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Turning Point

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The day began like any other day in spring in Brisbane, many years ago. I was looking forward to it - a  day out on the Sunshine Coast with four friends. 'I'd like to drive up early, before the traffic,' Rowie told us. 'Like, leave about six.' So at six o'clock on a fine morning, we huddled into Rowie's big old station wagon. Soon we were speeding up the highway to the coast.   Rowena was driving, alert but tired. We three in the back seat tried to stay awake. At that time I lived in a no-man's land, almost but not quite a Christian, still finding my way and I loved the time together singing Christian songs and laughing. After a while, we three in the back seat were dozing. 'Look at the Glass Houses!' Sue said.       I forced myself to open my eyes, not wanting to miss anything. The first rays of sun shafted over the horizon, misting the paddocks with gold.   I peered sleepily at great hulks of rock towering above us as we passed th

A moving dilemma - Part Two

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    A man plans his ways but the Lord directs his steps   Proverbs 16:9   Once again I have changed all the names except that of Pastor Gerald Rowlands.   So … I was moving to Nambour, hoping to have a small farm to grow vegetables AND I’d have Ps Gerald Rowlands as my pastor, but we had yet to find our elusive house. I was returning to the region I loved. I was excited, too, that God had so clearly directed me to live there. But we needed a house to live in.   Sue and I scrutinised the papers and rang estate agents. There was nothing. I began to wonder if I’d misunderstood God’s leadings.   Again, Anne came to the rescue. The phone rang early one cold morning. I huddled in the hallway in my dressing gown, as Anne bubbled, ‘Nettie, I’ve found your house!’ She described it – an old Queenslander set in the hills outside Nambour. Plenty of room. A lovely outlook. It sounded perfect. I arranged to go and stay with Sue, on the Carsons’ farm. Angie Carson was a kind,

A Moving Dilemma

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A man plans his ways but the Lord directs his steps. Proverbs 16:9     PART ONE   I have changed all the names except Pastor Gerald Rowlands in this true story.   Visiting friends in Nambour last week, I was reminded of the unusual way God led me to live in Nambour for several very happy years.   In my mid-to-late thirties I went through a difficult time after ending a relationship. Life had been hurrying along in one direction for the previous year or two, but suddenly it stopped. I moved back from my idyllic home in the Sunshine Coast hinterland to my family in Brisbane. What was my life all about now? Worst of all, I felt I had lost my way spiritually.   One sunny June day, I set off with friends to hear Pastor Gerald Rowlands speak at a Women’s Aglow meeting. He was a Christian minister whose preaching I had enjoyed since my earliest days as a Christian. He was a very popular speaker. As I sat and listened to him speak, life – exciting spiritual life –

Why write?

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    Well, yes. Why write? All that time writing, editing, proofreading, proofreading again and again … After all, I could be baking delicious cakes for the family to enjoy or digging weeds from our overgrown back garden to allow the lettuces to emerge. Or else – sigh – tidying my study. I can see only a small part of my lovely wooden desk now. If I were earning a fortune with my writing, it might be different. But I no longer am. I earned a reasonable amount at one stage but I seem to have outgrown that stage. Can I justify this self-indulgent use of my time? Admittedly I sometimes feel I have something Really Worth Saying, something God-birthed. But anyone else could write it, couldn’t they?   My memory prods me. Didn’t God say writing was one of my talents? The bible has a lot to say about talents; they are for use, not burial. So yet again I replay the scene.   Gods’ view of my talents Back in early 1980, I was sharing a flat with a friend in Bardon in Brisbane. Our

Christmas - the earthly birth of the God of new beginnings

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Christmas is nearly here. I celebrate with awe the birth of the Saviour who came to give us eternal life and a whole new beginning in our earthly lives. A second chance. As I mentioned in an earlier post, before I became a Christian, I was searching. Searching to find what my life was all about. Since studying Philosophy of Religion at university, I’d been an atheist and had enjoyed the peculiar (delusional) sense of freedom that accompanied that belief. What was life about? I arrived home after a colourful, exciting year or so in Sydney – feeling bored and empty inside.  What was my life all about? Here I was, back home after a 'glamorous' life in Sydney writing and directing films, learning acting and doing most things I'd ever wanted. At the end of it all, despite some exciting success, I came home feeling it was all futile.  Why hadn’t my life worked out the way I’d expected? Why had my life been sprinkled with tragedies? There were some obvious answers.  If I

Happiness is

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  Not long after our New Zealand holiday, I was seeking a teaching job. These positions were hard to get at that time, especially as I’d returned to Australia when the teaching year had already begun.  So I was cleaning several elderly people’s houses for a living. I was staying with my sister, who was sick, her husband, her two-year-old daughter and the cat, all of whom needed looking after. As did the house. This season provided me with   Many happy and funny memories. Like the time I was vacuuming and I heard a loud wailing meow. I turned off the vac noise and looked. No cat.   Meow!   I opened the drawers in the cabinet beside me – and there was the cat tucked in like a doll, probably having a frantic struggle for air. My little niece had put her ‘baby’ cosily to bed.   While I was cleaning other people’s houses, I’d sing or pray or plan what to cook that night. That season birthed many interesting recipes, which I tried out on the family until they were declared su

June - Time to Celebrate

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  WooHoo! Celebration time. June marks fifty years since, after a series of undeniable ‘God incidents’, I said ‘Yes’ and became a Christian. I was twenty-five.   I’m amazed to find myself so old and so Christian. It’s all happened very fast – well, so it feels.   If you’d seen me fifty- one years ago, before I became a Christian, you would never have dreamt it. I was the girl least likely to become a Christian. In fact, one friend said, ‘If Jeanette becomes a Christian, I’ll believe it all.’ She figured she was safe as an unbeliever. Hah!     Early Hints There were hints during my childhood and teenage years. Chinks in the solid wall that kept me focussed on the material world, rarely dreaming there was anything more. One such chink occurred when I was fourteen.        A Chink It was a hot Brisbane summer day. A skinny fourteen year old, I sat on the verandah of our lovely old Queenslander, my legs stretched out over the weather-beaten floor boards. I gazed at