ' the gospel and God knows my heart is blessed and I call it my morning prayer. What is your experience of morning prayer?
Grace and peace from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Anne, servant of the Lord.

sometimes others join me.

Come away with me for a moment.

Glorious things of you are spoken. (TIS 446)
When I pause at the flowering gum tree  to look closer at the deep, deep red of its colour, a delicate flower of beauty on an otherwise grey tree, or see a  clump of violets growing through the crack in the pathway, or the blue wren dancing on the fence just waiting for me to pass on my daily walk, then I am mesmerized,  fixed to the spot. I don't want to hurry past that place. I just want to stay with the sense of 'meeting with God'. Its like looking into his face.Like making eye contact with him.
Helen Steiner Rice wrote: I come to meet with you God. I linger here, I seem to feel you very near,  a rustling leaf, a rolling slope.
May the glorious things of God stop you in your tracks today.
Anne, servant of the Lord

A delicate flower of deep beauty.

The light of Christ

An angel from heaven appeared and strengthened him. Luke 22:43
Sometimes  we sense a void, an empty space within, that is usually filled with the warmth and love of God yet he seems to have left us. I was reading about St Ignatius and his struggle with this just when he was about to give his life to Christ. He described  the experience of his 'spiritual feeling suddenly disappearing like the sun behind a cloud, and all was dark.' He could not find God and the dark within was leaping about like shadows. I think of others who  experiences  this darkness, for example at the death of someone close to them they can sense that things spiritual and the love of God is not with them and I quote psalm 23 - 'Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil, for you are with me.'  That word shadow is interesting because to have a shadow there must be a light and we know, we truly know that Christ is always with us even though at times it may seem there is nothing there but shadows. Ruth Renkie says: Never fear the shadows. They simply mean there's a light nearby.'
Grace and peace from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Anne, servant of the Lord.

and all was dark