Breakthrough song

 

A song by Greg.

The power of not giving up, in the struggle for truth and justice. "You dared to seek what no one knew and with all your might you're breaking through.."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drmZU4g9q8k

The True Meaning

 

The true meaning of Mathews Gospel 7: 7.

 I was asked once about faith and healing, why God had not healed me despite decades of tremendous pain. Some might even wonder if I have knocked and God has ignored me, sought and been denied healing, asked and been refused. ( Matthew 7:7.)

People commonly believe this gospel reading to mean that God is saying ask and I will (always) give you what you ask for and if you do not receive what you specifically asked for, you either have not asked in the right way or you have not got enough faith to believe it is possible. I do not believe that if you do not receive you have not got enough faith. 

What Jesus is saying, When he says ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and the door will be opened is ask me and You will receive Me ( I am already here), seek and you shall find Me! Knock and the door will be opened, I am waiting to be received by you! The message is about spiritual growth and the pathway to God Himself.   

  God has shown me this meaning through contemplation and years of hope, trust and faith. To me it is the true meaning. It does not mean that He gives all you ask for, for we know not what to ask for half the time! He always sees the bigger picture and knows our need, so, truly all we need to ask for is His Will to be done in our lives in any circumstance.

  To say to someone you are not well because your faith is not strong enough or big enough is really a misunderstanding of prayer and God.

I believe all things are possible in God's time, when held in the Heart of Love, the love of the awesome Mighty Trinity and yet God may have a different one to the one we hope snd expect. Prayers can be said and prayers can be prayed. I believe that prayer is to know God and be with Him, to Trust him and to connect with His presence, His Light, His Mercy. It is to be open to Love and feel it present with you and to lift others into that Light and truth of Love.

 Then miracles happen and joy is complete. You have to look with eyes of spirit to see God working in your life. It is not with the eyes of the world that we know Him and see His power at work in our lives.

Amen

Carer prayer

 May you keep going, when you feel like despairing, when there seems no hope of a clear way forward.

May you dare to stand up for the truth.

May you find the confidence to speak up and keep speaking up.

May you look beyond the dreadful suffering to see the person, so they maintain their integrity and self identity.

May you learn to grow and learn.

May you stay and care when everyone else leaves.

May you keep believing in love and goodness.

May you find new hopes and dreams in a reality so stark there couldn't possibly be any.

From the book,  Unstoppable Spirit - a prayer for Mercy to find us

https://www.stonebird.co.uk/book/spirit.html

Let Mercy fill me, 

Let Mercy bless me, 

Let Mercy cover me, 

Let Mercy renew me, 

Let Mercy strengthen me, 

Let Mercy heal me, 

Let Mercy save me, 

Let Mercy empower me, 

Let Mercy sing in me, 

Let Mercy live in me, 

Let Mercy shine in me, 

Let Mercy grow in me, 

Let Mercy enlighten me, 

Let Mercy uplift me.

Amen.

After 30 years

 

After 30 years, crucified by the system, 

stripped of everything except love, 

I have learned this:

You must enter profoundly into the heart of suffering. 

You must embrace your broken self.

You must discover your vastness.

You must perceive your oneness.

If you want to speak the truth.

If you want to bring healing.

If you want to bring hope.

If you want to care, really care.-- 

Greg Crowhurst

The source of all life

 

The Source of All Life. 

I read this morning how Christ was stripped of everything- except love and Love Always Forgives. Reflecting upon 30 years of caring for my wife, in a song, last night, I have some idea of the cost.

 

 Thirty years is a long time. We are much older now, we have been discussing recently how we would like to spend the next thirty years: by then we will be quite elderly.

 

I have some tiny idea of what it is to labour for a long time, yet be crucified by the 

system.

 

Stripped of everything except love; that is the power of the Cross, the source of all 

life.

If you want to speak of the Cross with authenticity then you have to have suffered 

great pain and injustice.

 

You have to have felt or been physically, emotionally, mentally broken and 

overwhelmed by the weight of your brokenness and the extreme agony intrinsically 

born within it.

 

If you want to know the truth of the Cross and many speak of it without such 

knowledge, you must enter profoundly into the heart of suffering and there, beyond 

your utterly damaged being, find love.

 

This is a profound surprise and strength :that in the centre of such destruction on 

every level, still you exist in a huge and vast sense beyond the physical boundary of 

your body.

You exist and more than this, God is present with you and loves you. His Mercy 

knows no bounds. His love is everywhere, huge, vast and unmistakably with you. His 

love heals, saves, is. And you cannot stay a victim in this knowledge. You cannot be 

powerless, for you are one with Him and this oneness breaks open all untruth, 

injustice, wrongness, sin and restores light and goodness and brings profound 

healing and hope. Amen

I call out

 Lord, I call out to you

In my extreme need

Hear me

Save me 

Protect me

Heal me

Banish all 

That harms me,

In Your most holy Name

Amen

The ever-flowing awesome wonder of the living God

 Linda Crowhurst October 09

Irritated

I feel irritated

by the day

by the lack of

movement

and direction

of my life

No way of planning

No way of flowing

through the discordant jarring motion

of every second

Just the need 

for infinite  flexibility

and whole-hearted tolerance

towards 

the tirade of

sensations

the absolute paralysis of bodily motion

the complete inactivity and non-event

of most moments

always

waiting 

and hoping

for just a flicker

of aliveness

and ability

to shine

through

Silence

first

seems

empty

then 

the sweet

voice of God

whispering

completeness

beauty

and stilness

Desperation

Desolation

Isolation

Emptiness

leads us

on a 

profound

journey

always

to seek

There must be 

more 

than just

never-ending

torment for

a soul

to survive

It is only in

the pure

still

silence

that you find

the ever-flowing

awesome

wonder of

the living God

with you

always and ever

loving

I do not know how to hope

 

Lord I do not know how to hope  

Please Hope for me

I do not know how to find the right path

Please find it for me

I  can no longer find trust 

Please help me to trust again

I need answers

Please give them to me

I need a light to guide me

Please shine for me

I need help

Please help me

I need to be healed

Pease heal me

I need so much Lord

Please provide for me.

Amen.

Contemplating the Our Father

 

For the last thirty years or so, severe, chronic illness, ever progressing, burning, throbbing has smashed my wife’s life apart into screaming shards of never ending agony, has torn her apart on every conceivable level. How probable is it then, I ask, that when she cried out in torment, to Jesus, decades  ago, to show her how to pray and survive, that Jesus might reveal the Our Father to her in a new and deeper way?

This is something of what she has been shown:

“And I saw in the praying of the prayer of the Our Father, that it was not just my prayer, in that moment, but that it was that prayer, prayed in all moments, adding together and cascading over to reach God’s ear; the sum total of all the times the prayer has ever been prayed, the words spoken, uttered in reverence, proclaimed, beseechingly, genuinely, hopefully, desperately, totally, as if following some sacred Holy Path that leads ever up the mountain to the summit. And each time you pray the prayer of the Our Father, you arrive at that summit of the prayer, which connects you to God, yet each further time you pray that prayer, the pinnacle is higher, closer, larger, somehow even more pure, swathed in beauty, in power, in spiritual richness. Each word a glistening jewel that reaches out from you and sparkles in God’s mind.”

Through unimaginable pain and suffering, it is her contemplation upon the greatest of all prayers, that has sustained her and protected her. 

A prayer for when symptoms are raging

 Lord, 

Help me find Your Light

When my own light fails

And my symptoms rage

And the world torments me

Help me keep a place 

Of stillness

Within me

That I might find 

Your Grace

Upon me

Amen

More than the pain, a new art video

 

We are delighted to share a new art video, celebrating art through profound suffering and the determination of spirit to be more than the pain.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8Su2vxE2LQ