Where is my Heart?

For my birthday last year, I thought it would be fun to have a high tea with my kids and mum. I enjoyed planning it and putting it together as much as the actual party - starting with trawling through op shops to find beautiful, mismatched tea cups. 

Miniature cheesecakes, fruit cups, tiny quiches, cucumber sandwiches, chocolate macarons, cupcakes topped with handmade fondant flowers, a table set with lace and glass serving displays. It looked and tasted as beautiful as I’d imagined. We dressed up, sipped (iced) tea in our delicate tea cups and shared a perfect afternoon tea. Bonus being two of my sisters had days off that day and could come too.

My kids loved it so much that they begged to have another one over the Christmas holidays. Remembering how special a time it was, I happily agreed. And then Christmas happened, and New Year and the craziness of getting ready for school and fitting in everything we’d planned on doing on the holidays, and somehow it got to the last few days and we still hadn’t had one. 

I was totally run down from being up what felt like half of every night with a teething toddler and not feeling all that great but couldn’t bear the thought of disappointing my kids. So, I threw a tea party together. In one afternoon. 

A few pastries and lamingtons on sale at Coles, some chocolate custard spooned into little glasses and topped with whipped cream, cucumber sandwiches, a tub of strawberries and a three-tiered cardboard display I found in the cupboard leftover from a party years ago. I didn’t even remember to pull out the teapot and cups until my daughter reminded me. 

No chocolate mousse cups, no special little cheesecakes, quiches or the tiny little ham and lettuce scrolls my older daughter loves which I'd planned on doing. I sat there, eating and laughing with my kids, taking silly photos, and feeling like a failure. I’d promised them a special tea party, and hadn’t even had the energy to make one thing myself. 

But as we were sitting there chatting, I asked (probably trying to make myself feel better by remembering my past success) which tea party they liked better, absolutely shocked when my daughter said – without even a thought – “this one!”

I couldn’t understand it. Sure, it was nice but it was nothing compared to my birthday one. I’d spent days preparing for that one. Put hours of effort into each bite. So, of course, I asked why. Her answer ripped through me. 

“Because we get you to ourselves at this one.”

She didn’t care whether I’d spent hours making fondant flower toppers or two seconds grabbing a box of pastries. It was the time spent with me which made this one special. I felt honoured and ridiculously challenged all at once. 

I love serving God. Really love it. I’ve been involved in lots of various ministries within the church over the years from youth leading to singing on a worship team to serving in a coffeeshop to helping abused women feel like they matter. It’s such a buzz and a privilege to be able to serve God with what he’s given me. 

But I wonder how many times I get so caught up in the buzz of serving that I forget why I’m doing it. I want everything to be perfect before I come to God, forgetting that it’s my presence he wants far more than my list of accomplishments. 

God wants our best, sure. He loves it when we give all we have to him. But he loves our presence the most. He’s not asking us to run ourselves ragged trying to put on a show for him. He simply wants our hearts. Our attention. 

It’s a real challenge for me to stop doing and just be. I feel like I have to prove to myself every minute of every day that what I’m doing is worth something. That I'm worth something. I want the things I care about to be perfect and therefore throw everything I have into what I do. And I don’t think there’s anything exactly wrong with that – until it distracts us from the point. Which is God. And people. 

My daughter didn’t need fancy food to make a tea party special, just my attention. That half hour (before my son decided chocolate custard was far more fun to paint with than eat) when I sat down with them and focused on nothing and no one else but them. No lists, no cleaning, no cooking, no running around trying to get everything done or accidentally ignoring them while I chatted to someone else – just being there. 

God loves your service but he loves your attention even more. In all your running about serving, don’t forget the reason you’re doing it. Because God loved you first. And he can’t wait to sit down – everything else aside – and spend time with you.

My Something

I watched a movie with my girls on the weekend called Ballerina. It’s about a girl who escapes from an orphanage with her best friend to go to Paris and make her dream of becoming a ballerina come true. Such a beautiful movie! Along the way, she has a mentor/teacher who asks her over and over why she wants to be a ballerina. She gets a little frustrated with both the mentor and the question, answering each time that it’s because she loves it. It isn’t till the end that she realizes the truth – that dancing isn’t just something she loves, it’s who she is. How she connects with the world. That it’s as much a part of her as breathing. 

I’ve been asking myself a lot lately why I write. The main character in the novel I’m currently working on is a lot more complex than I originally thought and is causing me no small amount of frustration. I wrote the first draft of the first book in this series – her friend’s story – in two months. This one has taken over eighteen months already and been a struggle the whole way along. I’ve cut tens of thousands of words from it and restarted the whole thing five times. I’ve wondered more times than I’d care to count why I’m bothering. Why am I putting myself through this stress? Why do I put aside other things I could be doing (sleep being pretty high on the list!) to write?

For a long time, I’ve answered pretty much like that ballerina – because I love it. Because there’s something about creating characters and getting lost in their stories which invigorates me. Of course, that answer doesn’t really cut it when I’m so angry with the story and its characters that I’m ready to throw it in the bin and happily walk away. And yet, I haven’t (yet :p). Because there’s more to it than that. 

I found the answer as I was reading my Bible a few weeks ago.

Acts 4:20. “As for us, there’s no question – we can’t keep quiet about what we’ve seen and heard.”

Peter and John, disciples of Jesus, knew what it was like to face opposition. I fight with characters in my imagination. They stood up to people with the power to kill them. In this chapter, they’d been hauled once again before the law of the time and threatened with prison or worse if they didn’t stop telling everyone about Jesus. And yet, they didn’t stop. Because they couldn’t. Because God had placed a message in them which they couldn’t keep silent about. 

I love writing, sure, but the reason I keep at it on those days when it hurts is because God’s put in me a message I have to tell. Sure, it comes out in different ways through various characters’ lives but the message is always the same – because of God, there is hope, and what we see now is not the end. 

I found another verse this morning which confirmed it again. It’s in 1 Corinthians 12, where Paul is talking about spiritual gifts. I love the way The Message puts verse seven: “Each person is given something to do that shows who God is.”

Writing is my something. One of the ways I can show others who God is. His character. His love. His grace. The hope that comes through knowing him.

So, as I head back to battling this headstrong character of mine and trying to finally finish the first draft of her story, I’m asking you, what’s your something? Why do you do what you do? What gifts has God given you which show others who he is? 

Praying God gives you the courage this week to use them. Just like God needs me and my stories, he’s needs you and your gifts. 

Fight Like a Warrior

I’ve been challenged a lot about prayer lately and the way I pray. It’s been one of those things which keeps coming up without me even really looking for it. First, a series of YA fiction books I read turned out to be based on the spiritual battles going on around us and the power we have through prayer to change things. Then a devotional I was doing worked its way through prayer and different prayers in the Bible, which led to me watching the movie, War Room (which, while corny in parts, is an incredibly powerful movie and one I’d highly recommend). Then there was the lesson God’s been teaching me about simply asking (see my last post for that one).

Whether or not we feel it, there is a battle going on around us. In the past few months, I’ve been more aware of it than ever. But alongside the battle, I’ve been aware of my part in it and the fact that God has given us the power, through Jesus, to fight in it.

One of the most powerful prayers I’ve ever heard prayed was by an elderly man the week before he died. The visit was precious but tough, knowing how close he was to leaving earth forever. He struggled to remember our names and phased in and out of consciousness. He barely had the strength to sit in his chair. But as we were leaving, he asked to pray with us. And suddenly, his words were strong. He might not have remembered our names, but he knew God. He prayed for us – my mum and me – and the wider church. He prayed using Bible verses and the words of an old hymn.

Those verses were so strongly settled in him that they bypassed his failing memory and came straight from his heart.

I want that. I want God’s word and truth to be the first weapon I pick up. I want to be able to fight with them, believing the power they have. I can pray my own prayers from my heart, and I know God loves that, but there’s something so powerful about speaking aloud God’s word. Claiming word for word his promises.

There are a lot of things I can’t do – heal people, change other's attitudes, be in more than one place at a time, embrace people I don't know who are hurting, be an actual soldier – but there is one thing I can do and that’s pray. And know that those prayers are making a difference.

I don’t know what you believe or know about prayer. Maybe you spend hours a day waging war against the supernatural, maybe you grew up reciting the Lord’s Prayer and never considered praying anything else, maybe you’ve given up on prayer altogether. Whatever you believe, know this, there is power in prayer. Whether you claim God’s promises in faith or timidly come asking hoping it to be true, God hears you and what you say makes a difference.

I mentioned the movie, War Room. The final song in it sums up pretty well both the challenge and privilege we have in praying. I hope you take the time to listen to it but more, I hope you find in it the encouragement to not give up hope. The greatest thing about this battle we’re fighting in is that we’ve already won.

Warrior - Steven Curtis Chapman

I see the smoke on the horizon.

I feel my heart pounding in my chest. 
I hear the war raging all around me. 
And somehow I feel like I was born for this. 
I can taste the fear, but I choose courage 
As I raise my shield and lift my sword.


And I fall on my knees and I fight like a warrior 
I am a warrior on my knees. 
I call on the Name of the One Who is Conqueror 
I'm more than a conqueror when I believe. 
The enemy trembles every time 
'Cause he knows the battle is no longer mine 
When I fall on my knees and I fight like a warrior

Daughters and sons, we can hear your calling 
Broken and weak, we can hear your cry 
And even though our enemy roars like a lion, 
The Lion of Judah is on our side. 
And He will go before us and behind us 
Fighting on the left and on the right


Our weapons are trust, our weapons are hope 
In the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords 
He says, "I am with you so don't be afraid, 
'Cause I've already won this war." 
So fall on your knees and fight with me, 
We are the Warriors when we are on our knees 
The enemy trembles...

Should Have Asked for More

When I was little, I remember my dad occasionally leaving notes on my mum’s shopping list. ‘I love you’, ‘you’re sweet’ and such. He probably still does. Shopping for a family of twelve, you can imagine Mum’s list is pretty organised and detailed. It’s actually an A4 sheet with all the things she tends to buy split up into the aisles they’re located so she only has to go through and circle what we need that particular shop. Anything extra is written on the sides, so a handwritten note tends to stick out.

I found her list sitting on the bench one day in my early teens and thought it would be fun to leave my own notes. So, at random places amongst plain flour, bananas and washing powder, I wrote ‘I love you’s. And then also put a nice thick circle around ‘chocolate bars’ and wrote Cherry Ripe beside it, no doubt with a smiley face. I knew Mum would know it was me. My writing is very different from hers and anyone else’s in the family. I also didn’t think she’d actually buy one.

But she did. I came home from school that day to find a big Cherry Ripe sitting on the bench waiting for me. I was pretty shocked, and felt incredibly guilty, much as I probably enjoyed eating it. Keeping in mind, I have nine siblings and none of them got one…

I mentioned that memory to my mum the other day as we were buying Cherry Ripes for a cheesecake, telling her how guilty I’d felt accidentally asking for a Cherry Ripe. She laughed and commented that I should have asked for more.

I probably should have, knowing how incredibly generous my parents are. Not that they gave us whatever we wanted growing up (thankfully!) but Mum’s one of those amazing people who knows just what will make people feel special – like what all her kids’ favourite chocolates/flavour coffees are. Not to say I should have asked for a car or something but I could have been a lot more creative than a chocolate bar. (Two chocolate bars! :p)

I limit God a lot like that too, far more than I should. I timidly come forward, asking him for something all the while feeling guilty for asking because it’s so inconsequential. Or I sort my prayers into level of importance, putting limits on how many he can answer.

God, much as I’d love to get rid of this pain, [this person]’s salvation is so much more important. And [this friend] really needs their house to sell, and could you please heal [this other friend] because their pain is really affecting their life and please, can you find me an agent for my book? (Oh, boy, that’s a lot of miracles I’m asking for…) God, if you could just answer one, could you please, please, please bring [this person] to you because it just breaks me watching them live day by day without you. I’d take that over healing or a book contract any day. Oh, and tomorrow is… actually, don’t worry about that. It’s not that important.

And so on. As if God can only answer one prayer. As if he qualifies some prayers as more important than others. As if he’s not the loving Father who can’t wait to have us ask for something impossible so he can prove just how big he is.

Here's the truth: God is sooooo much bigger than we can imagine and his power even greater than that. He loves to do the impossible and really is waiting for us to ask for it so he can prove it. Nothing is too hard for him nor any prayer too big. He could answer every single one of those ‘big miracle’ prayers of mine in an instant without even breaking a sweat.

My challenge is to stop making him human and let him be God. Stop feeling guilty for asking what he’s just waiting to bless me with. Because God is big, and powerful, and definitely not limited by our human minds or laws.

What big or little things are you too timid to ask for? Go on, ask away! You'll never know what the answer will be if you don't have the courage to ask. 

Hebrews 4:14-16 

Now that we know what we have—Jesus, this great High Priest with ready access to God—let’s not let it slip through our fingers. We don’t have a priest who is out of touch with our reality. He’s been through weakness and testing, experienced it all—all but the sin. So let’s walk right up to him and get what he is so ready to give. Take the mercy, accept the help.