Tag Archives: Jesus Christ

Bible verses about time management: how to schedule your time

Our earthly stopover is significantly shorter than we are inclined to think. Hence, time management is vital because we are so busy. Psalm 39:4–5 points out, “You have made my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing before you. Each man’s life is but a breath”. 

I specifically want to address today what the bible says about time management to help you get your life back on track.

Moses prays, Psalm 90:12. “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom” Maybe that should be our prayer as well. 

Ecclesiastes 3:11 shows that our Creator has set eternity in our heart, and we will one day give an account to the God who gifts us with precious time on earth.

Let’s turn to the new testament, where the apostle James writes, “You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes” James 4:14. Indeed, our time on earth is transitory—in fact, it is tiny compared to eternity.

To live as God would have us live, we must make the best possible use of our allotted time, and that is why we should manage our time wisely.

The Importance of Scheduling your Time.

I hear time and time again from people that they have never been so busy since they retired. We can be fooled into thinking that you have a lot more time because now that you are retired, you are less likely to stick to a routine or schedule. If you don’t value your time, others will intrude upon your time, routine, or plans.

Last year a friend in her retirement bought a dog for the first time. Although she looked forward to being a dog owner for many years, now retired, she has the time and energy to devote to a pet. For the first few months, she was able to enjoy the little pup, pamper it and take it for daily walks- she loved it! Because she was now retired, family and friends wanted her to do things for them, and she helped out when she was asked. Her days became filled to the brim, and she hardly was ever home. She found those precious moments of pleasure with her dog became less and less, and the poor little thing now has become a burden. Why? Because she has allowed others to reschedule her schedule. She has allowed other people to intrude on her precious time and manage her diary for her.

Does any of this sound familiar to you? If someone in your life keeps wanting you to do stuff for them and if you say ‘no’, they impose a guilt trip on you, so you end up doing it anyway. Maybe you feel you need to say ‘yes to family or friends even when you don’t want to just keep happy, because of the fear that you might lose them. My friend did have all the time in the world; however, now she does not. Others have taken a little piece of her time, at a piece at a time, and then one day, she had no time to spend how she would like. 

Time is Precious.

Time is precious; your time is precious. During the numerous COVID-19 lockdowns, we seemed to have all the time in the world. We no longer needed to travel to work and were less likely to visit with family and friends. 

However, things like social media, zoom, skype, facetime, messenger video, WhatsApp, telephone, not to mention the telly, distract us from getting on with what we should. So, unwittingly, we allow these applications to schedule our diary and rearrange our plans. I battle with getting distracted, so I ensure that I stick to my diary the best possible. 

 For the retired who are reading this, find the creative you. Say ‘no’ to unwanted demands on your time and stick to it. Turn off that TV and try learning a new craft; there is a lot available to enjoy.

 Get outside, enjoy your garden, neighbourhood or pets, and breathe in the fresh air. Exercise your brain by learning a new language or doing puzzles. Get to know your computer a little bit better – we never use it to its total capacity. 

Write your memoirs as a legacy to your family. Then, whatever you choose to do, allow your time to be your time and keep it under your control, and not someone else’s. Liberate yourself, don’t submit yourself to the whims, fancies or demands of anyone else.

I come across far too many retired people who are so exhausted. They no longer enjoy their lives because they are always running around fulfilling duties to keep others happy. If your family or friends will only contact you because of what you can do for them, I would question the quality of that relationship. 

I am sure you are not a person who uses their loved ones for their own ends, and it is difficult to understand why they do that. But they often do; their attitude is – if you scratch my back, I will scratch yours. However, this is not the way a relationship should be. I hear people say how drained and used up they feel after running around after other people’s demands in my counselling profession.

So, what can be done? Here are 5 tips to get you started.

1. Ask God to help you formulate a weekly schedule.

2. Keep a strict diary.

3. Stick to as far as reasonable to the plan.

4. First thing in the morning, look over your schedule.

5. The last thing at night, review your day and ask yourself what the best part of your day was?

Be careful not to book yourself up to the hilt; leave a little time so you can be flexible for unexpected events. 

Whatever the challenges you may have, feel the feelings, work through them, and give them over to God, giving thanks in every situation. Leaving every result to God. Then you will be able to sleep peacefully without worry.

Use Your Diary

Don’t cancel that nice river walk with your puppy like my friends did to fit someone’s timeslot unless it is urgent and cannot be avoided. When someone wants you to do something for them, develop the habit to check your diary first. If what is asked of you is inconvenient, then offer other times and dates. This shows them that you value yourself and your time. Do not just have a quick knee-jerk reaction and wipe your schedule to fit in with someone else’s. I have done this for too many years, and I know it causes stress and burnout, and I do not want that for you.

Be strong and consistent, and you will find that your time will not be slipping through your fingers. 

What method do you use to manage your time? Let me know, and I would love to hear from you in our comments section below. 

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 HOW to RENEW your Faith to CHANGE YOUR life.

Suffering and loss are hard to bear. As believers, when we go through these times, it is natural to question God. The patriarchs of the Bible certainly did. King David wrote many of the Psalms full of questions about what God is doing and why. However, it is worthy to note that David did not leave it there. He just did not complain and complain. No, when David complained, but ALWAYS ended in a statement of faith or praise.

It is not a sin to question. On the contrary, it is healthy to do so. God has not called us to unquestioning slavery but to living faith and freedom. If we are free, we can question. However, having said that, we cannot or should not ‘demand’ answers. God in his mercy may give us the answers but may not. When we love God and give our lives to him, we put him in control and make that choice. So, we choose for God to decide to answer us or not. After all, our Creator knows what is best for us, and maybe the silence of God in the short term may be precisely what is needed at the time. Maybe we need to learn to persevere or stay faithful even when we think God is not here.

You see, our growth as Christians is so significant to God. When my children were babies, I did everything to help them thrive because to keep them as babies would be a selfish and heinous act. So, it is with God our Father. It would be a heinous crime if God kept us as babies; we would never grow up in the faith if he did.

 God calls us to ‘give’ our mind, body, and soul to him to have the throne of our heart. We ask him to rule our emotions, thoughts, and overthrow anything that is not pleasing to him. This is the love of God- who gives us a choice.

 As for me- me and my household will serve the Lord.

The Problem of Suffering

If you’re not taught to endure Suffering, failures, losses when young, you may never learn it. Those who don’t learn it check out of life, addictions etc., etc. We need to accept that Suffering is part of life, and it’s not God who causes it. Yet, our culture does not embrace Suffering but rails against it. We develop a worldview that is primarily for our comfort.

Philippians 3:10 King James Version (KJV) That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death.

The person who trusts the Creator no matter what an absolute assault on the worldview is that culture imposes upon us. Because it is a different way of thinking and living. Liberalism is called the calculative mind and does not liberate us but binds us to our senses. The Bible calls it the ‘mind of the flesh, and the apostle Paul calls it the ‘old man’. The egocentric mind interprets everything in the sense of personal advantage, which usually has a short-term effect. It says what’s in it for me, how would this situation be to my advantage what can I get out of it. In contrast, the person who trusts in the Lord says- what is in this for those I need to help- how can I do for others.

If you read everything from the small secular worldview and read everything methodically, you will not see things in a new way. Jesus teaches us a different way of seeing, perspective, advantage points, and a different starting point. Einstein said that the problem cannot be solved by the same mind/ or consciousness that caused it. It reads everything about personal advantage and cause and effect -we need to be bigger than that.

The Power of Contemplative Prayer

The word contemplation became popular through the works of Thomas Merton, which is reasonably recent. In the fifth 50s and 60s. A lot of people use the word meditation which is more or less the same thing. The word that most Christians are familiar with is the word prayer. But the word prayer has a different connotation to us here in the West than in the East where it originated from. In the West, prayer became something functional, something that produced an effect. It became – what’s in it for me! This is due to the idea that the ego is the centre of their universe. For example-

 It’s all about me. 

If I get offended, I’ll sue somebody. 

If someone hurts me, I’ll take revenge. 

If I don’t get what I want, I only react in some way.

If I can’t resolve the conflict ill just cut the people off. 

If someone has something that I want, I go out and get myself in debt to better it.

Western culture has taught us that – it’s All about me, the egocentric me. 

Sadly, this attitude has overlapped Christianity in a big way. So, when giving the Lord our all, we don’t know how to or even desire to.

Individualism rules and reigns in Christianity in the West, but this is not what Jesus intended, and it’s certainly not what he taught. As soon as you make prayer an exercise to get something, it puts you in charge. However, Jesus does say ask, and it will be given. We must be aware that this is from a humble and obedient submissive attitude towards Jesus Christ in the first place. This is nothing new it’s the same overall old mind or consciousness. How can I get God to do what I want him to do?

In their thinking, most people approach prayer with the attitude of-   I will try to get what I want from God. 

 However, this is not the way of faith- It is the way of the world. Worldly values have always been there but just manifests themselves differently according to popular culture at the time. In this way, instead of being a transformed mind or consciousness, we remain egocentric and try to manipulate God and everyone else and think we did okay. 

That’s why Christianity is in dire straits today because it’s not transforming people as the Bible clearly states that it should and does. It’s just giving people a form of religiosity to be in charge and control. It is still the ego/natural/fleshly/false self. Change begins with our choice- if we choose to allow God to change us- it will happen. 

Transforming not Conforming

What Jesus always talked about was the transformed self (John 3). The apostle Paul uses that beautiful phrase, it’s no longer their lives; Christ lives in me. It’s a different I; it’s a different sense of self. So, saying it’s not my ego-self or my false self that lives but Christ who lives in my true self. It is not my egocentric self that lives Christ that lives within my true redeemed self. As long as you’re operating from the egocentric will, you’ll never be free, and meditation/ contemplation would be almost impossible to maintain. 

The Problem with Religion

The ego-self can be pious, religious, theologically sound, and may even be a church leader somehow, but never totally free because operating in the small self. The result? Religion has always performed two very important but two very different functions. I am not talking about being a follower of Christ- but I am pointing out the problem with ‘religion’, which is very different.

1) Religion creates meaning by offering mixed tales, stories, narratives, questionable truths, laborious rituals, and revivals used together, gives some sort of meaning and purpose.

That’s okay, that’s how you get started; you’ve got to have an ego to get rid of one, and you have to have the self to move beyond the self.

2) Religion puts you on the hamster wheel of ritual and approval- a never-ending cycle.

There are many religious, moral, dedicated people with good upright values – however- most people do not go beyond that. There is no transformation of self.

This kind of religion does not raise or transform a person’s consciousness; it does not deliver true freedom where one can let go and let God. This type of religion does not transform or fully satisfy the true self. On the contrary, it fortifies the self, comforts the self, and even deceives this true self into thinking, you are okay – I’m okay.

Whereas underneath, there is this innate dissatisfaction, unrest and yearning for something more and not knowing what it is. Christianity is the best thing in the world and the worst in the world. Why? Religious people think they are always correct, and they start from that vantage point. When one thinks one is right, they become narrow-minded, intolerant of others and egocentric.

With egocentric people, it is difficult to get to know them because the ego is so sure that they are correct and will protect their point of view at any cost, even the cost of hurting others, and that’s where spiritual abuse occurs, and that is why I wrote a Master of Art Thesis on that subject as it’s so common in the churches- but that’s another subject. 

I will make my Thesis available on this website at a small cost- you can download it. It will be available here on this site by December 2021.

 The danger is that the egocentric self is warm and fed and thinks it is correct, so they are convinced they are saved. But what does save mean?

 Most people think that being saved is a ticket to heaven. Something that is not here now but will come one day. It’s always in the future. It’s by the sweet by and by. If I am religious enough, good enough, say the sinner’s prayer, and I do the right thing, then I’ll get to heaven, and that means that I’ll be saved. Does it?

This point of view comes from a punishment and reward system. If I play the game right, I will be rewarded. It is about the works that I can do, and God will be pleased, and I’ll get into heaven. And that point of view has absolutely nothing to do with transformation, absolutely nothing to do with the teachings of Jesus Christ. This, unfortunately, is most Christians point of view, but Jesus had something completely different in his mind when he spoke to Nicodemus, and we read in John chapter 3. So please turn to it and read the whole chapter.

Through contemplative prayer/meditation, we come into fellowship with God and not in fellowship with our own ego. We learn to be patient, wait upon the Lord to renew our strength, mount up with wings of eagles, and then and only then will we run and not be weary and then only then will we walk and not be faint. So, waiting upon the Lord, confessing our sins, and repenting (turning away from sin) is the basis of our contemplation and transformation.

 God is in the business of transforming you because he loves you. It starts with the renewing of your mind in Christ Jesus. Mindful contemplation is a life’s style that will help with this, and therefore this website exists.

 Romans 12:2 New International Version

Do not conform to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is–his good, pleasing, and perfect will.

( you may QUOTE any part of this article however, PLEASE correctly CITE any material used- thank you)

Just to Update You–

25 years ago, I wrote 2 books when I lived in the USA. In 2021 I wrote 2 more which are available in Amazon. I am working on another about Holistic Living, which features Mindfulness and Faith which will be published and made available to you in 2022– – so keep a lookout for that!

If you struggle to make self-care a priority or do not know how to start your mindfulness journey, check out my course, available on Udemy, and very soon available on www.moonrosemindfulness.com.

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How to Reduce Your Stress

One of the blights of humanity is frustration. We get frustrated when we don’t get what we want or what we think we deserve. It seems that we’re a living contradiction. We really are our own worst enemy, working at cross purposes against our own best interest. We want meaning, purpose, and peace of mind, but we aren’t ready to strive or sacrifice for it. Why? Because human beings are forever seeking that kind of thing through enjoyment, which is temporal by nature. 

 Pleasure is a good thing, and we need to have some fun; however, it’s not the be-all, end-all that we imagine it to be, and we become disappointed with our life and can’t put our finger on why. Maybe it’s about expectations, and when those expectations are not met, we become very disappointed. For example, when we are having fun, and the pleasure we feel comes to an end, we want to chase after it, trying to create familiar feelings of joy. Sometimes we try to recreate experiences at a considerable cost to ourselves; we try to convert pleasure into something permanent.

When life goes wrong, we try to fix it by increasing the feel-good factor and strive to make it stay with us, but we just can’t do it. When we are frustrated, we search for ways to make ourselves happy, and often unwisely so. No matter how hard we try, we cannot make what is temporary permanent, and we cannot make what is imagined real. We can’t get back our loved one who is gone, the job that fell through our fingers is in the past, or even the children who have become adults and now live their own lives many miles from us. Also, it’s worth noting here that the COVID-19 pandemic has taken its devastating toll, and we will never get back what we lost.  

Several hundred years ago, along with other religions, Christianity began engaging the West in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction. Although it was not named as such, that is precisely what it is, the aim and objective and results being the same. Within the act mindfulness practice, if one removes the idea of God, it still works. However, I prefer to still relate to God as far as mindfulness goes because it enhances not only my mind and body but also my spiritual person.

The scientific evidence to date of the success of mindfulness to enhance human life is overwhelming, and for those interested in their wellness, we cannot ignore it. Various professional disciplines and social movements, such as medicine and health care, psychology and brain science, and education at all levels, the law, business, leadership, and much more, enhance their practice by inserting mindfulness.

 Today’s mainstream medicine is developing an ever-growing interest in mindfulness-based intervention, such as Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT). Mindfulness is something we can practice for peace of mind and a way of relieving a wide range of chronic medical conditions. It is much like snowmelt flowing inevitably downhill from a high mountain source, flowing around obstacles, finding many pathways under the gentle tug of gravity, and ultimately merging into major rivers systems. The gravitational pull is the promise of liberation from suffering and the potential safe harbour. As human beings prepare for the awakening and embodying of wellbeing, greater wisdom and wise action in the conduct of our individual lives so we may peacefully carry ourselves in the world as a species. In other words, mindfulness can become a normal and natural way to live your life, and the feeling of wellbeing is inevitable. Living a mindful life as Jesus Christ did would not end our frustrations but the beginning of successfully managing them. 

Jesus gave us the answer to our frustrations and said don’t chase after things that are here today and gone tomorrow, but rather, strive for eternal things. Eternal things are more satisfying, like top quality peace, joy, and love, that only God can supply. Mindfulness can help us to pursue eternal things naturally and consistently.

Trying to hold onto relationships or things that are gone will leave you frustrated and keep you grieving for as long as you hold onto them. All human relationships, albeit long term, are temporal and subject to the joys and pains of this life; our lives are so fragile and short. The only permanent relationship and forever is a relationship with God offers to us through Jesus Christ.  

The nature of my work is that I aim to empower others with education and motivation to help them make for themselves a purposeful and happy life. In addition, I enjoy helping others to set wellness goals and then provide resources, helping you determine which changes would make the most significant impact on your health.

Thank you for visiting me here; I hope this post was helpful. 

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CLICK ON LINK BELOW FOR details of my Stress Relief Master Class. 

Remember to Live Life on Purpose

Virtual hugs, I look forward to your visit to my next blog post.

 Paula Rose Parish💗

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How to abide in God part 3

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John 15:4-11 New King James Version

Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.”I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me, you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. By this My Father is glorified that you bear much fruit; so, you will be My disciples.

 So, to understand what Abiding really means, we need to take a brief look at the three main points to Jesus message while on earth –

  1. First, the kingdom of God and its coming. In a previous YouTube video & blog post
  1. Second, God the Father and the infinite value of the human soul. In a previous YouTube video & blog post
  1. Third, the higher righteousness and the commandment of love. In this YouTube video and blog post

 This post will address the third and final point- the kingdom of God and it’s coming. What has this got to do with Abiding in God?- keep reading to find out!

Some folk think that God is ‘up there’ or ‘out there’. This kind of thinking stops you from coming into a relationship with God. If God is up there’ then he’s not ‘here’ with you. God is distant from you, and you are strangers. Therefore, you presume that you must attain something special to reach the God who is ‘up there’. There’s Great News!! The kingdom is not ‘out there’ somewhere; it has come to you through Jesus Christ – now all you need to do is accept it and live in it. There is no need for complicated routines or special spiritual qualifications. When we accept Jesus as our Lord and Saviour, we become a part of his kingdom; we are of his family. His presence, power, and peace live inside of us! What a gift God gives us when he sends his son to usher onto the earth God’s kingdom and uses you to do it! Jesus explains this to us in the Gospel of John, chapter 3. Please read all the chapter to get the overall idea. And you will find the teaching in my YouTube video and in an earlier blog post.

Because the kingdom is in you, you can abide in God, which means to abide in love. God is righteous and is the very essence of love. If you abide in Jesus, who is love, you will bear fruit of the same. So we will now briefly look at HOW you can abide in this God of love. When Jesus ministered on earth, he encouraged us to cast our burdens upon him. Jesus captures the core of your hurt, the frustration of feeling alone and abandoned to himself. God promises to help you. Take Him at His word. Using your imagination, see that God is with you and using faith, believe that you are not alone. Someone is there; love itself is there. The Lord replied:

My precious, precious child, I love you, and I would never, never leave you during your times of trial and suffering. When you saw only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you.

Footprints in the Sand- Mary Stevenson

To engage with this is called having faith. Right now, stop and drink in His love and peace, be still, take a slow, deep breath and breathe out…. And move into the below reflection…..

  • Repeat the reading over until you feel peace in your soul. It’s not a quick fix; take your time. But more than feeling the comfort, you are engaging with the warmth of God. 
  • Now, as the despair or doubt begins to dissipate, allow it to give way to faith and abiding in God. Now, open your eyes and take a good look around once again; take in your surroundings. Appreciate what you see and begin to re-focus. – take your time as you come to the end of the reflection.
  • At the end of your reflection upon that reading, offer a short prayer of thanksgiving and praise. Practice this reflection several times over a period; it is there for you to dip into whenever you need to.    

The next time you’re feeling frantic and stressed, and you’re wondering how you’re going to make it through the day, open the door to Christ, ponder upon Psalm 23. God, who is your Shepherd, who is the very essence of love, is ready to embrace and walk with you, abide in you through the darkest valley. God is anointing your head with oil (healing balm) your cup overflows (you have more than you need). Your eyes adjust to the darkness of the valley and find that you cannot see God, but you just know God is there, and you are abiding in him. 

Psalm 23 makes powerful declarations of the love, care and provision God has for those who choose to follow Him. Allow God the Shepherd to guide you along His paths, knowing He has everything in hand. 

I live in South Wales UK, if you need any services or have any questions please feel free to email me at info@paularoseministries.org

 In the meantime Jesus loves you, so Live Life on Purpose in Hope. Faith. Love,

Rev Paula 💕

My Blog posts are part of Paula Rose Parish Ministries for your encouragement.

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Traces of Grief

Do you see me_image

Traces of grief may always remain, it changed me,

                             the real victory is not in the deleting the effects,

                                                but in the triumphing over them.            Paula Rose-Parish

When we plan to take a journey of some kind, we take time to prepare. We are savvy travellers, so we ensure that we have our navigation tools in hand, ensuring that they work as they should. We then become familiar with them before we get on the road. The visit to the fuel station guarantees that we will complete our journey. If we don’t, there is a good chance of getting lost, taking a detour, or not getting to our intended destination at all. Now we have a goal, we have a plan, we are ready to begin our journey. Approach this chapter in this same way. Use it as a preparation for your journey through this book. It will get you started on the path to recovery. I write in a particular way, and in this chapter, I reveal why. The usage of the Psalm and my specific application of words are explained. When we are bereaved, we can get exhausted. Therefore, I want this journey through grief to be straightforward as it possibly can be for you.

I am a child of the 50s and have seen a lot of life. I’ve lived and worked in four countries and visited a whole lot of others. The journey through life, from the very beginning to end, make us who we are. I must have been about ten years old when my very favourite saying became ‘Good Grief Charlie Brown!’ I would say it all the time, and it became somewhat of a trademark for me, it was my catchphrase. I didn’t know that I had dyslexia (not diagnosed until in my late 40s). Dyslexia was unknown within the educational system at the time. Therefore, there was no provision for remedial teaching. Without the support I needed, I hadn’t read a book in full until I was well into my 20s. Reading exhausted me, so I gave up in the first few pages, unable to comprehend the storyline, context or the words. Thinking back, I seriously tried my hardest at school, but not everyone saw it that way. I could read a little bit, but not enough to keep up with my grades. My teachers reported to my parents that I was lazy, which would add to my overwhelming sense of failure. Tearfully I shouted, ‘I am trying, I just can’t read, I just can’t’, and they would fire back at me ‘there’s no such word as can’t’ and told me to try harder. I was doing so badly that I had to repeat grade two twice! Then I failed in every year of primary school as well. I didn’t have the grades I need to attend high school, but because I was older than my peers; I was ‘put up’ to secondary school – as they called it. To be expected, I was put in the lowest set. Having an awful time, I only lasted there for six months; leaving in favour of the workplace at the age of fifteen years old. Try as I might, I just didn’t get hold of what was going on in the classroom. I couldn’t follow the thread of ideas, and the bullies duly took advantage of my weakness.

On several occasions, a group of boys and girls were waiting for me at the school gate and chased me all the way home after roughing me up. Growing up in the Australian school system in the 1950s and 60s wasn’t easy. We had to be tough enough to defend ourselves when needed. And it would always help of course if you were a fast runner, and I was. My inferiority heightened when my classmates and family devoured books like they were going out of fashion. They would tell me how easy it was to read, so why couldn’t I? Feeling very alone and misunderstood, I began to withdraw into myself. No way would I visit the school library except for a compulsory session in class. I didn’t understand why I had to attend the library when I couldn’t read properly. The whole system confused me. I quickly became overwhelmed by the hundreds of books housed on myriads of intimidating shelves.

Then one day, while trying to avoid the bullies, and I found myself wandering into the school library, and it was there that I discovered a small book. It was brief enough that I managed to read it almost to the end. I loved that little book, with its cute cartoons on every page which portrayed the adventures of Charlie Brown. I liked Charlie, he was an unusual little boy, and I found that I could relate to him, bless him. In Charlie, there was a small reflection of myself. Like me, Charlie was of short stature, inconspicuous, ordinary, and unremarkable. And like me, he was misunderstood. Charlie had a habit of making silly mistakes, he would say stupid things and did things out of the ordinary, and that is when his friends would exclaim, Good Grief Charlie Brown! I definitely could relate to him.

I suffered my first real experience of grief when I split from my fiancé of three years. I was still saying ‘good grief’ as my catchphrase, but now I knew that grief had nothing GOOD about it. In the end, my favourite little motto became a thing of the past -sorry Charlie! Whether it’s death, divorce a job loss or anything else that causes us to grieve, all are difficult to cope with. Whatever the circumstances, grief forces us to say goodbye to someone or something we hold dear. Grieving is such a personal and individual thing; we all experience it in our own way. I remember the sorrow I felt when I left my home country of Australia, creating a new home overseas. The anguish of saying goodbye to family. My obligations in ministry took me around the world, so I repeatedly had to leave dear friends behind, and sadness became a familiar figure. I was living 15,000 miles away from Australia, when my mother, who lived there died. I felt sad when I couldn’t be with her in her last days. The sorrow deepened when I couldn’t help my sisters to care for our aged Dad – there’s nothing good about grief.

You, Will, Have Troubles

  I share a little my own story throughout this book, so you know that you are not alone in this. I want you to see that there is someone who can empathise. My purpose is to help you understand your own Troubles and learn to manage them, so you can live a happy and fulfilling life. No real language exists, that clearly expresses the reality of the deep pain of grief. In 1976 I came to faith in Christ and began to attend church and was told by well-meaning people, that all my problems have ended.

I believed them. They assured me that I had found a trouble-free life! It wasn’t long before I found out that this idea was terribly dishonest. When the problems began, I was convinced that something was wrong with me. This wasn’t supposed to happen! Discouraged and very confused, I believed that I must have done something wrong, it was my fault somehow. I already had low self-esteem, and this only compounded my sense of helplessness and hopelessness. My God encounter was genuine. I hung on tightly to that experience as the turmoil swirled around me. I began to research God’s word for myself and found the truth of the matter. What I was told was a lie, things do go wrong for people of faith. Bad things happen to good people. And that is OK, that’s life! Every human being on the planet lives through sorrow in different ways and measures, and always will. You can imagine my relief to find this was nothing unusual and that there was nothing wrong with me after all. Many teachings in the Scriptures point out that we will have troubles in this life, especially if we follow Christ closely as His disciples.  Don’t be surprised by what you are experiencing, God is with you. The real problem arises when we don’t know what to do with our troubles. We wonder how on earth will we get through this! And how do we survive this phase of mourning, and not allow it to immobilise us in some way? How can we make sense of what is happening?

 In God’s Name

To be able to embrace God as a friend as we journey through the valley of the shadow, we need to identify who God actually is. One of the ways we do this is by looking into His Name. This is because God’s Name reveals His character, intention, and fundamental nature. When we name our children, we give them a first and surname, and sometimes more. And we often don’t consider what the meaning of it may be. However, this rule does not apply to God. Meanings of names are particularly important. The babies of the bible were named according to the particular meaning of that name.  Some people may not realise it but, there is no first name or surname that is applied to the Creator of the Universe. God is not a John or an Eric or even a Fred, for example. But what we believe are names for God are actually descriptions of Gods nature, character, and actions. For instance, Jehovah-Raah, which means The Lord, my Shepherd. A shepherd is a role description, not a name of a person. Jehovah is not a name either. Translated as The Existing One or Lord. So again, it describes who God is. Also, it suggests becoming or specifically to become known. This implies that God always discloses who He is. A shepherd is the one who feeds or leads his flock to pasture (Ezekiel 34:11-15). An extended translation is a friend or companion. This indicates the intimacy that God desires between Himself and His people and can be understood as The Lord, my Friend. Untangling the Name like this reveals to us that God is our friend, guide, companion and is the ever-existing One. The One who loves and cares for His sheep. The Lord, my Shepherd.and we see who God is in the Good Shepherd who is Jesus Christ.

💗xx

 If you need help please contact me :

          info@paularoseparishministries.org

                        

Shattered Dreams

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Safe, he felt Safe, very Safe, he felt like Home. But that wonderful feeling was about to be Shattered!

  Rocky relationships of the past left me in fear. Fear of the future, fear of making the wrong choices, fear of another abusive relationship. I shared with him my experiences, how devastated I was. How I lost everything in the process, I shared with him the secrets of my pain and grief – He listened intently. He understood- he comforted me and he felt my hurt and pain. He promised that he would be different, I will take care of you he said. I truly love you and I want to look after you-you’re my soul mate he said and I believed him. Why wouldn’t I? After all, He is so kind, a real gentleman, and that is a rarity these days, it was evident he loved me. He is every women’s dream, he’s attentive, generous and downright charming to boot!  Months past and in a vow of marriage, we pledged our hearts and lives to each other. We promised to love, protect and care for each other for the rest of our lives- we were truly together- forever.

 And then it happened. Right there on our honeymoon, (as pictured above) totally unprovoked, he pushed and shoved me accompanied by the filthiest name-calling imaginable. He then made me sleep on the couch.

Numb with shock my mind raced to search for what had provoked my lovely new husband to take this action toward me. Was it my fault? He called it- beer talk. It didn’t make it any easier, it was as if he took a knife and cut open my heart with it and I was bleeding profusely and I physically felt the searing pain. Later, in our honeymoon it happened again without any provoking. and no beer was involved either, so it wasn’t beer talk!  This time I admitted to myself I’ve made a dreadful mistake! He refused to accept that it was domestic abuse and was very offended and upset with me that I had made such a suggestion -still is.

He pleaded with me  that didn’t mean it he said, it won’t happen again. Don’t give up on me, he said. Just a hick-cup in our marriage, all marriages have problems, he said. But he wasn’t a person of his word – broken promises, it did happen again and again and again.

Over time the abuse became more frequent, more violent, confiscating my phone was commonplace. Our honeymoon was the beginning of the end for the both of us. Fear replaced security, it was the end of him being my safe place – my home. The numbness I felt accompanied by fear was an unwelcome companion in our relationship. My safe place, my cwtch (Welsh for a safe place) had become a place of violence. The lovely man I fell deeply in love with, the one I invited into my heart and life, became an unpredictable stranger.

He was offered help and counselling time and again, he did try- for a while – and things were wonderful for a time. Then he said he was bored, then out of the blue, it would all start-up again, exactly the same pattern of behaviour would emerge once again, dashing any hope of a happy marriage. 

Can you relate to this? Did you find a safe place within a relationship only to find that you were mistaken? Perhaps you are constantly feeling numb? You can’t express any feelings and you hide within yourself somehow. It’s impossible to laugh or smile, and crying does not come easy. You switch off somehow, you just get on with it and switch off from what is happening around you to cope and to try to make sense of the violence perpetrated against you. But what we don’t realise, is that we also switch off from life. We switch off from family, friends, social life, we switch off from our dreams and our plans for a happy future, depression sets in and we wonder why. We walk zombie-like through life feeling nothing. Numbed to the harsh words, the pickiness, the moodiness. We are numb to the physical violence, numb to the loss of control over our very selves. We mourn, we do it quietly, we do it privately, we feel very alone.

We never press charges. We protect our abuser out of loyalty and fear.  So no-one will know what is happening behind closed doors, hoping that somehow, he would come to his senses and see the consequences of his abuse. We love them and want things back how it used to be, so we take responsibility for his behaviour, masking excuses for him. We pray and hang on for him to want to change, want to seek help, to be back to that wonderful person that we fell in love with. And we remain numb in the meantime. But with numbing-out, as I call it, which is a coping mechanism, the doors of our hearts eventually closed also, and we struggle to feel any love for ourselves or anybody else for that matter.

Living year by year within a violent relationship shuts us down.

Did you find a safe place within a relationship only to find that you are mistaken? Perhaps you are constantly feeling numb? Have you switched off from the thought of ever being happy?

 Here at the beginning of the New Year, you have an opportunity to switch on that light and get rid of the darkness once and for all! You can swing open the door of your heart and let your spirit soar and to heal. An opportunity to take courage and let that numb-ness go, to return from that zombie-like state, to come alive and to realise that hey I’m worth it- I don’t deserve to be treated with such hate and contempt!  2017 is an opportunity for you to regain who and what you once were and all that you have lost in the process. Even if you do it singing to the tune of These boots are made for walking

Proverbs 12:18 – The words of the reckless pierce like swords, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.    Proverbs 16:24  – Gracious words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bone.

You Will Find more Help Here – Click on the Link below

By Paula Rose-Parish

The Baptism in the Holy Spirit.

Acts: 1: 1- 8   &  2:1-4

This subject often worries people.  I’ve actually had people say to me that they are scared of any moving of the Holy Spirit. Why?  Because they do not understand it. But that it is the great deception of the devil. It is satan who will make us scared and sceptical of the moving of the Holy Spirit.

The Cross defeated the devil so he’s out to defeat you through his lies. The devil would render us powerless as a Church because it is the Holy Spirit that gives us the power of God to be witnesses in the earth. No Power, No witness, No Church! 

Therefore, if there is no power of the Holy Spirit in the believer, there is no power of the Holy Spirit in the Church, because the Church is the people, then there is no true witness of God. Then what is left, is a form of religion without power to save and set free!

 Fear is our enemy.

There is no need for us to be frightened of the things of the Holy Spirit because Jesus told us that he would send another comforter in his absence. The Holy Spirit therefore is a comforter, in fact, there are over 21 wonderful attributes, attributed to the Holy Spirit throughout Scripture for our benefit and none of them is scary. And one of those attributes is a leader and another is our guide,  READ John 16:7. 

The comforter READ John 14: 16-17, the one that comes along beside us. So what is there to be frightened of? It is only when we are held in ignorance of what the Holy Scriptures tell us and our imaginations run wild.  All we hear stories of great excesses don’t we, and we get concerned and scared we then reject the moving of the Holy Spirit in our Church and in our life. The devil then has succeeded in his mission! And we become poorer for it. So let us now approach this with an open heart and an open mind towards the Spirit of God and what he would have us to know this morning.

First of all, let’s pray…..

Holy Spirit is part of the Godhead- nothing spooky!

First of all, we need to understand that the baptism of the Holy Spirit is a greater revelation of God that was manifested in patriarchal and mosaic dispensations. In the patriarchal dispensation, we see God appearing to people at long intervals of 20 and 40 years apart. In the Mosaic dispensation, there are deeper and clearer manifestations of God. The pillar of cloud and pillar of fire. In the Tabernacle is the Shekinah glory of God that overshadowed the mercy seat which is the abiding revelation of God.

In these dispensations God appeared outside of the human being, God was doing something TO the human race, and not IN the human race. But under the Christian dispensation, the New Covenant, things are different. A New Covenant has been born which is a much deeper and personal revelation of God. God was not only doing something TO the human race, but God was living  IN humankind.  READ John 11:25  (KJV). READ Ephesians 2 .22  this reveals God purpose in our salvation. We must be prepared by the blood of Jesus Christ to become the habitation of God, and what an amazing privilege and opportunity this is!   READ John 16: 7-15.

 Unction’s of the Holy Spirit

  1. Born again – / Adam God breath made him alive / God breathed new birth – the new creation. (Gen 1  & 2. John 3.) 
  2. Baptism in Holy Spirit makes us God-empowered people. (Acts 1 & 2)
  3. Baptism Sanctifies our language so may pray according to His will. (Jude)
  1. Dove. (the Ark, Gen 8.11. & Baptism of Jesus  Matt 3.16) 
  2. Wind and fire- is what the church is, sweeping through the nations empowered by God to bring the full Gospels’ light to a dark world. It’s for the Church to be the Church!

 We as New Covenant people are to live in the Wind and Fire of the Spirit, speaking the truth in love. We are wise as serpents but gentle as Doves (Matt 10.16). But for some of us, we don’t get past the Dove stage. We always speak of love and peace- and so we must! But we tend to remain, creating traditions around the nature of a Dove,  we become Dove people and never influence the world with Wind and Fire. And so, The Church becomes powerless in its mission.

The more we use our language in tongues, the more we pray Gods’ will to earth getting the job done. Jesus told us because he rose and ascended to heaven and so we will also, being partakers of his righteousness and his glory and of his saving power. The crucifixion was necessary and now we are children of God, we are crucified with Christ and freed from sin. Our old nature is nailed to the cross and we are dead to sin and alive to Christ and just as Christ died, he arose, he is a living Christ, not a dead God. We are baptised (fully immersed)  with power (dunamis =explosive) power from on high with the Holy Spirit, the Church goes forth!

God the Holy Spirit Lives IN YOU by your resurrection into the new birth according to John chapter 3.  We have left this old sinful life buried to the old nature in baptism and are partakers in the new resurrection life.  The life of power (dunamis =explosive) where the exercise of the power of God is made possible TO us and IN us through the Holy Spirit. We are Wind and Fire people!

Is the baptism of the Holy Spirit for today?

Yes!  There are 20 scriptures referring to this in the New Testament

The baptism is evidenced by tongues. 1 Corinthians 14: 22.  Mark 16:17-18 READ

To speak with other tongues is to speak languages never learned. They are either a known human language or a heavenly one, enabled by the miraculous power of the Holy Spirit. ‘Initial physical evidence’ is the term used to describe the first outward sign of the infilling of the Holy Spirit. The baptism in the Holy Spirit is manifested in a physical way as the Spirit-filled believer’s physical voice is used. It is initial in that it comes immediately with the infilling. It is important to point out here, that there is no single declarative sentence in the Bible that states that everyone who is baptized in the Holy Spirit will speak in other tongues. Even if we had only Acts 1 and 2, we understand the doctrine, for there we have the definition of the baptism in the Spirit.

 Jesus said, “Ye shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days hence” (Acts 1.5) The scriptural definition of that baptism is, “And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance” (Acts 2.4). Inspired by the Holy Spirit, Luke clearly intended to define what Jesus promised. 1Corinthians 14: don’t forbid tongues when meeting together for worship.