I pinched Michael’s phone for the day so I could  try out Instagram – I love the effects it gives to images. I went off to a churchyard close-by, a place I really love, and these are a few of the photos from the afternoon. Sculptures of Mary Magdalene, and of headstones and brick. I hope you enjoy them, B ox 

I really love these acoustic ‘chapel’ versions of songs from church.

This is the very beautiful, Hosanna.

Heal my heart and make it clean
Open up my eyes to the things unseen
Show me how to love, like You have loved me.
Break my heart for what breaks Yours
Everything I am for Your kingdom’s cause
As I walk from earth, into eternity.

I wanted to post a song, one of my favourite songs, about God’s love for us. For me, the words convey so much of this love – ‘like a hurricane.’ A love that is jealous for us. A love that ecilpses our afflictions and our regrets. A love that is full of grace. ‘If grace is an ocean, then we’re all sinking!’ So beautiful, and so true.

We are His portion, and He is our prize.

May this song minister to each one of us, and may we encounter Him, and this love like a hurricane more and more in the year ahead.

He is jealous for me
Love’s like a hurricane, I am a tree
Bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy
When all of a sudden, I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory
and I realize just how beautiful You are and how great your affections are for me.
Oh, how He loves us so
Oh, how He loves us
How He loves us so.

Yeah, He loves us
Oh, how He loves us
Oh, how He loves us
Oh, how He loves.

So we are His portion and He is our prize,
Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes
If grace is an ocean we’re all sinking
So heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss and my heart turns violently inside of my chest
I don’t have time to maintain these regrets when I think about the way

That He loves us,
Oh, how He loves us
Oh, how He loves us
Oh, how He loves …

I had not expected to talk about it.

I had been facing a problem for weeks, and no matter how hard I prayed, there was no change.

It was beginning to wear me down, physically as well as spiritually.

A few of us went out for coffee, and when one friend asked how me it was going, it all came out, how much of a trial this problem had become. 

I had not expected to talk about it – but God knew better!

Right there in the cafe, we opened the Bible and my friends were able to minister verse after verse which was like a blind had been pulled back, and the light came flooding in. They shared stories of how they too had experienced something similar, and the ways that God had come through in the incredible ways that only God can, and it was as if my faith had life breathed into it again. And we were able to sit around that table, lay hands on, and pray – asking God together to move in the situation by His Spirit.

I can say that after weeks of this problem nagging at me, wearing me down,  things changed that very night. God’s peace entered in, and a fulfilment of His promise once again – ‘the LORD you God is with you, He is mighty to save’ Zeph.3:17 (emphasis mine).

It got me thinking about our life with God, and how we were never intended to walk this out alone. How He has adopted us into a family. How each of us can play a part in the nurture and support of others’ faith as God leads, within the Body of Christ. Bearing each other’s burdens (Gal.6:2), praying for each other (James 5:16), rejoicing with one another (Rom.12:15) and encouraging one another (1 Thess.5:11). The way that, in the relationships God has entrusted us with, we can stand alongside each other, like pillars, reinforcing each other’s faith.

It got me thinking of Moses on top of the hill, looking down from there as Joshua led the battle against the Amalekites. Moses stood on that hill in Rephidim with the staff of God in his hands, and Exodus 17:11 describes,   “So it came about when Moses held his hand up, that Israel prevailed, and when he let his hand down, Amalek prevailed.” The problem is, he became weary. His arms became heavy, and he could no longer hold the staff of God high, seeing the victory. It was then that his friends came and stood alongside of him. They gave him a stone to sit down on, and then stood at either side:

Aaron and Hur held his hands up—one on one side, one on the other—so that his hands remained steady till sunset.

So Joshua overcame the Amalekite army with the sword Ex.17:12.

I love this picture of these men side by side, as they seek God for victory in this battle. A picture of support and assistance when one is weary. A picture of the vital role we play in supporting each other in our faith, and upholding each other in the times we need it most.

For the first time in a long time we didn’t really have a plan for Christmas, and it ended up being one of the best I can remember. We kept things simple really. I even had time to sit down with a book before making the big dinner, which was a first I think! Definitely an hour I enjoyed!

I was just thinking of something that stood out to write about here, and church at Midnight was one.

The peacefulness was the thing I loved most. The darkened church, lit only by clusters of candles and lanterns, and a Christmas tree from floor to ceiling decked with white lights. It was beautiful. Such an atmosphere.

It allowed time to think, about the day we were welcoming in, the moment we were about to celebrate. Christ’s incarnation.

There is so much that this means, God becoming Man and dwelling amongst us. So much God can reveal to us about what this means.

The thing that God has ministered to me most this Christmas is simply to take comfort in knowing this. That God did not leave us, but sent His only Son. God Himself with us. Always. And in that, I can find hope and rest.

Behold, the LORD’S hand is not so short that it cannot save Is.59:1.

I was in a situation recently where I had been struggling to follow through on something I knew God wanted me to break from. I finally did what God was leading me to do and almost immediately afterwards, it seemed like that saying, all hell broke loose.

As the day progressed I sunk deeper into a kind of despair, my faith wavered, my feelings raged, and I thought I was going to fall back.

That evening, I watched TV to try and distract myself, but that didn’t work, so I went off and just tried to sit in God’s presence for a while. I didn’t really feel Him. I began to sing songs to Him, and speak out passages from the psalms, but even as I was trying to bring my heart into alignment with His will, thoughts I shouldn’t have had plagued me – right in the middle of worship (how does that happen!!) – and I was so tempted to just give up. What’s the point God? Sin crouches at the door Gen.4:7, and even as I pray to You, it claws at me.

I thought of the spiritual battle that Paul spoke about (Eph.6:10-18) and then that I needed friends to pray for me, but it was late by then. Truth be told, I actually felt quite alone but was not really sure what to do then and there, so I asked God Himself for His preservation that night. He Himself is my rock and my fortress Ps.31:3, my strength Ps.31:4, my help and my shield Ps.33:20. I prayed this, blew out my candle, and went to bed.

The very next morning, I experienced God’s supernatural providence.

I switched on my phone and a text bleeped that had been received in the middle of the night.

It was from a friend of mine, a Godly and prophetically gifted woman. We had not spoken for months, but this is how the text began:

B, I am sorry I’m texting so late, just to share with you that 5 of us were praying for you tonight …

I phoned her immediately and she gave me the background. She said that God had laid me on her heart that whole week. She finally said to God, ‘Lord, what would you like me to do?’ and He said, ‘Pray for her. And these are the others I want to pray for her too.’

So this dear woman had rallied these people that God had directed, and at a time of my real spiritual need, where it was too much for me alone, God knew, and He Himself stepped in and supernaturally provided. He raised up intercessors by His Spirit so that I was not alone.

How awesome is our God! He is real and present and mighty to save Is.63:1.

No weapon that is formed against you shall prosper Is.54:17 …

… I will never leave you, nor forsake you Heb.13:5.

On Thursday and Friday last week I took part in our church’s annual women’s conference, called Colour Your World.

It’s held at the Royal Albert Hall in London, this beautifully ornate building, such a perfect setting for His princesses to gather and dedicate our hearts to Him again.

I am in awe of the vision and talent and prayerfulness and hard work that goes into these conferences and could spend ages singing its praises, but the one thing I have taken with me more than anything is the way that God’s Spirit was felt, really powerfully present and at work.

I’ve already mentioned here that I’m in an ongoing place with God which I don’t find easy. He’s doing a work in me deep down and I’ve found it messy and painful and hard, and it’s made me want to walk away more than once and choose something ‘easier.’ But He will never allow me to be snatched from His hand (Jn.10:28), and He stirred something in me again at Colour.

It was through something I wouldn’t have expected – not the brilliant teaching, or beautiful worship but through one image that was part of a multimedia presentation – the image of a dove, God’s Spirit.

As we looked to the screen, this beautiful creature extended its wings, hovered, and moved towards us with grace and strength and power, the only sound was its wings swooshing with every movement.

It was really powerful, a symbol of God’s Spirit manifest, and He used it to really provoke something in me.

That He is real. God Himself present, here, with us.

That He is active and at work. That as Jesus was about the business of His Father (Luke 2:49), so is His Spirit. His Kingdom come, His will be done, on earth as it is in heaven (Matt.6:10). It was the sense of choice, will I get onboard and follow where the Spirit leads, or will I shrink back in fear, in disillusion, in complacency, in rebellion?

That I belong to Him. I carry Him inside of me, and as His daughter, I have been set apart to Him (1 Cor.6:11), the Bible says. That is special. We are not of this world (Jn.17:14) We are of Him, and we carry Him into the world, ambassadors of His love and grace, bearers of His light in the dark places, seekers of the lost and hurting with His great compassion and redemptive power.

It was a powerful image for me, His Spirit as the dove, and it has really helped to renew my vision.

P.S. Here is another little ad/presentation thing about this year’s Colour which I think is really lovely -  http://www4.hillsong.com/colour/

There was a time when I believed that He existed, but He was in heaven and on the fringes of my life. He was like a Sunday morning fairytale. I would immerse myself in the story of Him for a couple of hours, and then I would turn from the altar, walk out through the doors, and away from any thought of Him.

It all changed at a certain point.

I cried out to Him at a time when things were very bad for me. I cried out to Him as if He could actually hear me. As if He were the only One Who could possibly pull me out from the pit that I was in.

All I can say is that He went from being a warm thought in a faraway place, to my very real Saviour.

I have been struggling with things in my relationship with God.

Not struggling to believe in how real He is and how present He is. Not struggling to believe in His mercy and grace and goodness that breaks me whenever I come into His presence. But struggling to believe that I can walk this road with Him in the face of some very hard things for me, and endure.

Do you know the story in the Bible of the disciples on the boat with Jesus where that vicious storm flares up? Imagine being in that small boat with the waves lashing and the winds howling and the skies thundering. He is near, but the tempest is so ferocious and you are being thrown so much, that in all reality you do not think you will make it.

Faithless words, maybe. But sometimes there is such a gap between the reality of our lives and our hope in God that it is hard to hold on.

So what does this have to do with Easter?

I came across this one verse in Isaiah this past week that said, “so His visage was marred more than man” 52:14. Isaiah said this hundreds of years before Jesus was even born, and yet he tells us here how His life would end. With such profound physical suffering that it would utterly disfigure Him, and in a way that would be unparalleled.

Yesterday I sat at church in a darkened theatre with thousands of others as we watched on a screen the size of a movie, a blow by blow account of what Jesus endured. The crucifixion was only the very end of the torture.

The anguish, weakening and physical shock of sweating blood at Gethsemane. The lashings with leather strips loaded with fragments of bone and lead that tore the flesh from His back and His body that many did not survive. Thorns as long as six inches being thrust into His head, such a vascular part of the body. And this is before the nails, the crucifixion itself, and the piercing of His body with a sword.

By grace, He opened my eyes to the reality of His suffering and death in a really deep way. It was as if He reached inside me and took of my heart with the reality that Jesus did this so that I (we) might have intimacy with God.

That I might really know Him.

That I might really experience Him. This life from Him that wells up inside me like a river of living water.

Taste, the Bible says. “Taste and see that the Lord is good” Ps.34:8.

Jesus loved us so much, that He endured such suffering that we might know intimacy with His Father.

Coming face to face with that realisation this Easter changed something in me. I’m not saying that the stuff that I have found so hard is all of a sudden easy. It’s not.

But I saw what it meant for Him. I saw His passion to make it possible for us to know God. And all over again I wanted to embrace that, to respond to that, and to love Him more than anything else.

In our world, be lifted high

In our love, be lifted high *

Jesus

This is the chorus of a worship song from church called ‘Came to My Rescue.’ I’ve been playing it over and over on my IPod in the past few days just because I think it’s such a beautiful cry of the heart. In my life, be lifted high Lord.

What an amazing thing to be called the sons and daughters of God 2 Cor.6:18.

Of God.

To belong to God.

“Do you not know,” Paul says to us “you are not your own? For you were bought at a price” 1 Cor.6:19-20.

That “it is no longer I who lives, but Christ lives in me” Gal.2:20.

That our vision, our work, our end now that we are His, is that Jesus be lifted high in us.

When John the Baptist spoke about Jesus, he said this amazing thing, that “He must increase, but I must decrease” John 3:30.

Lord, to have that heart that wants Your increase, that seeks after only one thing, to make You known, and Your power and Your glory. 

In my life, Lord, be lifted high.

*Ref: ‘Came to My Rescue’ by Hillsong United on United We Stand. 

I love this time of year.

When the light stays around in the evenings longer, the sky is blue more often than it’s grey, and the yellow daffodils come. Daffodils are gorgeous aren’t they? Nothing says spring to me more I don’t think, happy and sunny as they are.

Today is particularly gorgeous. I woke really early and went for a walk with Michael along the River. It was before dawn, and the water was shadowy and lovely, and everything was so still. It’s where I took the photo of the daffodils above, a couple of years ago. If you’d like to see more of some of the beautiful scenes of spring I came across, there’s a slideshow of photos you can view by clicking here.

I learnt something else about spring yesterday. It was a really good devotional point for the season ahead I thought. It was something I read in an article by our vicar that I picked up at church, and it started off with the point that in biblical times, spring was the time the kings went off to war (2 Sam. 11:1). The rains had cleared, and crops were starting to grow so that soldiers and horses had food and it was possibly easier passage on the roads. Then the article went on to talk about King David.

At this time, “when kings go to battle” (11:1), David stayed behind. He sent his men out, but he decided to stay on in Jerusalem (11:1). Many of you will probably know this story well, but this decision on David’s part ended up being really significant. On one of the days during this time, David got up from resting, and went for a walk on his roof. It was here that he first saw Bathsheba. The palace roof gave view of her bathing, “and the woman was very beautiful to behold,” the Bible says (11:2).

David fell into temptation.

The point our vicar made to us in his article was about standing firm in whatever it is God has for us in this season ahead, this spring season. To resist the temptation to “stay behind” as David did in this passage, but instead to persevere, and remain faithful to what God has called us to do.