Thursday, August 16, 2012

4 F words we cant live without (part 1)


Have you ever  thought your life is over,just because things haven't gone as you planned them to.
Do you question were you went wrong?
 Or think about how many  mistakes you may of made, and will you ever be able to make things right and get back up and start again ?

I want to share  this morning  1 of the 4 most powerful F words, that can change the very core of who you are if you allow them to 

1. FAILURE

Yes I can already here some of you already saying "Failure are you serious" ?

Yes I am !

Failure has the capacity to transform your life and strengthen your soul.
So many people are afraid of it ,even just saying the word brings cringes to many faces.
 Many believe that if your close to God. then that word doesn't even exist in the vocabulary ...
May I suggest your reading the wrong book.
 The bible is filled with many amazing, powerful men and women of God who have experienced failure at some point.
When we fear failure it hinders us from stepping out
It frightens us to what others may think 
And it can cause many to live in denial.

For some Failure, and just hearing the word can bring back memories of pain and shame ,
Yet the truth is Failure has the capacity to make us dig so deep that we get back on our feet and walk stronger and taller than before.

When my marrige stated to crumble a few years after my hubby's accident we had lost everything and we both felt like failures.
 Dreams we had that we were seeing multiply and be laden with fruit, had all gone.
 Our business, our homes lost.
 We had moved 12 times in 4 years in to motels, hotels, holiday ins, with 3 children and suitcases.
We had to give away our long term family pets,which caused a lot of sadness, grief ,anger and much pain.
and while all this was going on we were still trying to keep  the remnent  of the church God had told us to plant together,
A church family that once flourished  in the community especially with the drug addicts and prostitutes.
Sadly we we were fighting a losing battle.
and decided to close that chapter of our lives.
My husband had an aquired brain injury from his accident and was having copious operations,so no longer able to lead.
 and I was trying  to keep everything together, like it had always been.
Until eventually all desire was gone.
I found I had lost my Joy, and so my strength to keep going failed.
  
Failure screamed at me every day, till i got sick and depressed and filled with shame and truly bewildered at how something like this could happen to my precious family,that now our  all fractured and broken and separated  (but praise God he is doing a mighy work of healing,his way HIS time)

 Then one day as i was praying, well more like having a tanty, pity party with God on the beach.
 HE  showed me so clearly that things may of failed, but that did not make or any of my family a failure.  
Failure is more than a word,that is often connected to shame and embarrassment.
 Failure can be the very springboard to something amazing if we lay down our fears and what others think, and truly surrender all that we are and have to our God
dont get me wrong thee was a few times i had felt he had up and left me yet i clung to HIS  promise that he would never leave or forsake me

Some of the worlds most famous people and achievement's in the world  came about because of Failure ....
my goodness we only have to start at the begining  in the Garden of Eden and work our way thru the Psalms with King David and so many others

here is a look at what the merrim webster dictionary says about failure

 fail·ure (flyr)
n.
1. The condition or fact of not achieving the desired end or ends: the failure of an experiment.
2. One that fails: a failure at one's career.
3. The condition or fact of being insufficient or falling short: a crop failure.
4. A cessation of proper functioning or performance: a power failure.
5. Nonperformance of what is requested or expected; omission: failure to report a change of address.
6. The act or fact of failing to pass a course, test, or assignment.
7. A decline in strength or effectiveness.
8. The act or fact of becoming bankrupt or insolvent
 
sounds depressing when we read it like this
 
 BUT HOW ABOUT READING IT LIKE THIS
 

Failure has the potential to strengthen our heats and soul and birth within us a warrior spirit .
a spirit that shouts to us each day GET UP AND TRY AGAIN  xx


Wednesday, August 15, 2012

God shops at woolworths





You’re worth more than you think!



Recently, I was scanning my groceries through the self-serve checkout when I placed a single Zucchini (courgette) on the scales, punched Z, and, to my surprise, the machine told me one single zucchini was more than I expected.

Sadly, I didn't think a small single Zucchini would be worth very much at all.

Then I thought that perhaps we approach God in the same way, basing our worth on what we think, or what others have said we are worth.

At different stages in one’s life, sometimes it can feel like not very much. Yet the amazing beautiful truth is that God doesn't have scales.

When we approach Him, He doesn't look up our name, type and size and say, ‘Oh you’re only worth this much.’

When we approach our God and listen to His Words, He reveals our worth and we come to know we are priceless to Him.

No human being or bank could ever contain the amount we are worth. God created us “in His image”, to be in relationship with Him.

When we have had painful words spoken to us, or situations have happened to us, it is in our human nature to believe lies of how unlovable we are, or how damaged we are.

That is why it is so important to turn to the Word of God, the Bible, and trust God’s valuation of us, as it protects our minds from the lies that try to destroy us.

Today, remember that you are worth more than rubies and pearls, so priceless. As Jesus sacrifice for your sins proved, you are literally to die for.

So, next time you’re in the supermarket scanning your groceries remember you are one priceless gem with incredible worth.


 

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Gods Pause Button

Definition of PAUSE

1
: a temporary stop
2
a: a break in a verse
 
Have you ever experienced a Pause moment in life.
Its a moment that we often mistake  for something more.
as if we have been frozen in time
I know when my Pause moment arrived, i felt as if God had clicked the eject button and every dream and all hope was lost.
Yet God never presses the eject button
He does however sometimes need to press Pause
 
I love how the merriam-webster dictionary defines it as a break in the verse,
It doesn't say the song is over,it just is a break, a breather, a Pause
Pause moments are hard to understand .
How do I know ?
I know because  i am in one at the moment,
so many dreams and things paused after an accident affected our family
 
Yet there is one thing I am learning, and that is  Pause moments are powerful moments if we allow them to be.
 I struggled with mine for a while,God had pressed pause and i was still running on my own steam.
Guess that's part of being human and thinking we can hold the world up when we ourselves can hardly  stand 
 I have learned some valuable lessons and continue to each day in regard to Gods Pause button.
One of the most important things I am learning, which sadly i thought I knew, is He never presses Pause without a reason,
He presses Pause because He knows the plans he has for us.
He knows us better than we know ourselves ....He sees the whole story not just one line or chapter.
He sees the beginning and the end 
so if you feel like your sitting in the middle of a Pause, remember its not forever.
 its just a break in the verse of the song called life
 Allow yourself to flow with it.
I know its easier said than done, but trust me fighting it leads to exhaustion and frustration 
 
I love all of  psalm 139  but take a moment and read what  vs 13-18 say
 
For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb. 
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. 
Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
 How precious to me are your thoughts,  God!
How vast is the sum of them!
 Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand
when I awake, I am still with you.
 
He knows us and cares for us
 and when we come to the season of Pause, or if we find ourselves in it right now, meditate on this word and know that he knows what HE is doing
 
 
 
 

Monday, August 13, 2012

Breaking the chains

As i choose to write this i realise that we may have many different views and many different experiences.
 Yet even though we may all not agree on the same things, we can choose to disagree and continue to journey together, that's the beauty about diversity.
 Its not division that makes us powerful to help one another its diversity,being unique and accepting we are all different.
  A women guide to nakedness was conceived in my heart during a very dark time, and Iam still in the very early days of having the honour of  carrying the dream in my heart,
 knowing that one day God is going to allow me to give birth to this amazing  vision.
 But until then i choose to nurture it and share my "pregnancy"journey with you all.

When God spoke the words, A woman's guide to nakedness in to my heart,i knew straight away i was about to be stripped first.
 Its like anything in life, when we are called to teach or specialize in a particular area  and help others in a certain subject you first have to go through  the training....

Gods desire is for us all to walk in freedom, however for many of us the very thing that keeps us bound has shame and fear attached to the chains, inevitably they drag us down, 
I have done many things in my life that i am not proud of,  but i have also experienced first hand the amazing Grace and Mercy of a heavenly Father who removes all shame and fear
and HE fixes that which is broken
Over the next few months, A woman's guide to nakedness wants  to look at and address some areas that we as women have or still do feel imprisoned in ...

Areas like Abortion,Adultery, Alcoholism, Anorexia,Anxiety, Bulimia,Depression, Self worth , Shame and Guilt ..... and the list will go on.
when things are brought in to the light Darkness disappears

 If you yourself  have experienced any of these areas, please feel free to send me a private inbox if you want your story to help others and i can post it anonymously.
Our MESS is always a MESSage to anothers  freedom if we allow it

So today as you go about your life, I want you to be aware of one powerful amazing truth ....
NOTHING and that means NOTHING can ever separate you from the Love of God ...
No matter what you have done in your past, or what you may do in your future, when we come to him and ask for HIS forgiveness he forgives us ..
He is not a God with a big stick who judges us and beats us ....he sent his son to die for us that's  how much he love us all  ...He removes our shame and sets us FREE
Isaiah 61 1 God tells us that He opens the prison doors and sets the captives free xx 



  

Sunday, August 12, 2012

Love on the battle field

A thought came to me early this morning, whist thinking on the Anzac spirit it took me on voyage of various stormy seas I have recently encountered ....the thought was Do we really care?
Do WE the Bride of Christ display such qualities to those wounded in battle?
Do we display a similar spirit to families who have members that are lost in the stormy seas of life ?
Do we really fight for those who have been taken captive and are now POW ?
The more I think on the Anzac spirit the more I long to display those character traits in my own life as well as seeing them displayed in our churches and our communities
WE ARE IN A WAR ...weather we like it or not.
 YES, we know the battle has been won and that God has the victory but we are still in a WAR here on earth
I so trust if we truly took hold of this reality,then a True Anzac spirit would permeate our lives and how we are to those who are wounded.......
If we accurately took hold of that reality there wouldn’t be a big, To hard basket in our minds when it comes to those getting hit by the enemy
You see WAR is WAR the ship we have embarked up on is not a cruise liner were we sit back and think everything is rosy and sip on Gods goodness without a thought for anyone else ....
Outside of our comfort zones ...are brothers and sisters who have gone AWOL..The pressures of the fight were just too much.....
Others have been taken as a POW..Caught by the enemy like trophies, weakend by the pressures of life
Furthermore many lay wounded unable to walk the road set before them, and this isn’t always due to their own doing, This my friends is what we call causalities of the battle......to be continued ...

Friday, August 10, 2012

 A few  years ago we lived on acreage out in the beautiful Tallebudgra Valley.
 I loved that place it was a haven and heaven sent, surrounded by trees and wildlife with a beautiful creek and an abundance of banana trees and citrus trees.
Yet amongst all the breathtaking beauty it took a lot of work to keep,hours up on hours of mowing and weeding not to mention pruning.
One day i remember vividly i was running out of time and i had been weeding for most of the morning,it was hot and i was tired, so i took the whipper sniper and just whipped the weeds down,
quick fix couldn't see them, and off i went feeling somewhat proud that i had cut some corners and still my garden looked beautiful.
yet that same week little green weeds started sprouting up agggrrhhhh .
There was no getting around it, I would have to pull them out buy the roots.
As i began doing this the Lord spoke to my heart,he showed me how many times we quick fix the weeds that grow in our own lives,
We can look beautiful and no one would notice until they begin to grow again ...in order to be truly weed free we have to dig out the root of what is and has caused the problem,
Is it easy? NO WAY
Does it take time? YES
 Can it be painful?OFTEN
But its so worth it
If you keep whipper snipping over the issues that haunt you or get in your way and hurt you,stop and take time to get to the root of the issue and begin to create a weed free life 

Thursday, August 9, 2012

The heart of the matter ..part 1


Have you ever wondered what it would be like to journey around your own heart, I wonder what you would find?
I don’t mean ventricles,veins and blood.
I mean the emotional areas, the areas that not even a surgeon could see if he opened us up ..I am talking about the hidden things, the things that only God can see and you can feel
Lately I have been pondering the condition of my own heart, the past few months with certain situations that have happened, I have become so aware of the powerful array of emotions we humans can contain inside us ..
I think often we can  accept certain emotions as they don’t seem to hold as much shame and horror  as some other emotions seem to, which for the life of me I can’t understand,because every emotion whether good or bad if God given.
When we feel bad emotions its a sign something is not right ..
Certain emotions seem to be  easier to talk about, Sadness and Grief tend to hold a sensitivity about them, yet the moment we say were angry, hateful, unforgiving or wanting to rip a head of (ha-ha) we can tend to be frowned up on, or looked at as if we need a straight jacket.
 And yet they are all real emotions and we still have to deal with them.

The question is the way we deal with them

We were not created to be unhappy and heartbroken,
We were not created to be addicted to different substances and hate who we are,
We were not created to sell our bodies or vomit every time we eat in order to have the "perfect body",
We were not created for pain and self destruction
We were not created to end our lives because we were ashamed of how we feel ,or what we have done.

So many of us hide the latter emotions for fear of being judged ,and take it upon ourselves to self medicate and mask them,hence the high rate of suicides we see today especially in our young people

 When we are not being honest and seeking help for damaged and painful emotions it is  like keeping them in  a slow cooker.
 A slow cooker has 3 settings low, med and auto.Auto is great, you can pop in your food and leave for the day and it will be done in a few hours. 
Yet there can be  a danger in this method, you see even though it’s on auto and supposedly cooks your food for the right length of time, if you never came home and it was left on then  the food inside still stews ,if left for to long it becomes very dry the juices have been soaked up and the taste is none existent.
The very same thing can apply to our emotions if not dealt with.
Our emotions just stew inside us, our lives may look ok on the outside,  but inside the heat is on.
 And our emotions are being  stewed so to speak and then before we know it we become dry and tasteless,bitterness sets in  and have nothing left in us to give  

Dealing with Painful situations is not as easy as 123, say a quick prayer and its all fantastic.
Painful situations are all part of lifes journey there is no hiding from them, some are more painful than others,some last longer than we would like ,but the truth is the journey and the unravelling of the pain is the most freeing thing we can ever do
Don't hide how you feel .....
Don't be ashamed if your in Pain
its better to be real and whole than false and broken
we all have a choice to face it and deal with it ,or hide it and deny it
I pray  we all learn to face whatever emotions keep us bound and we learn to fly and be free  
and i love Pr 4:23), Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life


Wednesday, August 8, 2012

A weapon called courage








The cry of my heart is that I will Arise and be all I am ordained to be.
That Isaiah 61 would be the theme of my life and that I would bring a fragrance of the king wherever I go ………

Well how beautiful it sounds to say it………. yet its another thing when he starts his transformation work in order for me to become that women he has ordained me to be, it sounds so nice to think of having his aroma but the pressing process to generate it isn’t always as pleasant ha-ha ……..

I realise that some things in my life, that I really felt I had nailed to the cross were actually still in my hand I had just managed to work my way around them masking them up, until I started to really cry out and ask him to change me wow oocchh!!!!!!!!!!!

Girls at this present time there are things in my life that I know God wants me to address/people I need to talk to things that in the natural I can’t even think about how he will work it out yet I know his ways are not my ways …….And he never asks us to do more than we can handle

Well this morning I felt God add a weapon to my bag ……….COURAGE ….

The weapon girls is COURAGE , courage to look at things in our own lives for what they really are ………Not to mask them behind smiles and biblical words but to fully have the courage to dig in deal with it in order for those around us to capture the fragrance of God in our lives.

I really am not concerned by how much people think I am a beautiful spiritual Christian………… but I am interested in people knowing of our beautiful spiritual, graceful, merciful, King

the only way his light will shine through us is if we are transparent and cry out for the help of other warriors to help us deal with any think that hinders us so we can run the race set before us I believe that each of us are Leaders in the kingdom and we have to lead the way by example



Maybe this week you will also need to dig in to your war bag and pull out the weapon of courage.

Courage to speak out

Courage to be quite

Courage to face some giants

Courage to turn away


Courage to step out

Courage to posses

One thing is for sure and you can read it for your self In the Webster dictionary. “That courage is not the abstance of fear but the capacity to meet danger with out giving way to it (fear)”.

May we be women with hearts like David who knew when he faced his Goliath that his God was bigger and stronger?

Much love and thanks for allowing me to share my journey with you debs xxxx