Feel the Father's Embrace

A blustery wind ruffles my lengthening hair as I patrol the garden, checking the condition of spinach and rhubarb, peas and beans, apple trees and blueberry bushes. I particularly note the flowers opening on the strawberry plants.

It is still cold in this corner of Scotland. Colder than May should be. Dry and sunny many days, overcast and dry other days, but cold. One thinks that plants flower because they are teased into activity by a warm sun, a balmy breath of wind.

But no. The strawberries are in bloom despite the chill. It’s part of their DNA. Hopefully as the blossom transforms into strawberries, a warm sun will bring a sweetness to the fruit which is borne.

Paul wrote to the people in a town in Asia Minor (Turkey), a town called Colossae, and told them that he was praying for their endurance and perseverance, patience and joy, during tough times, so that they might bear fruit.

During these chill days of lockdown and pandemic fear, may I endure and persevere patiently and with joy, allowing the flowers of kindness, peace, love, joy, patience, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control to form and be expressed through my words and my actions. In due season, may these flowers become fruit to nourish those who have yet to give their lives to Jesus. May eyes be opened as the fruit of the Spirit is seen and tasted.

May we be more eager than ever to share the reason for our hope during these days when many are sinking into despair. It is in our DNA as Christians. God is good. In the world there is plenty of trouble, but we can take heart because Jesus has overcome the world. And he has gifted us with the indwelling Holy Spirit, and it is this wonderful Spirit who grows the fruit in us as we abide in Jesus.

Feel the Father’s embrace today, and be thankful. xx

Cul de sacs of the Mind

Living in a cul de sac is a safety feature when raising children. No through traffic means fewer chances of terrible accidents.

Cul de sacs in the mind can feel safe. Familiar. It’s easy to hunker down in a pattern of thinking. God, however, offers to transform our minds.  To restore our thinking so that his light can blaze through and fill our minds, bodies and spirits with his heavenly light.

Today I ask God to break through the cul de sacs in my mind and fill me with his light and life, joy and peace. Freedom in Christ. Hallelujah!

Black holes into Gold Mines

Our persistent eight-legged interloper was back in the shower the other night. So I dropped the marge tub on top of him for Don to remove later. I’m becoming quite blasé about it all.

We both forgot about him until the next morning. I was concerned he would have died, deprived of oxygen, and thought a quick death by vacuum would have been more humane. Don turned over the tub to discover – he’d filled the tub with a web.

Trapped, he’d got busy making something which could trap other victims, or perhaps protect him.

Some victims make other victims. Sometimes they may do it as a means of self-protection, of masking their own vulnerability and woundedness.

Some victims make a healing balm for others.

Paul wrote that the bad things we suffer in life can strengthen and equip us to encourage and help others. It’s the taking God into the pain and trusting him with the healing that transforms a victim into a victor.

May I trust God enough to transform my black holes into goldmines of his light. For his glory.

Windmills of the Soul

After decrying the proposed erection of this one wind turbine a mile from here, I walked down the drive this morning, lifted my eyes to the hills across the valley and for the first time noticed a column of the things marching up the hill on the horizon!

I knew they were constructing a full blown (excuse the pun) wind farm over there, but I guess I hadn’t appreciated that these turbines would now be silhouetted forever against the skyline in that direction.

Well, I can’t hear them and we’re certainly out of the flicker zone for them, and I don’t think there are many houses over there. But it just shows how the landscape of our lives can change incrementally and we almost don’t notice it until it’s a fait accompli.

The parallel is obvious. The inner landscape of our lives can also change slowly, transforming our personalities and our values bit by bit. It’s only when we look back later, we realize we have changed almost beyond recognition.

This can be good. The Bible challenges us to transform our thinking because we have the mind of Christ, to transform our behaviour by the power of the Holy Spirit, to transform our goals from amassing treasure in this life to putting aside a bit of ‘treasure’ in the next. 

At a school reunion years ago, a former boyfriend with whom I’d gone out for a few years during high school, didn’t even recognize me. It was my appearance he didn’t recognize (he looked the same except a bit fatter and bald...) but I wonder, if we’d spent more time talking, if he’d have had trouble recognizing my personality and my goals. 

Today I plan to continue to work on transforming my inner landscape to one that conforms to the values of Jesus. I don’t want any man-made windmills creating havoc within me!

Rich

I couldn’t delay another day. I’ve been hoping Don would have time to help me make the change with the compost heap, but he’s away and the bin we’ve been filling is full to overflowing. So the rigid plastic framework, which comes in layers and is built up like a lego tower, needed to be carefully dismantled, without disturbing any of the rotting garbage thrown together into a smelly heap.

That bit is tricky enough. Worse than that, though, the other heap, which has been rotting away happily for six months or so, covered by a double layer of thick black polythene and inhabited by a community of slimy critters – slugs, snails and red worms I can’t even bear to look at - needed to be uncovered (by far the worst part of this, in case the polythene suddenly pings and throws some legless wonder onto my face). Eyes averted, my gloved hands lifted one heavy stone after the other from the outer edges of the plastic and then flung it back, like flinging open a bed to air. Snails and their pals who thought they’d found a neat place to sleep through winter were exposed to the elements. Hah! Gotcha!

A few barrow loads into the garden, where I lightly dug them in, hoping their richness might enhance whatever we decide to plant there next year, and then I made the switch, rebuilding the plastic layers ready to receive another half-year’s worth of kitchen and garden waste, and putting to bed the detritus humped like a hill. Hopefully bugs and worms and whatnot will now get to work and transform that hill into a small mound of rich manure for next spring.

Sometimes what we consider wasted moments, wasted energy, wasted time and trouble, or just plain bad experiences, are full of a richness we don’t appreciate. Sometimes as the ‘stuff’ that we all deal with goes into our minds, hearts, and lives, day by day, it gets broken down and turned into something which can enhance someone else’s life at some point in the future. 

The Bible challenges us to use painful times in our lives to help others who are experiencing similar pain. I’ve been helped by others who have done this, and I hope that on the odd occasion I’ve been able to help someone. 

Otherwise, these experiences are, literally, just a waste.

May you have only good experiences today, but if there are one or two horrible or apparently wasted moments, let the Lord transform them into rich fertiliser for someone else.