1 Corinthians 13.7 says 'It [Love] always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.' this Corinthians description of Love is a huge one and is one of the most quoted Christian passages at weddings and i really do love it - what stands out for me is that the Love described here is very different to what the world suggests in terms of feeling and passion and sex, but the Love mentioned here has largely [...]
crawling through the desert on my hands and knees, torn jeans clinging desperately to my legs, shirt mostly in tatters, hanging loosely off my shoulders... eyes darting to and fro, hoping to catch sight of, a quick glimpse, the hint of, a water source, river, stream, oasis of sorts... some type of cactus with juicy flesh waiting for me to discover in its hidden caverns the satiation for my current devastation, even temporary relief for [...]
this is a short psalm with one of the most powerful endings... in the middle of what is clearly a lonely, worrying, desolate time, still the psalmist realises and remembers where his hope lies and that is with God and so he pleads his case, ending with: 'Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.' [vs.5] [...]
SINGLENESS is a topic that usually does not get addressed well, if at all. There was a time when particularly within the catholic church the focus was on singleness as the way to have reached it - nuns and monks and the gift of celibacy were the way to go and being single meant you were seen as more spiritual and closer to God and there were bible passages that could be used to 'back [...]
this is a great psalm altho to be honest for some reason every time i read the line "as the deer pants" it makes me think of crocodile pants [i have no idea why the crocodile pants, maybe cos of crocodile boots or something] and so i get distracted by then thinking of these pants made out of deer and i have to slap myself in the head to refocus and start all over again... [...]
i have two parts underlined in this psalm so i'll stick with those: 'Sing the praises of the Lord, you his faithful people; praise his holy name. For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime; weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.' [vs. 4-5] this is a very light and hopeful psalm [and well you hope it should be as it was used for the [...]
Itʼs July, Mauri phones to tell me the news, weʼre pregnant again. Whoohoo! We had been trying and Mauri had had a dream in which a date for a birth of a baby was given. So the news was, well, wow perhaps God had spoken to us about the actual birthday! We did a calculation and due date was in the ʻdate proximityʼ. Sure it was very early days, but God had spoken hadnʼt he, [...]
there are some lines in this psalm that are not as easy to digest as they used to be and i am not going to focus on that, because i am clearly not exegiting the psalms, but simply pulling out lines and ideas that strike me... and with psalm 20, it is verse 6 and 7: 'Surely You have granted him unending blessings and made him glad with the joy of Your presence.' [verse 6] [...]
WAITING FOR A MIRACLE There's a glimpse of heartache and pain in 31-year-old Debbie lvin’s eyes, but just for a moment, and then it’s gone, swallowed up by a smile, a nervous chuckle as she launches into an account of her painful journey through infertility. It's a much greater problem than people think. It was only after I started talking openly about it, that I discovered that some of my friends and their friends were [...]
continuing my journey of reading through the psalms at a leisurely pace, making some observations as i go along, inviting you to jump in to the comments section with a verse or idea or question or wrestle that possibly jumped out at you as you were reading this particular psalm: for me it was verse 4 which immediately jumped out at me: 'The One enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord scoffs at them.' i remember [...]