Women of the Bible! What a huge topic. I mean who do you pick? I'm not going to lie it has been an interesting one to think about. There are stories upon stories of women throughout the scriptures who walk by faith and bring so many different characteristics, aspects and factors to being women of valor, as Proverbs 31 so eloquently puts it. There are stories that seem to have elements of repetition, like that of Sarah, Rebecca and Rachel, Hannah and even Samson's mother who are all highlighted as being barren but then all go on to have babies who have a huge impact on the Biblical narrative. There are other women such as Miriam, Ruth, Naomi and D'vorah who seem to do some pretty outrageously courageous things, and there are other women who play a role in the life of Jesus on earth that giv...

It's valentines day weekend and the world seems to be fixated on the big glorious celebration of love, although as a single woman I find it hard to presently connect with the romantic notions of man and woman delighting in each other and the personal desire I have for this, I can connect with a love that echo's more "place," than feeling. Love is a strange word when it comes down to it and as always I am particularly drawn to finding the first time that the word is mentioned in the Biblical text. This way of reading scripture can be very helpful when it comes to understanding a God-shaped notion of a word or concept. It's fruit usage. Seeing its first use in context gives the reader the opportunity to understand a characteristic of the word that can help us build well from it's founda...

More often than not I have started to catch myself using words for situations, feelings, sadness and anger that aren't all together butterflies and rainbows. Then I was gifted with a bible study by Kisha Gallagher who has her own website, Grace in Torah and has done a study called "Taste Your Words." So I want to start by saying that I have been inspired by her teachings and wanted to bring the conversation here to the lovely Heart Matters Publishing readers.  "May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer" Psalm 19 v 14 The whole of Psalm 19 gives us the most stunning exploration of God's creational essence and how the heavens declare that which was spoken into being in the first place, by God, back in Genesis...

We have the opportunity to welcome the story of Christmas every year with curiosity and intentionality, and today I was drawn to the moments after the birth of Jesus. I know, I know, it feels like I am getting a little ahead of myself here, but something about reading Mary's heart condition resonated in me today. I sense that as we move forward in this season of remembering the birth of Jesus on earth, there is an invitation to learn from her path to pondering. In Luke 2 Mary and Joseph had just had their baby and were receiving their first visitors. Some shepherds who had been grazing their sheep in a local field got the news via heavenly hosts and had hurried to visit the couple and the new baby laying in a feeding trough. They were excited to share all that "…The Lord had made known to ...

"Look up at the heavens and count the stars, If indeed you can count them. Then he said to him, so shall your offspring be…" This verse can be found in Genesis 15 v 5 and is this amazing moment in time when Abram is in the midst of a penultimate moment with The Lord. In the previous chapter Abram had just been in the throws of battles with a whole bunch of kings, and has an encounter with Melchizedek, The King of Righteousness. As a side note, it's actually the first time in scripture we see a moment of gift giving, shown in the tithe he gives this king. If you look at the language in Genesis 14 I have it on good authority that the language in itself is military and the battles were real. Abram and Sarai, his wife had been on this crazy journey of tests and choices and ultimately lear...

Here we are again, the trees turning and dropping their leaves, the strong and living frame unveiled again having beautifully hosted so much growth, so much of itself. Trees so perfectly testify to life, their seeds, and fruit now making their way towards the earth to nurture all that's to come. It's a grateful fall. A pay-it-forward even. The cycle so inviting, to experience the tree in its most vulnerable transition. For everything to be removed and yet somehow it stands there naked and completely unashamed. That final transition full of golden leaves, as they truly are. This cycle we call life seems to roll around again, and I get this sense that we are being invited to take so much of it with us into what is next. The river is flowing in the most strangest of years and the new beginnin...

I'm sitting in an English country garden writing today's blog for Heart Matters Publishing. As the summer days turn to autumn I'm glad the mornings are still warm enough to invite this morning's moment. In fact, I sat here a couple of weeks ago too, surrounded by books and Bibles, a gift tag slotted in as a marker in my latest read, Secrets of The Secret Place, a cup of coffee and shadows speckled on the weathered table. Such sweet memorable moments, and on this morning I found myself not only taking a deep rest-filled breath of fresh air, but also meditating on part of Psalm 62, specifically looking at verses one and five. "Truly my soul silently waits for God; from Him comes my Salvation" (62v1)"My soul, wait patiently for God alone, for my expectation is from Him" (62v5)"My expecta...

Carrying on after Julie's rested words and response to presence last week, I too was deeply moved by an experience I had last weekend. Aren't there so many spiritual truths availableto us in our everyday lives that have the potential to nourish our souls? It seems to me that in simply observing our lives we are met with so much wisdom and learning. My prayer, even as Iwrite this blog, is that you might draw on your life and listen to the still small voice in the midst of creation and your experiences. That you might know another facet to God's heartbeat and how His presence is constant.So, back to my experience last weekend. I visited some friends for a quick one-night camping trip, and they were pitched right beside a vast wheat field. I had been hoping to capture a wh...

As many of you know from my previous writing, I love discovering and digging into the meanings of names and since my brother and his wife included my grandads name in their first sons, I was intrigued by what it means. In this season and time it also feels like a real gift to be lead down this path as my grandads name is Raymond (Ray), which means, "Wise Strength." Last week my Grandad passed away just a few days after his 95th birthday, his stature, kind and strong but by the end his bones were ready not to be here anymore. Ever since the birth of my first nephew and watching the deterioration of my grandad I have been pondering my grandads name. What does it mean to be strong? What does "wise strength" mean? Just a couple of the questions that have ruminated inside me.Biblical Scripture ...

With an international phenomenon of social distancing in pandemic proportions taking over our daily lives, I am amazed at the human spirit and creativity that has the potential to ooze out of us all. It seems that in tough times our power to choose the good is highlighted as our only road map to hope. That God tenderly whispers ideas to us, to encourage our neighbors and maybe even love them a little better than we were before and to me this is very humbling and full of life. In my little corner of the world, the UK, it all started with my dad asking me whether I wanted to sing Somewhere Over the Rainbow out on the street a couple of weeks into lockdown. I said I would be happy to and since then we have been out on the street every week. The idea emerged as the nation announced a weekly mo...

Passover and Easter are with us again this week and boy does the world look different to last year. These two biblical accounts are profound markers on our walk as believers and their interwoven presence in the life of Yeshua (the Hebrew name for Jesus) as He lived and walked towards the cross and resurrection. The story of the first Passover can be found in Exodus 12. It speaks of unleavened bread, the tenth and final plague of the death of the first born, and a communal instruction and response in the most difficult and gut wrenching situations. It also speaks of being home with your household and a light being in the midst of that home as you do as the Lord instructs. The story speaks of redemption, salvation and the freedom that comes with the path of God redeeming His people and the c...

David means 'Beloved of God' and recently I have gained a deeper appreciation for what this could mean from an essence point of view. Who was this man, who was once a boy? How did it feel to be anointed so young? Did he know how much story he would have to write before he sat on a throne? How many miles did he walk with his men? How many nights did he stay in caves vs canvas? His life plays a melody with romantic ruddiness to show more than a fluffy romantic notion. Maybe he suffered melancholy in moments but so many times we also see him choose gutsy right-action and take another step. His essence as 'Beloved of God' was full of learning and leaning and I want to touch on some of this today. As I sit and write I slow my breathing down, deeply inhale and exhale and bring to my imagination ...

I was asked to write on new beginnings for this weeks blog post and although I had a few ideas of the directions I could go I ended up wrestling with these two simple words. This left me wondering how I might best express these thoughts and a poem emerged. I hope the questions in this short poem and the overall prose will help you see the art of taking time within new beginning seasons, for what goes around comes around and Gods cycle is one of grace. New Beginning I wonder how I will read the past from this moment? Is it place or time or both? Something never lost but never again to be walked. Mine and yours and ours. I only have the past to look back on this day, this moment, new beginning. And now. And now. And now. But I do get to write it anew, from a new beginning point of view. We w...

Do you have a container somewhere in your home where you collect all the loose change from your pockets and the bottom of your purses? Somehow over the span of weeks, months and years the change accumulates and you wonder how much might be in the jar. Well, we have had a jar in our kitchen, a jar that is so big that it would take at least 10 years to completely fill, and this past weekend we went to a local store and had it counted and returned to us in dollar bills. The amount was fun and surprising. The jar had not only accumulated US dollars but other currency as well, including Pesos, Canadian dollars, Israeli shekels, Euros and British Pounds. As we filtered our coins through the machine the unrecognizable coins made for a handful of foreign change, and so my winter tale begins. Amids...

I'm sure you have had this experience; you open a book that you have bought secondhand, or in "good condition" from a third-party amazon seller, and you open it up and it's full of underlined paragraphs, little notes in the margins (no matter how narrow), stars by key words or N.B at the top of a whole page. Well, this past week I opened a book and there they were, the notes and scribbles of another human.  As I started reading this book the strangest feeling started to come over me, like a presence, kind of warm, and I realized that I delighted in the small handwritten note in the margin of the first few pages. The funny thing is that the handwriting wasn't that legible, but the scribble was delightfully endearing and it captured my imagination. It had me gazing off beyond the p...

As I have been pondering the life of David over the last few days I have been profoundly struck by the meaning of his name. It's actually where I always like to begin, finding out the meaning and etymology of a name that in turn becomes more of a verb that we get to learn and see from. It occurs to me that once we have these puzzle pieces in play, we can enter the sacred story being told which makes it bigger than the man or woman who walked the planet at a certain time, and offers us layers in which to find wonder, points of wrestle, and usually an opportunity to smile at God's fun play with words. David, in its most common form, in the English language, means "Beloved" but after some further investigations into the Hebrew roots, it is also interesting to discover that the verb, dawa, fro...

It felt important to pick up the dead butterfly. I was out on my regular walk and much of my time on the path I am listening to a podcast or audio book, on this day I was listening to Falling Upward, a book by Father Richard Rohr. The other part of its title and the heart of the subject is "A Spirituality for the two halves of Life". Those words, this book, has come at such the season. A release, stopping, review and turning. A real life example to the phrase I was privy to a number of years ago, "It's a wise person who knows what time it is". I guess that's why it felt important to pick up the dead butterfly. My experience has been this. Fashioned upon the path that we all walk are the environments, stories, communities and sometimes painfully metaphorical and physical pictures that ...

This blog was originally written on Sally's personal blog, Feathers and Whirlwinds which can be found on her website www.sallycranham.com. She wrote this blog as the end of Fall was upon us last year. Although the seasons are not the same the sentiment and message of the moment remains. The imagery, poem and call to personal creative action is still speaking to this moment and holds an aspect of the season of the soul that feels a little out of the ordinary. Here are the words she wrote back then, for now. ​ Tomorrow For a number of days I have been saying in my head, "tomorrow, tomorrow, I will write again tomorrow." There have been no "the sun will come out tomorrow" moments or even that great line from that fantastic movie Bugsy Malone "Come back tomorrow" moments. It's just b...

It was a simple but maybe the most courageous prayer and it went something like this, "Yes". Quite frankly it's all I had left in me. After a week of doubting all the things and wrestling with God over the directions my heart was being pulled, I had to believe that a miraculous moment was close, because things felt impossible. I knew that deep in my belly God was leading me to a moment in time that went beyond my own pain, emotions and plans. I knew that somehow there would be an answer and it would come soon. I was faced with a decision to make and was wrestling with moving States or going back to the UK after spending a year and a half in Minnesota working for a non-profit. The winter had been long but it offered me this experience of solitude, stopping and healing, a hidden gift to the ...

Part of my journey with community and how my inner spiritual walk participates in this season of Spring is to pay attention to both the Biblical feast of Passover and the Good Friday to Resurrection experience of Jesus, whose name literally means Salvation. This year Good Friday and the First night of Passover were on the same night. It was a full few days of spiritual practice, ritual, remembrance and community. The life force of our own stories entwined with God's story and glimpses of freedom and Salvation became tangible and marking moments for another year. So much of me was ready for the walk from slavery, the opening empty tomb and Jesus being the hero of faith, death defeated, slaves set free. It had been a long dark winter and this was the moment we had been waiting for, the savin...

It's so good to smell Spring in the air even if you live in a place where you aren't necessarily seeing things popping up from the ground yet. I have been so struck by the change in energy all around, and even though it's still rather chilly here in Minnesota, there is a sense of things being new. The tell-tale signs of change are all around us and my thoughts have leaned towards those seeds that went into the ground all those months ago, from trees and plants. Check out this quote by Cynthia Occelli. "For a seed to achieve its greatest expression it must come completely undone. The shell cracks, its insides come out, And everything changes. For someone who doesn't understand growth, it would look like complete destruction." God tells us very early on in scripture that he planted seeds in ...

I wonder, what comes to mind when you think of the word "yearning"? I'll be honest, it has me circling in my own bowels (maybe too much info although the language of scripture often speaks of bowels and yearning all as the same) with the deepening presence towards, and a longing and a thirst that's kind of uneasy, it's the feeling of want and desire. It is more tender than graceful than just a reaching or looking with intent, although we all know how that can unfold in real life; it's part of that beginning story in the Bible right!? Eve, life in Hebrew, reaches from a position of, well, the only doubt question in the book, "Did God really say?" I mean, isn't this what happens in life? We can confuse yearning for lust, and the longing becomes a straining reach, because ...

I was constantly challenged as a younger woman when it came to the concept of grace. I heard so many definitions and it never computed for me. I was your number one doer and giver and felt things very deeply (Two on the enneagram if you are into that sort of thing.) I saw the needs and met them, striving to experience the love of others and of God. Grace to me was this thing that was for everyone else and I wrestled inside whenever I heard the word or studied a scripture that highlighted the subject. This is where Hannah comes into the picture, an unlikely hero but a woman who exuded bravery, her name meaning Grace and her bravery being that she kept on showing up! We meet (Hannah) Grace in 1 Samuel 1, we hear a lot about what her life looks like, the rhythms that she kept with her family ...

I attended a church that I don't usually go to this morning. It had a grand and yet approachable feel about it and its well executed form held my heart tenderly as indeed, I felt tender. There came a moment in the sermon presentation when the speaker turned to the advent candles on the stage and walked towards them with the candle snuffer (yes, that is the technical name and yes, it did make me smile as I googled to confirm I had the right name, snuffer). Slowly she extinguished each candle, one by one, slowly speaking of the advent season ending. The lights in the room all dimmed as well and in less than a couple of minutes the whole room was dark except for one candle, the Christ candle. It was powerful and a tangible picture of what this season might feel like. All the lights, glitterin...

These last weeks have been hard, deep, full of prayerful heart murmurings, gutsy right action and a bucket load of grace, oh and tears, a whole bunch of tears. I want to tell you one portion of these past few weeks. A huge starting point was that my grandma passed away, back in the UK, we called her Nannie, she was 95. She passed on the morning of a day which couldn't have been more full if it had tried. I spoke to my dad at 6 am and he shared the news. We both wept. By 7 am I was on the road to sing at a church called Eden about half an hour away. By 11.30 am I was on route to my home church, Genesis, who were saying goodbye to a member of staff and mourning that loss. By 12.30 pm someone asked me what I needed and I said company and some food. We ate. By 3.15 pm I was at a rehearsal for ...