The One who cares

Life can be overwhelming.


At work, the boss just isn't making himself clear, his lack of communication is bugging you.
Or you are the boss and you have been faced with impossible tasks and business decisions that will affect the lives of others, there is so much pressure to make sure you keep everyone happy yet turn a profit or stay afloat.


You have been hit with a number of awful occurrences, a broken marriage, debts which are now out of control, a victim of abuse. Your job is on the line.
You're facing a long and difficult illness and you worry about your children. What happens to them if you succumb to this illness? What about if you survive but you've had to take alot of time from work and now your employers regret that they will have to let you go? What about the bills coming in still?
Your parents are elderly, health failing and, as they get older, they get harder to take care of. You are trying to take care of them but you have your own family demands too, children at school who need your attention.
Life just gets so busy and it doesn't even have to be some of the more drastic ones above, it can just be the day to day tasks but everything seems to come at once and you can't split yourself into enough pieces


We all have this, its part of the human experience where we just don't know which way is up or down.
This may sound simplistic but, if you are a Christian, you can go to Someone in prayer. You can cry out to God. He may not actually remove any of these factors. That's a whole other post. But you can still go to God. He is the one Person whom you can just spill it all out at. He won't tell you to pull yourself together. He won't say there there never mind


The fact of just being able to talk to God about it is a form of release. Even if, initially, we don't actually feel any better for it (and I know because I have had those times), the very fact of opening that part of our lives to God gives the option for change, for allowing His Spirit into that situation.
Sometimes God will remove the thorn that causes pain or anger or irritation, even all three. Other times He wont. But in every case, God cares for us and wants us to go to Him


1 Peter 5 v7 says "⁷ Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you."
Ps 94 v 18 says "And when I was burdened with worries,you comforted me and made me feel secure."


So why am I telling you this? 


Well, my husband, who isn't a Christian, is going through tough times at work. He is under a lot of stress. In addition to that, two other family members are experiencing disappointment, stress, anxiety about finances, future of children. There are worries about harmful recent experiences and how this will affect them in the future, there is broken relationship. Neither of these other family members are Christians.
As I've spoken to them, listened to their worries, I have silently prayed for them, pleading with God on their behalf (no, I'm not all that as a Christian so please don't think this is me congratulating myself).
What has occurred to me is that, as a Christian, I believe that God my Father does actually give a stuff about me. The Bible tells me this is also true (see the above verses). David frequently spoke of his troubles and trials to God. Just read the Psalms. But people who have no belief, who do they turn to?


Well, yes, they can turn to family members, they can turn to friends. But as we all have our own issues to deal with, one can be reluctant to burden others with our own problems. There may be reasons why we can't involve others. This can make us feel isolated, alone in a morass of problems which no-one can rescue us from. Depression can also shut us in a room in our mind where no-one can reach us. Either way, it's very lonely there.
As I have prayed for these dear ones (no, I'm not congratulating myself on being Super Christian, I'm so not), I've had a revelation.
1) I am so blessed. God loved me so much that He sent someone to take time out to tell me about Jesus, to talk me through salvation and what it means and then God's Spirit prompted me to accept this gift of salvation and ask Jesus into my life. As a result, even when things are bad, I can turn to God always. I might rant and rail Him like David did. Our God is big enough to take this. But always, I know that He is there and that He does care. He knows the number of hairs on my head, He has all my tears collected and He values me more than the sparrows He provides for. What a privilege and a blessing to know God and to know I can cast my burdens on Him. I am never alone.
2) What about those who don't know God? Where do they go when the chips are down? When they lay in bed at night, worrying about those financial reports to be made, when they worry about how the next electricity bill will be met, when they are angry and feel that their trust has been irreparably broken and that no-one believes them or the hurt they've suffered? Who do they turn to? If they don't believe in a God that cares it doesn't leave them much.



That's what we have to do, be His hands and feet practically but also be ready to  speak up and point Him out so that they too might have the opportunity of being able to go to the God that cares about them.


Do you need to help someone today? To be God's hands and feet? Are you feeling lonely in your world of problems that just won't go away? Call on Him, please. He wants hear from you. He does care.

"It's good to talk!"



If you are from the UK, you will recognize this as being the strap line for BT (British Telecoms) and Bob Hoskins, an famous actor, used to speak this line at the end of the televised advert.

So why am I blogging about this?

It started a few weeks back. A loved one and I just seemed to be guessing what was going on in the other's life. Because we didn't want to upset the other, we stopped talking. No, I don't mean cease all communication. I mean we stopped talking about the things that matter to us. We would talk about the news, the weather, the shopping but not about what was going on inside of us. In particular, I was worrying about a number of issues including Christmas, whether I could invite my family for Christmas Day lunch, financial worries and bills to be paid, a sweet young family member's recent trauma and, finally, relationship issues, all of which were tormenting me. I grew very distant and this made my loved one very concerned. When asked what was wrong, I would just deny anything was wrong then carry on moping around the house or the office.

So not only was I increasing the worry of this family member but I was also isolating myself and increasing my stress levels too. I was feeling increasingly swamped by these worries. Did I pray about them?
Nope, God got shut out too. When I close down, I shut everyone out, close friends, God, family, work colleagues.

Who exactly was being helped by this, by my shutting down? No-one!
No-one was benefitting from my largesse to "not burden people with my problems". Instead it seemed far better to burden them with my silence, my hangdog expression and the cloud that grew bigger over my head (yes, this is sarcasm).

Finally, after much prodding and poking and, nearly 3 weeks later, I opened up. It wasn't done in a relieved way but rather resentfully, as though people had intruded on my personal pity party which, if I'm totally honest, this had now become. I had gone from having genuine worries to allowing this to escalate into a "Oh poor me, the world hates me and it's all so unfair" fest of self-pity.

But, fortunately for me, the one listening to me understood what was going on and let me rumble on then, when I had finished, proceeded to go through my worries, one by one, addressing them with either a solution or atleast putting them into some perspective.

The following day, I felt lighter in my being, I was relieved and could actually smile again. I realised that, had I just talked to my beloved, to a friend, to God, to someone, it would have helped, not necessarily with the actual issues but to atleast talk about it and get it off my chest, so to speak. This is how women tend to process things in their lives, through conversation.

Now with men, it seems slightly different. They don't necessarily want to talk through problems, they prefer to ponder it themselves, coming up with a solution in time (I realise this could be a crass generalization but I'm going by all the chaps I've either spent time with (father, husband, stepson, work colleagues) or heard about from friends (their husbands, fathers etc etc).

But even when this is the case, when my husband worries about things, he generally stops communicating with me. This puts a strain on the relationship and I can start imagining things that aren't there because we aren't talking. When we have finally touched on what is going on with him, the air is cleared and, whilst the problem may still exist, the relationship itself is restored because there is finally understanding as to what is going on and what support can be given.

In a worst case scenario, problems can spiral out of hand when communication ceases between people, be they husbands and wives, employee and employer, friends, relatives.
Communication is essential.

It's the same with God. I think we get hung up on prayer sometimes because we think of it as "PRAYER", this lofty subject in capital letters which is breathed in hushed reverant tones and that only special people can really master. To employ a quaint English exclamation, poppycock!

Prayer is talking to God. In the same was that our conversations vary with different people and in different circumstances, there are times when we will be reverant in our conversations with God as we address His Majesty, as King and Master of the universe. But then other times we can talk stutteringly, in between sobs, as we pour out our sorrows to Daddy in Heaven. Yet other times we will speak to Him with great excitement, loudly even boisterously as we either praise Him or thank Him for Himself, for answered prayer or in praying for people or events. But, like I did recently, we can forget that God wants relationship with us and that includes all the crappy parts of our lives so stopping talking to Him because we don't want to bother Him is a bit pathetic, to be honest. He is the one Person who will never judge us, will never hold any of what we say against us and will give us His appropriate response - correction, comfort, knowledge, wisdom, boldness, encouragement, sometimes even silence when it's what we need.

This is what a relationship is. It's the hard times as well as the good times. A truly great relationship is found when you can talk about all the aspects of your life and know that the person you are sharing this with will keep it private when the topic requires it, will honour the trust you are placing in them and will try to help when they can.

I have realised that I need to talk to God more. I get very caught up in other things, some of which are equally important but can stop me from doing that one thing that I need to do above all others, communicate daily with my Father, share with Him all the aspects of my life, my sins, my worries, my happiness, everything. I want to grow in my relationship with God, I want to talk to Him more and open up to Him so He can do more in my life, share His thoughts with me and change me from the inside out. This will happen, can't help but happen, if I communicate with, talk to Him daily.

My name is not Marah.

I keep tabs on a church website where I find out what they've been preaching on. I noticed they seemed to be going through the book of Ruth. In fact, in the last month, I have noticed that the book of Ruth has come up again and again from other sources. I was reading an article which talked about the story of Ruth, then today, as I was looking at God TV's website, I noticed a "watch now" conference by Nancy Goudie, a great woman and one who's conferences for women I've attended in the past.
Guess what she was speaking on? Yup, Ruth.

After a while, you have to say "Lord, is this coincidence or are You trying to get my attention?"

Well, no question about it, today God most certainly wanted to speak to me through the book of Ruth and the topic? Well, He wanted to speak about bitterness and how it can maim us if we let it.

I decided to listen to the first part of the series on Ruth from the church website. The passage was Ruth chapter 1 v1-18.
Having read it, along with the preacher, he then spoke about how some women have been at the mercy of poor decisions made by men. As with Naomi, who's husband decided to take them into Moab.

Basics of this tale is that Elimelech ( means "God is my king") decided to move the family to Moab because of a lack of food. However, God had previously said that the Jews were to have nothing to do with the Moabites so why on earth would He tell Elimelech to move there? That's the point, God didn't. What did God have against the Moabites? Well, that nation of people were a result of an incestuous relationship between Lot and his oldest daughter and the sin was never expunged. The Moabites remained at war with the Jewish nation for most of the Old Testament.

So, back to the book, the husband takes a decision without seeking God and the result is that Naomi is finally left in a strange land, no husband, no sons and no means of support. I thought about how I would feel if I was Naomi and let me tell you, I would have been be deeply, deeply unhappy! I think I would have been pretty bitter, bitter with my now dead husband, bitter with my now dead sons who failed to move back to Judah but, instead married Moabite women and continued to dwell in Moab. I would have felt pretty aggrieved at God too, if I'm honest. After all, wasn't my husband, Elimelech, meant to be God's man, a faithful follower and the protector of my family? Think about it now.

Naomi decides, having heard that God is blessing Judah with food and crops again, its time to go back to her land. It's a risk because she still has no husband and no sons to take care of her so she is alone, an unenviable position for a woman. She fully expects her daughters-in-law to stay with their people, the Moabites, and remarry.
Initially that's not the case but Naomi tells them not to be daft and, amidst tears, Orpah leaves. Ruth, however, pleads with Naomi not to send her away but pledges to go anywhere with Ruth and adopt her Jewish roots and her God as her own. Orpah, rightly or wrongly, has turned back to the old ways of her people. Ruth elects to unite herself to an unknown future with Naomi, her mother-in-law.

It'd be very easy at this point to make an example of Orpah and say how awful she was for doing that but, faced with the same situation, would you go back to what you know, to what is safe, or would you decide to gamble it all on a future in an unknown land with an unknown God worshipped by a people  your own relatives have been at war with for ages? Think carefully now before you answer.

So what am I learning from this? It's pretty desperate for Naomi, she lost everything important to her in Moab. Things could have stayed right there, a bad place for Naomi. She could have remained bitter, she could have remained in Moab.
However, she takes a step out of it. She hears how things are in Judah, there are crops again, the favour of the Lord is there. She makes the decision not to stay where she is but to go back to Judah, to go back to where God is blessing His people. But God isn't waiting in Judah for Naomi, I believe He was right there, waiting for her to make the decision to come home and, when she does, God moves Ruth's heart in such a way that Naomi will not have to travel alone but is given a companion for the trip and for life (Ruth means friend"). God, the ever eager Father, leaps in straight away with a gift of companionship for Naomi.He is also laying the path on which His Son will arrive on earth later to free us all.

The preacher spoke eloquently on this passage and ended it with prayer for women who had been either hurt or affected by a man's poor decision or choice. He urged the ladies to forgive. It's at this point I began to cry because I realised that I have been "marah", Hebrew for bitter. I have experienced great hurt at the decisions of more than one man and have held bitterness in my heart for a long time. It's possible to love these people but to still harbour anger against them. I also realised that I still hold God responsible for those bad decisions that those men have made which affected me.

But I had a choice, like Naomi. I decided to think about where God is now. God is where He has always been, right beside me and ready to show me love, healing, forgiveness. What's more, He won't just remove the bad stuff like the bitterness but He also fills me with His grace and His joy. Who would think of feeling joy when all you've felt is pain and desolation when considering those decisions and the results? To suggest it sounds like a dismissal of the pain felt but that's not the case. Like Naomi, we all have to make a choice - will we stay where we are, where there is bitterness, lack of forgiveness, hurt and anger or will we turn back to God, extend forgiveness to those who hurt us, give up our rags of bitterness and anger and instead look to God for that friendship, that relationship that will bring us joy, even in the midst of troubles, where God will meet our needs as He sees them?

So I prayed where I was, hands raised and tears streaming down my face, sobs wracking my body as I thought of the things that I am bitter about, the decisions that have caused me pain and left me with scars and I turned it all over to God. I know there will be times I will be tempted to take them back, a fit of pique or anger, a fresh wound maybe. The reason I am writing this post is so that I can be accountable to my readers (if there are any actually) and also to my own written testimony. I have forgiven people, realising there may be more brought to mind before the day is ended, and released them to a place where God can speak to them, to pour out His mercy where I feel it's necessary, so that I also can be in a place where God can speak to me, where my bitterness will  no longer make me deaf to God's voice.

I won't say I'm bouncing up and down with joy, inane grin on my face and singing "Jesus wants me for a sunbeam". It would be great if I was but I choose to believe that God is giving me that joy and freedom and that my emotions will, at some point, come into line with the truth of what God has done and is continuing to do in my heart since I prayed those prayers.

God loves me. I am His child. He is healing me, making me whole. He has amazing plans for my life and will share those plans with me as I spend time with Him, deepening that relationship with Him and His Son, Jesus Christ. God's plan doesn't include being dominated by fear, guilt, anger, unforgiveness because of the actions of another. I am free. This is about freedom to go back to God and enjoy communion with him again.


My name is no longer Marah.

Longing to be loved

"How many of you see God as longing to be loved by you?"

This quote is taken from the book "Captivating" written by John and Stasi Eldridge, a book I am reading for the second time.

I initially bought the book about a year ago on recommendations from others who said it had totally opened their eyes to God's love for them. I did my usual and ripped through it in no time. I am a devourer of books and sometimes read them so fast that I dont actually take in deeply what I'm reading.

Yeah, it seemed a good book and I thought some deepish thoughts on it then moved on.

Well, of late, a friend told me she was reading this book, as recommended by someone and we spoke about it a bit. I decided I would have another read of this but, this time, slowly, hopefully giving me time to properly digest what I would read.

I didn't get beyond the introduction before I was in tears. Yup, this time, I was letting the words get through to my ice maiden's heart. All the talk of a woman just wanting to be loved for herself, of feeling as though she was too much or not enough for anyone to actually love her without having to be or so many things. Story of my life - I have always been a mask wearer for fear that I won't be accepted as I am. Not sure where I picked up this habit but it is deeply ingrained in my pysche now and affects everything, including my faith in God.

I actually wondered whether I wanted to carry on reading this book, bearing in mind the affect it had had on me just in the intro! But I have been reading bits and pieces over the last week. In chapter one, it spoke of the key things of importance to a woman and how they reflect and speak to us of God's heart too. They are the desire to be romanced, the desire to be part of a great adventure and to be the beauty in the fairytale who is fought for. God longs to have a romance with us, is the One who can truly give us the adventure our hearts long for and His beauty is matchless and waiting to be discovered.
As I thought on this and the comments about women desiring relationship and it being the core of their character, I thought on my longings and realised that I too long for relationship but wondered if, with the pains of life experience, have I suffocated that part of my character and closed it off to all, including God?

However, I digress. I have only just got into chapter two when I came across the above gem of a question.

It stopped me in my tracks. I was at the car wash at the time, having my car cleaned and using the moment in the waiting room to do a little reading. As I sat there watching the suds roll down my dirty car, I took a long look at myself, asked my heart the question, "Do I see God as longing to be loved by me?".

In all honesty, the answer was, and is, "No, not ever!" It has never occurred to me that God, the Almighty, the Creator of Heaven and earth, all powerful with the power of life and death over all things, majestic and fearsome, King of Glory and the Great I Am, would actually long to be loved by ME.
I mean this is God we are talking about. Why should it matter to Him whether some flea called Caroline loves Him or not? Truly, aren't we bringing Him down to our level? But wait, God created us in His image. So if we have this longing, it has to be because He put it there.

I understand the loving God as a duty, something we should do because He's God, to be feared and praised. Of course we should love God, its expected. We owe Him our lives.  The love mentioned in the book however sounds more like affection, passionate as you would be for a lover, all-consuming. There is no sense of duty here but of raw need and desire.

When I try to think of this kind of love and God at the same time, it just hurts my head. I can't feel that way about Him although I remember faintly having more passion for God when I was younger, more enthusiasm for the things of God. How sad must that make God! He feels too remote for me to feel that way about Him and yet I know with my head that its me that has placed that distance between us. Is this again the effects of a heart broken many times over the years and having closed up to prevent further hurt but closing off so throughly that even God can't get through?

Funny thing is, another friend has said on a number of occassions that, on praying for me, she has sensed that God desperately wants me to give Him my heart fully, to love Him passionately and pursue Him for Himself. There is sense of God yearning for me to love Him the way He loves me. I suppose in that, therein lies another issue.

My head tells me He loves me. The Bible tells me this too and I know that you would be crazy to send  a family member off to die a cruel death for someone you didn't love but I can't translate that to me for some reason. I know it with my head, I have yet to really feel this with my heart.

So my prayer to God at this moment is "Show me Your Heart, God and please melt mine with love, real passionate love, for you". I want to have that fire of passion burning through me for God and to get lost in His Presence. I know that, just as in love between husband and wife, the feeling of love ebbs and flows - sometimes fiercely passionate, other times warm and cuddly, friendship with God will sometimes be the burning fire and other times the walk of obedience. But at the moment, it feels like my heart is beating so slowly as to be too weak to pump the life-giving blood of a love relationship with God around my spirit.

Ask yourself the question? Be truthful? Do you need to ask God to stir up passion and desire for Him once again or maybe for the first time ever in your life? You aren't alone. If you've been a christian for a long time, its easy enough to let time and experience dull you to His charms. If you are not a christian, you may have no idea what I'm talking about. But maybe your curiousity is piqued. What have you got to lose? Ask the question then pray the prayer - "God, show me Your Heart and melt mine with love, real passionate love, for You." You know I'll be praying this too.

Let's keep each other posted on what He says/does in answer to this prayer.