Finally I See

Life and experience can sometimes make us forget what God says about us. It’s really important that we not only remember but also  KNOW  what He  says about us. Here are a few : Accepted  John 1:12 – God’s Child. Ephesians 1:3-8 – Chosen by God and adopted as His child. Colossians   1:13-14 – Redeemed and forgiven of all my sins. Colossians 2:9-10 – Complete in Christ. Secure Romans 8:1-2 – Free from condemnation. Romans 8:31-39 –  Free from any condemnation brought against me and  CANNOT  be separated from the love of God. Colossians 3:1-4  – Hidden with Christ in God . Philippians 1:6 –  Confident that God will complete the good work He started in me. Significant 1Corinthians   3:16 – God’s temple.   Ephesians 2:6  – Seated with Jesus Christ in the heavenly realm.  Ephesians 3:12  – Approach God  with freedom and confidence.  Philippians 4:13 – Can do all things...

Shout out the first 5 words that come to your mind, without pausing, if someone asked you, “What do you think about yourself?” . . . . . How did you find it? Were they all nice, or did you have some bad ones in there too? One of the hardest things in life can be to face your own reflection. To be free enough to say what you really think about yourself. Sometimes it is soo much easier to continue to wear the masks (the false identities worn from the lies we have accepted and become over time), than it is to look in the mirror and see our true reflection… who we really are (Genesis 1:26-27). Michael Jackson sang a famous chorus. Sing it with me; “I’m starting with the man in the mirror I'm asking him to change his ways And no message could have been any clearer If you want to make the world a better place Take a look at yourself, and then make a change.” – Man in the Mirror It takes courage (the quality to face difficulty, danger, etc) ...

AGAIN simply means ‘ another time, once more, returning to a previous position or condition ’ (Oxford Dictionary). What I have been personally learning and walking through in my Christian walk so far is the FACT that God wants every area of me to be ALIVE (living, not dead – Oxford Dictionary). He invites and wants ALL OF US; inside and out, to be AWAKE (not sleeping) – John 10:10. To be awake can take on many forms and can mean many different things; it’s individual to each of us. These could be our dreams, careers, relationships, hopes and desires for the future; etc, anything. I want to share a small testimony (story) which I hope will show you what ‘again ’ can look like for a person. For those who don ’t know me, I LOVE DANCING. All my life I have danced, danced and danced. At the ages of fourteen and fifteen, I did GCSE dance at secondary school but dance changed for me. A group of girls; what we would call ‘the mean girls, ’ would always knock everyone’s confidence. ...

Writer’s are capable of writing anything, whether they know a topic or not. With a little research, a good draft and continual re-drafts, what they could potentially produce can be quite wonderful. For me, in order to write about something I must first connect with it. There must be a resignation and resolve with it in my heart and mind.  Pondering this, this is very much the same for hope. No matter how much we define hope in terms of a theoretical definition (expectations towards someone/thing, desire, believe, trust – Dictionary.com), it must move from being a simple black and white word on paper, to becoming an absolute assurance in our thoughts and hearts, in order to become a physical manifestation in our lives. We must connect with hope on different levels, internally and externally. Beautiful Faces (BFM) has seen in the whole of 2016 with this theme of hope. We have had sessions that have included definitions, discussions and shared experiences about hope in...

Relationships are one of the most precious things we have in life. They are simply a connection, association or involvement between people. The ability to speak to someone about our lives; about what’s going on with us. This can be shared about the ins and outs of what we have and been through, things that bother us, successes, emotional tangents, our good days, our dark days… it’s endless; but something so key to our humanity. We often take forgranted relationships. We can misunderstand, mis-judge, de-value or de-prioritise someone’s ability to listen, offer counsel, advise, encourage, speak truth, shed light on what we may or may not see, educate us; change and challenge our perspectives… again the list is endless. But if we look at some parts of our lives we will tend to find that our circumstances and situations sometimes get the better of us. We get in the way of our relationships and they change. What we go through at any given time gets in the way of what is importan...

Everyone has had scars. A time back when you were little you fell over and hurt yourself days down the line the wound healed but left a scar. It was always the deeper more serious wounds that stayed for years, even though the event was when you were weeny you still look back on that scar and the memories haven't left the feeling of the pain and how it happened. Sometimes the memories behind those scars even bring us shame and hurt today. Childhood scars are not all that serious when we know it was caused by riding our bikes to fast, scrapping our legs on the pavements etc, we get over them soon enough and tell of our careless fall and even laugh at the memories even though at the time we cried. However, as we continue in life some scars are more serious than others. Some scars we would rather hide than it bring back memories of the pain of a traumatic experience, one we don't want to remember or share. These scars were perhaps made through abuse bullying or the phys...