Gratitude

I’ve recently been reading Deeper Places Experiencing God in the Psalms. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16234349-deeper-places. This book is written by Matthew Jacoby, pastor at a Baptist church in Victoria and singer with the band Sons of Korah, http://www.sonsofkorah.com/ whose music is based on the psalms. I have greatly enjoyed it and found lots of helpful insights. One that was not new but is one I think we often need to be reminded of is about the attitude of gratitude and thankfulness for all God has done and continues to do for us each day. So this is a list of some of the things I am thankful for.

I am thankful to God for the many years my husband and I have had together and look forward to more to come. It’s a great blessing to be walking with God together, starting each day with prayer and learning from God’s Word together.

One of the things would have to be the area where we live. It is a beautiful area. Each day my husband and I give thanks that God has brought us here.  But on Christmas morning as well as remembering the gift of the birth of Jesus, God sent us this sunrise.

 

It felt like a special gift from God for that day.

I am also thankful for having family all together between Christmas and New Year. Yes, it was noisy, filled with laughter and chatter with all the grandchildren and six adults in our not so large house but it was also a lot of fun. I praise God too that our son and daughter are walking with the Lord and teaching their children His ways. What a blessing that is!

I am thankful for the church God called us to, a church where God’s word is faithfully preached and where we were made to feel welcome from the moment we set foot in the door on that first day. This year will see some big changes for our church in some areas and that is a little daunting but also exciting to see what God will do.

I am thankful for the beach close by and opportunities to go and walk along the beach and swim.

I have been swimming more since we moved here than ever in my life before.

I am thankful for good and lasting friendships from years ago that survive despite distance between us and also for those who have spring up and bloomed since we moved here. I’m thankful for writerly friends who are always prepared to help each other with knowledge and advice.

I praise God for the gift of music. My music taste is pretty eclectic and runs the gamut from 60s rock to opera, ballads from the 1940sand 1950s, jazz, gospel, hymns old and modern and a whole heap more. Just about anything that has words I can sing along with.

I am thankful for the colour blue. Of all God’s colours and I love colour, blue is my favourite. I love the changing blues of the sea which is sometimes a greenish blue or turquoise, and other times a greyish blue, the blue of the sky, and the blue of flowers.

No surprise to learn my study is blue and so are other walls in our house.  It’s a colour I wear a lot, in all shades but teal is a particular favourite.  Red and purple, pink and black are other favourite colours.

I am thankful to God for my eyesight and being able to see the wonders of God’s creation as well as being able to read the Bible and so many other books. I could keep going as there are so many things to be grateful to God for. After all I wouldn’t even be able to draw the next breath if it weren’t for God. I’m thankful that He guides, protects, and enables me in tasks He has called me to do and that He is with me each day.

So at the start of this New Year what are some of the things that you are thankful for and that make you especially grateful to God? Please share them with us.

Have Words Lost Their Power?

Living near the water is something I never dreamed would be on my husband’s and my horizon. Yet that is exactly what has happened. The reality is we spend quite a bit of time walking the beach.

 

 

 

 

Even on a grey morning around dawn, as it was when these photos were taken, I stand in awe and amazement. Not for creation itself, but in awe of the God who has made it all for us to enjoy. He is indeed an awesome creator God and that’s using awesome in the way it was meant to be used.
According to the dictionary awesome means ‘inspiring awe’ and awe, of course, has according to the dictionary again that element of ‘reverential fear or wonder.’  But that’s not the way I hear it used today. It seems to have passed into our common language and is used  a lot, but not exclusively, by young people, These days anything which is great or interesting is declared  'awesome.' The result is people end up describing anything from a pizza, a night out, a song, an artist, or a footballer as awesome. Every time I hear it I feel like cringing.

In Taking a Chance a novel  by Deborah Burrows, I am reading at present, one of characters says, ‘It’s words that can save the world Nellie, words that can make a real difference.’  I  agree.  But today is seems too often like words have lost that power and been devalued. Actually there seems to have been a lot of discussion lately in various places about the way words are being used.

I also started a book by an author I usually like, general fiction. The woman in the story asked what anniversary they were celebrating and the man replied. Not with, 'the first time we made love,' which would have sounded romantic and sensual.  He could even have said the first time they had sex but the author put the other crude f word in the character’s mouth.  I sounded crass and entirely unnecessary. It stopped me in my tracks. I eventually persisted for while longer but ended up not reading the book , not only for that reason but because it felt confused and I felt like I was wading my way through thick sludge.

Some words like that dreaded f word seem to be used these days prolifically. The words of Cole Porter’s song Anything Goes written well before I was born, around 1934 were prophetic saying,' ‘Authors that once knew better words now only use four letter words writing prose. Anything Goes.’ We are certainly seeing that these days.

On the other hand, I am currently reading a book God’s Panoply by Anne Hamilton and it deals a lot with words, not just English words but Hebrew and Greek words among others. I'm learning a lot. At times it even sends me looking up English words and one my dictionary didn’t even bother to include. I’d heard of subliminal but not liminal. Hands up any who can tell me the meaning of the word liminal?  Sad when the dictionary didn’t have it, though trusty Google came to the rescue and enlightened me.

It’s not always a bad thing to encounter unfamiliar words while reading. I would rather that than words which get used incorrectly are overused or that have lost their meaning.

As Christian writers, it is important that we think seriously about the words we use and how we use them. They have the power to change the world. Or they can just blend in so that we appear no different to the non Christian. It was something our guest speaker challenged us about at church this Sunday. Do our words reveal as us as children of the King? Are our words salt and light in a conversation? I might add, or on the page? Or do we just blend in with the world around us? It’s something for each of us to consider and with God’s help work through.

Dale writes fiction and poetry. Her latest novel Streets on a Map is currently available as an E book. She has also written children’s books, bible studies, Sunday school material, devotionals, and articles about marriage, home and Christian living. She is currently at work on a new novel, tentatively titled Sandstone Madonna.