Serena’s Wordpress Installation

It all started when I didn’t go to church on Sunday, and I felt terribly guilty.

The day went really well until about 5pm when my daughter cut herself on an old picture frame I was meant to be mending. She needed three stitches.

Then the dog got terrible diarrohea.

And on Monday morning, I found to my dismay I had missed out of my morning tea duty at church, and my son had missed his first day as acolyte.

Finally, Monday culminated in a terrible row with my husband over - I can’t even remember what now. It was so trivial, related I think to the way he looked at the dinner I cooked him.

On Tuesday morning I woke to find my engagement ring gone. I knew where I’d left it, because there was a gap where it would usually be between my watch and my wedding ring. I’d left them all on the kitchen bench after cutting myself while making the children’s lunches at 9.30pm. I’d stomped off to bed to be woken by the phone at 10pm to be told by my mum about the latest awful instalment in her husband’s battle with cancer. Cancer was winning, and it wasn’t being gracious.

I hadn’t remembered to put my rings away, and so when the engagement ring absolutely vanished, I felt an awful conglomerative mess of guilt and anguish. My husband still hadn’t spoken to me on his way out the door, and I was feeling like he didn’t love me. I couldn’t face the idea of telling him the ring was lost.

I took the kids to school, came home, looked some more, then made slow cooking curry for dinner, looked some more, unable to make the call that I hoped would put my mind at rest: “Jon, have you moved my ring?”

I didn’t even dare say a prayer. I save my prayers for people. I try to, anyway. And anyway, I hadn’t been to church on Sunday and had let my church family down by forgetting my duties, and my children’s duties!

God doesn’t work like that, I know, but it somehow felt like he was working through this. Not to smack me around for not going to church… but for something else.

The litany of disasters felt like God was angry with me. Eventually Jon rang me and without ado I blurted out that I’d lost the ring. The ring I’ve worn each day for more than 12 years. There was a silence. Then he just said: “Well I’ll let you go to look for it.” My hope that he had moved it was smashed and I hung up the phone and sobbed: for my mum; for my ring and my marriage; for my children who I was failing by not taking them to church…. It all came out. Then I got up, dried my eyes and went off looking for the ring again. This time I went through the recycling, as Jon said he’d picked it up from near where the ring was left.

An hour later, I was sitting despondently trying to work when Jon rang. He announced he was coming home to look for the ring with me.

Many years ago when I broke another engagement, the ring had been lost too, and Jon said he wondered whether that had been psychological and now I’d lost our ring too…. When he put it that way, I became even more frantic. But  because I’d looked everywhere I could think of, now I just had to sit quietly and hope that some revelation would hit me.

When Jon came home, we looked through the house for an hour. Still nothing. We sat down and nutted out our differences about the argument from the night before, and why we’d both been so sensitive in the last 24 hours. Then we looked again.

I knew nothing was going to turn up, and I knew I didn’t know why I knew that. My insides were in such a mess about the argument, the accidents, my sick puppy, the angry ant-like stitches on my daughters ankle. I just knew it wasn’t going to turn out right, but then I also knew it would. How can I explain the paradoxical fear and trust which were in me? I was fearful that I thought I knew I wouldn’t find it, because I couldn’t trust that I could ask God for it. What if He didn’t answer.

Anyway, it says in the Bible that when we can’t pray ourselves, the Spirit inside us prays instead, and that must have been what was happening because while I was so sick inside myself, while we drove around and did our chores buying sports kit and replacing broken vacuum cleaners, the Spirit was giving my husband an idea to go through the recycling again.

When we got home the kids rushed into the door with their new toys, and I stood looking at Jon as he prepared to take out the recycling for collection the next day. I felt so sick because I felt my ring must be in there but I couldn’t face going through all that rubbish to find it, only to find that it wasn’t there after all. Complicated? I know. That’s what was going on inside me.

As he was preparing to wheel out the recycling bin, he stopped. Stood still. Took out one box, the one on top. Looked inside, in slow motion. Took out all the rubbish that was inside it. Cocked his head. I had to stop looking. What had made him cock his head?

Then he called my name: “Serena.” His face was glowing. It was white with shock. His hand was in the air. There was a glint at the top of his hand. I  burst into tears. It was my ring.

“Thank you,” I said to him as I rushed up and hugged him. “No,” he said, “Thank you God.”

And yes, Thank You God.

Jesus says: “Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Doesn’t she light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.’ In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” Luke 15, 8-10

Dear Father God, I thank you for directing Jon how to find my ring. I thank you for so much more than that, but that is my thanks right now. Please help this testimony reach into the heart of a reader who is scared to come to you. Let it move in their heart and let them know that to they are way more precious to You than my ring is to me - and your celebration is more when they come to you asking for forgiveness in Jesus’ name. In Jesus’ name I pray this, Amen

The full Lent text is from Hosea 14, verse 2-3 (King James Version):

“Take with you words and turn to the Lord: say until him Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously: so will we render the calves of our lips.

Asshur shall not save us; we will not ride upon horses: neither will we say any more to the work of our hands, Ye are our gods: for in thee the fatherless find mercy.”

The other night I had a dream: I was walking in the house of my God, the God of Abraham and whose name in English can be understood as: I AM.

I was younger than I am now, and my hair was long and falling straight down my back. There was no grey in it.

My God, whose face I could not see, was beside me, and He put His hand on my head, and stroked it. He spoke words of encouragement, like the father He is to me.

I had a biological father and I also had a step-father. But there were key parts of my childhood where I was fatherless. That feeling, which I will not describe today, shadowed much of my adult life and can still cast a cloud over a beautiful day.

So today’s Old Testament Lent verse talks to me with so much love. He has mercy on me.

All the sins I have committed as an adult, He forgives me for, because I come back to Him and say sorry.

He, the creator of the Universe, has adopted me as his child, because his first-born, Jesus Christ, has made mankind right with him through his victory over evil on the cross.

His love has conquered every bit of evil. So why is evil still with us? Why are there still fatherless children in the world? That I cannot know. But I witness to the fact that the God of Abraham has appeared to me as my father, my father who never goes AWOL, who never gets it wrong, who never sends confusing messages.

He is my father, my God, my beloved, thanks to Jesus his Son, my Saviour, who died to make me right with him. All these things in a mix I will never understand on this earth.

But I hold the hope that one day, we will be walking in His house, and He will tell me how He loves me, and I will see His face.

Last Friday: Today I was assaulted with a spirit of fear, which I won’t name further, which really punched me in the gut. The sorrow caused by this fear was just like I’d suffered a real loss.

I just want to say that I spent a good hour of otherwise peaceful time planning for the imagined tragedy. Can you imagine that? What a waste of the precious time God has given me.

Anyway, eventually my faith returned and I prayed to God to banish the spirit of fear, in the name of Jesus. I asked him to increase my faith and grant me peace.

He answered me. Straight away and the spirit was gone. In its place was a feeling of peace. Delicate, like the peace after a storm, but real! And if the spirit or another like it should invade again, I will pray again.

In the meantime, I pray thank you to my God, who answers my prayers, and ask Him to give me a spirit of discernment for evil spirits so that I waste no time and life with them.

I’m really struggling this Lent with my usual program of “giving up sugar”. It feels not much more than a religious-themed diet such as you might see on the front page of a women’s mag.

Am I doing it really to renew my humble walk with God? Or am I doing it in some sort of Pharisee way, to show myself and others how pious I am?

I don’t want to be pious because that is not following my Lord. Jesus wasn’t pious. He was loving. He loved and obeyed God, and he loved and cared for all those around him.

So should I bother with Lent at all? What does the symbolism of giving up sugar really signify in my attempts to follow my Lord?

If I say I’ve given up sugar for Lent, yet I still live in my comfortable house and swim in my pool and eat the Queensland prawns that I so enjoyed last night, I am a hypocrite, aren’t I?

I’m really just giving up sugar in the same way others give up alcohol in Febfast. And if I’m honest, as a secret way of flattening my mummy tummy.

Am I? I have added another strand to my Lent practice, not to add to piety but to try to humble myself more. I have said no house-hunting, even though I so long for my own home, and no purchases of unnecessary things for myself. This stops me plotting to keep my mind from God. It makes me a little miserable, in that I have no earthly refuge when the line between me and God is quiet. And He is quiet. The still small voice doesn’t come immediately after you say you’re going to start listening.

Also, if I am doing all this, and I am not communicating it, am I failing in my duty to communicate the good news that Jesus has put us right with God? Jesus says when we fast we are not to put on the sackcloth and a miserable face, but to look happy so no-one knows.

He says not to pray in public or be ostentatious with faith. Okay, I find it hard to talk about anyway.

But he also says, be proud of me, your Lord. I am proud to be God’s child, and one of Jesus’ chosen (as I believe we all are, just some don’t know it yet. Maybe they never will, I don’t know how that works) I am so pleased that He kept looking for me when I was lost. But I also find that difficult to talk about.

So when He says anyone who declares me in public, He will declare in heaven, that makes me nervous. How are we to declare him if not by saying our prayers and how he answers them?

It is not enough, I guess, to try my best with God’s help to be kind and loving, and then nervously say to people that I “go to church”. So how do I do declare the Good News without being ostentatious or hypocritical, or sickeningly stammery?  I am not being bold for my beloved, because I am scared that people will laugh at me.

Then I read a breathless ad for a book at Koorong, saying “not everyone who thinks they are saved, are saved”. Yikes. They are advertising a fundamentalist style faith, and that is not the way of my faith.  I must cling to the fact that I have made the leap of faith to believe and proclaim Jesus as my Lord, and he tells me all I need is to believe and be baptised, and I am saved. That’s a large enough leap, what else do I need to do?

Anyway, I’ve been hanging around the fundamentals too much and sometimes they make me fearful, and then I cling onto my Lenten rituals and then the circle of worry starts again. It is this circle of worry which stops me from being still and listening….

Lord - how do I do this right? Help me to  listen and be still.

Be still. Can you?

Can you be still in silence?

WIthout the pressure of tomorrow

Or the loss of now to black and white or dot and no dot

The thick scars of yesterday.

What do they do?

I am sitting now.

Listening for you, my God, in this moment

And I don’t understand what you are saying

When you make the waves lap in rhythm

or the ripples of the sea squiggle like profound calligraphy

If only I could read it.

Would I understand everything. Or would I miss the now?

Copyright Serena Williams January 2012

In recent days I have had to take drastic action with the family’s blood sugar levels. Every day after school everyone has been feral. So now we are on a strict blood sugar management plan.

We eat something low gi every two to three hours. As soon as they get in the car I have a piece of fruit to put in their hands, then the promise of something else when they’ve eaten that.

Then we go home and do homework while the kids graze on something else. Then dinner. So far, it has led to a lot more peace in the house.

I’m feeling really pleased and am thinking of changing my job title from mother/ writer to blood sugar manager.

October, South-east Queensland: We’re 27 storeys high, with a glass balcony fence, which has led to severe vertigo. We’re not going to school, which gives a similar feeling. There’s nothing between you and all those endless hours of possibility.

We’ve tried to establish a routine, and this is how it goes so far: morning go to the nearby Botanic Garden  and disturb the peace (sorry everyone else, we can’t help it) play some AFL, some rugby, play on the playground, have some peace pow-wows about issues brought up by the rugby, then go home for “technology hour” which is computer for me and telly for the children.

Then it’s lunch, usually sandwiches with silverside or noodles from the Asian supermarket downstairs. Digest. Then Swim, bath, then go to the library or other part of town for exploration.

We’ve seen some amazing creatures since we’ve been here. At the pool one day we saw what looked like a baby saltwater crocodile. He had the same walk and those strange prehistoric eyes.

Two days ago we saw an art noveau beetle, with markings on his back just like the swirls and circles of a Paris Metro sign. His coloring was bronze with deep brown markings. I stared at him for ages, trying to memorise his marks.

IN the Gardens we’ve seen water dragons (one man caught one by the tail for us so we could pat it) and intriguing tiny eggs, half the size of my fingernails, nestled in palm frond. The native figs are fruiting so I’ve enjoyed holding them as they are so compact with a comforting soft round body, their texture is like wrinkled but tight skin.

Flowers are so extravagant as they try to attract bees.

I’ve just got back from posting a letter to Sam Wiggle from my 4 year old: Dear Sam, Please stay with The Wiggles with all your friends. I really love your silly frown. From J. PS - Please please stay. I’ll miss you if you go.

She wanted to send this even though she had been told by her brothers that Greg is very nice too. I had a heavy heart as I posted it. I know Sam is the victim of his “friends”. But I can’t tell her that. She wouldn’t understand that those smiley men have hatcheted one of their own. Children’s television is meant to be the preserve of friendship, loyalty and kindness.

The thing that makes me very sad is that I am paying hard-earneds for my daughter’s heartbreak. My eight cents a day ABC contribution is paying for the Wiggles to advertise all their products on public television. Even Playschool, that bastion of all that is Australian about childhood, is stuck in the middle of Wiggles Hour.

So now that I have no choice on so-called free-to-air between commercialism and commercialism, I have decided to borrow children’s DVDs from my very nice library instead.

“And the sun sank again on the grand Australian bush—the nurse and tutor of eccentric minds, the home of the weird, and of much that is different from things in other lands.”

I remembered this poem as I watched the bruised sun sink behind the black outlines of bony gum trees tonight in hinterland NSW.

The sky is so deep at night, you can stare into it and your eyes will get lost before they meet the reflection of mankind’s light. I remember reading that many English children will never see real stars but here you can see the light of so many stars that they become a fog of light behind the closer, twinkling ones. Even so, they do not overwhelm the rich black of night. Like me, the creatures here are too loud to ever be from England. They croak and caw and moan and sigh and rustle. There is no twittering or pretty birdsong.

My children find it scary, they are worried about spiders and snakes and ask how to deal with bites from various poisonous crawlies. But me, I draw deep breaths. I have come home.

* This was written last October ago, but I have not had time to update my website for months, as you may have noticed from all the spam. Apologies for that, I will clean it as fast as I can - Serena

Today has been beautiful because on the walk to and fro school I saw dozens of honey bees on flowers. Doesn’t sound like much but if you’d been as starved of bees as me for the past five years in London, you’d rejoice too. There was loads of talk of the death of bees, and for a while it was easy to see it happening, even if unbelievable to take in. Now, their comforting buzz is back, at least in our street, and for that I thank you Father God.

My other happy mending-the-planet-one-house-at-a-time news is that I’ve been eating leftovers for lunch every day this week. Yesterday it was leftover cassoulet with creamed corn and cheese melted into an artisan bread toastie.

Today, curried leftover sausages with malonggay and potato.

I took my two tomato plants for a deep soak in the sink, and I played with my daughter and her friend and taught them some road safety.

It’s so lovely and warm I didn’t think once of storing up for winter, and felt truly content.

Thank you God for that.

In recent days I have been spending every spare minute of my precious spare time cleaning spam gunk off my forum. It is amazing and perversely fascinating and appalling what rubbish is washing up.

For some reason, people are trying to hijack my forum to advertise everything from human flesh to trampolines, weight loss and courses to unlock stolen phones.

The worst for me, as a formerly vulnerable teenage girl, is the porn.

I have always felt I had a bit of a time of it with being taken advantage of. But now I realise how much God in his grace was watching over me even as I turned away from him. Although there are some things I look back on and cringe, at least I did not get entangled in that horrendous world that is pornography, or being a groupie, or any other thing where I thought that using my body for money was a great way to survive.

I’m quite shell-shocked at the moment. I feel a lot of pain that there is just so much vile crap in the world, and so many many people out there hustling other people’s bodies. It reminds me of the things which have hurt me, and which I have spent a lot of time trying to heal.

So if you are looking at this page’s sister forum, please beware. I have not yet got rid of all the porn. I will do so as quickly as I can, but I am just one human against more than a quarter of a million programs that are hacking onto my site.

This is what I saw at lunch yesterday. I wrote it down to send to you:

London: I am feeling a bittersweet tug between guilt and joy right now….

I’ve eaten two of the most delicious apricots I’ve had since my father’s apricot puree on toast with peanut paste in Adelaide January two years ago.

They were just that amazing moment of ripeness between being too hard and too flavorless.

Yet they were imported from Spain. Given that I live a lifestyle where I fly to Australia once a year to see my beloved family, and elsewhere at least once on holidays to get some much-needed sunshine, I try really hard to minimise the amount of flown-in fruit and flowers that I consume.

I try to walk a good green path, to glorify my Father in heaven and show that I love His creation. But sometimes I just crack and then I feel guilty. That’s not even starting on the guilt I feel for not attending properly to my family, for not loving others properly, for being too weak to continue difficult relationships.

But what a lovely pearl of wisdom in my copy of The Lutheran last night. Dr Mike Semmler, the President of the Australian Lutheran Church, made this point: “As God’s own, in His hand, walking with our Saviour, in the light of salvation, we are free to make our earthly decisions, including our mistakes.”

“Nowhere are we bound to discover some pre-program of God for our everyday experiences so that we need to search for signs or feelings in daily decisions to please Him. How miserable to live life under such a law, frightened to displease God with a decision to eat this or that, or to buy or to sell, in case we get it wrong.”

That’s not to say that I can or should go trashing the planet, or not worry about loving my neighbor, but it is good to know that God is going to love me, has deliberately freed me through Christ, to live a life following His Way of love, not rules.

Not that the Way is easy either. But at least I don’t have to feel guilty to God when I occasionally crack and have my apricots - or when I need to do things that are difficult to reconcile with what is happening to our planet, such as fly to see my loved ones in Australia. God loves me. He created me. He does not want me to feel guilty for living but wants me to spend that energy on loving.

Dear Father God, my beloved Lord, Thank You for my monthly copy of the Lutheran. Thank You for the talented people who work there, and your faithful servants throughout the Lutheran Church. Father please also watch over my London church, where our vicar has had to serve notice. Please help us find another faithful vicar who can lead us ever closer to You. In Jesus’ name, Amen

Am I the only one who has lovely food every day, a home and family, who still has a constant nagging feeling of inadequacy which leads to a feeling of discontent?

I’ve been reading some material on recessionary living lately in my quest to live more carefully and spend my excess money (not that there’s much) on things like fair trade and helping out my friends.

One quote from 1 Timothy 6v8 spoke to me and has continued whispering in my heart through a few happy days:

“Having food and covering, we shall be content with these things.” When you’re a mum and you have to also organise food and covering for lots of other people, it can become more complicated, but the sentiment is true, as well as this one from Jesus:

“Do not be worried about the food and drink you need in order to stay alive, or about clothes for your body. Isn’t life worth more than food? And isn’t the body worth more than clothes? Look at the birds: they do not sow seeds, yet your Father in heaven takes care of them! Aren’t you worth much more than birds? Can any of you live a bit longer by worrying about it?”

Dear Father God, Thank You for the amazing gifts You have given me. Your love, my faith, my health, my family, food, shelter and clothing. Forgive me when I am not content with these things. Please help me to use all these blessings, and every other one, to Your glory. In Jesus’ name, Amen

“I heard a loud voice speaking from the throne: “Now God’s home is with mankind. He will live with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them, and He will be their God. He will wipe away all tears from their eyes. There will be no more death, no more grief or crying or pain.

To anyone who is thirsty I will give the right to drink from the spring of the water of life without paying for it.”

Dear Father God, Be thou my vision, o Lord of my heart….. Help me to see everyone around me as You see them, and love them the way You love me. Forgive me for the many times I have failed to do that. I can’t do it without You, and I have not been as faithful in turning to You as I should. Please forgive me. Help me to place all my hopes, my faith and my ambitions at the foot of Your throne. Help me to use my talents for You. I love You my Father God, please help to love You more. In Jesus’ name, Amen

“Its rider is called Faithful and True. His name is The Word of God. On his robe and on his thigh was written the name: King of Kings and Lord of lords.”

At last, things start to turn around. Babylon falls, heaven opens and Jesus comes, followed by the armies of heaven, on white horses dressed in clean white linen. They defeat the forces of satan and throw satan into the lake of fire.

Dear Father God, Thank you for being with me this past fortnight. Please be with my family and particularly with my dad. Please give him strength and comfort. I love You my Father God, please help me be with You at Christ’s wedding feast, dressed in the white that my saviour earned me. Please help me do Your work here on earth. Thank You for P, for A and for C. Thank You my Father God. Please also be with our new government in Britain, please give them wisdom to help this country in perilous times. Please also be with the people who made up the departing government, particularly Gordon Brown and his wife, and help them to find positive futures. In Jesus’ name, Amen

Well reading Revelation while also undergoing spiritual battles and battles with pain and then election battles has just put me back into my warrrior mode. It’s all being channelled through my feelings about the British election, which technically I really shouldn’t care all that much about.

Yet I find myself being outraged and upset about things that I should just be able to walk away from (although to be fair of course I am a recovering political junkie, never more than one poll away from being tempted away from my loves to the unreal world of spin and media… good thing really that the BBC coverage was so rubbish or the forbidden fruit may have been even more tempting)

Anyway, here I am coloring even my bible reading with my political anger - except I think it is just anger in general at the unfairness of life and how out of kilter everything is, with no clear way to set it right. Anger that mankind is not equipped to make it right.

It’s hard knowing all the battles are going on - elsewhere. Why was I made like this, such a battle-hungry believer? How am I meant to reconcile my talent of putting the boots on and waging wars of words with my belief in Christ’s way, which is about rejecting words and submissively following. Am I meant to chafe through my life, always biting back from the battle - or is that hiding my light under a bushel? I know I must be kind and humble and patient and moderate to follow in my Lord’s footsteps, and I place all my ambition before him, but am I also meant to use my talents in battle for Him? If so, how?

Or is this all just a way of me safely (and wierdly, it’s true) playing out the sadness that I am having difficulty facing? I think really it’s more than that. I need to know if I am meant to have more direction than mothering, if that is what God plans for me.

Separate note: One of the things I’ve found confusing about today’s chapters is that the commentary I am reading on Revelation says the incident with the Woman and the Dragon is about Christ’s time on earth - yet right from the start of the Revelation the Lamb, Christ, has already been sacrificed for our sins - so that is not in order.

John is prophesying - so why is he prophesying the gospel - which had already happened. Surely there is another explanation!

Dear Father God, You are amazing and I love You. I wish I knew You better so I could know You more and love You more. Please light my path for me. Show me where I am veering off course  and put me back on Your path. Please forgive me my sins and thank You for my family. I love You so much. Help me to love You and trust You more. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

These are really scary chapters.

“There was silence in heaven for about half an hour….” Is this the time we are in now? Heavenly time is nothing like earthly time so half an hour in heaven could be millenia here. Is that why we do not hear from God, or at least, we don’t see His miracles on earth?

The horsemen of the previous chapters already seem to be here. There is rampant painful death, a lack of peace and much hunger over much of our planet. “The terrible day of anger is here, and who can stand against it?”

But God commands the four angels who are standing at the corners of the earth, ready to destroy it, that first the people of God must be sealed from harm.

Then the seventh seal is broken - and the terrors of before seem like a holiday in Eden.

A mountain of fire is thrown into the sea and a third of the creatures in it die. Fiery hail lands on the earth, burning a third of it. A third of the rivers and springs of the earth go bitter. It doesn’t sound that different to what is happening now really. A third of the light goes out of the world.

But then, a voice says “Horror - how awful for all those who live on earth when the sound comes from the trumpets of the other three angels.”

Okay, I’ve written enough now and I’m only up to chapter 8. I’ll do chapter nine tomorrow.

Dear Father God, Thank You for the strange book of the Revelation. Help us to understand it. Help us to keep looking to You and working for You with a thankful heart. Please be with my dad. Thank You that we know that the ending is good. Please forgive me my sins and please help me to know how to use my talents for You, my Father. In the name of my Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen

Reading the Revelation is just too much. There is so much over the top imagery that it is easy to just tune out. So sorry for being so slow on putting this up.

These chapters of the Revelation are filled with the verses which have been so contentious between the churches because they describe John’s vision of the future. We do not know which future. Is it ours, or was it the future for Roman times - one big allegory for the overthrow of Rome - as my vicar says.

I find that too reductionist though. This is a strange and hard-to-follow story of a major battle in heaven - and it seems to me that while we suffer hardships on earth, while evil still exists, that the battle is ongoing, on earth at least.

Anyway, the good news is that the Lion of Judah - Jesus - has won the battle in heaven with his death on the cross. In these chapters the Lamb/Lion is opening the seals which bring about the four riders of the Apocalypt. Maybe that is the part we are up to on earth! Certainly there is poverty and hunger and famine and a lack of peace.

So as you can see from my ramblings, I am still most confused about the Revelation. But I do know the ending - the building of the new Jerusalem - so we can only look forward to that day, whenever God has planned it to be.

“The Lamb went and took the scroll from the right hand of the one who sits on the throne. As he did so, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each had a harp and gold bowls filled with incense, which are the prayers of God’s people.”

So just think, our prayers are the incense of heaven!

Dear Father God,

Thank You that my prayers are in Your House. Please let them be worthy of You. Thank You for the mystery and hope You give us in the midst of the sometimes tawdry world… Thank You that we still have spring, and tadpoles, and baby foxes, and friends. Thank You for those beautiful things. Please help me love You most and teach Your ways to my children. Please forgive my sins. In Jesus’ name, Amen

Lord Christ,

You have no body on earth but ours,

No hands but ours,

No feet but ours.

Ours are the eyes

through which your compassion

must look out on the world.

Ours are the feet by which you may still

go about doing good.

Ours are the hands with which

you bless people now.

Bless our minds and bodies,

that we may be a blessing to others.

Amen

Prayer from St Teresa of Avila

I got asked why I haven’t been continuing my revelation comments, and I apologised and said I am still working my way through the book which talks about it. It is a very wordy book which requires lots of concentration. So in the meantime I will put up prayers and other bits and pieces.

Hope that’s okay, and may God bless each reader and move in their hearts,

Serena

Dear Father God,

You know my heart and You know that despite the beautiful spring weather, I feel defeated. You know why.

Father God, please be with me in this problem. Part of the problem is I can’t feel You now.

I love You, my Lord, please help me love You more.

In Jesus’ name,

Amen

I noticed this morning it is not called Revelations, it is called The Revelation - in my book anyway.

Sometimes I think it would be so much easier to get a word from Jesus like the seven churches did in the first three chapters of Revelation. How much easier would it be if I knew everything He thought about me.

But then… that’s also a terrifying thought. To most of the seven churches He gives praise as well as criticism - even in that context the criticism would be hard to bear. But one of the churches is told it is so lukewarm it makes Jesus sick and He will spit them out of His mouth.

That has never left me from the first moment I read it. I remember also getting quite nauseous with shock reading the description of my beloved Jesus, who had always seemed so cuddly to me: “His hair was white as snow, and his eyes blazed like fire; his feet shone like brass and his voice sounded like a roaring waterfall. When I saw him I fell down at his feet like a dead man.”

I want so much to be found pleasing to God and Jesus on the day when I am judged, but I fear that I will not.

My Jesus, My Saviour, please show me how I can follow You better. I want to love You more and follow You. Please show me how. My Father God, please help me be more obedient to You by being more loving to Your people. Amen

Easter in Jerusalem.

What a revelation. To worship in a church just metres from where Christ died and was resurrected, on the morning of His resurrection. To walk the streets He walked (although those streets are about five metres below the current streets of Jerusalem) To go to the top of the Mount of Olives where Jesus ascended into heaven, then walk back down it to the Garden of Gethsemane.

These things were in the top ten experiences in my life (including marriage and babies being born)

After the deep sense of listlessness and the fear for my faith, I was worried my time in Jerusalem could not possibly live up to what I needed. After all, my faith teaches me that Jesus lives where his worshippers get together, not in a particular place.

But God has said He loves Jerusalem especially. Much of Revelation, the last book of our bible, is about the New Jerusalem, which God is preparing as we speak. And the power of all that, along with studying Revelation itself, has been good for me.

Starting tomorrow I will have more direct comment on Revelations (child-rearing allowing) But today I wanted to say Thank You God for touching me on our travels. Thank You for touching me during my reading of this difficult and beautiful complicated final book of the bible.

Thank You that my dad seems to be feeling better, although he is still gravely unwell. Thank You for my children and my husband, please help me care for them and teach them Your ways.

Please continue to show me what You want from me, my Father God, and thank You for sending Your son, my Saviour, Jesus Christ, to die as the eternal sacrifice for our sins, so that “whoever believes and is baptised may have eternal life with You.” In His name I pray, Amen

When I reread yesterday’s entry I felt like going back and changing it on the sly. I sound so petulant: “I’ve given up so much Lord,” - whining….

Well after an afternoon of whining from my children, and also reading the (relatively) cheery Malachi, I feel regretful of my sulkiness.

Emotionally, I am still in the dark Lenten days, but I feel God much more closely. I loved reading the prophecies about Jesus in Zechariah and Malachi. Tomorrow I will start the daunting task of writing up my reading of Revelation, which has also been a tricky read: about waiting, patience, endurance - all the Lenten themes which are on my shoulders and in my heart.

Dear Father God, Please forgive my pique of yesterday. Thank You for never giving up on me. I love You and I need You and without You I am miserable. Please, Father God, let Your Kingdom come. Thank You that my dad is sounding a lot better, and FJ seems to be heading in the right direction. Please bless my children, help me continue to teach them Your ways. Please bless my husband, and help me help my parents. In the name of Your Son, my Saviour Jesus Christ, Amen

As we proceed through the final, angry books of the Old Testament, and the final days of Lent, Psalm 143 sums it up for me today:

“Lord, hear my prayer, in Your righteousness listen to my plea;

answer me in Your faithfulness!

Don’t put me, Your servant, on trial; no one is innocent in Your sight…

My enemy has hunted me down and completely defeated me.

He has put me in prison

I remember the days gone by, I think about all You have done.

I lift up my hands to you in prayer; like dry ground my soul is thirsty for You

Answer me now Lord. I have lost all hope.”

I know I am not the best servant, but I do feel I have given up parts of the world - the glamorous bits of my life - in order to follow Christ. Okay, I am not out there on street corners every day, but I do feel some degree of exclusion for my faith.

Not persecution, like the Christians I am reading about in revelation, but just not being in with the cool girls because I don’t spend heaps on clothes, or my writing is mainly about God.

Anyway, in these final days of Lent I feel on trial. I wake up and I realise that I am not going to get old in some powerful position, having the comfort of a bureaucracy around me, as I could have. I am not going to be a powerful journalist or even a published writer, at this rate.

I feel searingly, piercingly on trial. So pathetic when I think of the trials of Jesus, walking the streets of Jerusalem being mocked and falling under the weight of His own cross.

Still, when God is quiet, when He withdraws His miraculous presence from the world, as He has done for so long, it can be disheartening to listen to the world calling you a fool for giving up your place.

I hated that place of power when I was in it, I cried most days, but at least I wasn’t lonely. People didn’t tell me when I was wrong. Everyone’s all too willing to tell me when I am wrong now.

So, my Heavenly Father, as the psalmist says, please hear my prayer. In YOUR righteousness listen to my plea, which is a pitiful, selfish, pathetic one. Please love me and nurture me. When You look at me, please do so through the sacrifice of my Lord, Your Son Jesus Christ and forgive me for all my human weakness. Please strengthen me to pass on Your love to others. Please renew my strength and hope. In Jesus name, Amen

These three books are concerned with, respectively, the fall of Nineveh, Judah and Jerusalem.

Nineveh is the capital of the Assyrians, who have been cruel captors to the Israelites. God says He used the Assyrians to punish disobedient Israel, but that they took their role too far in cruelty.

So they will disappear.

Habbakuk and Zephaniah are more familiar - they are about how Jerusalem is or will be punished for its sins.

It is hard reading. God is so angry and upset with the Israelites. But Zephaniah ends on a beautiful promise - God will be reconciled with Jerusalem:
“SIng and shout for joy, people of Israel! The Lord has ended your punishment, He has removed all your enemies. The Lord is with you, there is no reason to be afraid.

“The Lord will take delight in you, and in His love He will give you new life. He will sing and be joyful over you.”

Dear Father God, Thank You for being beside me in every moment of my day, even my doubtful ones. Thank You for the lovely flowers I got today, they felt like a real boost from You just when I needed it. Thank You for my toddlers’ group on Monday mornings. It has been such an enriching experience. Please bless all the mothers, grandmas and carers over Easter. Thank You for A, M and C. Please continue to be with my father and help him heal in body and spirit. Please come Lord Jesus, and heal Your world. Please help me do the work You have given me with a willing heart. In Jesus’ name, Amen

“What shall I bring to the Lord, the God of heaven, when I come to worship Him? Shall I bring the best calves?

“Will the Lord be pleased if I bring him thousands of sheep or endless streams of olive-oil? Shall I offer him my first born son to pay for my sins?

“No, the Lord has told us what is good. What He requires of us is this: to do what is just, to show constant love, and to live in humble fellowship with our God.” Micah 6 1-8

John’s second and third letter are also concerned with God’s requirement that we always look to Him. and treat each other with love:

“Let us all love one another. This is no new command I am writing to you; it is the command which we have had from the beginning. This love I speak of means that we must live in obedience to God’s commands. The command, as you have heard from the beginning, is that you must all live in love.”

Dear Father God, Please teach me to love better. Please teach me the patience of love, its kindness and its humility. Help me to love not just the husband and children You have given me, but also those in the wider world. Please forgive me my sins, and help me do the work You give me willingly. Please continue to heal my dad and watch over my sister. In Jesus’ name, Amen

We write to you about the Word of life, which has existed from the very beginning.

We have heard it, and we have seen it with our own eyes (writes John)

Yes, we have seen it, and our hands have touched it.

John’s writing is always such an inspiration.

That is why I am saving his gospel until last in this journey, as a way of pulling together everything into one good perspective.

Anyway, I will continue with a few more lines from this lovely letter he wrote:

“Now the message that we have heard from God’s Son, Jesus Christ and announce is this: God is light, and there is no darkness at all in Him. If then, we say that we have fellowship with Him, yet at the same time live in the darkness, we are lying both in our words and in our actions.

“But if we live in the light - just as He is in the light - then we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus, His Son, purifies us from every sin.

“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sins to God He will keep His promise and do what is right: He will forgive us our sins and purify us from all our wrongdoing.”

Dear Father God, thank You for the beautiful writer John and his gospel. Thank You for the way He talks about You so that we can feel we too have seen Your Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ. Thank You for my family, the food and shelter You give us and also for all the love I have in my life. I confess that I have sinned, and I humbly ask that You forgive those sins and help me to walk in Your light,  In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen

The story of the disobedient prophet Jonah and his trip to the bottom of the ocean and back is one of the bible classics, so I won’t talk about it too much here, except to say it was only Jonah’s obedience which saved him, and that God rescued him in a way that would never be expected and would normally be seen as certain death.

So sometimes when we are feeling like things are at their end, there’s no hope, then hope we still should.

That much to me is obvious.

But Jonah’s tale has a curious end. After he warns Ninevah (the capital of the Jewish rivals and indeed oppressors, the Assyrians) to change their ways, and they do so, Jonah heads off into the desert in a massive sulk.

“I told you this would happen God,” he says, “Now I might as well be dead.”

A curious response, and one I have found so confusing. So God grows a little plant over his head as shade in the desert. Jonah was pleased with the plant - but then God kills it the next day.

Again Jonah scolds: “I am better off dead,” he repeats.

But God is angry: “What right have you to be angry about the plant. This plant grew up in one night and disappeared. You didn’t make it grow, and yet you feel sorry for it.

“How much more then, should I have pity on Nineveh, that great city. After all, it has more than 120,000 innocent children in it, as well as many animals.”

I love the way God includes animals in His calculations on why Nineveh is worth saving.

Dear Father God, I have had another challenge to my faith since my great revelation yesterday. How typical. The spiritual battle for my soul continues. I guess I should find it comforting that it is so regular. Father thank You for the promise You have made that nothing can separate me from Your precious love. Please show me how to fight off this attack. Please love me, grow my faith, and create in me a clean heart. Please also be with my father, who is still suffering. Thank You that his latest operation seems to have cleared the problem. In Jesus’ name, Amen

… to live a truly religious life through our knowledge of the one who called us to share in his own glory and goodness, In this way he has given us the very great and precious gifts he promised, so that by means of these gifts you may escape from the destructive lust that is in the world and may come to share the divine nature.

“For this very reason do your best to add goodness to your faith; to your goodness add knowledge; to your knowledge add self-control; to your self-control add endurance; to your endurance add godliness; to your godliness add brotherly affection; and to your brotherly affection add love. These are the qualities you need, and if you have them in abundance, they will may you active and effective in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Peter explains well the difference between salvation, grace and faith - gifts from God for which we did nothing to receive - and the works we must then do to add to our faith so that we may grow in effectiveness.

It is nice to have it stepped out like that - although I think I still have to work on my goodness. As to godliness, I actually have no idea how one acquires that quality. But this is a good verse to study and think about.

Peter also addresses people who come and mock: “He promised to come, didn’t He? Where is He?” Which is a big difficulty for me. Who doesn’t find it hard to be mocked?

“Do not forget one thing, my dear friends! There is no difference in the Lord’s sight between one day and a thousand years; to Him the two are the same. The Lord is not slow to do what he has promised, as some think. Instead He is patient with you, because He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants all to turn away from their sins.”

Dear Father God, Thank You for Your Word. Thank You for Your magnificence. Thank You for these words from Peter, who saw our Saviour Jesus Christ and his death and resurrection with his own eyes. Thank You for the beautiful day You have given me, and the epiphany which has rescued me from a torpor which was beginning to eat at my faith. Please watch over my dad, help him beat this infection. Please also be with Maggie. In Jesus’ name, Amen