Anna Rashbrook's Blog, page 6

Thinking it through

So, I was thinking in the early morning of going for deacon-ship and the secretary, and then came this long list of practical things I’d have to ask the out going lady about. How much time would it take in my week -not as if I’m hugely busy. I’ve never taken minutes for a meeting being one of the first concerns! Or maybe I should be treasurer, that might be less time consuming.

Would it take all my energies, so my mind would leave the main goal, which is bringing people to Jesus? Our pastor isn’t fully affiliated, what if I committed and he left? I’m really keen in hi sort of ministry, I feel God brought us all here at this time for the community. What a team we could be!

I need to sit and talk with them first, before I go another step forward.

Sunday’s church meeting

[image error]January 29thFirstly, our Pastor, Paul preached a hum dinger of a sermon about what is our burden for God, is it to do his work in a world that so needs salvation. It really was full on, directed at the church who is full of people who have spent their lives in the church and are tired.So there I sat, all excited at the meeting, then there was a load of housekeeping that was really boring, and I wondered why the whole church needed to be in on it. To my surprise, THREE of the deacons had handed in their notice, including the secretary and treasurer. I’d often said to myself that I quite fancied being secretary.I went home still excited, people have to put themselves forward for voting in the next few weeks. I found myself thinking NOW I’LL HAVE POWER! That eventually got to me, that’s wrong. I’m so aware these days that I don’t wan’t to be in charge, happy to follow orders. If it’s a me in control thing, this is ALL wrong. But if it means I have the power to be instrumental in waking this sleeping, dying church up, and instrument of God’s change then maybe it is ok.Am I finally usable? I’ve felt God’s presence strongly these past couple of weeks. Even a dull day to me is full of him and now the birds are singing, wow

Am I getting ahead of myself?

On Friday night at the church kids’ club, I asked the pastor’s wife how the deacons meeting had gone that week and she smiled mischievously and said when I went to the main meeting on Sunday, I was to smile and nod and see what I thought, it was something we had discussed. She wouldn’t be drawn, so my mind went into full gallop.

We had talked a bit about me being a Deacon, and how that would help us get things moving in the church. I’d even wondered when I would be asked. How alluring, after fourteen years of frustration the Lungau, was I finally, nearly usable to God? To do his work was my ambition here, having done all I want, even to thinking quite a lot that the last book I’m writing at present may be my last for the moment, and not worrying. I’ve hardly bought a book fro weeks, the passion for that dying, but that might be that few horsey books are for sale here!

Does it mean at last I can be a full blooded full time Christian, doing stuff for Mountain Ash, using all I’ve learnt over the years, might actually lead someone to the Lord? Not that this has anything to do with my relationship with God, it’s that what is important, not what I do. My mind went nuts, even seeing me preaching, having a ministry.

So on Sunday, Dave and I trotted off to church me wondering if I could pull it off if asked if I wanted to be a Deacon. I’d completely forgotten the procedure from when we’d been in a Baptist church before! You’ll have to read the next post!

Blindingly obvious

I’m listening to another set of podcasts by Mr Wommack and this time, it’s all about Holy Spirit. He began by saying, what you prefer, Jesus to be here tonight or with you always? He guessed most would want the immediate presence. He then pointed out with the baptism of Holy Spirit, Jesus is with you always.

I’ve been a spirit baptised, tongue speaking, God meditating Christian since 1991. So why did it hit me like a thud when Mr W said, but Holy Spirit is Jesus. And of course, as I believe in the trinity , blindingly obvious.

So I walked the rest of the way round the golf course musing on, Spirit is Jesus, Spirit is God, God is Spirit, Spirit is God, Jesus is God, God is Jesus. Kept me happy for ages…

Up the lane

Most dog walking mornings, I trot around the golf course, with the headphones giving me teaching, but today as I did my usual up the road to do a hill walk and keep the dog’s claws down, I really felt I didn’t want to listen. When I said, on or off, the answer was off. To music too.

So I just rested in him praised him and listened to the thundering waters of the swollen streams running beside me. No words or wisdom, just a calm, us walking down the lane together.

Looking back

I’ve reflected quite a lot on our life in Austria, and Mr Wommack said the other day that even if you make mistakes, but are doing it with a good heart, he can work with you, he’s a God of second chances.

Or, maybe it was like Moses, we had made a wrong decision, and something had us in the wilderness for fourteen years. It certainly was a time of spiritual growth for us, and we learnt a lot, through our own study and reflections and teaching on the TV. During Corona, we even had services live from England.

Did we look back too much? How I struggled when the kids visited and went back, or when we visited. I had a huge bout of depression the first time we drove back to the UK for Christmas and Dave has more than once said, he wishes we had gone back then. And with a grin it would mean we didint have a certain black dog, who was my therapy. If we had totally gone into German, not watched UK TV, missed the kids, would it have been any different?

So many times, I battled with wanting to return, but buckled down, prayed and got over it. Even found joy in my life. Then when in January 2019, Dave said maybe it was time to go home, I leapt with joy, never having expected to hear him say that. The following eighteen months, I so wanted to get home, my heart was no longer for Austria. That does sound like it was his change of heart working in me.

Now I feel so at the end of myself and I did feel often in Austria that I had done all I wanted to do, is it time for God to finally find me usable? Does he have a ministry for me? It took Mr Wommack many years!

Putting God first

There is so much stuff going around in my head at the moment, but it’s all good. As is usual for me, writing it down helps a lot.

After reading, The Dean’s watch’ it was like the days when I spent time mediating and I felt spiritually aware and so close to God. So, of course, there came a form of attack, particularly in my health. Maybe it was a bug, but I was so tired and my legs were aching.

So, I got back straight away into rebuking illness, not letting it walk all over me like it did before Christmas when I had three bugs, one after another. I cursed illness in the name of Jesus, 1 Peter 2, 24. I was, am and will be healed by his stripes. Using my imagination, I saw this little blue ball with arms, like a jelly baby and spiritually I either poked it in the stomach or kicked it out the room.

I also re-iterated that I am walking in spiritual healing, every test the doctors have done on me this year has been negative. There is nothing wrong with me. Maybe it has all been in my head, symptomatic of my longing to return to the UK. Whatever, I’m now walking in healing. I’m not striving, I’m not fretting, just each time it starts away at me, I’m kicking at it.

LEAVE IT!

This is something I often shout at Swingle when she’s eating something nasty or digging for mice!

One of the things that has come to me, is that we must put God first, stop striving, look at the birds of the field etc. What he wants is relationship with us, not our career, how we serve him, how much we give. See ye first the kingdom of God and all this will be added to you. Put him first, hence my reading and trying to meditate on his ways.

Then I knew he was telling me to stop striving with the book sales, getting worried about ways of marketing and clutching at straws. He dealt with my sales in the pandemic and now I need to leave it to him, having done all I can. Stop worrying about money and get on with life with peace. I even began to think, I wonder if I’m ready enough for some sort of ministry, so I stamped my foot on that one, even if once again I feel I have come to the end of me and all I want to do in life.

So after another damp trot on the hills, I came up to do my work on the next book, for I have said to him I will contunie with this so I dont go spare with boredom or let the reslessness in again. I put on the old FB, to see a comment on a racing group about a picture of the racehorse Lovely cottage whi features in my last book. I’d tried to track down an address of his owners but hadnt found one on the net that I could be sure was the right people. The comment not only turns out to be the family, but his parents have two paintings of Lovely Cottage, he’s bought the book and will be in touch. Nothing of me, God doing his work, after all this time.

Then later the evening, another author commented on how she likes my books and I always have that nagging voice saying no one likes your books. Know who that is and rebuke it.

See what happens when you stop striving?

Following the peace

I’ve been sort of enjoying the walks in the pouring rain now that I have a new coat and waterproof trousers, and now that the golf course across from our house is shut in the bad weather, but the going is so heavy with the waterlogged ground it’s hard work. This was written before the snow!

The next stage of my learning has been to remember to follow God’s peace. Its a way he speaks to us through Holy Spirit. Our little, third Fiat Panda needed its MOT last week so we took it to the local garage in Mountain Ash. Dave and I have been talking about finances, and we have to cut back our spending or my book sales must go up, I really don’t want to have to find a job when retirement is such a blessing.

So as we chatted, I said I had a budget in mind, and we agreed. Happily we left the car, but soon had a phone call. The back axle was badly rusted, and needed replacing amongst other work. They came up with a budget of about £800, yikes! The lad at the garage offered to buy it from us for about £900, and as we knew he would do it up and sell it on, we knew it must be basically ok, and it is low mileage. Even with saving on the repairs and his offer, we couldn’t find any cars in our budget, that might also turn out to be pups.

So, for once, we prayed about it. Talked about it calmly and kept our peace. We told the garage we were keeping it, and they promptly said there was place in Aberdare who would weld it and do the work for much much less than their quote. Now the cynical of you will be saying, they were playing you, but they weren’t. It’s a small, two man garage and they did all they could to help.

Car with new MOT, peace held, God’s solution.

Snow, snow, snow and no clearing it up!

I really enjoyed the recent snowfall here, no shovels in sight. But now it’s melting and getting slippery, I could almost wish it would rain again. All photos taken on Mountain Ash golf club.