Brutal Fight

These last 18 months have been brutal on everyone!  Covid has been a killer!  Killer of lives, killer of hopes, jobs, freedoms, unity, work/home life balance, fun.......sadly the list goes on.  We have all been affected one way or another whether getting sick ourselves or battling with the side effects of our friends, family and colleagues getting sick. 

Personally this year has been a tough fight for me as well.  It has been a year of loss.  Loss of relationships I valued, loss of my sense of self and for me the hardest, loss of my beloved baby cat, Ginger, he turned 16 years this year.  Harder still, over the past two months I have struggled severly with my health.

With all the heart ache, where do we find consolation?  We can can only find consolation in Christ alone!!

Isaiah 53:3-4 "Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted.  But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed."

Jesus Christ Knows!!  Jesus knows our pain, our sorrow, our loss, our heartache, he knows it all and from the expanse of eternity he reaches out his nail pierced hands and says, "Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest!"  Come to me, when life makes no sense, come to me.  Know that I understand every bit of your pain and I love you, you are my child and I care for you!  

When we silence the fear and rest for a moment, we hear the gentle voice of the Holy Spirit breathing life over us.  He wraps His arms around us and tells us that indeed we will be okay, because God is with us.  We can rest easy in His arms knowing that all of creation is under His divine control.  

Essence of life

The other day I just could not shake a nasty headache.  Several pain killers and long day later I arrived home and still had no relief from the pain.  As a "last resort" I eventually decided to try and my old trick.  This I had learned after researching natural pain killers for my 'Migraine Supporters' Facebook page.  I turned to my old faithful's: Mint, Rosemary & Lavender oil.  

Would you believe it, it was not long after starting to inhale the essences, my headache was GONE.  I could not believe it, as if I had never tried it before 😱, but it had been a while and I had forgotten how much this trio really helped me.  

So in case you are wondering, no, I'm not going to bore you my research into all forms of herbalism, but I feel the faithful trio deserve their own independent mention.  I would be remis though to begin that journey, if I did not first remind us, that the study in herbs as medicine dates back as far as the ancient times.  It was not until the 19th century and the study of the germ theory of disease that doctors and scientists turned to use of pharmaceutical drugs.  

I believe nature still has a few tricks up her sleeve and that one day we may well turn back the clock to look at treatments that come from mother nature (God) itself.  So what does that have to do with our faith.  Well God is called the ancient of days and we would do well to turn to him in every situation of life that we find ourselves in to find the "cure" to our problems.  

We spend much time, consumed with endless pursuits, instead of turning to God's word for our healing both physically, spiritually and emotionally.  There is no doctor alive that can cure heartache and pain like God can.  When we turn our faith and trust back to our creator and learn to work with him instead of against him, we find our source of strength peace and healing.  

Clivia Heartbreak

I'm absolutely heart broken!  My beautiful Clivia's are being decimated by some kind of bug.  I had seen this happen before on one plant, but had no idea that it had spread to the others so quickly.  This because I had let me garden become completely over grown after an enthusiastic spring seed sowing frenzy to try and get some life back into my garden after the winter.  I am going to have to call in the cavalry over the weekend and clean out as much as possible.  

It boils down to poor daily, weekly and monthly discipline's.  2020/Covid took it's tole on my time.  So much went wrong last year and every time we thought we had seen the light at the end of the tunnel we realized it was just a hole in the ceiling and we were no where near the end of it.  

Why has this one plants suffering brought me to such a negative emotional state?  Because they were my garden pride and joy!  The flowers I had this year were just beautiful.  I have been cultivating a strong Clivia treasure chest by splitting them off as they grew new shoots and filling my side garden with this beautiful spectacle. 

So what now?  Certainly not cry and give up!  Get help, cut back, poison the bugs and clean up the mess.  Then I'll need to make sure I don't take my eye off the ball again.  It will take a consistent effort now to fix what I have allowed to get broken.  I hope that as the plants have recovered in previous years, they will do so again, but it won't be by accident.  

In our spiritual lives all the above applies.  We see it so often.  We have great seasons where we make plans (sew seeds), tend and care our relationship with God and then we get tired and complacent.  Sometimes this can happen by force, but we take our eye off of the core basics, and what we end up with is a spiritual mess.  

Let my gardening disaster be a reminder too us all.  Stop and take stock of where you are in your spiritual walk with God.  Don't let the devil distract you from your purpose and don't let him steal your joy and strength.  But most of all, where necessary, get help!  Call a friend, reach out to a support group, let someone know when you are in trouble.  Let someone come and stand beside you, lift your are arms and encourage you to carry on loving God, hoping for good, and believing that tomorrow can better day than the day before!

Do-over

I've heard many people bleating, "here we go again!"  This Covid thing just won't end.  We have all had more than our fair share of troubles caused by this disease and we are all sick of it.  We are sick off the loss, the pain if ill, the sadness and grief at senseless deaths, the economic drain and I could go on. 

Today, being my first day back at work, I have been trying to encourage my team to look at the positives that we have gained.  Usually at the start of the year returning to work, or actually after every leave, I would be a wound up wreck.  Much due to the stress of knowing what work load I am returning too but also the stress of having to leave my home environment to go back to work, leaving my precious, but naughty fur balls alone all day and possibly only arriving back home each night after dark. 

Well, this year was different.  I barely had to change my wardrobe, Lol! I was able to get up, get ready for work and walk downstairs, switch my PC on and get going.  It truly is a precious joy for me to be able to work from home.  I value being in the same space as my babies and being able to spend time with them. 

This season opened up new friendships as I was able to join a home fellowship group at the church I was still fairly new in when lock down started.  I was able to enjoy the warmth of my fireplace when winter was showing its nasty teeth.  I have been able to enjoy the blessing of working for a company that is filled with so many wonderful Christ followers and that has been a true blessing to me.  

Can I challenge you to count your Covid blessings and if you are feeling up to sharing those with others, would you be so kind as to send me your story or testimony to GWG.Ronwyn@gmail.com.  I would love to hear from you. 

Let's choose today to give thanks to God for what we have received in this time and give him the honour and praise that He is due!

Holding on to Christmas

January 10th is my dad's death anniversary.  Today being my last day of leave I decided it had to be time to pack away the Christmas decorations as I had delayed this project this year.  I somehow just could not bring myself round to packing away all the decorations so kept out my little Christmas village houses and some lights.  

I just did not want to let go of the joy of Christmas quite so quickly but I recall that in the first few years after his passing things has been very different.  You see, dad suffered a stroke on approximately the 23rd of December 1997.  I hope I am recalling that correctly as I believe my original flight to Durban bad been booked for the 24th of December and I had to rush to the travel agent to change the date.  

He was still in recovery from the brain surgery when he suffered a heart attack 3 weeks later and passed on the 10th of January 1998.

For several years after that, Christmas just did not feel like Christmas any more, but I eventually healed from the heartache and slowly began to find the joy in this beautiful time of year again.  

Thanks fully God has granted me many joyous and amazing Christmas's since then and this past one was very special spending the time with my mom in her new home in George in the beautiful Western Cape.  

I know many have spent this last year feeling the same way I did before, but know this my friends, God does heal the heartache.  He always allows us to remember those when have lost but we will be able to find the joy of Christmas and in deed our faith once again.

So if you have already packed away the decorations, how about lighting a candle with me. Ask God for healing and strength and give him your heart so that he may touch it with his gentle love and tenderness.