God Whispers

  In this challenging year, 2020, people have varying ideas and ways of doing almost everything. It’s as if someone has picked up the world and shaken it and everything is all over the place. There is rarely the type of unity that might cause God to intervene in the way we need. The type we experienced in our often-quoted New Zealand Holiday.   Photo - four of us plus friends we met  On our New Zealand holiday, back when we were young, the five of us were a close, unified group and – perhaps as a result of this – we received an amazing amount of God’s provision. He looked after us like His very special kids. (Well, aren’t we all His special kids! And we were very tired kids after a year in a live-in Bible College for the others and a year’s teaching and other work for me. We all needed this holiday.) On our holiday we often received ‘miraculous’ provision and protection.   God sent strangers to give us  meals we craved but could not buy , exciting places...

In this extraordinary year, 2020, I'm so glad I  learnt this secret all those years ago. Not that my  life has been free of testing by any means, but so  far I have not been the panicking mess I was in  the first anecdote below.    When I thought I was going under “I thought all those scary things were over!” I all but shouted at God.  He’d rescued me from drowning - I knew He really had, but . . . I’d been terrified.  That seed of terror left me with a question.  Hadn’t God’s protection worked that time? He'd allowed Jenny and me to be washed right out to sea among giant, sinister waves. Terrifying waves, for me. (See Stories of Life book, A Chicken can make a Difference – my story When I Think I’m Going Under also my blog post When I think I’m going under on godwhispersjgt.blogspot.com) I’d always expected that now I was a Christian, all my narrow escapes (and I seemed to specialise in them) would be over. Surely it was part...

The pandemic and the shutdown A strange silence broods over the land. It is early April 2020 and Australia is in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic. Attempting to halt the movement of the virus, the government has placed severe restrictions on everyone. Night after night, television brings news of more severe restrictions. Even families can no longer get together. Anything to protect us ‘oldies’. Shopping must be done alone, for necessities only, and we must keep one point five metres between us and the next shopper. And this is after the initial panic buying, when frightened shoppers grabbed armfuls of all necessities. Toilet paper ran out in most stores! Fear is etched on people’s faces. The news each night tells of multitudes of deaths in various countries, statistics growing nightly. Health workers are catching the virus as they help the sick. Some die. Businesses fold as restrictions have forbidden shoppers, tourists and others, so alarming numbers are out of work, with...

It was a quiet, hot day, almost mesmeric. Cheryll and I were on holidays at Coolum.   We’d driven to Lake Cootharaba, hired a little motorboat and crossed the lake to the other side. There we walked along a narrow track leading to the coloured sands.  I was completely absorbed in the beautiful sunlit scenery as I followed Cheryll along the track.  My thoughts began to drift while I enjoyed the shimmering hot countryside covered with a profusion of wildflowers – mauve, white and yellow. Suddenly Cheryll leapt backwards and grabbed my hand, saying, ‘Nettie! Nettie! A snake!’ I looked down and sure enough, a huge, long brown snake opened its oh-so-wide jaw about six centimetres from my ankle and hissed. There was no doubt about its intentions. My mind froze. Time stopped. Random, illogical ideas filled my thoughts. Cheryll must be scared. She’s holding my hand. This seemed to last for ages. I...

‘I’ll have to go up and visit Jenny,’ I told my sister. ‘She’s been in a hospice for a while now and I haven’t been to see her since she moved there.’ Jenny had had several strokes which had left her with numerous serious health issues. Her best friend told me she had not long to live. It was hard to believe – bright little Jenny with her blond hair and impish jokes; all the fun we’d had together. She was a sincere Christian too. With a childlike faith, she’d say, as we’d set out for a day at the beach under a grey cloudy sky, ‘Let’s just thank God for that patch of blue sky, Nettie.’ We did, and God swept the clouds away. Jen and I had many happy days out together, often characterised by our having to ask God to intervene and seeing Him move on our behalf. She was also part of our miracle-sparkling New Zealand holiday. The thought had been nagging at my mind. I needed to see Jenny now. I’d put it off, as I was busy teaching speech and drama and running a prayer group. ...

Waiting for the exam . November 1985. Dressed in a skirt and blouse that were pretty but comfortable, I waited to be called in to do my exam for my Speech and Drama teaching letters. I was nervous. Never a comfortable ‘up front’ person, I realised the examiner had the power to give – or withhold – my future plans. I’d had my fill of classroom teaching after that last year teaching teenagers, including boys who were there only because the law forbade them to leave. So I’d picked up my drama studies, hoping to teach individuals or small groups. The door opened. ‘Mrs Jones is ready for you now, Jeanette,’ the lady in charge told me. I walked in as confidently as I could. My program. I’d chosen several pieces to fit the criteria, including a poem I particularly loved, The Flower by George Herbert. That old metaphysical poem expressed exactly what I’d been feeling in my relationship with God lately, so I could say it with heart-felt expression. The examiner. What...

Jacinta’s Miracle - H ealing from chronic fatigue    Photo of newly risen sun - Pam Bishop “Do you think we could pray for my niece Jacinta today?” my friend Joy asked as we settled into the comfy lounge chairs at my little house in Carina.   There were f our of us, the ‘core group’ of a little prayer group I led for many years. “Her chronic fatigue is so bad now she can’t even shower herself.” “Oh! Of course,” we said and proceeded to pray.  We prayed for Jacinta for months, every time we met. We realised many others were praying – her family and friends, her church leaders. Before chronic fatigue Jacinta had been a strong, popular, highly motivated girl who did well at school and was a dancer. She did ballet, pointe, jazz, Latin and tap at a local dance school and did voluntary dancing and choreography for her church’s musicals. When she was seventeen and in Grade Twelve, the trouble began. She was tired. Exhausted. Fo...