Ann Hutchison
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Lenten Reflections: Holy Week – Hope in His Divinity and Humanness
Image courtesy of ikpro and FreeDigitalPhotos.net Aren’t you loving Lynn’s Holy Week reflections? I feel a little like an interloper with my post this week but as I sought the Lord on what to post I kept coming back to: HOPE. “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he…
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Lenten Reflections: Week 6 – The Great Miracle of Easter
I got inspiration for this week’s post from an article in the latest edition of Christianity Today where the writer makes the reference to the “most astonishing Easter miracle”1 in a discussion centred on identity politics. And it got me thinking. The resurrection is spectacular and Jesus defeated death and our sinfulness to restore our…
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Lenten Reflections: Week 5 – Slow down
Photo courtesy of Sira Anamwong at FreeDigitalPhotos.net Lynn and Dineen are supplying such wonderful teaching and inspiration that I sensed the Lord simply wanted to encourage us today. We can get caught up striving during Lent. Have you felt that pull? To be working harder at getting something more out of this season as we…
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Lenten Reflections: Week 4 – Everyday Grace
Photo courtesy of gubgib/FreeDigitalPhotos.net As I’ve grown older I’ve come far more accepting of my mess. Not the physical one (I’m actually quite a tidy person) but the one in my heart and mind. We’ve all got some of it. One of the joys of Lent is intentionally spending time doing a spring-clean, self-examination in…
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Lenten Reflections Wk 3: the Secret Place
Photo courtesy of James Barker/Free DigitalPhotos.net We’re all familiar with the often-repeated comment that Jesus didn’t give the disciples a lesson on anything but how to pray. And this lesson came in amongst His great message: the Sermon on the Mount – “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love…
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Lenten reflections: the power of solitude and silence
Photo kindly supplied by Mary de Muth Two weeks ago I received an email from my brother letting me (and my other siblings) that mom was in hospital due to extremely high blood pressure and was likely to stay there for a few days. Mom is Dad’s main carer so it was clear that we…
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Why Bother to Observe Lent?
Photo sourced from St Clare of Assisi Catholic Church I was intrigued to read a post Christianity Today published last week based on some research conducted by Lifeway Research. It revealed 24% of Americans observe Lent, the greater majority Catholics. Interestingly, 82% of Catholics who regularly attend Church are likely to observe it while only…
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Combating the Enemy Within
Photo courtesy of DigitalArt/FreeDigitalPhotos.net I’ve always been curious as to the stubbornness of my anxiety and sinful habits that nag away at me. I thought it a useful topic to discuss as we walk through this fabulous series on emotional healing. I’ve mentioned my struggles with anxiety previously. Like many of us it’s been a…
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Stay in the tent
Photo courtesy of khunaspix/FreeDigitalPhotos.net Last year my Word for the year was “DELIGHT”. I so enjoyed delighting and figured there was so much more for me to experience that I was expecting I would stick with the same word for 2017. As I prayed and meditated on it last week I stumbled across a line…
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The Hope in Waiting … reflections on Advent
Photo courtesy of 9comeback/FreeDigitalPhotos.nety/FreeDigitalPhotos.net There’s something both exciting and tremendously nerve-wracking when an author presses the send button on the email that whisks their latest manuscript off to a publisher. Exciting? The project we’ve been working on has now reached a point of completion. In my case that project had consumed a lot of my…
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Spirit of Faith
Photo Courtesy of Stuart Miles/FreeDigitalPhotos.net Faith. For a small word it has a heck of a punch. Doesn’t it! What immediately comes to mind when you read the word, faith? Lots of things I expect and sometimes we assume we understand it and more automatically assume we have a lot of it. Yes of course…
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Someone New.
Photo courtesy of khunaspix/FreeDigitalPhotos.nety/FreeDigitalPhotos.net My family loves Cirque Du Soleil. They bring a production down under every couple of years and we make sure we get tickets. We celebrated our youngest 21st birthday at the latest show, Kooza, a few weeks ago. It was extra special because Jake went on stage before the performance started.…
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Bearing fruit – the power of kindness
Photo courtesy of Dan/FreeDigitalPhotos.nety/FreeDigitalPhotos.net As Dineen shared last week we both attended a writer’s conference in Nashville ten days ago. It was a tremendous few days for both of us on a number of fronts, not least hearing from the Lord regarding our writing. It was a wonderful answer to prayer for both of us.…
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Righting Wrongs or do we?
Photo courtesy of Sira Anamwong/FreeDigitalPhotos.net I rushed out of the company’s lobby and hopped into a vacant taxi, a bevy of emotions bursting within me: shock, anger, hurt, disappointment and confusion. But surprisingly, genuine peace. I called Fiona and shared the news. Her response was also mixed. Could see the positives but the immediate financial…
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Dealing with Disappointment
Photo courtesy of taoty/FreeDigitalPhotos.net You know when you’re in church listening to the sermon and you feel the pastor is speaking specifically to you and only to you? Well I had that experience a week ago. The message was all about disappointment. But I also sensed the Lord wanted me to share some of it…
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The Power of Love in a Confusing World
Photo courtesy of stockimages/FreeDigitalPhotos.net Another week has passed with more terrorism in Turkey and Iraq, more confusion in Britain over Brexit and here down under we didn’t get a winner in the Federal election that was held over the weekend (it’s still too close to call!) As Lynn so positively pointed out in her last…
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Jesus is fighting for us
Photo courtesy of pakorn/FreeDigitalPhotos.net It happened again on Saturday. What you may ask? My three strikes policy. Huh? Three strikes policy? Whenever I’m struck three times by a common theme or thread within a short period of time I ask the Lord for some interpretation. On Saturday as I scanned my Facebook feed our Lynn…
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Celebrating 10 Years – God works in Mysterious Ways
It was September 2012. I had always wanted to attend the American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW) conference and having a publisher for Angelguard I thought it a useful way of building some momentum for its release a few months later. Fiona and I combined it with a holiday to the US with the plan to attend…
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What’s the Lord talking to you about?
Photo courtesy of markuso/FreeDigitalPhotos.net Lent is over. Easter has come and gone. I had mixed emotions last week after Easter Sunday. Part of me sighed as I enjoyed the cessation from fasting and commitment to serious devotional reading and meditation. But there was also a big part of me that didn’t want it to end…
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Lent Reflections – The Cross
Photo courtesy of www.LumoProject.com We’re more than half way now. In a little over three weeks it will be Good Friday. The day Jesus went to the Cross, voluntarily, to die. For us. In the last few weeks I’ve been struck by a few songs that have emphasized the Cross and what Jesus did for…
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Lenten Reflections – Repentance and Restoring Joy
A couple of years ago my siblings and I helped our parents spring-clean their house. They’re both in their eighties and it never ceased to amaze me how much stuff they managed to collect over a long life. The house became very “full”, especially when you’re not inclined to throw things out, as was the case…