Hope For Today

Dear Friends, I have recently experienced a great weekend away with my church family.  When we accept Jesus as our Saviour we become part of God's family.  " Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. 5  God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.   "   Ephesians 1:4-5 (NLT) You might want to stop to take a moment to ponder on what it means to you that God wants to adopt you into his family.  It's quite an incredible thought that God, the creator of the universe, not only loves me but has also chosen to bring me into his family, making me his daughter. Because we have been brought into God's family, we now have many brothers and sisters in Christ and we are called to love them with a sincere, deep love.  " Through Christ you have come to trust in God. ...

  Dear Friends,    View looking down from the Sky Walk Some years back my family and I visited the Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth.  It's quite an incredible building, 170 metres above Portsmouth Harbour and taller than Blackpool Tower, the London Eye and Big Ben.  It has 350 degrees panoramic views and stretches out for up to 23 miles. Personally, I'm not a great fan of heights, but I did feel completely safe and it was an experience not to be missed.  On view deck 1 there is a Sky Walk, a large glass floor, the overall thickness of the glass is 60mm and it can hold a weight of 288 stone!  Josh demonstrating faith! To walk across it we had to take off our shoes and go barefoot.  Some of us did it quite warily; others seemed to have no fear, having complete faith in the strength of the glass to hold them up.  Josh even laid out flat on it!  I wasn't quite so comfortable doing that! Whether someone walked acros...

Dear Friends, As I write this, Valentine's Day is fast approaching.  I'm sure that with that day comes all kinds of mixed emotions for many people.  Some will be eagerly anticipating it, especially if they are in the throes of new love (such as a certain young man I know!), for some it will be a reminder of their singleness when it seems as though everyone else is celebrating, for some there will be sad memories of love lost, others perhaps will be feeling that their relationships fall short of what they had hoped for etc. But today I want us to put aside these things to re-focus on God and his love for each one of us.  So, make yourself a cup of tea or coffee, get yourself comfy in your favourite chair, find somewhere you can be alone from others and let's quieten are hearts and minds so we can draw near to God and contemplate on his love for us.  Take your time as you read, stop and meditate over each verse. When thinking about what is real love and wh...

Dear Friends, I have been reading about Giant Redwoods this week.  I learnt that these incredible trees can grow to 247 feet high, with a diameter of around 20 feet.  They can live for a few thousand years.  They are continually growing, even when they are hundreds of feet tall; their trunk grows wider and their upper branches grow stronger.  It has been found that the older they get the more their rate of growth increases. They need abundant water and have shallow root systems which intertwine with the roots of other Redwoods. I found this information fascinating and even more so as I considered what these trees can teach us about our Christian life.  Let me take these next few moments to share some things with you: 1. Our God is an amazing Creator God.  He created all things.  He did so with such creativity and imagination.  " In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth... Then God said, “Let the land sprout with...