Hope For Today

Dear Friends,  A God-Created Dream One of my favourite houseplants is the orchid. The flowers are so beautiful and delicate and come in such a variety of colours.  A few years ago, my first orchid had some lovely pink/purple flowers. When its blooms had died I cut down the stem ready for it to produce new growth. I watered it regularly, but nothing happened. There was no new growth. I wondered if I had somehow killed it. So, after weeks of caring for it with nothing to show, I decided I'd ask Jason's Dad to look after it. He came to look at it before taking it off my hands and pointed out to me something I had missed. Under one of the leaves was a new shoot growing. I was so excited! I didn't need to pass it over to Jason's Dad, I could continue to look after it and watch it grow and blossom. I am learning how to best take care of and nurture my orchid. To encourage growth and blooms, I have found it needs the right environment - it seems to like being ...

Dear Friends, Wishing You A Joyous New Year You've probably offered and received greetings of 'Happy New Year' several times in this past week or so. But I wonder, what is your response when you hear those words? Are you excited at the start of this new year by the new opportunities that will come your way? Are there things you are looking forward to? Perhaps you have mixed feelings about the coming year. Or maybe you're dreading what the future will bring and you're feeling anything but happy. Happy is certainly not a word I would use to describe how I've been feeling. Actually, there's been times when I've been quite unhappy and battled with mild depression (an ongoing struggle of mine). The last few months of last year were quite tough for one reason and another and it ended with almost a month of constant migraines in December which continued on into the new year.  Having said that, I did enjoy four consecutive migraine-free days over C...

Dear Friends,  What Are You Feeding On? Some years ago, (possibly about 10 years) whilst I was on a Women's Weekend Conference, God challenged me about the books I was reading. I can't remember what the teaching was on, but I do remember that at some point during that weekend God spoke to me. Not that there was anything particularly wrong with the books I was reading, just that I could be filling my mind with other, better books.  (I just want to make it clear that this was something God was asking of me. This post is not about telling you that you need to do what God said specifically to me at that time. God is taking each one of us on a journey, the route he has planned for me will be different to the one he has for you, however, the destination is the same.  As he takes us on the journey, you and I are responsible for listening to his voice and following his directions for our life.) From that time on, I focused on buying fiction books by Christian authors....