The other day a woman I know said, “I have an ‘addictive personality’. First it was smoking, which I gave up. Now, as you can see, I am addicted to food.” She then said how she was going to conquer this addiction, and I know that she’ll do it, she’s already ”kicked the smoking habit” and she’s that kind of very determined and persistant person, but . . .
Below are two ransomed heart emails that I have recently received (a little while ago now, holding off on publishing this post until I’d finished a couple of other drafts, oh well) full and complete, usually I only post the bits that are relevant, however, in this case both are completely relevant; to only chop out a few bits to quote just won’t give the whole picture leaving anybody who reads this with an incomplete understanding of what the emails are saying and what I am saying. Both these emails were very encouraging, they spoke to my heart, fanning the desires of my heart and the last two lines in the second email gave me my “wake up!” slap!!
Disappointment with God - now there’s a good book authored by Philip Yancey who has written many good, inspirational and teaching books. Most definately one of my favourite Christian authors. Anyway ‘disappointment with God’ is what Tim and I have been dealing with over the last few days. We recently had a situation in our lives where we trusted God; we chose to have faith that God would provide - we were believing for it. And he did come through for us, but . . .
You can actually find this post in the midst of another post, ‘Stepping Into A New Life - The Battle Rages Still!’ but I thought it was “worthy” enough and “important” enough to have it’s very own entry (especially as I keep referring back to it and can’t find it!
A year ago I found the following in my emails as I was cleaning stuff up (it was sent ages and ages ago) by a friend who is not a Christian, who thought I might like it. I did. And when I found it again, I thought it applied more to our church and what we were going through as a church, than for me as an individual. But as things kept happening and crappola kept surfacing in my life and in my family I began to realise that this story and this scripture ‘He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver.’ (Malachi 3:3) was for me. All this happened in the first half of last year (2006), by the second half of last year I’d forgotten all about it, but it came to mind again recently, in the last week or so! I love this story, have a read and enjoy. I hope it speaks to you in the way it spoke and still speaks to me.
Let me tell you about “fluffs”.
In our family we don’t use the word “fart”, we have decided that “fluff” is a better alternative; I dunno, but I find the word ‘fart’ coming out of a young child’s mouth to be a bit too course and uncouth, call me old fashioned if you like, but it’s just the way I feel, besides, using the word “fluff” means that Tim’s family don’t suffer from conniptions every time my boys talk about the sounds coming out from their bottoms! Anyway, I was told a story just the other day about how our use of the word “fluff” instead of “fart” has affected another family we know.
This is just a real quickie - Tim and I (mostly Tim) have set up a fantastic new blog up called The Great Adventure - well, we think it is pretty fantastic anyway! This is where we’ll be putting up posts, photos and videos of our great adventure as we travel around Australia (and hopefully, the world!).
Obviously we haven’t left yet, but what you get when you visit The Great Adventure at the moment is posts on our preparation and planning, our struggles, and our spiritual journey as well as the places we want to visit, things we want to do and all that kind of stuff. Tim’s put in an interactive map and we’ve got a spot where you can put in your suggestions for places we could visit and things to do - we’d love people to get involved.
I’ve already put in one post about The Children’s Garden in the Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne (you can read the poem I wrote too called ‘The Children’s Garden’ ) and hopefully I’ll do a few more on places to see and things to do in and around Melbourne before we actually go! I’ve got a few drafts in the pipeline.
Anyway, check us out at www.thegreatadventure.info
Continuing on from ‘Stepping Into A New Life’ and ‘Stepping Into A New Life - The Battle’
At the end of October/start of November Tim went on a detox - a Breuss detox, which is quite involved, well researched and documented, not the quick fix detox you can buy over the counter at the chemist. The Breuss detox is the sort of detox they’ve been using in Sweden to help cure cancer victims and stuff, and needless to say, before entering into this detox Tim did a lot of research.
We prayed ‘An Outrageous Prayer’ about a month ago. It was what we really wanted, for numerous reasons, but realisticially, it was so far from reality that it was almost a joke. And I have to admit, as we prayed for it, even though it was a heart’s desire, I didn’t think it would be answered. It was too, well, too outrageous!
I finished my last ‘Stepping Into A New Life’ post with this -
“…our lives went even more pearshaped as what we know now to be spiritual warfare kicked itself into gear and put us in its sights…”
a bit frustrating I know, but I only had limited time so I did what I could. Anyway, we pick the story up 2 weeks after my vision and stepping into our new life -
On the Friday before we’d had our senior leader come over and pray for us, Xavier and Kael both had colds (Kael had already had his since the start of the week and I’d cancelled Xavier’s immunisation appointment due to his cold) and there were a few other things going on, so we had a great time with our leader as we discussed things and prayed and dealt with at least one issue. All three kids are sick, coughs, colds and runny noses and Brydon’s ears are hurting. Brydon’s not very good with pain anyway, so I’m really not sure if he’s in lots of pain or just a bit of pain as his reaction is the same whether it’s a little or a lot. I manage to get a Dr’s appointment sometime that day. Brydon has an ear infection in both ears and Kael has a chest infection. At this stage Xavier just has a cold. And things just went down hill from there.
Okay, I thought I’d go back to the beginning. Way back…okay, not that far back, only in reality about fourteen months, although aspects of this started farther back than that, but fourteen months is about where everything started heating right up. And it all started with a vision…