I Love Devotionals by Wendy van Eyck

How to be a good friend during the holidays

2015-12-10T11:53:00.000+02:00

A guest post by Betsy St. Amant

I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world. John 16:33 (NIV)

The holidays can sure be an exhausting mix of joy and despair, can’t they?

It seems like for every strand of twinkling lights, there’s a tear dripping down a cheek. For every plate of gingerbread cookies, there’s a bill on the table that can’t be paid. And for every Christmas carol sung with gusto, there’s a whispered lie of hopelessness.

Hard times, heartache, and grief are not prejudice and pay no attention to the calendar month. Pain hits who it will, regardless of it being a bright summer afternoon or a winter Christmas morn.

Jesus even told us “In this world, you will have trouble.”

Think about the people in your life—so many struggling with:

Infertility.

Death.

Grief.

Divorce.

Broken relationships.

Financial hardship.

Wayward children.

People searching for jobs, for freedom from addictions, for significance. People waiting for clear medical reports, for positive pregnancy tests, for their spouse to come home.

There’s trouble everywhere we look. In our backyards, in our bank accounts, in our relationships.

I’m so glad Jesus didn’t stop there when He talked about trouble. I love the rest of that verse. “But take heart…I have overcome the world.”

And that’s what our main goal should be when ministering to friends hurting this holiday season—ushering them to the Overcomer.

When someone we care about is in pain, we understandably want to fix it. But too often, in the heat of the moment, this attempt at fixing comes across as displeasure, frustration, or impatience toward our loved one. It can also express itself as judgment and actually serves as salt on the wound, rather than the intended Band-aid.

When I was going through my divorce almost three years ago, I had so many well-meaning people tell me things like “I know it’s hard, but just focus on you and your daughter right now.”

I know they were trying to comfort and point out the good I still had in my life, but it made me feel worse. Because not only did it not fix the fact that I was suddenly single after nine years of marriage, it made me feel like I was a bad Mom for not feeling like my daughter was enough. I felt like I was a failure because I missed my marriage.

I finally, years later, figured out that a wound doesn’t render a blessing null and avoid—and vice versa. (<— Tweet this)

I could love, appreciate, and be grateful for my daughter with every ounce of my heart. But that didn’t change the fact that I was at that time grieving the loss of my marriage and fighting a loneliness gap that I was used to having a spouse fill.

My daughter wasn’t meant to fill the void of a spouse. Just like being married doesn’t fill the void of infertility. It’s a separate longing.

Jesus alone fills those needs, in His ways, in His timing, and you know what? The process and the specifics look different for everyone.

That’s why we have to be careful when we try to fix our friends’ pain. Those people who spoke those things to me didn’t mean to heap guilt and shame on my head. Of course they didn’t. Just like we don’t meant to hurt when we say trite answers such as “It could always be worse” or “God has a plan” or “Just be grateful for what you have”.

Trite answers certainly hold a merit of truth. But in the whirlwind of pain, they tend to serve as splinters instead—nagging, irritating annoyances that do more harm than good.

The good news is, we don’t need to have all the answers. All we have to do to be the best friend possible is simply point our friend toward the One Who does have the answers.

Jesus.

This holiday season, if you have a friend who is grieving, look for tangible ways to direct them to Jesus.

Invite them to church.
Supply them with a new journal and their favorite color pen to vent their emotions.
Bake their favorite dessert.
Write Scriptures on cards and mail them.
Offer to go for a drive and promise to only listen and not say a word.
Surprise them with a giftcard for their favorite hot drink.
Pray for them.
Offer free babysitting.

In summary, be the Gospel. Be the hands and feet of Jesus. Be available.

And be quiet, so He can do the talking.

Ponder: Who do you know that is grieving this holiday season? How can you be the hands and feet of Jesus to them?

Prayer: Lord Jesus, thank you for being the overcomer of our troubles in this world. Help me to keep my mouth shut when I want to give trite answers in response to peoples pain and instead help me to reach out to them and be your hands and feet. Amen.

About the author of this devotional

Betsy St. Amant has a heart for three things – chocolate, new shoes and sharing the amazing news of God’s grace through her novels. She lives in Louisiana with her adorable story-telling young daughter, a collection of Austen novels, and an impressive stash of Pickle Pringles. A freelance journalist and fiction author, Betsy is a member of American Christian Fiction Writers and is multi-published in Contemporary Romance via Love Inspired and Harper Collins (Zondervan). When she’s not reading, writing, or singing along to a Disney soundtrack with her daughter, Betsy enjoys inspirational speaking and teaching on the craft of writing. Find out more about her at betsystamant.com or say hi on Facebook and twitter.

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I recently wrote about contributing 5 devotionals to the Zondervan’s latest NIV Bible for Women. Zondervan have very kindly offered my five copies for readers to win. You may enter as many times as you like. Competition ends 15 December.

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Photo Credits (Creative Commons): HubSpot | Design: Wendy van Eyck

When you need someone to acknowledge it happened (and it hurt!)

2015-11-23T05:30:00.000+02:00

You see all things;

You saw me growing, changing in my mother’s womb;

Every detail of my life was already written in Your book;

You established the length of my life before I ever tasted the sweetness of it.

Psalm 139:16 (VOICE)

My friend and I walked into the coffee shop at the same time. “Shall we sit here?” she said, pointing to a long table with a bench.

She ordered a cappuccino and I ordered water. Then my friend asked how my foot is.

And out poured this story. This story of why I didn't get stitches when I should have. How I didn't get stitches because the last time I was sick in December I was told I was dramatic. And I didn't want to be dramatic.

So instead I asked the people around me if they thought I needed stitches.

They thought I didn't.

And I didn't want to be dramatic so I listened to them.

I told myself, ‘the body is amazing it can heal itself.’

The cut can’t be as bad as you think.

Four days later, my foot turned pink, started to swell, and I could no longer bend my toes. I decided it was time to be dramatic.

I told Xylon to drive me to the doctor. Where a very kind physician did not lecture me on being irresponsible or even on the importance of self-care.

He simply lifted the bandage. Asked when it happened and said, “I'd expect it to be more healed by now.”

Then he felt my pulse and tested my blood pressure to see if the infection was systemic. Content that it wasn’t he prescribed me antibiotics and sent me home. Telling me it should start healing by Sunday.

On the Monday, I asked to be taken to the doctor again. My foot was getting better but it didn’t seem right to me. I had learnt my lesson. The doctor took one look and prescribed heavier antibiotics.

My friend sat across the table as I told this story and said, “It hurts, hey? It wounds our hearts deeply to be told our pain isn't real, that it doesn't matter?”

I nodded and the wound in my heart throbbed. It throbbed because it was being acknowledged. My pain was being seen.

We spoke about how healing only comes when pain is acknowledged. A wound cannot be treated if the person carrying it acts like it doesn’t exist.

My friend told me how she went to the doctor and told him she was slightly tired. He ran tests and told her, “I don't even know how you walked in here. You shouldn't have enough energy to do that.”

She spoke about how good (bad?) so many of us are at hiding how much pain we feel. And how that makes others think that we’re okay. And how because everyone thinks we are okay they don’t stop to say, “Wow, that looks sore. You were very brave but let’s get you some help now.”

Then she told me about her little girl. Adopted shortly after birth she struggles with her presence not being acknowledged.

The wound my friends' daughter carries isn’t visible, like the cut on my foot, but it is just as real.

My friend went onto tell how their daughters birth-mother never told anyone she was pregnancy. She hid the pregnancy - hid her daughter - shielded her from being known even while the in the womb. This little girl was unseen. Invisible.

And in then there in the coffee shop my friend quoted scripture:

You see all things;

You saw me growing, changing in my mother’s womb;

Every detail of my life was already written in Your book;

You established the length of my life before I ever tasted the sweetness of it.

There was healing in her words, a reminder that the God-who-sees-me knows every detail of my life. (tweet this)

She spoke the words she prays over her daughter but they began to heal my wound of being in pain with no one to take me seriously.

The last few days I’ve cradled that verse in my heart, wrapping it round my heart wound every time I change the dressing on my foot. Reminding myself that it is only when pain is acknowledged that it can be treated and the wound can be healed.

So I wind the bandage round-and-round and whisper: You see all things…

Ponder: As you read this what heart wound began throb? And say, “I’m real, it happened, it hurt.” What steps can you take to acknowledge the pain? Consider seeing a social worker or psychologist to chat through the pain.

Prayer: You are, the One who sees all things. You saw me growing, changing in my mother’s womb and right now you know the details of my life that causing my heart to throb with pain. God who see me show me how to acknowledge this pain I’m feeling so I can taste the sweetness of the life you’ve given me. Amen.

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I’d also love for you to connect with me on my Facebook, pinterest and twitter pages or if you're viewing this via email you can leave a comment by clicking here.

{You might also like these posts}

3 reminders of God's love for the days you feel invisible, unwanted or held back by your past

When you feel invisible (or one way God reminds me he keeps his promises)

How does God see me?

One thing to remember when you are hurting

{Get my book - for free!}

In my free e-book Life, Life and More Life I share thoughts on how to make every moment count gleaned from my experiences of loving my husband through 18 sessions of chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant. If you would like a free copy please subscribe below to receive my devotionals every Monday and Thursday.

Photo Credits (Creative Commons): Thanks to Unsplash.com and Gratisography | Design: Wendy van Eyck

One thing to remember when you are hurting

2015-11-05T08:44:00.000+02:00

As a result of this encounter, Hagar decided to give the Eternal One who had spoken to her a special name because He had seen her in her misery.

Hagar: I’m going to call You the God of Seeing because in this place I have seen the One who watches over me. Genesis 16:13 (VOICE)

According to people who know me I'm dramatic when sick or hurt.

I would disagree, but really, what do I know when I'm arguing with someone (Xylon) who has had a bone marrow transplant and someone else (my mom) who has had their heart shocked back to rhythm multiple times?

On Sunday, I stepped on a piece of glass while walking on the beach.

The cut was clean, but pretty deep, and about 3cm long.

There was blood. I want to say there was a lot of blood but fear the aforesaid people might think I'm dramatic.

All I had was a tissue. And about 1km to walk across the beach to the car.

I asked Xylon for the drawstring on his pants, and tied it round the tissue and my foot as a makeshift MacGyver shoe, and then we walked home as fast as I could.

That’s it. Not dramatic at all.

Well, there was one slightly dramatic pause when I burst into tears and cried, "How will we ever make it to the car?"

But I'm blaming that one on shock.

To be honest, I know I can be dramatic when I’m sick or hurt.

But if it helps at all, I also know why I’m dramatic. I want someone to notice me. I want people to react in a way that signals that I matter, in a way that tells me, “I’ve seen your hurt.”

There’s a story in the bible that I strongly identify with.

It’s about a woman who was hurt in ways I can’t even imagine. Hagar, a slave, she was used by her mistress, made to sleep with her owners wife, and then when she became pregnant with his child was treated badly by her mistress.

Hagar finds herself out in the desert discarded, thirsty and pregnant. Genesis 16 tells us that the Special Messenger of the Eternal One found Hagar alone by a spring of water out in the desert.

The Special Messenger gives her all kinds of promises from God and at the end of it the Bible says,

“Hagar decided to give the Eternal One who had spoken to her a special name because He had seen her in her misery.

Hagar: I’m going to call You the God of Seeing because in this place I have seen the One who watches over me.” (tweet this)

I don’t identify with this story because of what Hagar went through. Her misery is way worse than any I have experienced. Cutting my foot on the beach is a really bad comparison.

I identify with this story because, every time I read it, I remember God is the One who watches over me, who sees my misery.

It reminds me that God not only sees me but he responds to me:

God doesn’t leave me broken. He brings to completion the work he starts (Phil 1:6).

God is my help in trouble. He is safe place to share my misery (Psalm 46:1).

God makes all things new. All. Things. (Revelation 21:5).

I think these things are true whether I’m speaking about physical pain (like my foot) or emotional pain (like Hagar).

These days as I’m (dramatically) limping towards wholeness I’m reminding myself that:

God sees me.

God responds to my pain.

God is present in my misery. (tweet this)

Ponder: What are you dramatic about in your life in the hope that someone will you see the misery you are hiding?

Prayer: Eternal One, thank you that you know you my name and see me in my misery. Help me to remember that are the God of Seeing and you watch over me. I can’t wait to see how you make all things new. Amen.

{Share this post}

You can share this devotional on twitter by clicking here.

I’d also love for you to connect with me on my Facebook, pinterest and twitter pages or if you're viewing this via email you can leave a comment by clicking here.

{You might also like these posts}

How to pray when someone hurts you

When God makes something out of pain

Why I know Jesus would do anything to take your pain away

How to pray when your heart is breaking

{Get my book - for free!}

In my free e-book Life, Life and More Life I share thoughts on how to make every moment count gleaned from my experiences of loving my husband through 18 sessions of chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant. If you would like a free copy please subscribe below to receive my devotionals every Monday and Thursday.

Photo Credits (Creative Commons): Unsplash.com | Design: Wendy van Eyck

When your season of healing is longer and more painful then you ever imagined, read this

2015-09-30T05:30:00.000+02:00

I won’t be posting a devotional every Monday and Thursday while we’re travelling but from time-to-time (if you’re a subscriber) you will find a post like this one with a few posts that I’ve loved reading and sharing on twitter over the last few months. I'm expecting to be back to sharing new devotionals from 19 October.

I thought this blogging break would be a good opportunity to share some of the posts I’ve been loving over the last few months and maybe introduce you to a few new writers and bloggers at the same time. Until I get back I won't be posting with my regular Monday and Thursday rhythm but you can expect a mail with a few links to things I've been enjoying reading every now and again.

Here are a few good reads about healing, wholeness and finding hope in suffering because sometimes healing takes longer and is more painful then we ever imagined. So here is some hope for the times when you feel like you’re falling to pieces:

Why the season you’re in is so complicated by Margaret Feinberg // Because Margaret has been there. She’s had cancer, and fought back with joy, so when she speaks about healing, it’s worth taking notice.

A dirt path and the beginning of hope by Bethany Suckrow // Because a season of healing doesn’t rarely means keeping up appearances.

All Our Crooked, Half-Healed Places by Addie Zierman // Because we can do some healing alone, but not all of it.

Jeremiah 29:11 Doesn’t Mean What You Think by Mary DeMuth // Because God does have good plans for you and sometimes it’s hard to remember that thriving in difficulties is part of that.

When you have hidden hollow places by Amber Haines // Because Amber writes beautiful truth for all of us who have hidden hollow places (isn't that all of us?)
Trigger warning: This post deals with abortion.

The truth that could make all the difference for you today by Jennifer Dukes Lee // Because Jesus wept. He didn’t just cry. He wept.

The God of Lost Things by Alia Joy // Because Hope is hard.

One more push by Alise Chaffins // Because one day we will all be held by the one who made us.
Trigger warning: This post deals with baby loss.

The Value Of Suffering (Part 2, 3, And 4) by Erika Morrison // Because even though I don’t understand it, pain is part of the point and plan by which we are healed, saved and continuously made right. And Erika helps me understand that.

If you’ve read anything that you’ve loved (or written something) you think I or my reader would enjoy please share a link in the comments and I'll take a look when I get back.

{Share this post}

Please share this devotional on twitter by clicking here.

I’d also love for you to connect with me on my Facebook, pinterest and twitter pages or if you're viewing this via email you can leave a comment by clicking here.

{You might also like these posts}

Do you need faith for God to heal? (or the story of a woman who gambled for healing)

When you're confused about why and who God heals, do this instead
Hope for the times when you feel like you're falling to pieces

{Get my book - for free!}

In my free e-book Life, Life and More Life I share thoughts on how to make every moment count gleaned from my experiences of loving my husband through 18 sessions of chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant. If you would like a free copy please subscribe below to receive my devotionals every Monday and Thursday.

Photo Credits (Creative Commons): Unsplash.com | Design: Wendy van Eyck

One surprising thing I often forget to do in the good times

2015-09-03T15:43:00.001+02:00

Give thanks to God—he is good

and his love never quits. 1 Chronicles 16:34

A few hours before we were to see the doctor to get Xylon’s results of his scan I could feel the tension building in me.

I thought about all the previous meetings, about the last scare we had. I thought about how so many meetings with doctors have ended in hearing words I never want to hear uttered again.

As we walked in to see the Doctor she laughed apologetically and said, “This would be the day I forget my glasses. I’m having to squint to see what is written on the scan results and compare measurements.”

Then she told us, “But it’s all good. The measurements are all the same or decreasing. The areas we biopsied last time are still visible but we know those are reactive cells.”

I think she said something else but I wasn’t really listening. I was letting it sink in that Xylon is in remission.

I’m learning to give thanks to God even when I’m confused about why and who God heals.

I’m learning to thank God when something really cool happens like having a bible with 5 devotionals I wrote get delivered to my doorstep by Zondervan.

And I’m stopping and saying thank you for love that never quits when I see flowers opening after days of rain.

Thank you God for a dog that wags his tail like mad when he sees me.

Thanks God for food that nourishes me, for a roof that covers my head, for warm blankets, for…

Over the last few years I have learnt to say through the hard times that, “God is good and his love never quits.” (tweet this)

But now I'm learning that it is just as important to say “God is good and his love never quits” in the good times.

Ponder: What can you thank God for today?

Prayer: God, thank you for [name three things in your area of vision you can thank God for today].

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I’d also love for you to connect with me on my Facebook, pinterest and twitter pages or if you're viewing this via email you can leave a comment by clicking here.

{You might also like these posts}

Does God no longer love me if I have troubles?
One truth that could change your relationship with God (and everyone else you know)
When you need eyes to see God's love in hard things
Does it feel like God’s love has failed you?

{Get my book - for free!}

In my free e-book Life, Life and More Life I share thoughts on how to make every moment count gleaned from my experiences of loving my husband through 18 sessions of chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant. If you would like a free copy please subscribe below to receive my devotionals every Monday and Thursday.

Photo Credits (Creative Commons): Unsplash.com | Design: Wendy van Eyck

How to feel hopeful on your most hopeless days

2015-08-10T08:38:00.000+02:00

We who have run for our very lives to God have every reason to grab the promised hope with both hands and never let go. It’s an unbreakable spiritual lifeline, reaching past all appearances right to the very presence of God where Jesus, running on ahead of us, has taken up his permanent post as high priest for us... Hebrews 6:19-20 (MSG)

The sun had already set when I pulled out our driveway to visit Xylon.

As I reversed I noticed 7 large metal symbols hanging vertically from the wall:

❤
H

❤
❤

As I drove to visit Xylon in the hospital my heart felt lighter the whole way, a little bit of hope had entered the dark thoughts in my head.

It was a few months ago, and we were waiting for results from a biopsy of some suspicious cells the doctors thought might be cancer.

Most days during that time, my friend Monica texted and asked how I was doing in the hope department.

Most days I told her I felt sad, angry, and had very little hope.

So when HOPE appeared on my wall I texted Monica, "Were you the one who left some hope on my wall?"

She replied instantly, "Was just typing: You see I "vandalised" your property? I bought my hope sign during the time we were waiting for a baby. It stands for me as a real testimony/victory as we've had to fight hard for our hope and our future.”

She continued, “The sign fell off the wall the day Xylon came for supper and Jesus said I should pass it on. I feel the tangible presence and strength of hope over you both."

I hung the sign by my door: a tangible symbol of the hope we have because of Jesus.

Each day I walk past it and I'm reminded of Hebrews 6:19-20 which says,
"We who have run for our very lives to God have every reason to grab the promised hope with both hands and never let go. (tweet this)
It’s an unbreakable spiritual lifeline, reaching past all appearances right to the very presence of God where Jesus, running on ahead of us, has taken up his permanent post as high priest for us..."

Even on my most hopeless days I feel hopeful when I remember that hope is an unbreakable spiritual lifeline reaching right to the very presence of God and that Jesus is still reckless with hope.

Ponder: Do you know God as the one who gives hope?

Prayer: Lord, you are the hope for hopeless so I'm running to you with both hands and grabbing on to you. Fill me up with hope and give me a tangible reminder today that hope is an unbreakable spiritual lifeline. Amen.

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I’d also love for you to connect with me on my Facebook, pinterest and twitter pages or if you're viewing this via email you can leave a comment by clicking here.

{You might also like these posts}

The secret to finding hope
Hope for the times when you feel like you're falling to pieces
Five things to do when life is heavy and hard to take

When it’s hard to believe that hope is coming, read this

{Get my book - for free!}

In my free e-book Life, Life and More Life I share thoughts on how to make every moment count gleaned from my experiences of loving my husband through 18 sessions of chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant. If you would like a free copy please subscribe below to receive my devotionals every Monday and Thursday.

Photo Credits (Creative Commons): Unsplash.com | "hope sign" : Wendy van Eyck | Design: Wendy van Eyck

Why your life doesn't have to be perfect to be beautiful

2015-07-23T13:47:00.001+02:00

Heart-shattered lives ready for love

don’t for a moment escape God’s notice.

Psalm 51:17 (MSG)

I was walking our dog in the field below our house this morning. It has been raining for the last four days and there was a brief break in the rain so I grabbed a rain jacket and told Oliver to come and off we went.

As we walked I noticed a pinky wild flower open to the sky. I leaned in to take a closer look and I thought, “What a pity it’s not perfect.”

But it was beautiful so I pulled out my phone, and knelt down to take a pic.

This intrigued our 8 month old puppy and he came bounding across the field to see what I was looking at.

He stood on the flower in the process. To get a photo I would now need to hold the flower up with my hand.

The photo wouldn’t be perfect.

I took a photo anyway (bottom right hand corner of the photo collage) because I’m learning that something doesn’t have to be perfect to be beautiful.

The Nester reminds me of this often as she highlights photos from on instagram from the #idhtbptbb (it doesn't have to be perfect to be beautiful) feed. The pictures feature décor that isn’t perfect but are beautiful.

But it’s not just in décor that I need to learn this. It is in life.

I’ve been thinking about old photos a lot lately. Decades ago when film was rare and precious, there are only a couple of photos to remember a special event. Many of those photos aren’t perfect but they’re beautiful.

Many lives aren’t perfect but they are beautiful.

That's a bit like the gospel for me.

It's messy.

It's ugly.

It's not easy to hear about a man hanging on a cross. It must have been harder to witness.

Sometimes it's hard to believe that a Jesus could have died, risen again, and that somehow in that mess, that our redemption is found.

Somehow through a messy story God worked redemption and beauty and life and hope out for us.

It’s a story of God seeing beauty in our imperfection.

The message translates Psalm 51:17 in such a beautiful way:

Heart-shattered lives ready for love don’t for a moment escape God’s notice. (tweet this)

I think that verse sums up the beauty of the gospel.

Your life doesn’t have to be perfect for you to run into your Father’s arms and thank him for creating beautiful things in your life.

And your life doesn’t have to be perfect for God to notice you and call you beautiful. (tweet this)

My life isn’t perfect but I’m learning to recognize it is beautiful. And sometimes it is in the imperfections that I find the most beauty.

Ponder: What imperfect moments or things can you notice today where the flaws add beauty?

Prayer: Thank you Jesus, that my imperfect life does not escape your notice. Thank you for reminding me that you call me beautiful in the midst of my mess.

{Share this post}

Please share this devotional on twitter by clicking here.

I’d also love for you to connect with me on my Facebook, pinterest and twitter pages or if you're viewing this via email you can leave a comment by clicking here.

{You might also like these posts}

What if Jesus called us to be imperfect?

How does God see me?

{Get my book - for free!}

In my free e-book Life, Life and More Life I share thoughts on how to make every moment count gleaned from my experiences of loving my husband through 18 sessions of chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant. If you would like a free copy please subscribe below to receive my devotionals every Monday and Thursday.

Photo Credits (Creative Commons): Unsplash.com | Design: Wendy van Eyck

When you feel unloved by God, try this

2015-07-13T01:54:00.000+02:00

I am my beloved’s,

And his desire is for me.

Song of Solomon 7:10 (NASB)

It's been a long time since I've read a book that wasn't a memoir or a novel.

Most non-fiction Christian books I read are full of lists of things to do or change about myself.

I became tired of finishing a book and feeling like I need to pray more, read the bible a certain way, go to church or tell one stranger about Jesus every day. So I stopped reading them.

This weekend I read a book by Brennan Manning called “The Furious Longing of God”. I only read the book because, well, it’s Brennan Manning, and since reading Ragamuffin Gospel in my teens I’ll read anything by him.

It’s the first book I've read in a long time that made me feel loved by God.

As I read it felt like God loved me.
No, like God actually liked me.
Exactly the way I am.
No need for extra prayer, or church attendance, or reading the bible.

In the book, Basil Hume of London England is quoted as saying: Christians find it easier to believe that God exists than that God loves them. {Tweet this}

It is so easy to forget that God loves us, isn’t it? It shouldn’t be, but it is.

Almost daily, bad things happen, people we love ache and dreams collapse. And most times even squinting doesn’t bring God into focus, yet alone help us to see or feel how much he loves us.

Brennan Manning tells a story of 78 year-old nun who was sexually abused by her father from the age of 5. This nun comes to Manning one night at tells him of all the hatred she has felt in her heart for a long, long time. She spoke about going through the motions of religion to keep up appearances. But her heart was so very, very broken.

After listening to her story, and praying for healing, Manning asked her to find a quiet place and pray this prayer every day for the next 30 days:

Abba, I belong to You. {Tweet this}

He explained that this prayer is exactly 7 syllables and corresponds to the rhythm of breathing.

Inhale-Abba. As you exhale-I belong to you.

And she did it.

Manning says her follow-up letter told of how her heart was being healed, how she had forgiven her father and how she knew inner-peace for the first time in her life.

As I fell asleep on Saturday night my breathing reminded me to pray.

Inhale – Abba

Exhale – I belong to you

It was a childlike, simple prayer, but I felt as I prayed that was trusting God with my life again.

As I prayed it felt like I was letting go of all the hurts, disappoints and fears, and telling my father God – my Abba – that I believe that he is for me, and his plans for my life will give me a hope and a future.

Ponder: I’m going to quote Brennan Manning from the "Consider This" section of The Furious Longing of God: “Prayerfully consider taking a few moments every day for the next month, closing your eyes, upturning your palms, and praying, “Abba, I belong to You.” Don’t make it anything more than that; trust me, it’s enough.”

Prayer: Inhale – Abba, Exhale – I belong to you.

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If you feel unloved, unwanted or insecure
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When you're confused about why and who God heals, do this instead

2015-06-25T07:57:00.000+02:00

Taking a good look at [the ten lepers], Jesus said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.”

They went, and while still on their way, became clean. One of them, when he realized that he was healed, turned around and came back, shouting his gratitude, glorifying God. He kneeled at Jesus’ feet, so grateful. He couldn’t thank him enough—and he was a Samaritan. Luke 17:14-16 (MSG)

Xylon fingered some bumps on his right hand side, "I think I've got shingles."

I slid across the bed and stood next to him fingering the raised bumps, "It looks like shingles. You better get to a doctor tomorrow before we are away for a week."

I said it casually but fear had already made its way into my voice.

You see almost four years earlier Xylon had shingles, and a few months later he was diagnosed with lymphoma, a cancer that attacks the immune system.

We knew until Xylon's next scan over a month away from then that we would be fighting the enemy of our souls and the shadow of death that cancer opened the door too.

We prayed right there that night that the devil would not steal our rest or our joy from the next 10 days of holiday.

We were headed to the exact place where a year earlier Xylon had stood and experienced God healing him. The place where Xylon tells people he knew he no longer had cancer – not because of medicine – but because God heals.

Then we returned from our holiday and Xylon went for his biannual PET scan.

This is where the part about God healing my husband gets messy.

The next day the Oncologist phoned. "It looks like there has been a recurrence. You need to see a Haematologist about treatment options."

'Not this, not again,’ we thought.

The Haematologist gave us hope. Told us a biopsy would confirm whether or not it was cancer, that there was a 35% chance of a false positive on the PET scan.

We fought for joy. We tried to remember that we believed God had healed Xylon. We spoke about how all those weeks before we’d felt that the enemy of our souls was out to steal our joy, to take credit from God.

A week ago, we got the results of the biopsy and they showed, “No cancer”.

It would be easy for me to say, “I knew all along that it would be clear because I know God healed Xylon.”

It would be easy to say but it’s not true.

I doubted.

I let fear win many times while we waited for the results.

I know healing is complex.

I know God doesn’t heal everyone and I don’t understand why.

I love how Abby Norman puts it that her feelings about healing are more jumbled and complicated then she ever expected. I get that.

And I still doubt. I still wonder if what Xylon felt as God healing him truly was his creator reconfiguring cancerous cells. I guess it shows that maybe I don’t really trust God with our lives as much as I think I do.

But I’m not beating myself up about it. I don’t think God would want that. I think he would want me to like the one leper out of ten who realised they were healed and ran back to thank Jesus.

One leper out of the ten who didn’t wonder if this healing was forever.

One leper out of the ten who just saw healing in the moment and couldn’t wait to say, “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

One of the ten who says, “I don’t understand it but my heart is full of gratitude.”

One out of the ten who kneels at Jesus’ feet and can’t thank him enough for his gift of healing.

And there is the part of me who asks what if Xylon’s scan wasn’t clear? What would I be writing then? How would I fight back with joy then?

I hope like Margaret Feinberg I’d be able to say that "Praise wins the battle. Every. Single. Time." (tweet this)

Ponder: What are your feelings about healing? Have you experienced healing from God before? Are you still waiting for him to heal?

Prayer: Thank you, thank you, thank you, God.

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7 reminders not to give up hope

2015-06-04T03:30:00.000+02:00

For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. Romans 8:24-25 (NIV)

Hope is a fragile thing. (tweet this)

Hope is hard to wrap your heart around. Just when I think that I’ve got it, that hope has found a place right there next to Jesus I begin to feel hopeless.

The last few weeks there have been times when hope has been the only thing getting me through.

Xylon and I have been clinging to hope. He's been reading the bible for mentions of it and sharing them with me as he finds them.

Last night he told me about this verse he saw on my mom's Facebook page:

For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

I guess that’s why I write so much about hope on this site because I know that most days hope is what I need to see tomorrow. I imagine many of you feel the same way.

One thing I’ve learnt in the three years since Xylon’s initial cancer diagnosis is that when the rest of the world is saying there’s no hope, Jesus is standing there saying, “They’re wrong.”

When everyone else is questioning if Jesus really cares about the hard things we’re going through, I listen for his voice declaring, “Don’t listen to them; just trust me.”

When everyone else is saying, “You have no hope!” Jesus is saying, “I am your hope!” (tweet this)

As I listen to the whispers of Jesus I find hope rising in unexpected places.

If you need a whisper of hope today may you find it in one of these devotionals: (tweet this)

If you’re wondering if Jesus is still reckless with hope then read this.

If it’s hard to believe that hope is coming I wrote this for you.

If you can’t seem to crack the secret for finding and keeping hope then follow this link.

If you’re falling to pieces and need hope then this one is for you.

If curling up under a duvet seems like the best thing to do then I hope you read this post by Ruth Garner with your head on the pillow.

If you’ve made a mess of life and need hope then read the words my Dad wrote.

If life is heavy and hard to take then read this and discover 5 things you can do about it.

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Photo Credit (Creative Commons): Field of Daisies: xlt.lv Barefeet: Merra Marie Curtsy: Danielle Moler | Design: Wendy van Eyck

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One thing you need to remember about your life

2015-05-18T12:40:00.000+02:00

For now, we can only see a dim and blurry picture of things, as when we stare into polished metal. I realize that everything I know is only part of the big picture. But one day, when Jesus arrives, we will see clearly, face-to-face. In that day, I will fully know just as I have been wholly known by God. 1 Corinthians 13:12 (VOICE)

If you look at our couch now it looks like something we spent a lot of money on.

But that's not the full story of our couch. In fact, that's not even part of the story of our couch.

We were given our couch because it was being thrown out.

The fabric was torn, it had stains from all kinds of bodily fluids and dirty hands and the cushions no longer held. Did I mention, it was also mustard yellow?

The previous owners had decided there was no salvaging it.

Xylon and I weren’t married and he lived in a one bedroom flat with just a bed, a microwave, and bicycle.

The thought of having something to sit on that you didn't need to pedal, even if it was past its best days was enticing. So he took the couch that was going to be thrown into the garbage.

We spent an afternoon with a rented steam cleaner sanitizing the couch and then covered it in a number of throws.

A year later, once we were married, this old couch moved with him into our new flat and became "our couch".

One of our wedding gifts was upholstery fabric for the couch. My sister-in-law, who works in the furniture industry, helped us source a good quality upholsterer at industry prices, and two weeks later our couch came home.

After some tender loving care the couch looked better than it ever had.

When we shared the picture with the previous owner they said, “Can we have it back?”

Sometimes it’s impossible to see the hard story when it’s covered up to look like new. (tweet this)

Most days I forget that if you look at our couch now you'd never guess its story.

Or that if you looked at Xylon and I walking hand-in-hand along the beach you wouldn’t know our story either. The one where half our total anniversaries have been in hospital wards while he had chemotherapy.

I felt God reminding me this weekend that I don’t know the full story of my life.

I only see in part. God sees the whole. (tweet this)

Your life is part of a bigger story. The hard parts aren't the whole story, they're just a chapter, and they're not how the story ends.

One day, Jesus will arrive, and we'll see the whole story, but for now just remember that this - this hard stuff you're walking through now - is only part of the story.

Ponder: What is happening in your life at the moment that you need to be reminded is only part of your story?

Prayer: Jesus, I realize that everything I know is only part of the big picture. I can’t wait for the day when you arrive, and I will see clearly, face-to-face. Thank you that for now I can rest in the confidence that I am wholly known by God. Amen.

PS: I thought since I was writing about our couch it would be fun to include a pic of it. So I snapped all the pics in about our house for this blog today. Sadly I couldn't find a pic in it's "before" condition so you just get an "after".

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For those who feel like the broken things will never be made new

2015-04-06T10:23:00.001+02:00

And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” Revelation 21:5 (ESV)

One of the things I love about Easter is the reminder that God makes all things new.

All things.

All.

Easter makes me believe that God can take all the broken things and make them whole again.

All things.

All.

I don’t know about you, but I often don’t see God’s redemption in all things because I’m looking at the broken things, thinking how they can’t be fixed.

As Easter comes to an end I’m reflecting on the thin places in my past where God has come and exclaimed,

“Look, I am making all things new.”

All things.

All.

Some thin places I'm reflecting on:

The little cactus that blooms red buds out of hard, dry soil, and reminds me that God can make something out of pain.

And there is my nephew being born in the same hospital where my mother nearly breathed her last. A symbol that God redeems heartbreak.

My husband lying in hospital waiting for his bone marrow transplant and God bringing the story of Joseph to mind so I don't forget that God can mend broken dreams.

So today, as I think about all that Jesus did for us on Calvary, I’m praying God will open my eyes to how he is making all things new.

All things.

All.

And I’m looking for the invitation from God that whispers:

Welcome to our beginning!

Ponder: Ask God to reveal one moment in the past week that he has brought life where there was death. (I’d love for you to share what God shows you in the comments.)

Prayer: God, open my eyes to you bringing new life to all things. (tweet this)

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If Valentines has you feeling defeated and alone today, please read this

2015-02-12T05:30:00.000+02:00

As a result of this encounter, Hagar decided to give the Eternal One who had spoken to her a special name because He had seen her in her misery.

Hagar: I’m going to call You the God of Seeing because in this place I have seen the One who watches over me. Genesis 16:13 (VOICE)

I get it, if this Valentine’s Day you don’t want to hear that you are loved by God. (tweet this)

Even though it's true, it’s kind of Christianity 101. And it's kind of a platitude that can mean so little when your love forgets the 14th of Feb is an important date, or you're out pretending you don't care with friends, or heating up yet another meal for one. At times like that it feels a lot like God's love has failed you.

Being told “God loves you” on Valentine’s Day is a bit like being told that boys only pull the hair of girls they like.

I get it, if this Valentine’s Day you don’t want to hear God is with you either.

While it’s just as true as the phrase “You are loved by God” doesn’t this one just make you want to shout, “Tell that to the empty chair on the opposite side of the table”, or “Say that to the man at the cinema who looked pitifully at me when I order a ticket for one”, or “Well, then, where is God when my partner is out again with someone else”.

This Valentine’s Day what I really want to know is that my heart and my dreams are seen and remembered by God.

Some of my favourite stories in the bible bear witness to this. The verses I underline, the chapters that I read over and over again are those where God notices the people others pass by:

The woman at the well

The woman caught in adultery

The lame

The cripple

The blind

The thief

And then there is the story of Hagar, the servant girl that Sarah used as a way to force God’s hand to fulfill his promise of a child.

A girl who ran away to the desert to die.

A girl who God saw.

A girl who God met with in her lonely, unlovable state and reminded her that he saw her, that she mattered.

As a result of this encounter, Hagar decided to give the Eternal One who had spoken to her a special name because He had seen her in her misery.

Hagar said: I’m going to call You the God of Seeing because in this place I have seen the One who watches over me. (tweet this)

Isn't that beautiful?

Recently I read Sara Hagerty's book, "Every Bitter Thing is Sweet". It's a story of the highs and lows of infertility, adoption, and finding the family you always longed for.

One of my favourite parts in the book is when Sara is praying with her four year-old son birthed on another continent:

“Thank You, God, for remembering me when my Ethiopian mommy wasn’t around.” He had words for concepts too big for his young mind to fully conceive. Then my girl followed. “Thank You for remembering when I got my ears pierced, even though I don’t remember.” I caught Nate’s eyes and he gave me the look that said, We just stumbled onto something holy . Her words, too, were too big for her. An initiation that most girls anticipate for years and then treasure in memory was lost to her. Another unwitnessed mile marker. But wait, there was a Witness.

I love that.

I love that these once-orphan children felt that God had witnessed their lives when they seemed to be forgotten, when they had no earthly mother and father to prize their milestones.

This is what I want you to know about God on Valentine's: I want you to know that God isn't going to pass you by, write you off, or walk away ashamed.

I want you to know that God is going to invite you into a relationship with him despite my hair colour, height, weight, wallet size or sense of humor.

I want you to know that when you thought you were alone, when you felt you were unloved, God witnessed it all, that God remembered you.

God sees you, he can pick you out in a crowd, name the hairs on your head, and hold your thoughts in his hands.

He is a God who paints rainbows in the sky to remind you that nothing that is broken cannot be made new.*

So this Valentine’s I’m asking God to give me the gift of remembrance, to open my eyes to things he remembers about me from the times when I felt unloved and lonely. Will you join me?

Ponder: What do you most want God to tell you this Valentines?

Pray: God, open my eyes to things you remembers about me from the times when I felt unloved and lonely.

* This line is a paraphrase of Phil Joel's song, God is watching over you.
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When you need to fight back with joy

2015-01-08T05:30:00.000+02:00

My husband was in the thick of his second diagnosis with cancer when I read that author, Margaret Feinberg, was receiving treatment for breast cancer. Although, she didn’t post about much during her treatment I enjoyed her posts on how to help someone diagnosed with cancer and rejoiced when she received the all clear after treatment. When I was asked if I’d blog to promote her new book, Fight back with Joy, my answer was yes. I thought the best way to do that would be to let Margaret share some of her words from the book. I hope you enjoy them, if you'd like to read more you can buy her new book now from Amazon or Barnes and Noble.

See, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create, for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight and its people a joy. I will rejoice over Jerusalem and take delight in my people; the sound of weeping and of crying will be heard in it no more. Isaiah 65:17-19 (NIV)

“This is Dr. Jones,” the voice said. “Is now a good time?”

No. No, no, no.

As the physician spoke, my head dropped into liquid amber. Time halted. The conversation blurred.

Carcinoma.

Positive.

Both masses.

Surgery.

I’m sure he said more, but after carcinoma everything grew fuzzy. After the call, I stared at a wretched souvenir of the conversation: a scrap of paper on which I’d scrawled two recommended surgeons’ names.

Dazed, I beelined to the field house, where Leif was busy preparing the PowerPoint slides.

“I have your microphone ready,” Leif said.

He glanced up. I couldn’t hide my apprehension.

“What’s wrong?”

I took his hand, led him outside where we could be alone, and looked into his sky-blue eyes. I never spoke a word. Leif just knew. He always knows. My eyes are his second language.

He cloaked me in his arms and we stood motionless, knowing we had crossed a threshold through which we could never return. In the warmth of his strong embrace, I wondered where God was in all of this.

“What if we fight back with joy?” I said to Leif.

From the day of the diagnosis, I felt compelled to choose a different type of weapon: joy. Such a selection might seem flippant and frivolous. One blunt friend called it “downright odd.” If I had to cry ten thousand tears, I wanted joy to be the companion that carried me through. Joy would not deny the hardship, but would choose to acknowledge and face it no matter what the outcome.

I define joy as a spectrum of emotions, actions, and responses that includes gladness, cheer, happiness, merriment, delighting, dancing, shouting, exulting, rejoicing, laughing, playing, brightening, blessing and being blessed, taking pleasure in and being well pleased.

The Bible insists that joy is more than a feeling; it’s an action. We don’t just sense joy; we embody it by how we respond to the circumstances before us.

What is the genesis of this joy? I believe that, at its core, joy emanates from the abiding sense of God’s fierce love for us.

The tigerish love of God from which joy comes is foundational to faith. God’s love guards us, protects us, grows us, strengthens us, and compels us to walk in greater trust and holiness. This is no passive affection, but a feisty, fiery pledge to grow us into the fullness of Christ. When we embrace this love and cultivate an awareness of it, our hearts are filled with joy.

Such awareness strengthens our resolve that no matter the fight, we face it confident that God is with us and for us. When we fight back with joy, we no longer size the character of God according to our circumstances, but we size our circumstances according to the character of God and his great affection for us.

Practicing defiant joy is the declaration that the darkness does not and will not win. (tweet this)

Perhaps no greater joy has been given to us than through the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus came to take away the sins of the world. Through his sacrifice, everything that stands between God and us is wiped away forever. We bring God and all of heaven great joy when we give ourselves wholly to Christ.

The Son of God crashed into our world with an angel broadcasting, “I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people.” Before leaving our world, Jesus endows the disciples with the promise, “These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.”

Jesus arrives in joy, departs in joy, and calls us to great joy through fellowship with him. The proper response to being drenched in so much wondrous affection is to bring delight to God by offering our lives to him through obedience.

We are destined for joy. (tweet this)

Not only are we founded in joy and created for joy, but we are destined for joy. Consider the following promise at the heart of the book of Isaiah: “See, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create, for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight and its people a joy. I will rejoice over Jerusalem and take delight in my people; the sound of weeping and of crying will be heard in it no more.”

The joyous creating of God continues to unfold. He has drawn the blueprints for an existence with the defining characteristics of gladness, rejoicing, and delight. One of the greatest promises to a child of God is that this life is not the end of the story.

You are founded in joy, created for joy, and destined for joy. Joy is where you come from. Joy is what you are created to experience. Joy is where you are headed.

Ponder: What area of your life needs you to fight back with joy?

Prayer: Jesus, thank you that you arrive in joy and depart in joy. Help me to find joy in the hard times I’m living through right now. Amen.

Adapted from Fight Back with Joy by Margaret Feinberg. Used with permission. Emphasis mine.

More about the author of this devotional:

Margaret Feinberg teaches at churches and conferences including Catalyst, Thrive, and Women of Joy. She was recently named one of 50 women most shaping church and culture by Christianity Today. Her books and Bible studies, including The Organic God, The Sacred Echo, Scouting the Divine, and Wonderstruck, have sold nearly a million copies. She lives in Colorado, with her husband, Leif, and their superpup, Hershey. She believes some of the best days are spent in jammies, laughing and being silly.

Buy her book: Fight back with joy or the 6 session bible study kit.

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When heaven becomes real

2014-11-24T14:29:00.001+02:00

My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. John 14:2-4 (NIV)

A few months ago, I found myself following my husband through the African bush. We were trying to get as close we could to the Big 5 animals on foot.

We had been walking for three hours already and our guides seemed unsure how to take us back to our vehicle. They stopped, shielded their eyes from the sun, and told us, “The path is going to get a little rough. We are going to make our own way and the bush is thick here.”

Wearily, I put one foot in front of the other. At that moment, all I wanted was to put my feet up, read a book, and stop walking. Or I would even have gone for just stopping walking.

Instead, I was pinching thorn branches between my fingers as I contorted my body through a hole trying not to tear my clothes.

I thought about how good it be to reach camp. As I walked I started singing C.S. Lewis,

“If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.”

As I sung the words, heaven began to make sense to me.

I struggle to understand heaven. I struggle to comprehend another world.

But as I trekked through bush, stumbling over rhino dung and sipping water, it made sense to me that heaven could be a destination to look forward to, a haven like the camp I longed to reach.

I thought about how if I knew of such a great place that I would want to make sure all my friends and family went there with me. It made sense to me that Jesus would be excited to invite us to join him in his home.

For the first time in a long time, I wanted to go to heaven.

I wanted to know peace.

I wanted to know that at the end of a long tiresome journey there would be an oasis.

I felt like I could keep going through all the tough stuff if there was heaven at the end.

I was thinking about heaven when I stooped under two branches and righted myself. The car stood in front of me. And I looked forward to going home.

Ponder: What are your feelings about heaven? Are they positive, negative or undecided?

Prayer: Jesus, thank you for inviting me to come and stay in your home.

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When God redeems heartbreak (or one way to find purpose in suffering)

2014-10-09T10:02:00.000+02:00

But now, this is what the Lord says—
    he who created you, Jacob,
    he who formed you, Israel:
“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
    I have summoned you by name; you are mine.
When you pass through the waters,
    I will be with you;
and when you pass through the rivers,
    they will not sweep over you.
When you walk through the fire,
    you will not be burned;
    the flames will not set you ablaze.

Isaiah 43:1-2 (NIV)

As an 8 year-old I would scuff the earth with my black baby doll shoe, glancing at my watch every few minutes, wondering why my mother was late to pick me up from school.

Concerned with whether my mother would even come and pick me up.

My older brother would tell me that of course she was coming. But even as he spoke the fear would begin to well up in me that she wouldn’t be there. Again.

My mother wasn’t irresponsible. My mother was ill. She had a heart condition that meant her heart would suddenly start galloping in her chest. 220 beats per minute.

She would be rushed to hospital, her heart shocked back to a stable rhythm and then given a bed in ICU.

On days like that my father would rush from the hospital to pick us up from school. Just the sight of his car would confirm what we already knew: mom was in hospital again.

When I was 12 my mother had an operation on her heart which fixed the problem and visits to the hospital no longer featured in the calendar.

A week ago my family all returned to the hospital where my mother used to lie in ICU. This time we went there to meet my nephew. The first grandchild from my siblings or I.

My nephew was born in a hospital where I spent much of my childhood wondering if my mother would make it out of ICU.

Last night, my mother and I spoke about how my nephew’s birth made that hospital seem so much less daunting.

Heartbreak redeemed with new life.

It never ceases to amaze me how God redeems places and people. (tweet this)

I often don’t see God’s redemption because I’m in the middle of turmoil in my own life. (tweet this)

It would have been so easy to miss the redemption God was bringing in that hospital with my nephew lying in Neo-natal ICU. But God was working even when I didn't expect it.

This morning I read Isaiah 43:1-2 and it struck me that God says, “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you…when you pass through rivers they will not sweep over you…when you walk through the fire…the flames will not set you ablaze.”

God has promised to redeem me. He has promised to redeem hard times, moments and places, but he never said I wouldn’t have to go through hard things only that he’ll be there with me when I do.

Redemption doesn't mean the past is rewritten but that the heartbreak of the past is now threaded with joy. (tweet this)

I’m holding onto that. Praying God will open my eyes to his redemption in every situation: an exchange of heartbreak for his treasures.

Ponder: Ask God to reveal one moment in the past week that he has redeemed that you failed to notice. (I’d love for you to share what God shows you in the comments.)

Prayer: God, open my eyes to your redemption in every moment of my life.

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How to pray when you don't know what to do

2014-08-14T05:30:00.000+02:00

For we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you. 2 Chronicles 20:12b (NIV)

The oncologist called again this week.

She asked Xylon to come in and see her. We don’t know why.

Lord, we don't know what to do, but our eyes are on you.

I scroll through social media and see people mourning Robin Williams, remembering a man who made them laugh, questioning the pain that makes a man take his life. An icon of the desperation so many people hide in life.

Lord, we don't know what to do, but our eyes are on you.

I read news of women running away in the desert, children being beheaded for their faith and I find myself whispering,

Lord, we don't know what to do, but our eyes are on you.

An email arrives in my inbox. News of a couple, who give and give and give, brutally attacked on their farm.

Lord, we don't know what to do, but our eyes are on you.

And then there is this war in Palestine.

Lord, we don't know what to do, but our eyes are on you.

And Ebola.

Lord, we don't know what to do, but our eyes are on you.

These words I’ve been praying, I stole them.

I ripped them from the pages of the Bible, from the mouth of King Jehosophat.

When he lifted these words to God he was King of Judah and facing an imminent attack by armies much stronger than his.

He called his people together and they prayed:

For we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on God. (tweet this)

And God responds with a pretty miraculous story that sees Jehosphats’ army not striking one man but winning the battle.

What a prayer.

What an invitation for God to do something unbelievable.

I don’t know about you but in the face of all this news. In the face of all the hard things happening in the world I want to see God show up.

I want to join Jehosphat in praying, “God, it’s your move.”

I don’t want to limit God with my prayers, I want to invite him to do something in every situation that is a miracle, that is God.

I want to leave space for God to do the unbelievable. (tweet this)

For we have no power to face this hard news that is attacking us.

Lord, we don't know what to do, but our eyes are on you. (tweet this)

Ponder: What do you think would happen if you stopped trying control situations and instead invited God to do the unbelievable?

Pray: I do not know what to do, but my eyes are on you, Lord.

{Other places I've been writing lately}

Beauty for Ashes | When you are undone by Depression

iBelieve.com | 5 Simple Ways to Declutter Your House Today

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When you wish you could start over (and a free printable)

2014-08-04T05:30:00.000+02:00

This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! 2 Corinthians 5:17 (NLT)

White paint swirled the words at the entrance to a wedding:

Welcome to our beginning.

Four words that imply so much:

the start of a new story,

forgiveness of the past,

hope for the future.

They were just words on a sign, but a part of my soul jumped when I read those words, and my mind rushed to 2 Corinthians 5:17:

You are a new creation.

Your old life is gone.

You have a new beginning.

Growing up I always applied this verse to people who had just met God. As if the right to start over can only happen once, but the more I think about it, the more I think that God’s invitation to begin again is not a one-time offer.

Every day God invites me to believe that he is changing me and that he can help me create a new life.

I forget this often because often life feels like the middle of a play.

I have so little grace for myself, I expect myself to play a part perfectly the first time, and give the Director of my life very little space to shout, “Cut! Let’s take that again.”

I’ve been thinking about how different my life would look if I gave myself permission to begin fresh every day.

What if I believed nothing in my past was too big for God to redeem? (tweet this)

What if every morning I woke up and accepted the fresh mercies God offers to become a new person?

What if every day I accepted God’s invitation to join him in a new beginning?

They were just words on a sign for a wedding but what if I saw them as an invitation from God to me?

Welcome to our beginning.

Ponder: Would you like a do-over of your life or even just today?

Prayer: God, thank for your inviting me to begin again. Help me to live differently from yesterday and accept your fresh mercies for today.

P.S. Pics in this post are from our wedding a few years back.

{Free Download}

I’ve created a free printable for you to download, print out and see every day. Just a small reminder that God invites us to join him in starting fresh every day.

Click here to access the download.

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Do you need faith for God to heal? (or the story of a woman who gambled for healing)

2014-07-07T05:30:00.000+02:00

Just then a woman who had suffered for twelve years with constant bleeding came up behind him. She touched the fringe of his robe, for she thought, “If I can just touch his robe, I will be healed.”

Jesus turned around, and when he saw her he said, “Daughter, be encouraged! Your faith has made you well.” And the woman was healed at that moment. Mathew 9:20-22 (NLT)

My husband and I weren’t sure where to look. We fidgeted and cast our eyes to the ceiling and then to the floor again.

I watched Xylon finger a piece of paper with the photo and words of a person who had passed on from cancer only a few days before. We were told this person was a servant of the Lord, and a mighty prayer warrior, and how sad that she would no longer sing praise on Sunday.

I didn’t want to have this conversation. Not again. I didn’t want to hear how Xylon could be healed of cancer if he just had enough faith.

I tried to look calm, while our friend shared well-meaning words about how Xylon and I shouldn't pray for healing, but for an increase of faith - because it is your faith that makes you well.

I watched as Xylon tapped the memorial service flyer against the edge of the table twice. I wondered if he was thinking the same thing, if he was contemplating the irony that the prayer warrior on the funeral bill lacked the faith to heal herself.

When did the burden of healing begin to fall on the sick instead of on our big, gracious God? (tweet this)

I thought back to the bible story I’d heard since my childhood about the women who had been sick for years, a woman who risked everything to touch the hem of Jesus’ garment.

A woman who gambled for healing.

A woman to whom Jesus turned and said, “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace.”

I wondered what Jesus would think about his words being twisted into condemnation for a person struggling to be well.

Later, I found the story on BibleGateway and wondered, If Jesus hadn’t stopped and sought out the women who touched his garment would she have been healed?

Would her faith have been enough to heal her?

Or was only she healed because Jesus turned and spoke life into her body?

I can’t help thinking that maybe I’ve missed the point of this story over the years. Maybe this story is not about the woman having enough faith to reach out for Jesus, but about Jesus seeing and responding to her when she needed him.

Have I made this story about the woman’s faith rather than about the compassion of Jesus to those who cry out to him when they are hurting?

Months later, I sat in an office where a doctor told us sometimes you just have to have faith.

I sat there and thought about how the burden of healing is never on the patient, how it is never even on a doctor, but how it is always, always, on God.

The burden of healing rests on the shoulders of my big, gracious God who turns when I touch the hem of his garment.

The burden of healing falls on my God who knows the plans he has for me even when my own hopes collapse around me.

The burden of healing lies in my God whose ways aren’t a faith formula, but a mystery. (tweet this)

As these words on faith and healing swirled in my head, I thought I heard a whisper,

“Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace.”

And I realised God also turns to speak life to those who doubt.

Ponder: What role do you think faith plays in God choosing to heal?

Prayer: Thank you Jesus that you see my needs and meet them.

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A story of a broken heart (or discovering God is a safe harbour)

2014-04-28T08:18:00.000+02:00

God is our harbour and our strength, a very present help in trouble. Psalm 46:1 (BBE)

It is hard to feel at the moment.

If I smile then I feel like crying too.

If I laugh then all the fear that my husband’s cancer story isn’t over might be squeezed out of me.

I hide my broken heart – badly – under the cover of an impassive face.

I once heard a theory that if a person shuts off their sad emotions they will shut off their happy emotions too; that without the lows; a person cannot feel the highs.

I’m drifting with my husband through six months of unknown while we wait for him to have a scan that will bring all our biggest hopes and fears into the light.

Xylon’s tests are still forty or fifty days away.

We have been biding the time between his tests by trying to breathe every moment in. Gracious employers have granted extended absences from work and in the gaps in between we have been working from remote locations. We have been travelling: our own country and seeing a little spot of Europe and Asia.

A few weeks ago, I dipped my feet in the Azure blue of the Mediterranean. Let my feet play in the ocean where just hours before I saw a turtle circling.

All day the small boat would park itself in island coves and since it was too cold to swim we would join the others on board in card games or seek out a bit of sun on the roof.

Each night under a starlit sky the captain would guide the boat back to harbour. We would pull mattresses off the roof and set up a bed on deck.

I had never slept on a small boat in the ocean before. I had no idea what to expect. I expected the boat to toss and roll and for my stomach to rebel against the constant motion.

My only experiences of a harbour were from the pages of books.

It might sound stupid, but I never realised that a harbour would feel like a safe place.

Each night the boat lay in harbour I felt secure. The boat rested as securely as if it had been dragged onto land. I slept without fear or worry and seasickness did not seek me out.

I snuck off the deck in the morning to watch the last rays of the sunrise and wondered about the how I’ve been told that God is a harbour.

Before that stay, I imagined a harbour must be better than being out in the open sea, but I’d never grasped what a refuge a harbour could be, what a refuge God could be.

In the harbour the boat found shelter, protection and a place to hide.

The harbour does not hold back the tug and pull of the ocean, or the raging of the storm, but it offers a place to rest, to recuperate, and find bearings.

My broken heart reads that and longs for a harbour.

I’m learning that God is a safe place to bring my broken heart. (tweet this)

God is a safe harbour.

In God, my heart can find shelter, protection and a place to hide.

In God, my heart is offered a place to rest, to recuperate, and find my bearings.

Ponder: Have you ever stayed on the boat in a harbour? What was your experience?

Does your heart need a safe harbour? Do you believe that God can be that harbour for you?

Pray: Lord, come and be my place to rest in this storm. Amen (tweet this)

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Photo Credits (Creative Commons): Ariel view: NASA: 2Explore Harbour: Matt. Create. Sea: 360around | Design and modifications: Wendy van Eyck

When you have to forgive someone you hate

2014-03-03T06:00:00.000+02:00

[A note from Wendy: Today I'm lending this space to Mary DeMuth. She is a writer and woman who I respect. She is brave when others shy away and anchored by hope in Jesus despite a difficult past.]

A Guest Devotional by Mary DeMuth

You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbor’ and hate your enemy.

But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you!

In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven.

For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good,

and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike.

If you love only those who love you, what reward is there for that?

Even corrupt tax collectors do that much.

If you are kind only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else?

Even pagans do that. Matthew 5:43-47 (NLT)

I have had enemies.

Two enemies in particular were hard for me to forgive because for many years, I hated them. HATED them. They were two teenage brothers who violated me for several months during my kindergarten year. I tried to protect myself, but I could not. I told my babysitter, but she chose to let those boys continue to rape me. (She was an enemy too).

I met Jesus ten years later, and meeting Him gave me the gumption to tell my sad story. As I let the secret out, I began to heal. Yet, still, I hated those boys, who by now, were men. It took me several years of choosing to forgive them before I could write a very honest letter to them about my journey from anger to peace, devastation to wholeness. Here is me reading that letter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyIkLAMvT8A

I sometimes have angry moments when I think of these enemies, wondering if they are perpetrating still (I don’t know their accurate identity).

I am a wounded warrior in the aftermath, choosing to once again tell my story of sexual abuse (and healing!) so you don’t feel alone, so you don’t have to face your enemies without company.

Here’s the truth: if you suffered at the hands of a sexual perpetrator, you are not alone. We are a community of the sexually broken who dare to support you as you work through your anger, bitterness and pain. I wrote Not Marked for you, for the sake of your healing.

Maybe you don’t have my story, but you have suffered in other ways. We all walk with a limp when it comes to being hurt by others. Let’s all join together and pray. Here’s a prayer that may help you process some of your grief:

Jesus, I’d rather not pray for the people who hurt me. To be honest, my heart is petty, not pretty. I want revenge sometimes. I want the people who hurt me to experience hurt themselves.

But I can’t stay in that place, Jesus, because I know You ask more from me. This passage of scripture makes it utterly clear that You want me to bless those who cause me pain. You want me to be like You, who when You were betrayed, You still called Judas “friend.”

How do You do that, Jesus? How do you love so well? How did You forgive the people who put you up on the cross?

And even as I pray these words, I realize I put You up on that cross. My sin held you down as You bled for my caustic words, my unrighteous anger, and the things I’ve done that I deeply regret.

You’ve forgiven a mountain of sin between us. And I have a hard time forgiving the molehill between my friend and me. To love them well, I must let go. Help me remember I’m more like You when I’m offering grace, than when I’m spewing judgment.

I choose right now to give You my pain in this situation, and I ask for Your help. Please give me love for my enemy. I recognize that I don’t have it in me to do that. But You do. You’re good at it. So I trust You right now. Amen.

{More about the book: Not Marked}

Whether you’re a sexual abuse victim, or you love one, or you want your church to better deal with sexual abuse’s aftermath, or you minister to sex-trafficked victims, Not Marked will succinctly help you understand the issue, give you needed empathy, and provide a pathway toward healing that doesn’t demean, re-victimize, or heap further burdens on the sexually violated.
Buy a copy here.

{More about the author: Mary DeMuth}

Mary DeMuth is a speaker and author who loves to help people live uncaged, freedom infused lives. She’s written over a dozen books, including Not Marked and The Wall Around Your Heart. Her family planted a church in Southern France, and now they live in the Dallas area. Find out more at marydemuth.com.

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Letting things go and learning to forgive (or the story of forgiving my father and mother)

2014-01-23T09:58:00.000+02:00

If you, God, kept records on wrongdoings, who would stand a chance? As it turns out, forgiveness is your habit, and that’s why you’re worshiped. Psalm 130:3-4 (MSG)

Just after I joined twitter I saw Leslie Leyland Fields ask the question, “Does anyone have a story of a time they needed to forgive their parents?”

I hesitated.

I wasn’t sure I wanted to share the story then. Part of me isn’t sure I want to share the story now.

The book Leslie interviewed me for released this week. It’s called Forgiving Our Fathers and Mothers. It’s a book about relationships and respect and the messiness of forgiving our parents.

I worry about hurting the people that gave birth to me in the retelling of the story. I stumble over how to tell the story with truth and respect and love.

This morning I said to my husband, “I don’t want to write this post, but I have to, because sometimes it’s the things that are hardest to write that others most need to hear.”

I’ve always known that my parents love me and only want the best for me. Which is why years before I met the man I married I sat down and shared a list of character traits with my parents that I hoped my future husband would have.

I asked them to help me see through the blindness of love, to look for character over a good-looking face.

A few years later I bought Xylon home, a man who to a greater or lesser extent ticked every box on my character list. He bravely told my father he would like to marry me one day.

My parents confessed to me a week or so later that they thought I should marry someone of the same skin colour and culture as me.

I was confused.

I loved my parents and they loved me. I’d been brought up in a home where people of many races and languages had come in and out the door like family and now they were saying it wasn’t okay for me to marry someone different from us.

Xylon and I broke up.

I felt the best way to honour my parents at the time was to take a step back from the relationship, to disentangle myself from feelings so I could try and see the situation from their perspective.

My mother and father had grown up in different world to me. I didn't see that as an excuse but I did realise that the lens they viewed the world with was different to mine. I prayed. I fasted. I talked through it with couples who had mixed skin colours and couples who had skin that matched.

After eight months I felt like I had moved to the point where I felt that sometimes you can honour your parents and disagree with what they think.

I told my parents if Xylon still wanted to pursue a relationship with me I would do it. I remember standing on the grass in front of the house with tears rolling down my face. The salt licking the wounds on my soul and telling my father that I loved him but I didn’t agree with him. I also told my parents that I forgive them.

I never really felt unforgiveness towards my mother and father but somehow standing there that day I saw that there was potential for bitterness to grow in the future.

I wanted to have a good relationship with my parents. In fact I wanted more than anything for my relationship to be healed.

Two years later my father walked me down the aisle to my husband under a canopy of trees dripping rain.

Eight months after that my parents helped us through my husband’s cancer diagnosis and subsequent treatment.

I can’t imagine our lives without my parents support, but without forgiveness our relationship would have been ruined. I hurt my parents and my parents hurt me but we chose to forgive and move on and build a stronger relationship.

I think we managed to do this because my parents had learnt to practice forgiveness in their lives.

They had taught me as a child to forgive and not hold onto pain, to use forgiveness as a reflex when I was hurt, not to justify the other persons actions but to free myself from those actions.

There’s a verse in the bible that speaks about how forgiveness is God’s habit.

I like that. I imagine God wearing forgiveness like a nun. Walking around with it cloaking his very being.

It also makes me think of God forgiving the same way I absentmindly comb my hair back behind my ears.

God’s very essence is forgiveness. (tweet this)

Forgiving can be hard but I’ve found that when practice forgiving quickly, when I forgive rather than hold onto my anger or pain or confusion it can become a habit, a habit that gives me the chance to find healing and hope.

Ponder: Do you struggle with unforgiveness towards your parents? Please share your stories of forgiving others in the comments to encourage others.

Prayer: Lord, I want forgiveness to be my habit. Help me to let go of bitterness and forgive like a reflex. Amen

{Buy the book}

If you struggle with the deep pain of a broken relationship with a parent then you might want to buy the book I refer to in this post. Through Leslie Leyland Fields and Dr. Jill Hubbard’s own compelling personal stories combined with a fresh look at the Scriptures, Forgiving Our Fathers and Mothers illustrates and instructs in the practice of authentic forgiveness, leading you away from hate and hurt toward healing, hope, and freedom. You can buy the book on Amazon here.

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Sometimes the best miracles look like nothing

2013-10-09T05:42:00.000+02:00

[A note from Wendy: Usually I post devotionals every Monday and Thursday. However I'm taking a bit of blogging break. I'll be back to my normal routine from the 14th of October. Until then I'll be posting once a week on Wednesdays.]

As [Jesus] was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him…One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan. Luke 17:12-13; 15-16 (NIV)

I was sitting on a plane when I read her book.

I turned page after page as Dabney Hedegard wrote about being diagnosed with cancer while she was pregnant, undergoing chemo and having a stem cell transplant (like the one my husband had earlier this year).

I forced myself not to cry as I read how her family were allowed to visit her in isolation to say goodbye because the infection was so bad they were sure she was going to die.

As I read, I couldn’t help but think of all the things that could have gone wrong when my husband was given a stem cell transplant in July.

I’m reminded of a conversation we had with friend just weeks after my husband was released from hospital.

This friend looked at my husband and mused, “Your stem cell transplant is a miracle. We think that miracles need to be these things where blind men can see or lame men walk but this, this uneventful transplant is a miracle.”

I knew that was true of me. I find it so much harder to see a miracle when things are ordinary and routine.

I think about my friends words as I read about how Dabney ended up in ICU, how the guy in the room next door to her died when his transplant didn’t take. I’m reminded of the people I met in the transplant ward who ended up in ICU for weeks.

Even his oncologist describes my husband’s procedure as going as smoothly as a duck taking to water.

10 000 feet above the earth I realize that my husband and I experienced a miracle.

I felt such gratitude for God.

I wondered as I sat there if I had thanked God properly for the all miracles and the appropriate response to that kind of grace is anyway.

And all a sudden I felt like a leper.

Let me explain, there is a story in Luke 17 about ten men who had leprosy. They asked God to heal them and he did.

And then nine of them went on with their lives.

Only one went back and thanked Jesus for healing him.

9 out of 10 don’t see Jesus in their miracles.

I felt like I had been one of the nine as I sat on that plane: ungrateful.

I so badly want to be the one that went back, the one that kneeled at Jesus’ feet, and couldn’t thank him enough.

As we flew I thanked God. Praised him for a miracle that I’d taken for granted.

This gratitude has stayed with me the last few weeks, worked its way into my heart.

I am so thankful for miracles that look like nothing.

Sometimes miracles aren’t found in near-death experiences but in the routine, ordinary things I take for granted.

Ponder: What miracles have you missed in your life because they were so uneventful? Why not stop and thank God for them now?

Prayer: Thank you God! I know words aren’t enough to express all that you’ve done for me. Help me live with a grateful heart. Amen.

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In my free e-book Life, Life and More Life I share some of the thoughts on how to make every moment count gleaned from my experiences of loving my husband through 18 sessions of chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant.. If you would like a copy please subscribe to receive my devotionals every Monday and Friday.

Photo Credits : Dandelions marfis75 Faith Jeff Kubina Water atomicshark | Design: Wendy van Eyck

That awkward moment when you speak the truth

2013-07-22T05:30:00.000+02:00

The Eternal, Architect of earth, is building Jerusalem, finding the lost, gathering Israel’s outcasts. He binds their wounds, heals the sorrows of their hearts. Psalm 147:2-3 (VOICE)

You know that awkward moment when someone asks you how you are and you tell them the raw honest truth.

But all they really wanted to hear was, “I’m good. All good”

I just had one of those.

I blurted out how weary and exhausted and drained I feel. How I thought once all of my husband’s cancer treatment was done I’d feel better and how instead even my bones feel fatigued. There is a catch in my voice and tears waiting for me to blink them out as I answer.

I could see the other person felt uncomfortable with my honesty, as I spoke, like they’d rather I kept my brokenness to myself.

They looked at me like they wished I hadn’t let them see the cracks in my heart.

The conversation ended and I breathed a prayer,

‘Thank you that my brokenness and honesty isn’t too much for you, Lord.’ (tweet this)

Sometimes I like to put myself into bible verse, to pretend that the verse was written as a love letter to me.

I do that sometimes with Psalm 147:2-3, ‘The Eternal, Architect of earth, is building me…He binds my wounds, heals the sorrows of my heart.’

As I do this I remind myself that God isn’t uncomfortable with my unfinished, raw emotions. He doesn’t mind that when I utter what is on my heart I show I don’t have it all together, that I’m weak.

God pours himself into the cracks in my life - not uncomfortable with my struggles - but not prepared to leave me there either.

God sees my weaknesses as cracks waiting to be filled with himself. (tweet this)

Ponder: Do you sometimes feel some of your emotions are too much for the people are around you? Have you tried to tell God how you feel?

Prayer: Lord Jesus, come and fill the cracks in my heart with you. I need you to bind my wounds and heal the sorrows of my heart.

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Photo Credits : City: Creationswap.com Glass: Yersinia Heart: Darwin Bell (found via photopin cc) | Design: Wendy van Eyck

Giving God Glory No Matter What Happens

2013-05-23T06:00:00.000+02:00

{Guest devotional by My Mom}

We are confident that God is able to orchestrate everything to work toward something good and beautiful when we love Him and accept His invitation to live according to His plan. Romans 8:28 (Voice)

Photo: kevin dooley via photopin cc | Design: Wendy van Eyck

Until Wendy, my daughter, was a teenager, I was chronically ill.

Arthritis riddled my body and a heart complaint had me in ICU/CCU every two to three months.

My youngest said that he never knew that mums didn’t spend their afternoons on the bed until he visited friends whose mums were healthy.

I was anointed with so much oil for healing that I almost slid off the chairs.

I believed…but my health deteriorated.

I experienced much needed deliverance which healed so much of my life…but my health continued to deteriorate.

My husband would often wake in the night to check if I was still breathing and the kids knew that Mum was in hospital again when Dad fetched them from school with a lunch of KFC to lessen the pain.

At the same time my youngest son had asthma and a challenged immune system which meant that several times, he was in one hospital in an oxygen tent fighting for his life while I was in ICU at another hospital.

Life was hard [especially for my husband].

During this time I read the biography of Pastor Duma, who against all odds ministered across the colour bar in apartheid South Africa. His motivation was ‘Take your glory, Lord’.

I understood for the first time the sovereignty of God.

It’s not about who we are but about who God is. {Tweet this}

I realised that the often quoted scripture, ‘all things work together for good to those who love God’ was not saying, ‘all things work together for MY good’ but was actually saying ‘all things work together for HIS good,’ and His thoughts aren’t our thoughts and His ways are definitely not our ways.

Talking about healing and the sovereignty of God, James Robison said, ‘With your legs you kick Satan away with all your might but with your arms you reach up to heaven and say, “Not my will but yours be done.”

Take your glory, Lord, whichever way you choose. {Tweet this}

I believe the acceptance of God’s will for my life was the turning point to health.

Several years after this acceptance, a new medical heart procedure was 100% successful, and as my circulation was restored so the joint inflammation reduced, until, although I have very crooked fingers, I have been symptom free for nearly twenty years.

Take YOUR glory, Lord.

I don’t want to give false hope or dish out another cure all for chronic illness by just saying, accept your illness and you’ll be healed. I know this is not the case. My son’s chronic illness has continued unabated for many years without relief.

I don’t understand why God does what he does. {Tweet this}

All I know is God’s ways are not our ways. Which is why my prayer today is still the same:

Take your glory, Lord, whichever way you choose.

What hard things are in your life at the moment that you need to hand over to God and say, “Take your Glory, Lord, whichever way you choose”.

{About the author of this guest devotional}

Jeannette Harbottle is the mother of Wendy who writes and curates ilovedevotionals.com. She shares her home with David, her husband of over 40 years, and two giant schnauzers. She is the distributor of Kanaan Literature and resources in South Africa.

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