The Open Door

My sister and I were in a local shopping mall when we got the message:   "Please come home quickly.    Dad has had another epileptic fit and I can't get him awake."

We ran to the parking lot where we had parked the car and took the journey home, not knowing what was waiting for us, t Our discussion centered around the past months and the tests that were done and how we need to check more diligently if dad was taking his medication as prescribed.

When we got home, we found the garage door already open.   My sister was the first one to open the side door leading to dad's garden flat.    I was close behind her.     I saw her take my dad's pulse and I stared at his pale face   I was.expecting to find dad slumped in his chair and breathing heavily like usual during one of the attacks that had plagued him a lot since January 2011.

I put my hand on his head and felt the coldness there of, and for  that moment a coldness lodged itself in my very soul.    She sat next to him and felt for a pulse on the other wrist.   "Here is no pulse!"  she said calmly.   I reached for his heart inside his warm jacket and imagined I heard a small breath and argued with Linda.    She put her hand in front of his nose, but the verdict remained the same.    There was no pulse!

In that moment the world froze for ever.   Nothing would ever be the same.    That which was precious, a constant in my life, would never be again.    The foundation I had been building on, counted on and shared so much with, had been ripped from me.    A  door had closed forever shutting my life shared with my beloved dad.    A new door was facing me and it was very scary.    For so many years he was my sounding board, my councelor and my comforter.    Now in that I was alone.   The door to me being the next generation, the next runner passing on the baton, was overwhelming.

One door had closed, leaving the steps that I followed in behind me.    In front of me a new door challenged me.  In that one moment of death I had to breathe life into the footprints and legacy I wanted to carve out for my children.

Although the thought terrified me, it also comforted me.   I had been given the blue print for my footsteps which I needed to design the road of my own legacy.

Jesus said:  "I am the door."   As long as I am walking through His door and following His footsteps that leads through that door, I would be OK.    I would not be alone.   I will be like the traveler on the road to Emmaus.    Marveling at the things dad had shared with me and waiting for Jesus to explain it to me.

I am praying that when Jesus comes to close the door on my life, that the footsteps I have left, would be the legacy for my own generation. 

TRUSTING GOD

TRUSTING  GOD.

What does it mean to trust God?   Is it a knowledge that God is able to do more than you can ever imagine?   Is it a feeling that brings comfort, understanding that the God you believe in, loves you and takes care of you?    Does trusting God mean I must do nothing, or is it me doing my part and God doing His?   Can it be that trusting my Saviour is saying one thing, believing something else and finding the middle way that harmonized the sense I can make between my own capabilities and God's abilities.? 

In the darkest time of my life God has taught me that trusting my Saviour is so much than a knowledge, a scripture verse, a prayer, an understanding, a wish, a faith, and whatever else I can think of to describe it.   God has taught me through his divine revelation that trusting him means not understanding or being able to make any sense of the future, my own failures, my own dashed dreams and human failure and fears.   Trusting in God is understanding that in the midst of trouble , in the midst of the valley experience, in the middle of the battle , during the darkest night, in the whirlpool of absolute and devastating despair, God picks me up, puts me into  his very presence, shrouds me with his peace and tells me:  "My child, come into my rest....give over completely....resign to the knowledge that you can do nothing to change anything...your only solace, weapon, comfort, is prayer and trust. 

Trusting Jesus has made me realize that when there is nothing that I can do, I should completely give over to him.  I can safely put my future,  my shortcomings and  my incapability in changing anything, over to him.   It means having peace midst the storm.   Sleeping soundly when everything around me has crushed me.  It is having a hope beyond human understanding.   It is having a song in my heart and joy in my soul of knowing the One who knows and holds tomorrow, the Only One who has planned for tomorrow, has put things in place.    When I accept that  only the one who holds the future and my very sanity, is in control of my life.   It is understanding that because He is my Father and I am his child, he wishes only the best for me and that during troubled times, I am never separated from his love.   I can merely  watch as a spectator how wonderfully

God unfolds His love and plans. 

Trusting God means that some time, I don't know when, God will make all my dreams, hopes and aspirations come true.    It is waiting expectantly and with anticipation for the day when I can dance in His presence, praise his Holy Name and fall down at his feet, worship him and shout:
"Praise to the One and Only God of my heart".
 

Good bye too soon

                                
I love poetry and here is one born in the stillness of the night when I was desperate for some sleep.
A tiny cell hangs in the balance of being rejected or fused with its counterpart. Filled with nucleus of possibilities it merges and creates the fusion of two into heartbeats and chromosomes. Life burst forth in that one moment and heaven stops to celebrate the one who created life. Its birth is noted and heaven bursts into outrageous celebration of the extension of what is, but will not last forever.

Alive one day,  stagnant the next. Wish I could know your moment of stillness when your heartbeat ceased is fast paced hold onto life.   I would have held my breath and whispered a prayer as you spread your eternal wings never to die again.


I was denied your journey into fullness, but celebrate your journey into wholeness. Your brief existence will forever burn in my heart, inseparable from who I am and from who I thought you might be.    Sadness encircles the day, second and minute you took the  flight into the light where you are still loved and now live content.

Your heart was never meant to beat in this world but the rhythm of its song will sing its eternal harmony  is etched out on the memories of my heart.    My eyes could never gaze into yours, nor yours into mine, but your gaze behold wonders of what is to remain for awhile still a mystery to those who loved you and waited in vain.

So  sing your song little seed, sing it well and teach us how to love and to shine when clouds are low.    Life can sometimes be brief and each second of measured heartbeats must live out its purpose here below.    What your purpose was  to be,  was denied to those who eagerly awaited your burst into life.   

Freedom: Masks

Freedom: Masks: "Oh the many masks in my cupboard!!! One for each occasion as to hide best my soul. Now, lets not break the mould.... I did carefully d..."

Masks

Oh the many masks in my cupboard!!!
One for each occasion as to hide best my soul.
Now, lets not  break the mould....
I did carefully design the best to fool
The one with the smile seems to fit so well
Quite the handy tool
I wear it fondly least on monsters I too long will dwell.

Some are quite hidden in the back,
but still handy to keep in stock
The mostly worn has a prominent place
It well does hide the scared face
when slapped a few cruel packs.

This one seems to fit so tight
Part of me; can never break free
Its the road less travelled
but those who have dared share this fight
will know inside... its only me..

I once was foolish, tried to crack the code
found the illusion harsher than the mask
so I gathered the glue of my tears
and carefully together did I paste
Come on now, nothing to fear

The one hated the most  remains
the one with all the stains
the design not of my own making
others found joy in its moulding...

Oh the many masks in my cupboard!

Freedom

"I want to be free!"   Eddy Murphy  Queen

Some years ago I spent a holiday in London.   My first stop was the London Dungeons.  I found this experience quite horrifying, realizing the cruelty of mankind and the means of torture we seemed fit to use on our fellow man. A few days later, some famous man was released after being held captive by a terrorist groups for 18 months.  The thought then came to me how little appreciation we show for the day to day freedom that we all enjoy.   It is only when one loses one's freedom, that you truly appreciate freedom.

Jesus said that He is the Truth and when we know Him, we have the Truth and that his  truth will set us free.
In South Africa we have the freedom of speech, the freedom of religion, the freedom of the press, but yet we do not not always feel free.   We have locked ourselves behind gates, bars and alarm systems.   We have become the captives and the criminals have been liberated.

But sadly, there is also another kind of captivity, the one we willingly and sometimes not so willingly spin around our daily existence.   From time to time we find it necessary to inspect our lives and determine what things we have allowed to hold us captive.

For me, my own lonely existence  is ever peeping over my shoulder and if I  give it any chance, it is always too eager to keep me locked up in my own world.   I convince myself that there is no place for me in my small world and that I am doomed to spend my days trying to survive in the silence of long passages and empty rooms. Often we are so wrapped up in our chains, that we miss the chains of others and the call of God for us to be instrumental in unchaining his dear children who find themselves in captivity.

There was once a woman of bad reputation that was brought to Jesus.   Her accusers saw her sin, but Jesus saw her chains.   He knew that unlocking the chains would mean locking away the sin from her life.  Because she was familiar with bondage. she could stay with Jesus when he became a captive of the sin of this world.   She went mourning to his grave, but left leaping with the knowledge that He too had been set free from hell and the ruler of this world.

God saw the sin that was keeping Nineveh captive and sent Jonah with His freedom message.   Jonah found himself caught up in his own set of chains called 'God's chosen people' and could not understand how God's grace could be extended to the heathen.   He could not understand that all people are God's creation and therefor all in need of saving.   He ran away and hid in the bottom of a ship where it was most probably damp, cold and dark and  in choosing this, he nearly left a city over to the  judgement of God.   Even when the lot was cast on him, he did not repent, but exchanged his hide out on the boat to the death that he thought he would find in the ocean.   God had other plans for Jonah and soon he realized that only God can set us truly free.

Jesus chose to leave his celestial domain and to be confined to this earth and a human form so that he could show me His truth.   He chose to be put in chains so that I could become free.   He chose death so that I could have Life more abundantly.   After my redemption was purchased, he left the confines of his human form and this world and all its sin so that I could one day experience with him the freedom from my own captivity here on earth.   At his feet I will fall and worship him without  the constraints of my limited understanding of his holiness, his glory and his love for me.

What a day that will be!   True freedom for me.

Joy

How I love the joy that comes after mourning.   There is something about this joy that is so much different to the joy of experiencing something that you knew was going to happen.  Maybe it is the unexpected that makes the bubbling in one's soul just so much deeper.   Its an emotion that just wants to be shared, needs to leap forth into the open and takes years off any age.   This joy is the sustenance for future trials, the food for valley experiences and the endurance of success.
Thank you God that I can experience the joy of having you in my life and of having my children as part of the kingdom of Christ.   This joy is unlike the joy that the world can give.   Its a joy from knowing hat you are my eternal Father and that nothing can separate you from me and me from you!!!