Image from here

Curiouser and curiouser – today I went to the physio, and he told me that I have not one disc bulge, but four – ahem, I had thought that this was going to be easy to remedy the disc bulge, but four of them are going to be a trifle more difficult. The posterior (bulging backward) disc bulges that I have are L2, L3 and L5, while the anterior (bulging forward) disc bulge is L4.

At the moment, the physio has given me one exercise – lying face down with three pillows under my tummy. Treatment consists of ultrasound once a week, with hot wheat packs in between to ease the inflammation. On my visit today he said that we will continue on the road that we are on until the muscle pain settles, and then we are going to have to go the opposite way to try and heal the posterior disc bulges.

It seems that when I fell down the cellar steps, I really did a ‘good’ job of hurting my back. Little things, such as putting the nebuliser into the boot of the car bring on intense pain;  it’s not until you I do something, and it causes intense pain that I realise how much damage I have done.

One thing that I do know, and that is that God allows certain illnesses to happen for His glory.

And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth.
And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?
Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him. John 9: 1-3

I need to have a voice of thanksgiving, but this is not easy unless I draw on God’s strength, and then, and only then will He give order and meaning to my life. I need to draw on God’s strength, and know that His grace is sufficient for me. We are told to glory in our infirmities, and that God will use the weaker vessel for His glory – that’s me!

And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong. 2 Corinthians 12: 9, 10

Lord, I am willing to be used for Your purpose – take me, use me, mould me, shape me to achieve your purposes here on earth! I need to remember that God works all things together for our good, and I need to give Him my thanks, no matter what happens, even if I don’t understand the “why” right now. Trusting God means that I am not drawing on my own understanding, for it is not for me to understand – God is our omniscient (all-knowing) Creator God, and I lay my life in His hands.

Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. Proverbs 3:5

Bible Verses Used

John 3:16Philippians 2:6-8


John 14: 1-4

John 3:16 underpins everything that happened to Jesus – the Cross, the crucifixion and the empty tomb. We are the “why” that happened. Jesus died for You! When Jesus stood before Pilate, He said,

For this reason I was born.

You could substitute your own name for “this reason“, and maybe then you would realise how important you are to Jesus. What was behind the extraordinary reason? You were! Jesus left everything that He had in heaven, just for you. It was all for You!

He was crucified for you, the stone was rolled away from the tomb for you, and when the stone was rolled away, it showed Jesus’ love for You. Regardless of who you are or what you’ve done, Jesus died for You!

You could be the most despicable, vilest, most hateful person and yet, He died for You. You are no less important to Jesus than anyone else. He died for the world. The flash houses of today would look like ramshackle beach shacks compared with what Jesus left behind when He came to earth.

Dr Maxwell Maltz was a renowned plastic surgeon, and He saw a woman whose husband was severely disfigured in a house fire trying to rescue his parents. The husband’s face was horribly disfigured, but he refused Dr. Maltz’s offer to help restore him to some degree of normality. His wife came back to see Dr Maltz, and he was surprised because he knew that her husband had refused his help previously. This time she asked Dr Maltz how much it would cost for him to disfigure her face like her husband’s, so that her husband would let her back into his life. Jesus was severely and callously beaten for us, tortured with the Crown of Thorns, flogged, mocked, spat upon and hanged upon the Cross at Golgotha where He endured the agony of the Cross for You, and all that He wants is to be allowed into your life.

The Cross is a universal symbol of Christianity, and yet we would never wear a guillotine around our neck, but we proudly wear the Cross which was the ultimate persecution that Jesus endured just for You! How did a symbol of torture become something of beauty?

The arms of the Cross show:~

Horizontal Band – The Breadth and Length of God’s Love

Vertical Band – The Depth and Height of God’s Love

The resurrection of Jesus Christ shows God’s Love for You! Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”

Heavenly Father, I thank you for the gift of Your love.

Jesus, You showed us Your love through the Cross, the empty tomb and Your scarred body.

I pray that you unshakeably take hold of God’s Love for You.

If
I happened to show up on your door step
Crying,

Would
You Care?

If
I called you and asked you to pick me up
Because something Happened,

Would
You come?

If
I had one day left, to live my
Life;

Would
You be part of That
Last
Day?

If
I needed a shoulder to cry
On,

Would
You give me Yours?

Do
You know what the relationship is between
Your two eyes? They blink together, they
Move together, they cry together,
They see things together and they
Sleep together,

BUT
THEY NEVER SEE EACH
OTHER…

that’s
What friendship is.

Life
Is lonely
Without FRIENDS.

What does God’s Word say about friendship?

This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.
Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.
Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you. John 15: 13-15

Jesus lay down His life for His friends (us) – I wonder how many of us, me included, could say the same thing. How many of our friends would we be willing to lay down our life for? Yet, Jesus sets the precedent, and tells us that we need to love one another as He has loved us, and that we are His friends if we do whatever He commands us to do. His command to us is to

“LOVE ONE ANOTHER”

This was an email that I received from a very close friend of mine, and I nearly cried when I read it – my Jesus endured all this for me, a worthless sinner, and I feel so blessed. This is why we celebrate Easter!

At the age of 33, Jesus was condemned to the death penalty.

At the time crucifixion was the “worst” death. Only the worst criminals were condemned to be crucified. Yet it was even more dreadful for Jesus, because unlike other criminals condemned to death by crucifixion Jesus was to be nailed to the cross by His hands and feet.

Each nail was 6 to 8 inches long.

The nails were driven into His wrist.  Not into His palms as is commonly portrayed. There’s a tendon in the wrist that extends to the shoulder.  The Roman guards knew that when the nails were being hammered into the wrist that tendon would tear and break, forcing Jesus to use His back muscles to support himself so that He could breathe.

Both of His feet were nailed together.  Thus He was forced to support Himself on the single nail that impaled His feet to the cross.  Jesus could not support himself with His legs because of the pain, so He was forced to alternate between arching His back then using his legs just to continue to breathe.  Imagine the struggle, the pain, the suffering and the courage.

Jesus endured this reality for over 3 hours.

Yes, over 3 hours! Can you imagine this kind of suffering?  A few minutes before He died, Jesus stopped bleeding.

He was simply pouring water from his wounds.

From common images we see wounds to His hands and feet and even the spear wound to His side.  But do we realise His wounds were actually made in His body.  A hammer driving large nails through the wrist, the feet overlapped and an even larger nail hammered through the arches, then a Roman guard piercing His side with a spear.   But before the nails and the spear, Jesus was whipped and beaten.  The whipping was so severe that it tore the flesh from His body.  The beating so horrific that His face was torn and his beard ripped from His face.  The crown of thorns cut deeply into His scalp.  Most men would not have survived this torture.

He had no more blood to bleed out, only water poured from His wounds.

The human adult body contains about 5 litres of blood.

All these without mentioning the humiliation He passed after carrying his own cross for almost 2 kilometres, while the crowd spat in His face and threw stones (the cross was almost 30 kg of weight, only for its higher part, where his hands were nailed).

Accept the reality, the truth that JESUS IS THE ONLY SALVATION FOR THE WORLD.

God has plans for you – think about what He experienced to save you. May God bless your life richly!

This is a card that I made for my friend, Gwenda, and it has symbolism within the design of the card. The red symbolises the blood of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ; the black symbolises our sin prior to His death on the Cross and the white represents the righteousness of the Saints, which is only received through God’s grace and Jesus shed blood on the Cross of Calvary.

Do we celebrate Easter? Well, I know that Easter has long been associated with Ishtar, the goddess of fertility, but we don’t worship her in our home. We worship the one true God, the one who died on the Cross so that we could have everlasting forgiveness of our sins. There was to be no more sacrifice, as the Lamb of God takes away the sin of the world.

Easter has been associated with many things – Easter eggs and hot cross buns, but we need to remember the true reason for Easter, and that is the love that God had for us in sending His Son to be the substitutionary sacrifice for us all. It’s not about furry bunnies, Easter eggs or hot cross buns.

Easter is defined by Merriam Webster’s Online Dictionary as:

• A feast that commemorates Christ’s resurrection and is observed with variations of date due to different calendars on the first Sunday after the paschal full moon.

While the Collins Concise Dictionary that we have at home defines Easter as:

• A festival of the Christian church commemorating the Resurrection of Christ: falls on the Sunday following the first full moon after the vernal equinox.

And World Book Encyclopaedia defines Easter as being:

• The most important Christian festival of the year. Easter celebrates the return to life of Jesus Christ, the founder of Christianity, after His Crucifixion.

Jesus came to give us life and that we might have it more abundantly (John10:10), and it is only through our faith in Jesus Christ that we receive this free gift of eternal life. Christ’s death and resurrection is the message that we should be sending to our friends and loved ones, and it should be His death and resurrection that we celebrate, knowing the love that our heavenly Father has for us.

Has anyone noticed a very definite chill in the air? ‘Tis only autumn here,  but already I have a long sleeved blouse, pink woollen jacket, a heavy corded jacket, long skirt and socks – I know, not a good look, but socks are delightfully warm.

The skies are a bleak, dismal, grey, but praise God, for with the grey clouds come the rain, and we have had about 13 millimetres (over half an inch) – wahoo! The temperature here has dropped dramatically during the last couple of days, and I fear that we’re in for a long, cold winter.

In South Australia, the whole state stops just for the Adelaide Cup, which is a horse racing meeting. Fancy that – fancy stopping just for a horse race! Preposterous! Utterly absurd! Think what effect that this holiday is having on our state’s economy.

Do we stop homeschooling for the day? Nope, we’re not stopping our lives for a horse race. Our homeschooling day is happening just as usual – maths, English, Bible, social studies, science and computer. What about you – do you take the holidays as they come, or perhaps only some of them? Are you strongly opinionated about some of the holidays, or don’t you care either way?