The thief

 

I love this song by Third Day. It gives me tingles. And hope. So much hope.

There is also just something about Mac Powell's voice that I absolutely adore.

You might not know the story behind the song. But if you're curious and have never heard it before, it's in Luke 23:32- 43.

I was going to write more about it. But I have actually decided I shouldn't. The song kind of speaks for itself.

Here are the words:

I am a thief, I am a murderer
Walking up this lonely hill
What have I done? I don't remember
No one knows just how I feel
and I know that my time is coming soon.
 

It's been so long. Oh, such a long time
Since I've lived with peace and rest
Now I am here, my destination
guess things work for the best
and I know that my time is coming soon
 

Who is this man? This man beside me
They call the King of the Jews
They don't believe that He's the Messiah
But, somehow I know it's true.
And they laugh at Him in mockery,
and beat Him till he bleeds
They nail Him to the rugged cross,
and raise Him, they raise Him up next to me
 

My time has come, I'm slowly fading
I deserve what I receive
Jesus when You are in Your kingdom
Could You please remember me
and He looks at me still holding on
the tears fall from His eyes
He says I tell the truth
Today, you will live with Me in paradise
 
and I know that my time is coming soon
and I know paradise is coming soon.

Hold on tight

Today a little girl is no longer with her family. She was born damaged, and lived for seven years.

She's in God's arms now.

But her Mum and Dad are still here.



Tonight I am holding my family so tight, and praying for those who are grieving.

We don't know how long we have. We forget just how blessed we are, simply because we are here, we are together and we are safe and well. It's easy to get busy, busy, busy and feel overwhelmed and exhausted from the everyday. We work hard, for a holiday, for a break. But we need to remember to enjoy now.

Luke 12: 16-20

And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest.  He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’ “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain.  And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’

So this is a reminder, to me, to you if you need it... enjoy life, and those you love while you have them.

“Danger, Will Robinson!”

In the next couple of weeks I will be operating without a safety net. Shane is working away and Mum and Dad have gone away for (a very much needed) holiday. But I am very scared. I know many people deal with husbands away much more than I do, and they do it without a close family network too! But I am just very used to being able to collapse in a heap with my Mummy when I need to when Shane's not around. So I am really not looking forward to this.

I don't want my blog to be a place of negativity and woe. But, it is where I get my words out, and at the moment, they are weary.

I am trying hard to see the good, to stop myself from getting too down, from catching myself before I fall. But it is hard. And I am just so, so tired. All I want is to sleep for a hundred years. (I am so jealous of that princess right now).

I've just had one of the hardest weeks with Georgie ever. She has had a viral bug that has given her temperatures, an upset tummy and a heck of a lot of grumpiness. But I think we are just about out the other side now. It's been especially rough because Shane has just been away for a couple of weeks, he had one weekend off and we didn't really get to enjoy it because Georgie was sick and miserable, and he was sick too. And now he is back at work for goodness know how long.

But, I am going to get through this. Even if it's just one second, one minute, one hour, one day, at a time.

We love each other. Life is really not that bad and things will not always be this way.

And at the moment I think this is my mantra.


There is a time for everything,
   and a season for every activity under the heavens:  a time to be born and a time to die,
   a time to plant and a time to uproot,
 a time to kill and a time to heal,
   a time to tear down and a time to build,
 a time to weep and a time to laugh,
   a time to mourn and a time to dance,
 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
   a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
 a time to search and a time to give up,
   a time to keep and a time to throw away,
 a time to tear and a time to mend,
   a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
   a time for war and a time for peace.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8.

I just have to remember that this is just a time.

Anton Chekhov, you never spoke a truer word.

 

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out. 

~Anton Chekhov

You know which bible character I have great respect for at the moment? Jacob. He may have been a bit of a bad guy- (you know, with the whole birthright stealing thing) but, man, he knew about perseverance!

For those of you who don't know the story, basically Jacob loved and wanted to marry a woman named Rachel. But her father said that he had to work for him for seven years before he could. Jacob did, but then, on the night of the wedding, her Father gave Jacob Rachel's sister, Leah instead. Jacob didn't notice this until the next morning (EPIC fail!). When he went to the Father and said "What gives?" He was told he could have Rachel as well if he worked for another seven years. And he did.

Now, I don't know about you, but this story really makes me think. Jacob worked fourteen years, to marry the woman he loved. Fourteen years! I think if you asked most men to wait fourteen years before they could marry the woman they loved (and work for her Dad too no less!) you'd be told where you could go in no uncertain terms. Heck, most married couples these days are lucky to last that long! But Jacob did it.

He isn't the best, or the brightest bible character. He did some pretty dodgy things, and I know that there are many other more honourable people in the bible. But right now, for me, I'm remembering Jacob. 

It's hard not to get bogged down in the mundane, the everyday. I think, that in many ways, it's actually easier to face hardship and crisis. But when you're doing the same thing, day in, day out- life can get pretty tough. So I think Jacob is a good example to us all, that sometimes you've just got to suck it up, and stick it out (I know that sounds so wrong, but just go with it okay?). Even though it may seem like forever when you're going through hard times. 

Now don't get me wrong, I do agree with those who say 'Life's too short to do something you hate'... to a point. But really, if nobody did anything they didn't want to, we'd all be living in pretty filthy houses. There would be lots of artists and musicians and people who got to do all the fun stuff. But there wouldn't be many sewerage workers or garbage men. And, that would be a pretty icky world to live in.

So for now, I'm going to go clean the bathroom and mop the floor. And I'm very grateful that my husband is at work. It's not easy to do things that you don't want to do. But at the end of the day, I think we grow more character and discipline in the day-to-day monotony, than we do in a crisis. I know people say, you don't really know who you are until you've been tested, and sometimes you don't. But I also think that who you are every single day of your life says more about a person's true character, and it determines what will happen when the crisis comes.