Friday 24 July 2015

Ten to One - FMF


The youth pastor stood with papers in his hand at the front of the class and as the bell rang, the atmosphere changed. Tears clung to my eyelids, I saw myself more clearer. Ten hands flew up, my heart burst open and I wept. A leper among ten, my heart forever changed. Your joy filled my heart, what a sinner I am but set free on that day in March. Bolting to the following class, the Christian teacher let me run around shouting "Jesus saves, my life is forever changed!" 
Ten hands went up but only one stayed - me. I came back with tears of gratitude to kiss your feet and become a disciple, you hold me close forever more, my life forever changed. Not one of ten returned that day, not more then one would stay the way, the world of leprosy held their gaze, not one returning with a heart of faith. Yet here I am, forever changed, saved and re - arranged. You are my everything Yeshua, my everything. My life dissolved before that day, I was re-born at ten minutes to one on that fabulous March day all those years ago. 

Luke 17: 11 - 19
Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!”
 When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed.
 One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan.
Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine?  Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner?” Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.”

Linking with Five Minute Friday

Tuesday 21 July 2015

What Doors May wait

It's been a tough 5 weeks, suffering with intense neck pain I have visited doctors, had xrays, done physio and tried medication that made me feel sick, achey and shaky. Done. Having been unable to do much I have been away from the computer (which seems to heighten the pain) and even now I find that I have to rush to get anything done, because the computer is just a no - no. But I miss it, all of it. The ability to write, to sit here, to connect, to explain on paper what I cant find words for. To pour out my heart, not online but just in words. Words come so easy for me. Even in these passed few weeks I was unable to read or look down for close to 3 weeks, so no writing, no reading, nothing. It's been tough and well, there is nothing to explain it, doctors dont know but I know that life is just such. We live in a mortal body and we are subject to the decay of sin yet life is bitter sweet. Bitter because its crazy and sweet because I have a living hope in Messiah Yeshua. 

The interesting thing about this is that I would pop over to my blog form time to time and I had this sense that I wanted to re-share some old posts from 2014 and I was not able to but I sensed that God wanted me to. Yet, when I popped over to my blog, I suddenly saw from the side bar of popular posts how the certain ones that were so special that I never got to re-share were suddenly being shared by people! I praise God for this wonderful thing!


This passed weekend my mom came to stay with us and it was great to have her visit during our time talking I started thinking about loss. I have endured the loss of so many things in my own life and then I got to thinking about the different faces of loss. Loss of income, loss of dreams, loss of family members, relationships, loyalty - the list is endless, people endure loss daily and yet do we ever really give ourselves time to grieve and pain loss and allow it to move us from the room of despair in to a new place of hope. One of my favourite movies is You've got mail. Kathleen Kelly (Meg Ryan) runs a bookstore her mother owned and when Jo Fox (Tom Hanks) opens up a megastore book company, she sudenly faces the reality of closing down her mothers store, after 42 years of being a part of the community. It's devastating to her, losing the bookstore feels like her mother is dying all over again.
But what Kathleen doesnt realise is that she is in fact living her mothers story and never truly living her own. Yet the viewer realises how much people admire her and look to her, in the words of JO Fox's girlfriend, what Kathleen endorses sell! Kathleen has her own story and closing the book shop is a time of grief, yet it opens her up to new possibilities, to her own story and her own life's journey that she had been unconsciously avoiding all her life. It ,may seem depressing and sad but something beautiful awaits on the other side of her despair. She begins writing childrens books and actually opens herself up to being loved and to loving. 

So I'm sitting with this all and looking at loss and wondering what doors need to close around me, to open the next door? Maybe the door is internal? It's an interesting question and I am sure you have to face your own openings and closings, what is God closing in your life, to let tomorrow in? What part of your story has been tied up to someone elses, so much so that you could not find yourself?
May we find the courage and the wisdom to live our own story even in the face of the storm!


Friday 10 July 2015

FMF - Hope when its Slow

Five Minute Friday where we write for five minutes, unedited and spontaneous! Here goes...


Hope, what hope did Mary have to hold on to when the angel whispered shocking words that would change her life and ultimately her destiny? What words of hope would she have had to hold on to, when her betrothed and beloved Joseph was going to put her away? What hope did she have to hold on to when she gave birth to a beautiful son only to witness His cruel death at the hands of sinners?
What hope do I hold on to, when in this time of waiting. What hope for the weary soul when there seems to be no end in sight and yet here it comes, over and over again. Hope in Me, Hope in Me.
What joy and magnificent hope, when even in our humanness we seek for the answer to a question that is not answered, but He whispers Hope in Me.
Hope when the birth is slow in our lives, and the labour painful and our lives are like a growing oak tree, slow and seasonal. Hope, because everything will be okay, it always is. Hope because it's honey for our soul and rest, because His palm is open and we are invited in to the secret place of Love. Hope because He is the Hope of Israel (Jeremiah 17:13).

 Linking with Kate M

Sunday 5 July 2015

Burnt Ground - Share your Story!

I want to tell you all about the section of this blog called Burnt Ground.
It was a section birthed from the ashes of the devastating fire that ravaged Cape Town and through my aunts brave fight against cancer, which ended by her going home to be with Messiah this year.
Here's a bit about Burnt Ground and I want to invite my fellow sisters to be a part of this, if you are so led. If you have a poem, a painting, a short testimony to share about something that seemed hard but turned out to be a turning point in your life, then feel free to share it with me and if it fits with the vision of my blog, it will be shared! Remember, whatever you submit must be something that shares hope and inspires others, consider it heart stories, heart poems or art! Bless you!


 Burnt Ground was something birthed in my heart by God's Holy spirit, a place where heart stories, songs, poems and stirrings can be shared. A Place of Holy soul soothing Heavenly Balm.

For me, the journey to this point has been incredible. It started with the gentle Whisper of God telling me to connect women's stories together, which happened and our E - Book was born. At the same time a devastating fire ripped through the beautiful city of Cape Town and in the fiery flames I learned about the fire and the burnt ground in our own stories and how Yeshua meets us in the places where the flames have burned the strongest. Then today, the 15th of April 2015, we buried my moms sister after a long tough courageous battle with cancer. It was hard. But an amazing thing has happened through this journey, I have learned so much through the deep ministry of the Holy Spirit for two weeks. Night after night I sat up and spoke to God about my aunts life and about the pain and suffering of a family who watched her lose the ability to walk, then her speech and then her faculities altogether. Today as we drove to the funeral God was so tenderly close to me, I could feel His breath and feel His heart beating in mine. Hope burst forth in my heart and I saw the flowers again. My aunt was not a spiritual lady at all but because she had time, she had time to make things right with God and with others. She was led to Christ and she proclaimed "I am at peace with God, I am ready to die."
God let me feel the intense Joy we have because of Christ! I cannot help but burst out in tears with the Love and Hope I feel inside. When I walked in to the church today I saw a picture up of her on the overhead projector. It was a picture of her with her late husband, she had a big smile plastered on her face. I knew she was smiling even while we were mourning, for our loss.

Because of Yeshua (Jesus) we have such hope. We dont have to fear life or death. Through my aunts life I have learned that cancer is not the end, its just the beginning. Suffering is not the end, its temporary, its just momentary because Yeshua wipes every tear from our eyes. Through the devastation of the flames and the death of my aunt I have experienced a deep change inside of my spirit. God has changed me deeply spiritually and taught me what it means to hope, spiritually in all Yeshua has done for us. Many times we celebrate the cross in our hymns, in our words and evern over holidays, but do we ever truly celebrate the Reality of the Cross.
This is a page devoted to whatever God is going to bring my way, in terms of heart stories. Stories where suffering diverged with joy. A place where the flowers of peace sprung up on dead ground. A grave is not a place to lose hope, a burnt plot is not the place to give up at because soon and very soon, God will bring the beauty, He will bring the joy and the Hope. I can promise you that because my own life resembled a burnt ground the passed fews month but in it all I have felt hope unsinkable and love unstoppable. Enjoy the stories, share the love and above all else hope in the Greatest King who ever lived and pulled the cross on our behalf so that we could make it through our own burnt ground...

If you want a story or testimony of hope to be considered, please email me at aliyahreflections@gmail.com
Please note that the story has to fit in with the vision and beliefs of this blog, to be considered! Many blessings Aliyah! 

Sharing at Reflect

Saturday 4 July 2015

A Legacy on Tour

Cycling season in to full swing and the Tour De France has just begun! That means exciting stages, unexpected wins and crashes and more stories to share. Every year God uses the Tour De France to weave some amazing lessons into my life. I have written numerous posts inspired by this cycling race, you can find them over here - Cycling Songs.

 
As the tour pulled out today, we briefly watched the opening chats and celebrations and I started to think about the reality of legacy. After 102 years of this race, the Tour De France is still going strong. It all started with an idea and a belief, a belief in the innocence of an army general, whose guilt versus not guilty, divided the nation of France. Some took to open activism and others took to starting a rival newspaper and birthing a small cycling tour that eventually morphed in to one of the biggest cycling races in our modern world. I marvel at how after 100 years of kicking it in high gear in the mountains and on the flats, this tour is still going strong and the legacy of its pioneers is still celebrated even if their memory has been eclipsed by all the new fancies of the Tour. Could the men who started this race have ever known that in 100 years time we would still be celebrating what they begun? And I wonder now about our own lives, are we leaving a legacy behind for those who come after us, in particular, are we investing in spiritual intimacy with Messiah, so that our spiritual legacy will be left for the next generation?


It works like that, Moses left something for Joshua, Elijah for Elisha, David for Solomon, Abraham for Isaac and so on and so on.

Recently Father has led me back to studying Proverbs 31 in a completely different way and I am so engrossed with the strength of the Valiant Woman described!         

Proverbs 31: 17 "She girds herself with strength And makes her arms strong"

Translations lose essence and often truth, digging in to the original Hebrew found in verse 17, a completely different picture emerges of verse 17. In the original it reads the following, she girds her loins with strength and makes her arms or shoulders strong.

The word for loins is a particular word used to describe a particular part of the body, it refers to the waist area, or the thigh, the loins. The word used for gird is a word describing the action of putting a belt or armour on and the word for strength speaks of might, power, force, security and strength in various applications. These words describe a deep action, she is providing for her seed, for the loins speak of that area of the body (the same area where Abraham's servant put his hand when he swore an oath to find a bride for Isaac). It is for the generations after her, she is girding her strength, her belt of truth and armour of might so as to pass it on to the generation of women who will come after her. The Valiant woman of Proverbs 31 makes sure they understand that strength is theirs, for both her spiritual children (vs 15 - 16) and her physical children. She empowers them with truth and the law of kindness (vs 16). She leaves behind "heroine talk, heroine might and true strength." How she does this, only God leads her and so too, what we leave behind need only be what God leads us to. 

We do not have to strive to seek out God's best for purpose for our lives, we only need to surrender in to the calling and the embrace of Heaven's Glory. Have you ever thought about it - what are you leaving behind that will be rememebred in a century's time? What has God called you to today, that will last for eternity? 

 Matthew 6: 18 - 19"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal."But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal....