Bring me your tangled knots

The other day a friend of mine told me how her daughter had some string that had got all knotted. She tried to untangle it but couldn't. Eventually she brought it to her mum and asked for her help. My friend told her daughter to go off and play while she sorted it out. Once the string was untangled, she called her daughter back and gave it to her.

That night she couldn't sleep because of lots of worries, concerns and problems going round in her mind. Then she heard God say, "My daughter, bring me your tangled knots. Leave them with Me and get some rest."

Oh how we need to be like little children. We worry and fret and strive over our knots which we can't untangle. And all the while our loving heavenly Father says, "Bring your knots to Me. Let Me untangle them. Only I have the wisdom, patience and skill to do it anyway. Stop fretting.  I have given you many gifts to enjoy.  Leave the knots with Me and in time I will call you back and show you what I have done."

Thank You Father for your great love for us. We are your children. We bring You the tangled knots of our lives and thank You that we can trust them to Your love, wisdom, patience and kindness.  Amen.

Fruitfulness in brokenness

Lessons from a tomato plant.

I don't grow  plants.  I kill them. Always.

Except this year.  My daughter planted some tomato seeds (SEEDS!!) in April and they have now grown into a huge plant. I still can't quite believe it's happened.

I have three theories why these seeds have survived:

1) Music.  They are by the piano and have thrived on the beautiful music made by my children's piano practice. (Hmmm)

2) Piano practice.  They have thrived because I sit with each of my children for 5 minutes each morning to get them to do their piano practice. During this 5 minutes I notice the plant and remember it needs watering.  I go and do it while they play one of their pieces.

3) The trough has a special tray to catch the extra water at the bottom so this means that I have not drowned the plant by over watering. :-)

Here is the proof I'm not lying:

The seedlings in the tray. We were supposed to be seeing the difference the greenhouse thing made.

Us planting them from the tray into the big green trough. What a stylish mum I am!

 In place on the windowsill.  Don't ask me about the pumpkin, cucumber and carrot plants.  We're not going there.


ANYWAY, this is meant to be about what I learned from my tomato plant.  You see one day, I accidentally snapped one of the branches. By the end of the day the leaves had all withered. I was amazed at how quickly the branch dried up.  

I reflected on how we need to keep constantly connected to the Lord and how quickly we 'dry up' spiritually if we lose that connection. I thought how that branch would never bear fruit and how in order to be fruitful I need to keep receiving from God.  'I must write a blog about that' I thought. But this is not THAT blog.

I told my husband and showed him what had happened.  He took a stick and some twine.  He took some cling film and he propped that branch back up and wrapped cling film round the break.

I was sceptical.

But guess what happened?

Look!  There are TOMATOES on the other side of that break.  I have now eaten one of those tomatoes and it was yummy.

Then God spoke to me about His redemptive power to bind up the weak and the broken and His ability to still bring fruit in their lives.

So often I think God can't use me because of my brokenness and sin.  But it's not true.  Even when I've broken connection with Him, I can come back.  He gently binds up my wounds. He continues to pour His love and grace into me.  And if I can just stay connected to Him, He WILL produce fruit in my life.

How amazing is that?!

I praise you God that no one is beyond Your redemptive power to restore and that You can bring fruit in our lives even in the broken places.  Amen.

The Prayer Game - helping you and your children pray for others

I'm posting here to share about a game I've made to help our family prayers go a little bit further than 'God please help us have a lovely day/God please help us sleep well.'

I was inspired by another friend's blog called 'Supper's not in the slow cooker'.  Find it here at: https://vicarwife.wordpress.com/resources/  (scroll down to her prayer game and you'll find a lot more ideas because I've simplified what she did).

I love how she starts her resources page, so I'm going to 'nick' that paragraph too:

WARNING: These resources may be dangerous to your health if you are not properly equipped with anti-comparison shields and a clear understanding that ideas like these will NOT make or break your children’s’ faith.

So, one of my struggles with wanting to pray for others and not just ourselves is how long to make the list.  I mean, my kids have 13 first cousins.  Then there's all the missionaries we know. Where do you draw the line?  How do you stop it being another unbearably long list to get through?

Well, my friend's blog had the ingenious idea of making a game and using a box file of index cards. This means you can have umpteen cards but no sense of pressure that you have to get through every single one. 

So, how does it work?  

The board is mostly coloured circles. Each colour represents a category.  I chose 10 different categories:

1) Red - our family  - 1 card per member of our immediate family

2) Orange - relatives on Mummy's side - I chose to do 1 card per couple and 1 card per child

3) Yellow - relatives on Daddy's side. jot down specific prayer requests you know about already on some, leave the others blank to fill in as and when

4) Pale green - church - so far my cards are titled - leaders, members, workers, Sunday services

5) Dark green - OM - this is the Christian organisation my husband and I are with. My husband works in the office.  Cards include  - leaders. Carlisle team, teams around the world

6) Pale blue - Mike's tots - this is a toddler group I help with - cards include: team, mums, children

7) Dark blue - Houghton School - this is the school my children go to - cards include the head, each of their teachers, the parents, the children, mid-day supervisors

8) Friends - 1 card per friend we particularly want to pray for

9) Salvation - people we particularly have on our hearts to pray for their salvation

10) Missionaries - 1 card per family.  I'm building this up gradually as I get prayer emails/letters - it's easy to pick out a new card and jot a few things down.

On the cards I've written the heading and then a few ideas of what to pray for. Many cards don't have any particular 'points for prayer' yet but we can add them as we go along.

Things I love about this:

You can always add new cards and add to what's written on them. It doesn't have to be 'finished'. 

You can always take away cards. It doesn't ruin the game if you remove a card once it's not a prayer priority any more.

You can change  what the categories are for each colour e.g.  If I stop doing Tots. If my husband changes job. If my children move school. 

There is no sense of having to pray through the whole lot, because you just choose a card from the section you land on.

Best of all: My children love it and want to pray!

So I made the board using a program called publisher. The grid is simply a table and could probably be done in Word or something similar.  If anyone wants me to email them my grid I'm happy to. You just won't be able to open it and make changes if you don't have Publisher. I can send an un-editable pdf version though.

Every coloured circle appears twice but one of them has a Bible on it. When you land on this square you pray a Bible verse over the person whose card you took.  I nicked the prayers from my friend's blog and added a couple of my own favourites. I reckon as I come across other prayers in the Bible I can just jot them down on another card to add to the repertoire.  It's been lovely to see how enthusiastic the children are about doing this and to hear them praying scripture over their school teachers!! Yay! :-)


Other special squares:

1) Thank you - thank God for something!
2) man listening - spend a moment listening to God
3) man kneeling at the cross - thank Jesus for dying on the cross for us
4) singing man - sing a praise song to God
5) Globe - pray for people in another country. I found some resources for children for praying through the UN's goals but adapted for children. It gives a short specific story and a couple of simple points for prayer for each day.  I've also sent off for the children's version of Operation World called Window on the world.

6) Hand - reach out and put your hand on someone near you and pray for them
7) Pray4Me - ask someone to pray for you!
8) The Lord's prayer - say the Lord's prayer together
9) Pru - She is our Compassion sponsored child.

I laminated the board I printed out to make it a bit more durable. I also cut out a circle of the laminate and drew a smiley face on it to be our see-through counter with a bit of blue-tak for the nose. My children's favourite is when we land on Pru and the blue tak goes over her nose. Hilarious!  I also got out a cool see-through 20 sided dice just because they'd be motivated about throwing it.  Any dice will do because it really doesn't matter how many spaces you go.

My little boy wanted the numbering to go in a spiral round the edge into the middle so we did that just to be interesting. Then when you get to the end you just jump back to square one and keep going round.

I share this because my friend's blog post helped me and I'm wanting to 'pay it forward' as it were. My prayer is that it will help and inspire you to find a way that works for your family.

Just being who I am - a lesson from snowdrops

The other week I went for a walk round a farm. The path started lovely and gravelled.  About half way round that ran out. I ended up picking my way through some pretty boggy patches and negotiating a field with two extremely friendly ponies who accompanied me the whole way across the field.  It was clearly 'event of the day' for them. Not many people made it across their boggy field. As I went, through the barbed wire fence I saw the most beautiful crop of perfectly pure white snowdrops that just seemed to shine out. It made me stop and gaze and take in how lovely they looked.

I asked God "Why did you put such beauty in such a hidden place?  I wonder if anyone has noticed them before I did just now."

I felt God say, "They give me glory just by being what they are - snowdrops. They are being what I made them to be in the place where they are planted and that brings me pleasure and glory even if no one notices them."

I felt He said the same was true for me too. He simply wants me to be who He made me to be in the place where He has planted me whether other people see that or not.

As I walked back into the village there were many more snowdrops that have probably been admired by many people.  Some people God seems to put in the limelight and many people see and admire what they do.  Others are very hidden and what they do is not seen, noted or praised.

The thing is to realise the value does not come from being noticed or prominent. It comes from being who God made you to be and doing what He has asked in the place He has put you.  And that gives Him great pleasure and brings Him glory.

Help me Lord to stop looking around and wanting others' callings; but rather to be content that being who I am and where I am is enough to bring You pleasure and glory. Amen.

The same but different - do things out of love

So often I think:

Should I be doing something different?

Should I be doing something 'more'?

God has been speaking to me that what He cares about more is the heart with which I do things rather than the amount of things I do or even exactly what it is I'm doing.

So often I'm rushing through the thing I'm doing in order to get onto the next thing. Always rushing on to get one more thing done.

I was brushing Charlotte's hair. She hates the tugs needed to get the knots out.  God showed me I needed to stop seeing it as another job on the list to get ticked off. But to see it as an opportunity to love her by slowing down just a little more to tease out those knots gently.

I can brush Charlotte's hair as a job.

Or I can do it as an act of love.

It can look almost imperceptibly different on the outside.

But the difference on the inside is huge.

It is huge to God. Because He looks on the heart.

And He says that whatever I do for the least of these I do for him.

I've been trying to remember that each day as I go through the many tasks of being a housewife and a mum. I can transform my day by doing each thing out of love for the person I'm doing it for and out of love for God.

The label on the jar makes all the difference

What is on the label of your jar of jam? Did you know what an important difference it can make?  My five year old does.

I took a Sunday school lesson not so long ago where we were learning that Jesus accepts us. The material said to use the acronym JAM to help the children remember 'Jesus Accepts Me'. 

I bought some cute little empty jam jars and a few big pots of cheap strawberry jam. I decanted the jam into the little pots and put labels on them: JAM: Jesus Accepts Me. I cut little circles of cloth and attached them over the lids with an elastic band.  They looked very sweet. The children got to take one home each.

My daughter was very pleased to have Jesus Accepts Me jam on her toast.  My son also wanted Jesus Accepts Me jam on his toast so the little jar was soon empty.  When it ran out I got out the big jar of jam from which I'd filled the little ones. But he was not happy.  He only wanted jam from the Jesus Accepts Me jar.  We tried explaining that it was the same jam, but he was still not satisfied. In the end I refilled the little jar and then spread it on his bread.  Then he was content that he'd had 'special' Jesus Accepts Me jam.

This is story does not model the most brilliant example of parenting but I felt God spoke to me through it. 

It was the same jam. The only difference was the label on the jar it was in. 

I thought about my life as a Christian.  When we are saved, it's like we are 'decanted' into Christ. He takes our sticky mess and puts it in his perfect self.  Now the label on our jar says "Jesus accepts me."  It says "forgiven". It says "justified". It says "loved". Wow.

What is on the label of your jar? 

Thank you Jesus for accepting me into your jar. Thank you for the 'labels' you put over me. Help me to believe them and not go back to accepting  others' labels on my life. Amen.

Connect your charger

I don't know about you but my phone regularly displays the message 'Connect your charger'.

My phone regularly needs its battery charged by being plugged into the mains power supply. Left by itself it will not last much more than a day and a half before fizzling out.

One day it struck me that this is how I am with God. I need to connect with Him regularly. Daily. To plug into His infinite resources.  To receive the power to live in a way that honours Him.

I tend to run around trying to be very impressive for God in my own strength and fizzling out.

I love the way John 7:38-39 puts it:

'Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them. By this he meant the Spirit'

Wow. How I would like that to be a description of me - that rivers of living water flow out from me.

And yet the criteria is very simple: believing and trusting in Him. Which means going to Him to receive the power, the water, the Spirit, the resources needed. And then simply to let that flow from me.

When the power has come from Him.  There is always more to plug into.
When the resources have come from Him. They never run out.
When the rivers find their source in Him. There is limitless supply.

And then He gets the glory. Because it is His power on display.

Father, thank you for reminding me through my mobile phone for my constant need to come to You for all I need. May my life bring You glory because of Your power displayed. Amen.

Circling prayers around Christmas

I recently read Mark Batterson's book Praying circles around your children.

The main things I got from it were:

Pray asking God what He wants me to pray about.
Write down what you feel God says to pray about and keep at it!

It is actually very simple. I keep reading books about prayer because I want someone to tell me what to pray and then I'll pray it and I'll get the powerful answers they get.

But actually only God can tell me what's on His heart for me to be praying for my family, myself and things in my life just now.

So I have been taking baby steps in asking (and trying to remember also to take time to listen as well!). It has helped me stick at praying over things much more than ever before. When I'm not praying what I think I ought to be praying for but I'm praying what I believe God has asked me to pray for, I find I can pray with much more faith and persistence.

I felt God gave me some verses to pray specifically about the Christmas period, where we as a family spend quite a chunk travelling away from home, meeting up with relatives. I usually find it quite draining as I try to connect with everyone and have reduced personal space.

This year I felt God gave me these verse to 'circle' from Zechariah 8:

"a sowing of peace"
I prayed that I would sow peace wherever I went.

"you will be a blessing"
I prayed that I and my family would be a blessing wherever we went.

"do not fear"
I prayed for freedom from fear.

"seasons of joy and gladness and cheerful feasts"
I prayed that this Christmas would be characterised by joy, gladness and cheerful feasts.

As I daily prayed these prayers over the Christmas period God showed me many things.

As I prayed that I would sow peace, he showed me that when I'm stressed about Christmas, I bring stress into the atmosphere and affect those around me. I realised I needed to first receive His peace and be full of peace myself. Then as I received His peace, I would sow peace into the places I was and bring peace to others. It would be His peace.

As I prayed over being a blessing, God showed me that it wasn't all down to me to be so amazing that I blessed everyone. Again, I need to receive the blessing He has for me and simply let it overflow to others. So it wasn't me try to bless by my own effort out of my own resources, but recognising I just needed to be connected to God and be ready to be a means for Him to bless them.  Then the glory all goes to Him.

As I prayed for freedom from fear, God helped me see more clearly some of the fears that I needed to be set free from. He helped me see the ways I'd been thinking wrongly and showed me some simple truths that I had not grasped before. For example, "The stress of my hostess is not all my fault. I do not need to feel guilty about it and it's not my responsibility to make it all go away. I can only seek to not add to their stress unnecessarily."  Another revelation was "It's ok to be an introvert and need time on your own. Take the time and don't feel guilty about it. Then you will be more refreshed by your time alone and more ready to come back out and enjoy socialising again."  I was also living under the fear that my relatives were privately judging me for the way I live my life because it's different to theirs. I realised I needed to let myself be me and let them be themselves and not feel we ought to agree on everything just because we're family.  My fears were easily seen to be silly and unfounded when I brought them out into the open and recognised them for what they were.

Finally, my prayer for a season of joy and gladness and cheerful feasts was answered as I let myself enjoy the time with my family and let go of the striving, effort and fears.

I felt that these prayers were answered because I had started with prayers that God had shown me were the ones to pray. And as I prayed God didn't really change the situation I was going into. He changed me. He helped me listen to Him, trust Him, receive from Him and let go of things that were not from Him. He helped me see things in a new way.  All praise and glory to Him.

Not because they deserve it

Just before Christmas I was reading the account of Jesus washing his disciples' feet.

It struck me afresh:

Jesus washed the feet of Judas.  He knew Judas was about to betray him to death.

Jesus washed the feet of Peter. He knew Peter was about to deny him three times.

Jesus washed the feet of the rest of the disciples. He knew they would all desert him and run away in his darkest hour.

He knew their weakness.  He knew they would doubt. He knew they would fail him.

But he washed their feet. He served them. He modelled humility.

Then he said:
"Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet" John 13: 14

And so there we have it. No excuses.

He has washed our sins away by his blood. Not because we deserve it. Not because we've earnt it. He has poured out his love upon us.

We are called as His disciples, to serve one another in humility.

Not just those who deserve it.
Not just those who earn it.
Not just those who appreciate it.

 But all our brothers and sisters in Christ.

We pour out love and service in humility because we follow the example of Christ:

"But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."
Romans 5:8

Hallelujah! What a Saviour!