Category Archives: Bible

Snippets of Last Week

Last week one of my favourite Christian writers asked her readers and some friends to write a letter to their teenage self.

One day I might be brave enough to post my letter to myself here, but can I recommend the exercise to you? I cried many tears in the writing of mine and I found an opportunity to love and forgive parts myself that were still hurting and alone.

For those of you in book group, after our discussion of Chapter 10 last week and of collecting curios on the beach, one of the letters caught my eye.
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Some years ago I spent time living in Bouj el Barajneh, a Palestinian refugee camp in Beirut, Lebanon. This was such a rich experience. I learnt a lot about myself. I was supposed to be there in service to a community of 20,000 completely dispossessed people, generations of them living piled together in one square kilometre.
After two years, my major impression was that I received far more that I had given. I was so deeply honoured to have been accepted into the hearts and homes of so many Palestinian people. One of my most treasured experiences about living in the camp was sitting in homes in the evenings and listening to stories of Palestine, life in the camps, and the trauma and hardship so many had suffered during the Lebanese civil war. As I said, I felt honoured to be trusted with these stories that sculpt a life.
One of my friends, Kholoud has been working with researchers on an oral history project with elderly Palestinians, having them recount stories of their lives and culture before the nakba. If you are a sucker for people’s stories, or for a slice of history not often heard, you can read some of their stories here.
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We’ve been involved with more media and interviews in the past week.

Being around journalists always reminds me that so much of what is reported on in the media is all about perspective, perception and pre-determined viewpoints. I am learning to give up the desire to control what happens and how I am perceived.

I came upon this bible verse that gave me solace:
All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, God opposed the proud but gives grace to the humble.
Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.
Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.  

1 Peter 5: 5-6

And I was also reminded of my favourite children’s story.
I couldn’t find my copy of it, so I found it one online. 

I have certainly gone places in the past five years that I never imagined I would go!

Even As I Am Fully Known

So often I still catch myself believing that love is something that comes after I do a thing.
“I’ll deserve love once I’m wise
When I’m good enough everyone will love me
Only when I’ve proved myself can I be worthy
When I’m pretty, when I’m strong, when I’m humble, once I… when I… then I will be loved”
These messages run yet in my head and heart.
I fail to see love as something that is there for me before I am perfect, I don’t believe I’ll have it while I grow.
The Truth, the beautiful, awe-inspiring, mind-blowing Truth is that God’s Love is there for us no matter what we do. We are Loved – full stop.
He shows us we are worthy through this Gift.
And those on earth, who truly love us, do so before, during and after. They accept and love us just as we are. They place no demands on us nor expect a thing.
I have come to see that there is no such thing as conditional love.
True love, real love, is alwaysunconditional.
And such a gift has the power to change and heal every one of us, if we would only let it in. 

1 Corinthians 13   

1 If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. 
4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. 
Bible Verse: New International Version (emphasis added)
Do you catch yourself trying to earn Love rather than just receive it?