Month: April 2014

Easter’s gift!

As Easter approaches

Brightly wrapped set of Chocolate Easter Eggs photo

It’s Easter week and I am reminded of the profound gift that is mine from my Heavenly Father. This gift is given to me forever, and shows the generosity and incomprehensible love that has forever and always pierced and lifted my heart. The gift of Jesus, to me.

There are many ways for us to give.  For us to reflect the Father’s heart.

Let me tell you a story….

It was Christmas, 2013, and I received a gift from my son and daughter in law which made me cry, not out of sadness but a realisation that a tender and observant heart can bring blessing and honour to a mother, as hands are extended in love and generosity. These two dear ones had spent the last months bringing an old toy back to life and restoring its former glory, just to bring me joy. And it was presented to me with loving hearts and hands.

I share with you today an excerpt from my book “Dancing With My Daddy” so that you will understand the context, and then this gift.

My rocking horse
My rocking horse

“With dappled grey, hardwood body and long, flowing mane, he stood in the corner of my room, upstairs in the little council house which was identical to rows of others in a neat English street.  Ready to entertain me at a moment’s notice, this most beautiful of rocking horses was a hand-me-down, but nonetheless, my pride and joy.

Dark red reins draped his head, and he held a wry smile – as rocking horses do.  His saddle was ever ready to take me to a new adventure. 

Though painted on, his beautiful eyes beckoned me with a life-like wink.  Just a shake of his luxurious rope mane, and I believed in his whispering tales of new lands to conquer, new pastures to visit, long and rolling meadows to gallop together, with all my heart. 

For many years I was too small to climb up on his saddle without help, but later as I grew I would spend time just rocking to and fro, thinking and dreaming little girl dreams.  I was just the two of us, in or own special world.  Coloured and faraway lands called me forth to play.  Lands of castles, princesses and high towers, trusty steeds that sped through thickly wooded forests and spirited me away from lurking goblins and the like; terrors of the forest and true heroes lived in this magical world.

And as we travelled through verdant glens and valleys, passing by imaginary friends, and stopping in for tea parties at lavish estates with kings and queens, we would experience the adventures that only a child’s mind can comprehend.  He and I were one.”

The story goes on to say that my Dad eventually gave away my rocking horse, and of course, with it went memories and childhood stories that could live only in my mind. But little did I know, Dad had reflected the heart of the Father in Heaven as he gave the rocking horse to a poor family, to a little immigrant girl who had very few toys, and small joy in her life.

“What does it take to reflect God’s heart?  Generosity, care for others, and a vision to bless a neighbour.” 

What came next in the story, though, is what shows the generosity of one for another.The reward that comes to the generous.

My Easter Sunday was forever marked in my mind that year, as I ran home from celebrating the festival at church, and, wanting to open my usual one Easter egg, I was astounded as I opened the door and there, on the kitchen table…the biggest surprise gift from….the little girl’s family who had been given my rocking horse!

Yes…generosity begets generosity.  The Father’s love and His immeasurable gift to us is evidence that we are able to have hearts of love and consideration towards others…to love because He loved.

To give because He gave.

Here’s the prayer at the end of the chapter which may help you today:   “Often I hug the hurts of the life life so very close that I can’t see the lesson that you have in them for me. Help me to look up, to look around, and to see what it is in each season of life that you want to teach me.  Help me to understand that a generous heart is straight from you…..” 

As you and I celebrate Easter this coming weekend, let’s never forget the value and the impact on humanity that God’s greatest gift to us has brought us.  The gift that will never fail us. The Son of God in our hearts for ever…if we will just believe.

And in the meantime, our everyday lives can be released to reflect the Father’s generosity…if we will but ask Him to give us opportunities…every day.

Psalm 112:5:

“Good will come to him who is generous and lends freely.  He has scattered abroad his gifts to the poor”

**Note: Here’s a link to a video which will tell you all about Dancing With My Daddy (Every Daughter’s Journey)   http://store.influenceresources.com/products/dancing-with-my-daddy

 

 

Photos by stevendepolo,

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Empty Nest Syndrome

 

Bald Eagle in flight. http://photopin.com/
Bald Eagle in flight.
http://photopin.com

I love flying!

I couldn’t help but feel impressed by the takeoff.  I have a peculiar, indeed, somewhat unusual, fascination about aircraft…the domestic, not the war type. Flying holds a place in my heart and it’s in this space I can create better, rest pretty well and dream and think more prolifically than most places on Earth.

Ever since I flew as a flight attendant with Qantas in and out of Australia, I have enjoyed the times that I am able to sit and experience the beauty of flight. The escape into the skies of these mere mortal bodies as we partake, albeit briefly, of the joy of seeing the Earth from God’s airspace is a constant charge… an adrenalin rush to me! Perhaps I should have been an astronaut. Or a bird of flight!

Breaking News!

As the captain interrupts my train of thought with his usual informative patter via the PA, we quickly cover the miles of our journey towards Dallas.  Today we stop briefly there, then on towards Los Angeles.  This mammoth day marks the close of our trip to the USA.  I turn my thoughts to home, and family.  Thoughts of our grown up kids there.  My little black dog, dear thing.  Our house in the most beautiful valley in the world.

And then comes the jolt as I remember that home will not be the same anymore.  Ever. It will be in some ways empty, because the last one of our kids who has just recently ‘flown the nest’ in order to begin expanding her world, has left.   

She has settled , for who knows how long, in the great world city of Los Angeles.

No, home won’t be the same now. 

I can hardly allow myself to entertain the thoughts that want to crowd and crumble my heart.  The empty bedroom; her precious little childhood things that sit gathered and packed in a corner.

I wasn’t there when she left the nest.  Her father and I were away on this trip.  So for us, goodbye comes in the next couple of days when we leave Los Angeles for Sydney.

I quickly move on, not dwelling on the unnecessary emotion that this goodbye promises to bring.

We were in Jacksonville last night. On our way to the airport this morning our driver spoke about, among other things (she was quite the talker) the local Florida bird-life.  We got onto the subject of the American national emblem, the bald eagle. These days in that state, the magnificent and nationally acclaimed species is returning.  Apparently they build their nests high up in the mobile phone towers and live, confident and strong, in a place where they weren’t supposed to be, but now occupy as their own. That place is where their perspective is all encompassing.  Their view one that royalty in the animal kingdom are privy to alone.   It’s a vantage point,  brilliantly positioned for them to educate their babies in the art form for which they are famous.  And for which those babies were created. 

Bald Eagle Nest. Photopin.com
Bald Eagle Nest.
Photopin.com

Their keen eye and purpose combine as they hunt from a great height and feed those babes until one day, they will drop them out of the nest.  The little ones will learn how to fly. It’s called survival. Their hearts will be encouraged as they at first panic at the speed and precarious, random nature of their initial solo flight.  That’s the one when Mama Eagle literally turfs them out of the nest.  I imagine they struggle to overcome their surprise, but quickly gather all that they have been created to employ, as they flap those great but novice wings and experience God’s breeze and lifting currents in flight.

And before long, baby eagle is able to be seen high in the sky, doing what God has created it to do.  Soaring.  Being magnificent.

Mother eagle…..  Do you feel like I do when you watch that?

The need to teach and then to let go?  The fact that you have educated your babies to fly and then they actually take you at your word and do it? And before long there is no real need for you to be there.  They have learned the path of life.  They have become ‘grown up’. They turn their heads towards the future.

The ‘Empty Nest’….it’s  an expression, a naming of the empty-hearted feeling that every other Mama knows.  Every mother who has educated, trained, loved and encouraged her babies to fly…   As she champions her offspring, remembering their birth and childhood ways, she watches on, ever protective and ready to swoop in and rescue.

We are on the approach to Dallas.  Next top Los Angeles.  Four days to see my baby angel.  Then I must become Mother Eagle. 

Isaiah 40:31 (NIV)

31 but those who hope in the Lord

will renew their strength.

They will soar on wings like eagles;

they will run and not grow weary,

they will walk and not be faint. [1]

 

 

 

 

[1] The New International Version. 2011 (Is 40:31). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

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