When you’re in a wilderness, the most natural mindset to adopt is one of survival. I talked about having a ‘survival mindset’ in my last blog, and today, we’re going to take that one step further. There is another way of thinking that is just as detrimental as a survival mentality, and which often goes hand in hand with it: a poverty mentality. These two negative ways of thinking are similar in that they both have an engrained mindset of helplessness. The survival mentality

Dear child, I’m inviting you to take some time with me. Life is so busy, and you quickly move from one thing to another. If your body isn’t moving, then your mind is racing with so many thoughts and worries I would love you to stop your hurrying and try and slow your racing thoughts and sit in a quiet place. Take a few moments and sit with me. Breathe in my peace. When we sit together, please don’t feel you have to say anything. Prayer isnt complicated. Just be still. Let th

Hi, and welcome back. Last time I shared with you about a traumatic experience I had at a creative seminar I attended. On that day, I realised that I no longer had any dreams, and that hope had been banished from my heart. Everything came crashing down; I was in shock. How had I let myself get into such a mess? I asked Holy Spirit that question, and He told me that I had been living in ‘survival mode’. Everything I did was subconsciously designed with the aim of just surviv

I remember feeling sick. A stone lay in the pit of my stomach, along with a sense of immense panic. What was wrong? Why couldn’t I do it? I was at a creative workshop, in a session focused on the power of our imagination and our ability to dream with God. The speaker used an analogy based on C S Lewis’s book “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”, brilliantly brought to our screens in the Chronicles of Narnia films. In the film, a large wardrobe was the doorway that led to a

Today, we bring to a close the theme of ‘Free to Be Me’. The process of understanding who we truly are, who God created us to be, is a long one. However, it is so wonderful when you get to the stage when you are able to say that you not only love who you are, but you actually like  yourself too! For many, many years, I couldn’t say that. I didn’t like myself. I sort of loved myself, because I was told that, if you’re a Christian, you must love yourself, otherwise you’re rejec

A new year begins. It's like opening a brand new journal. The fresh new pages waiting to be written in. What will this year bring? The word that I woke up with on the 1st of January was. Intentional The dictionary definition - To be intentional means to act with purpose, making deliberate choices and conscious decisions that align with your values, goals, and desired outcomes, rather than just letting things happen to you.   I want to live this life intentionally. To stop and

Hello again, and I hope you've had a great start to your new year! There are just a few more blogs left in the Walking through Wilderness blog series, and today, I want to continue our theme of ‘Free to be Me’ by drawing lessons from one of my favourite movies of all time – The Lord of the Rings. I’ve watched it countless times and yet, even now, every time I watch it, Father speaks to me, or shows me something new. It speaks deeply to my heart about the battle that rages, t

Stop looking backwards, start looking forward.   Recently, I have spent a lot of time looking back in time. I am a historian, so that is where my natural gaze goes. There is value in looking back, remembering what God has done, and celebrating his goodness. We share our testimonies of God’s actions in our lives to encourage each other to do it again in his power and favour. We also look back in order to examine ourselves. We look to see whether we have anyone to forgive, or t

I want you to imagine that you are locked in a room. It’s pretty dark, But you can see, even in the darkness, that the room is empty. Your hands are bound, but you can walk around. The door is barred. There are no windows. You don’t know how long you’ve been there, but you are ready to get out. You try to push the door, but it doesn’t budge. You sit defeated, thinking you will be forever bound to this dark, dismal room. There is no way of escape. After what seems like months,

Do you ever listen to what you say in your heart, to yourself? Have you noticed that throughout the day, you make statements about yourself? Let me give you an example: “I am exhausted.” Saying this when you feel tired can make it so and bring your mind, heart, soul, and body into agreement with that statement. You give in to it, submit to it, and reinforce it. Yes, for many of us, this is a reality of our lives, with all its pressures, expectations, and demands, and yes, we

Hi, and welcome back to the Walking through Wilderness blog series. We’re going to continue with the ‘Free to Be Me’ theme by looking at the subject of culture. When we lived in Zimbabwe, our family seemed fairly ‘normal’ by Zimbabwean middle-class standards. However, when we came to live in the UK, we realised fairly quickly that we didn’t fit in here the way we did there. The cultures of these two countries are about as opposite as you could get, and we encountered first-h

In what are you invested? In what do you trust that you throw your heart into an investment fully? And what have you invested the hard-earned fruits of your labours in? We all have treasures we hold dear; some hold money or possessions and do all they can to keep them and make them grow, yet fail to find satisfaction in them. Others hold reputation as their highest treasure and take pride in others' high regard, yet still upset and alienate those dear to them. Still others re

As children of the King of Kings, we have access to our Father, the King, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. He is ALWAYS there for us, any time, night or day. We don’t have to make an appointment, and we don’t have to sit in a waiting room until He’s ready to see us. We get to walk straight into His throne room and run up to Him any time we want, day or night, no matter what important things you think He might be doing or who He is with. There is a clip in one of my favourite m

Mary (mother of Jesus), you heard the word of God tell you the news before you received confirmation from your cousin Elizabeth, who was also with child. Mary's child was a tiny cell a small feet as, she won't have had the technology, skill and knowledge we have today. Mary relied on Elizabeth to first tell her the news that she had been chosen by God to carry his child. Secondly, Mary may certainly have relied on Elizabeth's experience, as Elizabeth was further along in her

Two of the most important questions anyone can ask are, “Who am I?” and “Why am I here?” The answers to these questions form the basis of our identity and many of us spend our lives pursuing them. Who am I? What makes me, me? Why am I here? What’s the point of me? What have I been put on the earth to do? The ongoing quest for identity is a massive pursuit, one that usually continues throughout our lives, but, in my experience, it never seems more prevalent than when we are

I have been re-reading the account of Mary's conversation with the angel. The angel told Mary that she was going to carry the saviour of the world. After her very natural response of "How can I get pregnant, I am still a virgin?" She accepted the angel's answer. " For no word from God can ever fail" Her reply to that was " I am the Lord's servant" "May your word to me be fulfilled." Mary's faith was in a big God. She trusted that if God said it, then she had to believe it. Ma

So, now that you know a bit more about spiritual seasons, let me ask you this: Do you know what season you’re in right now? Do you know what your heavenly Father is doing in your life at this time? If you’re still not sure, ask Him. You might not get a quick answer, but don’t worry, that’s not a problem; in fact, it’s part of the process. Father loves it when we ‘press into Him’ for the next piece of the puzzle, talking with Him as we journey. Our walk with Him is full of my

Hi! We’ve been talking about different seasons in our lives, and in my last blog, I spoke about the parallels we can draw in our spiritual lives with the agricultural seasons. Last time, we discussed ploughing and planting, and this week we’re looking at...   Waiting, weeding and watering So, once you’ve prepared (or ploughed) the soil of your heart and planted your seeds (invested time and energy), you move into the next phase: I call it ‘waiting, weeding and watering’. Ofte

Hi, and welcome back! We’re continuing our theme around seasons and, this week, we’re going to look into agricultural seasons and the spiritual lessons we can learn from them. Jesus often told stories with agricultural themes, possibly because the Jews in Bible times were an agriculturally based society, and they understood principles such as sowing and reaping, ploughing, planting and harvesting. However, most of us don’t have an agricultural background, therefore we could

This week, we’re going to continue looking at the subject of spiritual seasons, and specifically the question often asked: “Why do I need to know what season I’m in.” Simply put, the answer to that question is so that we can   partner with Holy Spirit . But let’s delve a bit deeper. A well-known and often quoted scripture when discussing seasons is 1 Chron 12:32 – “… the sons of Issachar who had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do..”  This scripture