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