So so proud of our boys!

So happy for New Zealand!!

Well done ABs!!!

Valley Bucks, Whiteman’s Valley, Wellington, New Zealand

Photos by Birgit Whelan © 2011

Huka Falls, Waikato River, Taupo, New Zealand

Photo by Birgit Whelan © 2011

It feels odd to be writing about the spring here in London, with winter at the door.

It is spring in New Zealand though, with its perfect skies and cherry trees heavy with blossoms, and having just spent those weeks there, I was reminded again of the beauty of this season, and the sense of newness and possibility it seems to carry with it.

There is a passage in the Song of Songs, which I love, and so perfectly captures this transition into the season of spring. Into a season of refreshing, of flourishing, of all things becoming new.

Look around you: Winter is over; the winter rains are over, gone! Spring flowers are in blossom all over. The whole world’s a choir – and singing! …Cherry trees fragrant with blossoms. Oh, get up, dear friend, my fair and beautiful lover – come to me! 2:12-13 The  Message.

I love that the Lover invites his Beloved to see. He opens her eyes to the beauty, the flourishing, the new promise of the new season, and then he calls her to himself.

Come to me, he says.

And he echoes the Spirit of God.

Come to Me, God whispers to our hearts. Calling us, drawing us into His presence, into His love.

May we respond. May we soak in His presence. May He open our eyes to the new thing He is doing in our own lives, to the flourishing His Spirit is bringing to our lives, and to renewed hope in Him. 

I’m really excited to show a slideshow of photos from our time at home. There are pictures of meadows, the blue sky, waves and the sand; photos of home scenes and garden cafe scenes, and little things that caught my eye. You will see photos of yellow grass, the land scorched by the heat. There were signs of drought in the part of the country where we were staying. This was surprising as it’s only the beginning of the summer season there. The sun truly was magnificent, it really does bring happiness with it, I find. It reminds me of the verse in Ecclesiastes that says, “truly the light is sweet, and it is pleasant for the eyes to behold the sun” 11:7.

I hope you enjoy the photos, with every blessing to you. 

I am a bit late with my New Year’s wishes, because I’ve been in the sky flying back from New Zealand for most of 2009 so far, hee, hee.

I am not sure where to start with the time at home, it really was amazing. God’s blessing was on the days there in a hundred different ways. There was time with precious family. There was endless sunshine and the bluest of skies. The summer was really stunning. There was sea and sand, and beautiful meadows, grasses parched in the yellow sun. There were coffees in garden cafes surrounded by summer blossoms, and in a converted red barn cafe down by the sea. There was ice cream on stifling afternoons down at the strawberry patch. There was the  gift of our treasured nieces and nephews, their little faces full of excitement and sparkle on Christmas morning. There was one of the best New Years I can remember, simply spent at my parent’s, with Mum on the balcony in the warm breeze at midnight overlooking the sea and a stunning show of sparkling fireworks.

And so as we flew back I was filled with such thankfulness for this time, and really blessed to carry such wonderful memories home with me (other home :)). And photos :). I am hoping to put some photos up in the next little while. The photo here is of New Zealand flax, with its distinctive red flower stalks.

I am really excited about the year ahead. Personally, I feel a strong sense of God’s purpose for this year. As if new things will be birthed or will come to fruition. I could of course be way off with this, but I have this wonderful anticipation about what God is going to do. What about you? Is God leading you in a particular way in the year ahead? What are some of your hopes?

It’s so good to be back. I hope each of you is well and I so look forward to catching up here in the days and weeks ahead, God bless.

It threw me off a little. It was just that it was unexpected and it’s funny to see how ingrained our bodies’ ‘settings’ are. It’s quite surreal changing from winter and the northern hemisphere, to summer and the southern hemisphere, in just one day.

The flight was 27 hours with a two hour layover in LA. Because of the time we left England and then arrived in New Zealand, I ended up being awake for 47 hours straight – eek! It was such a strange feeling, almost out of body! So anyway, I was asleep by 6:30pm last night :).

So much has happened in the first day of being here. So much has changed. General things, mostly, but also within my family. You really notice change when you are not around day to day. So, I’m finding there’s a lot to take in.

I’m sitting in my parent’s sunroom right now with a view out to the ocean. The waves out to the horizon are silver. Set alight by the sun high above. It is glorious, a true blessing. And really restful.

We are about to head out for the day but I wanted to write about something really nice that happened this morning. I got up to a part in the novel I’m reading where the main character mentions the way her Mom used to read her a psalm each night before she went to sleep, and how this had made her feel safe. I thought this was beautiful, and how I would really like to do that in my family, reading out a psalm each day.

Then a little later, my family and I sat down for breakfast. I was chatting with Mum, and didn’t notice that my stepfather had started browsing through an old leather bound book. Mum looked over at him.

‘Why don’t you read us today’s psalm?’ she said.

My stepfather is a vicar, and the old book he was reading was about the church liturgy over the Christmas season, including a psalm for each day. And so as Mum asked, he read out today’s ~ Psalm 65. Here are a couple of verses (6-8).

You uphold the mountains with Your strength

You are girded with power.

You still the roaring of the seas,

the roaring of their waves

and the tumult of the peoples.

The ends of the earth stand in awe

at the sight of Your wonders.

The lands of sunrise and sunset

You fill with Your joy.

I smiled to myself at God’s goodness. Just a few hours before I had thought how lovely it would be to read out a psalm in this kind of way, and God in His love answered straight away. Isn’t it beautiful how He shows His love to us in a hundred different ways throughout our days? We as His children, are truly blessed.

This time of year meant summer there, and every day after school my mother would take my brothers and me to swim and to play in the sand and sun until it was time for dinner.

So I associate this time of year with those days and those memories. I associate Christmas with summer; with strawberries and swimsuits and picnics and pohutukawa (native evergreen, with beautiful red flowers in the summer).

It is such a blessing that this weekend we are flying home to spend Christmas in New Zealand, to experience Christmas as it was growing up. I will be there until next month, so that means weeks and weeks with family and friends and the sun! :)

I am not sure how easy it will be to update things here, but as often as I can, I will.

I hope all of your Christmas plans are going well. God bless.

I grew up in a house beside a church.

It was a beautiful church. It was small with stained glass and wooden pews. Ruby red carpet, linen clothes draped across the altar, thick white candles, and a golden cross above.

The church door was always open. My step-father was the vicar, and he would even open it for me especially if I asked.

And so I would go there often.

Sometimes it felt as if it were my own. The place where I felt peace.

I did not have my eyes open to God in fullness then, but there was something different about that place, and I recognised Him there. And it drew me back over and over.

And so, after school, I would cross from the porch of our home to the wooden steps of that little church and go in through the open door.

It was quiet there. Thick with something comforting.

I would sit on the carpeted step of the sanctuary and look high above at the stained glass Jesus in His scarlet robe.

I would stand in front of the golden cross, and reach out to it.

I would sit beside the altar and silently cry when I felt bad about one thing or another.

And I would stay there until the peace came.

***

At the moment, I am researching for a Christian novel that I am working at writing. Part of this involved visiting a church here in London today. I walked through a yard of crumbling headstones. Lives from a hundred years ago. Names unknowable now. The stone church was magnificent overhead, its steeple shadowing me far below. I walked along the path.

The door was open.

Stepping into that place, I recognised that atmosphere.

Thick with something comforting.

Thick with Him.

Twenty years later and many thousands of miles from home, but it felt the way it always did in that place today.

So I sat down at a wooden pew. And I stayed there until the peace came.

© Photo and writing copyright by Birgit Whelan 2008 – For Mum and John, with love.