Grace & Love

It is something too powerful for anyone to grasp, something too simplistic to cling to, something too profound to intellectually explain.

Go figure how the Creator of the Universe could love a world that hates Him, despises Him, intellectualises His non-existence, bastardises Him, ridicules Him. Explain how this Creator could call Himself our Father. Try and figure out how this Almighty, All powerful, All-knowing could love us that much that He sends His only Son, the one He has been with before the start of time, the One He is one with, the One that is pleasing to His Father and does His Father's will, that One, the love of His life, to die for His enemies.

He deserts His Beloved and let Him pay a price for the sins of the murderers, the rapists, the child molesters, the gossipers, the jealous, the greedy, the sexually immoral, for you.... for me. He does this while we, you and I still hated Him. He leaves Him at the mercy of Satan, death the price for our sins. He lets Him become human, with all the tears and fears and weaknesses and rejection. And all of it through grace. Finding salvation in spite of who we are and what we have done.

You want to tell me, God isn't love?

God loves us, God loves us, God loves YOU! A love so huge with grace attached, it is incomprehensible...

on earth as it is in heaven...

Jesus said we would do even greater things than He had done as He was going to the Father. and if you're anything like me, that freaks you out, not just a little bit.

and in the face of a prevailing illness, or seemingly unanswered prayers, or a delayed miracle, i sometimes feel like there must be more, more that i could do, a way of having more powerful prayers, bigger faith, more obedience. how can we do bigger things if we can not even manage the daily bread stuff Lord?

so I sit here before you Lord. and i need You! we need You! it is supposed to be child-like faith, it is supposed to as easy and ask and receive. it's supposed to be so evident, so prevailing... but it does not feel like it is.

some people say that as the price for healing, restoration, forgiveness and freedom has already been paid - and it was paid at an incredibly awful price - Jesus, the Man of Love, the Man of Grace but Sorrow died a painful death on a cross and died an even more painful death in Spirit as He descended to the pit of Hell, raptured from the Love of God His Father and His Spirit.... that all of that is there for us to just take hold of it.... and a lot of them have seen amazing acts of God, here on earth. I know my God, our God, is a God of miracles, He was, is and remains forever the same. I know that God loves us with an all-consuming passionate love that we can not even begin to understand.

but sometimes the healing, restoration, miracle does not come as we asked for or expected... and that brings confusion, and hurt and despondency. but I still believe it is there...

and therefor, now, is the time that I come to seek You, for who You are, for your nature of kindness and love and extravagant generosity, and wisdom and goodness Lord. because I know that Your word says You will let everything work to the good of those who love you.... now is the time that i ask Lord, reveal Yourself, let us know ou better and teach us Lord, Your truth, Your hope, Your will for our lives....

Because sometimes i do not seem to understand that "good" Lord and sometimes, it sure does not feel as if everything is working out for the good, but i know and believe that You stay true Your promises. i suppose that is what faith does and require...

And ultimately, i know that one day we will all see, that You are our Deliverer, our Salvation, our Father, our Comforter, our Healer, our Provider... Lord You are. even though we might not get it.... yet.

this world was never meant for one as beautiful as you....

dear simon, i heard the news today that you had left this earth to be with your beloved Father and Jesus. it was unexpected, you were only in your early 30's. you weren't supposed to die.

you came and prayed for me when i was very sick, and the last memory i have of you is stretching out your hand and claiming healing for me. God heard you... as you heard Him and I was healed. you made a crown for me, out of lego, and told me i was a princess in the Kingdom, you put jewels in myhand, to remind me of God's love. it will always be a precious memory.

I spoke to you about a week later. you sounded really ill, but i had no idea. I prayed for you, i truly did. but the next time your father phoned to say that you have fallen ill and was in hospital with double pneumonia. i remember thinking Lord it must be very hard for Simon to be ill, as he believed that your Kingdom had come.

but i think then Jesus gave you the option to go home. and you did. you didnt leave because you weren't loved here. you didn't stay with Him because you didn't love the people that cared for you. but you stayed, because you loved the Lord more. so now you are in heaven.... what to say to your parents, i do not know. a child is never supposed to die before a parent. the scars that they will carry, i understand.

but i know, i truly know that you are in 7th "Heaven". i bet the house that was built through your faith, is beautiful. as beautiful as you were, even though the world mostly did not understand you. i can hear you laugh in the presence of our God.

R.I.P. and know that we will see you one day again. when the Kingdom has fully come. God bless you, and keep your family, through this time. we will miss you.

The Invitation - Oriah Mountain Dreamer

Today I heard that my neighbour had been shot, one bullet in his head in a heated moment. He lived a charmed life and often I wondered about the people that visited him, so did the rest of the people in our little complex..... but he was nice to me. Even though I sometimes shouted like the bitch troll from hell, when his friends rang my bell once again 3h00 in the morning, he treated me with respect and dignity.

He was nice to me, and kind, and helpful. He fixed my garage when it was broken and welded the gate, so that we would be safe. Even though he was apparently well known in the realm of gangsters and the flats, in my world he was a dad to a step-son who had lost his mother, and the hero dad to a four year old whose world revolved around her daddy. He had three other children, well-mannered, beautiful, precious. He was soft-spoken though I could see that he had a temper. He kept to himself, and kept the door closed not to disturb anyone with his friends' late night visits or their smoking or his son's loud youthful bounty of life.

But today, I heard that someone just shot him. One bullet, one moment of rage and his life was ended. I was angry and outraged and felt ill.

And I suddenly was soooo sad. I couldnt understand it, I had known him for 3 years, but yet never really did. But that which I had known about him, I knew that he loved his children, he cared for his partner and he wished that all the strife that happened in his life, he could rather abandon and get away from it. He even left some of his businesses just to get away from that which haunted him, must have been for his whole life. He was my age, we would have been born in the same year.

And I wondered where he would have been if he had had a different life.

Tonight I mourn for the Jerome Cloete I never knew.... and especially for the one that I got to know so fleetingly.

Tonight I wonder what chance he ever had? When he moved in here, 3.5 years ago, wanting a better life for his boy, wanting a life away from his other life, whether he did it to choose a different life?

Some would say that he most probably died the way that he lived, but I knew that there was a different side to him. A man that could be concerned about how to raise a son without a mother, a man that would help me pick up the things that were too heavy, a man whose friends who would wait for me to walk out the gate. A man loved and adored by his mates.

I spoke to one of his friends today. He was so sad, that he could barely look me in the eyes.

Tonight I mourn for a wasted life. It is the biggest waste of all....

The Invitation
It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living.

I want to know what you ache forand if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are.

I want to know if you will risk looking like a foolfor love

for your dreamfor the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon...

I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow

if you have been opened by life’s betrayals

or have become shrivelled and closedfrom fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with painmine or your own

without moving to hide itor fade it

or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy

mine or your ownif you can dance with wildness

and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes

without cautioning us

to be carefulto be realistic

to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true.

I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself.

If you can bear the accusation of betrayaland not betray your own soul.

If you can be faithlessand therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty

even when it is not prettyevery day.

And if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure

yours and mine

and still stand at the edge of the lake

and shout to the silver of the full moon,“Yes.”

It doesn’t interest meto know where you live or how much money you have.

I want to know if you can get upafter the night of grief and despair

weary and bruised to the bone

and do what needs to be done

to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you knowor how you came to be here.

I want to know if you will standin the centre of the fire

with me

and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom

you have studied.

I want to know what sustains you

from the insidewhen all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself

and if you truly like the company you keep

in the empty moments.

God bless you.

tears....

i want to cry... for the twelve people that died in a sudden fire at a factory, for their families that will know that from now on their place will be empty, for their children that will be seeking for their lap to fall asleep upon and find that it will never be there

i want to cry... for good men and women who do good in this world, and are so often mistreated, not reckoned, abandoned, judged, misled, lied to....

i want to cry... for a nation that has been through so much and yet still has so much that lies ahead, that has seen and believed miracles to only see it destroyed by greed and mistrust and egos and more greed

i want to cry... for the earth that is struggling to breath, to comprehend how those that was supposed to be keepers can so easily turn their backs on what will be happening a decade from now or a year or a month

but mostly i want to cry... as yet, Your Kingdom has not come, Your will is mostly not done... i want to cry and mostly sometimes i just want to die... what a disappointment we've become....

when everything fades away....

there are days when everything just seems to fade away... those days when things get too overwhelming, too noisy, too busy, too crazy, too crowded, too stressful...

and it feels you would just like to run... run and never stop.

and yes, it feels like you are totally on your own... nothing matters to anyone else but you... nobody cares, except you... no-one knows, except you, nobody sees, or hears, or feels or reacts. just you.

and then, in that moment of clarity, as you sit and watch the sun go down over the water, in the sound of the waves upon the rocks... then you know, you are not alone. you are not ever alone.

it's then when our Father wants to quiet our minds, His Spirit wants to comfort our souls, our Saviour wants to remind us why He hang himself on a cross.

it seems so simple, so almost too easy, too small. but it is then that the eternal truth rings true: "this shall also pass".... and when it does our God will still be there... to give us a life of fullness, richness and rest.

what we have to do, is lay it ALL... and i mean ALL in His Hands. so that we can breath, and hear and do....