Come and rest here......come and lay your burdens down.
The lyrics to Kari Jobe's song 'Here' beckons me to stop, press the pause button on my life and simply be in the presence of God. In a world where we are so crazy busy with appointments, school runs, day jobs, sports and social lives in can seem impossible to fit God in to our lives, especially when we feel like we are being pulled in every direction at once.
Yet that is just what He wants - God desires a relationship with us, not a fast five minute prayer each night before we drift off to sleep, but all of us, all of the time. Colossians 3:23 says 'Do everything as if you are doing it to the Lord', and that means how we rise each day, how we greet our family over coffee in the morning, how we conducts ourselves on the morning commute, how we perform our daily tasks, everything. God wants to be part of our lives, He wants to share the mundane, the little intricacies of our lives that no one else knows because we deem it to be too unimportant to share. God wants to be in that passing thought, that fleeting moment, so that He can reveal Himself to us in a way that we have never experienced before.
In order for God to come in we have to let down our guard, take down the defences and open our hearts to him, warts and all. We need to shake off the shackles of sin, shame and guilt and know in our deepest innermost place that God loves us completely, utterly and totally, just as we are in that exact moment. God doesn't want perfect people, He knew we could never get it right 100% of the time, that is why He sent Jesus. All God needs us to do is to accept Him, accept Jesus, and willingly invite them into our hearts and lives and they will do the rest.
As I listen to this song tonight, I am reminded just how much my God loves me, enough to send my saviour Jesus Christ to die for me. That I am so precious to Him, that he couldn't bear to see me lost forever, but rather He chose to reach out His hand and touch my life that I might be changed forever instead. It has been 10 years this year since I first made the decision to follow Jesus and trust Him with my life, and I have never looked back. Yes there have been tough times, but God has held my hand every step of the way, and the blessings poured back out from heaven have been overwhelming.
This last decade has provided some of the most transformational, defining years of my life, years where I grew to know and love a Saviour who loves me, years where I grew as a woman, becoming more confident in who I am and why I am here, years where I met my lover and soul mate, David Edwards and became his proud wife and mother of his two children.
I am blessed beyond measure, and it is all because I first stopped, and listened to that still small voice ten years ago. My prayer is that I will never stop listening, never stop taking time out to be still and know that He is God, to spend precious time in the presence of the the Lord, being restored, sanctified, healed and embraced by my heavenly father. If you don't know Jesus today, don't wait another moment, invite him in and He will change your life for the better. I would love to pray for you if you make that decision today, otherwise get in touch with your local church who will support you through the early stages of getting to know Jesus and becoming a Christian through valuable resources like Alpha.
God bless you
R xx
Friday 14 March 2014
Saturday 8 March 2014
Today I Watched A Video....
Today I watched a video. It was only four minutes long, a short documentary about the birth of a young boy. What was so special about it I hear you ask, these home videos are ten a penny on YouTube. Yet this one was special, so incredibly special in fact that it moved me to tears and made me question everything about our society, my response to it and my gratitude for my own blessings in life.
The video I watched was created and released by the parents of Grayson James Walker. This gorgeous little boy was born 15th February 2012 with a severe birth defect called Anencephaly where he was born with parts of his cranium and brain missing. The grief stricken parents were clearly aware of this condition and knew their time with their precious son would be limited, and so they set up professional photographers and called in family members to welcome this little one into the world before he was so quickly taken away. Grayson lived only a short eight hours before passing in to the presence of God. His parents displayed strength that I believe could only have come from God himself as they held their tiny son in their arms, bathed him and dressed him in the most adorable outfits that he would wear only once. They rest in the knowledge that this baby boy is now clothed in robes of righteousness and garments of praise as he sings with the heavenly hosts in the throne room of heaven.
As a mother myself, I can only imagine the heartbreak that these parents endured at losing their son, and their decision to share his first and last moments with family and friends on social media sites is testament to their pride in this beautiful gift from God. However, shockingly, Facebook deemed the photographs of this child to be offensive and removed them. This unbelievable act left Grayson's grieving mother devastated and her response was to replace the deleted photographs of her son alongside many of her supportive family and friends, to which Facebook responded by issuing her with a 24 hour ban from the social media site.
A ban for sharing the most intimate and precious moments of her sons life with her world.
To say I was disgusted would be an understatement. Tears flowed down my cheeks in sorrow for the life that was taken too soon and the grief bore by his parents, and in anger for the judgement passed over this family down to a narrow minded opinion of the powers that be at Facebook. I stared in disbelief at my screen as I imagined who could do such a thing, who could decide that a life isn't worth celebrating, that a moment isn't worth sharing. Why, because it wasn't picture perfect? It wasn't a normal family with a happy ending?
Thankfully, the Walker family received a much needed apology, however I have news for the person who made that call that day. Life isn't picture perfect. We all fall short of the mark. There is more beauty in the face of that disfigured child than in the heart of those who think that his face should not be shared with the world. Jesus came to this Earth to save us from our sin, shame and sickness. He touched the blind, He held the sick, He embraced the leper, He loved the unloveable. He loves each and everyone of us so much more than we could ever comprehend, and He loves without judgement, without condition, without prejudice. Whether you are male, female, disfigured, disabled or whole bodied God has a plan and a purpose for you. Grayson Walker lived on this Earth for only eight hours, yet his legacy lives on and his story has touched the lives of countless people across the globe. Grayson Walker's story has reminded me that God works all things together for good (Romans 8:28) and I for one feel that seeing this angel's face and sharing part of his story has made me a better wife, mother and friend as I will always seek to see the beauty in every person I meet, I will always seek to see the good in a bad situation and I will always thank God in every circumstance, and not least of all thank Him for my own children.
As I tuck my babies in to bed tonight and kiss their sweet faces I will think of Grayson Walker and his family, and thank them for reminding me of the fragility of life and that I must make the most of every precious second. This is one of the reasons God wanted to use this precious child and I thank God for his amazingly strong parents for pursuing their right to share him with me and the rest of the world.
Rest in peace Grayson James xx
The video I watched was created and released by the parents of Grayson James Walker. This gorgeous little boy was born 15th February 2012 with a severe birth defect called Anencephaly where he was born with parts of his cranium and brain missing. The grief stricken parents were clearly aware of this condition and knew their time with their precious son would be limited, and so they set up professional photographers and called in family members to welcome this little one into the world before he was so quickly taken away. Grayson lived only a short eight hours before passing in to the presence of God. His parents displayed strength that I believe could only have come from God himself as they held their tiny son in their arms, bathed him and dressed him in the most adorable outfits that he would wear only once. They rest in the knowledge that this baby boy is now clothed in robes of righteousness and garments of praise as he sings with the heavenly hosts in the throne room of heaven.
As a mother myself, I can only imagine the heartbreak that these parents endured at losing their son, and their decision to share his first and last moments with family and friends on social media sites is testament to their pride in this beautiful gift from God. However, shockingly, Facebook deemed the photographs of this child to be offensive and removed them. This unbelievable act left Grayson's grieving mother devastated and her response was to replace the deleted photographs of her son alongside many of her supportive family and friends, to which Facebook responded by issuing her with a 24 hour ban from the social media site.
A ban for sharing the most intimate and precious moments of her sons life with her world.
To say I was disgusted would be an understatement. Tears flowed down my cheeks in sorrow for the life that was taken too soon and the grief bore by his parents, and in anger for the judgement passed over this family down to a narrow minded opinion of the powers that be at Facebook. I stared in disbelief at my screen as I imagined who could do such a thing, who could decide that a life isn't worth celebrating, that a moment isn't worth sharing. Why, because it wasn't picture perfect? It wasn't a normal family with a happy ending?
Thankfully, the Walker family received a much needed apology, however I have news for the person who made that call that day. Life isn't picture perfect. We all fall short of the mark. There is more beauty in the face of that disfigured child than in the heart of those who think that his face should not be shared with the world. Jesus came to this Earth to save us from our sin, shame and sickness. He touched the blind, He held the sick, He embraced the leper, He loved the unloveable. He loves each and everyone of us so much more than we could ever comprehend, and He loves without judgement, without condition, without prejudice. Whether you are male, female, disfigured, disabled or whole bodied God has a plan and a purpose for you. Grayson Walker lived on this Earth for only eight hours, yet his legacy lives on and his story has touched the lives of countless people across the globe. Grayson Walker's story has reminded me that God works all things together for good (Romans 8:28) and I for one feel that seeing this angel's face and sharing part of his story has made me a better wife, mother and friend as I will always seek to see the beauty in every person I meet, I will always seek to see the good in a bad situation and I will always thank God in every circumstance, and not least of all thank Him for my own children.
As I tuck my babies in to bed tonight and kiss their sweet faces I will think of Grayson Walker and his family, and thank them for reminding me of the fragility of life and that I must make the most of every precious second. This is one of the reasons God wanted to use this precious child and I thank God for his amazingly strong parents for pursuing their right to share him with me and the rest of the world.
Rest in peace Grayson James xx
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