'Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart' Psalm 37:4

I am walking the adventure!

Have you ever received the best present you could ever have dreamed off? Or been given a gift unexpectedly? I love surprises which seem to say from the person who gave it to me 'I get you, I love you and i want to show you, so i have gotten you a gift i know you will love.'

Before i started my third year of University I had been speaking to mum about musicals i love. It was a bit of a random conversation and i am not sure how it started but it resulted in mum buying me one of my favourite musicals of all time; The King and I on DVD. I was so excited :) I was surprised, it wasn't my birthday or Christmas. It was the perfect random gift and all because she loved me and had seen it and thought of me.

You know God has given us the perfect gift. He has given us Himself. But more than that the bible tells us that God wants to bless us and not just slightly but IN ABUNDANCE!!!! I think we can sometimes forget that God is a good God. We think He requires constant sacrifice, and He does, but He also wants to give us gifts - so many in fact that we are overflowing!

This is something I have found really difficult to accept. I know God is good and a believe that He wants to bless us but He challenged me saying; "Deborah do you believe I want to bless YOU? Do you believe I want to give you good things?" When I honestly thought about it i realised that i didn't believe it. I know God is good but to believe that He is good and wants to give me good things is a different thing.

It's funny, i was talking with a friend today about how we can so easily believe and teach things which we know to be true and right. We can even believe them for other people but we can miss believing them for ourselves. It's almost as if allow ourselves to hope then we're afraid God will let us down, or worse; we'll let ourselves down. I don't know about you but i am afraid of failure, but that is another topic for another blog.

Well God keeps pulling me up at the moment. I am SOOOOO blessed and i don't mean materially!!!! I have amazing friends (that's you lot :D) who are wise, thoughtful, kind, funny, caring, gentle, compassionate, giving...the list could go on. I have parents who are always there for me and although they themselves are struggling at the moment actually they are always thinking about what is best for me and my brothers. They are God-fearing and want God's best for all the people they meet. I have the most incredible housemates who are willing to share everything they have, who want to live in a service daily to one another. That is just the start. I have a roof over my head, a job i love (not every day but most days), I have fresh running water and food to eat. Again, i could keep going but i wont. God keeps blessing me and keeps saying "Do you believe it yet?"

Today He has challenged me again. I watched Joyce Meyers online podcast from Enjoying Everyday Life. I have HUGE respect for Joyce, God is using her powerfully across the world but she is still humble and God-fearing. Today's talk was about abundance and how God wants to bless us. So i felt inclined to share with you that God is blessing me, that i am happy and that I am enjoying the adventure. Are you?

I want you to be able to ask for prayer, so please do and please get in touch if you want to talk more about this topic or anything else.

I would appreciate prayer at the moment as I prepare a couple of talks; one is for next Saturday night at a church mission evening down south and the other is for a Sunday morning service. But also because my CRB has not arrived for my second job yet and therefore i am only working two days a week still. Thank you.

Love and Blessings <><

The LORD will fulfill his purpose for me; your love, O LORD, endures forever— do not abandon the works of your hands. Psalm 138:8

Life is an adventure, you never know what twists or turns it might take.

I crunched through some smouldering brown and orange leaves yesterday and felt the childish excitement hit me - autumn is here! Every year i get excited as i hear the bushel of leaves fall off the trees, see the berries turn a deeper and deeper shade of rouge. Autumn is here.

I don't know about you but as I ponder whether it has reached the point of long sleeves and hot water bttles I also find myself reflecting on the summer I have just had. Presently all my summers seem to be bridges between one thing and the next. This holds excitement every time but also anxiety because the next bit of the journey feels uncertain and uncontrollable.

The thing i am learning though is that life is uncertain and most definitely uncontrollable. The exciting ting about that is that anything can happen.

Several people have said to me lately that life has taken them down some unexpected roads. Normally these roads involve twists and they are not experiences we would have chosen for ourselves but instead 'life has thrown them at us' (to coin the phrase). We can reflect back on these things and ask God to show us hat He wants us to learn from them. I think autumn (and winter) are great times of reflection. Just as the animals store up the harvest of summer, in fact as we store up the food harvest too, we mentally and spiritually can be storing up what God has been teaching us this year, or even possibly longer than a year.

However, living lifes adventure does not stop now we are in autumn. This season hold ripe fruits that you can only expect to enjoy if you go out and collect them in the first place. Life is fun, joyful and exhilarating. What does it and God have in store for you today?

This blog is going to be a space for me to reflect and share the next part of the 'adventure' God is taking me on and I'm inviting you to join me...will you?

Welcome

Hi to all of you once again!!

Thank you for following my previous blog from last year. I realy enjoyed keeping you all updated and expressing what my year held through my blog. Therefore, i have decided to keep a more 'general' blog. I am not sure what this will look like yet as I have even less of an idea of what God has in store for me over the coming weeks/months/years than i did when i started as a parish assistant. However, i do feel excited about what God has planned and look forward to sharng it with you.

If you are now groaning at the concept of me keeping 'another blog...' then please do not feel obligied to read it, I will not be offended in the least!! If you do fancy reading and would like to comment then please feel free to. I want this not to be jus me expressing whatever it is that i nd up expressing but rather a place where we can grow through the encouragement and love that each of us can share.

If you have any comments regarding this blog or my previous one then please don't hesitate to get in touch, through e-mail/text or however you want. As always i would love to hear from you and feel free to ask for prayer for anything.

Love and blessings, Debbie ><>