On anger.

I was recently invited to submit a short story for an anthology. I didn't think I'd submit anything, since I don't usually write short stories. Still, the people who'd invited me were friends, so I didn't want to let them down.

I ended up writing this story about a ghost. I didn't have even a tiny idea where the story was going, but as I went on, I realized what the truth in the story was.

The ghost was trapped outside of existence by her anger. She couldn't live, and she couldn't move on.

Sounds a lot like real life, doesn't it?

I mean, so many of us cling to anger. Like my ghost character, we do it without realizing it. And that anger keeps us trapped in a vicious circle of resentment and bitterness.

We can't just live our lives if we have anger in our hearts, so if you are carrying some anger around, I pray that you can find a way to forgive the person who angered you.

It's a difficult thing, I know. People hurt us all the time. They damage us, and forgiving them means we have to just let go of all that.

Which is the point.

I'm not saying you shouldn't get angry. That's impossible. But as it says in Ephesians 4:26 (New American Standard Bible):

BE ANGRY, AND yet DO NOT SIN; do not let the sun go down on your anger.

See when we're angry, the temptation to sin is always there, because any way you can think of to hurt the person back is sin. 

The thing is that sin doesn't only damage the person you hurt. It gets you too. It's the same thing with the person who hurt you. They're not getting away as scot free as you'd think. 

As for the second part of the verse, not letting the sun go down on our anger, that's so important. Anger festers when it's kept buried in our hearts, and it poisons us every day we keep it there. So long after the initial act/situation hurt us, we keep hurting ourselves by holding on to our anger. 

Don't do it! It's much easier to lay your anger at our Father's feet and let Him handle it. His judgement is always fair, and handing over our anger frees us. 

I pray that if you are hurt, or if you've been carrying anger and resentment around for some time, that God will give you the strength you need to escape the vicious circle. 

Busy busy busy

I have to say that I find it strange that people buy farms for more relaxed lifestyles. Well... maybe it's more a reference to the stress levels on the farm than anything else. Because sitting pretty and relaxing isn't an option.

My brothers are all tending to animals. My mom and I are handling the guest house renovation and now, picking and packing figs.

Perhaps the fact that we're so busy is because the farm was uninhabited for seven years. Very little infrastructure survived, so we're having to put everything back together. Which means that although we now have pick-ups and quads, working on the farm isn't unlike what the first settlers here must have experienced.

We do, however, have tv and internet to keep us warm at night.

But yeah... it's almost 2 pm right now, and my butt is dragging. It's hard work to pick and orchard clean.

Still, I'm not really going to rest too much right now. I have a ton of writing, editing and needlepointing to do.

What are you up to today?

Detour

Hey all. I decided to link today's post to my other blog, since I posted something very serious over there.

I hope you'll check it out!

XX

New Feature: A Prayer List

So I was thinking... There are so many people in need of prayers, so I decided to make a prayer list available. All you need to do is add a comment to  the prayer list page, and if you have time, please take a minute to shoot up a prayer for the person(s) who commented before you.

It's a simple concept, I know, but I think it can change the world. 

I hope you'd like to join in! 

Moments: A Message from Above.

This morning, me and my mom were talking while prepping the next guest house room to be painted.

As the hours went by, we went into talking about some serious stuff, and we ended up talking about God's will.

Basically, what I'd said was that once we're following God's will, and sticking to it, we can always count on Him to provide what we need, or a method to get it.

My mom then asked if I thought that us being on this farm was His will. I said I thought it was, just for the miraculous way it fell into our hands in the first place. Still, the situation is scary. The farm is HUGE and has been neglected for seven years. And putting it into a state where it can bring in money for us is taking everything we've managed to put together in the past two years.

This is our do or die moment. Either we tuck tail and run, or we knuckle down and trust that God will provide the means with which we can make the farm succeed.

Sometimes, life is that simple and that difficult.

Point is, this is terrifying. Waiting on God and not knowing where to expect help to come from.

And then when we finished prepping, I went to my room and found a little card on my bed. It was the one I got when I had my first official communion.

It's basically a thing with spaces to fill in, like the date and my name and a Bible verse that our preacher picked.

I kind of rolled me eyes, because I remembered back to that day and how I thought: "Well this isn't what I need to read." I didn't even remember what verse it was.

But as I was putting the card away, I just got a feeling I should open it and see what the verse was.

And it says this:

"Laat jou lewe aan die Here oor en vertrou op Hom: Hy sal sorg" 

It's Psalm 37:5. I tried to find an English translation of the verse, but you know how translations go. None of them say exactly the same thing as the other. So. Here's the most direct translation I give you for the Afrikaans:

Leave your life to the Lord and trust him: He Will Provide. 

In case you missed it: 

HE 

WILL 

PROVIDE!!!

My mind is blown. The day my mom and I have a worry party about provisions, is the same day my grandmother found a card I'd shoved into obscurity basically from the day I'd received it. In... Get this: 

In 2005. 

Coincidence? 

I think:

NOT.

Moments like these humble me. They remind me the God truly is in control. So much so that He kept that little note back through a lot of times I might have needed it, but already had confirmation, until the day I needed it most. 

Anyone else get messages like these from time to time?