Weightless

Words weighing nothing, as light as breath can drag a soul down, pinning the human spirit to the mat. We know this because we’ve lived the truth of it in our hearts. The truth that words are anything but weightless. They build. They tear. They lift. They crush. We know the feeling. The feeling of the weight of words on our shoulders. Pressing. Pushing. These welting words of others can become the caves we dwell in. Our broken hearts rebuilt. Into prisons. Into caves.

Triumph

Power. It undoes us. And like a drug, once hooked we crave for more.  Whether it is the power of knowledge, of social status, of influence or of wealth, once we have it, we feel naked without it. So our fist grips tighter around it, and our reach extends wider for more, more, more, more.

Blessings…

Happy Sunday! You made it through another week. Well done. We have more adventures ahead of us this week...

Arrival

What if your calling put you at odds with your whole world? What if God's will for you seemed like a kick in the face of all you had been raised to believe? What If you knew His call would leave you alienated and alone, estranged from your community, friends and even your family, would you still say yes? Yes to God?

The Whole Point of Everything

We need not tell anyone to be strong, unless they’re feeling weak. We need not tell someone to be courageous unless they’re feeling scared. 

Doorway To Freedom

There is a story written into the core of us by the very hand of God.

Knowing God

‘How long o Lord’ the psalmist sings, and our human hearts echo his words. As years roll on with pain and disappointment and darkness. How long Lord? How long? 

The psalmist, he knew this song because his people had lived it. Waiting on God. For, how long? 

There are days when ‘how long’ feels like too long. 

Some little gifts to encourage you…

Hello. How are you? What a journey this last week has been! We’ve met some pretty courageous women of faith as they face down the despot of their time and we've begun to travel alongside Moses on his epic walk to Egypt. This week we’ll continue to walk alongside Moses as he does battle with... Continue Reading →

Scars and Light

This broken world has a story for us to live in. Our scarred history has a story for us to live out.  But there is a story written into the core of us that our mind takes time to awaken to…

Scars and Story

Scars. We have them, and not just on the outside, numb lumps of tissued skin, but within us, numb lumps of scarring memory pushed into the recesses of our hearts, unseen, where we can pretend they don’t exist. And there they remain, silent, but still at work in every thought, word and action of our existence. 

Civil Disobedience

I closed the well worn, well loved Bible picture book and put it on the bed. My four year old son beamed up at me, eyes bright and alive, “Mummy” he said importantly “I’m gonna fight Goliath! Because God and me are strong!”. You can guess at the story we’d just read and probably guess at my mothers-heart response. I smile still as I remember this moment. The moment this tiny little boy, barely up to my waste in hight, named a truth larger than any giant.

Sending you some gifts…

I am so thrilled to put into your hands a few more fun encouragements for your journey this week. I hope they bless you in any small way they can.

Falling

How do I look this child in the face and tell her everything is going to be okay, when the reality all around her says it's not? When her nine year old frame spins on a planet full of poverty and pain and she knows more than most what this means.

True North

Being lied to cuts like glass, and we’ve all felt the gash. It comes with being human- losing faith in human words. Trustworthiness is now an earned attribute, not an assumed one. And even those who earn it often fail us, falling into the temptation to let words smooth over the rough edges of life: “I’m fine”, “You look great” “It’s going to be alright, I promise”...

The first week is over and our journey continues…

Hello friends and walking companions, Well done! You made it through the first week.  And welcome everyone who joined us during the week, it’s lovely to have you along.  In a few days our long walk will depart from the garden of Eden and start to pick up pace. It will go downhill at first,... Continue Reading →

Loved.

There was a silence when we began. 

The quiet rise and fall of lungs filling with air, the whispered hush of a breath drawn in and a breath exhaled.

But before this silence, there was something else...  

Imago Dei

The world has its ink and we are a page, and every stroke creates in us the script lines of our selves, a biography constructed by the words and actions of others: I am loved. I am unloved. I am capable. I’m a quitter. I am smart. I am dumb. I am beautiful. I am nothing… I am, I am, I am, I am. I am the result of a thousand words, ten thousand messages, twenty thousand looks, telling me who I am. 

But who am I really? 

Dust and Breath

There was a silence when we began. The quiet rise and fall of lungs filling with air, the whispered hush of a breath drawn in and a breath exhaled.

Beginning

The pancakes pop and sizzle in the pan, round and golden. The smell of coffee wafts, inviting...

Just a Few Days To Go (And A Few Gifts..)

Are you soon ready for our journey together? Just a few days now and the story begins, our Long Walk through the long story of grace, our strolling, rambling adventure with God on the trails He’s beaten back in search of His wandering children.

For You…

Welcome Friend. Whether you just stumbled in here or were invited by a friend, you are most welcome. Kick your shoes off, make yourself a cup of tea, and make yourself at home. 

I can’t help feeling a little bit of joy right now…

Hello my Friend, I can’t help but feel a little bit of joy creeping into my heart right now as winter is beginning to loose its icy grip on our days (here in the northern hemisphere) and golden sunshine is pushing its way in, coaxing the tiny snowdrop flowers out of the sodden soil. Light... Continue Reading →

Magnify: The Song of Mary

This song this teenage girl sings, this song inspired purely by seeing God’s heart and then seeing everything else through His eyes, this song Mary sings will so threaten the power structures of this world that throughout history it will be repeatedly banned from being sung in public. 

Yes…

Yes...   What we say yes to forms us. One way or the other. Mary. She said yes. To God.  She gave Him all she had. “I am the Lord’s servant,’ Mary answered. ‘May your word to me be fulfilled.’ Then the angel left her.” Luke 1:38 She held nothing back. And it would cost... Continue Reading →

Kingdom Revolution

Kingdom Revolution King. It’s a word with baggage. We have other words with baggage, like politician, ruler, president. All these words carry stories. Stories of human failings and fallen-ness. Stories of political ambition and corruption.  Our world has learned the hard way that the truest measure of any human ruler, is not in their oratory... Continue Reading →

His Name…

He didn’t just come to give us a lovely sentimental feeling and warming family holiday season each December...

Two Stories

Because the story we live in decides how we live...

Unexpected

Belief matters. Because our beliefs create the world we live in. And unbelief creates a world without God. A world of loneliness and despair. A world of hustling to survive. A world of anxiety and fear...

Absence and Presence

Silence can feel like an absence of God. But the truth is God is always present and wants us to see clearly that it is not circumstance or our own striving that gives us good gifts, but His hand alone.  And His gifts are often seen most clearly after an absence, like a light lit on a dark night, like a long cool drink after a dehydrating wait, like a child finally born from an ageing barren womb...

Radical Humility

In taking Mary home as his wife, Joseph was effectively taking on responsibility for her pregnancy, appearing to have broken the laws of betrothal. In sheltering her and the child she carried, Joseph took on Mary’s shame, making it his own...

The Most Beautiful Word on Earth

This word, it holds everything within it. Every plan of God, every explanation of His actions, every motivation of His heart. It is the one word that sums up the story of the Bible from start to finish...

De-railed

What if God is outside of our field of vision? And what if He is calling us to join Him there? In a reality larger than our human plans laid down...

Disruption

What if your calling put you at odds with your whole world? What if God's will in you seemed like a kick in the face of all you had been told, raised in and led to believe? If you knew His call would leave you alienated and alone, estranged from your community, friends and even your family, would you still say yes? Yes to God?

This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah…

    This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah   Like many great figures of the Bible, Jesus' story begins with a genealogy. A genealogy was a family tree that acted as a way of introducing a significant life. A way of saying, “take note- this is someone!”. “This is the genealogy of Jesus... Continue Reading →

He will come: A Carol To Light The Dark

This is not fairytale story. He didn't come into a perfect world. He came into ours.

In the dark. 

To be the light. 

Peace On Earth

She twists the wire around the green, around and around and around until all the unruly Christmas greenery finally yields and hangs submissive on the circular frame. There's an intensity to how she does it that most ten year olds don’t have. A determination.

God Is With Us

  God Is With Us   I love Christmas. The carols, the wonder, the traditions, the too-much-food-only-eaten-once-a-year. It is the time of year I most miss being with my family, the time when living over seas is most costly, not in money but in feeling, the feeling that comes when you are surrounded by those... Continue Reading →

As Christmas Approaches…

Dear Friend, It’s been quite some time since I wrote to you as we journeyed together through the Easter season and I am delighted to be back in contact with you as Christmas and the season of Advent approaches.  Since I last wrote my family and I have moved countries so it has been a... Continue Reading →

Walk On…

Walk On… So my son, these years ago, we gave him this Bible, an 'Action' Bible. And then  throughout that Lent, as we read our Bible stories and hung our decorations daily on our Easter story tree, we all soaked together in the long story of grace, the story of God walking with His people.... Continue Reading →

The Road Home…

Epilogue The Road Home... “In the Christian life, God’s love takes all his children on journeys they do not wish to go.  He makes them travel by roads they do not wish to use. All so he can bring them to places they never wish to leave.  With Jesus, pain, no matter how great, never has... Continue Reading →

Breathe

From before all time began His grace was there waiting for us, because the cross was there waiting for Him. Waiting for the Creator of the Universe to die for the creatures He created....

He is Risen! Happy Easter!

Happy Happy Happy Easter! He is Risen! Time to celebrate! Well you have made it all the way to Easter Sunday! But this long story of grace isn't over yet! In many ways it's just getting started! But today is the day we've been anticipating all along. So take a moment to celebrate. To sit... Continue Reading →

Sunrise

It’s strange how loss can leave you so emptied out on the inside and so disconnected from the outside. The outside world right there, just above your skin. Like all that’s left is a brittle shell. Echoing. Distant. 

The senses. They all collapse into this stormy sea of grief and the waves crash and roar and drown out all sound, drench out all touch, saturate all presence but the ever present dark. The presence of the hole. The gaping wound in reality where He once dwelt....

Flashback

Sometimes the only way to discover who God really is, is a long dark fall to a forest floor. The aching thud of assumptions shattering, of a life in pieces, of hopes dashed. Hopes woven around even an idea of Christ must break in the face of who Christ really is. He is not who we have thought He was, we have not known Him. He is always more. Less of our illusions, and more than we ever dreamed possible.

Good Friday

    Good Friday It wasn't supposed to be this way? “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.” “Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. By the seventh day God had finished the work... Continue Reading →

Empires, Kingdoms and Truth on Trial

Who is the true King of this world? Who is it you want? As King?

Night

Day 38 Night “In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped... Continue Reading →

Gethsemane

There were two gardens. Two gardens in this long tread of time. And God walked in them both. So did frail humanity, humanity forged in the image of God forgetting themselves and forsaking God. This is the story of the first garden, but only part of the story of the second.

Wholehearted

This one brave heart. The one who wasn't wondering what others might think. She had thrown all caution (and all cultural propriety) to the wind and thrown herself at Jesus feet. 

Holy Week…

Hello Walking Companions, Palm Sunday and Holy Week blessings! Can you believe we are here already? We are on the homeward stretch now, with just over a week left in our journey. Every day this week brings us closer to the cross and deeper into this Easter story, this long story of grace. I hope this... Continue Reading →

Misunderstood

Our lives are all part a story, folded into time, a longer story, a larger story. A story stretching from the beginning of time and reaching through to the end of it. The story of God’s long walk with human beings. The long story of His grace journeying to find us. 

The story we human beings miss, miss-shape and misunderstand, most of the days of our lives. 

Drawing in the Dust

Breath. How do you restore it when it's been strangled out of a soul? How do you help a breathless world catch its breath in wonder?

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