writing

P 3421 Get rid of that!  

/ DVH

To begin with today, I need to explain an Aussie word that can have entirely another meaning in other countries – otherwise someone’s hair might turn grey and fall out. “Piffing – primarily functions as the present participle of the Australian slang verb “piff”. It means throwing, hurling, or discarding something vigorously or carelessly.”I need to explain this word because I am planning to use it, and its other meaning is not a good one! 

There are things in our lives that we find are extremely difficult to discard. I’m not going to name anything, because I think that’s for all of us as individuals to go away and figure out for ourselves. But I pray this prayer regularly and I have seen extraordinary answers to it: “Dear Lord is there anything in our house that You don’t like? Please help me find it.” Amen. After I prayed that prayer I have found lots of things the Lord didn’t like, and I did not know they were there! I chucked them out.

Just like we do spring cleaning in our homes, we need to do regular spiritual cleaning. Let’s assess if and why we think we need something or other so badly, and why that habit or action is so hard to discard. Hence my use of the word PIFF. Which can be also translated as “chuck.” (I thought it was a bit much to put piff in the title, someone might take offence!)

There are things we do, or that we treasure, or even stuff that is laying about somewhere in a cupboard hidden, that the Lord may not like. And without being too obsessed about it, you and the Lord can have a great time, finding and removing such items. I have. Once I found something yucky I didn’t know we had and the Lord helped me locate it supernaturally. Doing such an ordinary thing with Him, helped me to learn how to listen, and it improved my faith at the same time!  When I am in doubt, by the way, I chuck it out anyway, or I prayerfully choose to stop doing it.

Moving on to two stories from the past: As a child, my son happened to be incredibly untidy – he has since grown out of that. I’ve heard stories about untidy kids who pile everything they don’t care about on their beds and the mother has to go rummaging about to find the washing etc. Not in his case. He chucked everything… and I mean everything … the things that he didn’t want, or want to be seen … under his bed. Eventually, the bed grew lumpy from the crowded floor under it. It didn’t bother him, but it sure did bother me because I had to clean it up just for hygiene’s sake. 

I got so grumpy. If that poor kid could have run away to avoid these not-so-happy situations, I think he would have, but it seems he liked us all too much. I became very sick of tidying up underneath his bed, so one day I threatened him with a smack for every item I found. 1st lesson learned … never promise something you can’t possibly deliver! Hmmm. Before someone thinks of me as a child beater, back in the ark it used to be legal to smack your kid. Read the book! Any-way, when I got to item 110!!! I fell about laughing. I would have had to beat that kid to death to make good on my threat. He was laughing, probably from relief, and a fairly good time was had by all.

Until the next cleanup. I want to add that our son wasn’t being naughty, he just had better things to do in his little boy-world than clean up his room. I was talking to his paternal grandfather about this situation. He was a fun person, and this particular day he volunteered to oversee the clean-up. The kitchen was a distance from our son’s bedroom and yet I could hear them both laughing uproariously from the kitchen sink. I snuck up to see what all the fun was about.

There was Grandpa, sitting on the floor with the boy, picking up things from a huge pile on the floor and asking him if he thought he still needed it. If the answer was yes, it went on a pile on the right, if it was no … then Grandpa said: “Piff it!” loudly and chucked it over his shoulder. Of course the piff it pile was loads bigger than the keep pile simply because the kid wanted to see Grandpa chuck the thing over his shoulder! I crept away lest I spoil such a happy memory for them both. 

I realised that this is what the Lord wants me to tell you, today. When we get rid of the things that are clogging up our relationship with Him, we are making room for other more important things He wants to give us. In my son’s case it was a lovely memory he made with his Grandfather. God enables us to leave behind any weeping and wailing over loss, because the One Who loves us best knows what is best for us. Whether it is some habit that controls us, or something, or someone we feel we cannot live without. 

Many times in my Christian walk since then I have culled our DVDs, books, music etc. among other things, and these times have become precious memories of how much God loves me. So … piff it, or chuck it , or just plain get rid of it – it doesn’t matter. If He doesn’t like it, then gone is good! Bye 👋.  

P3407 Getting older in the computer age. 🤪

/ DVH

Today I was reflecting on the different stages of my life and remembering a little bit about when I was younger. The only thing I cared about as a teenager was … does my hair look OK? Is my lippy on straight? Eventually, at 20, I married, and started having kids. That’s what you did back there in the ark – only truly brave people did something else. Having kids changed my whole outlook. 

When you have kids what you look like comes last! Instead you care more about getting all of them in the car at the same time, plus finding the car keys. Now my hubby does all that running about, and my job is to say “of course” to any suggestion he makes because he has the conn, not me. I don’t miss being in charge, because this life seems to have gotten so complicated. Not only for me, but everyone around me as well. I thought computers were meant to simplify things! 

These days, my personal-computer-that-sits-on-my-neck-and-shoulders starts forgetting stuff around about mid afternoon. It is a waste of time getting impatient with yourself when you are forgetful. A bit of a snooze helps. While I am relaxing my brain it gives it a chance to hobble on over to the old style filing system in my head to find the answer. There is no zippy or flash modern NBN computer ruling in my head, just a bunch of memories of other days.

Today I ended up laughing a lot, as I thought about my history with those old-style main frame computers. Computers joined the banking scene not long after I did, I was 14 at the time. These monsters took up whole rooms and each room was devoted to only a few tasks. Before that most of the banking work was done by various levels of complex adding machines, and people. Even then, computers threatened real people and their jobs! We never even dreamt we would one day wear a computer on our wrist or in our glasses.

You know, curiosity is a marvellous, useful thing – especially when it comes to faith – but back when I was still a kid, it just made me a pest!  I have no clue what’s in the innards of my tiny little Temu count-your-steps watch, – a teeny tiny motherboard perhaps? But long, long ago, I was given an actual wind-it-up-yourself watch … no batteries thank you … by my favourite uncle. It was a fancy one, I was bored and about ten, so I eventually pulled it apart and put it back together again. It mostly worked well after that… it just got a bit poorly from time to time. The parental response to my curiosity was that I had the hand of learning applied to the seat of knowledge, and sitting down became far more complicated.

Anyway, in my time in the banking sector, I had a lovely friend who made me laugh so much I used to have to hold on to something to stay upright  … and neither of us drank! She would walk past these you-beaut, brand new, ooh-ahh computers, grin at me with a twinkle in her eye …and say: “Watch this!” And then she’d throw a single paper clip into the aperture at the front. At that moment, one of two things happened. The machine would ignore it … OR …it made all kinds of truly dreadful noises and then paper went everywhere! That machine vomited reams of perforated paper all over the floor. It just kept on spewing out paper. It took maintenance quite a while to get the stupid thing up and running again. Meanwhile we tried to look innocent and busy, all at the same time. Back then we thought computers were great because they gave us time off. These days I remain unconvinced that computers improve our lives – they seem to consume most of our time instead.

In the past few years, I have been kept informed by my son about the computer scene, he is a very talented computer programmer. He very patiently taught me how to write in HTML! That fact still surprises me. Yes, I really can write in the most basic computer language. My son talks to me about computers, but, sad to say, now I hear waves instead of information and instructions. I nod and listen. It is amazing what you can learn if you nod, smile, and keep your mouth shut. You can even look pr-et-ty smart that way. Most days, I do find my laptop is extremely useful, simply because my handwriting ain’t what it used to be.

I said all that to say this … one of the dumbest things I think Christians can do is to mistake knowledge for application. Those things are not the same.“Now about food offered to idols: of course we know that all of us possess knowledge [concerning these matters. Yet mere] knowledge causes people to be puffed up (to bear themselves loftily and be proud), but love (affection and goodwill and benevolence) edifies and builds up and encourages one to grow [to his full stature].” 1 Corinthians 8:1.

The bible tells us that knowledge puffs up, and it becomes a big hurdle regarding true humility – it keeps us from God’s kind of love. There sure were a few big headed people back in the computer section of the banking ark. Yet I want to thank God for my mischievous friend back then, who taught me machines aren’t everything. Bye 👋.

P 3394 Do you react or respond?

/ DVH

This subject has been a difficulty for many of us. If you have lived with a reactionary parent, you may find yourself reacting to antagonistic stimuli almost automatically. The people who illustrated this trait toward us, could also be our biggest source of distress, irritation and pain. Often the person who is led by this trait is impulsive, and they regularly need some sort of diversion. They live almost on the edge of their nerves and they have no peace in them permanently.

I think doing things on impulse can be great fun, I have done it myself … but doing it continually makes for an unstable, unsettled lifestyle. What I have written here is not aiming at criticism, it is simply my best illustration of what over-reaction can do. It can quickly destabilise situations and usher in instability for others. Someone with a temper might say: “That’s just me. I flare up, but I cool down again.” I’ve found when this situation happens to me, I’m often reacting to a perceived slight, or word out of place, rather than responding to whatever is really going on. Human beings need stability, that’s why the Lord Jesus is so incredible – “He’s the same, yesterday, today and forever.”  Hebrews 13:8. He’s stable.

The insecurity created by a reactionary response can foster a deep sense of fear of things being out of control. (PS It is much better if we leave Jesus in control – fighting for control leads us to a much darker path!) Because of my own upbringing, I had a huge need to study everyone, including those close to me, carefully. Purely because I was afraid of what might come next! So I learnt to read faces, and body language to help me deflect aggression before it started. That BTW, is still a reaction!

Reacting to a situation actually means something else, or someone else is controlling us. Something unforeseen has happened and we act defensively so we can cope but then we can easily be provoked further. I don’t want to get into a debate about whether this or that is right or wrong. Instead I think we give away our ability to rationally work our way through things when we react. It took me years to realise my reaction to someone else’s instability meant I was also reacting! But I did that stuff inside my head. I was simply managing and manipulating any potential ugly circumstances beforehand, so I could pacify or placate the difficult person or circumstances.

Father God has gently peeled back the layers of anger, despair and heartache, and He showed me that I wasn’t actually escaping, instead I was becoming just like the person who was treating ME like that! He began to teach me to respond instead of reacting. Reacting means we let someone else’s actions define or create a deficit in us. However, responding is about making a quality decision about our own situation or someone’s actions toward us. Reacting is much easier than responding – our feelings jump in and they are trying to control things we feel we can’t control any other way. We need to turn to Jesus, not a default system. Control in any form, and Christianity do not mix. 

Responding means you take a second to think about what is in front of you, and ask the Lord to give you His plan. Sometimes He says to me: “Just wait…”  One thing I’ve learnt is that some reactionary people don’t like waiting, they want the difficulty escalated or resolved, NOW! But responders assess, pause, and then they act. If we are having problems with a reactionary person, waiting can prompt the other person to get even madder. This type of person doesn’t like that potential silent space, it doesn’t fit their “accelerate into war,” or “fix it now” agenda. However, somebody else’s anger is not our problem. Instead we need to ask the Holy Spirit to help us say something soft to turn away that wrath that’s coming for us. 

I’m learning to say: “You really matter to me. Let’s not damage our relationship, instead let’s turn down the heat and talk about it quietly.” Responding means you have taken control of yourself, and your own feelings. This is one of the ways we can cultivate the fruit of self-control. Our feelings aren’t useless, they just don’t have good leadership skills, because they don’t make good decisions under pressure. I have learnt when I wait, that the Lord will give me a scripture to hold onto. It helps me to bolster my faith, and it gives me something concrete to stand on. It helps me with my own response. Confronting a reactionary person is not necessarily the best time to use that word as a sword. That might only escalate things. 

However responding treats the other person like they have rights too. Controlling others so we can feel OK about ourselves, and get what we want, is not a good Godly plan. The bible says we get our worth in Christ. Our value comes from what He has done for us. When we choose to pause, then we have some time to choose to how to respond under the Holy Spirit’s guidance. If we read the entire story about Christ’s torture, punishment and death, we can see that He chose to be silent in the face of blatant untruths. His response was to say nothing. Responders understand they have the power to make things better. 

Like the scripture says in my blog heading: “I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead. I PRESS ON …” Philippians 3:13,14a. Bye. 👋

P3391 Personal testimony.

/ DVH

Hubby and I have made bible delivery trips all around Australia from top to bottom and side to side, for the past 21 years, approximately 280,000 kms. We lost count! God called us, when we were in the middle of Australia, staying at Uluru. My dear hubby was in terrible pain at the time. The L4/5 discs in his back were disintegrating, plus he couldn’t sit for long periods of time, and he couldn’t work anymore.

The bank wanted to repossess our house at that time. Undaunted, hubby had faithfully finished a 3 year bible college course lying flat on his back, most of the time on the floor! He had bone crunching against bone so it was not nice. A dear friend paid for us to fly to Uluru, and he shared his accommodation with us.

I like to tell people that my husband walked all the way from Brisbane to Uluru, because he literally did. Apart from going up and coming down again, he walked the aisles of that plane, both ways, in terrible pain. They had to put him in a wheelchair to get him on and off, because he could not manage the stairs. A bit later he had an operation for those discs and praise God, the pain left. But at that time we were both praying and waiting on the Lord to find out if there was anything He wanted us to do for His kingdom. 

On the very last day before we flew back home again, we decided to scrape up our pennies and invest in a hire car from Uluru, and go out to Mt Conner, which was about 147 kms away. The picture above shows you the area. We climbed out of the car to look at this interesting formation of rock, and hubby very carefully warned me to lock all the doors, because the car was not ours. So I did. 

The scene wasn’t all that riveting, just a huge lump of mesa rock far far away. Plus, by this stage we had taken some truly great pictures of Uluru. Now that is some rock!  But we took pictures anyway, then we went to leave. Poor hubby was taking pain killers for his back so he could manage the never-ending pain, so he was a bit vague. That’s when the unthinkable happened. In all his concern to keep someone else’s car safe, my dear husband had locked the keys to the car — IN the car. And it was very HOT in the sun. There were the keys, together with some  water, a very necessary item – plus sunscreen and food etc. All of it was locked away, tighter than a drum. This is not good when you are out in the middle of the outback, in the middle of nowhere! We were stranded. Yay!

We prayed for help, because neither of us had the ability or energy to walk to the nearest cattle station, which was, at the time, 65kms away. Then a Dutch couple turned up in a Combi van, and tried to help us with a tiny little screwdriver so we could get the window open. No chance there! Then along came a busload of Japanese tourists. They found what was happening to us, much more interesting than the view of Mt Conner! Bless them. Fortunately someone had a great big screwdriver, thank the Lord, so while this was going on, all the passengers were busy filming our dilemma. 

Finally a Ford Falcon drove into the viewing pull off – there wasn’t even a toilet! And out climbed these four guys who could have played international Rugby! Boy were they big guys!! One of the biggest ones had his wife with them. When they found out our predicament … which wasn’t hard to miss with a crowd of Japanese tourists jostling round the car filming away…the wife whispered to my hubby: “It’s OK, they can fix this for you. My husband just got out of jail for breaking and entering!!” We didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. 

But sure enough the four of them started tackling the problem of how to get into our little rental car. Meanwhile, they were all so big they could have picked up the car and shook the keys out!  A-n-y-wa-y … I shan’t tell you what they did, because I’m pretty sure it was illegal, but in the process someone came up with a coat hanger and they used the BIG screwdriver to open a window a bit, and then the coat hanger trick to pull the keys out of the ignition. 

Slowly the big guy balanced the keys toward the slightly opened window, and then … the keys fell off! A collective groan went up from all the Japanese tourists who were still  watching on! The keys slipped off the coat hanger hook onto the driver’s seat. Another big groan from the audience. Finally the guy managed to thread the keys back onto the coat hanger and carefully pull them out of the window. And he noticed a tiny scratch on the driver’s door and licked his finger and wiped it. “That’s OK,” he said. “That’ll buff right out.” Problem solved! 

Those burly men drove off almost immediately, but before they left the wife said to hubby, “They would never have left you alone here to manage this situation. They would have stayed with you, until you were safe.” They told us they were all from Newcastle. We gleefully jumped back in our now wide open car, drank a whole bottle of water, waved at the Japanese tourists boarding their bus, and then headed back toward the Uluru complex. As we were driving away praising God loudly for His provision, and kind hearted people, the Lord spoke into hubby’s heart. “These are your people, the people I have sent you to – ordinary working class Aussies”

Sometimes we get our assignments from the Lord, in unusual ways. We’ve been doing what He told us to do in that little white car on the road back to Uluru, ever since. I don’t usually share our personal life here, but maybe somebody out reading the blog today, needed to hear that a ministry can be born from strange and difficult circumstances. Bye. 👋.  Isaiah 40:3-8. Isaiah 55:10,11.

P 3337 Life ain’t boring, that’s for sure!

/ DVH

Here are some memories from our trip: At our farm stay the hosts had one Scottish Highland cow, multiple chickens, three dogs, not to mention a herd of ordinary garden-variety cows. The Scottish Highland cow loved carrots, so hubby went to feed it a number of times, as she was quite friendly. Her nose was as hard as a rock – it looked like a giant potato! And her tongue was so much longer than the large carrot he gave her. Crunch, munch … all gone! Some pet – half the size of a barn!

Two of their farm dogs were very active, but all of them were somewhat chubby from too much love. There was an elderly Pit-bull, a Labradoodle, and a Golden Retriever. The two younger dogs were quite bouncy – but fortunately, as you will learn, also a bit slower because of their excess weight. We were all in the lounge together talking about life on the farm, and suddenly the golden retriever runs by outside the large glass doors, with a pair of chicken legs hanging out of one side of her mouth and the chicken head hanging out of the other. She’s having a whale of a time. Hubby noticed her, said discreetly: “That doesn’t look like a good thing.” He’s a master of understatement. 

The owner went from a pleasant, friendly person to a distraught owner instantly. She screamed, “Lindy stop!” And ran out the door chasing after the dog. Lindy had quite obviously latently discovered her real role in this life … retrieving things. The dog thought the whole thing was a game, but when the owner yelled out “drop it,” Lindy dropped the ….mostly-dead-looking-straggly-wet—chicken on the ground. She’s still ‘smiling’ ‘cos she’s thinks she’s clever. Good time to note that retrievers have a soft mouth as they are often used for retrieving pheasants. Anyway, there were feathers everywhere because it seems the chook put up a bit of a fight. 

Now the dog sat by this totally collapsed chicken, looking so pleased with herself, wagging her flag of a tail. However, her owner was not amused. She picked up the chicken, the poor thing had fainted …  then she took the dog and the chook with her, and disappeared. Five minutes later she came back and announced that the chicken was going to be OK. For a few minutes I thought we might be headed for a chook funeral. How it survived that ordeal I will never know! However when we understood said chook was OK, we laughed so hard we couldn’t stand up. It truly was the funniest thing. 🤣 You could not have choreographed it.

Meanwhile the next day, in yet another town – we went to deliver some blankets, bibles etc. to a trained social worker at a local hospital. She brought tea and coffee with her, and came out to the car to collect packages, to save us the bother. An-y-wa-ay … we had already prayed for her before we met her, and when we were talking together, the Lord said to me: “Tell her she needs an exit. Tell her to pray for an exit.” We like know, zero, zilch, zip-didley-squat about this girl who is cheerful and smiley and looks professional and normal! I’m kind of dubious about this idea…”I can’t tell her that Lord! You can’t do stuff like this nowadays, it is not PC!”  Jesus said: “What are you concerned about? You won’t be here tomorrow!” 😂

I got the impression that the Lord was holding a big EXIT sign in His hands. “Tell her to look for the exit.” He said again. So bearing in mind the actual happy truth that I am definitely escaping soon, and I won’t have to see her ever again – see how heroic I am? … I simply told her what He said and Who said it. I had no faith whatsoever. None!

This precious young lady cracked open like an egg, weeping and nodding, and yes-sing all over the place. It transpired that she loves the people, but hates the job. She travelled 140km each way, every single day, from Sydney just to go to work – because she doesn’t live where she has to work. God sent us there — supposedly to provide blankets and toiletries —- but He really sent us to tell this sweet young lady to actively look for another place to do what she is trained to do. You never know what the Lord has up His sleeve and it can be a lit-tle bit scary. 

Next fun story:  someone back home mentioned to us that they just love autumn leaves, because when you pick them up, no other hand has touched them. They just kind of float down from the tree by themselves. Well, the town we were staying in was chock full of gloriously coloured trees and I had the bright idea that perhaps we could collect some and take them back to this person as a gift. So there is hubby, (I volunteered him, I sat in the car invisible to the world!… As you do!) He’s jumping up and down, bumping and thumping branches, so that leaves would fall off, and he could catch them in an open plastic bag – look Ma no hands! He’s racing round and round the tree holding the bag open. Yes we got some!

After that we trundled off to deliver bibles to a caravan park, 6 kms down the road, the last time we were here they said “No!” very firmly. This time, praise God, they said ‘Yes.’ However, on the way back we needed to buy some fruit, and the only Woolworths was on the wrong side of a very busy road. So I light-heartedly said to the Lord: “Do You think some angels could build a Woolies on this side of the street for us please?” Jesus said: “How long have you got?” He cracks me up every time. 

Last story, I promise! In one of our overnight accommodations, the ceiling of the unit was covered in tiny black insects. Hubby can get anaphylaxis from some bug bites, and I suffer from rampant hives. Well clever hubby carefully sprayed them with bug spray that we had brought with us – so now they are like … dead … on the floor, the bed, our clothes, the benches, the soles of our feet etc. were all covered in tiny black bugs. That was soooo fun! I am very glad neither of us sleep with our mouths open. Reaching out to people for His sake ain’t boring that’s for sure. Bye. 👋

P 3218 I may fail – but God WILL not.

/ DVH

Those of you who read this blog regularly will already know that Cyclone Alfred (Feb2025) caused a flood in one of our lower rooms. It quite literally washed away some of the floor. Our house is like ‘The House that Jack built,”and I’m sad to say that in my opinion – Jack was a lousy builder! God bless Jack if he is still among us, but very little in our downstairs area has been built up to spec. Parts of it are not legal, including the height of the roof, but the council doesn’t care, because it was like that when we bought it. Which means it was not our fault. Thank the Lord for that!

While the many builders we hired were analysing what needed to be done — they kind of smiled — then they looked at us with dollar signs in their eyes! I assume that’s because we are their idea of a windfall, and their magical dream of an all expenses paid trip to the Bahamas seemed much closer than it did before they met us! And then they announced that all our building problems are insurmountable and we should pull the entire downstairs area down and start again. I guess we will have to live in our mango tree while that happens.

Around about the same time, the insurers agreed with the builders, and announced that we were not covered by insurance, despite our copious, regular expensive payments, because of paragraph 390 subset 4,251. Yay!  We don’t have a money tree or bush in our yard, so we both got on our faces, and asked the Lord, what’s next? Ya have to seize the adventure before you, that’s what I say… I have also been known to say ‘well that sucks,’ but talking about ‘seizing the adventure’ sounds wa-ay more spiritual. 

So, after much prayer, with God leading us — we met Ali, a person of another faith, and a brand new unemployed immigrant who had just arrived from another state. His English was limited, but he assured us in sign language and broken English, that he knew all about tiling floors and fixing the concrete underneath. He originally came from Iraq so we figured he wasn’t exaggerating about that! 

Ali, it transpired, truly was God’s choice! BTW, we found him through a reputable agent. He worked like a beaver, kept us up to date with what was going on, and we had many opportunities to encourage him, and talk about our faith, as well as put it into action in his life. When we said goodbye to him, we hugged all round. Our floor in the meantime looks like a palace! 

Moving on to December, 2025. This time the roof in our downstairs bedroom turned into a waterfall, and we had numerous tennis ball sized hail-strikes all over that part of the roof. It was leaking because the rain was so heavy and the hail broke the tin roof sheeting. So back we went to our insurers — however, we weren’t very surprised this time when we discovered that somehow paragraph 390 subset 4,251 also applied to leaking roofs! The insurers were polite … but because the downstairs does not conform to council standards they were not obligated to … blah blah blah blah. 

I tuned out. I had heard it all before. Naturally I responded with great Grace to the insurers. After HOURS of prayer and a whole lot of “gee I hope some tennis ball hail gets YOUR roof next time!” I eventually moved on. Yes, I repented! And right now I am laughing, but smiles were a bit thin on the ground back then! 

We had to move out of our bedroom, which was working on becoming an indoor lake, and jam ourselves back into a much smaller space upstairs. Not the best option given the daily disabilities we both face. Our family came to our rescue again, to help us move. In just a few months they had helped us move out of, and back into. our bedroom twice! That, BTW, includes the bed, wardrobes, etc. etc. More blah blah blah.

So we returned to our trusty agent again because Ali had been so brilliant last time, and this time we found a family of roofers. They too, were honest men who gave us a fair price, and they not only fixed the roof, they made it so it would not leak again. And then they gave us a written guarantee for 15 years!  As the Lord led us we were able to minister into their lives too. We paid for that privilege! Ministry will always cost you – it’s free to them.

I’ve written this today to assure others that they are not the only people whose lives sometimes are shaken by trouble and strife. Let’s look at Paul’s life. In the past Christians have tried to minimise trouble in our lives as if trouble is somehow a sign that we are not spiritual enough. However, Paul was somewhat of an expert about trouble. He shared some of it in: 2 Corinthians 6:4a-5:

“…in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses; in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger; …” 2 Corinthians 11:25-26: “Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my fellow Jews, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false believers …”

Our experiences at our house obviously do not compare with the Apostle Paul’s hardships! However, I’m not giving up on my own transformation – He’s doing something. Sometimes I may fail, but God will not! Hallelujah. Have a good one. Bye. 👋

P 3199 Real life.

/ DVH

At our house, we like to watch endless Christmas movies before Christmas. My dear husband loves them… ME? … not-so-much. He likes the soppy, sappy, sometimes sad ones the best. And if we find a funny one, it becomes a classic, and it comes out year after year, after year … …Unfortunately, I’m a Big Bird meets Bambi girl myself, I like to look for movies in the kids department … well, I did, until they became nasty as well!

My daughter explained to me that this situation could be much worse. Lots of men like exploding, guns blazing, blood and gore movies …I think those blow-everybody-up movies should be piled in a heap and burnt. Now there’s a strangely telling response to violence if ever there was one. Any-way … we were suffering through… sorry …’happily watching’ … some totally inane junk … and somebody in one of them actually said something that was worth our attention. 

It took me a little while to recover, because what they said was vastly unexpected!  It actually made sense to me, but we will definitely need His help to do it! When you are watching soppy movies endlessly, the most ridiculous things suddenly seem quite brilliant. It’s called brain damage, and should be listed under the heading of things you should never do to your wife! Hmm, I may have a slight problem with resentment there, I’ll have to look into that.

This is what was said, and it really got me thinking: “Let’s act like the person you want to become.” I mean, like WOW! … Like how cool is that?  U-oh! Please hold…I’ve just realised that I may have been spending wa-ay too much time with my adorable granddaughters, and I’ve picked up the habit of over-using the word “like.” That word now seems to be the new comma. I wonder whatever happened to ENGLISH, and peculiar things like Grammar. Meanwhile it seems good to keep up with the younger generation, they’ll be in charge one day soon. Now, where was I? … ‘acting like the person I want to become’. Well, that got lost in the wash fast didn’t it?  Maybe it is easier said, than done. 

Yet this sentence still has a clear ring of truth in it.  So, today, I want to look at something I learnt from some dumb movie I recently watched to help my spouse enjoy Christmas. After all, hubby endlessly does all the work and all the cooking so that everyone else can have a lovely Christmas. That is now my motivation. However, at the same time, I must honestly say that a teeny tiny bit of the rest of the movie did make me laugh …. 

Here’s the bit — one of the main characters in the movie is asked by their small granddaughter. ‘why there are so many Santas?’And, then she wanted to know all their names because they couldn’t all be Santa! Of course Grandpa didn’t have a clue so he said whatever popped into his head. ‘Santa, Janta and Mylanta…” For some inane, utterly ridiculous reason I found that hilarious. Probably because Mylanta and I have more than a nodding acquaintance. Meanwhile, I think some of my marbles may have given up on me.

Third try to go back to my point… let’s act like the person you want to be.  I have to say that I’m not big on acting at all, because actors get paid incredible amounts of money to LIE for a living! But, I believe the Holy Spirit is delighted to help any one of us, as we begin to take teeny tiny faith steps out onto the choppy dangerous waters of this life.  He can take our intention and make it real.. What would happen if we decided to ignore any and all provocation, and respond with love instead? It could go like this:  someone says something mean because they are angry, but we choose to say something sweet instead: “I’m so sorry, I seem to have offended you,” I have to say I’ve tried that one and it works beautifully.

At the same time there is a chance that others can take great offence if it seems you are able to be more gracious than they are feeling at that moment. That’s why I pray help a lot! I pray like that because everyone needs it. All by myself I can make things far worse than they were ten minutes ago. The Holy Spirit is a wonderful Helper, and He often tells me: “Time to be quiet now.” He’s way too kind to me to tell me to shut up! There are other times when He reminds me that I may be mad in that immediate moment, but I do actually love that other person, so it is not good to injure our relationship by flinging my uncensored opinions about all over the place. 

He is, without a doubt, the very sweetest Person I have ever met. He gently reminds me about what the bible says too. My advice is to watch out for His whisper. He says lovely things like: “Love suffers long… it bears all things …” You know, all that stuff that we can say by heart — but then we find that what we believe is only skin deep. And right now it seems I am tempted to run on hurt feelings, so I’m probably going to choose to go with, ‘I wanna hurt you back!’  That’s not a good plan.

Here is a scripture to refresh everyone’s memory, including mine, about the kind of Love the Lord Himself,  extends to us, all day every day.“…that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting people’s sins against them [but canceling them]. And He has committed to us the message of reconciliation [that is, restoration to favor with God]. …” 2 Corinthians 5:19. In real life, we may feel like we are pressed hard on all sides. But actually we’ve left our faith behind. Let’s go get it again and choose to find our inheritance and use it instead. Bye. 👋

P 3144 James 1:3-4

/ DVH

I understand if you think of this blog as something that daily talks about the Word, however, today, I want to talk about finding fun in annoying things. I have mentioned before that hubby and I suddenly find ourselves in fits of laughter for good reasons – as well as totally inexplicable ones. Not just a smile, or a giggle, but-wiping-your-eyes-because-you-laughed-so-much-you-cried – laughter! In case you are thinking, ‘lucky you,’  I also want to reassure you that it doesn’t happen all the time… I wake up grumpy too! Should have let him sleep. That’s a joke, right?

Whatever! So I thought I would share a couple of the things that have happened to us recently that seem to have contributed to these laughing fits! I bought a gizmo – it needs batteries, gizmos always need batteries – it’s from Temu. Please, no letters explaining to me that I shouldn’t buy anything from overseas, I should buy from here. That thought is because of our economy … I get it. But it’s cheap, we can afford it, and most of the time, the stuff is great. 

Let’s just dispense with all that supposition and go back to…I bought this gadget. Our beloved dog loves to bark. She’s a sweetie, she wouldn’t hurt a fly, and is utterly cheerful about life. Even though she is over 13 years old. She still jumps around like a puppy. In the dictionary under enthusiasm, it shows her picture! But she loves to inform everyone within earshot, that this is her house, she lives here and you’d better stay out. Then the dopey dog wags her tail!

Back to the gizmo, which I like to call a ‘persuader’ … it emits a high pitched sound that supposedly dogs hate. I should only have to use it for a few seconds, because it is designed to interrupt the dog’s instant reaction. Her “see danger tell you about it”  instinct. Please note the words – supposedly and should! Hmmm. Maybe she’s deaf. She IS old! But currently she sleeps right through the you-beaut dog persuader. Whatever it is that dogs are meant to  hear, she doesn’t hear it.. Ho-hum! 

SO! I had another thought. My not-so-wunnerful-friend the mina bird is still bugging the daylights out of me whenever I sit down to write my blog. I’ve taken to singing “Sing a song of Sixpence, a pocket full of rye. Four and twenty black birds, baked in a pie!” whenever I am around these pesky birds. In the desperate hope that they might take the hint.

It is entirely possible that we have the wrong kind of birds in our garden – these birds obviously arrived on earth hint-free. My nursery rhyme attempt does not make an impression – it’s a bit like the dog really. Maybe the noisy minas think my singing doesn’t apply to them, because they know they are not blackbirds! Mo-v-ing on … Guess what! I had another brilliant idea! 

The U-beaut $14 gizmo does not work on my doggie, but perhaps it will work on those pesky birds! So today I sat and pressed the button a-n- d  … … they kept on squawking. I thought to myself, perhaps I should press it longer …I probably need to give it a good go …!  Nuthin’ happened here – except they got more vocal and louder. So I literally leant on it for a few minutes a time.

Maybe they thought I was some sort of musical accompaniment for all that  twerping and chirping?  It’s a thought, OK? Sadly the outcome was obvious from the beginning. I’m still writing this blog and I’ve just wasted 10 minutes trying to shut-up the noisy mina birds taunting and teasing me outside my front door. And don’t tell me it’s not personal because they fly away the minute I’ve finished the blog!

Sigh. When you open the door they also fly away … in an arc… only to come back again and land in the same place. It seems we have set up some sort of game!  It’s like an old black and white movie comedy scene – except I end up feeling murderous. I can’t pray, I can’t write, I’m firmly ensconced in bird-interrupting-your-thoughts land. So I told hubby about it. I thought: ‘Men like to solve things!’ Give them a problem and they are happy – meanwhile don’t BE the problem because then they are NOT happy… that’s another subject for another day.

Now my darling husband has taken to sneaking across the lounge floor, and remaining motionless beside the glass doors … waiting for his moment to persuade the birds to go elsewhere. Lucky me! Now I have RAMBO living at my house! Minus the torn bit of material tied around his head! Instead, hubby has a plastic super-soaker instead of a proper machine gun… more’s the pity! Day by day, there he is silently stalking his prey, waiting … waiting … suddenly he jumps up, flings open the door and aims his trusty.. … wait for it – water pistol …at the bird!

The bird is long gone by the time he arrives outside the door … but, he assures me, he has hit it with water twice. FYI, It didn’t hurt the bird, it couldn’t wait to begin again! The minute I stop writing my blog, or praying, the bird is gone. Yes, seriously!! It has taken me a while to realise that perhaps this is a demonically inspired bird. Sigh. I suspect that all that twerping and chirping for weeks, has muddled my brain. At least I practise what I say — I’ve been stuck on ‘help, help please Lord,’ for the past hour and a half! 😡 

BTW I found a verse … you knew I would! God bless James! 1:3-4. “…for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” There’s that ‘let’ word again! Bye.👋

P 3079 Stuck!

/ DVH

“Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,…” Philippians 3:14.

“Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.” James 1:23-24.                                                        

“I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.“ Philippians 3:14. 

It’s not the falling over that gets you – it’s all the effort it takes to get up again! But these verses offer us some great comforting advice and we should take it. Our lives have been redesigned so that now we can both live forgetting the past and pressing in toward our future in Christ. This means that if I want my past left behind, then I should leave your past offences toward me behind too. I guess that is why the writer used the word STRAINING! 

Choosing to become forgetful of the past is one of the biggest assignments of our faith. My problem can be a lie the devil chucks at me … It feels like, if I forget what you did to me then I am letting you off the hook. You can go and do the same thing, or even worse, to me next time! At the bottom of our lack of forgetfulness toward people who have really hurt us, is a lack of trust. I don’t trust you because I think you have given me good reasons not to trust you. I probably don’t even trust the Lord to deal with you – and ps I actually think He should take you off to the woodshed and give you a good whopping!

Let’s look at the situation this way: The above verses are part of a process, they are not the end game. The end game is …press on!  But to do that, we will need to be actively engaged in forgetting what is past. At the same time I will need to remember and face what I actually look like, because I can get so used to highlighting your faults that most of the time, I can’t see mine! In my mind your faults make mine look tiny. That kind of blindness is part of a defence system.

The reality is that I want to stay mad at you, because you did something so terrible I can’t let you be close to me again because I cannot bear the hurt again. That hurt may manifest itself in anger, like I said yesterday, because someone has punctured my little smiley-face balloon persona, and now I’ve found out that I am not the nice person I thought I was.  My real sin is not just unforgiveness, it is that my flesh is in charge, not my spirit, and this other person has forced me to face myself. 

I can kid myself that I am a nice person, especially if everyone around me plays fair, and no-one pokes the bear inside me. But when someone pokes that bear, suddenly I know that I truly need saving. Yet I still have a place I can hide in, because I can tell myself that I am not that bad. YOU made me look that bad because you did thus and thus and made life difficult for me.

Because of this almost unconscious process, I can exonerate myself from my own personal responsibility and I pass all the responsibility for my actions over to you. That is just so dumb on so many levels! One of them is that I already don’t like you, and yet I’m putting you in charge of my behaviour. The bible clearly tells me what I look like at that moment, because my focus is on you, it clouds my view of myself in His mirror, and I then I walk away SMUG. Sadly, I can also dirty up the mirror of God’s word with religion and good works.

But spiritually I am stuck. This following story is an illustration of what stuck can look like. I have been to Anne Hathaway’s house in England. ‘Shakespeare country.’ In the houses back then, there were solid beams going from the roof to the floor, and the floor consisted of stone paving. At the bottom of one such beam I noticed a deep groove. I asked the guide what it was, and they told me it was a post-middle ages’ method of keeping a tiny tot safe. 

The parent would strap the child into a leather harness and the kid walked round and round the beam. The beam was not all that big, so the kid must have been bored out of its gourd going round and round! These things were commonly used in those times. It’s a wonder kids didn’t turn out to be a little doolally … temporarily deranged and/or feeble minded! They were totally stuck there – all in the name of safety!

Let’s take a look at how to move forward from being stuck. I need to actively choose to forget the old and press forward toward the new. There is a new place for you and I to occupy together, it is a place where hopefully, both of us let go of the past, and begin to look toward a new and different relationship. We have given up trying to make the old one that we had work, because it didn’t.  It is foolish to keep repeating old behaviour patterns, when they just lead us into the same old holes. And so now we choose to start again to rebuild trust between us.

We can use the Word of God as our guide, instead of our past experiences, or even our personal needs. As we look into His Word, we will discover that both of us have faults that have affected our ability to relate to each other in a Godly fashion. Instead we have chosen to look into His Word deliberately, to find places we both need transformation! That’s what pressing on looks like. We move beyond being stuck in our fleshly desires and wants, and press forward into doing what He wants. Bye. 👋

P 2984 I haven’t got time for what you think of me.

/ DVH

Yeah, I know, cheeky eh? I’ve learnt that there are huge blessings in getting older — it’s like the biggest secret ever. Your bones may snap, crackle and pop, and your brain can’t always find the file you need in your head. But  I try not to concentrate too hard on the fact that my cheese is slowly sliding off my cracker! Mainly because I also run out of energy easily, so I have had to learn to prioritise.

I think that’s why some older people go doodle-lally as they age – they think they need to keep desperately trying to do the things they’ve done all their lives …  Old bodies aren’t designed to do the things young ones can do. I think of it like this – I’ve had my turn on the stage of life, it is time to stand in the wings and encourage the younger players. You don’t have to bow out, just be a mentor to someone else! You could start by teaching grandchildren to cook, most mums are too busy juggling a hundred things and trying not to drop one of them.

Meanwhile, brain cells dying off are actually a real thing! Don’t feel bad about it, or try to stretch yourself so you look like you are still 21, or 44, or some made-up end-figure. If you are older, you have other benefits to replace the instant clarity you enjoyed when you were younger. Things like this: you don’t feel the urge to constantly rush about, because you’ve learnt things have a way of taking care of themselves. You also hopefully learnt it’s OK to make mistakes, mainly because nowadays you can’t help doing it! 

Moses made a huge mistake at the end of his life… let’s just leave that out there, and say no more. After all He WAS Moses! Abraham kept playing pass the parcel with his poor dear wife Sarah – who was a very patient woman if you think about it.  And let’s not go into Job either … yet that old man ended up wiser in the end than he was when he started out. Just don’t ever give up on learning about, and from, the Lord!

And … here comes another benefit … when you get older, meditation comes more easily. At least once a day I end up meditating on the back of my eyelids – it’s really productive. I feel refreshed afterwards. It’s OK, by the way, my eyelids are both still there and functioning, I just can’t control when I close them as well as I used to. When I was younger I was always busy, but I also remember that being younger and having a family, you are often too busy facilitating other people’s lives. The only thing you end up meditating on is the rapidly growing pile of unpaid bills.

So, here is my text for today:“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.” Ecclesiastes 3:1-8. 

And here’s my observation. If there is a time for everything, then God has His eye on everything and we don’t have to worry about it. Which is why: “Oh well,” is rapidly becoming my new favourite saying. I know that  rich king, Solomon, who wrote this book said … ‘there is a time’ a lot.  He was a bit repetitive, but I find his sayings strangely reassuring. It means we need to take a breath when one of the aforementioned tough things land on us. When you get older you have time to sort stuff out and pray over it. There are lots of advantages to being older! Some of those things make me feel better about not being able to cash in on: “there’s a time to dance. ” I grew wa-ay past that place … ages ago!

Hallelujah! I am so glad there’s a time for everything and anything – even opposite things. Some Christians act like some of these ugly things aren’t in the bible. We all feel hate, just don’t camp there. Jesus would not have told us what to do about hatred etc. if we didn’t need to know it! My advice is don’t build a village around your feelings … move on. It’s OK to cry, just don’t let it be your lifestyle. There are so many sides to life’s spectrum – enjoy them all. The bad things make the good things even sweeter.  

Jesus had wa-ay more wisdom than Solomon anyway. Check out what He said about these negative things. However banning things, and making rules, usually encourages people to hide what’s going on when they can’t seem to avoid how they feel! This collection of verses totally reassures me that God knows about everything that goes on down here on planet Earth, and He has a plan, a purpose, an end-game for each one of them. YAAAAAAAY! SomeBody Else is in charge and it doesn’t have to be me! Remember, our God understands ‘old.’ He’s not called the Ancient of Days for nothing! 

In this later season of my life I am learning that bad things are total time wasters that can leave you feeling unfulfilled, ashamed and guilty. You wish you had never stuck your head down whatever rabbit hole that popped up in front of you, because your head can get stuck in there. Reflection comes easier with age. But, the truth is, I haven’t got time for what you think of me, because you probably DON’T! You are way too busy, and you have better things on your mind —- good for you. Bye. 👋