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READER’S
PAGE for April 2008
A friend of
mine, who I go to for guidance and direction on my very precarious spiritual
journey, suggested to me as I embarked on the reader’s course that I start a
Personal Journal.
The Personal
Journal is based on the idea that our personal and spiritual development
shouldn't depend on the need to always keep seeking out fresh new
experiences and resources, for we actually all already carry with us a
wealth of stuff - be it scriptural texts, poems, philosophical writings,
lines from songs, stories we've heard or told - which have been massive
influences on us in the past and can and will be again, if we keep reminding
ourselves of them and perhaps spend more time with them, revisiting them on
a deeper level.
So the
Personal journal is a notebook in which you gather together those
collections of words, which mean a lot to you. You can carry it around with
you and hopefully be enriched by the experience of spending good time with
it.
This sounded
like a good idea to me, I went out and bought a colourful covered book, and
began to fill it with some quotes, poems and other texts, which have meant a
lot to me over the years, how my journey through life through the good times
and the bad have been rooted in my faith, the reflections of the special
people and places that have enriched my life with words of encouragement
when I felt down are all recorded in my journal
I encourage
you to start your journal it is never to late, and in a few years time when
you look back you can recollect those things that were special to you at the
time.
Jane Smith
The other Sunday in church I
mentioned how the signs of Spring particularly illustrated the Resurrection
life in the run up to Easter. Even though Easter has now passed I will share
the thoughts with you again as the analogy sort of grew the more I
contemplated it.
The small clump of daffodils
in my front garden, were the first signs of Spring that I saw every morning.
From the bare, winter earth the first shoots broke through. Even on the
cold, frosty mornings yellow buds were becoming evident. They gave me great
pleasure as the bright, sunny days encouraged their growth. The daffodils,
like people, were all different. There were big, double ones with loads of
frilly petals, ordinary yellow ones, elegant cream ones and delicate, little
wild ones. Just before they came into full bloom I came home from work one
day and was dismayed to find that my daffodils were completely flattened and
hardly even visible.
They had become victims of
builder's feet and equipment as they worked on the repairs to a leaking
roof. In the bigger picture this was an essential-requisite to my-well-being
in the future. Reminding me that sometimes things happen that we don't
understand at the time and we only realise when looking back that God has
been working His good purposes out.
Back to the daffodils - I
did manage to salvage some buds that I put in water. Incidentally the little
ones were quite beyond rescue. (How we should nurture and protect our little
ones while we can.) Some buds needed a severe cutting down to size to allow
nourishment to flow into them. Some buds just stayed buds and dried up and
didn't reach any potential. And some buds flourished and revealed their full
intended beauty. What kind of daffodil will you be when your life becomes
hard and challenging? Remember a daily drink of living water leads, to a
flourishing and powerful resurrection life.
Jesus said, "I am come that
you might have life; life in all its abundance."
Chris Wilson
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