I have been using a wordpress site to blog recently... discerningmycalling.com I still love blogger but wordpress is able to become a website.

New beginnings in old places

It has been nearly a year since my last post, hence the title of the post. I am glad to say I do actually feel I have moved on, recovered slightly, become myself more wholly and settled greatly. The house is lovely. The village a challenge but friendly. The church small but welcoming, and the schools good. I have been living here for nearly three years now but it is a new house and a new beginning as I am now not a wife of Asher, but rather a student of theology and a lay helper in the church. I am doing a couple of courses and helping out soley in this village now. I feel God is leading and directing, but I am needing to just sort finances though I am not yet in turmoil.

Something I have experienced and am learning to reflect with and on is that in all times and in all things there is a season. I have always been someone who reflects and considers what God is revealing, but recently this is something that I am taking more seriously and deeply. Perhaps because I have been through so much I recognise I need to learn from my experiences and thoughts, emotions and reflections. I feel God is leading and directing, but I am needing to just sort finances though I am not yet in turmoil. Being a widow has opened a window into what it is like to be singe and even more a single mother. I can say there is plenty the church can and should be doing. But we are all a damaged people and not many of us are healed or supported enough to actually give out more than we need to receive. I began a new blog which is slightly different because during this period I had lost my brain... .I forget things all the time, and could not remember this site address. But I found it when preparing to read and blog for The Advent Calendar by Steven Croft again. This year as we did not do it last year or the year before due to Ashers illness and then death, this year we are going to start early and take two evenings to read one days chapter.

We are finally managing to become a family of peace again. We hope to move house in a few weeks and that will be lovely. The house will work much better for us and I hope the children will find time and space to do homework and hobbies.

I hope to find the space to begin writing and creating as my own mind seems to have wound up. Over the last few years my focus has been so much on helping and supporting Asher that I had to put myself second. Before he died we had a really good crying session together as we grieved over how much time we had lost just being ourselves.

I think that is one of the saddest things about longterm illness, the loss of yourself. So much time is devoted to trying to keep life peaceful and normal that extra activities and fun have to be laid aside as energy is so limited.

A time and a season.

Whirpool of Life.
I feel I have been launched into the ocean. My three children are with me, all in different age groups; a two year old - incredibly independent, an eleven year old - amazing academic and hard worker, and finally my only son aged thirteen who struggles to excel in anything except being wonderfully delightful and evoking histerical images of Kev and Perry as he wears his cap and argues with everything I say!

My husband died in May 2011 after fighting Head and Neck Cancer for five years. After many operations and treatment he was finally told at the end of January 2011 that he had perhaps six months to live and that death would be very painful. The surgeon was obviously devestated as were we. It was a very hard end to a very productive and wonderful life. And so the ocean I have been launched into - single parenting.

Last night as I lay in bed with my youngest still clinging to me I felt that actually I have found myself in a whirlpool struggling to tread water. Where is God in all this? Well, I reflect, I do indeed trust that God will ensure that the whirlpool will release me onto dry land, somewhere, I can only hope it is the Caribean or some such wonderful landing! So then surely I do not need to be treading water. What I need to do is rest in the whirlpool of life.

There does not seem to be anything that will make the rush and change of life slow down, nothing that will help the children settle and find peace except perhaps if I lead the way and hold onto the knowledge I have that in everything God is with me and Christ has been here in the pressure and pain of life. What an amazing knowledge that my God is not an idol, an empty symbol or system but a God who has entered our earth and opened the way for us -

And so I pray perhaps with many thousands of single parents and married parents whose lives are way off from the stable lands of shore- open my eyes lord, and help me to see, open my ears Lord, help me to hear, open my heart Lord, help me to love.

Last month Ashers dad told him about hezikiah who in Isaiah 38 was told he had 15 more years after first being given a proclamation of death.

Asher said 'lets hold on to that'.

Then on friday my stepfather read 2 Kings 20 which is the same story. Later he went to church and the Big Bible was open at Isaiah 38 which he had not known of. he was suprised to see the same story and wanted to check it when he got home but forgot which chapters it was. he opened the Bible and Isaiah 38 fell open.

He prayed about this and really felt God was speaking to us through these verses and so he phoned us. I was glad to be able to tell him ashers dad had also held onto these verses.

my stepfather felt it was in the asking and the way Hezikiah had asked for healing. I did not feel this was true but that the verses were for Asher I hoped and wondered in what way.

Then came another call. My mum had been praying also and they felt it was important to follow up on the action that Isaiah had given Hezekiah to do. He was told to wear a garland of figs. well we have not made a garland of figs but they came over and we prayed and opened a bottle of 'syrup of figs'. Mum and Chris thought this was a symbolic gesture But I felt often the Bible tells us of the things people did that were medical treatments and so we put the syrup on a tissue and put it directly on the newest tumor that we can see which has been growing really steadily over the last week or two.

So far since last night I can say I think it really has worked. It is less red and less swollen. i looked online and found that figs are roasted, blended and then placed on blisters and tumors in many counties. How amazing. It is also used as a mouth wash for alcers. I should not be amazed but I am excited.

it struck me today when reading the thanksgiving prayer that Jesus died to draw the whole world to himself. In the pryaer we are called to 'walk in the way of the cross and share its weight'. I was really impressed that as we walk we are declare the love God has for the world, but we are also called to walk in the way of the cross and as Jesus died on the cross we are to be prepared to sacrifice for others -perhaps unto death - so that they may be directed and united to God.



Blessed are you, Lord God of our salvation,
to you be praise and glory for ever.
As a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief
your only Son was lifted up
that he might draw the whole world to himself.
May we walk this day in the way of the cross
and always be ready to share its weight,
declaring your love for all the world.
Blessed be God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
AllBlessed be God for ever.

oh dear by accident I sent a message from my facebook and know i will get reprucussions from it!!!!!!!

The last post explained the message which is this:

Drshakeel Isaac
Helliw Rosanna How r u hows Asher please read Psalms 91/14 to 16. Job 5/26.(u shall come to the Grave at a full age) psalms 102/24. Bible says u will see the children of the children Rosanna all these Promises and Blessing for us and our children don't sit and wait please come out of this and stand against this disease rebuke it gather all the family and u will see the miracle the blood of Jesus can heel all the cancer we all are praying be a faithful god bless u...






and unfortunately or fortunately i replied::

who says i am sititng and waiting? why are you asking me to 'please come out of this'? When jesus says to people 'your faith has healed you' he is saying 'it is who and what you have faith in that has healed you, not the amount.. the amount and power is Gods not ours and specifically it is Jesus which is why Jesus said this in the Scripture at the times when he did. Peace to you and I hope you can read the whole books and chapters you quote with peace and joy in God as a whole. You reduce Jesus to be a magicians trick. Do not be fooled by false teaching. this maybe hurtful to you but I know Asher and I stand firm in God and his protection. we do not prefur riches to poverty, honour to dishonour, health to sickness... In all things we give glory to God or saviour and protector. If you wish to know how we are then you would have asked - How are you? Are you standing in faith and rejoicing in our Lord? how is God working in your lives? As you did not I cannot tell you. and you seem to have judged us ignorant. I wonder who you have been talking to to think such things and send such a message?