no place like home

Simple watercolour wash for my first house painting... 

Drawing inspiration from Jim Mitchell's "Cottage Charm"
(pictured above)
Love the glowing light outside and inside the cottage.
And the garden is just brilliant! So colourful, so lush.

A glimpse at the finished product...!

break my heart for what breaks Yours

It takes a lifetime to learn to love well

This is my desire
To honor You
Lord with all my heart
I worship You
All I have within me
I give You praise
All that I adore is in You

Lord, I give You my heart
I give You my soul
I live for You alone
Every breath that I take
Every moment I'm awake
Lord, have Your way in me

~Michael W. Smith

How wonderful it is to spend time in the presence of the Lord. What a week. I really needed to hear the hard word that it's not about me. 

Thank You, Lord God, for putting that burden on my heart to drop everything and just pray, pray, pray. Thank You for redirecting my thoughts and prayers away from my self and towards others, and refixing my gaze on Jesus Christ—for it is only through Him that I can love the people around me in the best possible way. Give me a heart that "rejoices with those who rejoice and weeps with those who weep" (Rom 12:15).

Two days ago, as I was walking to the station with one of my beautiful sisters in Christ, in the course of our conversation I happened to say: "It takes a lifetime to learn to love well." I don't know where the words came from but they just rolled off my tongue. And they made sense. (To God be the glory for any words of wisdom that proceed from my lips consciously or unconsciously). Loving is hard. Life is a struggle. But we know we have the victory if we are in Christ. And as we fix our eyes on the greatest picture and reality of sacrificial love— that of Jesus Christ dying on the cross for us — the Holy Spirit at work in our lives will engender in us the love that we need to give freely, willingly to others. 

Not my love, but Your love, O God. Not my strength, but Your strength. Not my peace, but Your peace that "transcends all understanding and guards our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Phil 4:7) I thank You, Lord, that You are a God who heals completely—body, soul & spirit.

May Your perfect will be revealed in Your perfect time. "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are Your ways higher than my ways, and Your thoughts than my thoughts."(Isaiah 55:9)

Jesus Christ, our constant companion, our best friend, our first and truest love and every promise of God fulfilled. ["For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us." 2 Corinthians 1:20]

September's been patches of chin-up-and-move-on murkiness, agitation, sickness, but also overwhelming joy, blessing and thankfulness for the incredible, undeserved gift of friends (who are so much more—my eternal family :') 

Right now, I just wanna pray: "Lord, comfort them and fill them with your overflowing grace. If I care this deeply for them, how much more do You, O Lord God? So so great and overflowing is Your love for those who fear You, O God, "as high as the heavens are above the earth" (Psalm 103:11). Only Your love can heal and sustain. Only Your grace inexhaustible. We resist any attacks from the Enemy and we cancel all demonic missions in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Lord, grant us all wisdom during this time, and use me in any small way to be of any encouragement or support when others are hurting. Thank You for this forever family. And thank You for being my forever Father."

"Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen." Ephesians 3:20-21

to love

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”
~C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves, 1960

And how vulnerable was Jesus Christ, "who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made HImself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross." Philippians 2:6-8

"In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." 1 John 4:10

Alive in Him — His Life in Me

"We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed— always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body." 2 Corinthians 4:8-10

Incredible.

Extraordinary

Is this what it means to serve God on this earth? Only ever doing ordinary things? I believe God wants us to do extraordinary things in this name of His Son the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who dwells richly in the hearts of those who believe in Him. 

We are called by grace into the family of the Almighty God. Life is so so much more than what we can physically see or touch.

I believe in the power of God manifesting today, through His Word and, wonderfully, through us! After all we were made to glorify him and reveal His glory to the world as precious bearers of His image recreated in Christ.

Jesus calls us to "Have faith". Simply read the Gospels. Like Martha, if we would only believe we would see the glory of God. (John 11:40)

Step out in faith. As you read His infallible Word and seek to share the good news of salvation and bless the body of Christ, believe that He who made the heavens and the earth —who parted the Red Sea, who opened to eyes of someone born blind— can and will work mightily through you.
And what a blessing it is to play any small part in God's miraculous lifesaving plan through Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. Amen.

Mindblown

When we pray for healing, what do we really mean when we also pray "But Your will be done"? It is good to pray that God's will be done, we must always pray His will be done, Jesus taught us to do so, but I think many times when I pray these words, I really mean to say: "Lord, if it is your will for this suffering or sickness to continue, if it is your will for death—"
Now just STOP there for a moment and think about it.
When is it ever God's will for us to be sick? Does God will sickness and death? We see in Genesis and Romans that death and suffering entered the world as a result of human sin (Gen 3, Rom 5:12, 6:23). And there is no death and suffering in the wonderful and blessed new creation. (Revelation 21:4)
It will always be God's will to refine us, grow us in the knowledge of Christ, change us by the power of the Holy Spirit to be more and more like Christ — and He most certainly works through our trials and sickness and suffering. 
But it is never God's will for us to suffer. It is always His will for us to be made whole — first and foremost to be spiritually made whole through faith in Christ Jesus, by the power of the Holy Spirit — and then flowing out into every other facet of our lives, physical, emotional, mental, relational, redeeming us completely from the kingdom of Satan, and bringing us into the kingdom of His precious Son. 

Jesus said: "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly." John 10:10

Jesus said: "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel." Mark 1:14-16

Jesus said: "And if you ask anything in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in My name, I will do it." John 14:14

Jesus said: "Whoever says to this mountain, 'Be removed and be cast into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says. Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them." Mark 11:23-25