Restoration

Restored - a brief word study

- the cupbearer to his position
- Moses' hand
- various cities and towns
- a king's hand
- Naaman's flesh
- a son restored to life
- the boundaries of Israel
- the altar of the Lord
- Jerusalem
- human beings, if we return to the Lord.
- everything Job lost
- God's kingdom
- Nebuchadnezzar's sanity
- the temple
- the priesthood
- people's sight
- strength restored to those who feel weak
- individuals restored, brought back safely, to the family of believers
- Eden

I love the word restoration. When I looked at google images to help me see some tangible examples of restoration, in nearly every case, restoration resulted in something better than it was before. I'm excited about that.

"sabbaticalling", writing, has given me time away, time out, time with no pressure, time to come under the maker's care and attention. I think this has resulted in a time of refining, loving more, loving better at home (and I hope out of the home!), receiving love and feeling love, time to listen, time to watch carefully, time to reflect and time to redefine what's important.

Time too for us as a family to continue to feel that we will give ourselves utterly to loving the next generation well, to teaching, training and modelling missional living to children - little children, older children, teenagers and, in particular with Mr HIWWC, troubled teenagers. We love the generations, what was invested in us from those older than us in the past will bever be forgotten and we honour those who made themselves vulnerable, let us in, let us learn, let us fail, picked us up...with my whole heart I pray that we will be able to do the same, that those younger than us will go deeper, farther and higher than we ever did or could.

Restored. An amazing word!

Winter is past, the springtime has come.....

The picture above is the view from our decking/breakfast table. This holiday is a gift from God! He's so good to us. Two things I love: cliffs and waves. And I can see them every day.

I thought I would write about a little highlight of our holiday so far:we have just had the privilege of spending the last two Sundays at the tubestation - which is both gathered church and a missional community, engaged in midweek activity within their base building and much, much wider in that in the way the folks there share their lives.

We've been coming here for 3 years now on our Cornwall summer holidays and it's inspiring to see a two-pronged missional focus:
(1) to the surfing community and
(2) to the local community - the village of Polzeath (and now to other local villages with the plant out to St Merryn)

A few years ago I had the privilege of offering a detailed prophecy to the leaders there, when I knew very little about their history, background, hopes or desires and just chewing that over together has given us one of those precious heart-to-heart connections with the tube station project directors. I love that about the kingdom of God - when you don't see people very often, so you don't know the minutiae of each other's lives, and yet you support one another fiercely - the picture that comes to mind is of people in the crowd who are cheering you - they are all for you. Well, that's how we feel about tubestation.

The need to give people from all ages and stages of life a broad welcome was the theme of this Sunday's sermon with Ian Bell of the Methodist Church's Venture FX scheme speaking. I have heard Ian speak before and I love his simplicity, humility, warmth and evident excitement about the fresh expressions of church he encourages and develops.

The word I would use to sum up tubestation is "inclusive". They love to have visitors. Their attendance can go from 40 or 50 in the winter to over 250 some Sundays in the summer - we wondered if that gets annoying for the regulars but they genuinely love it when the place is packed out and visitors come from all over the country/world. I'll say this with a bias, for which I can't apologise, given what I am writing about in the book project just now - they have a very high regard for young people. We visited the building after school time today and there were a lot of kids and teenagers around - surfing the internet, skateboarding, playing around on the grass. Please do check out the website to see what other things they do - what has impressed me over the last few years is the inclusiveness of the activities that go on; yes, there is a focus on one of the two things mentioned earlier (surf community/local community) but within that children and teenagers have a place that's all for them. I get the feeling that the heart of tubestation is to love well and to love all, hence the relevance of Sunday's sermon.

The worship leading is just immense - we have probably been around 6 or 7 times now and there is always a reverence for the old hymns of the past with one of the Wesleys usually featuring (Methodist chapel remember!) and lots of songs that mention "seas", "oceans", "waves" and the beauty of God's creation. And there is such a sense of the presence of God - the band is tight, musically, but Kris, the lead worshipper most times I have been there, leads what must be an incredibly diverse crowd (denominationally speaking!) so sensitively. You can tell he just loves to worship God any way he can. That desire is always visible when someone is really living it.

And so this Sunday we sang one of our favourite songs, but not always a common choice, you can click on it at the end of the post if you wish.

Winter is past, the springtime has come....

How to Survive the Waiting Game

I have reproduced this article from here (I want to acknowledge the link and the source) - I have had the privilege of hearing John Paul Jackson speak a number of times, the last being a couple of weeks ago, and he always offer such wise counsel with a prophetic edge - how we need that!

How to Survive The Waiting Game

Wait for the Lord; be strong and let your heart take courage; yes, wait for the Lord (Ps. 27:14, NASB).

No matter what God has called us to do, one of the most difficult things we will face is the in-between time. In the beginning, He prepares our hearts for the calling. He gives us a glimpse of His plans for us, and it births great hope within us.

The difficulty is that there is always a time lag between the initial preparation and the outcome. The beginning often carries a great emotional surge. We know what God said, and we know we will see it happen, no matter what the enemy may throw at us in the process. Our faith is as tall as the mountains. We feel invincible in God’s promise. We take the initial steps and are excited to see the fruit of our labors.

But then comes the waiting.

The days become weeks and months, and we have to wait for what God has promised us. Many of us don’t handle the waiting very well. Our hope begins to waver. We begin to forget the glorious promises God gave us and how it felt when we heard His voice. So many of us lose heart during the time lag.

What can we do to instead gain heart during this waiting period?

1. Be willing to rest.

Hearing God’s voice is like finding a well in the desert. We do not survive on our own thoughts or strength or goodness, and as we discover this we discover reality and true freedom in Christ. His presence is our lifeblood, and He is our peace, which is the foundation for hearing His voice. It will be very difficult for us to stir up our hearts and keep them passionate and alive without being willing to rest in His presence.

So in the midst of waiting for change, we need to be willing to rest. In the New American Standard translation of Psalm 24:17, it reads, “Let your heart take courage” (emphasis added). If we are worrying and striving and trying to make things happen, it will be very difficult for us to find our peace in God. It will be difficult for us to remember Him.

Today, if you find yourself brought low by anxiety, despair or the apparent lack of movement in your life, let your heart take courage by being quiet in His presence. This is the starting point for everything we do. There, God will prepare us for the change He is bringing and for the next step in the promise He has given us.

2. Be captivated.

Paul wrote in Romans 10 that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. The level of “hearing” that Paul talked about means to be enraptured, to be captivated, to be totally consumed, to be focused on the Word—that is what increases our faith.

What has God told you? Be like the persistent widow in Luke 18 who would not allow the judge to forget her case.

If it has been awhile since you have actively remembered the promise God gave you, change that. Think about it. Remember it. Write it on a note card and tape it to your bathroom mirror.

Be captivated by God. Open your heart to hearing His quiet voice in the area of His promise.

3. Be willing to take risks.

Finally, we need to consider taking steps we have never taken before. Perhaps God has already set up everything we need, and the only thing left for us to do now is take the risk that He’s calling us to take at the time he’s calling us to take it.

Peter took a lot of risks. The New Testament is filled with wild stories about him. Something daring and unorthodox was in him from the beginning. He didn’t always take the right risks, yet God never chastised him for being zealous.

If you do these three things—rest in God, be captivated by Him, and be willing to take the risks He sets before you to take—then you are guaranteed to see change because you are seeking God. You are holding on to His promises, and you are remembering His voice. You are honoring Him, and that is no small thing.

Today, be strong and let your heart take courage.

Some of my favourite things this week

1. The Song below: - which has long been a favourite and reminds me of the power of music. Tracks like this can catapault us from a list of "to do's" and pressure to perform/be seen to be doing ...into the presence of God. The best place to be when seeking future direction. Check out 2 Kings 3:15 - now bring me a harpist. While the harpist was playing, the hand of the Lord came upon Elisha and he said....(prophetic direction was received in the next verses in the passage)

So this acoustic Brian Johnson song has been on repeat play this week for me. I love it.




2. The Sun (not the paper, the big light in the sky)
I've been able to sit outside reading. Marvellous. Day after day, in a wee sheltered spot in my garden.

3. Coffee with a pal
who I have known for a long time - since the early 90s! - but not that well. Ironically since we moved away from our previous place of abode we have met in more and more circles and this week we had lots of time to talk of dreams and visions and ways we might believe God is leading us to see the fulfillment of promises of a fresh awakening in our land! Please Lord, in our lifetime - we both knew of such longing and yearning all over the place in the Body of Christ for revival. How wonderful it is to talk of the things of the Lord that you long to see with a passion in this nation! That conversation turned the whole week round for me as it was utterly life-giving.

4. A very special card from the most unexpected folks in the church I have just left, one I'll treasure.

5. My beautiful family - it's been a hard, hard week with lots of tears but we have seen incredible breakthrough in our children's lives. My 8 year old son saw an angel who spoke to him on Good Friday as he broke down in tears as he saw afresh how much Jesus had sacrificed for him , and my daughter has shown incredible maturity as we have thrown ourselves onto God.

6. A blog post - this is simply phenomenal - (dated Wed April 27th if the blog has been updated since I first posted the link). I have been thinking a lot about preaching and teaching as I "sabbatical" it for now (for ever??). I sense God's saying: reflect, listen and learn - so I just "happened" to read this yesterday. Like me, Alyn was a secondary teacher and I love visual stimuli because I struggle with solely relying on the auditory mode of learning. (and I couldn't have got away with it for the past eight years. I'd have been beaten to a pulp by over 300 kids!!)

Awesome stuff and they are an awesome couple, used by God. Just because someone is a teacher, must they always teach?...

May this week mark the start of something new....

Living in grace not justice

Last November I attended a leaders' school of ministry (if you are near Oxford at all, and can possibly attend this event, do so!) with some folks from my current church and it was fabulous. The teaching there, on the whole, was not new to me however I needed to hear it and it hit me hard. Particularly about walking in the "grace place" (I forgive) instead of the "justice place" (its not fair)

Since moving here, more than ever I have come to really understand that I need to be taught in order to teach others. The minute any of us say: I know that or I know how to do that is the minute the warning bells should start ringing; I don't think any leader is exempt from being taught or open to suggestion. And to have a comment or a suggestion made to you (us) is also not a reason to go on the automatic defence ...well, I know that... or yes, I have done that before....

I remember in October 2007 being taught about the characteristics of a heart of stone - it comes back to me often - is that me? am I doing that? hold on, if I think that there is no way that is me, then is it possible that it IS me?
Most clearly I remember that hearts of stone prefer to "do" rather than "be" and find it hard to be corrected, taught or prayed for.

So I found myself being taught again pretty forcibly about not being in the place of "justice". Hard going, over and over again recently. Oh God, you know me so well. You know what I need to learn.

It's been 20 months since we moved city, This weekend we returned to visit our previous church, where we had been since our teenage years. Apart from clapping and cheering because we were announced as being back for a visit (thanks! we were mortified!!) I wasn't as emotional as I had feared but what was so noticeable was that from the opening bar of the first song, there was complete engagement from the congregation towards God. I'd describe it in a new made-up word: one-heartedness. Heartfelt shouts, cries, whispers, prayers as well as sung words. Quiet moments of congregational adoration towards God. It felt as if people weren't worried about what others think. How I have missed that. I think I noticed these things more because I have been away for so long.

I deliberately didn't go to drop my children off in their groups, as I felt that would be insensitive for my successor as I was hugged by a number of the children earlier and I know I couldn't just have snuck in and snuck out of the hall without there being some warm greetings from the older children (which would most definitely have made me bawl)

Anyway, I'd had a hard and disappointing week. I'd been broken to pieces and asking God for help to be in the place of grace (where disappointment and hurt is OK...we are to let that out!) and not in the place of anger and judgment. A couple of the prayer team prayed for me and one woman with a prophetic gift shared a very significant biblical example with me.

The Daughters of Zelophehad were five sisters in the Bible who lived during the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt, and who raised before Moses the case of a woman’s right and obligation to inherit property in the absence of a male heir in the family. Zelophehad's daughters argued before Moses and the other members of the court that it was unfair that they could not use their father's right to cast lots and that some provision should be made so they could inherit and preserve their father's name upon his inheritance. Moses took their petition before the Lord and received the following answer:

Numbers 27:7 "What Zelophehad's daughters are saying is right. You must certainly give them property as an inheritance among their father's relatives and turn their father's inheritance over to them".

The daughters used legal means to get what was theirs. But significantly, Moses, whom they turned to, consulted the Lord.

Don't you love people who pray for you and utter not their own wisdom but ask the Lord what he wants to say? Not only did these verses speak very deeply into a painful and personal situation - but....six weeks ago I was given this passage to preach on - in June!

Adoption

I have been watching the live stream of the memorial service for Derek Loux. Lou Engle is talking as I type. Lou Engle is the visionary and co-founder of TheCall solemn assemblies (www.TheCall.com), a movement of prayer gathering young adults to pray and fast for breakthrough and revival. TheCall began in Washington, DC in 2000 gathering over 400,000 people to pray and fast for the United States. Since 2000, The Call has gathered hundreds of thousands of people to pray both national and internationally.

He is talking right now about something that is resonating in my spirit.

About the movement to rescue children.

When Derek Loux died, he was on his way home from a training session on relesaing children from the sex trade and people trafficking. He and his wife Renee lived their lives to rescue children and to adopt them into his family.

In the last six months, three people have spoken to me about the call they are feeling to adopt or foster. One friend in my previous church is in the final stages of formal approval for long-term fostering.

Lou Engle has just prophesied about a mass movement of adoption and rescue of children. He speaks as one who has spent years praying for the nation.
Could this be a sign of the coming revival? T

"When love takes you in, it takes you in for good".

(Steve Curtis Chapman)
http://www.stevencurtischapman.com/adoption.htm

Prayer

Our church is in the middle of fifty days of prayer. We have a prayer room that is open 24 hours a day, six days a week. Staff and elders are "prayer captains" and we endeavour to fill all of the slots 24/6.

It's a very precious place to go to. There's a bowl representing the prayers of the saints rising to heaven. There's a community wall for scriptures, pictures, prayer requests, cries to heaven. There's a wall for praise and thanksgiving. There's a wall with a world map to focus our prayers outwards across the nations.

There's beanbags, cushions, chairs. There's creative material. There's hankies.
There's (amongst others) my three favourite Rivera CDs.

I just love being there. I am trying to fit more time in there in December.
We have gone together as a family sometimes; something I have encouraged others to do and quite a number of families have been there, which I am thrilled about. I so want these children not just to feel part but to be right at the centre of what God is doing and saying to his church. When I look on the walls in the room I can see the children's words and prophetic pictures and it feels like movement forward is being made.

I am spending many hours in these weeks crying to God about the church, his church, the church I go to. It seems "ineffective" in the world's eyes to be still and not be "do-ing", doesn't it? Just five or six years ago I would only feel useful if I packed as much as possible into one day. Now I don't care. I don't mean I don't care in that I'm going to say it in a moochy voice, I mean I don't care because I am trying to be my Father's child.

Sometimes I spend some daytime hours not "doing" very much, just resting with Him, thinking about the people I am going to see that week and showing him my diary. I love that sense of him being so close, where each breath in is breathing him in. I can tell the weeks I haven't given him my week's plans.

I can honestly say at this moment in time that I would give all my hopes and dreams up just to be closer to Jesus. We had a meeting in our main worship space this week and we were permissioned to spread out over the whole building and pray and be on our own. In the coldest, draughtiest corner I met Jesus as I lay on the floor (bundled in a duffle coat with the hood up it has to be said) and he showed me things. I didn't want to leave his presence. I was freezing but he was warmer! He took me for a walk along some pews and showed me some hearts and talked to me about his hopes for the church. And I cried and cried at what he saw and what he said he wanted to see as he told me that the solution is right there in that room - surrendered hearts, abilities, good though they may be, abandoned for the best, talents sacrificed to him, all for the sake of the cross.

Children Seeing Angels

I am heartened by this little piece of research reported in The Telegraph, on children having "dreams with a religious connection" and about children seeing angels, reported here

I spoke about this very topic on the Vision and Training Day on Saturday and I am reminded of many of these occurrences in the past six years of pastoring children and their families. Here are some I have experienced - and I am only one person in one country....:-

A 4 year old drawing the throneroom of God, complete with correct number of creatures around the throne with the prerequisite number of wings.
A 5 year old who has been raised (in her mum's words) in a religious vacuum because of her own atheism, the child never been to church, did not own a Bible, never (at that point of P1) having had any RE lessons in school and yet asked her mum why Jesus had died on a cross. Her mum (not a believer) did not know how she could know this and we wondered if it had come to her daughter in a dream or a vision.
A 6 year old seeing a very tall angel in the church's meeting room and describing its position in the building to me.
A 7 year old seeing an angel in exactly the same position in the building and telling their parent, who told me, neither of them knowing that another child had described the same thing.
A 6 year old waking up in the morning to tell their parents that God had taken them up into heaven and showed them a golden city there. He described the colours he saw and then told his parents that God had spoken to him and said: "there is nothing in the sea that will harm you" (exact words. Not your usual 6 year old kind of words)

I am UTTERLY convinced that we need to release and expect such revelations in our children. Are these to be unusual prophetic manifestations? Perhaps. But perhaps more likely, I believe, is that we who parent, teach or train are to build EXPECTATION in our children; that God is living and active; that he wants to have a positive, godly, heavenly influence on our children's minds, because if he doesn't, then there is one who will. I hardly need to conduct a blog poll to ask how many of us reading this have or know of children who have bad dreams.

Readers, it's time to REDEEM our children's dreams and daydreams for God. Teach your child that God communicates today in all manner of ways. He really, really does. Please note that I will never undermine the importance of the Bible - anything God reveals in dreams and visions is to be tested and matched up against the Bible and in all of the examples I have come across children have heard and seen exactly as if written in the Bible.

Consider the words of the Jean Darnell prophecy given in 1987

The Lord is going to send a tremendous revelation of Himself to boys and girls in this country. Between the ages of nine and fifteen particularly, children will begin to have a revelation of Jesus. They will see Him, they will know Him, they will hear Him, He will speak to them. He will come to them in visions and dreams, He will reveal His word to them. They will be converted and filled with the Holy Spirit and gifted by Him. And they will start praying. They will be healed themselves, and they will start praying for each other; and there will be wonderful healings through these boys and girls.

They will not only be the children of Christian parents. The Lord is going to manifest Himself to those who are in non-Christian homes where there is no love nor real family unity, where there is no knowledge of the Lord at all: perhaps not only for one generation but for many generations no Christian person has been in that family. But Jesus is going to meet them and reveal His power and His presence to them and His love for them. When they start coming to our children and to our teachers and telling what they are seeing and hearing from the Lord, our duty will be to receive them and love them as they are- because they will be rough diamonds, and they will have rather unusual, un-churchy language. But their experiences will be real. Some of their experiences will be so unusual you may doubt them. At that point receive their testimonies at face value, give them the word of God, and teach them how to love: because these children will have ministries not only as children, but as leaders in their adult life, and they will bless your country and other countries. So receive these children, teach them. Those of you who teach Sunday school, those of you who have children in your home and neighbourhood whom you are concerned about, begin to ask the Lord to raise your level of expectation of what they can receive, because they are going to start hearing. And just like the adults, they will start hearing the word and receiving the Lord and being able to receive deep spiritual experiences in the Lord.

We need to not only get ready, but to open our hearts to all that God has prepared for our children and young people. It's time to get ready, to get all hands on deck.

Canvas

I have asked permission from Lucy to post this poem of hers. Lucy has published an anthology of her poems, "Fragile World", which she put together in order to raise money for women in Darfur who have suffered horrific abuse, almost unseen by the eyes of the outside world.

I love this poem.

Come with me, be one tiny streak of brilliant white rather than choosing a safe passage to mediocrity.

Canvas

inspire me
do not leave me
in my world
of waste,
the place
where I crawl
inside my own
apathy.

strengthen me.
do not let me give in
to the voices
which say:
forget
what you do -
you will never change
the world.

remind me.
that on a canvas
composed
entirely of black,
one tiny streak
of brilliant white
can change the whole
picture.

(c) Lucy Mills

Florida Outpouring and Children

Photo courtesy of Ernest von Rosen, www.amgmedia.com

I started to write another post on children and worship but I've canned it for the moment.

I have been watching a lot of the Florida revival meetings this week. I have listened to Todd Bentley in various forms for a couple of years now and I have the utmost respect for the prophetic and justice emphasis of Freshfire Ministries. Well worth reading his biographical details on the website. He not only has some testimony but is aggressively bringing the kingdom in healing and evangelism. Reminds me of Rheinhard Bonnke.

If applicable, suspend any preconceptions you may have for religious programming, God TV etc (as I had!!), and listen to the prophetic words and watch for the signs which match up with stuff you have longed for and prayed for. Ignore the cultural context in which prayers/words are delivered if it stands in the way for you. Please don't discount what God is doing if it looks different from what you're used to. I reckon that's what people had to do during the Great Awakening and I know for sure its what they had to do in the two Lewis revivals (see Colin Whittaker's book)- they had to put aside "this is alien to us; we don't do this)

6000 - 8000 people are attending twice daily meetings. I have watched some medically substantiated miracles. When people return home and see doctors, I presume there will be more.

I watched several children, on separate occasions, describing Jesus coming down from heaven, touching them and going back up again.
I have listened to prophetic words over and over again for children in the past week - that we are entering into a time where children will see God's supernatural power at work through them in greater measure than any previous generation of children. I do believe this, because I am hearing the very same words from friends in Toronto, England(shire) and Argentina. I am also reading the very same words in several books and websites from other nations of the world.

God promised to pour out his spirit on all flesh. Yes, I believe those of us who are trained in child development, educational studies, theology etc etc etc (the list could be endless!) need to use our pastoral sensitivity, common sense and retain our sense of fun and lightness, but we also need to recognise that God is sovereign and is preparing for his son's return. He will use "all flesh" to achieve his eschatological purposes.

"God told me he would come to children in a special way, 3 years old, 5 years old. They will see visions of heaven, visions of angels." (Todd Bentley, Thurs 30 April 2008)

Remember what Jean Darnell spoke in 1987: believe children who come to you and say things like this.

In October, two different children told me that they had seen angels in the same spot in our church and I believe them. They were pretty matter of fact about it. No big deal. Children just don't get worked up about the same things that we do.

We need careful shepherds of children and young people, who will work in partnership with parents, standing with them in their place of covering and authority over their children, but will also be a bridgehead between adult and children/teen ministry. We all need each other! We need our separateness but we also need our togetherness because there is a job to be done.

I'm very excited. I think we are in amazing times.

Head above the parapet

I was speaking today to around 30 parents and carers on the work of Iris Ministries and in particular on the work in the baby houses in one of the five child care centres run by Rolland and Heidi Baker.

If you don't know anything about this particular couple, let me just say that they have spent most of their time since 1994 in Mozambique facing death threats, sickness, corruption and bureacracy. Iris Ministries now has emerged as one of the leading humanitarian organisations working with the poor in Mozambique (and now expanding into Malawi, Sudan and DRC).

They now care for over 3000 children. They have planted 5000 churches, training pastors and encouraging them to adopt up to ten children (I like that touch! - imagine if that were part of theological training here!)

I was speaking to people in the main who don't go to church. And you know what? I didn't feel like watering down the truth of what Iris achieves. The Bakers deliver "good news to the poor" and as Heidi says: what's the point in saying "say this little prayer after me, if the child has no clothes? or is sick? or can't read?" I showed a little of the documentary where she talks of God caring for the WHOLE person. I know a woman from Birmingham who works in the baby house and I told of the miracles she has seen - food appearing on the table when there was none, presents at Christmas never running out as hundreds of children form queues at the rubbish dump church to receive a gift, deaf and dumb children healed, AIDS tests reversed and - perhaps most moving of all for me - crushed and wounded spirits being restored. Most of the children who come to Iris have been abandoned by their parents.

Someone said to me that I was very bold to speak of such things. That it stirred things they'd rather not think about. I want to cry with frustration. Because we have so much, we believe so little. There is no need. Our lives are crammed with things that entertain much, look lovely, taste yummy, suit us beautifully, pass time creatively and fixate us materially that we PERHAPS don't need and long for the kingdom of God to come in quite the same way as a naked, desperate, lonely, sick child.

I'm challenged to the core.

I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.

Missed'em

I have been involved in an adult training session all weekend, and as a result shared speaking at the main church service on evangelism in the context of the local church.

And I missed the children I work with! After the service I sought many of them out - that's not hard, head towards the tray of biscuits - to see some of them and chat to them. I really do love them and I miss them when I'm not there. Just as with my own biological kids.

I guess I'm in the right job.

I may have posted before that someone prophesied over me: "that you will save them from that which you went through". I was paralysed by fear when I was a child and I long that these children don't just exist as mini-Christians but that they develop apologetic skills, warrior intent and a disciple's heart!

A fellow SEVEN year old classmate asked my daughter why she loved God because, he said, he loved the devil. Winding her up or a statement of intent?? No matter what the intent behind that statement was - she's not just to stand but to stand strong :-)

Why?

Across the globe, AIDS is responsible for an increasing number of deaths each year. Of the estimated 2.8 million killed in 2005, around half a million were children aged below 15 years. At the end of 2005, an estimated 2.3 million children globally were living with HIV.
2006 Report on the Global Spread of Aids by the World Health Organisation.


I couldn't help myself - I spent an hour on the floor having a loud outburst to God. I was crying, sobbing uncontrollably and feeling anger, confusion. I was full of questions that aren't going away. I think I have managed to bury or put these questions aside before, but I can't seem to tonight.
Why do MILLIONS of children have to die of Aids? Why do I feel the pain of this? Why children? It's not their fault - they are innocents. Why such a slow, agonising death, for some of them? Why do so many of them have to die alone without a mum and a dad to hold them, because they have already passed away?

What does it mean to be an Esther, for such a time as this?