Welcome

WELCOME


In 2017 I fulfilled a dream when I travelled through Scandinavia, and especially Norway. It was autumn and the trees (pines excepted) were dressed in yellow. Norway has a soft autumn without the brilliant hews seen in Canada and Japan. They captivated me. I chose as my logo a tree dressed in those Scandinavian autumn colours. My message is one of hope. Even in hard times I have found there is hope and a way through.

MY BLOGS 

I love to write, sketch and take photos, so my blogs will be like a patchwork of my life – experiences, places and insights with some references to my books and music. I hope each blog will bring joy, hope and maybe understanding of some of the more difficult places in life.



Popular posts from this blog

The Storm Bird

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    STORM BIRD      I often wondered why this blue- black bird received its name, the storm bird. From my observation, this very vocal bird called constantly, whether there was a storm or not, so it could not have been because it was heralding the approach of a storm.       One very stormy day we had four noisy storms pass through in quick succession. The final storm came as night was approaching and continued into the dark of night.      This storm, like the ones that had preceded it was very noisy with much thunder but every now and again there would be a lull when the thunder was silent and the rain eased. In the lull, I could hear the call of the storm bird.  When darkness fell all the birds were silent, tucked up in the thickest trees, sheltering and sleeping through the storm.      But not the storm bird. It kept singing in the dark, in the midst of the storm, so that in every lull, I could hear it singing.      There is a saying, ‘It’s not about waiting for the storm to pass but
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The Scent of the Storm

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The Scent of the Storm      Lightning bolts lit the night sky continually, accompanied by deafening, relentless thunder.      I was sitting on my lounge with my little dog, Hope, sitting and shivering on my lap. I had my windows and the door onto the back porch open. It had been a stifling hot day, so I was enjoying the coolness brought by the storm.      Then it hit! A lightning strike, so close that the thunder and the lightning strike seemed simultaneous. That was a bit too close for comfort.      Hope pressed in closer to me. I stood up to close the windows, but as I did so, the second strike hit. I could smell a scent like gunpowder when a rifle was fired. My dad was a hunter and I used to accompany him sometimes when he went on a shoot out in the bush. I remembered that smell from those hunting / shooting trips.      But I had never smelt it like this, in the midst of a storm. I was curious to find out what it was that I smelled - so googled, ‘Does lightning have a smell ?’ I fou
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The Journey begins Part 2

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The Journey begins Part 2 When did my writing journey for my book, ‘ Though the Storms Rage Yet Will I Dance',  begin? Was it 1964, when aged 17 I set myself four life goals? One of those goals was to write a book.      Was it 2013, when God impressed those four words, ‘dancing in the rain’, on my mind as they kept repeating themselves, while driving from my home to my daughter-in-law’s house. I asked God, ‘What are you telling me?’ and I knew that I was to write about my life’s storms and how I learnt to dance through them.   Or maybe, was it 2014 when a pastor at my church asked me, ‘Marion, does dancing in the rain mean anything to you?’ and I replied ‘Yes, that is the book God wants me to write.’ I had procrastinated for a year, until God gave me a gentle nudge and I commenced writing.   As I pondered how and what to write in this blog, I arrived at the realisation that: I couldn’t write about the loss of a child, till I had lost a child. I couldn’t write about rejection until
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THE JOURNEY BEGINS part 1

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Through the Open Door an Adventure Awaits and the Journey Begins We were all sitting respectably in our cubicle on the train. I impulsively began to stand and to cross the narrow aisle next to our seats so that I could open the old sash window and poke my head out.     Still in a half standing position but with a foot in the aisle, I barrelled into a guy making his way further down the carriage to his seat. While he struggled to stop leapfrogging over me, I looked up at him from my ungainly position. ‘Hello’.  Did I really just say that? ‘Hello’ – Surely ‘Sorry’ would have been a better word given the circumstance. Shoulders heaving; in fact, my whole body shaking, I plopped back down into my seat in a paroxysm of giggles. The other five in our cubicle (four of them total strangers) were by now in a not much better state than me. The ice was well and truly broken!     The Mary Valley Rattler, an old restored steam-train belched out some puffs of smoke, blew her whistle and our journey
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"Will you go wherever I ask you to go and do whatever I ask you to do?"

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"Will you go wherever I ask you to go and do whatever I ask you to do?" For 13 months I have been in extreme pain, unable to put more than a toes length in front of each foot. I was walking with a cane. It took me twenty minutes to get out of bed to go to the toilet. I remember when it all began. I was on a missions trip to the Philippines. I could get no relief in bed for no position or pillow would relieve my pain. Walking became difficult. Playing the keyboard was difficult. I prayed with people for healing and saw them healed. I was glad for them, I really was, but back in my hotel room I would plead with with God, "What about me, God please take this pain away." I had experienced healing for different things but this time it was as though God just wasn't listening to me. Then, 13 months later, 13 pain filled months later, in the night hours I felt God ask me this question, "Will you go wherever I ask you and do whatever I ask you to do?" In the da
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Rays in the Mist

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Rays in the Mist      Do you struggle with anxiety? I am sure we all do at times.      When Kola was going through chemotherapy and other treatments life was tough.  At the time, a friend quoted a text to me. It was, ‘  having done all then stand . ’ Ephesians 6:13.       There are two parts to that quote.      The first part says, ‘ having done all ’' so I set about doing all that I could to make life easier for my family.      I rostered jobs between us      Told friends not to contact me or come to us and let me do the contacting and asking because time and energy was in short supply.      The second part of that text says, ‘ then stand’ , so I stood close to my God, and He stood close to me.      While it was one of the worst times of my life it was also the best because of my deeper intimacy with my God. A paradox? Yes, but true none the less.      Not doing what God asks of us is sin.      I t was easy for me: not to commit adultery, not to steal, not to lie, etc.      It is
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