You can try to squash us, but you will never succeed, because even the gates of Hell will not prevail against us.
You can hurt us, embarrass us, and bring out the worst in us, but you can never take our lives, because they are hid with Christ in God.
You can try to discredit us with academics or human reasoning, but we’ll believe the God who created the brain.
You can accuse us of hypocrisy or the most grievous of sins, but you cannot shame us into hell, because we were never trusting in our own righteousness to keep us out of it.
You can hang around us, and sing with us, be loved by us, and pray with us, but only accepting Jesus as the sacrifice for your sins and the Lord of your life, makes you one of us.
Everybody’s got a blank page
A story they’re writing today
A wall that they’re climbing
You can’t carry the past on their shoulders
But you can start over
Regrets, no matter what you goin’ through
Jesus, He gave it all to save you
He carried the cross on His shoulders
So you can start over
Don’t let your heart be troubled
Don’t be afraid
To the broken hearted that wished that they’d
Never been born, never been torn, never sinned, never disobeyed
I know you think there’s no hope, but that ain’t true
I know you feelin’ regret
(Like I) brought this all on myself
(Like I) messed it up big time, and this time I don’t deserve God’s help
(Thinking) how can God forgive me after knowin’ what I did (can He?)
After knowin’ that I hid from Him, and I stayed away and backslid
Jesus came for the sick (so true)
Jesus came for the weak (amen)
Jesus came to give good news and have set the captives free (amen)
Jesus came for the poor (amen)
Jesus came with the keys
Jesus came to remove the chains so the prisoners are released
Everybody’s got a blank page
A story they’re writing today
A wall that they’re climbing
You can’t carry the past on their shoulders
But you can start over
Regrets, no matter what you goin’ through
Jesus, He gave it all to save you
He carried the cross on His shoulders
So you can start over
See, His love is deeper than the ocean floor
Run to His arms like an open door
God the Father sent the Son
So men can come and be free and ain’t gotta run no more
Come to me, all who are weary; with heavy burdens, I’ll give you rest
Separated you from the sin, as far as the east is from the west
Thrown in the sea of forgetfulness
What sin? What offense?
And when them waves come crashing in, I’ll calm the winds in your defense
So, whatever it is that you’ve done
He put that punishment on His Son
You’ll never come under His condemnation… Satan and his accusations
So, dry your eyes, lift up your head
Hallelujah! God is not dead!
Plus He gave us His peace, and He took our guilt on the cross instead
Took our place and now we embrace
A clean slate with the eyes of faith
We know unfailing love, unfailing love, it’s not too late, start over
Everybody’s got a blank page
A story they’re writing today
A wall that they’re climbing
You can’t carry the past on their shoulders
But you can start over
Regrets, no matter what you goin’ through
Jesus, He gave it all to save you
He carried the cross on His shoulders
So you can start over
There are wounds of the spirit which never close and are intended in God’s mercy to bring us nearer to Him, and to prevent us leaving Him by their very perpetuity. Such wounds then may almost be taken as a pledge, or at least as a ground for a humble trust, that God will give us the great gift of perseverance to the end. This is how I comfort myself in my own great bereavements.
You are called to become a perfect creation. No-one is called to become who you are called to be. It does not matter how short or tall or thick set or slow you may be. It does not matter whether you sparkle with life or are silent as a still pool, Whether you sing your song aloud or weep alone in the darkness. It does not matter whether you feel loved and admired or unloved and alone. For you are called to become a perfect creation. This becoming may be gentle or harsh, subtle or violent. But it never ceases, never pauses or hesitates, only is – Creative force – calling you. Calling you to become a perfect creation
Edwina Gateley Psalms of a Laywoman.
My Thoughts💭
One of our ministers (Nik) just emailed me this amazing poem which was read out whilst on her retreat. Thought it would speak to some of you too! 🙂
Nothing transcends the power of God. Whether our difficulty is from Satan, others, self-inflicted, or experienced in the process of our obedience, it is God’s prerogative to rearrange, reconstruct, reinterpret, and realign the situation to bring glory and praise to His name.
Let us pray for the Church and for the world, and let us thank God for his goodness:
Almighty God, our heavenly Father, you promised through your Son Jesus Christ to hear us when we pray with faith.
We pray for your Church today, gathering all around the world in tiny churches and great cathedrals, to praise you, to hear your holy word, and to meet with you in bread and wine. Give us a sense of expectation as we come and inspiration as we go. Help us to put our differences behind us and to behind the great commission of Jesus to make disciples of all nations.
We pray for a world which struggles to live justly and in peace. We pray for those who have to search for daily food or walk long distances for clean water. We remember with sadness those whose live are cut short by preventable diseases and malnutrition, and those who have fled their homes for fear of violence. May Your kingdom come and Your will be done as it is in the heavenly places.
We thank you God for your forgiveness and for revealing that you are Love. Thank you for those people who sustain us by sharing this love to us. Thank you for the network of people with whom our lives are inextricably linked and who make up the fabric of our family and community life. Make us alert to each other’s needs and quick to serve and encourage one another. May our gentleness with each other reflect your gentleness with us.
We pray for those who are laid low by suffering and those who are experiencing the outrageous assault of pain. We trust your love for us and for all people, and your deep desire for our well-being. As we name in our hearts those who are in the grip of suffering, help us so to pray and to act that they may know your comfort and healing, both now and in the coming days.
We thank you for those people who have tonight given us examples and models by which we try to live. We thank you for those who have lived and died in quiet holiness and whose prayers have helped to sustain the world. Help us to live in the light be which they lived, and to worship the source of that light, Jesus Christ our risen Lord.
Rejoicing in the fellowship of all people, we commend ourselves to your unfailing love. Merciful Father, accept these prayers through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
My Thoughts💭
Tonight at our café style evening service we were lead through this lovely prayer above. Thought you might want to join in with us. 🙂
Today would’ve been my Mums 64th birthday. Some of you who have read My Testimony or my About page may remember that she died in the same month i was registered blind 13 years ago. My family & i miss her lots, so i’ve added some of their facebook comments below,
Paul (my brother) Today would have been my mums 64th birthday. Not a single day goes by that I do t miss and think about her but it’s special days like today that still hurt the most. If you see a loved one today tell them you love them cos you never know what the future holds and missing that chance to say how you feel stays with you forever. Happy Birthday Mam xxxx
Saira (my niece) RIP nana, happy 64th birthday!! She will be so proud of my mum Ambber Williamson and also laughing at her she’ll me so proud of my uncles Paul Stevensonand Steve Rebus and my auntie Charlotte Karyn Tidmarsh we all love you nana!!♥
Amy (my niece) Got my dates confuse yesterday lol…. But would like to wish my nanna a happy birthday… Wish she was here to celebrate but truly know that she is always around… i was told she was one of my guardian angels & know that she was right as a year ago today i found out i was carrying our littlest baby… Lori Valerie-Ann,…. Love you lots Nanna.
It’s easy to say “I love God,” but genuine love reflects God’s love. If we belong to God, then we will love each other regardless of how hard love is.
Everyone who trusts Jesus as the long-awaited Anointed One is a child of God, and everyone who loves the Father cannot help but love the child fathered by Him. Then how do we know if we truly love God’s children? We love them if we love God and keep His commands. You see, to love God means that we keep His commands, and His commands don’t weigh us down. Everything that has been fathered by God overcomes the corrupt world. This is the victory that has conquered the world: our faith.
Who is the person conquering the world? It is the one who truly trusts that Jesus is the Son of God, that Jesus the Anointed is the One who came by water and blood—not by the water only, but by the water and the blood.
Just as we do not get to choose our biological brothers and sisters, we do not get to choose our spiritual brothers and sisters either. But what comes along with loving the Father is loving all His other children—even the really annoying ones! While it might seem to be easier to go off and live in isolation rather than put up with those we are not naturally attracted to, there are responsibilities that come with living in a spiritual family. We reflect our worship of God by living in respect with our Christian brothers and sisters. How we treat the people around us on a daily basis is the real test of our love for God.
It’s just gone 2am here in the UK and i’ve just saved Sarah from another nasty hypo (yay, i didn’t need to call the ambulance out!). This song was playing on the radio and helping me stay awake. I’ve never heard this song before so i thought i would share it with you now all is well! 🙂
My brothers and sisters, I know you’ve heard this before, but stop playing favourites! Do not try to blend the genuine faith of our glorious Lord Jesus, the Anointed One, with your silly pretentiousness. If an affluent gentleman enters your gathering wearing the finest clothes and priceless jewelry, don’t trip over each other trying to welcome him. And if a penniless bum crawls in with his shabby clothes and a stench fills the room, don’t look away or pretend you didn’t notice—offer him a seat up front, next to you. If you tell the wealthy man, “Come sit by me; there’s plenty of room,” but tell the vagrant, “Oh, these seats are saved. Go over there,” then you’ll be judging God’s children out of evil motives.
My dear brothers and sisters, listen: God has picked the poor of this world to become unfathomably rich in faith and ultimately to inherit the Kingdom, which He has pledged to those who love Him. By favoring the rich, you have mocked the poor. And, correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t it the rich who step on you while climbing the ladder of success? And isn’t it the rich who take advantage of you and drag you into court? Aren’t they the ones mocking the noble name of our God, the One calling us?
We are often mesmerized by the rich, powerful, and beautiful people of the world. We dream of associating with them; but when we focus our attention on the fashionable people of this world, it is often at the expense of those who need it the most.
Ignoring the needy and favouring the wealthy is completely contrary to the example Jesus modeled for us while walking on earth. God often chooses those who are the poorest materially to be the richest spiritually. We should welcome everyone equally into God’s kingdom, even if it means upsetting boundaries like class and race. The rule is simple: we should treat others in the same way we want to be treated. God does not play favorites, and neither should we.
Very often what God first helps us towards is not the virtue itself but just this power of always trying again. For however important chastity (or courage, or truthfulness, or any other virtue) may be, this process trains us in habits of the soul which are more important still.
I’ve spent most of this week changing my email subscription status on the many blogs i follow. I didn’t know that after all this time, i wasn’t getting any posts through!! I thought that you didn’t post much. lol.
As i don’t use the ‘Reader’ to follow blogs (its just too clunky with how i use zoom and speech on my mac, so i read your post via Email) i wasn’t keeping up with you guys at all! So sorry if you thought i was being ignorant, but as from this week, I’m back and you should see me around your blog soon! 🙂
Explore me, O God, and know the real me. Dig deeply and discover who I am. Put me to the test and watch how I handle the strain. Examine me to see if there is an evil bone in me, and guide me down Your path forever.
Be guided, only by the healer of the sick, the raiser of the dead, the friend of all who were afflicted and forlorn, the patient Master who shed tears of compassion for our infirmities. We cannot but be right when we put all the rest away, and do everything in remembrance of Him…There can be no confusion in following Him, and seeking for no other footsteps, I am certain!
Drawing from Exodus 32–34, Paul uses Moses as a model of one who has been transformed by God’s glory, but in a limited way. Moses encountered God (the Lord) through the Spirit on that mountain, but the Spirit now—as a fulfillment of the new covenant—dwells in the hearts of believers and continually transforms them. This transformation is based on a new way of understanding God’s revelation: Jesus Himself, the One who reveals God’s glory, is the very image of God. Through this Spirit-enabled encounter, believers experience a new way of living and therefore come to resemble the Anointed One as they reflect His glory.
Since we are joined together in this ministry as a result of the mercy shown to all of us by God, we do not become discouraged. Instead, we have renounced all the things that hide in shame; we refuse to live deceptively or use trickery; we do not pollute God’s Word with any other agenda. Instead, we aim to tell the truth plainly, appealing to the conscience of every person under God’s watchful eye. Now if our gospel remains veiled, it is only veiled from those who are lost and dying, because the evil god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers. As a result the light of the good news, the radiant glory of the Anointed—who is the very image of God—cannot shine down on them. We do not preach about ourselves. The subject of all our sermons is Jesus, the Anointed One. He is Lord and Master of all. For Jesus’ sake we are here to serve you. The God who spoke light into existence, saying, “Let light shine from the darkness,”[a] is the very One who sets our hearts ablaze to shed light on the knowledge of God’s glory revealed in the face of Jesus, the Anointed One.
But this beautiful treasure is contained in us—cracked pots made of earth and clay—so that the transcendent character of this power will be clearly seen as coming from God and not from us. We are cracked and chipped from our afflictions on all sides, but we are not crushed by them. We are bewildered at times, but we do not give in to despair. We are persecuted, but we have not been abandoned. We have been knocked down, but we are not destroyed. We always carry around in our bodies the reality of the brutal death and suffering of Jesus. As a result, His resurrection life rises and reveals its wondrous power in our bodies as well. For while we live, we are constantly handed over to death on account of Jesus so that His life may be revealed even in our mortal bodies of flesh. So death is constantly at work in us, but life is working in you.
Jesus’ death is the means to new life for others. Similarly when believers suffer for others as Jesus did, their suffering is an avenue for God’s life to transform situations.
Benjamin West tells how he actually became a successful and important painter. When he was young, his mother went out and left him in charge of his sister Sally. In the meantime, little Benjamin discovered bottles of colored ink and began to do Sally’s portrait. What a mess soon developed. Finally, when Ben’s mother came home and saw the tragic mess, she said nothing. She merely picked up the paper with the portrait and said, “Why it’s Sally!” and she kissed Ben. Ever since that day, West has said, “My mother’s kiss made me a painter.”
When we understand that He is Lord of our time, we realize that interruptions are of His planning. They become opportunities to serve rather than plagues to keep us from functioning.
“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away–and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me. (John 10:11-14 NRSV)
“I am the good shepherd.”
It’s an interesting concept and one which is ripe for misunderstanding when viewed through modern Western eyes.
In many places today sheep are herded by being driven from behind, often with the help of sheep dogs and farm vehicles. It’s a benign practice but it conjures up completely the wrong image of Jesus as the good shepherd.
Instead, picture the shepherd as the one who spends…
After being back in my home town of Derby this weekend, i didn’t want to leave without having an ‘Elephants Foot’ from Birds. Other bakers around the country do similar styles of cakes, but never taste anything like one of these beauty’s, they simply can’t be beaten! My sister got me a box of 4 to take back home and Sarah & i can’t thank her enough! 😀
If you visit Derby or Derbyshire then i recommend that you try one! Please let me know what you think! 🙂
Come to Me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Put My yoke upon your shoulders—it might appear heavy at first, but it is perfectly fitted to your curves. Learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble of heart. When you are yoked to Me, your weary souls will find rest.
It would seem, after having been a Christian for almost 80 years, that I would no longer do ugly things that need forgiving. Yet I am constantly doing things to others that cause me to have to go back and ask their forgiveness. Sometimes these are things I actually do- other times they are simply attitudes I let creep in which break the circle of God’s perfect love.
Yesterday, a small group of women from my church started the bible study, “Unglued” by Lysa TerKeurst. For those of you who either know me really well or even just through this blog, you are aware of my ability to sometimes spew my emotions onto my family. My hopes are that through this study, I will learn to stop letting my feelings get the best of me in life’s tricky situations and use God’s word to combat my raw emotions before I allow them to sabotage my most valuable relationships.
Before we’d even left the church yesterday, I knew there was something from the guide that I would be sharing with you all today! Lysa gave us a list of “animals,” asking which described us best when faced with an unglued kind of situation:
Wounded bear: I am hurt & unpredictable, so watch out!
Sarah & i were away visiting our families for the last 5 days. We stayed 2 nights in Doncaster to visit Sarah’s family. Then we stayed 2 nights in Derby to visit my family. It was lovely to see our families again as its been nearly 2 years since i last saw them.
We hardly took any photos, but still have a few for our memories. 🙂
⇧ Sarah & her lovely Gran ⇧
⇧ From Left ~ Me, my brother Paul & sister Ambber ⇧
⇧ From Left ~ Me, brother Paul, sister Ambber & Sarah ⇧
How great is the contrast between that forgiveness to which we lay claim from God towards us, and our temper towards others! God, we expect, will forgive us great offences, offences many times repeated; and will forgive them freely, liberally, and from the heart. But we are offended at our neighbor, perhaps, for the merest trifles, and for an injury only once offered; and we are but half reconciled when we deem to forgive. Even an uncertain humor, an ambiguous word, or a suspected look, will inflame our anger; and hardly any persuasion will induce us for a long time to relent.
“Photographers, artists, poets: show us COMMUNITY!“
My Thoughts💭
As soon as I read today’s daily prompt, I thought of this years easter “Walk of witness“. The walk happened in our little town and being part of the large community felt really special.
November 7, 2013 
iChristian 
Thinking Of You Mum
My Thoughts 💭
Today would’ve been my Mums 64th birthday. Some of you who have read My Testimony or my About page may remember that she died in the same month i was registered blind 13 years ago. My family & i miss her lots, so i’ve added some of their facebook comments below,
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