Ann Hutchison
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The Power of Receiving God’s Love
Hi SUMites, Ann here! I've been praying about what to write this week after our wonderful communal fast. I'm sure you're still reflecting on it as I am. Anyway, a phrase has kept coming to me for today's post, and it's this: One of the most important things you can do, in your place of…
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Who Wrote the Gospels?
Hi everyone, Ann here! This morning, I want to share a special story that happened to me last Christmas. It was an event that wowed me and as we're deep in the gospels it seems timely to share. The story began when I sat sipping coffee with a favorite colleague. He’s twenty years older than…
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A Note for the SUM Thanksgiving Tablecloth
Hi everyone, Ann here, I hope you are all having a wonderful Thanksgiving break! I always love Lynn’s story of the Thanksgiving table-cloth, and this time it hit me even more: I seemed to hear God say ‘Get a mountain-sized table cloth ready!’ This is for us: Over time, I know our SUM community…
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When the Crowd Roars
By Ann Hutchison “Away with Him!” roar the crowd. I open my curtains and peek out. In the crowd I see people I know: Atheists, agnostics, those who’ve left their faith, and some of other faiths. I stand and watch for a while. My eyes scan them, person by person. Some of these people are…
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The Finest Food and Drink
Hi everyone, on the last day of our fast – we are so close to the finish line! It’s been wonderful adventuring with you and, as always, we’ve made memories. I often think of this site as a memorial of where we’ve been. I can just imagine sitting in a rocking chair as an old…
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Five Smooth Stones
Hi everyone As I write, it’s Thursday morning here in New Zealand, and I'm a hungry girl. Each fast I do more than I did before; and yet, this fast, like my others before, has been an imperfect one. Yesterday, for example, I went to work hungry. By 1pm it was awful. I left my…
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A Very Special Rescue
Hi friends How’s the fasting going? This one's ambitious for me – soup only for dinner has made me starry-eyed! But I'm enjoying the afternoons where I can just sit. I hope you enjoyed yesterday's clips. Amazingly, there is a part two to that story, which I've been excited to share. I'll start with this…
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Rosh Hashanah Fast
Hi everyone, Ann here. Next Monday it is Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. This day, also known as the Feast of Trumpets, was a festival given to the Israelites by God, commemorated by trumpet blasts (Leviticus 23:23-32). Trumpet blasts in scripture often symbolize gathering the people together for victory. To that I say, yes…
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Go to the Nations!
By Ann Hutchison It was a Saturday night. The wine was flowing, and my husband and I were laughing with our friends. Then it happened: The host rolled his eyes, and said “Yeah, believing in God is like believing in Santa Claus.” Oh dear. That was it for me. After five years of spiritual loneliness,…
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Church – My Hardest Act
Hi everyone, Ann here! My husband and I have been 'spiritually different' for almost five years now, and it’s become easier for us both. However, there is one thing that continues to floor me and I thought I’d share it with you today. It’s this: The act of giving my husband a kiss goodbye on…
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Our Bottom Drawer
Hi friends, Ann here! In preparation for today’s post I’d been asking God what to write. I had a head full of ideas but in the early hours of this morning those went completely out the window as I woke with a pounding heart and a picture of a cavernous wooden bottom drawer! As I…
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Asking for an Egg
Hi everyone, Ann here Recently, Lynn shared a wonderful video about how she asked God for an egg and literally got an egg! This story made me smile broadly. After all, if we ask for an egg God does not give us a scorpion (Luke 11:12). But it got me wondering what it means,…
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I See Two of You
Ann here! Last month I wrote about how God had been having some fun with me using figs. If you missed that post you can read it here. Well, today I wanted to share part two of that story. It includes a further promise for us SUMites. I hope you enjoy it: One day last…
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Very Good Figs
Hi everyone, Ann here. My husband would freely admit that the chances of him turning ‘exuberant Christian’ of his own doing are a great big zero. I’m laughing. It’s a funny thought to him and to me. It’s impossible. And yet I believe with all my heart it'll happen. I’m not the sort who goes…
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God Changed My Lens
By Ann Hutchison “It’s excruciating”, I murmured to myself, munching on my toast and staring out the window. As usual, I was mulling over the fact that my husband and I had found ourselves in this … 'horrible' … spiritually mismatched situation. It happened to us late in life. There we were hitting forty,…
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Staunch, Skeptic, and Special!
“I’ve never met a Christian I liked!” declared Seamus* to the rest of us at his table. I frowned at him quizzically. Personally, I had no problem with Christians; my thing was sheer indifference. I just couldn’t relate to their fervor. By the end of the year, however, the unexpected had happened: I had gone…
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Fellow Laborers
“It’s hard being a girl guide!” Those words, inaudible but clear, woke me one morning, just as the birds were beginning to sing. It felt like a word from the Holy Spirit, but I struggled to understand. Only months later did a sudden ‘a-ha’ come: I am the ‘girl who guides’ my husband, the one…