God Whispers

    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 Bard...

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...

  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 famil...

  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 ...

  A few Sundays ago after church I had a cup of coffee with Joyce and Dan Naidoo. I was sitting in the presence of a miracle. I had been involved with Joyce’s writing of Dan’s story. It’s amazing and I’d like to share it.                            Dan Naidoo   Pains and the diagnosis In 1985 Dan began to get severe stomach pains. Tests revealed he had a malignant condition needing urgent treatment. Joyce and Dan tried another doctor but unfortunately his condition was confirmed – it was cancer needing surgery.   Prayer The Naidoos’ family and friends began a prayer chain, so there was constant prayer for Dan. Joyce and Dan prayed and cried. Every night when they prayed together, they were so traumatised they just clung to each other and wept, finally saying ‘amen’.   On the night before Dan’s operation, the surgeon phoned Joyce to tell her there were fourteen lymph nodes outside his stomach need...

    This is a true story. I had stopped driving my own car when this occurred several years ago, so I often used taxis. This story could be called Prayer really does work.   ‘ Your taxi’s here,’ my sister called. I was leaving from their place to have dinner with friends at Rochedale. I hurried out to the front and sure enough, headlights shone through the early winter darkness. I waved to Arlene and hastily climbed into the back seat. I was running a bit late but the evening promised to be fun. ‘Rochedale, please,’ I said to the driver and told him the address. He lurched the car out of the driveway and set off down the street. ‘We have to go via the airport,’ he announced in a slightly slurred voice. ‘No, we don’t . Just go down Old Cleveland Road and turn off to Rochedale,’ I said. Surely a taxi driver knew where Rochedale was?   The Accident He muttered something inaudible about the airport and set off down Old Cleveland Road, speeding. ...

  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...