Tag: #garden

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Fridayfootprints – Friday 2nd February 2024

Our search for Heaven

As the jet turbines power me into the sky, I get a “God’s Eye’ view of the world below. A myriad of His creation hustle and bustle below as I survey the miracle of His work.

But am I closer to God?

Do I have to fly higher and higher to reach Him? And the higher I fly to get closer to Him, do I lose sight of the world below and become disconnected from the painful atrocities that humanity inflicts on itself?

Our Heaven is ‘at Hand’ – it is within our grasp, just reach out and touch it. Heaven is in the yellow blossoms of friendship and fellowship with our Lord and with all that exists around us! A gift of flowers from God.

Finding Heaven is about finding love. And in trying to find love we must learn how to love. If we can start to comprehend love, then we will get the barest inkling of the capacity of God to love and we will begin the journey of finding Heaven within us. His presence in our core is the closest to heaven we can get. When our soul understands love, heaven will be the softest cotton wool clouds that fill our being. It will be our security blanket basking in prayer and praise for a loving God.

‘For He so loved the world ….’ Thankfully!

Amen.

 

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Fridayfootprints – Friday 29th December 2023

Flowers within flowers within flowers.

Nature shows us the depths to which our faith needs to go. We need to look beyond the big picture and the mophead blossom. The multitude of ‘flowers’ that make up the head still have a miniature flower at its core.

Faith is not all that it would seem until we delve into the heart of its existence.

We start in believing and we go deeper in hope until we understand that faith is in accepting the miracle of Grace. A miracle of such profound proportions that it took a birth and a resurrection to bring it to fruition.

Time spent in communion with nature is time spent with the Holy Spirit. When we can grasp the full splendour of His creation, we get one footstep closer to understanding the miracle of Grace!

And so, as the year slowly winds down, let us spend some time in reflection, prayer and praise for all the Grace we have been granted throughout 2023 and we ask Lord, in your mercy grant us peace. Amen.

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Fridayfootprints – Friday 22nd December 2023

The silence in the stillness is a quiet that is filled with sounds.

When my soul seeks rest, it searches for the companionship of nature. To watch the clouds dance in their cottonwool waltz. To lower my face to the soil and smell the fragrances released by raindrops that beat on the ground. And to separate myself until I can hear the groans as a blossom slowly opens to reveal creation’s glory.

To stand alone in the field and feel the wind brush against my cheeks and to stretch out my arms and let the Holy Spirit raise me over the earth as if I am the lightest feather and the sights and sounds rise to meet me.

To be in fellowship with Him is to absorb the silence that nature offers. To separate ourselves from all that surrounds us to become a part of the spiritual world that is all around us.

I seek His presence where the forest faeries dwell as earthly angels, secure in their wilderness house. There, His silence comes alive. Every leaf quiver and dewdrop splash become part of a chorus of creation, accompanied by nature’s congregation.

Give in to the silence and hear His word.

He speaks in vibrations on the soul. He comes!

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Fridayfootprints – Friday 15th December 2023

garden faces
A multitude of faces.

A multitude of faces scan the evening sky.

As years and years have passed, patiently we wait with an upturned gaze. Our solace is in the gathering. In the fellowship and in the knowledge that we do not wait alone!

We wait in prayer, in praise and in all forms of worship. We plead and we cry out in anguish, yet still we wait.

There are times when our anticipation builds to fever pitch and then in others, our bodies reflect the despair that pervades us. But we wait!

Lord let not our gaze wander from your heavens lest we miss the signs. Let not our desperation lead us to search in other skies. Bless us with patience and forbearance and cover us with a blanket of your Grace so that we find comfort in the aloneness of our wilderness. May we find strength in the fellowship of your congregation and may the light of all the world’s candles mirror the stars of your heaven and gladden our souls.

We wait Lord, we await your coming! Advent – He comes.

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Fridayfootprints – Friday 24th November 2023

The anticipation of Advent is to catch a glimpse of Grace in the chalice of Holiness.

His presence is eternal and through the cycle of our worship, we can celebrate the promise of His coming and the chance to welcome Him into our wilderness.

The expectation that out of His birth, would come peace to all mankind is something that the world so sorely needs. To catch just a glimpse of His Grace through the shadows of war that darken the hearts of the world we must look for the chalice of holiness.

If we are not in search of the chalice, there can be no chance of Grace. And if we are in search of the chalice, then no other activity or conflict would matter.

As such Peace and Grace go hand in hand!

And the hands of the star that rises in the east hold the chalice of holiness. He is Coming!

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Fridayfootprints – Friday 17th November 2023

One glimpse of nature is to see praise pour out from creation’s choir!

Creation cannot but praise its creator. It sets the example and leads the way for humanity to follow.

These are the lessons to be found in the whispers, sights and sounds that abound in the wildernesses of our journey. As we let our footsteps follow the paths in nature, we are accompanied by creation and the Holy Spirit reveals the majesty of God’s works around us.

This is our inspiration. Our stimulus to burst into praise and glorify Him for the bounty that surrounds us.

May our souls be so filled with joy through our fellowship with Him that our mouths are opened in full voice as platelets of praise pour out.

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Fridayfootprints – Friday 3rd November 2023

Focus on Faith

Staying focused on the simplicity of faith is to cut out all the white noise that surrounds us.

The temptation to overcomplicate our faith is to allow our field of vision to wander and we lose sight of just how simple our faith should be.

Like buds on a stem, each element of our faith slowly unfolds, one after another.

The slow reveal, whisper upon whisper, one promise followed by the next, as word by word the gospel of the garden is revealed.

Creation’s testimony to Him. A “Hymn to Him” is sung by choirs from the treetops as the beat and rhythm of our faith waft away the morning mist and the pathways for our footsteps are readied for the journey.

One bud at a time. One word, one gospel written in the footprints of disciples bound by the simplicity of His Way and His Truth.

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27th October 2023

A soul-filling moment …!

An experience where all your spiritual stars are aligned and then without expectation, there is that supreme burst of joy that fills every cell of your body and leaves your heart tingling with indescribable peace and happiness.

Perhaps this is a St Francis moment?

A time when creation, through nature’s creatures, comes to take communion with our souls!

To experience the closeness of nature is to feel God as butterfly wings teasing the core of our existence.

To be in close proximity to the innocence of creation in its sights and sounds is to hear Him as His whispers flit through the hairs on our arms and the back of our neck.

The quick intake of breath at the sheer surprise of His presence, and the furtive glances just to check that we really are alone, as His eyes pierce through to see all that we are.

In the gardens of our wilderness, we find Him. Seek Him out in nature’s playground! Partake in the bounty of His Grace and His Harvest and in return, share from the abundance we have been blessed with. Praise Him Hallelujah!

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Fridayfootprints – Friday 20th October 2023

To be in fellowship with God ….

To be in such a close relationship that His royal cloak becomes ours. To be so at one with Him that the world around us ceases to exist.

To be Holy as He is Holy.

To shut out the travails of the world with its sicknesses of greed and power. To bar them from our existence and to grasp the hand that He has extended.

Each time we step into nature’s garden we take one step closer in our relationship with Him. To see the examples of His creation blossom, grow and bring glory to His name is to begin to understand His power and majesty.

As we find peace in the surroundings that creation offers, so we begin to get a glimpse of His grace. Within the sights and sounds of nature in Eden’s midst is the start of a journey to moving away from the world and closer to Him.

Such is His presence, that we long for His fellowship and we long to hear His whispers in our wilderness and that He may draw us closer and that His heavenly-hued cloak may envelop our being.

Lord, help me to be Holy as you are Holy. Protect my fragile peace as I journey closer to you. Amen.

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Fridayfootprints – Friday 13th September 2023

footprints – Friday 13 September 2023

There is a garden in our soul.

A place where blossoms bloom, birds flit amongst the branches and nature’s chorus greets the day.

In the centre of the garden stands a tree. Instead of bearing forbidden fruit, this tree has a fruit of a different nature.

Our garden is to be found at the base of this tree. An Eden in our wilderness. On its outstretched arms are the fruits of salvation, redemption, grace and forgiveness. The tree towers over a garden dressed in the full splendour of His covenant colours.

Our tears shed at the base of this tree are not of sorrow or anguish, but of exuberant praise where the garden in our souls is irrigated into eternity with rivered tears of joy. We join with the tree with outstretched arms and sing songs for angels’ ears.

In our Eden Garden, we walk on the paths where leaf-littered waters of our baptism lead us through the leaves of the gospel as each step echoes with the ripples of the whispered words of faith, hope and love.

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