When Ignorance Dances

God’s Thoughts to Me

For I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it? (Isaiah 43:19, NLT)

Blind Faith

I am lost in the lifeless lexicon of my life, straining to see words, striving to give form and shape to random thoughts drifting on the waves of confusion.

But letters seem to dance a mocking dance in a dry wasteland, taunting me to follow them into surrender, to trap me in transition.

The Lion whispers, “Come, taste and see!”.

My eyes are blind to see the Spirit of Love, entreating my faint, feeble heart to follow into an unfamiliar new milieu where my feet stumble through a maze of unfamiliar words telling the story of faith that doesn’t see.

My desires are piqued, my heart besotted and smitten with love for the One pursuing me, the One whom my heart desires.

But I am trapped in a sticky web of a lonely, self-serving world where even my tears are captives. A world where the faceless ones get lost in a void of nonentity.

I strain to see beyond this nothingness where I cannot even perceive darkness … ignorant of the Host of Heaven harnessing my stubborn mind.

I am blind to the unfolding of a new story leading deeper into the Resurrected Lexicon of Love … oblivious to the weaning of my fickle emotions … desiring to be fed with delicate, emotional confectionary.

The Lion whispers, “Come my darling, taste and see that I am good!”.

But still my heart clings to beautiful ideas how to transform my thoughts into soap bells filled with beauty, bubbling with laughter and joy, frolicking as in days gone by.

I am hiding in my inmost heart where I cannot even see the twilight of the life I once lived … lost in stasis … unable to perceive the darkness of the role I used to play in the theatre of life.

My theorem of logic has vanished into thin air and skewed perceptions … finitely small … where snow angels defy reality …  in a world that continues to wake up in the mornings and slumbers at night.

The Lion touches my eyes with His kisses of delight, showing me freedom embraced in His arms, whispering, “How beautiful you are, My darling. Come, taste and see My love, My treasure, My bride.”

Much love and sweet blessings xx

Mia

Linking-up with Lisa-Jo and the ladies of my Tea-Time and Link-Up page.

Stay in Me

God’s Thoughts to Me

Then Jesus said, “Come to me all of you are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. (Matthew 11:28, NLT)

Abide in me, and I will abide in you. (John 15:4)

God is a Verb of Love

My feeble heart heard Your call, softly wooing me to come with you, to the garden of our Love. Teach me how to stay, my Lord! My heart is longing for your love to embrace me, for your kisses to ravage my heart. I know the sun of this world has darkened my skin like the tents of Kedar and the curtains of Solomon’s tent, but to you I am a beautiful dove, a gazelle. To you I am the lily of the valley amongst the thorns and thistles.

Take me to the cleft in the rock where I can see and experience your glory; where it will be just you and me. Please, rescue me from labouring in the vineyards of my brothers and take me away with you.

Where are you, most wonderful King of all. I ran through the streets of religion seeking my lover amongst religious rituals, performances, structures, but you are gone! Oh, where can I find my Love. Then I heard your still, soft whisper in the depths of my soul,

“Come to the vineyard of your heart, most beautiful of all, where I will whisper words of love to you, for you are beautiful, my darling, beautiful beyond words. There I will lift your veil and look deep into your eyes, for your eyes are like doves.”

Oh, my Lord, do you hear my song for you. Please, be the conductor of the orchestra of love in my heart. Let the violins sing of a love sweeter than honey, and the cymbals, of my lover. He is the shade that covers me and He feeds my heart with the dainty morsels of His love.

Much love and blessings

Mia

I am linking up with Lisa-Jo and many dear ladies at The Gypsy Mama (http://lisajobaker.com/category/five-minute-friday/) where we write for five minutes flat on a topic without editing.

The Candor of a Child

God’s Thoughts to Me

When Jesus saw what was happening, He was angry with His disciples. He said to them, “Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the Kingdom of God belongs to those who are like these children. I tell you the truth, anyone who doesn’t receive the Kingdom of God like a child will never enter it.” (Mark 10:13-15, NLT)

A Lesson from Lea, with Love

The real-life Lea

Last week I was blessed abundantly when I had the privilege of visiting my 1-year-and-5-month-old little niece in Port Elizabeth. I could let my hair down and just be little, small and childlike, getting dirty as we built sandcastles and playing in the mud. I was the builder and she, the demolisher

When I arrived, little Lea was overjoyed as she ran up to me on her chubby little legs. Shrieking with boundless delight, she jumped onto my lap and stole my heart all over again with those beautiful, blue, innocent eyes, sparkling with stars of anticipation, expecting a great time of fun and play.

What a precious moment it was when she wrapped her little arms around my neck with complete trust and surrender, not doubting my love for her even for a moment. Our Heavenly Father showed me the holiness of the moment as the Holy Spirit gave life to the words of the French author, Jacques Ellul. In his wonderful book, Anarchy and Christianity, he remarked with unusual wisdom,” No matter what God’s power may be, the first aspect of God is never that of the Absolute Master, the Almighty. It is that of the God who puts Himself on our human level and limits Himself.”

I had the privilege of loving Lea the same way our Lord Jesus loved us when He did not consider His equality with God as something to hold on to, but He emptied Himself by becoming like one of us (Phillipians 2:7). I could love Lea by putting myself on her childlike level, without considering my adulthood and limiting myself. I listened to all her incomprehensible baby babble, pretending to understand every single word as she was wholeheartedly giving me an account of her little life. Needless to say, for a few hours we played to our heart’s delight.

The holiness of that moment wrapped its warm, loving arms around me like the first rays of the sun at daybreak after a cold, dark night. My heart sensed with anticipation that our Pappa was revealing an awesome side of His character to me.

During the third decade of the first century, the Jewish families from Palestine valued their children, especially boys, for their posterity. However, they were very low on on the social ladder of a religious society who highly valued education, wisdom and intelligence. They had no rights or status and were regarded as inferior, the least among family members, a nuisance only to be seen, but definitely not heard! It came as a shock to me that we need to become like these unimportant, inferior little ones to enter our Pappa’s Kingdom of love (Matthew 18:3). I needed to desire and value my Pappa’s love much more than my so-called rights or importance, the idols the world loves to pay homage to!

Our orphaned, broken world is trying to survive without a Father, but has robbed so many of our Pappa’s children of their innocent childlikeness, me included. Since as far as my mind was able to reach back in time to fetch memories from my past, I had been on a futile quest trying to impress my Pappa and all those I considered to be His representatives here on earth. Well, I know now it is just as impossible as trying to catch the wind or chasing my own shadow.

I was suffering from a severe case of, what I call, the Micah syndrome. Micah had the same mindset as me when he lamented so beautifully, “What can we bring to God? What kind of offering should we give Him? …. Should we sacrifice our first-born children?” (Micah 6:6-7, NLT).

This syndrome was rampant amongst the ancient Canaanite tribes. Seeking the favor of their gods, they tied their first-born sons to altars as sacrifices and offered their virgin daughters to fiery volcanoes. What an incentive to let go of chastity! I wondered if Abraham thought it was business-as-usual when Our Pappa asked him to offer up Isaac?

I was ignorant of the beautiful freedom our Lord Jesus gave me by being the only mediator between my Pappa and me. As I allowed the Holy Spirit of love to draw me closer and closer into our Father’s love and the resurrected life of our Lord Jesus, I was again able to recapture the holiness of childlike faith. I could once again hear our Lord’s invitation to just come to Him to experience His rest. (Mark 10:14). Just like little Lea, I ran up to my Pappa and hurried into His Loving Embrace. I told Him of all my brokeness, weaknesses, frustrations, hopes, fears and dreams without feeling that I was a nuisance. I started to experience the truth of our Lord’s words, “You have taught children and infants” (Psalm 8:2) and shared in His delight, “Oh Father, Lord of heaven and earth, thank you for hiding these things from those who think themselves wise and clever, and for revealing them to the childlike.” (Matthew 11:25).

One of my favorite authors, A W Tozer, once remarked with divine wisdom, “An infinite God can give all of Himself to each of His children. He does not distribute Himself that each may have a part, but to each one He gives all of Himself as fully as if there were no others”. So true!

Dear Ones, your Pappa does not look at the limitations this illness forces on you, He looks at your childlike heart reaching out to Him through all your pain and exhaustion. He looks at your childlike faith that implicitly trusts His promise of love to be close to the suffering, listening to your cries for help. (Psalm 22:24).

The world might abandon their weak, but not our Pappa, for He has a special place in His heart for all the spiritually, emotionally and physically broken ones! May our Pappa bless you and keep you this week as you share your life with Him, knowing that you bring joy to His heart by just being the broken, beautiful you He loves. Allow Him to carry you as He wraps you close to His heart in His Loving Embrace.

Hugs and blessings until next time. Mia

http://www.focbonline.com/

The Emperor’s Image

God’s Thoughts to Me

But Jesus knew their evil motives, “You hypocrites!” he said. “Why are you trying to trap me? Here, show me the coin used for the tax.” When they handed Him a Roman coin, He asked,” Whose picture and title are stamped on it?” “Ceasar’s,” they replied. “Well, then give to Ceasar what belongs to Ceasar, and give to God to what belongs to God.”(Matthew 22:18-21, NLT).

So God created human beings in His own image, in the image of God He created them, male and female He created them.” (Genesis 1:27, NLT).

The Hurdles of Discipline

When my oldest son, Simon, was a secondary school learner, he was a provincial 400 meter hurdles athlete. At all the competitions his doting mother caused him endless embarrassment by, to put it mildly, proudly, yet noisily, jumping up and down, cheering him along and helping him to finish the race. Eventually he had to surrender, for he, for some strange reason, seemed unable to get his mother to behave more appropriately.

Then it happened! He stumbled and heartily greeted mother earth during a race he was about to win. My courageous, brave 18-year old baby got up and finished second…and then…collapsed! This mother hen quickly gathered her precious, bleeding chick under her wing, and that in front of an enormous crowd of spectators. So completely not cool at all!!

That was one of my favorite, precious God moments. Our Pappa taught me a most valuable lesson through this incident on His love and care towards us. Like the best parent ever, He lovingly disciplines us by allowing the hurdles of trials and tribulations during our race of life to teach us godliness and complete dependance upon Him. Every hurdle presents another opportunity to stretch those faith muscles to jump clear. When we fall, He lovingly picks us up and gathers us in His arms and wipes away all our tears while encouraging us not to lose heart, for He will always be there, right beside us, jumping up and down with joy as He cheers us on, rejoicing over us with singing. (Zephaniah 3:17).

As I was reading the above Scripture, the Lord opened my eyes to a big, bad insurmountable hurdle of misconception and wrong perception l had allowed to develop in my life, hindering my relationship with my Pappa to grow, to bloom and to blossom. My frame of reference told me that all our Lord Jesus’ anger towards the Pharisees and Scribes was also directed towards me. Our Pappa was, as far as I was concerned, a very angry, abusive God, expecting me to pull myself up by my own bootstraps and polish up my poor excuse of a life.

Our God patiently taught me through one of my favorite Bible teachers, James Fowler, my perception of His character was totally wrong. My frame of reference needed to include some “zits im leben” (setting in life). It needed to be based on the truth of  whom our Lord really was referring to, as well as the culture and traditions of that specific time. When I read the text in that context, scales fell from my eyes and I looked at this Scripture with new understanding.

Allow me to give a little background information. At the time our Lord Jesus walked the earth, the Roman authorities issued a silver coin, the denarius, stamped with the image of the Emperor. It was used as the standard payment for taxes. The Romans were well aware of the Jews’ scruples about “graven images” and out of respect for their religious traditions, they issued a bronze coin without any image for the use of those devout Palestinian Jews, without having to defile themselves when paying their taxes.

I have wondered why politicians and religious leaders often seem to be bosom buddies until I saw the truth of Solomon’s words, there truly is nothing new under the sun! (Ecclesiastes 1:9). The Pharisees and Scribes were hand in glove with the Herodians, inviting them along when they tried to soft-soap our Lord Jesus by commending His integrity. As if they were qualified to be judges of integrity! They tried to force Him into a Catch 22 situation by asking Him the famous question about taxes. These highly religious and righteous Jews, as they considered themselves to be, had no reason to defile themselves by touching a denarius, but when Jesus requested one, they provided the denarius from their own pockets!! I wonder if all the bronze ones went to the poor!

Our Lord saw right through their evil intent into their greed for religous power, position, prestige and money. They were unwilling to give it all up and to give themselves wholeheartedly to our Pappa. We are all familiar with the outcome of this story.

A question started to form in my mind, “As humans, whose image do we bear?” Our Pappa revelaled to my heart the precious truth that we are all created in His image!! He created us as spiritual beings to lavishly love us and enabled us to love Him in return. That privilege was forfeited in Eden and bought back on the cross at Golgotha. If only I could rid myself of that brood of “Pharisees” joyfully lodging in my heart, suffocating the loving relationship between my Pappa and me. Our Lord’s words became crystal clear to me, “You search the Scriptures because you think they give eternal life. But the Scriptures point to me! Yet you refuse to come to me to receive this eternal life” (John 5:39-40, NLT).

I rejoiced when we together chased the slave woman and her son from my heart as Paul instructed us to do. (Galatians 4:30). Good riddance indeed! But little did know of  all the son’s siblings, cousins and cousins-twice-removed still stealing and feasting on the delicious fruit our Lord was producing in my heart, keeping me imprisoned and chained to the system of religious performance. I had cordially invited them in when I had gobbled up many false teachings in the past. The stone tablets of my heart had many laws, over and above the Ten Commandments. As the years passed by, I kept adding more and more, as well as erasing a few outdated, old ones.

The slave woman and her son

I never was certain what the current religous modus operandi would be and was horrified of being rejected one more time, so I kept my list up to date, I never knew our Pappa could be so finicky for He seemed to change His mind from day to day, from denomination to denomination and even from congregation to congregation! Just to name a few of the silver denari, stamped with the image of religion, I was carrying in my pocket:

1. Only the Psalms and organ music are suitable for our Lord’s ears.
2. Communion must be served around a big table where everyone drinks from a humongous silver communion cup.
3. Tithe your gross income if you want to ensure God’s gross blessings.
4. As proof of having been baptized in the Holy Spirit, speak in tongues.
5. Serve, serve, serve and then serve some more; give, give, give and then give some more.
6. You have to be under the church’s covering, submitting to their authority. Failing to do that is proof of habouring a Jezebel spirit.
7. Wives submit to your husbands even if it kills you or be warned of the danger that you might turn into Jezebel herself.
8. Never mention someone’s name while praying for them in church for that borders on idolatry.
9. Do not disagree with your pastor, or if you do; zip the lip!
10. Do not always be the one suffering from an illness, for that shows your lack of faith and without faith you are not pleasing God. So rather suffer in silence and pretend to be well.
11. Spread the Gospel. Failure to do so will hinder the growth of your fruit supply and if you are empty handed when you meet the Fruit Inspector one day, you might be in BIG trouble!

And so the list went on and on and on!! Keeping them caused me endless spiritual pride and I could teach the Pharisees and Scribes a lesson or two about hypocrisy. Today I realize that it was all due to my extremely poor and shame-based self-esteem for I always used to measure love, anyone’s love, especially God’s, as something earned through my performance, yet mine always seemed to miss the mark!

Although some of these practices are not wrong in and of themselves, they do become law the moment they become rules and therefore replace grace, bearing the emperor’s image. I realize now that the Great Deceiver, the Father of Religion, played dirty tricks on my mind.  Our Lord Jesus did not mince His words when He told the Pharisees, “For you are the children of your father, the devil, and you love to do the evil things he does. He was a murderer from the beginning. He has always hated the truth.” (John 8:44a, NLT).

Dear Ones, even though Fm/CFS takes us through deep, deep valleys of suffering, I can now see and appreciate our Pappa’s hand of love and wisdom in my life, providing the hurdles of suffering to draw me away from the law-based road to destruction and steering me gently into His kingdom of light of love, of freedom and peace. He will personally carry you over all the many hurdles this illness and life in general bring into your life, looking forward to the beautiful butterfly that will eventually emerge from your cocoon of suffering.

May our Lord bless you and keep you secure this coming week, snuggled warmly in the safety of His Loving Embrace!

Hugs and blessings

Mia

http://www.focbonline.com

On Target…or…Sidetracked (guest post)

God’s Thoughts to me

God showed how much He loved us by sending His one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love – not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins (1 John 4: 9-10, NLT).

God is Love

I want to introduce my good friend, Markus Reins, to you. Not only is he my friend, but also a brother in Christ. He has been so kind to agree to write a guest post on my blog and for this I am eternally grateful. He is also passionate about sharing the Love of God with the rest of the world. The link to his site is indicated at the bottom of his introduction, so please pay him a visit and leave him your comments. Markus and his wife, Bettina, lives in Wiesbaden, Germany, serving their Lord. Thank you Markus, so over to you:

Markus’ words:

At the end of September this year I googled the Internet for Shulamite … because I love my dear Savior as much as we read about Shulamite in Song of Songs. Well, I found Mia’s post here (Link) and reading it, I was able to see behind her beautiful words… was able to see her heart.

I saw a heart that is consumed by a deep longing for her Master… yearning for His presence and intimate embrace. Of course, I had to express my heart to my dear sister and so a blessed exchange and friendship developed. Mia asked me if I would love to share about God’s love… and you don’t need to ask me twice about this one! With joy I agreed! So, you are going to read about the love of God… and the troubles we have with it in the beginning!

May the Lord touch you in your deepest depths… and rekindle the fire of burning love to the One who loved us first!

Dear greetings and blessings

Markus

www.seven–stars.de

On Target… or… Sidetracked

If there is one fact we can be very sure about, it is this one: GOD IS LOVE! And believe me there is no better news man can hear but these precious words: GOD IS LOVE! We all are on a lifelong hunt for love! Just look to the music charts – what is the theme most sung about?

Love! Love! Love!

We all have a very exact image in us of what love is all about:

Love is everything that makes me happy! Everything pleasing me, everything meeting my wishes and desires, I instantly regard as love or loving! And this even little children know:

When our second son had to get his first haircut ever, he didn’t like this procedure at all… and it was my “honor” to do this unthankful job! So he was placed in his baby chair with a large coat draped around his neck and he was supposed to sit as calmly as possible till this “martyrdom” was over. Well, I’m quite good at styling hair (even my wife trusts my skills!) but this was a “sweaty” workout… he didn’t make it easy for me!

But finally it was done! After we were finished, my wife told him how nice he was looking. He didn’t pay any attention to her and just said: “Daddy is bad!”

My wife was quite irritated hearing his tone and I have to confess – though I quickly pushed it away mentally – I felt a little sting in my heart, too. I didn’t speak to him, thinking it best to give him time to forget it but I listened to how my wife tried to convince this little guy that his father is so loving towards him. No way! For about a week his answer always was: Daddy is bad! But then eventually he forgot about it!

Today , having turned eighteen in August, he comes to me every couple weeks asking: Dad, I want this or that haircut…. please………………… :-)!

The same love that cut his hair as a toddler is cutting his hair today… no change at all! Till the end of my life he will be my beloved son! In the perception of the 18-month old toddler what I had done couldn’t be love at all! This daddy was a cruel slave-master… such a bad monster as you could hardly imagine!

Certainly you will smile at this story, thinking:

“Oh, yes, I know this, too! But I’m adult now… I’m mature! My perception of love has matured so I don’t think I would do this with God!”

Well, I have to tell you: We all do!

We all have our human perception of what we call love… but we forget that the love of God was sacrificing His only Son for us! Just imagine that you would kill your beloved son in order to save wicked, bad people!!!

God loved Jesus and no one forced Him to slaughter His beloved Son; delivering Him into the hands of a bloodthirsty, godless band of corrupted traitors… just… to save the very ones that killed Jesus! Is this how we express our love? Is this fitting the human imagination of love?

Never! This is utter cruelty… in our eyes! Absolutely insane… and I remember quite a reaction when a man first was confronted with this love of God!

This is blowing every dimension of understanding which we call love! If we love someone or something, we secure it, keep it safe and try to protect it. All our affection and attention turns around the ones we love. Yes, we would rather sacrifice ourselves to save our loved ones… but never would show our love by sacrificing our beloved ones to save wicked, bad people!

Often I think the people that talk so easily about God’s love have never sat down and visualized what they’re actually speaking about! They just got so used to Good Friday and Easter hearing all the stories again and again. They aren’t aware of the enormity of what happened on the cross anymore.

We read in the bible: God is love… quickly using all our human imagination and project it on God’s love.

We project our way of perceiving love and expect God’s love would be like we think it is! We’re off target… absolutely sidetracked! If God’s love was revealed in sacrificing His only begotten Son, why should His love for us be different in character?

When God’s way of showing love is revealed in allowing His Son to be tortured and killed… why do we expect that His love for us would just give us a cozy and comfy life???

(This is just a rhetorical question… a little push to think about God’s love a little deeper!)

God is still love… pure love… even in choosing to let you suffer for the rest of your life! This would just show the same “character of love” as He showed with His beloved son!

The disciples counted the sufferings of this earth nothing compared to the eternal glory… and what do we do? At this point I have to mention the enemy.

This tricky guy knows about the “perception problem”… He knows about God’s character of love… and he knows very well how man thinks and feels about love. And so he starts his delusion by waving the Bible as much as he can! No, no, no, he wouldn’t tell you about God’s love and how this love is shown… he just would point to all the scriptures speaking about God’s love! Knowing he could appeal to your perception and fantasy to create a wrong expectation of God’s love in you!

You will start to believe in a God of love… but be totally sidetracked in your expectation! He knows God wouldn’t change His love just to fit our human expectations.

He knows this loving God would start to love us His way… no matter what our expectations are!!!

We have found that the love of God differs quite a bit from our way to show and receive love. When the love of God is touching us, this means suffering for our old nature and so we’re prone to puzzling experiences, tormenting questions, critical doubts and unbelief!

The enemy then is quickly at hand whispering:

“Is this a God of love? How could this God be love? How could the taking away of things you love so much, be love at all???”

Do you see how dangerous it is to be sidetracked? How many believers I have counseled just because they were taught wrong concepts about God’s love… concepts they quickly swallowed because they fit into their old nature! How often have I tried to revive their faith after their illusions and misconceptions about God lay in shambles!

God isn’t man… and His love isn’t man’s love! As high as the heaven is above the earth His love is above the earthly emotion we call love (mostly our love is just pure selfishness!). – Isaiah 55:8+9

The enemy knows this and starts his seduction right from the beginning.

He fears disciples knowing about God’s true love… not caring for their earthly well-being but just living under the unction of God’s Spirit alone!

The enemy so loves to keep the truth from us. He loves to keep us sidetracked with wrong expectations… knowing it will cause us much trouble. But there is no need for this to be so. You can face the eternal, unchanging facts about your God (Mal. 3:6) and set your faith on the unshakable foundation that your God is love… no matter what you will see, hear or feel and by this your faith will be the victory that overcomes the world (visible realm).

In His Service

(excerpt from article ‘On Target… or… Sidetracked’ by M. Reins)

 

My Excellent God Moments

God’s Thoughts to me

And after the earthquake there was a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire there was the sound of a gentle whisper. (1 Kings 19:12, NLT)

A Memory Repertoire

Through the years our Heavenly Father blessed me with many special, memorable moments. It brings me joy to share these precious gifts with you.

With nostalgia I remember a little girl of about five on her way one afternoon to her pre-school cathecism class at church. She was in no hurry to attend the boring class, but the thought of the candy she would buy afterwards at the corner cafe, made the coming ordeal more bearable. Sighing, she looked up to the sky and noticed the thick array of cumulus clouds. To her it looked like a snugly, snowy, puffy, cotton wool curtain and she wondered if God was living behind those clouds. Him, being God and all, surely needed a big place to stay and behind the clouds was as big a place as her little mind could fathom. She was trying to figure out the mechanics of that dying and going to heaven business, since adults were still unable to answer her questions to her satisfaction. I  know now that on that day my Pappa was whispering to me through the beauty of His creation.

Then, life happened and I followed in its footsteps. Through my growing-up years, all through adolescence, our Heavenly Father, on a few occasions, used His creation to catch my heart and draw my attention to Him. Of late, it seems as if He is using the yellow finches in our garden as a megaphone, measuring by the high-pitched decibels of the off-key symphony of noise they seem to be playing to their heart’s delight, having no concern for any melody! I actually envy their vibrant energy (a precious commodity to Fm/CFS sufferers) and simplicity. A finch is a finch is a finch with no striving whatsoever trying to be something other than a finch, except their coloring of course. Their wisdom is above human comprehension.

I can still vividly recall a time when I was truly a lost soul and my heart was wandering through a dark, cold, frightening 3-D forest: the forest of depression, despair and despondency. I could not even perceive the faintest glimmer of hope, when one evening, as I was gazing at the wide starry expanse, our Pappa reached down from heaven. In the tiniest of instants, through the vastness of time, a shooting star wrote a love letter on the tablets of my heart. My heart caught a whiff of liberty and I started my journey back to an uncertain somewhere. At that moment my mind raced back through time to the beginning when our Lord said, “And let there be light, and there was light.” (Genesis 1:3, NIV).  My thoughts were silently enquiring:

Another breathtaking moment entered the centre stage of my soul, a few years ago when my sons were still just bambinos. One windy day I was taking a stroll down a lane edged by many pine trees, enjoying a small respite from motherhood. I suddenly “heard” the most beautiful music as the wind was frolicking through the pine needles. As I looked up, I was awed by the tree branches respectfully saluting me, while the pine needles were waving delightfully. I knew I was standing on holy ground and ran back home to fetch my two angels. When we arrived back at the scene, we could only hear the wind howling and see the branches fighting against the brute force of nature.

Forever edged in my mind, is the memory of my cat giving birth to a beautiful litter of kittens. I fulfilled the role as a cat’s midwife and had the honor of helping her deliver both her babies. The brave mommy was looking into my eyes all through her labour, purring contentedly, trusting me completely, a mere human. At that holy moment my heart was filled with gratitude and awe, knowing that I could always look into the eyes of Love personified, our Lord Jesus. I knew that I could trust Him to deliver me from the kingdom of darkness into His marvelous Kingdom of Light and Love.

My fondest, most precious moment is of the day I stood at my father’s sickbed. He was slipping in and out of consciousness. For a moment my heart touched his and I could experience his deep, inner joy and peace. I knew he was on his way home, being promoted to heaven, to be re-united with his heavenly Pappa for all eternity. My earthly pappa, with all his human limitations, was the one who showed me that God is love.

Dear Ones, these are precious moments which I cherish in my heart. I know that irrespective of what lies ahead on this road of chronic illness, these gifts from my Pappa are in His safekeeping, for He encourages us, “Store your treasures in heaven, where moth and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not  break in and steal.” (Matthew 6:20, NLT). I know that Fm/CFS is a crippling disease, physical and emotional, but allow me to remind you that this thief is unable to touch that deep spiritual relationship between you and your Lord Jesus.

Hugs and blessings

Mia