Lent Blog 2021

Yesterday I went somewhere and did something  - and it wasnt to the shops to buy milk!  I went to the hospital with my friend Jenny to pray for Marius. Some of you already know but many of you reading this wont - Marius is a young man in his twenties who has been on a life support machine since Sunday.  His brain scans show there is no brain activity. He suffered a major trauma last weekend and the doctors are basically holding out no hope for his recovery.   However his family are believing for a miracle and have been storming the gates of heaven non-stop all week pleading with God to bring their son back.  Many of their friends have been doing the same - and many who don't know the family at all.  Thank you if you have been praying with us for Marius. Yesterday I went to the designated ' quiet room' in the reception of the Royal and spent a couple of hours not being very quiet at all. 😀  Jenny and I prayed loudly, sang, paced up and down, waved...

  Today I am thankful for kindness. A kind word is such a healing and life affirming thing.  Kindness is not flattery.  Its does not have an ulterior motive.  It is the truth spoken in love and it is wonderful.  Today someone said something really lovely to me.  It was unsought for and genuinely meant and it made me feel great.  And humbled. It costs nothing to be kind.  It can sometimes be hard to receive it though.   Two pieces of wisdom have been on my mind today.  One was given by Bill Nisbet ( Edinburgh City Fellowship) many moons ago. During some teach or preach or sermon or something he said if you bat back someone's compliment and deny the truth of it then you are, in effect, calling them a liar. That had a profound impact on me and changed the way I think and behave from that moment on.  I decided to just say ' thank you' when someone says something nice.  Not to deny it  ( ' what, this old thing?' ) but to allow ...

I was having a conversation with my 7 yr old pupil the other day about how big God is.  One of my favourite ever scriptures is this  Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, or with the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens? Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket, or weighed the mountains on the scales and the hills in a balance? Is 40 v 12. What this actually means is that God can hold all of the universes in the space between His thumb and his little finger - the span of His hand.  I LOVE that!  It just gives us the tiniest inkling into how big our God is.  He is MAHOOSIVE!  Yesterday a thought flickered through my brain - and the thought was this.  I think I know why God has to be so big.  It's so that He can hold all the thoughts He has in His head.  😁 Now bear with me here - this might be a time for a little poetic licence.  But you see this past week or so my head has suddenly been filled to beyond capac...

 Today I am delighted to welcome a guest blogger to these pages, Chris Townsend , who has been the most faithful follower of all the blogs over many years and has now bravely offered to submit his insights for our delectation and delight.   Enjoy. I remember playing snakes and ladders with my grandparents often as a kid. In the innocence of childhood it was fun. But when you grow up, you realise that life is a bit like this game. A lot of ups and downs, slippery snakes trying to cause you to slide, and climbing back up the ladders is really hard work, not to mention losing your footing always being a real and present danger.    I have to admit that I've seen the Christian life like this too. The pushing on to attain the goal, to somehow win and reach the finish line, no matter what the enemy or circumstance throws at you. Of course, Paul exhorts us to do this. But he also reminds us that we are blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ. That...

 Over 2.5 million people have died because of Covid 19 in the past year.  One would have to deduce that a good number of those people did not know Jesus.  One would have to conclude that the enemy is rubbing his hands with glee.   But now we have a vaccine.  The death toll is dropping daily. One would expect the enemy to be not too happy about this.  His killing spree is coming to an end.  He is going to have to find other ways to kill steal and destroy.  This week he has been doing a pretty good job with just about everyone I know. I've had messages about an addiction relapse, a severe mental health crisis, a suspected case of Lupus, a severe case of hypothermia, a stroke,  a broken hip and to top it all Kenny is back in hospital.  Good grief! You mention that you have a sword and the next thing you know....... We all know we are in a battle but I suppose most of the time most of us don't feel the heat of it too often ( thankfully)...

 I need your help today. last night I woke briefly three times. Each time I had this image in my mind.  I wasn't dreaming..... there was nothing going on, just the picture. I felt this might be a God prompt so I looked it up and discovered that towards the end of his life Monet bought a house specifically so that he could design and build a garden in it.  And he wanted a garden just so that he could paint it.   Over the next few years he painted the garden over 250 times - some of the paintings are huge and many are now hung in government and public buildings across France.  He had cataracts which affected his eyesight so that some of his late works look quite abstract as he couldnt really see what he was painting.    I've been thinking about this on and off all day and know there's a lesson in here somewhere Im just not quite sure what it is. I think the best I can reach for just now is that Monet went to a huge amount of effort and time and expe...

 I was walking behind a child on the way out of the supermarket yesterday.  She was probably about four or five and in the ten paces that it took for her to get to the exit she stopped three times. Once to point out a stray ticket that was on the floor, next to exclaim that the pizza in the poster was shaped like a heart and then to show her mother the collecting box for Guide Dogs which was shaped like two labrador puppies.   Almost every step for that child was an adventure and a discovery.  And she was in Tesco 😀  When was your last trip to the supermarket filled with awe and wonder?   The seven year old I have been looking after during lockdown is a wonder child.   We are supposed to read a short story book most days for homework, but trying to get to the end of a fifteen page book is a real effort because he wants to look at all the pictures and comment on every detail and then deviate from the page to tell me some fascinating fact...