Hope For Today

Dear Friends, My sister and I were blessed to grow up in a home where our parents always encouraged us.  We were encouraged to do our best, encouraged in our efforts, encouraged to be the person God wanted us to be and to live the life God intended for us.  We were encouraged in our hopes and ambitions and to pursue our dreams.  We were encouraged to keep going when we encountered setbacks.  This encouragement helped us to see ourselves as God sees us, as someone worth loving and someone of value. It helped me to also see how important it is to regularly encourage my own children.  I encourage my daughter Jess when she shows me a piece of homework that she has worked hard on and tried her best. I did this again just recently and in the smile she gave me I could almost see evidence of how it was nourishing and nurturing her very being.  It installed some confidence and belief in herself that she had done well.  Recently too with my son, Jo...

Dear Friends, I don't usually pay much attention to television adverts, but there's been one recently that has really caught my eye and inspired me.  Not so much what it's advertising but the actual content of it.  It's about the high jump athlete, Dick Fosbury and the voiceover says "When every high jump athlete jumped forward, Dick Fosbury dared to jump backwards."   This was in 1968 when just one man (Fosbury) out of the 27 high jump athletes jumped backwards.  In 1972 the number using Dick Fosbury's technique rose to 28 out of 40, in 1980 it was 23 out of 28 and in 2012, 26 out of 26 now used his technique! In an interview he said "When you believe in something, that's when you really go for it...even though that was the standard technique (jumping forwards)  I really believed there was some other way to jump over the bar."   He continued to say that he came up with the backwards technique that would help not only himself but other a...

Dear Friends I don't know anyone who really enjoys waiting, I know I don't!  Whether it's waiting in the queue at the supermarket, sitting in the waiting room to see the Doctor, waiting for test results, or waiting for your birthday or a family holiday. Waiting just seems such a waste of time, doesn't it? Time that we could spend doing something else, something more productive, and we fuss and fume over the wasted time that we will never get back. I've been thinking about last week's blog and it led to thoughts on how God often asks us to "wait" or says "not yet" to something we long for.  We can read of many instances in the bible when God tells a person to wait. It seems to me that God is asking that I wait for his timing, so how do I make the most of this waiting time so that it's not a wasted time? I think there are two kinds of waiting, passive waiting and active waiting.  Passive waiting means I sit around, twiddling my th...

Dear Friends, Ever had one of those days, weeks, seasons which has been frustrating and difficult, when you're frustrated by your limitations, when you want to do so much more than you are doing, when you're not able to do the things you want to do, let alone the things you need to do? I know I have.  I live with the long term illness, M.E (Myalgia Encephalitis), some days are worse than others, some are bad, some are not too good either.  I've been in the middle of one of those bad times and to be honest with you, I was feeling really frustrated!  When the M.E. is worse, everything is so much harder, even simple things such as walking up my stairs and preparing a meal, become almost impossible tasks as I have limited strength and energy.  Because we are so much more than just physical beings, my whole self is affected - emotionally and spiritually.  I am so frustrated by my limitations, there's so much more I long to do but I'm just not ...

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 ...