I’ve always dreamed of featuring these values on a wall in my future home! Together with a huge heart made up of polaroid pictures/photos of beloved family members and friends. But it is even more important to put them into daily practice now, and then pass them on from this generation to the next!
(Source: leadme2thecross1, via morethanblessed)
Aglio Olio! Yummy ending to a great day out - swimming, Botanical Gardens, dinner @ Singapore Island Country Club. Thank You Father for the fabulous weather. Such a blessed girl! :)
Shirley Temple! Funny name for a drink which tastes like soda.
Spaghetti Vongole
I’ve been working on a little something! As a follow-up to the mission trip to manila. It’s been such a joy, more on that soon! :)
Pretty! :)
(Source: satelliteofyou, via speciallyi)
When a woman has a kingdom heart, she has an active understanding of what matters most to the heart of God. She lives in the balance of passion and contentment. She learns to love well, give without regard to self, and forgive without hesitation. The woman with a kingdom heart may have a duffel bag full of possessions or enough treasures to fill a mansion, but she has learned to hold them with an open hand. Hold everything with open hands. I don’t think we are ever allowed to grab hold of anything or anyone as though they matter more than the kingdom of heaven. When you hold relationships with open hands, then people come in and out of your life as gifts of grace to be cherished and enjoyed, not objects to be owned and manipulated. And then when you hold your dreams with open hands, you get to watch God resurrect what seemed dead and multiply what seemed small.Angela Thomas
With a joyful and expectant heart!
Laura Story - Blessings
We pray for blessings
We pray for peace
Comfort for family, protection while we sleep
We pray for healing, for prosperity
We pray for Your mighty hand to ease our suffering
All the while, You hear each spoken need
Yet love us way too much to give us lesser things
Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near
What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise
We pray for wisdom
Your voice to hear
And we cry in anger when we cannot feel You near
We doubt Your goodness, we doubt Your love
As if every promise from Your Word is not enough
All the while, You hear each desperate plea
And long that we’d have faith to believe
Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near
And what if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise
When friends betray us
When darkness seems to win
We know the pain reminds this heart
That this is not, this is not our home
Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
And what if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near
What if my greatest disappointments
Or the aching of this life
Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can’t satisfy
And what if trials of this life
The rain, the storms, the hardest nights
Are Your mercies in disguise
“I love you. This is not her true nature, I love her - and I love you.”
Over the past four years, I’ve had this conversation with God countless times. Most of them took place in tears and sorrow. But through the tears came healing. Through rejection came acceptance. Through sorrow came unceasing joy that sorrow could never hold back for long.
This conversation kept coming back over a few friends I hold dear to; girls whom He cherishes, loves, and is calling back to Him. I say this, and draw attention to the latter, because unlike the past, it is no longer only about me overcoming my struggles, my own insecurities and fears. No, I’ve been set free from them. This is about them too. Last night I had a beautiful experience listening to God and letting Him share His heart for them. And He has begun to show me that I can pray and weep over these girls, because they too are in the midst of going on a spiritual journey that I once struggled to move forward in too. This is the power of redeeming love and grace.
Firstly, I must confess that the sorrow I talked about earlier was not Godly sorrow. That sorrow came from my willingness to give others power over me. Only God should be able to say who I am and declare my worth in His eyes - for a period of time I struggled immensely with this. The power of life and of death are easily found on the same tongue. Every proclamation made over another has the ability to uplift, or tear a person down.
But it shouldn’t be that way.
You see, I came a long way in realising that other people aren’t supposed to be able to make or break my day. If given that power, they will fail me, and I will inevitably fail them too.
We must stop waiting for others to like us or expect them to react to us in certain ways that will make us feel happy. Happiness is not joy, happiness is based on circumstances, it is superficial, whereas joy comes from a deep source that will always keep burning from within. Joy can only come from the Father. True joy born from fellowship is only found in the perfect trinity within the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. We are made to share in that.
From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come - 2 Corinthians 5: 16-17.
In the past, so often have I read this passage giving more attention to verse 17. They cannot be read apart. Just as I have been made new and no longer identify with my flesh, equally important is the truth that others too have had their old selves crucified with Christ. This realisation has very important ramifications for me, and for everyone.
For myself, I am no longer susceptible to temptation to feel negatively, because I now live by the Spirit instead of my flesh.
When I am attacked with sorrow, I don’t have to claim it. I don’t have to say, “I’m disappointed” or “I’m heartbroken” Because I’m not, I’m new in Christ and living by the Spirit. I now have the freedom to say “I am experiencing disappointment” or “I am being attacked with a feeling of brokenness” and then I am able to rebuke those feelings and go on walking in the Spirit.
It leaves no room for moping around because I know that such feelings are no longer of my nature, but attacks from Satan to tempt me into identifying with them. Such disappointment and brokenness comes when I give of the power to declare my worth over to others, when God has said that I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Neither is such brokenness of God, for such mourning is not what grieves His heart.
From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh.
In the same way, I can no longer look at others and identify their nature with their flesh. When others express rejection through their words or their actions, that is not their true nature. Similarly, they too are being tempted to feelings of insecurity, anger and brokenness. What they need is not a response from similar feelings to that which they are tempted to indulge in, but they need to know that they have been set free.
and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free - John 8:32.
Set free from past bondages, lies, temptations to feel anything less than a beloved child of God, set free from Satan’s attempts to declare bondages over their future.
We live in an intricate network of relationships with others. Relationships between others inevitably influences our relationships with these people. But we do not fight against each other or strive to achieve harmony by our own means. Only the recognition of the enemy who attempts to taunt and pull us apart, the recognition that we are all His beloved and we have been redeemed, made new, whole, that we have been given the power to walk by the Spirit and not the flesh - will pull us into greater fellowship with one another and with our Father. He unites us in the same arms of love.
I was made aware of His sweet, sweet presence as He spoke to my heart last night. It was warm, lovely fellowship. He is always speaking, and always with you too! :)
If your heart takes more pleasure in reading novels, or watching TV, or going to the movies, or just talking to friends, rather than just sitting alone with God and embracing Him, sharing His cares and His burdens, weeping and rejoicing with Him, then how are you going to handle forever and ever in His presence? You’d be bored to tears in heaven, if you’re not ecstatic about God now!
- Keith Green
“You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” Psalm 16:11.
More and more I seek to make this psalm my prayer everyday. The more I seek, the more I find True Fulfilment, and oh it has been so good!
Back in Singapore! I left so reluctantly and with a heavy but joyful heart. There is much to do and much to share but first I need a good night’s rest and personal time with my Lord!
No turning back - This too is but a temporary home.
The trip to Manila is in 6 days! So super duper excited about it! On Monday it was decided that there’s a high possibility that I’ll be asked to share my testimony with the Filipinos while the team visits and reaches out to various churches and urban ministries. I think in part because I was decided to have the ‘most dramatic’ life story out of the whole team!
I’ve shared my testimony with individuals on a more personal level, but it feels different to be sharing on a larger scale, probably due to the difference in size and audience! Although coaching has helped to put me at ease with sharing with larger groups of people that are completely new to me, testifying about my life story seems like a completely different thing altogether.
There may be quite a bit to tell but I fear I’ll end up making a big fuss over the exciting sequence of events that have been placed in my life. What a horrible injustice I would be doing to my lovely Saviour then, who deserves no less than to be lifted high. This time it isn’t about me anymore, not how I’ve changed or how I handled situations in the past, much unlike the stories I tell to the kids to encourage them. I have no business in attempting to interest people or capture their attention, Jesus needs to be lifted up and I need to be sharing from behind the cross.
So over the last couple of days, I’ve been wondering how to testify and what exactly is it that draws people to Jesus, when we hear the testimonies of many who are filled with thanksgiving to have had their lives turned around completely by Him.
It’s as if God knows what’s been on my heart, because it was while poring a few devotionals today to select daily readings for the church camp booklet that I chanced upon this little paragraph.
Jesus said, “And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself” (John 12:32). When we preach our own experiences, people may be interested, but it awakens no real sense of need. But once Jesus Christ is “lifted up,” the Spirit of God creates an awareness of the need for Him. The creative power of the redemption of God works in the souls of men only through the preaching of the gospel. It is never the sharing of personal experiences that saves people, but the truth of redemption. “The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life” (John 6:63)
There it is - the truth of redemption. As I type this I can’t help thinking back to the way Paul wrote his testimony in the bible. Paul the seeming chief of sinners.
In Galatians 1, he wrote “For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it. And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers. But when He who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by His grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles.”
Paul is completely honest about his past failings and in the rest of the books he’s written, he goes on to boast in his weaknesses in order that the redemptive power of His love and grace may be proclaimed.
What is going to make for a Christ-centered testimony is not the magnitude or intensity of the events that have happened in my life (as I would be so tempted to describe in great length), but rather the way Christ has changed me - the depth of my past depravity in contrast to the depth of His grace.
“I came that they may have life and have it abundantly” John 10:10.
Surely we have been given the freedom to, and must all be able to bear daily witness to this.
British archaeologists are seeking to authenticate what could be a landmark discovery in the documentation of early Christianity: a trove of 70 lead codices that appear to date from the 1st century CE, which may include key clues to the last days of Jesus’ life. As UK Daily Mail reporter Fiona Macrae writes, some researchers are suggesting this could be the most significant find in Christian archeology since the Dead Sea scrolls in 1947.
The codices turned up five years ago in a remote cave in eastern Jordan—a region where early Christian believers may have fled after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE. The codices are made up of wirebound individual pages, each roughly the size of a credit card. They contain a number of images and textual allusions to the Messiah, as well as some possible references to the crucifixion and resurrection. Some of the codices were sealed, prompting yet more breathless speculation that they could include the sealed book, shown only to the Messiah, mentioned in the Book of Revelation. One of the few sentences translated thus far from the texts, according to the BBC, reads, “I shall walk uprightly”—a phrase that also appears in Revelation. “While it could be simply a sentiment common in Judaism,” BBC writer Robert Pigott notes, “it could here be designed to refer to the resurrection.”
But the field of biblical archaeology is also prey to plenty of hoaxes and enterprising fraudsters, so investigators are proceeding with due empirical caution. Initial metallurgical research indicates that the codices are about 2,000 years old—based on the manner of corrosion they have undergone, which, as Macrae writes, “experts believe would be impossible to achieve artificially.”
Source: Yahoo!
(Source: romanticcatholicism, via genevieveolivia-deactivated2011)
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