28.11.06

Oh Father, I am such a screw up sometimes. I hold everything so close, I am so unable to be vulnerable sometimes. Please forgive me. Help me to trust you. I do trust you.
Father please do encourage C this week, help her to know your peace and comfort in the midst of grief. Father soften S's heart and draw him close. Lead him in paths of righteousness. Draw him to yourself.

Please do bless my Grandma on her 85th. Thank you that you have been using her and blessing her with a ministry, especially now. Thank you for the great chats we have had together this year, for the tiems when it was just her and I - what a blessing that is. Help us to show our love and appreciation in a way that she understands and enjoys this weekend. Please Father take away the stress of those that have trouble relaxing and enjoying. Please Father, let this miraculousy be a time of great joy and contentment for all the family and friends gathered there, and healing where healing and forgiveness are necessary. Father please give each of us the gift of kindness and love towrad one another.

Thank you for my family. For their heart for you. For the example they have been to me since birth. Bless them Father and continue to draw them close. I pray the same for A. I pray that he absolutely falls in love with you and that all else in life can't compare to the privilege of knowing you. And please lead him in paths of righteousness for Your name sake. Protect him and keep him safe. Bless him in his new position and home.. and life. Father grant wisdom and understand in this whole mess please. I ask it in Jesus name.

Please do help me with this book too, I give up so easily, but I can really see it taking shape. Help me to set aside the time necessary, to not give up and think I can't just because... "well who am I really?"... I am your creation and you love me, and I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Give me determination to Father andwill power. I know the set up isn't perfect, but I think you want me to go ahead with it anyway.. is that right?
Anyway... Father tonight I give you my frustrations, my boredom, my fear... Lucky! hahaha
please do take it from me... and lead me daily in the way you want me to go. Help me to be fearlessly devoted to you. I pray all these things in Jesus name AMEN!

27.01.2000

Sweet surrender brought me here!
You brought me here. to this land and people that You love. Sweet surrender, has given me freedom! Serving You has given me wings.
Free to walk a new land, to live a new life, speak a new tongue, freed my heart, freed to live.

30.09.99

Trust...it's harder than diamonds at this moment. I want to. I need to. But I'm not.
What am I afraid of? When have you ever failed me... This isn't the end, I have eternity. My life is yours, I surrender all.

04.08.98

Father, here I am, I give you my life. To use for eternity the way you see fit. I love you. with my thoughts I will honor you, with my mouth I will praise you. I offer you my body as a living sacrifice, may this be my physical act of worship.
Father help my eyes to never leave you, my heart to never depart from you.
Help me to love you and others the way that you love the church. Thank you for free will, I pray mine may be a constant reflection of yours. Thank you for friends, for sisters and brothers in you, may your grace abound in them more and more, help them to grow daily in knowledge and depth of insight so their love for you may continue to grow. I pray earnestly for revival, rise up in this community, in tis province and country. Prepare us, your children, to aid in the discipleship of others. destroy satan's work in this place... we claim it for You.

Father help the people in the church in Cold Lake to fall in Love with you, and to desire nothing more than your will. I pray all these things in Jesus name. Amen!

On the bus... 20.12.96

Father, I am in awe of You.
Looking at these hills and valley's and life, YOU created!! takes my breath from me. How can I describe in my feeble words and with my limited vocabulary, how your tree swathed hills reflecting the glow of the warm summer sun, also reflects a small part of you. How can I share with others the grandeur of Your creation and describe to them how I feel as I look down from atop a mesa, to see a stony white and moss crevase that leads to a bubbling white capped river? My words aren't adequate to paint this picture. This picture that I long to remember and describe to others. And if this is just earth, what must be heaven??! I'm glad when I'm there I must never return, that would be like hell, that I could not survive.
To have seen so much beauty and never be able to communicate it to another soul! Is that why you gave John the revelation so late in his life? Instead when I am there, I need never describe it - only praise you along with the countless others who will see and experience and will have all of eternity to enjoy it. For now, for this glimpse, at a pale shadow of how heaven will be.. I thank you Father - Amen.

In Memoriam A.H.H - By alfred, Lord Tennyson

Strong Son of God, immortal love,
Whom we, that have not seen thy face,
By faith and faith alone, embrace,
Believing where we cannot prove;

Thine are these orbs of light and shade;
Thou madest life in man and brute;
Thou madest death, and lo Thy foot
Is on the skull which Thou hast made.

Thou wilt not leave us in the dust:
Thou madest man, he knows not why;
He thinks he is not meant to die;
And Thou hast made him Thou art just.

Thou seemest human and divine,
The highest, holiest manhood Thou;
Our wills are ours, we know not how;
Our wills are ours, to make them Thine.

(first four verses of 352)

Vespers - by A.A. Milne

Little Boy kneels at the foot of the bed,
Droops on little hands little gold head.
Hush! Hush! Whisper who dares!
Christopher Robin is saying his prayers.

God bless Mummy, I know that's right
Wasn't it fun in the bath tonight?
The cold's so cold and the hot's so hot.
Oh! God bless Daddy - i quite forgot.

If I open my fingers a little bit more,
I can see Nanny's dressing gown on the door.
It's a beautiful blue, but it hasn't a hood
Oh, God bless Nanny and make her good.

Mine has a hood, and lie in bed,
And I pull the hood right over my head,
And I shut my eyes and I curl up small,
And nobody knows that I'm there at all.

Oh! Thank You God, for a lovely day.
And what was the other I had to say?
I said "Bless Daddy" so what can it be?
Oh! Now I remember. God Bless ME!

Little boy kneels at the foot of the bed,
Droops on little hands little gold head.
hush! hush! whisper who dares!
Christopher Robin is saying his prayers.

Communion

I take the cup as You tell me to
I think as I drink it of what you did do
My heart feels, to me, like it's tearing
Can people see that in the face that I'm wearing?
I can almost see you, hung... dying there
And see Your face loving, my heart fills with dispare
I know it's because you did it for me
my heart blackened by sin you cleansed and set free
In a moment - upon yourslef you took sin
And then your poor heart became troubled within.
Once innocent of evil and pure of heart,
You lost this innocence by doing your part
This bread is a reminder to all who believe,
That You bore our sin, to this truth we must cleave.

I take the wine as you tell me to
I think as I drink it of what you did do
A shiver of joy flows over me
And I rejoice that your death wasn't Satan's victory
I'm reminded in Communion of not only this
but also - as I put the cup to my lips
You live, and you have triumphed o'er sin.
You give me real life and now live within
You broke your body for me, now please Lord
Use mine.
And the blood that you poured out was more than a sign
The life blood of Jesus was given to me
The Life of Jesus, now lives in and through me.

15.09.02

No higher good
No better friend
No wiser king
No one and nothing compares to You!
No sunset's more magnificent,
no storm's more powerful.
Nothing you have created
could ever take Your place.
Though men have tried,
and idols stood, for days
or months, or years
all have failed, all have fallen.
No one and nothing
Compares to You.

just thinking...

How did it ever happen that the language of my heart is so vastly different from the language of my tongue? How can I ever give voice to my "heart thoughts" do I need to? Maybe sometimes... Thank you Father that in Prayer you understand fully the language my heart speaks and listen to it more readily than the words of my mouth.

19.04.2000

Death I deserve and nothing more,
Grace is what I was given.
from my very first breath
Time and again
I abused Your love
Laughed in the face of your mercy
But your sacrificial love
tore through the blindness
of my pride
Shed light on who I really am
Anything good in me is from you
Dei gratia ab initia.
What would I have been
without you?
I do not dare think
I there is love in my heart,
You placed it there.
If there is kindness in my eyes,
it is from you, your life in me.
Death I deserved and nothing more
Grace is what I was given
from my very first breath
time and again.

Night Sky - Summer '99

I feel it here
Your peace,
In the quiet of the night
Lying face up to the sky.
Singing your praises in my soul
Sighing my requests and pleas
Knowing You hear, knowing You care
Inhaling with the night
Your gentle answer

The Extravagance of God - unknown author

Have you ever thought about the extravagance of God?
More sky than man can see
More sea than he can sail
More sun than he can bear to watch
More stars than he can scale
More breath than he can breathe
More yeild than he can sow
More grace than he can comprehend
More love than he can know

29.07.98

Today I watched the sunrise with a gentle mist on the far hills. For a moment I witnessed a fiery fusion of land and sky as the sun coloured our world brilliant pinks and dusky blues. The world sang in a cacophany of twittering birds and rustling leaves. As creation glorified God I joined in, how could I not?? I too am a mere creation, it is my purpose. It is my life.

27.06.98

I want to tell you something, but I'm not quite sure what. My heart sighs must tell you for me. Interpret them please. Search me O God and know my heart today.
I am not anxious. I am not afraid. I am not angry. I am not frustrated. I am quite content even... yet... there is something my heart is longing to say, But I have no words... no words but to thank you. Amen

16.12.98

At your mercy
Here I am
once again, your wayward
child with the proud heart
Glad that your mercy is
gentle
And your chastening kind.

I thought I had it all
figured out. Your plan
That something must have
gone wrong.
Something didn't go wrong
I did.

Your plan was right and
didn't fail. Your plan
was yours not mine.
And now I ask forgiveness
for my proud heart, and
thank you for your mercy.

6.11.06

I'm so glad for what Chris said at communion on yesterday. It is a reason to celebrate and rejoice. Thanks Father for all you've done for me... for us. I know I've been so internally frustrated lately, that I haven't been praising as much as I should. Let's face it, even when I'm "on top of the world" I'm not praising as much as I should. I still have a lot to learn; reading in revelation was a good reminder of that. I need to remember more the victories you have already won in my life. I need to remember the ways you've fought for me.

Thank you Father that I am made beautiful by the way you look at me, desire me. My desire is ultimately for you... no matter how often other people and things creep in. I am so glad that overall, it's You I choose, it's You I desire. Please Father, help that never to change... (unless of course the change is my desire for You growing even stronger... of course :D)
Help me to see the path you have cleared for me, and to walk it fearlessly. No matter the cost.. Oh how hard it is to write that. You know I count the cost so often - but my head knows clearly the cost of not walking the path you have marked out... so even if sometimes my heart trys to decieve, help me to choose what is right and righteous.

Father, right now I want to lay my plans and desires in your capable hands. Everything I hope and dream presently I am incapable of dong on my own anyway - it's just this stupid desire to be able to control my environment that keeps me from trusting in full anyway. Help me Father, give me patience, faith, and strength as I wait in hope for the future that I have so long been pining for. I love you so much you know. I think it's so great that someday that love really will be complete. someday I'll your face... You'll wipe the tears from my eyes, call me by the name you have for me that is for us alone... I think that is just so beautiful - Thank you Father.

"Cause me to hear thy lovingkindness in the morning;
for in thee do I trust: cause me to know the way wherein I should walk;
for I lift up my soul unto thee."
- Psalm 143:8