I wrote this earlier in the month, but am only now getting it loaded. It’s just a very busy time of the year, and I still enjoy hand writing my posts first.

Some years ago I had a significant birthday. You know the one with the key. A birthday that a few centuries before would’ve seen me labelled with the ‘spinster’ title.
I was given many lovely gifts some of which i still have to this day. One of the gifts was a towel with my name embroidered on it. An apricot towel. It was all good until the gift giver told me that they always tried to match the colour of the towel to the recipient. Who, hold on, me? Apricot?

I mean, my daily wardrobe consisted of red, blue, purple, fluro, black…bright colours, out-there combinations. I was (and still am to a certain extent) an outgoing, realistic, unsentimental, often brash person. Where the heck did apricot come in? Apricot represents old-fashioned, traditional, lady-like. Everything I was not. I thought “This person doesn’t know me” and got offended.

Fast forward a number of years (the number is irrelevant). I am less out-going, still a realist and often brash, but now I am abundantly sentimental! I still like bright colours but my combinations and ways of using them have become more understated and classic in leaning. I love reading older novels. Much of what is written today is full of the nasty side of life; superficial and dysfunctional relationships and/or sex. It’s not that the older novels are not realistic, it’s just that the focus is not on the darker side of life, but on the better.

I relish older movies too – and the newer animated ones – for their simple, uncomplicated enjoyment.

I will tear up at sad stories, happy stories and my heart strings are pulled by frail elderly. Sad TV adverts will get me teary. People dying in real life, on TV or in books make me cry.

I may not get emotional enough to cry about anything in my own life (once in a blue moon); but others can move me to tears very quickly.

Apricot is not a bad colour. My towel is faded now, only a hint of the apricot colour remains. Yet I still look at that towel and remember the indignation I felt. It has however been borne in me over the last year or two, that maybe it was not the gift giver who did not know me. Maybe I did not know myself.

#21st #towel #apricot

I was listening to Mercy Me’s Welcome To The New album this week while travelling to and from work. It is not the first time I have listened to it – nor will it be the last. Song number 8 Wishful Thinking starts with these lines: “Lord is it possible, to get this far and just now understand who You are”.

Every so often I am struck anew by Gods awesomeness. Or maybe it’s His immense grace, His faithfulness or His never ending love.

Do you know the feeling? When it’s like you see it for the first time? I do. For the most part I’m usually hit by something that I already know. The chorus in Wishful Thinking has these lines: “Could it be that on my worst day, how you love me still will not change.”

Driving home this week (a week in which I have felt on edge and not dealt well with others), I was struck by the truth in these words.

God’s love for me is not bound up in how good a person I am.

I know this. I knew this.

Yet it felt so new an idea.

Why?

I think that Satan loves to distract us from the wonder of what God has done for us, the beauty of His love and grace.

Casting Crowns has a song (Waiting on the Night to Fall) about the ‘old man’ living out the back, who we’ve forgotten about. “He knows he’ll never have your soul, but he will gladly rob you blind. While you’re feasting at his table, He’ll tie your hands and numb your mind”. We need to be constantly reminded of God’s goodness – well I know I do. The further into the world I stray – dipping that toe into the night life – the more I ‘forget’ the generous privilege I have as one of God’s children. Hang on, it’s just a toe! I’m not wading….“He’ll take you further than you want to go”…then a wave comes in splashing to my knees…”He’ll keep you longer than you want to stay”…Suddenly the it’s not just a toe, it’s half a leg. “And it will cost you more than you ever thought you’d pay”.

It seems so innocent, yet anything that drags you away from a deep intimate relationship with God the Father, is what Satan is aiming for. He hates God, and Gods love for us, His children, puts us squarely in Satan’s sight.

I need constant reminders – fickle human that I am – to ensure that I stay connected with God. Aaaand avoid putting my toes into situations where I can end up in far deeper than I intended to be.

Living with feeling a bit on the outside of the world looking in, is far better than feeling and living with regret.

Mercy Me Wishful Thinking  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUrUY6dEhuE

Casting Crowns Waiting on the Night to Fall  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQiydcNZhvw