Anti-depressants

Here are the tulips gifted to me by my lovely sister.  And they truly are anti-depressants.  Each flower is a miracle of beauty and engineering, reminding us of their Creator, of his love and his care for us, of how lovely he made his earthly creation.

It is an assurance that can sustain all us damaged children of Adam.

Oh and Col put them in a vase made by my good friend who was a great potter in her day. We have many of her pieces round the house.  Sadly she died shortly after retirement.  But I do hope that one day I will see her again. I would love to have shared my books with her.  I did once send her one of my short stories and she said she loved it.  It made her laugh.

I watched the February Broadcast at the weekend. It was a long one, so I split it into two.  So I thought I would just put a few thoughts from it into my blog in the hopes that they will stay with me.  I am finding it hard to retain things now - my two remaining brain cells often seem to be at full stretch trying to remember my own name... which is... embarrassed pause... sound effect as of two brain cells whirling round a vast empty space, colliding, and producing a thought... look at the heading of this blog... Sue!  Hurray!

Anyway, here is what I hope to retain from the February broadcast:

Deepen my desire to please Jehovah - Hebrews 10:7   In trying to please Jehovah, to obey him, I am not only benefiting myself, but also those around me - first and foremost being Captain Butterfly, who I love very much.  Jehovah is the Source of love and wisdom, so all his laws are for our good.

Devote myself to a study of God's word - Joshua 1:8  Get back to personal Bible reading which has been neglected over the last few days. I am in 1 Samuel at the moment, and it is amazing to me how much I now understand it, can put it in context, and learn from it.  But I also realise that when I next get round to it, I will have learnt even more.  So keep on...

Never take the privilege of prayer for granted.  The speaker made the point that we have constant access to Jehovah, to the Almighty God himself. We can talk to him - come before him - at any time.  Maybe even the angels do not have such a privilege.  We must never ever take it for granted.

Every day that people do not know Jehovah hurts them.  What can I say?  I spent the first 38 years of my life not knowing Jehovah and only wish I had searched for my Creator much sooner than I did.  The creation was always there to tell me. And I had always wondered about what the New Zealand author Janet Frame called "the sadness that belongs to the world".  To understand what had happened to cause that sadness, I needed to read and understand the Bible.

By the way, I hope my recent blogs haven't been as gloomy as some of my recent emails have apparently been.   There is so much to hope for - there is more joy ahead of us, right here on the earth, than we can now imagine.  I look at those tulips and think that one day, through the undeserved kindness of the ransom sacrifice, I could be every bit as lovely and graceful as they are.

And yes, that will be a miracle.  Of course.