Christmas

Sometimes in life we are blessed with a truly extraordinary friendship – I have been blessed in this way with my friend called Bin. Actually she is the brains behind this blog. She is the one who puts it all together and makes it look so great. For 17 years we have been the closest of friends. We now call ourselves sisters and our families think of each other as family.

Together over 17 years we have journeyed the good: The birth of seven children (my last child and her six), miraculous healing, marriage reconciliation, wonderful New Years together, fantastic holidays and just great fun. We have also journeyed the bad: Marriage separation, mental illness, wayward teenagers, and Mark’s cancer, long term illness and death. We have laughed a ridiculous amount, cried together and prayed and sought God together. They have been 17 very blessed years!

At the beginning of this year Bin found out she was pregnant with her sixth child, and in May we found out that after five handsome sons Bin and her husband Bring (his nickname) were expecting a daughter. I remember her ringing me and telling me and Jasmine when we were parked at a shopping mall, and we just sat in the car and cried with happiness at the blessing our dear adopted family was receiving. How exciting – a little girl!

Very early on the 22 September Bring & Bin welcomed their little girl into the world. With great excitement we raced to the hospital. They named her Sadie, which means Princess – so incredibly appropriate for the youngest and only girl but also because this little girl is a daughter of the King of Kings!

For ten weeks we all enjoyed getting to know this little bundle of joy, and then in the blink of an eye it all changed. After what was supposed to be a routine doctor’s check, Bin and Bring headed to the hospital and within days they were told their precious baby was very, very sick with a serious heart condition.

Thirteen days later on the 14th of December at just about 12 weeks old, Sadie left us for her eternal home prepared for her by Jesus as he promised in the Bible in John 14:3.

Tragedy has struck my dear precious friends. I cannot take their grief and pain. Grief and pain that I am all too familiar with, but this is a baby – it seems so senseless.

But senseless it is not in our loving Heavenly Father’s eyes because Sadie had to be born to live forever. You see, Sadie has always been in God’s mind. In Jeremiah 1:5 it says

God knew all about Sadie… God knew Sadie… God had holy plans for Sadie. But none of that would have mattered if Sadie had just remained a thought. Conception brings life and the minute Sadie was conceived God’s thought was given life! Our Sadie had to be born in order to live forever with Jesus.

And it is the same for Jesus. He had to be born so that we could live forever.

Over 2,000 years ago God came in the form of a human baby to make a way for all of humanity to be able to live forever. Through Jesus’ birth, life, death and resurrection ALL of us are given a way to live forever in heaven with our holy and loving heavenly Father.

Sadie has been taken from us. She is out of our vision. But Sadie is not lost – she is home. She is now a citizen of heaven, which is where we all will be one day if we have accepted the truth of Jesus. One day we will be with her and we will understand the joy that although she was here for such a short time, she had to be born to live forever.

Death is tragic but it is only tragic for those left here grieving our loved one. But for Sadie, for Mark, for all the others who have died knowing Jesus, death was their welcome home!

Sadie had to be born to live forever!

AND JESUS HAD TO BE BORN SO THAT WE COULD ALL LIVE FOREVER.

This Christmas CELEBRATE!!!

Celebrate Jesus’s birth for the truth that it truly is – OUR WAY HOME!!!

But thank God! He gives us victory over sin and death through our Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Corinthians 15:57 (NLT)

The first month of this New Year has been filled with a series of unfortunate events.

Christmas morning our oven door exploded – yes exploded, into a million pieces all over the kitchen floor. My oldest daughter was standing right in front of it and thankfully was not hurt at all but as you can imagine in complete shock at what had just taken place right in front of her. Our Christmas dinner was of course very interesting with no longer having an oven but a chicken in the crock pot and roast veges cooked or rather burnt on the bbq and some very hot yummy gravy made by my dad to cover the disaster and Christmas dinner was rescued.

Not many days after that I managed to prang the entire side of my beautiful car along the neighbours garage. We have lived in this house for 9 ½ years and that is the first time I have done that. I was extremely upset at myself but thank goodness for insurance and my car now looks as good as new.

Within days Misha managed to get her car wedged against the same garage corner – we stood there in disbelief. Had the garage grown bigger we wondered? Some clever manoeuvring on her part with the car and we unstuck it with no damage.

During my 12 days of holiday I got sick. For those of you who don’t know me I am the worst sick person. I get very frustrated with myself and do my very best to ignore it by living off painkillers by the truck load. What frustrated me more was this was my Christmas holidays – I was not supposed to be sick!

Then halfway through January Bonnie was at summer school doing a sports paper and whilst playing rugby collided with a fellow player and broke one of her toes. The break is very impressive even if only a toe, and the pain that it caused was as extreme as if it had been a major bone. So now Bonnie was in pain, in a moonboot and on crutches, and of course unable to drive.

But wait there’s more: I ran over our very old cat. Learnt a lot of things late that night. 1. Did you know cats can scream? Yep it’s true and yep it’s heart-breaking! 2. Did you know that there are Accident & Emergency clinic for animals? Of course you knew that – but I didn’t. 3. Did you know they are very expensive? Guessing you had figured that out too! So a very sad night as we said goodbye to Pepper.

And the final minor calamity was the newest member of our family – Nelly, (a beautiful grey and white kitten) played with a bumble bee and got stung on the eye. Her eye swelled up to nearly the size of her little head and so off to the vets we go…

And yes all these things added together made for one very expensive January!

So what have I learnt through all of this… well these things started happening within two days of my book being made available on Amazon. And what God reminded me was – I have an enemy!

We all do – satan hates us, he wants to tear us down, to steal, kill and destroy us (John 10:10). He wants to give us reason to give up and to not keep pursuing God’s will for us.

But what I know is my God is Greater!!!!! My God has already defeated satan! And satan has no authority!!

In Luke 10:19 Jesus says to his disciples which includes us now, “Look, I have given you authority over all the power of the enemy, and you can walk among snakes and scorpions, and crush them. Nothing will injure you.”

So yes, he can try and make my life uncomfortable, but these things will not change my mind or my course. Jesus reminds me I have authority over satan because of what Jesus did on the cross, and so I choose to stand in that authority and praise God through it all!!!!

And guess what – GOD HAS BEEN GREATER!!!!!!

Remember :

I cannot tell you how many messages and emails I have had from people who have been touched by God through reading my book. God is using it to remind people He is there, He is real and He loves us all so very very much even in our darkest times when we aren’t sure how we feel about Him.

So do not fear when the enemy comes against you. If you have given your life to Jesus then satan has no power over you or your circumstance. Lift your eyes to Jesus, keep them focussed on him and leave God to deal with the rest and any mess