BEAUTIFUL GARDEN • beautiful people

Meeting beautiful people

I was blessed to have met a number of wonderful people this week. Some of them I knew but did not know well and others were surprises.  I felt like those people were like a basket of fruit that God was giving me, and all of them were beautiful in their own way.  

I love to meet and talk to new people. I like listening to people's stories. Somehow I think I get spiritual nutrition out of getting to know how someone else does life.  Something I learned from new found friends this week is that God has a place in everyone's heart. I'm convinced of that now. 

I also recommend him as a gardener.  He loves to present us with a smorgasbord of experiences that whet our appetites for more. 

Today I had an afternoon nap and in a dream God gave me a basket of fruit. This picture reminds me of the fruit of the Spirit - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. 

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DAILY BLOG • Lost and found

A widow lost a coin, I lost an ear-ring.

Nearly a year ago I found some silver tear-drop earings in a shop.  They were just perfect for every day wear - they would 'go' with everything. But the next day when I wore them out I came back home and found that one of them had been lost. 

I went back to the shop I thought I could remember buying them from, but there was not even a jewellery section in the store. I tried another store, and another but I could not find those particular silver drop ear-rings. I kept the one that was not lost on my duchess and looked in other stores from time to time in the hope I could find that ear-ring again.  Then on Thursday last week one of my step daughters asked me what I wanted for my birthday. I said that I'd really like to have some ear-rings the same as the one I still had, and I showed her the one I had.

On Saturday I put in a set of ear-rings and headed off to speak at Easterfest in the Jesus Tent. But just before I got up to speak I felt an ear-ring fall out of my left ear. I looked down in the grass and there was the silver drop ear-ring! For a moment I thought that God had restored to me the missing ear-ring, but then I realised that I had probably picked up the one from home and was actually wearing non-matching ear-rings. Then the next day I walked into my house and on the cupboard near the front door was - a silver drop ear-ring. I stopped and picked it up and held it and pondered for a few minutes. How could this ear-ring be here I was thinking... the one and only ear-ring I had was on my duchess. I began to feel that God was close and smiling.

With the ear-ring resting on the palm of my hand I walked toward my bedroom, anxious to see what miracle there might be. And there, sitting on my duchess was the silver drop ear-ring, and in my hand was a silver drop ear-ring, and I slowly and deliberately put the one beside the other and they were perfectly the same, except for a tiny bit of rust on the hook of one.

The Lost was now Found. 

But how? By God... well, yes, definitely. What had happened is that my step-son Ben had found it in the grass on our front footpath. (A footpath that had been walked upon, driven upon and mowed many, many times over the last year.)  Ben had picked it up and put it on the cupboard near the front door and I found it in the perfect timing of God for Him to be able to tell me that the Lost was now Found. This message has been meaningful and timely for me. God is so good.

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DAILY BLOG • About God

If you look for God you'll find Him.

  

God looks down from heaven on all mankind to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God.  Psalm 53:2 
 

You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water. 

Psalm 63:1 

This is my prayer tonight as I head for bed and hope for heavenly dreams and encounters with God.

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STRADDIE ISLAND • Fire

Reflection on Straddie fire

I went to Straddie on the weekend and new green growth is springing up everywhere. Like a refiner's fire, new life in the bush comes not in spite of the burning but because of it.

God promises too that for those who love Him good will always come.
(Romans 8:28: And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.)

Thank you to my daughter-in-law Courtney for contributing this poetic reflection about the North Stradbroke Island January fires.

A desert scene before me,
heat reflecting off the sand.
The trees stripped of their foliage
by the fire's angry hand. 

The sandy hills that flourished
are lined with charcoal trunks,
and trees that towered proudly
are now reduced to stumps. 

The tough black boys defeated,
fierce heat could not withstand.
Their once green hair turned amber,
bodies battered where they stand. 

The untamed scrub now ashes
as the flames ruthlessly cleared
and turned this beach oasis
into a desert burned and seared. 

Yet 'midst the barren wasteland
hope of life is found
as black scars fade and shoots of green 
appear upon the ground. 

New foliage on the battered trees
like jewels of green adorn.
As new life blooms and hope rebuilds
the land no longer mourns.

The untouched life of Straddie
the fire tried to steal,
But the spirit of this land is strong, and
with time all wounds will heal. 

Courtney Anderson
copyright 2014 

STRADDIE ISLAND - Koala capers

Where's that gum tree again?

This little fellow came down from one of our huge, high, bloodwood trees in our garden at our house at Amity Point, North Stradbroke Island on Saturday morning. Of course, koalas eat a particular kind of gum tree leaf so he wasn't up that tree to have breakfast, perhaps he was snoozing in that tree last night.

I wonder what he is thinking, as he pauses in our garden? Perhaps he is wondering where he can find a tree with eatable leaves, or maybe he's deliberating whether to head for the surf. Actually, he's probably just as having a look at us having a look at him.

Interesting isn't it that sometimes we might think we are 'up the wrong tree' because we're not getting the sustenance we want out of it? We think that we are in the wrong place at the wrong time. But, like the koala, just getting up high to look around is often the best thing we can do to nourish our souls and get a different perspective on our circumstances.


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HOLY LAND TOUR • Desert Place

Poetic reflections of Israel

The land of milk and honey

The place of desert and hidden water

The sand separate from the sea

The great inland sand

Covers the storehouse of salvation

Precious stones in the desert that draws like water from a well -

Bricks and morter, shelter, shade.

Look, what God has made is hidden

Because life needs to be found not stumbled upon

Seek and you will find

It's in the search for simplicity and humility that find you in the right place at the right time to know that God Himself brought you there.

Awake my soul in the desert place

Awake my soul and dream of milk and honey

Worship God, not circumstances

Find joy hidden in the desert

An oasis looms

Salvation comes.

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HOLY LAND TOUR ~ Jordan River

 Renewal in the River

Baptism was first practiced in ancient Judiasm as a means of penitence. Lamintations 2:19 says: "Pour out your heart like water in the presence of the Lord." 

It was said that to receive the Spirit of God, or to be permitted to stand in the presence of God's Shekinah, men must undergo baptism. There is also a belief expressed in the Talmud tht the Holy Spirit can be drawn as water from a well. 

The powers ascribed to the Jordan are expressly stated to be that they restore the unclean man to the original state of a new born. This is expressed in unmistakable terms in the Mandean writings and teachings (Brandt, "Mandäische Religion," pp. 99 et seq., 204 et seq.) This is what John the Baptist preached to the sinners that gathered around him on the Jordan; and herein lies the significance of the bath of every proselyte. He was to be made "a new creature." (Gen. R. xxxix). 

From my understanding, you can never repent too much,and so this baptism in my new name Mandee was significant as I received refreshment and re-filling of the Holy Spirit.

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