Hope For Today

Dear Friends, The last year or so has had some really challenging moments for me and over that time the truth of James 4:8a " Draw near to God and He will draw near to you." (NKJV) has become very real to me. In those difficult, challenging times that we all face from time to time, we can feel as though we are totally alone, that no-one really understands what we're going through and that there's no-one we can rely on.  This may not be the reality of the situation, but because of the intensity or the length of the trial it is how we feel, and those feelings are very real.  I think this is what Paul felt when he wrote " At my first defence, no one came to my support, but everyone deserted me... But the Lord stood at my side and gave me strength," 2 Timothy 4:16-17 (NIV). I have found in my own experience, that nothing makes me cry out to God and long to hear his voice more than when in the midst of a trial - whether that trial is physical, spiritual ...

Dear Friends, My Auntie was recently diagnosed with cancer and had to go in to hospital to have an operation.  Friends and family have all been praying for her, and as the date came round for her operation my prayer was that God would give the medical staff the skill to treat her and to also be sensitive in their care of her afterwards. I received a text after the operation from my cousin (one of my Auntie's daughters).  She told me that her Mum's nurse was the sister of my cousin's old school friend and the nursing assistant was a lady who was deaf.  My cousin was so thankful to God for this because she believed he couldn't have chosen two better people to care for my Auntie. You see, my Auntie was born deaf and learned as a young girl to lip read.  She does this very well, but of course, to be able to read lips she needs to have the person who is talking to her facing her, and not covering their mouths when they talk. My cousin shared with me in another ...

Dear Friends, Josh and Jess are settling back into a new year at secondary school.  Josh is in his final year and Jess is no longer one of the new pupils as she's now in her second year.  Jess, like me, is an introvert, and content in her own company.  She does not have a lot of confidence and so finds it hard to speak up in class, preferring to sit back and let others do the talking.  Having said that she shared something with me last week about an incident at school which showed how she is growing and maturing.  I was so proud of her because what to many might not seem a big deal was huge for her.  When walking down a school corridor to her music lesson in MU2, she passed two new pupils asking a teacher for directions to their next lesson, music in MU1.  Rather than continue on her way, Jess stopped and spoke to the teacher telling her that she was going in that direction and would show the girls the way to go.  Jess and ...

Dear Friends, In my last blog I mentioned we had recently been on holiday with friends.  We stayed in a self-catering cottage (a converted granary) on a farm.  There were some lovely views and our neighbours included chicken, 2 horses, pigs and their piglets. One morning we woke to a dreadful stench as soon as we opened our bedroom window, and whichever room we went into, whether it was upstairs or downstairs, we were greeted with that same dreadful smell.  It was, in my opinion, disgusting and outside the smell was just as bad. Now Jason, having been brought up on a farm, knew exactly the reason for the stink, (for me there's no other way to describe it!) the farmer had been muck-spreading, fertilising the ground, in good preparation for growing a good crop. To me, the smell was horrible (I think I've made that clear by now!) but I'm guessing the farmer didn't see it that way, he knew the purpose behind it, the reason why he needed to spread the foul-smellin...