God's perfect love casts out all fear

There's this really amazing part to God that he calls revelation.  It's when you read the same thing a million times and say oh yeah that's lovely and then the million and one time you read it you go ohhh I get that... revelation.  It happened to me on the weekend and I just have to share.  I believe that this is the year of declaring out loud what God has promised you.  And he clearly said to me that i need to start declaring my love for my husband.  All week even when he's not around I've been saying out loud.. I love my husband. The more I say it and the more I hear it the more in love with him I'm becoming. Even after 10 years of being together.  So here's where revelation hit me. I have read the verse 1 John 4 v18 so many times but truthfully I didn't understand it.  It says that God's perfect love casts out all fear.  So as I was scraping the play dough off the tiles outside I had this thought that I could have two completely different scenarios with this cleaning. One in fear that my husband would be angry that I'd let the girls drop play dough all over the tiles, or one in love, that out of respect towards my husband I needed to clean up this mess to protect the house he has worked hard to provide us with.  When done out of love it is a pleasure and it builds the marriage and grows great fruit. When done out of fear it builds walls of resentment and bitterness.   Love is a choice. I encourage you to start declaring it around your life because what comes out of your mouth is a sign of what is in your heart.

Back pain healed through forgiveness

On thursday afternoon i started getting some pain in my back.  This happens on occasion so I thought nothing of it and just moved on with the day.  By friday morning the pain had increased and by friday afternoon I could hardly walk.  The pain was so unbearable by friday night I couldn't shower myself, I couldn't get into bed and honestly, I couldn't move without screaming in agony.  I tried to stand up straight but my right hip had twisted about 5cm above where it should be. It have never been so scared to move before.  Saturday was much the same.  The pain exceeded past just physical.  It was now emotional and spiritual. Let me explain.  Being limited to very little movement I couldn't hold my little girls. Hearing my husband trying to look after them and trying to do his office work and losing his patience was breaking my heart.  I have never had to sit back and let someone else do my job, it was emotionally painful.  Spiritually, I felt like I was being attacked.  I kept singing to God and thanking him for being with me, I was quoting scripture, everything I could to get this oppression off me.  My husband said to me on Sunday morning "I'm taking you to church, they have miracles there, maybe you can get some of this healing you're always going on about".  So helping me into the car he dropped me off at the front door of church and I limped my way in.  Being my lovely big church family I instantly felt loved, ushered to the front row they were about to pray for me whether I had come or not.  I felt warmth and my body was trembling. The pain began to lift and by the end of the service I could move around freely and had dropped from a 10 to a 2 on a pain level.  God is truly amazing. Its crazy how without actually doing anything to physically damage my back it could just start twisting.  It was like all the emotions and pain I'd been carrying on the inside were effecting my outside.  I had built up frustration and hurt and was feeling bitter which gave satan an open door to come in and attack me.  He's a sneaky devil and sometimes it takes a blow like this one to realise when there's unforgiveness inside towards others its leeway for satan to attack.  The pain had started to sneak back on sunday afternoon and it was then that I realised I needed to dig deeper and release the burdens I was carrying.  God doesn't give us pain or bad backs, we do that ourselves by our own freewill. God can only do good because God is love.  He just shows us the way and offers healing for our pain, forgiveness for our sin and love for our life.

Heavenly eyes give a new perception

I learnt a very valuable lesson this week about what perspective we look at things in our life and how it can either hinder or help our situation.  It all started while I was in westend with my girls playing at the park.  I was beginning to compare myself to the people around me, mostly hippies, and was feeling envious of their apparent freedom.  I started thinking about the beautiful house I live in and the dream my husband has followed of having the best of everything and how I had fitted into his dream so nicely.  It started eating at me that who I had become wasn't what I really wanted to be and all I wanted to do was move into a place where I could be free to make a mess, blue tack pictures on the walls, splash paint about without a care, and to be honest I started having massive regrets. I cried out to God "I"m not happy with my life, it's not fair!"  The next day my oldest daughter brought two books in for me to read.  One was about a toy that was scared of the dark only to find that the monsters he was seeing at night were only furniture and clothes in the morning.  The other was about a whale that liked to watch the pretty little fish but the pretty little fish would see the whale staring at them thinking he wanted to eat them.  Both showed a deceptive perception. Later that evening I sat down with my girls and we watched 'bananas and pyjamas'.. same thing. They thought a shadow on the wall was a monster but it was only their friend dusting. Next it was 'Storytrain Dan', same sort of thing.  God was trying to tell me I was looking at things with the wrong eyes.  I asked God to give me heavenly eyes to see.  Because our God is a great God who sees things how they should be, he sees the gold in everything and in everyone and when we ask him to show us how he sees us its totally different.  God changed my perception and in an instant I went from down to up.  I have a garage if I really want to get messy with paint. And honestly if there was something I really wanted to put up on the walls I'm sure I could talk my husband around.  I had pointed my finger at what was around me and blamed it for my unhappiness when really i was just being lazy.  With my heavenly eyes I look at my husband and see a great provider.  I look at my girls and see beautiful mess makers.  I look at my garage and see a new office.  Where there's a will theres a way.  Its all about finding the dream and pursuing it.

My heavenly Daddy

You may have heard the name daddy God and you may not have.  Some might say its a little weird to refer to God as a daddy but maybe after I share my next story it will give you a greater understanding.
I was driving with my family home from a birthday party and was particularly tired.  It was a good 45minute drive and I just wanted to get home.  As I was overtaking a car on the motorway my husband said "speed camera" and instead of breaking I swerved to the other lane just about took out another car and all the while going 120km in a 100 km zone in a company car.  I pride myself on keeping to the speed limit and it really took me by surprise how fast I was going.  The flash of the camera surprised me also.  I got the 3rd degree from my husband as you can imagine, and ended my day feeling pretty miserable.  I prayed to God and asked if he could pay it for me.  A week went by and then another, all the while I was trying to keep my faith but constantly checking the mail box.  God said to me "why are you checking for the fine? Don't you know I'm your Daddy and thats what Daddy's do?" Not having a lot to do with my own dad since my parents divorced at the age of 10, I haven't had a Dad to pay for mistakes I make and help me out when I'm in trouble. To this day I've never received a fine.  God is my Daddy and he loves to help me out.  I have not been over the speed limit since!! Thank you Daddy God.