Tag: hope

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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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Retrospect…

My wedding day was certainly tough. Someone stepped in and caused trouble on all sides. Then, at the reception, my granny gave me an unwrapped, tattered, black leather Bible. I had thought wedding gifts should be new!

I thanked her and flicked it open just for a second. Yellowed pages. Marked and underlined verses. I can’t tell you how sad I felt. So, I left that Bible untouched, unread. Ten years later, I sent it to a relative.

Fifteen years passed and I travelled the several thousand miles to visit this relative. They told me that during my wedding reception, my granny had stepped aside and sat quietly in a corner with that Bible on her lap. Her head was bent down as she underlined verses. ‘I didn’t know that!’ I said, surprised.

‘You should read it,’ this relative said. ‘Those verses are for you.’ Then they hurried to fetch the Bible and gave it back to me.

Out of curiosity, I opened it and searched. A whole series of passages had been marked, but it surprised me because these were my favourites as well. All these years later, I discovered that God had taken her down a similar path. Both of us had concluded that God is good, even in the midst of intense sadness. Both of us loved him.

I kept on flicking, page after page and God spoke deep into my heart. Here is one of those passages:

‘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).

Our troubles don’t define us, God does.

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Don’t be afraid when life changes…

We can write out the perfect script for our lives. We can live out our story with all our heart. We can set the scenes, but things don’t always go to plan.

We cry out to God and he hears our prayers. And then he steps in with his clapperboard. He tells us that the script is in need of change and that he has known it all along. But it takes us time to accept the pause and to realise that our first script was riddled with plot holes.

So, now he is writing and keeping it secret. Now he is changing the narrative. Don’t be afraid. Go with God’s plan.

(photo by Matin Lopez: https://www.pexels.com)

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‘It wasn’t your fault.’

Sometimes people tell us, ‘It wasn’t your fault,’ especially when we struggle with our past. But we might push them away, for they obviously don’t know what went on.

But often those on the outside can see our lives better. They hear our stories and the guilt we have assumed. They see how we were made to feel responsible. We feel guilty for things we never did.

It takes a journey to move from shame to freedom. It takes accepting the invitation our friends have extended. For they long to see us living OUR lives and leaving behind the lies.

‘It wasn’t your fault,’ are releasing words. We can move on.

(photo by Pixabay – www.pexels.com)

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When taken hostage by gaslighting…

It can be deeply painful when someone hates us for doing good. It hurts when our sense of justice is mocked, because it doesn’t bow to their demands. The Bible puts it so well. ‘You have turned justice into poison and the fruit of righteousness into bitterness’ (Amos 6:12). These kinds of people will try to poison us, to gaslight us into agreeing with their reality.

But the Bible guides us when we are in danger of being taken as a hostage: ‘They shall never enter my rest’ (Psalm 95:11). We can say, ‘NEVER!’ We can say, ‘No! You can’t come in! You will not disturb my rest.’ We can choose who we let into our lives. We can choose those who love good.

(photo by Leonie Fahjen: pexels.com)

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Should we let go?

People often say, ‘You must let go of your past.’ But, it is our past which forms us into the people we are. It was our teacher as we learned from our mistakes. It taught us what or who was dangerous.

The past is that part of us which can never be undone, yet the Bible says, ‘Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See I am doing a new thing,’ (Isaiah 43:18-19). To ‘not dwell’ means to stop trying to understand what went wrong. It means to stop trying to figure out the ‘Why?’

The unjust hurts will eat up our life, but we can turn our heads the other way. We can let go of the unanswered ‘Whys’ and begin to see God’s new.

(photo by Gantas Vaičiulėnas: pexels.com)

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We can see…

In the beginning, God was there in the darkness and confusion. But then he spoke, ‘Light, come!’ And what he set in motion still is.

Each of us had a beginning and it was in darkness. But then in our births we came into light. God set us in motion and we still are. Yet, he wants to speak again today, as we experience other darknesses and confusions. He says, ‘Light, come!’

He sets in motion something new, if only we could stop and look – a scary new path, a unexpected opportunity, or an undiscovered talent we never knew we had. And if we walk in what we see, we can share that light with others. For, beginnings are a gift we can accept and give.

(photo by Pixabay: www.pexels.com)

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Our best is enough…

Over the last few months I have joined in initiating three new projects. Each one totally different. A community centre. A writers’ group. An apple orchard. And with each I feel out of my depth.

Yet over the years I have learned that it is okay to feel that way. It is okay to look at a blank sheet of paper and go blank. It is okay to feel lost.

But, I have found that the ideas do come. A random chat on the street. A person who has been there before and shares their expertise. The encouragement of a friend.

And when I give my best and ‘work at it with all [my] heart, as working for the Lord,’* something always happens. The initiatives take on a life. They bless.

*Colossians 3:23 (photo by Tim Douglas: www.pexels.com)

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The adventure of change…

If we add one and one in the arts, it is never two. It is unpredictable and beautiful. We get something new, and the arts’ world does this so well. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwC0Db7oerM)

The same can be true for us. If we dared to step out into something new, it too could be unpredictable and beautiful. Or it could be a flop. But we would never know how we could change unless we tried.

So, in this new year, 2025, I too will try something new and see where it goes. For even though the possibility of adding one to one can be scary, the adventure of change is worth it…

Watch this space…

(photo by Antonius Ferret: www.pexels.com)

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Bible psychology – The opportunity in our personality

Each of us has a personality – it influences the way we think, feel and behave. And, even before we were born, it was right there as a part of us. But we might think life unfair, especially if we end up with some unwanted traits.

But the Bible says, ‘Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it’ (Psalm 139:14 NLT). Now, imagine God stirring up our gene pool, picking out exactly who we should be. He gives us the good and the challenging – each one an opportunity to see how we will do.

I know of someone who had a raging temper. They actually couldn’t remember what they did or said. But this person recognised that this was dangerous and began to work on themselves. They learned how to channel it into something good…

(photo by David Guerrero: www.pexels.com)