Enjoy the Moment

Isn't technology brill? My daughter has an 'i' phone and she plays this game where she takes a kind of photographic commentary on her life and swaps it with her friends who do the same back to her. Yesterday's one was of my husband asleep on the sofa while I painted my toenails. She caught us in a moment of down time, family chill time bless her; enjoying it so much she just had to share it with the world ~ pesky kids! The adjacent photo is my beautiful sister in law and my brother in one such moment. I'm finding moments are precious...

As a family we're walking through terminal illness. There is a sense in which this urgent vulnerability heightens the moments - giving a shaper focus a more vivid colour. When limits are set into our world, only then do we really appreciate what we have. Try going without food for a few days to have a bowl of soup set before you, boy... do you enjoy that soup! The very limitations in which we find ourselves can give us an appetite for greater things and enhance the ordinary. No matter how sad or bad things are we always have so much to thank God for. It's been a process but I can honestly say I praise God for each and every limit He has placed on my life; for I can look back and really KNOW He was in each moment with me.

I'm trying to develop the art of stopping just to drink in the goodness of Christ and I paddle along. Can I encourage you to stop what you're doing, take 5 and breathe?

• Praise God for that breath
• Praise Him for the senses you have
• for joy of movement
• for friends and family   
• and for soup!
• 
  

Hugs Ruth x

But Lord it takes so Long..!

We live an hour from Cambridge so one of the cheap and cheer filled things I love to do in the summer is pack a picnic, hire a punt and mess about on the river Cam... it's especially good when it's not raining! The above picture is one taken from said punt a couple of years ago; when on that occasion we had a student do all the donkey work. As he pushed us along he regaled some historical juicy info about the people and buildings of years gone by. He told us each building took so long to build that literally generations of men from the one family would be employed, each father passing on his skill or craft to his son and so on. If walls could talk and that - three even four generations of people investing their time, energy, skill and hard work into a project that they would possibly never get to see in completion. 

I've been thinking about the stuff God builds, you know important stuff like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness and self-control (Gal 5:21).You know what I mean? The really important stuff that takes much investment, it's hard going and Lord it seems to take so long!!! My Dad used to say 'if a job is worth doing it's worth doing well', folks God builds in a most excellent way. He uses big solid life foundational stones of forgiveness, perseverance, single mindedness, courage and more... He won't cut corners or a do a cosmetic fix - I'm glad that what He builds is built to last for eternity. He is detailed and works with precision where He needs to and brings form from formlessness. Next time you feel exasperated with the process of being changed from glory to glory remember this -your spirit the eternal bit on the inside of who you are, is being built to last - forever!

Big squeezy Hugs this week!

Ruth x

Lord HELP I've a pickle in need of removal!

I've been feeling pretty good about life recently... Yep seeing growth, feelin useful, kinda Zippy Do Da - ing with the Lord through life and if I'm honest thinking yeah I'm not where I used to be with that issue... It's easy to be miss growth in your own character and totally fantastic when you catch yourself being all grown up and acting with maturity where you once would have had a complete melt down. Yeay me? Well I'm studying the book of James at the moment (see link below)
 http://www.lifeway.com/James:-Mercy-Triumphs
It has always been one of my favourite books I like his directness and his cry to get on and be the love of Christ. I enjoy his challenge to partner with the Holy Spirit and embrace the work of continual God glorifying change through our relationship with Jesus. I have to confess to feelin a little smug at one point because the study was dealing with a particular subject I felt I had nailed, ha ha...! While I was patting myself on the back and doing a little dance the Lord with humour and love showed me a different issue which was holding me back - don't you love it how God keeps our feet on the floor!! He lead me to Matthew 7:1-5 and showed me how I can make quick fire assumptions about others and how assumptions are related to judgements. OUCH...! Guys God is so gracious He is for us, He loves it when we want to grow and He points things out so we can walk in victory and not be held back by the junk in our trunk. So this week and maybe even longer the Lords helping me remove a pickle - so I can walk more freely!

• I'm sure it's not just me, ask the Holy Spirit if there's a pickle pertinent to you and for His help to remove it?

Love being real with you ...

Hugs Ruth x

That don't impress me much...

I wonder what impresses you? thin thighs, people who fast for weeks, super mums who can do it all on 3hrs sleep? Seriously we've all got stuff that pushes our buttons on the 'impressive' front. Usually we admire the qualities in another that we haven't quiet mastered in ourselves. I'm impressed by those with great intellect and wit; those who are humble and exercise meekness in the face of provocation or those who remain cheerful despite ongoing hardship. How about you, what does it for you? You see the substance of what we favour is fluid, the things that impress us at 20 will be very different from what rings our bells at 30 and so on. When I woke up to the love of Jesus many years ago, I was impressed by much of what people said. I was impressed by funky guitar rifts and great lighting rigs. I liked touchy feely churches that were breaking out of the ritual of a hymnal in the hand and polite nod to thy neighbour on a Sunday. It really impressed me then... 

After 20 yrs of waking up with the love of my life, Jesus each day I'm impressed by other things. Other qualities that are non negotiable and enduring ~ things like humility,  truth and costly love. There is a danger in the computerised fusion that is social networking we build platforms, create image and portray the version of us we'd most like to be. The things that impress us can be what we are to the outside world. Be honest how many of us put up the really cruddy photo's on our face book wall? But here's the thing when you strip all the touch up away and permit yourself to be honestly just you ~ the stuff of substance can be seen. I wonder if we fear what we'll find, if our lack of substance scares us? There is only one person in this life really worth impressing and that's our Heavenly Father.

• Why not determine yourself to do something this week solely for the purpose of impressing your Heavenly Father... it can be your secret!

Hugs Ruth x

Persistence Overcomes Resistance

I just LOVE the bible, it continually surprises me as God shows me new aspects of Himself through words which actually do seem to jump off the page at times! It really is our hitch hiker's guide to life... When I grasped that Jesus loved me so much He died for me 20 or so years ago, I have to confess, while I knew reading the bible was a good thing to do a lot of it didn't make much sense. I was pondering this when the Lord clearly spoke to me saying 'Ruth you've gotta be in it to win it' - So I set myself a goal I was going to read the bible from cover to cover a chapter a day. As I did, God started to help me understand what I was reading. He even placed folks in my path that I could pester with questions and boy did I pester!

God loves our curiosity for Him! I'm glad the hunger to find out more about Him has only gotten stronger over the years. Recently I had to give a talk which required study of leaders in the old testament. So their character traits were fresh in my mind when a friend (an international businessman) told a story of a client who pestered him so much to meet up for lunch he eventually gave in and agreed to look at the 'new invention'. It reminded me the great leaders from the bible. Those people who achieved amazing feats despite great difficulty. You see those who lead others and inspired vision had pester power. They just kept plugging away until one day things started to change. You may not feel like you're the most talented, wise or strategic person in the whole world but You have a wonderful purpose which matters to the Kingdom of Christ.

•  What things do you need to keep pursing?
•  Do you need to pester someone, perhaps God for divine intervention?  
• Are you feeling weary, disillusioned or hopeless?

Beloved be encouraged things will change - persistence given time will overcome resistance...

Love Ruth x

 

Inflate your World

Do you think we deflate as we get older? I’m sure my cheeks are starting to slip off my jaw, my neck should be slapped with and ASBO and my hands… flip me! who stole my hands and replaced them with old lady hands? Huh? Should I call the cops, I’m sure firm, springy, skin theft is a crime, no? I was pondering the current position of the ever deflating vessel Ruth the other day when God gave me a picture of a deflated balloon. I’m there thinking yeah you know me so well Lord … that sums it up. But then you know when you over think a thing and it’s really not helpful? So now I’m drowning in a bog of self-evaluation; I’m thinking of how forgetful I am and how difficult it is to hold the thread of a conversation at times. How many times did I walk into the kitchen only to forget why I was in there in the first place…? Could this mean my brain shrivelling to walnut sized proportions argh…! Lord I NEED a saviour!!!

I need someone who will remind me, help me, encourage me in the deflation of life John 14:26 - ‘the helper the Holy Spirit, whom the father will send in my name, will teach you everything and REMIND of all I have said to you’. We all need to be filled like a balloon we’re not fit for purpose when deflated. I lOVE what it says in Job…33:3&4 ‘The Spirit of God has fashioned me and the breath of the Almighty gives me life’. When we allow the Holy Spirit to breathe into our lives we are lightened, hold power (trying blowing up a balloon and let it go to see what I mean) and our presence, our mass is expanded. Our dreams and vision grow, our doubt is enveloped in the rubber of God’s purpose releasing us to be the symbol of celebration we were always meant to be.

If you want to inflate the sagginess of life go to your Father allow him to inflate your world.

Love Ruth x

Nothing is set in stone

Once there was a young man we’ll call him Nick, who had his heart set on becoming a footballer. He watched football and loved the English premier league. In fact by the time he was a teenager there were few folks who knew as much as he did about football. Nick’s enthusiasm for life was infectious to all he met; he had big dreams wanting to be the best in life he could.

Nick however didn't look very much like the ‘A’ typical sports man because you see Nick was born without arms or legs.  In spite of this with encouragement from his family Nick learned not only to swim and surf, but to play golf and football…! His physical disabilities might have dictated limitations but his personality pressed through and didn't allow his body to dictate the terms of his life. 

With God nothing is set in stone, the tragic can become glorious and the impossible made possible. Nick Vujicic is a real person, he has married a beautiful girl and they have a beautiful child and a wonderful future.

Nothing is set in stone where’s there’s a will with Christ’s help there is a way...

Hugs Ruth x

You can find out more about Nick at:  http://www.lifewithoutlimbs.org/