Author: Simone

Loves to tell and hear untold stories about people, places and experiences!

Those Whom I love…

19 Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent. 20 Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me. Revelation 3: 19-20

Today I am feeling a little reflective, because there are many more things that I am yet to learn. There are many things that happen that can teach us so much more than we think we know. When I was younger and read the book of Revelation, I thought it really likely for me to get the fire and the brimstone (I was a difficult child, always being beaten it seems for doing the wrong things). I have always found reading the book of Revelation a bit depressing. However, I now find comfort in Revelation 3: 19-20. Even in the disappointments and difficulties we face, God still loves us; even when we do not love The Almighty the way we should. When we need help, there is no need to call one any source except our Creator as He says, “Here I am at the door knocking!” All we need to do is to invite Him in and let Him do the rest. The truth of God’s goodness is only in the spiritual and divine and not in the physical world, which requires us to make ample space in our lives to receive the truth of God.

The book of Revelation is not just about retribution but is the evidence of the hope that we have in Christ. It is a reflection of God’s love, a love that prompts the Holy Spirit to challenge us to see beyond the worldly trappings to our real purpose here on earth.

Nothing goes to waste on the journey of life. Both good and bad experiences shape your mind and heart for what is to come. Leon Brown

Maybe if we stopped thinking in negative terms, then the things we see as bad or hard would not consume our lives and become true. If we take the time to process each experience, then maybe they could be teachable moments that ensure growth and not stagnation. Every experience matters, no matter how hard it was to live through, they happen because they are suppose to but they do not have to happen again and again, so we can call it deja-vu. A lesson never disappears unless you have learned it. Consider that the next time you question, “why me”. Learning lessons mean accepting them when they happen and it may mean forgiving yourself for not being smart enough in the first place to know or do better.

You cannot travel back in time to fix your mistakes, but you can learn from them and forgive yourself for not knowing better. Leon Brown

For me, Revelation is not about the judgement as much as it is about the mercy, about finding the truth and living by it. Finding the truth never happens unless you learn some difficult lessons.It is never enough to accept what was as what is and it is never justified to stay within the confines of the box. God does not require perfection but a heart that is willing to learn the lessons that matter most, based on His divine will.

Macro Photography of Brown and White Bird on Spike Branch

Turn fear into faith

Turn fear into faith and do not look back
No need to collect the broken pieces 
into sackcloth.
Turn your broken dreams
 into beautiful mosaics
By the help of the Almighty. 
Look for the truth in the humble places.
Test your strength against the chains they would use to bind you.
Chains that would deny you the freedom to be you.
Chains that would be keep you enslaved 
dependent
weak,
malleable 
to their agenda.
Take hold of the yourself.
Do not be fooled by mass hysteria.
Take control of yourself so you can be restored.

Whisper a prayer,

Wait for what is to come
claim your right to receive it
and deny fear.
Go and know that your needs are already met
ready to be collected.
You offer little and get much.
That is the nature of mercy
the measure of Grace.
Hold fast to the promise,
it is the rope that will guide.

Hold fast to One Truth,
the truth that will sustain you.

Phillipians 4:19:
And
My God
Will meet all your needs
According to the riches of His Glory...

For I am With You Always…

Today I want to talk about trust, faith and fear. It is Easter Sunday, which represents for many christians the commemoration of the resurrection of Christ. It is the pivotal aspect to the good news of Christ. With this celebration,. there is the renewal of hope, life and light. However, because we are only human, in times of great tribulation we can forget to focus on the light as the darkness surrounds us. We may know of the hope that we have in Christ, but when we think too much of how we have failed to be true to our faith we get afraid. We wonder if with each new challenge, it is our past that has finally caught up with us.

Does humanity deserve what is happening right now?

We focus so much of our energies on our fears that we become paralysed and either do not act to move forward, or we act too rashly and somehow make things even worse than they were. It is a bit clearer now more than ever, how misguided we can be about matters in this life. I have seen several instances where, in a time of death and great uncertainty , some of us still focus on the things that do not matter – things that never truly mattered and never will.

I have seen persons so consumed by fear that they infect everyone else around them with it, until there is no one to offer comfort and strength.

But this thankfully this is the minority.

There are many more persons who continue to rely on the the promise of Christ, the promise to be with us even as He left the earth to sit on the right hand of His father: teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age... (Matt. 28:20). Once we abide in The Most High, He will abide with us.

Easter isn’t about a date on the calendar nor the rituals that accompany said date – well as far as I am concerned. It is the hope that suffering is temporary and that fear can be conquered. It is to remember that we do not fight our battles alone, but that Christ is always with us, once we act according to his will (Matthew 28).

We see the evidence of God’s willingness to stand by His people, to offer comfort and healing:

10 So do not fear, for I am with you;
    do not be dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you and help you;
    I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
                                           Isaiah 41:10

The message of setting aside our fear, despair and uncertainty, is a message that we need to carry, “like the poor carry hope”. It is a message that mattered then and that matters now. It is the good news that needs to travel through the grapevines, through the tunnels of tiktok and all those social media platforms teeming with everything else. It is the good news that we need to tell ourselves when we are bombarded by the bad news that gives the grisly details of death and suffering.

There is hope in Christ, in His birth, death and resurrection. There is also evidence in both the old and New Testament that we are never alone, once we are willing to allow The Great I am into our lives and once we are willing to relinquish the control we we think we have. It is comforting to know that we are not alone, that we have been placed together to help each other and encourage each other during our difficulties. The Great Commision was not just for the disciples but for all believers. Our strength does not lie in operating in fear but in the Light. We are not slaves to fear, because We have been given a spirit of fearlessness; what we need to do is to activate it.

15 The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, 
so that you live in fear again; rather,
 the Spirit you received brought about
 your adoption to sonship.And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.”
Romans 8:15
Ministry Matters™ | Embracing the awkwardness: A sample homily for ...

A Different Kind of Palm Sunday

Today I watched the Palm Sunday service from the comfort of my bedroom, kitchen and backyard. When you are at home you find yourself multitasking because there are so many distractions. So there I was making sure I did not miss service, but finding others things to do. However, I started to think back to last year and what Palm Sunday meant then, and what it means today, and you know what, it is different. While I was not always still, the service provided so many meaningful lessons that I can now reflect on. overall, Palm Sunday this year for me is not about miracles, but it is all about surrender.

I was reminded through the gospel reading the example of Jesus, who in facing the greatest trial of His life surrendered to God with his prayer:

“O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.” St Matthew 26:39

I was reminded here that being vulnerable before God is not a weakness but a requirement.

It is a requirement in having an honest and meaningful relationship with God. I also realise that Jesus’ prayer showed his willingness to surrender all that he felt; from it I could hear His, doubt, distress and powerlessness at what was about to happen to Him. Yet he did not waver in his commitment to completing His purpose here on earth, in completing His mission:

“O My Father, if this cup cannot pass away from Me unless I drink it, Your will be done”. (St Matthew 26: 42)

There are times in our lives when we say we look for our purpose, but sometimes it is not that we don’t know our purpose but we refuse to accept that that is the will of God because it is not our will. We hope that if we pray and hope hard enough another purpose will materialise, one that is more pleasing to us and not to God. We want to serve God but on our terms; it is as Jesus noted of his own disciples, a situation where the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak (Matt. 26:41).

Another excellent lesson from today’s sermon,was the importance for us to stand and wait, and allow the will of God to be done. Now more than ever, we are required to slow down or completely come to a stand still. Many of us resist and for different reasons. However, while Jesus knew that Judas was there to betray Him, He did not remove Himself from the scene, He waited for the things that had to come to pass, and many of us do not have the patience nor the time to wait. We have become so accustomed to the mindset of. “getting things done now” that we have forgotten that we can do nothing without the Almighty, our source of life and light.

Finally, the service offered the reminder that suffering is a part of this life whether we want to experience it or not. We often, especially as Christians, think that if we pray hard enough for something and exhibit false humility God will be merciful and grant our request. We feel that as children of God our suffering will be minor or not last very long and ultimately we will be redeemed in the way we envision. However, by now, we should know this is not the case. While we can only see our lives frame by frame God sees the entire picture. There is always a greater good than what we experience and know. We operate based on our weakened flesh and therefore instead of being discouraged by suffering what we need to do is remain steadfast and stand fast in faith. (Rev. Fr. Howard Walters).

Finally, I was reminded that our faith is a choice. We have decided to take up the cross and that is our choice. Jesus decided to submit to the will of God and that was His choice. Instead of looking at what we are now faced with and surrender to fear, let us surrender to the hope that we have in Christ Jesus. Let us not be afraid to belief that God is at the helm of our lives and all that we experience is according to His perfect will for our lives. We may suffer and experience great pain, but all that we experience, is only for a time. Though the world as we know it may change, God is still in control, and truly, in our weakness is the strength of the Almighty.

8 Concerning this thing I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me. 9 And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

After Surrender— Then What? | My Utmost For His Highest

If we must Die…

I was speaking to my students recently about Caribbean poets and Claude McKay came up. Unsurprisingly, they were only vaguely familiar with his name. In some instances I have seen him listed as an American poet, an error which sought to erase his humble Jamaican origins. Born September 15, 1889, in Sunny Ville Clarendon, he eventually made his way across America and Europe, gathering worlds of experiences to himself. He was best known for his invaluable contribution to the Harlem Renaissance in New York and was considered a literary voice for social justice. More than any of his masterfully crafted poems, the one that resonates with me today, is the poem, “If We Must Die”.

A poem that never fails to shake me out of a defeated mindset.

“Though far outnumbered let us show us brave”

“Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back

Though this Shakespearean sonnet was written as a rebellion against oppression and its institutions, it is also for me, a call to continue going, to continuing fighting no matter what, even if the victory seems impossible. It bolsters my courage against disappointments, fear and the unseen enemies that attack when you least expect or want them. But most of all, it reminds me that there is no room to surrender or to doubt my strength which comes from the Almighty…

If we must die, let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursèd lot.
If we must die, O let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!
O kinsmen! we must meet the common foe!
Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one death-blow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

IF WE MUST DIE – CLAUDE MCKAY
Grayscale Photo of Rope on Log

It Was Never Enough…

There is a Youtuber that I listen from time to time and often times she brings some clarity on things I come to realise but could not put into perspective.

This has been the best year so far for clarity. While it seems everything is going wrong, I feel as if something like this was bound to happen. I feel I now have the time to really look at myself and determine what I want to carry, for however long God allows me to be here.

It was never enough but now it has to be.

I have never been satisfied. No matter how much I achieved and reached my goals, it was never enough and that is so sad to realise, because what I took for granted can never come back. It is true that the more you have, or the more you gain, the more you want. The less satisfied you are with what you have and what you have achieved. It is so easy to focus on the shortcomings because they proof that we are not perfect, so we want to auto correct. Meanwhile, we are blind to blessings God has given us because we are too focused on acquiring more than we had before.

So you wanted something and feel your world will end if you do not have it. So, you work at it and when you are at that place, you do not take the time to rest and just have that experience. Instead, you look closer at what others have achieved and you want that so badly (we tell ourselves that we are living our purpose) and we tell ourselves that we can achieve it so we must.

But then when we are no longer happy with our gains, we become bored and self sabotage. We never really wanted what we gained and so it isn’t enough.

So what becomes of us? What becomes of having enough?

The gentlest of wind can tear you down, if your foundation is weak.

It takes something like a pandemic for us to realise that we have been reaching for a blinding flashlight and not the stars. We look back and realise that that crappy day wasn’t that bad. We realise that the disappointment of not getting what we wanted was really not bad and we can be grateful.

We come to appreciate so much more, the little things we couldn’t see because our heads were covered by polluted clouds.

They were clouds that made us foolishly greedy to have more and to be more, of the things that simply do not matter. To think that with one year (cough 2020) we can magically step away from years of being annoyed with our lot in life. The irony being that it would take less than a year to realised that “our lot in life” is all we have and we really want it to count.

So, when we get up tomorrow and see one more day, let that day be enough.

When we can greet each other no matter how, make that enough.

When we know that we have support, no matter how small your group is, it is enough.

When we have the opportunity to do something, anything no matter how small, to uplift and encourage someone, you will know it is enough.

The little things that were never enough before are great treasures to cherish.

Your health, body and mind are enough.

God is enough.

When we realise that we are still here, we know that we are enough.

It is enough, Life is enough .

All that was never enough, becomes vital, because those are the things that truly will sustain us. This moment that we have, in this transformed world, is enough.

Can we Start Over?

How can it be that we can start over? For many of us the world will never be the same. But that is the beauty of life. Sometimes we have to say goodbye to greet hello.

It may be hard to conceive of finding hope in hopelessness and joy in insurmountable pain and grief. To think that you can come back from what has been the hardest time of your life. How do we make a come back from being so wrong about everything.

It may sound like a cliche but we have to be at our worst sometimes to see the truth. As you and I stand at the brink of seeming doom, we wonder what to do? Where do we turn for relieve. Where do we turn? When we have tried to diagnose and treat a problem that we are blind to and failed to cure. Where do we turn?

We turn to the Great I am.

I decided to give up things that were distracting me from having a closer relationship with God (a serious work in progress there). Too much had happened over the years and it wasn’t enough to pretend they did not happen. Even if no one knew. I did and I was not satisfied with my lack of commitment to my faith.

After I decided to do this, things got worse.

I started to get sick and wondered why. After all I was doing everything I was suppose to. I was in a better place than I had been.

I wondered why now. Why me?

However, I decided to make a go at trusting Him; something I had never fully gotten the hang of. I decided to stop making decisions for both of us and to simply go where I am told.

There is a man I see sometimes; I was told he left his job as a bank manager to be a witness and like any rational person, I wondered if he were mad. To leave a well paying job to walk day and night looking like a mad man and say God made him do it. God doesn’t want those who believe in Him to walk around look like mad people!

But then I wonder, what do I really know? I have gotten it wrong so many times and yet I was suppose to be the sane one.

I thought it must have been hard for him (or maybe not) to give up all those material gain, great car, fabulous house. To be ridiculed and rejected by strangers, family and friends. To know that people pitied him and thought him a fool, for following what he see as his purpose. How is he winning? He has nothing to show for his commitment to God.

He has not moved on to greater wealth and prosperity for following God. He has not been blessed by God!

That is what many of us would think. That is what I thought.

When did we started thinking serving God meant perpetual material wealth?

But are we only ever blessed and have His grace, when we are showered with material wealth and a long healthy life?

Isn’t this also from God:

5 This is what the Lord says:“Cursed is the one who trusts in man,
    who draws strength from mere flesh
    and whose heart turns away from the Lord.
6 That person will be like a bush in the wastelands;
    they will not see prosperity when it comes.

They will dwell in the parched places of the desert,    in a salt land where no one lives.

It’s scary to think, isn’t it, that we can be incur his Grace and Wrath. That both are equally potent and just.

We would like to think of Him as the second God only, even if like Judah we deserve His wrath…

But in these chapters of Jeremiah 17, is a dilemma we must wrestle with and know that the peace of God is greater than any wealth we could accumulate here on earth; than any prize and fame, than any desire not of God.

7 “But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord,
    whose confidence is in him.
8 They will be like a tree planted by the water
    that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
    its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought (Jeremiah 17)

Do we decide to start seeking Him at the wrong times when the curse is already upon us, and we decide that He must hear and answer us with His favour?

If anything, what is happening in the world now, reminds us of how weak we are. It reminds us of how little rights we have to demand his favour. His Grace is sufficient and worth more than any wealth we could gather to ourselves.

So while it seems as if the world is falling apart around us. Will it be too late to start over?