THE POWER OF LOVE

Posted on by apeaceofmymind

                I loved my bump. I cuddled and cooed and lovingly massaged oils all over my body. My diet flipped out and I ate weird things for the duration – normally a grapefruit, soda water girl – I’d devour two greasy burgers and chips in one go quite easily, and regularly, then washed it all down with cans of coke! I waddled about happily, and was in love with my baby from the moment I knew I was pregnant.

                When the time came, my normal fear of pain made it easy for me to go along with my trusted gynaecologist’s advice of an epidural, which turned out to be an “arghhh – what were you thinking!?!”  kind of pain. But with all my hang-ups – it sure did the trick – and I had a baby.

The warm sun streamed into my room at the smart Parklane Clinic in Johannesburg, and kissed all the pretty flowers’ faces banked all around the walls. Their smiley faces soothed my mind as I tried to absorb the massive transformation that had taken place in my life. I was a mother – what an awesome privilege – and was I capable to even do this?

                Daddy had dashed home to change, but the memory of his big blue eyes bulging with tears at the event, was a precious memory.

“Let me take her for a while” the smiling nurse offered.

“Oh no, please, can’t I …”.

                “But you need to rest and let us attend to her” she insisted. “I’m guessing this is your first”? she said laughingly as I protested.

“But I don’t need to rest, leave her for a bit longer please” I begged, shifting away as she leaned over to take her. “Just a bit longer please …”.

And so, the tug of war continued – I hung on to her for dear life.

It continued for years I’m afraid. Just having someone to pour all my love into and receive unconditional love back, was simply the best thing. I loved and adored her, she came first in everything and all my devotion was to her – even to the exclusion of daddy at times – big mistake moms. It felt so good being needed at last, so my life revolved around her.

Loving that precious little person, was a wow – what an amazing treasure! What a responsibility! I was going to make sure she was loved and picked up and held and cuddled, just treated like the miracle she was.  I didn’t want anything else, just to love her to bits and keep her safe, and make sure others treated her with love and respect too. She was so helpless and defenceless. What a privilege to have this little baby. She deserved to be taken care of all the time, and she deserved my time to really listen with both ears as she grew, for her to know I’d heard, and all the time too, and to make sure I’d understood when she needed me, to drop whatever I was doing and fix whatever it was, to be there when she cried. No one was going to hurt my lil angel. 

But then – he didn’t want to be married anymore – before her second birthday. Suddenly I found myself a single mom, bewildered, and trying to be both parents. I messed up badly all over the place, and abysmally in a dad’s role. Perhaps afraid to discipline firmly, fearing she wouldn’t love me anymore or worse, alienate her if I said no. I wanted the lines open between us – always – and for her to know I’d always be there for her…  I’d never known that; someone who was always there. I wanted to shield her from that pain of feeling unloved, confusion, fear, abandonment, and ultimately rejection… naturally I couldn’t, it’s just not humanly possible to do it all.  

The only thing I knew how to do was to love her, and for her to know she was loved and valued just the way she was. Hoping to build her up on the inside so that when the nasty spiteful words spew out from the world, she would know in her heart that it wasn’t true, and she wouldn’t take it to heart and believe it. I just wanted her heart to be filled with love so that fear and self-doubt, which grips and imprisons the mind wouldn’t take over. It breeds all kinds of anxious lies and illnesses. I wanted to shield her from everything so she knew she was acceptable just the way she was. She was such a happy baby, always singing and smiling, everyone loved her.

Then one day I became a Christian, and started reading my bible, which was so intimidating for me I can tell you. Mocking, teasing images from childhood kept me silent and literally in the dark, I just believed I couldn’t do it.  Now, I had this beautiful, heavy, leather book to read, with its delicate, gilt-edged pages of thousands of words in tiny print… how on earth was I to cope with this challenge…on my own?

But grace and mercy had touched my torn heart… and it moved, things stirred deep in my soul and I wanted to know more. And with the wonderful people from my new church in Johannesburg, who all came alongside me to help, even the pastor. Such a blessing in a huge church. They’d pick me up for home-group and phone me to see how I was doing, brought meals round, gave my daughter lifts to school, offering help wherever they could. Their love for Jesus produced overflowing kindness toward me and showed me that God loved me, me? I feasted on their wonderful fruits and experienced a sense of family I’d long since forgotten… boarding school left a gaping hole – an abyss – between me and life itself… I belonged nowhere. Now this church was bridging that gap, I was one of them immediately, I belonged to the family of Christ. They were helping this baby Christian crawl.

My bible knowledge was zero, so when I read in Matthew 10:37 …He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me – I’m afraid I had a bit of a McEnroe reaction “You can – not be serious”!

I meditated on that to try and understand. Until I did, I just believed it like a child and tried to obey. Our love for loved ones multiplies when Jesus controls our hearts; when He is Lord of our lives. It doesn’t diminish like I feared, it overflows like a gushing waterfall, and is enough to share with others forever, bringing glory to God. Not surrendering to God’s love and honouring Him first, stunts our potential and blocks off love at the source.

Gratitude and forgiveness flow easily when love opens the door to it.

1 Corinthians 13:4 Love is patient and kind; it is not jealous or conceited or proud; love is not ill-mannered or selfish or irritable; love does not keep a record of wrongs; love is not happy with evil, but is happy with the truth. Love never gives up; and its faith, hope and patience never fail.

Proverbs 10:12 …love covers a multitude of sins. (True love seeks the highest good for another. John MacArthur Study Bible).

She took me to Corfu for my 70th birthday. I’ve always loved the sun, sea and sand and besides it was the place I had my honeymoon and often dreamt of returning there. The love of God never fails, what a blessing!

Reaping and Sowing

Posted on by apeaceofmymind

Walking behind a young couple, with a little kiddie walking in the middle, when suddenly, dad dashed into a driveway, near the entrance and began uprooting a plant. I wasn’t close enough to see much – but they walked off with a small plant.

Saddened and shocked, I pondered on this seemingly insignificant incident – to them.

But that’s just it. It isn’t insignificant at all.

Mum must surely have felt embarrassed, or perhaps she was used to that sort of thing. The child – well he/she just had a lesson in how to steal. Dad – well he thinks he’s got away with it because no one saw him.

Sad state of affairs, don’t you think?

One could say they’ve never been told its wrong to take what’s not yours, and in todays world its probably true.

But once again the bible, or ‘the good book’, or the Word of God, says ‘You shall not steal’ Exodus 20:15. And not knowing isn’t an excuse, as God gave everyone a conscience to warn us of wrong doing or going against Gods word. We instinctively know. Even a child will lie and say “no it wasn’t me” when caught. Or something similar. We’ve all done it.

So if the law of the land doesn’t catch you out, reaping and sowing does still happen. Or, what goes around comes around. They’ll get their comeuppance. When we steal from others, someone will steal from us. The theft is bad seed. Only negative results will come about, and it may not be in the way of theft even. We don’t know.

God sees everything.

What you do to others will be done to you.

So somewhere down the line someone will steal from you. Maybe not a plant either, but anything belonging to you or your family even. What a risk.

Ignorance of Gods word is allowing sin to to rule all our lives.

And to think – there are even churches (?) – who won’t mention sin in case it offends someone. They are in fact preventing people from knowing the truth and how they can be freed from sin and its power and its consequences. They’re supposed to be preaching the Word of God who loves people and doesn’t want any to perish. Makes you wonder who’s their god.

The blessed Lord Jesus died to save us from it all because he loves us, even though we were sinners – born in sin – he went to the cross to save us from the power of sin over us. God knew we would sin and gave us Jesus, to save us from it. Only One who is sinless could save us.

But for centuries people reject his offer of salvation because they choose to live the way they do. Their pride won’t allow them to admit they are wrong. So they deny him. But that’s no excuse.

Sadly they will still pay for it, according to the word of God.

By the way, I’ve made dozens – no hundreds – no thousands of mistakes, so I know how it feels.

As a single parent I lied to get a job. I was broken and desperate. I just wanted a job to start again. To try and pick myself up from the derision I’d suffered. I knew I’d lied. But years later when I looked back, I thought to myself what an idiot I was to give it up. Then my conscience kicked in, wham – nothing good can happen when you break the Ten Commandments. When we lie we sin. It was only natural that the job didn’t last. You can’t build on sand.

Everything has consequences.

But God is merciful and doesn’t want anyone to perish. When we genuinely seek him and his forgiveness, he will make a way for you to come to him. Just like the thief on the cross…

Luke 23: 41-43. And we indeed are suffering justly, for we are receiving what we deserve for our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong. And he was saying, “Jesus, remember me when You come in Your kingdom!” And He said to him, “Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise.”

What a gift!

I was a squashed cabbage leaf when I came to Jesus, and he made me brand new.

Psalm 34:18 The LORD is near to the brokenhearted, and saves those who are crushed in spirit.

That’s why I was saddened by what I witnessed that day with that young couple. I knew the risk. All I could do was pray for them.

Picture by Pixabay

BRAND NEW

Posted on by apeaceofmymind

All what we see in the world today …

Hatred, rudeness, unkindness, selfishness, arrogant pride, haughtiness, discrimination against any nation = racism, disrespect for one another, dishonouring of parents and elderly, lack of obedience to parents, ingratitude to the generosity and help offered by others, and especially by those in the emergency and medical services, refusing to be told or taught by parents and teachers and all in authority, spitting, mocking, vile language, rage, killings, raping, kidnapping, intimate relations with anyone outside of biblical marriage, bullying, cruelty to all animals, abusing animals for money, taking what’s not yours, not telling the truth, destroying property or someone else’s possessions…

Is all evidence of how sinful we are born – with evil hearts – no one taught us this way, it’s the natural progression of Adams disobedience to God. (Yes, Eve sinned too, but she was lovingly put under his protection, and chose to move out of it and fell – taking all mankind with, in the Fall). But we’re not all the same in our sinfulness, but nevertheless, sinful.

When we engage in any of those sinful behaviours, things inevitably go wrong.

Jesus came down into the world to teach us the correct way, the righteous way, but people still wanted their way to be right, they chose darkness.

But God – Jesus – loved the world so much, he took all the world’s sins in his own body, and died on the cross to save us, from eternal depravity, darkness and suffering in hell, so that believing in Him we can become brand new, born again, free from the power of sin.

Nations that have denied parents and schools, teaching about Jesus and disciplining their children to live godly clean lives, to bring honour to them and worship God, have rejected Gods love and protection and grace, and bring on themselves worldly disasters without his help.

Guess what? They blame God! It’s what they choose.

People who love God, love Jesus, love the bible – the Word of God, love their neighbour, and want to help others and be kind and loving. Its natural. It shows we belong to a higher realm, because we honour God who made us and we desire to obey.

Yes, we Christians, still make mistakes in our sinful earthly flesh, daily sometimes even, but we have a Father in heaven who loves us and by His grace he protects us and brings us back to him for repentance, so we can live in rest and peace now, even when things go wrong and we get sick, and even after we die here on earth. We’ll always be in rest and peace with Him for all eternity.

Rejoice in the birth of Christ! There’s no greater Gift!

Ps…for the first time in 7 decades, I have felt free to speak…

Never forget! Bullying and derision is a sin.

Photo by Jill Wellington on Pexels.com