Hope For Today

Dear Friends, Battling the Voice of Condemnation (Photo by  Juan Pablo Arenas  from  Pexels ) How often do you listen to the voice of condemnation rather than God's voice which speaks words of love and encouragement to you? Maybe you don't struggle with this. But it is something I battle against time and time again.  It's Mothers' Day this coming Sunday in the UK and it's in the area of being a Mum where the voice of condemnation is at it's strongest and loudest. I heard somewhere that the Devil personalises his words of condemnations so that they seem as though they are coming straight from my own mouth. He is so cunning at getting me to think and feel and believe these words are truth. It's as though he has the tape in my mind on a loop or on repeat over and over again. I tell myself I'm not good enough as a Mum, I've let my children down and not been there for them when they were young, I've failed them, I haven't shown them

Dear Friends, I learned a new word last week and that word is 'Flawsome'!  One evening last week, my husband, brother-in-law and I attended the 'Honesty Over Silence' Tour run by Kintsugi Hope. Kintsugi Hope was founded by Patrick Regan and Diane Regan and the tour is based on Patrick's book with the same title. "'Kintsugi' is a Japanese technique for repairing pottery with seams of gold. The word means “golden joinery” in Japanese. This repairs the brokenness in a way that makes the object more beautiful, and even more unique than it was prior to being broken. Instead of hiding the scars it makes a feature of them." ( kintsugihope.com ) I am broken. We are all broken in different ways. Yet, when we hand our brokenness over to Jesus he creates something even more beautiful with our lives. We don't need to pretend that we are perfect, we don't need to pretend we have it all together. With him, we can be who we are and

Dear Friends, When I heard that “The Making of Us” by Sheridan Voysey is a book which explores the experience of life not ending up as we planned, and who we become as a result of this; how life in our forties is often very different from what we expected it to be when we were in our twenties; I knew it was a book I wanted to read. As a young adult, I had many hopes, dreams and plans for my life, yet these were all upended when I became ill with a long-term illness. My life today is very different from the way I had expected it to turn out.  In the introduction to his book Sheridan writes:  "Beautiful things can emerge from life not going as planned. It can even be the making of us.”  Sheridan writes about the pilgrimage he takes with his good friend DJ, following in the footsteps of St. Cuthbert. Together they embark on what is both a physical and spiritual journey.  As Sheridan and DJ go on their journey, Sheridan writes about what they see and the peopl

Dear Friends, St. Patrick's Prayer St Patrick's Day is celebrated on 17th March. Now, whilst I've heard of him and am familiar with a part of one of his prayers I knew next to nothing about him so I decided I'd google him. I discovered he lived in the fifth century and he is the patron saint of Ireland. He was born in Roman Britain and was kidnapped and taken to Ireland when he was sixteen years old. He did manage to escape but later returned to Ireland where he was credited with bringing Christianity to the Irish. I learned of a legend surrounding him that he explained about the Trinity (God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit) using the leaves of the Irish clover as an illustration. Below is part of one of St Patrick's prayers, known as 'Morning Prayer' or 'St Patrick's Breastplate'. It's a prayer that St Patrick is said to have written when he needed to know God's protection and strength. I arise today

Dear Friends, I am thrilled to have this guest post from Shauna Letellier to share with you today. You may remember I recently wrote a book review on her latest book, 'Remarkable Hope'. (If you haven't yet read it but would like to, then please click  here ) Over to Shauna... Thomas Chisholm was not a formally educated man. But in 1941 he wrote in a letter, “My income has not been large at any time due to impaired health in the earlier years which has followed me on until now. Although I must not fail to record here the unfailing faithfulness of a covenant-keeping God and that He has given me many wonderful displays of His providing care, for which I am filled with astonishing gratefulness."* You will not be surprised to learn that a man who writes such a letter is also the author of the poem which, when set to music, became the hymn “Great is Thy Faithfulness.” With a long history of poor health and financial strain, Chisholm penned thi

Dear Friends, As an email subscriber to Shauna Letellier's blog, I had the joy being invited to be a part of her book launch team on Facebook for her new book "Remarkable Hope: When Jesus Revived Hope in Disappointed People" and  I jumped at the opportunity as I love the way she writes. 'Remarkable Hope' is the kind of book I like to read. I like books which focus on the men and women of the Bible and which help us to understand their lives a bit better and the culture they lived in. There is so much to learn from these Biblical characters which can be of benefit to us in our personal journey with God.  Shauna uses her knowledge and understanding of the Bible, insights she has gained from studying it, research she has undertaken and her God-given gift of imagination to bring us a creative retelling of the lives of various Bible men and women.  She brings all these things together in her latest book 'Remarkable Hope' and does it in such