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The antidote for jealousy

As a depressed teenager, a neighbour give me his old issues of ‘Guideposts.’ I read the faith stories and they held me together, especially as I struggled with wanting to be like others.

Imagine my surprise to discover that now they offer a writers’ course for would-be contributors. I couldn’t comprehend their generosity, that is, until I read this quote:

‘Your jealousy—yes, you will be jealous of other writers’ success and talent—will melt away when you’ve been generous… Want to be a writer? Be someone else’s good reader. Believe in someone else. Be their friend, their fan. Expand your world. No doubt you’ll find there are many people who believe in you. .’*

And just as Guideposts cheers me on, I am doing the same. It erases the need to compare myself with others. My heart is for them to succeed.

*Rick Hamlin, ‘Called to Write’, published by Guideposts, 2019, pg 51-52.

(image found on https://www.etsy.com/listing/1560178915/vintage-guideposts-magazines-1972-7)

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Going back…

Just recently I went back to visit a place where I experienced great pain. I didn’t know what to expect, but I certainly didn’t think I would come away amazed. For, I learned that a place has nothing to do with pain – it is the person who caused that pain.

It was such a simple and obvious realization, yet it helped me narrow down my grief. For, grief has a way of taking over life, of putting a dark filter over our eyes, but grief is much more specific than a general sad fog. And I learned this because the place where I had been hurt was now beautiful and loved. It was cared for. A place where people lived in peace.

I am deeply thankful to God for this experience and wanted to share it with you. Maybe you too have found the same…

Photo by Lisa Luminaire on Unsplash

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Can we ever get unbroken?

I once believed that brokenness was for life. I would never become unbroken. I might never be able to move on.

How wrong I was. Just as God took chaos and spoke this beautiful earth into place, he can do the same for us. He speaks over each one of us: “But you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings and you will go out and frolic…” (Malachi 4:2)

Healing comes through relationship. As we honour our God, put him first, love him with all our broken hearts, he does his part. He rises like the sun over our dark and hurting lives. He brings us healing and joy.

Photo by Javier Allegue Barros on Unsplash

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It’s so easy to get lost…

We spent this Easter walking the Yorkshire Dales and everywhere we looked, we saw sheep. But while the ewes walked sensibly from place to place, the lambs leapt about like crazy jumping beans. And those lambs kept losing their mothers, baaing with agony as they tried to reconnect.

close-up photography of white goat riding on two wheeled utility cart

I laughed at their antics, but then a verse came to mind: “We all, like sheep have gone astray, and each of us has turned to our own way…” (Isaiah 53:6) How often I forget about Jesus in the excitement of life, and gambol into lostness.

 Jesus understands. He goes into the fields. “He calls his own sheep and leads them out.” (John 10:3) We might lose Jesus, but he always calls us back.


Photo by Paulina et Jérôme on Unsplash

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Hope in hopelessness

In January I gave a talk on hope. I struggled in the preparation and went to Derek for help. He asked me one question: “What is the opposite of hope?”

“It’s hopelessness,” I said, and suddenly I identified. I understood. Hopelessness is a deep dejection that nothing will improve, a choking fear that it will always be the same, a desperate feeling of no remedy or cure…

I am still thinking about hope, telling others, and applying it to my life. I trust this ‘Hope Hand’ blesses you as it has blessed me.