short stories
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poetry
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short stories
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poetry
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![]() Washing. As a bride, I washed the clothes in a hand pump washing machine. I never called it a washing machine; it required too much effort to operate it. I would heat water in the copper and bucket the water into the ‘machine’ add soap powder, screw the large suction pump to the handle and pump up and down. The clothes were supposed to come clean. It was hard hot work still it was better than using a scrubbing board. I remember my inadequacies, unworthiness and inability to make myself better. Thinking about reinventing ourselves, we have to find a way to remove the mental dirt, the psychological baggage we accumulate throughout our life. Even our best efforts, like my washing machine action, are not perfect. We are still the same old same old, imperfect person. God has seen our struggles, our tears, our brokenness, hopelessness and sent Jesus to us. Indeed, God laid all our imperfection on Christ on the cross. Christ bore them, he took them to the grave with him and left them there, and when he arose, he left our unworthiness in the grave and rose clothing us in his goodness. When we accept Jesus, God pours into us the goodness of Jesus. God forgets our psychological baggage; he doesn’t remember it any more. We are new people. Our struggles are over; we just have to be. It is not our job anymore to be better people. Jesus has made us righteous by indwelling us with himself. Thought for the day: ‘…just think how much more surely the blood of Christ will transform our lives and hearts.’ Hebrew 9: 19 LB
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![]() Immeasurable. When I was dressmaking, my clients came in all sizes and shapes; large and small. The tape measure didn’t stretch but there were some figures that the tape was hardly big enough. Some significant forms were almost immeasurable. The clients expected to look like a size 10 when in fact they were a size 24. God is immeasurable himself. All that he has created is immeasurable. Look at the galaxies – we are told they just go on forever. Stargazers said there was about 11,000 now there are countless galaxies. The distance between east and west is immeasurable. How far the east is from the west is the distance God has cast our sin from himself, which is limitless. So, our sin, past, present and future, has been placed an immeasurable distance from God. How did this happen? The Bible says ‘For God took the sinless Christ and poured into him our sins. Then in exchange, he poured God’s goodness into us.’ 2 Corinthians 5: 21. Christ absorbed all our sin, he was forsaken by God while he carried that sin into the grave and when he arose from the grave, our sins were left there, cast as far as the east is from the west. Don’t let the devil tell you otherwise and steal the immeasurable joyous life of a righteous life in Christ. ‘God can make it up to you by giving you everything you need and more, so there will not only be enough for your own needs but plenty left to give joyfully to others.’ 2 Corinthians 9: 8 LB Thought for the day: ‘Now to him who can do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.’ Ephesians 3: 20 LB ![]() This is an excerpt from the book titled Letters to Anne. The book can be bought from Amazon or www.kmlpublishing. Glory. From Glory to Glory he’s changing me, changing me, changing me.’ These words are a line in a old chorus. I used to sing them with great gusto. I did believe the Lord was changing me but I felt it would be fully realized when I reached heaven. The line of another chorus comes to mind, ‘Heaven came down, and glory shone around.’ I believed that when the angels sang at Jesus birth, heaven did come down. The skies lit up, and Glory shone around. But it was only to announce Jesus birth. ![]() DON’T WAIT I realize now heaven did come to earth in many ways at Jesus’ birth. The Glory was Jesus; he is the Glory. We don’t need to wait for the Glory, or make ourselves worthy of the Glory or pray for a UFO kind of experience. When we have Jesus within us, we have the Glory. When we become believers of Jesus, his Glory fills us. We then are the Glory of God. We are full of the Glory-man, Jesus. We need nothing more or less. In Christ, I am being changed from Glory to Glory because Glory – the man Jesus, came down and shone all around. He never left, he lives in us. Thought for the Day: ‘The blessing, the honor, the glory, the power belong to the one sitting on the throne, to the Lamb forever and ever.’ Revelation 5: 13 LB Prayer: Thank you, Father, for the Glory-man Jesus who dwells within us. Grant us a more apparent revelation of this truth. ![]() An excerpt from the book Letters to Anne by Gwenneth Leane New! New often means it has never been worn before or used by anyone else. It is as the maker made it … new. It means that something is different such as different clothes, different food. The Bible speaks of mercies that are new every day. Does that mean these mercies have never been used before? That each day there is a new mercy given by God every day? This morning’s new mercies are for today, they won’t be repeated tomorrow. We are not receiving yesterdays mercies. They are for yesterday. God has new mercies for us tomorrow. God gave the children of Israel fresh manna every day. If they tried to collect extra and keep it it went bad. The same applies to the mercies of God. Yesterday’s mercies are to be remembered for our encouragement. Yesterday’s mercies become too familiar to us and we ignore them, cease to be grateful. We cannot keep them for today. God is steadfast, he doesn’t forget to create new mercies for us every day. Just as he was steadfast and faithful to the Israelites in the wilderness, so is he to us. We receive new mercies every day, we just need to collect them and not continually live on yesterdays mercies. Great is God’s faithfulness – the faithfulness of God is mind blowing, crazy, no logic to why God, each day, pours out new mercies not used before by anyone. Thought for the Day: But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ-- Letters to Anne can be obtains from Amazon also from WWW.KMLPublising or gwen.leanehotmail.com ![]() IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN A PIECE OF CAKE RESEARCH The poems and images were collected and scanned into the computer. Alas, they were the wrong orientation. I changed to landscape. I cut and pasted; some of the poems needed to be back to front. More time spent in retyping into landscape orientation and rearranging images. Some of the images wouldn’t print off. I hunted through my photos, searched the internet for free images. Week one. I sent a copy to the printer, ‘No’, he said, ‘we need the files to be in PDF.’ I searched my computer for the PDF conversion; I did have one, oh, there was an upgrade and the PDF file was never put back. I’ll down load a free file but it wouldn’t down load, an error. Not to be beaten, I emailed my computer whizz friend, could she send me a copy of her file? Then I had to ask how to use it. Week 2 had passed. ![]() HELP NEEDED All the poems were now in PDF and set out in correct order. With the images, bio’s and contents page set to go. Back to the printer, ‘No, these files aren’t right. You need them to be this way. We could do the files for you but it will cost you.’ I despaired. I knew I could not create the files needed to print the book. Back to my computer whizz,’ can you help me?’ Week three A new cover design, new images; can the images supplied by the authors be used in case of offence? Day one, she sent me the layout of the book as it should look. The printer contacted, were the files OK? I held the book, the unachievable achieved. The awful fact; there were over 50 mistakes, lines were missed out, The book was a lemon, but no, it was me that was the lemon for having the temerity to think I was a computer whizz. I needed to humble myself. I needed to admit my limitations. Having done penance I looked around, what next? ![]() THE TRUTH It occurred to me that God still loved me. I had stuffed up big-time but his love for me never lessened. I was still his beloved child, the apple of his eye, my photo in his wallet. I didn’t deserve his love but he over looked that because of his unconditional love. It occurred to me that I could remain a lemon or I could get up and be the sweet orange God had made me. I chose to be the sweet orange. I discarded the guilt trip. I could do that because God had declared in Romans 8: 1, ‘There is now no condemnation awaiting those who belong to Christ Jesus. For the power of the life-giving Spirit – and this power is mine through Christ Jesus – has freed me from the vicious circle of sin and death.’ The book was finally printed without error but I learnt a valuable lesson. Being proud and thinking myself better than I was is not pleasing to God. I also learnt that God loves me beyond beyond, no matter what I do. My standing with him is not performance based. Bless God. ![]() I WONDER HOW OLD SUPERMAN IS? He's been around forever it seems. Each generation invents him in some way again. The story line of the movie Superman: Superman and Lois Lane decide that they’re in love, so superman chooses to give up his super powers in order to marry Lois Lane. He is warned in advance that if he surrenders his powers he can never have them back. Still, he chooses to surrender his powers and become just ordinary Clark Kent. ![]() HEART-BROKEN Shortly afterwards, he discovers that three evil super-villains have taken control of the White House and are attempting to establish themselves as rulers of Planet Earth. Now more than ever, the world needs Superman – but it’s too late! A dejected Clark Kent hikes through a raging blizzard back to Superman’s fortress of solitude, now in ruins. As Clark Kent walks through the rubble, he cries aloud, ‘Father I have failed,’ the scene suddenly changed from Boston to Metropolis. The super-villains are wreaking havoc and terrorising the townspeople, and then the music starts. Suddenly, up in the sky –it’s not a bird, it’s not a plane, it’s Superman! Somehow, someway, he regained his superpowers and he is back. The story ends with Superman defeating the villains and winning the fight for truth and justice. The writers of the movie set rules that Superman was to lose his powers and not be able to get them back but then evil would have run rampant over the earth so they had to break the rules and allow him to have his superpowers back. Superman rose from the dead, you might say. Evil runs rampant through the earth today and for us to overcome evil both from within and without the rules must be changed. ![]() CHANGE THE RULES Jesus Christ died to change the rules. God’s rules were the Ten Commandments but no one could keep the rules. Something must be done. On earth, Jesus was just the carpenter’s son or Clark Kent, in heaven he was God’s only son or Superman with the power save the world. If God wanted to save his unique creation of humankind he must change his rules. He must stop Satan the Supervillain from destroying the world. Jesus, alias Clark Kent, alias the carpenter’s son, came and died and rose again. Hundreds of people, maybe thousands saw him first hand. Jesus changed the rules, overcoming Satan, the super-villain, making him look a powerless idiot. ![]() SAVED Jesus, the superman, changed his followers into saints from sinners, thus creating a new people, a special people, a people who are strong, virile winners over themselves and the circumstances surrounding them. You could say a new world order has been created within this old one. The new world order is the Kingdom of Heaven. The Kingdom of Heaven can’t be seen by the human eye but it is experienced in the heart by those who have accepted the new rules and believed in superman Jesus and given their lives to him to save them. ![]() TRUST MY GOD - HE IS ABLE My Life With Mentors Guest writer, Bruce Leane I am compelled to put pen to paper to tell others how God supplies above and beyond all avenues of training and preparation for ministry. In my early teens, I felt called to the full-time ministry which of course, meant education and training. I preached my first sermon at sixteen at Christian Endeavour and never seemed to stop. The Second World War broke out and Dad enlisted in the Air Force and left home. My older brother Peter and I were left to manage our small dairy herd. I was thirteen at the time and had to drop out of school. My education was cut short, and I was not able to go to High School and later Bible College. The call that God had placed on my life remained. I still felt the call to preach. After the War, Dad and return home, I still had to battle to help the family make a living. With no education, there seemed no future and no hope other than a burning in my heart to serve the Lord. My life to this point consisted of battling Asthma, I was losing the battle and had to leave the south of South Australia. Miraculously I was offered a job on a fruit block in the Winkie area of the Riverland for six months pruning. I left that job eleven years later after some intense years of mentoring in horticulture by one of God’s delegated trainers. ![]() MY MENTORS OR GODS TEACHERS RAY BISHOP Ray Bishop was the Youth Leader of the Church of Christ at Mount Compass. To me, as a searching teenager, he was true blue and lead the Christian Endeavour group of which I was a member. Ray cleared vast tracts of land with an old caterpillar tractor running it on gas produced from charcoal, during the war when there was an acute shortage of fuel. He worked long hours and kept his Schofield Bible sitting on the tractor with him, every day so he could lead us young people in our walk with the Lord. His work ethic and Christian principle hugely impressed me and gave me a solid Bible based learning in ‘Dispensational Truth,' a great platform that fits the covenants of God together to make sense. Ray became a fill-in Dad in my teen years and gave me a sound foundation for studying the Bible. ![]() MENTOR IN THE FRUIT INDUSTRY In early 1952 I arrived in the Riverland to work for Mr. Len Chapple and his son Alan. I left behind my fiance Gweneth Hunt and my beloved dog Flash. My Bible and my toolbox came with me. Mr. Len Chapple was God’s orchardist; he proved to be a treasured mentor. Almost from the start, I was teaching in a youth group in Sunday School, leading a Boys Brigade and soon was preaching in all the Church of Christ congregations around the Riverland, Berri, Barmera, Loxton, Moorook under the watchful eye of Len Chapple. Under his powerful influence regarding everything to do with working in the orchard. After all, I was only employed to help prune for six months. I stayed eleven years, during which time I married, and we had four children. Len Chapple taught me everything about the vine and its branches. I have used these profound principles over and over again in my sermons. During pruning time I spent many hours with the ‘old boss’, as I came to call him, debating the Bible and Christian concepts. The old Boss taught me the foundations of vine reproduction and at the same time pointed out the parallel of Christ’s, ‘I am the vine you are the branches.’ This principle became foundational for me in later years as I established new church groups and ministered in many towns around South Australia. I came to realize that I would only ever be a block hand if I stayed in the fruit business. I would never be able to buy a block of my own. With little education and no money, I was in limbo. I had gone as far as I could in the fruit business thanks to Len Chapple. The era of his mentoring was over, and a new phase was about to begin . ![]() MENTOR IN STEEL INDUSTRY I gained a job with Grant Telfer Engineering to drive a truck delivering new steel framed sheds to customers all over the river-land. At first, I had to spend six months in the factory on the floor until the current driver retired. Before six months finished Grant Telfer, owner and boss, came to me and said, “Bruce you are staying in the factory, you are a natural with tools and machines. So began a new mentorship in a new direction. I worked personally under Grant for many months and received a crash course on welding and building machines. The next step was a promotion to the position of foreman, which I refused because my education was too poor to do the book work. After some negotiation I became the leading hand, meaning that I had to organize the men, and as Grant said, I was skilled in. I loved the work and gained an immense amount of knowledge in very short time. My tool collection grew as well as my wage. Grant was an excellent mentor and in all things set me up for many years amongst men. From this position I was able to flow out into areas of spiritual ministry. The years of fruit growing and industry provided me with money and associates for ministry. A very close friendship grew between myself and Frank Graetz, a Christian orchardist from Renmark. It was through Frank’s influence that a book titled the Blood Covenant by E W Kenyon came across my desk. On reading it, my life changed, and new directions opened up. It was water to my thirsty soul. The Covenants of God took on new meaning; my preaching became the fire in my innermost being. My right to be a partner with God down here on earth was born into my whole being and has never left me . The fire of God is always there. With Frank and his wife Sylvia, we began a ministry amongst Aboriginal people of the River-land. These people at that time were rejected as outcasts by society. Our involvement developed into a great ministry lasting a decade or more. Every weekend would see our two families ministering in home meetings, Sunday Schools and meeting wherever there was a group of people wanting to hear the Gospel. At this stage, we were working for a living to pay for our ministry. ![]() MENTORS IN THE SPIRITUAL REALM At the beginning of this ministry, Ron Englis, newly married, came to work in Berri. He and his wife Margaret joined our group for prayer and discussions every week. Ron was God’s man in God’s time come to shake my stubborn theological soul. When I argued with him about the truth of speaking in tongues, God demonstrated the fact with a sign, striking me dumb. I was unable to talk for several minutes, and I knew the truth of speaking in tongues. Through Ron’s witness, I was exposed to Pentecostal influence and the work of the Holy Spirit. He thought his time in the Riverland had not born much fruit, but God meant otherwise. I found the power of God not only in the Word of God but became baptized in the Spirit and found the ‘power of God from on high’ empowering me to minister the Word with the power which never left me. It was no longer just knowledge but power and authority. From this point, I came into contact with two evangelists. Dick Piety an illiterate Aboriginal man from Lake Cargelligo, New South Wales. His ministry was very powerful and Acts Chapter 2 became a real life experience for me, every day. Dick didn’t speak with the best King’s English, but under his ministry, I experienced the filling of the Holy Spirit, the speaking in tongues. I was taught in my early years that these experiences were not for this day and age, yet under Dick’s ministry, I had received them in the fullness of the Spirit. No more would I speak against them because daily we were witnessing miracles of change and everywhere there was action. Working with Dick was his nephew Pastor Burt Hollingsworth from Cairns, Queensland. Burt was a fiery young Pentecostal preacher with a great work ethic. Burt was the leader of a gang of cane cutters when cane was cut by hand with a machete. It was hard, backbreaking and dirty work. In the off season Burt and his wife Charmaine, moved south into the Riverland to pick fruit and to evangelize indigenous communities along the River Murray. Dick Piety, with Burt and a team of Aboriginal Christians from inter –State organized a bush convention in the area of Winkie. At this convention I was filled with the Spirit. It was the beginning of a great rapport in the Lord with Burt. Our ministries were parallel, he in Queensland and I in South Australia. I gained much from associating with these men of God. The other evangelist I met was Cliff Beard, Aussie Evangelist. At first, Cliff was evangelizing by being a traveling photographer. He needed to earn a living to support his family and ministry. We soon became buddies and colleagues; his mentorship was another step in my growth. Through him, I joined the Christian Revival Crusade under the ministry of Pastor Leo Harris. Pastor Leo Harris taught the Creation-Life from Paul’s writing in Ephesians, emphasizing the scripture from Ephesians, ‘I am a new Creation in Christ, old things have passed away, and all things have become new.’ At this point, a marked change occurred in my life from trying to do it all. I realized Christ had done it all for me. The personal sweat has gone, I am free from religious dogma. ‘With great power, the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all.’ Act 4: 33, is a scripture that became a passionate slogan in my life as I came to understand what Christ gave me by his death and resurrection as is written in Galatians 2: 20, ‘I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God.’ Pastor Leo was very gracious to me; he became a distant mentor as I never attended his Bible College, the pressure of a revival didn’t allow time to attend. In 2016, I received a plaque celebration 50 years service in the Christian Revival Crusade Cliff Beard further mentored me in the teaching of righteousness, ‘God made him (Jesus) who had no sin to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of Christ.’ 2 Cor.5: 21. This insight was life changing. Through Cliff, I found my authority in God as a totally forgiven person able to declare Christ’s righteousness as my own. This knowledge was power; it gave me the right to work in uprightness, It meant I learned to stand tall and not be put down anymore because of a lack of education or regrets. God had given me a charge of authority and resolution. Personally, I maybe a ‘nobody’ but I am invested with Christ’s righteousness now and forever. This ongoing revelation by the Holy Spirit has meant that God has always spoken to me and kept me up with what he is about; it has been very precious to live in the continual mentoring of the Holy Spirit. ![]() IT'S NOT THE END Now in these last days of my walk, it hasn’t stopped. There is a lot of religious conjecture about so-called hyper-grace; I believe God’s grace is hyper it is complete, I have a certainty that every sin and failure was paid for on the cross. Christ paid it all. Our interpretation is not the question; our acceptance is what it is all about. Calvary covers it all. I love the modern revelation as preached by Pastor Prince of Hong Kong and Andrew Wommack, Paul Ellis with his web page Escape 2 Reality. Reject the fullness of God’s grace if you wish but I will not. God has always mentored me and spoken to me, and when needed provided great mentors to guide me. I trust him totally. Trying to be good is a useless exercise when the revelation breaks over our heart and mind. The frustration of trying to be good and failing was a thing of the past. Instead of being a struggling mortal, the right to be a co-worker with Christ with all his support as the righteous Son of God, it soon lifts you out of your stumbling self-righteousness that you can never sustain. We inherit all that Christ has and is. As Jesus is so are we in this world. We are the children of righteousness. Salvation is a fact, salvation is now, today, a free gift. I praise God for Cliff Beard; he didn’t only teach, he delivered the action worldwide. I am blessed to have been at his side in the evangelizing of the Riverland. He is now at rest with his beloved Saviour. I would like to commend to readers of this record the following scriptures: ‘God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus…that he might show the incomparable riches of his grace.’ Eph. 2: 6-7. ‘Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!’ Romans 11: 33. ‘For if by the one man’s offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.’ Romans 5: 17 ‘The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.’ 1 Timothy 1:14. |
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Author: "You can always edit a bad page. You can’t edit a blank page" - Jodi Picoult
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