Silhouette

Silhouette

It was the Christmas of 2013, and my best friend, Lisa, and I were relishing the warm, Australian summer and all the festivities of Christmas, together. She was here visiting from the USA and we squeezed every second out of every day. We decided to take a train trip into Sydney to enjoy all the Christmas decorations of that hustling, bustling city. With wonder and delight we toured the restored, old, grand Queen Victoria Building, which sparkled with well placed twinkie lights. In the centre of the building, going from the floor, up through the three stories, into the coloured dome of the ceiling, was a wondrously magnificent Christmas tree, bedecked with shimmering crystals, which held our thrilled attention. Next we gazed with childlike joy at the display windows of the David Jones Department store. Each window enraptured us with their Christmas themed marionette puppets. They were cute, charming and they filled us with merriment . With pleasure we took in the beautiful, rotating nativity scene in a glass dome, beside sweeping staircases of twinkling Christmas trees. The city was filled with jostling crowds all taking in the Christmas delights. Street entertainers kept the atmosphere one of warmth and gladness and the Christmas spirit enveloped the city. On many corners stood sales girls, with arms full of red and green reindeer antlers. The antlers were made from sponge and looked like so much fun. People were buying them and wearing them. As the crowds passed by, the antlers bobbed cheerily along next to the balloons that children were clutching, after their visit to Santa. I gazed longingly at those antlers. I so wanted a pair, but I resisted, for a while longer, as we made our way past the beautiful gardens of St James and onto the life sized nativity scene. We took many photos and enjoyed the time spent together and the atmosphere of excitement. As we made our way back through the park, we stopped to admire the outdoor Christmas trees, attractively dotting the acres of lush parkland.  Then we saw them again. Those antlers. I just had to have a pair. I just had to convince my best friend she needed a pair too. With a sense of adventure and fun we each bought a pair and donned them. We looked at each other and laughed and laughed. What fun. With joviality we continued our tour of Sydney, complete in our new regalia; and we spent our evening at an outdoor Carols by Candelight  event, antlers waving and keeping us in laughter.

Eventually Lisa departed Australia, returning home to the USA, taking with her a suit case full of Christmas presents, a heart filled with cherished memories and her green sponge reindeer antlers. We both placed our antlers away, to be forgotten through the year of 2014. Then we remembered. The Christmas season was upon us once more. It had been a busy, tiring and hard year for us. Lisa’s university term ended and the relief of successfully finishing her subjects washed over us both. We stepped into the joy of Christmas and jumped onto Skype to talk. We laughed at each other as we both once more placed the antlers on our heads. There was Lisa in her green antlers and me in my red ones chatting away, laughter filled the air and we spent several hours together. 

After we hung up from Skype , I walked into my bedroom. As I did, I gazed through the window , across the road at the neighbours. Their garage door was wide open and so was the back garage door and people were relaxing outside in the cool of the summer’s evening. I looked with surprise, for there sitting in their garage, on a chair, was a lady wearing reindeer antlers . I called out to my husband and messaged Lisa. We were all laughing about the neighbour with her antlers too. Lisa was begging for a photo and my husband and I kept laughing. Suddenly my husband stopped laughing. He strained to look better at the shadowed figure sitting in the garage. He analysed it carefully and concluded it wasn’t moving. Not only was it not moving, it wasn’t a woman wearing reindeer antlers, but alas, it was nothing more than the silhouette of a motor bike. I don’t think I will live that one down for a long time. The laughter from my husband and Lisa will be ringing in my ears for many years. 

How could my mind see an antlered woman on a chair, when in reality it was a motor bike? I had just spent several hours looking at Lisa in her antlers. She was imprinted on my mind. As I looked across the road, the darkened outline of the motor bike took on the shape of what I had been beholding. How often I can do that with God. I spend much time with my mind on the people of this earth, I behold them, they imprint on my mind. I see their characters, I see how they respond to me, treat me, love me or dislike me. As I turn from people to glance at God, I see His silhouette and He takes on the character of those I have beheld around me. I don’t trust Him, I think He will respond or treat me or love or dislike me, as people do. God is love. He is only ever good.His thoughts are not my thoughts and His ways are not my ways. God wants me to behold Him.To truly behold Him.  He wants my mind’s eye to be so filled with a picture of Him that the misty shadows take definition and His beauty becomes more clearer. In this new year that is ahead let’s take the time to fill our mind with pictures of God, to see Him for who He really is. Will you behold Him? Will I? 

Isa 55:8, 9 "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways," declares the LORD. "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways And My thoughts than your thoughts.

1 John 3:1 Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called the sons of God

2 Cor 3:18 But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit

Have You Ever Wondered?

Have You Ever Wondered?

Christmas is a season of warmth and love, friendship and joy. A time when loved ones gather, gifts are exchanged and good food enjoyed. One Christmas, however, I felt like a beached whale, I was nine months pregnant and, being in Australia, there was more warmth that just to do with friendship and love. It was hot and it was summer and I was feeling it. The month of December with it’s flurry of seasonal activities  from the outdoor community Carols by Candlelight on a warm summer’s evening, to church programmes, to the shopping for presents, the wrapping, the decorating of the tree and to the writing and sending off of many cards, had kept me busy. I had had some complications in my pregnancy, which required constant monitoring. There I was on Christmas Eve, at the hospital, linked up to the CTG having the baby’s heart beat and movement monitored. As I lay there Braxton Hicks contractions rhythmically came and went. The nurses laughed with an assurance that Christmas day would find me in labour for sure. I was all the more determined to enjoy Christmas with my extended family and not find myself in hospital that day. Thankfully, my daughter waited a few more days before making her glorious appearing in this world on December 28. 

Being heavily pregnant in the month of December turned my mind often to Mary, the mother of Jesus. Although the real date of Jesus’s birth is not known and it definitely wasn’t December, the celebrations around me brought me to thinking deeply about this woman of God. Who was she? What was it like to be chosen by God to give birth to the Saviour of the world? We realise by the culture of the time that Mary would have been in her mid to late teens. What would it have been like, as a young woman, engaged to an older man, to have an angel appear to you announcing you will have a baby but not his baby? How would I have reacted? Mary obviously had a very deep relationship with God, an experience in surrendering to God’s will. She replies to the angel who has explained to her how she, a virgin, will conceive with these words, "I am the Lord's servant… May your word to me be fulfilled.” ( Luke 1:38). It makes me wonder. How surrendered am I? How much faith do I have in God’s word in seemingly impossible situations?

After the angels’s visit, Mary, in haste leaves Nazareth and journeys on to a town in the hill country of Judea to be spend time with her cousin Elisabeth. She is gone for three months and returns pregnant with the world’s Redeemer. How do you explain that to your friends? How do you explain that to your fiancé? Who would believe you, a poor young woman, anyway? What would it be like to endure the snide remarks as your pregnancy became more and more known? How many friends did she lose? Did she feel alone at the well? Did she feel the loss of her support group? Did she feel the sting of a tarnished reputation? Through a miraculous dream her fiancé, Joseph, became her closest friend, a believer, a support for her. They were together, alone in a sea of people, filled with the closeness of God and the wonder of new life within. Matt 1:24 “And Joseph awoke from his sleep and did as the angel of the Lord commanded him, and took Mary as his wife.”

What was it like to be nine months pregnant and travelling the eighty miles from home to Bethlehem. The Bible doesn’t mention she rode a donkey. It is only a tradition that suggests she did. The journey takes four days for a young healthy man. What was it like to walk along heavily pregnant, day after day. There are no public restrooms, no relaxing seating along the way, just a never ending trail of dirt to walk on. There are no comfortable hotels to stay in over night. How did it feel to sleep on a mat on the hard ground? What did it feel like to walk on and on? If she rode a donkey, how comfortable would that have been anyway? Yet Mary never complains. She never feels sorry for herself. What kind of woman is she? Luke 1:46 gives us a glimpse into her attitude “ "My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant.” Do I glorify God and rejoice in Him, even in difficult times? 

How tired would I feel after travelling for days and days at nine months of pregnancy? How relieved would I feel to make it to Bethlehem? Mary and Joseph are unable to find lodging. No doubt Mary was experiencing contractions already. How would I feel being homeless in a town full of people I didn’t know and in labour? Was she panicking? Did she wonder where God was? How stressed did she feel? Did she feel relief at the sight of a cave that housed animals? How would I like to give birth in a dark, smelly environment surrounded by cattle and sheep? Who is this Mary anyway? What a woman of great faith she was Luke  1:45 "And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what had been spoken to her by the Lord.”

This Christmas as you see the nativity scenes of Mary holding a wrapped baby Jesus in her arms, as you walk by them in shops, rush past them on billboards, see them on cards, churches, and even imprinted on the Australian Christmas stamps, why not pause and wonder? Who was Mary? Why did God choose her to be the mother of the my Redeemer. Can I have the relationship with God of the joy of full surrender that was in Mary’s life? This Christmas choose joy, inner joy, choose peace, inner peace and choose Jesus, the hope of the world.

Luke 2:10, 11 But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”

The Hidden Rabbits

The Hidden Rabbits

We lived on a beautiful 2,500 acre sheep and cattle property on the southern highlands in the state of New South Wales, Australia. My husband, Michael, was gainfully employed to focus mainly on maintaining and landscaping the twenty five acres of gardens around the main homestead. This was a relatively new project for the property owner. The large. sprawling homestead looked gracefully over a glistening lake. Wide, open lawns of lush green, gently spread towards the shining waters. Landscaping plans were under way; young trees, flowering bushes, and garden beds freshly  planted were in place. A series of ponds that fed into one another had been constructed, with plans to soon grow colourful lilies and other water plants. A roughly built stone wall edged part of the garden, as the long driveway flowed gently by.

The Gardens as they are today ( Stonework built by my husband) 

Coming into the property, before the approach to the landscaped gardens; bumping over the cattle stop, we would drive the rugged, dirt road past paddocks of rough, dry grasses, dotted with purple, flowering heath and scrubby gum trees. Large, creamy white Charolais beef cattle grazed nonchalantly in the paddocks, lifting their heads as we drove past in a flurry of dust. Heavily fleeced cross bred sheep ambled in neighbouring paddocks, enjoying the dry seeds in the grasses, that will in turn produce a high quality wool, that Australia is famous for. Among the cattle and sheep lived Australia’s wildlife, both Australian and those brought in from England. The local area supported the eastern grey kangaroos, the common wombat, echidnas and the forever multiplying rabbits, with foxes on the chase.

The Gardens as they are today ( Stonework built by my husband) 

The Gardens as they are today ( Stonework built by my husband) 

It was soon discovered that the kangaroos, rabbits and foxes created a problem in the young and beautiful garden. Bounding into the gardens at night and hiding by day, the kangaroos would nibble the tender, young leaves and shoots of the newly planted trees and bushes. However, the greatest threat the kangaroos presented was in the damage they created when the six foot males would box one another, kicking with their powerful ,hind legs as they balanced on their long, solid tails. They would break the freshly planted saplings, crush the seedlings and squash the small bushes. The rabbit situation produced a new set of problems. They too would take tender bites out of the growing plants, but they added their own speciality to their diet, ring barking young trees. The foxes just ran purposefully around the garden snacking on rabbits. It was all a problem, an expensive problem, that had to be solved immediately. 

The Gardens as they are today ( Stonework built by my husband) 

The Gardens as they are today ( Stonework built by my husband) 

The solution to the situation of the kangaroos, rabbits and foxes being on a perpetual path of destruction within the gardens, came in the form of an electric fence. The idea was that the fence would keep them all out, allowing everything within to flourish and grow without hindrance. Hence came the construction of the wire fence, complete with an electrical charge surging through it and a campaign to trap and shoot any rabbits, foxes or kangaroos still inside the garden compound. The campaign of eradication appeared successful. There was stillness in the garden at night, the young shoots grew again, the saplings kept their bark and started to grow, the bushes and flowers thrived. 

The Gardens as they are today ( Stonework built by my husband) 

All appeared very well for several months and then it was discovered. Now, instead of the garden being nibbled at, it was being eaten in large chunks. Whole plants were being devoured. The damage was severe and the threat worse than before. How could this be and by what? After some investigation, the conclusion arrived upon was that hiding away in a quiet, undisturbed corner of the garden, had been at least two uncaught rabbits. Without the presence of the foxes, they had, over time, been able to prolifically reproduce to the point of creating havoc within the electric fence. Here was a fence designed to keep the plague of destruction out, but instead they had hidden successfully inside and created a problem worse than before. 

The Gardens as they are today ( Stonework built by my husband) 

My mind turns to the parable Jesus told. Matt 12:43- 45 "Now when the unclean spirit goes out of a man, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and does not find it Then it says, 'I will return to my house from which I came'; and when it comes, it finds it unoccupied, swept, and put in order. Then it goes and takes along with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there; and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first.” God is calling to us to not just reform our lives on the outside, cleaning out of it things that keep us from Him, making resolutions and desiring to live a right life. When we do that, like the hidden rabbits we will discover hidden sins in our lives that just seem to multiply and bring us to a place of despair and despondency, where we want to just give up on Christianity. God wants us to open our hearts to Him. He wants our hearts to be empty not just of self but for self to be replaced with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. 

As the new year comes closer and we start to think of the things we want different in our lives may we not just eradicate the bad but let’s choose the good. Let’s choose to spend time with Jesus every day, building a relationship with Him  and loving Him so that through His Holy Spirit He may abide within. 

Eph 3:16-19 “..that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.”