Category: Helping others

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Rags-to-riches in one easy step…

Sometimes we feel like rearranging the world, especially when things get tough. We want a one-step, rags-to-riches experience. We want our troubles to vanish and for our hearts to stop breaking. We want to be happy.

Instead, with everything going on, it can feel like troubles are incoming thick and fast. We feel like collateral damage and end up sprawled on the ground. Our rags-to-riches dream seems unreachable and unreal.

Yet, we so often forget that God cares. He wants to move us from rags to riches. Not necessarily rags to wealth, or health, or an easy life. He wants to move us closer to Jesus, the greatest treasure in this world…

That one step, however, includes a fact – our rags. Yet often we will think that rags are the problem. We think that getting rid of them is our top priority…

As a young woman, I experienced rags – homelessness for two turbulent years. But during that time, two identical moments stand out and they both happened on a winter’s night, when I took a bath in a tin tub, outside behind a tin barn. A chill wind was blowing and the temperature falling, but the bath water was warm, heated on a woodstove outside.

I paused to look up. The sky was black, but the stars felt so close, almost as if I could reach out and touch them. I couldn’t resist it. I stretched out my hand and touched one star, and then another. It was all too beautiful for words.

Yet, in the two years in which I was homeless, only twice did I take the time to look up. Only twice did I think, ‘Life is so much bigger than me.’ All the other times, I peppered God with questions:

  • How can you do this to me, dear God? I’m a Christian. I’m your child. You’re my father, and fathers are meant to look out for their children.
  • What are you doing, dear God? My life is being wasted. I’m barely surviving. I can’t figure out what you are trying to teach me.
  • Did I do something wrong and you are punishing me? Please tell me what, so I can change. I want to do what’s right.

I got no answers, but God knew what he was doing. He was willing to risk everything – my relationship with him, my dreams, my very life. He wanted to me learn something much bigger in life, that rags don’t define us, he does. Rags don’t last forever, he does.

And as I reflected in that tub, I remembered a verse: ‘It is I; don’t be afraid’ (John 6:20). God understood the storm that raged in my life. He understood the implications. Yet, he could give me hope. He could comfort me, even though nothing had changed. He became my treasure, my anchor in life. How very rich I still am.

(image: Rachel Claire – pexels.com)

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Verses for surviving life…

My grandmother gave me some Bible passages on my wedding day, verses on how to survive life. She understood how unpredictable it could be. So, I would like to share them with you…

  1. Keep calm and carry on – My grandmother encouraged me to ‘Refrain from anger and turn from wrath; do not fret—it leads only to evil. For those who are evil will be destroyed, but those who hope in the Lord will inherit the land.’ (from Psalm 37:8-10). She reminded me that God is our defender, and he will take care of those who are evil. Ours is to keep calm and trust in him.

2. Don’t give up – Tears are only for a season. ‘As they pass through the Valley of Baka (or Weeping), they make it a place of springs… For the Lord God is a sun and a shield; the Lord bestows favour and honour; no good thing does he withhold from those whose way is blameless’ (Psalm 84:6, 11). With God, things will turn out okay.

3. Protect yourself – These verses start off with a word that means, ‘beware,’ ‘take heed,’ or ‘be on guard.’ It implies observation and keeping our distance. In the original, however, it has a deeper meaning – to put a hedge about (as with thorns), to guard, to protect, to preserve, to save.[i] In the original it was all about defence. And just as God is our defender, he shows us how to defend ourselves.

    ‘[Guard yourself, protect yourself, preserve yourself, save yourself from] your friends; do not trust anyone in your clan. For every one of them is a deceiver, and every friend a slanderer’ (verse 4 from Jeremiah 9:4-8).

    4. Stay strong – My grandmother warned that there are manipulators out there. They figure out our heart and then use it to control us. If it is religion, they will get all religious. If it is our passions, they will say these are theirs as well. But Jesus forewarns us. ‘Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many’ (from Matthew 24:3-13).

    5. Stay rested – If you are like me, you will end up exhausted. But my grandmother reminds us that in our tiredness, Jesus says: ‘Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.’ (Matthew 11:28-30). Jesus enables us to find quiet and peace. He helps us to emotionally take a break.

    6. Keep praying – In our all groans and moans, we might not even know what to pray. But Jesus understands, without us saying a single word. For the Bible says that ‘The Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans’ (Romans 8:26). My grandmother reminds us that our groans are valid and that Jesus turns them into S.O.S. prayers.

    7. Keep trusting – The final verse (the one I have also quoted most in my life) is this: ‘And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose’ (Romans 8:28). As we look back at what has happened in our lives – the good, the bad, our mistakes and successes – if we look, we can see God’s hand. We can begin to understand what he has been doing all along. And we will say, ‘Why did I ever worry or distrust?’

    My grandmother was so right…

    [i] Hebrew for ‘beware’ – https://biblehub.com/hebrew/8104.htm

    (photo by cottonrbro studio – pexels.com)

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    Never give up!

    ‘Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart.’ – Colossians 3:23 .

    Did you know that 96 years ago, the first ever loaf of sliced bread was sold? Otto, a young man, wanted to make a bread slicing machine, and he had just about finished when his shop burned down.

    He didn’t give up. It took him 10 more years to rebuild it and then sell it to a bakery. Otto didn’t think people would catch onto the idea, but it spread around the world. Two years later, people could buy sliced bread in England as well.

    Otto never became rich or famous, but he made something which made life easier… Whatever our dreams, we can give them a go. Whatever the troubles, we can press through.

    (from a chaplain’s chat I wrote – photo by Lucas Guizo: https://www.pexels.com)

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    Living with success and failure…

    Growing up, I missed out on an important lesson – how to live with success. Instead, I became an expert at coping with failure and disappointment.

    Years later, when a major Christian publisher accepted my book, “On Unclipped Wings,” I still hadn’t learned. I didn’t understand the impact it could have on others. For every success exposes someone else’s failed dream. Every joy exposes someone else’s sadness.

    Well, the threat of litigation put an end to my success, but God used that small window to teach me something profound. To live well with success is to always remember others, to “Rejoice with those who who rejoice. Mourn with those who mourn.”* It is about intentionally giving dignity and worth, my time, in a world where disappointment is rife.

    *Romans 12:15

    Photo by Quino Al on Unsplash

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    You raise me up…

    Last night we took my eldest son to the airport. He has a one-way ticket to the States, to follow his dream of writing music for film. Before he left he played the piano in our house and I accompanied him on the violin. I was so rubbish, yet he played with me for quite a while, and one song in particular.

    “You raise me up so I can stand on mountains.

    You raise me up to walk on stormy seas.

    I am strong when I am on your shoulders.

    You raise me up to more than I can be.”

    I have always prayed that song as a thanks to God, for taking me from being a broken young woman with no hope or future, to someone I never expected possible. Then I thought of my son. He has done the same, always pushing me to go deeper, think deeper, grow in ways I would never have grown. And yesterday he did it again just by playing with me.

    Thank you, dear God. Thank you, dear son.