All posts by Gwenyth

I live on the outskirts of Whangarei, the northernmost city in New Zealand. I enjoy many things, ( writing amongst them), have been married to Keith for sixty-one years, have three married daughters, nine grandchildren and seventeen great- grandchildren who are scattered in various countries. No cats and no dogs as they would cramp our life-style.. We are obviously retired, but were farming further north before moving to the town over thirty-five years ago. We attend one of the local churches across the same side of town that we live.
My Life

Keeping a Diary.

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     I’ve kept a diary for years, and I must say that it has been the means of solving many an argument! Dates and events are often otherwise forgotten. I’ve got several different styles of diaries, and one I often refer to is my diary of events. These are just the headlines of different things that happen in the month and the family often refer to it as well. Then there is my normal diary which has more detail of day to day happenings, conversations and weather etc.

     Another one that is useful is the garden diary….this one is laid out four pages to a month labelled Week One, Week Two etc, and divided into sections down the page…each one corresponding to a year. This means that you can see at a glance how various plants have been doing from year to year at the same time.

    Then there is the Diary of Items Bought. How often do we remember exactly how long we’ve had that appliance that has suddenly given trouble, and wondered if it is out of its guarantee or not! Or how many years we’ve had a certain machine and what we paid for it?

   Finally there is a Spiritual Journal. Here is where you write precious thoughts that have come to you during the day and times of reflection. Things you have thought of as you have read devotional writings, and perhaps things that puzzle you, the whys of life and eternity. Don’t let these thoughts slip away, but write them down. As you read them later, jot down further thoughts you have had on similar topics. As you do a daily reading of the Bible, write down the thoughts and questions that come to you and ponder them further. Never be too busy to make time for this, even if it is only fifteen minutes a day….what is that out of twenty-four hours? Surely we can make that much time to deal with this, the most important side of our being!

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The Big Dry!

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For some weeks now we have been experiencing wonderful summer weather….hot sunny days that holiday makers have been rejoicing in. Not so, farmers and gardeners! Where possible watering and irrigation have been turned on, and it is some small comfort to see the plants revive and survive!

    But in some countries, this dry weather has resulted in massive bush fires with loss of crops, animals and in some cases even human life. We sometimes wonder why these extreme weather patterns occur, and people put it down to global warming and such like, but we know they have been happening since time began.

   We read in the Bible of famines and droughts occurring at different times, and often it is put down to a nation’s disobedience to God’s rules. It seems that people will only turn to God when they are in dire straits, and often then they still refuse to acknowledge that He has any part in the weather patterns! We read of the time that there was a severe drought with no rain for three years, and the nation of Israel attributed this to the idol they were worshipping at the time, Baal. They gathered together with their king and priests of the idol, and called out “Oh Baal, save us!” but there was no reply. The heavens still remained as brass. They began to dance around, cutting themselves and crying out, but still nothing happened.

   God’s prophet Elijah, began to mock them saying their god must have gone on a journey. At last, they were worn out, and Elijah took barrels of water and poured it over the animal sacrifice and  altar that he had built to the God of Heaven. He began to pray and for a while nothing happened. Then the sky grew dark, with lightning flickering around, and he told the king he had better get going to the city before the rain stopped him.

   He called out to the crowd watching and asked who they thought was the real God now? The people finally acknowledged that the God of Heaven was the one true God as the rain came pelting down.

   Let’s hope we don’t remain as stubborn as the people in that day, and keep attributing our weather patterns to the god of Global Warming!!

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What a Start to the New Year!

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Have you ever noticed that soon after you’ve had a great time somewhere, maybe on a holiday or an uplifting weekend, that some bad news strikes, Bump! The wind gets knocked out of you and you wonder what you are meant to learn out of this experience!

   Such was our case recently. We had been attending a summer Christian camp, and met a lot of new people as well as enjoyed the ministry meetings that were held. We had an excellent song leader that could get the most out of those there to sing lustily. We felt as though the weekend had been very worthwhile.

   We began the trip home in our motorhome, going to a friend’s place for a chat and to pick up our car and trailer load of wood. I left ahead of the motorhome in he car, and had a smooth and uneventful trip home. But when the motorhome failed to arrive close behind me I began to wonder if something had gone wrong….should I go back and see? More time went by and my daughter called in so we  unhitched the trailer and headed back the way I had just come from. Then a phone call came through saying the motorhome had been involved in an accident. A lady had come straight out of a side road without looking and the motorhome had rammed into her! Fortunately my husband hadn’t been hurt but she was pretty bad and had been airlifted to hospital.

   By the time we got there, most of the drama of police, ambulances and fire-truck was all over….all that was left was a motorhome with a sad looking front all stowed in and a tow truck waiting to take her away. So we did a hasty cleanout of our gear, and saw her being taken away down the road. There went the rest of our summer holiday that had barely started!  A minute earlier or later would have seen the motorhome safely past the side road and that crash would never have happened. It was no use asking “Why?”  These things happen all the time.

    But there was so much to be thankful for….the weather was fine, there were witnesses to what had happened who were happy to give their names, and only one person was hurt.

   I have noticed other times when things have gone particularly well and great time was had, then suddenly and without warning, a great thump will come. Perhaps the memory of the good times will buoy us up through all the drama that ensues. Whatever happens we have that verse in the Bible that says “ALL THINGS work together for good to them who love God”; it doesn’t say “ONLY good things happen to those who love God!” We know that whatever happens to us, that something good will come out of it in the end! The old saying that every cloud has a “silver lining” is very true!

At least we were able to sleep in our own bed that night instead of being in a hospital bed!

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Welcome to Twenty-twenty!

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          We are now entering a new year! No matter how wise, learned or educated we may be, none of us can accurately predict the future. So we are all entering the unknown. For us personally, the year 2019 was the “year of the funeral” with so many of our friends and relations passing away. Some we were sure of their destiny,  as they had followed the Lord openly for many years; others we were not sure of….good people yes, but  never having made a public commitment in Christians things; and others quite openly saying they had lived without God and they were going to die without Him!

   Some of the deceased went very suddenly and unexpectedly while others contracted cancer and fought it for a while until the doctors could do no more for them. One of our friends was with us in church one Sunday morning apparently in as good health as he had ever enjoyed, and then by the next Sunday he was buried and lying in the cemetery!  Some were older and had very poor health and we felt it was a blessed release for them.

    Death has no favourites, nor does it have to give any warning. This is why it is so important to be prepared in every way….legally with all affairs put in order, and spiritually to ensure our eternal destiny. In this life, we have real concept of how long eternity is. Everything in this life has an end, just as it has had a beginning, but in eternity, there is no end. Whichever state we find ourselves in, will be for ever and ever with no doorway out.

   So it pays to be prepared, then  we can enter this new year with confidence and leave our loved ones with a certain knowledge of where we are going.

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Tough Things to Learn.

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       I wrote for the last two weeks, of my experiences in training roses to grow straight and tall to make standard mop-top rose bushes. There are so many lessons that we can learn from the unpleasant things that come our way in our lives, and yet how beneficial they can be to us in the long run! It brought to mind the experience of a friend of mine who had this hard lesson to learn early in her married life…..

     She and her new husband had had a severe  disagreement over something, so she flounced off back to her mother expecting to find some sympathy. But her mother was a very wise woman, and after listening to her daughter’s story and grievances, she said, “My dear you can’t stay here now. This isn’t your home any more. You chose to live with your husband and you are going to have to go back to him before dark. But come and have a cup of tea before you leave!”

   So the young woman sat down with her hot drink and calmed down enough to go back to her new home with one lesson learned. She had made her choice and had to abide by it. Of course she loved her husband, but she was going to show him a thing or two, she thought. Instead, it was she who needed to learn a lesson or two!

   Then when she got home, she found that the door was locked! It didn’t matter how much she knocked and banged on the door, it stayed firmly shut. She wasn’t even sure if her husband was at home. So she sat down in the porch nursing her angry thoughts. She couldn’t go back to her mother….she had made that very clear. And now she couldn’t get into her home either. The door just stayed locked with no movement inside.

   Finally her husband relented and unlocked the door so she could go in. She had learned her second lesson well, and never again did she allow her temper get the better of her. It took tough measures for her to learn these two lessons, and it is the same for the roses that find themselves tied straight to a stake with their other laterals cut off to make them look up. It takes these tough lessons for us to learn these things too, but as we yield to our Master Gardener, so He can make something beautiful of our lives. We learn to look up into His face to help us overcome our petty hurt feelings and say, “Not my will, but may Yours be done!”

Life Lessons

Reaching for the Sky!

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    As I said last week, I’ve been trimming and tying up the young rose cuttings from last year, and imagining a conversation I could have had with one of them. The particular rose in the photo had one long strong branch coming out of the main stem, reaching out to the side. It’s head wasn’t particularly strong looking and certainly wasn’t a good shape. So I picked the strong stalk up and tied it firmly  into an upright position onto the stake.

“Ouch!” exclaimed the rose, “That hurts!”

“I’m sorry about that,” I said, “But this is how I want you to grow. I want you to look up and grow into a taller plant with your head on higher things.”

The rose got a bit sulky at that and muttered, “I wanted to grow my branches out low, down to the ground because that’s how I would be if you weren’t watching me. After all, I AM a carpet rose you know!”

    I looked further along the row and saw a rose that I had trained a few years earlier. It is tall, with a bushy head  looking up to the sky, and is covered with flowers being a thing of beauty and joy to everyone who sees it.

 “Do you see that rose over there?” I asked the one I was dealing with, “That’s how you will look  too in a couple of years time. You will be able to have other flowers growing beneath your branches instead of being a tangled mess lying on the ground with other branches growing all over the place. You are a good strong plant and have great potential if you obey my pruning and staking!”

“I suppose so,” sighed the one I was dealing with, “But it’s not very nice being tied up tight like this. It hurts when you take my little side branches off too!”

“It’ all for your own good, my dear,” I said, “and you will thank me for it one day!”

   This little story has an application that we should all take to heart. It is only as we respond to the tying and staking of the Master Gardener in our life, and lift our heads to look up into His face that we will be able to reach our full potential that He plans for us. Yes, there will be experiences that we could well do without, but if we remember that He always knows what is best and can see the wider plan, we can take it all happily and rest in knowing His love for us.

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Excuse me a Moment!

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I am finding that this web site has updated itself past me! So I am going to have a little play around on it to see if I can get my pictures back on track as they seem to have disappeared on me!

But I’m finding there are other things that this update can do that I am not familiar with. So bear with me a little longer.

Life Lessons

Pruning in our Lives.

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I have recently been trimming up my small rose plants which I have grown from cuttings. Most of them are doing well and have started to flower, making a cheerful splash of colour in the garden. But I want more than that from them….I want them to grow taller with a strong head on them so they stand up instead of sprawling all over the ground as they would if left alone. So I have to keep taking off the lower side shoots, and if there is a very strong shoot near the top, I tie it up to the stake to train it to be the main stem for the new head. As I have been doing this, I think of the parallels in our Christian life. If I’m left to my own ways, I will grow close to the ground and sprawl all over it just becoming a tangled mess. So the Master Gardener has to keep taking off those bad habits and selfish desires to keep us growing low to the ground. We need to have the painful experiences of life to make us look up into His face, and ask what He wants from us. This is how we will grow tall and straight with a strong head of flowers on us to give pleasure to all those around us. I suppose taking the shoots off the roses causes them pain, and many of the experiences we go through are painful and not what we would choose, but the end result is worth all the pain as we are able to comfort those who go through times of sorrow and doubt. We too need to be firmly tied to our stake of the Lord Himself to keep us firm and solid in His things or else we will wobble around not really sure of what we believe, and end up with broken off branches as the storms come through as they will.

So the next time you are tempted to ask “Why?” when things go wrong, just think of the young rose plants that need to be tied up and trimmed off , and remember to look up to the One Who loves us beyond compare!