Morning Lord!  A quick prayer session in the car this morning as I really don’t have time for leisurely coffee today.  It’s Bible Study afternoon so I have to at least try and salvage some of today for boring housewifely duties, plus I’ve said I’ll look after Christian for a bit this morning while Caroline goes out shopping for more gluten and casein free food for Christian.  I suddenly find I’m already talking some biomedical lingo myself what with all that Caroline has been reading and chatting with me about.  We’re all on the lookout for signs of improvement.  Early days yet, I suppose.

I pray that your hand would be on me today as I go to Study, that you would cleanse me anew and speak to me those things you would have been know and understand about you – and about me for that matter.  I pray for Libby as she hosts and leads us.  She really is remarkable, Lord, and I pray you would bless her for her faithfulness to you.  I can scarcely believe the way she has got Jasmine so involved in helping her with Sunday School.  It’s incredible.

Thank you that we are all feeling a bit better today.  I did wonder if I might wake up to find my two on the casualty list, but perhaps the threat of having to spend a day at home with Christian rushing around is a deterrent to getting truly sick in itself?  Anyway, I pray for your hand to be on our whole household, Lord.  Bless and protect us I pray…in your precious name…Amen

Morning Lord.  Sorry about the lack of prayer yesterday – as you know I had a massive headache and just couldn’t concentrate on anything.  It proved to be a very difficult day since there really wasn’t anywhere to go to escape from noise or people but I have at least lived to tell the tale.  On top of that it seems as though our whole family is a bit under the weather since Nathan and Emily both came home yesterday complaining of scratchy throats and then Andrew was sneezing this morning.  Maybe we’re all coming down with some change-of-season cold.  I pray that your healing hand would be on our whole household and that those well would stay so, and those ailing would be restored to health.

I can’t say I have much to report today, Lord.  I continue to pray that your hand would be on Caroline and her situation.  Thank you that she seems to be winning the food war with Christian and that he is at least now eating a little of what is put in front of him.  Caroline mentioned yesterday that her parents arrive home from their trip this Saturday (how I had lost track of this I don’t know!) so perhaps their reappearance might add some further options for her.

I got to thinking that in a strange way our year of guests really did help us prepare for Caroline’s coming.  I don’t think we could ever have survived the Wests very disruptive presence in our home had it not been for the other guests that had come before them.  And while I will not be sorry when the day for their departure comes I do know that you were faithful in giving us the preparation we needed to manage their arrival in the first place.  I guess it is another indication of the way you, through your grace, provide a Jonah Tree for us in all kinds of ways.

Bless our household and my day I pray…Amen

Morning Lord!  Here I am, back at the café, and glad to have a few minutes to myself and some time with you.  It’s been an absolute rush to get everyone out of the door this morning as everything that could go wrong did go wrong (lost homework, tears, tantrums, dirty clothes, missing socks) but somehow everyone got where they were meant to be on time and relatively in one piece.

I’m glad of an opportunity to spend time with you, Lord, so I can process what I learnt and understood at church yesterday.  Of course the sermon was on the second half of Jonah – chapters three and four – and, with Daniel’s help, they were a real revelation to me.  There was just so much that I suddenly realised.

For a start the whole story really has its roots in your desire to save us, Lord.  The whole reason you wanted Jonah to go to Nineveh was to take a prophetic message to implore that people to turn from their sinful ways and turn to you. I love this about you, Lord.  It never ceases to amaze me how much you care for us, not to mention the extraordinary lengths you go to in order to get us to focus on you.

Secondly, as is almost always the case, your chosen method of message delivery was through an ordinary person.  No angels, divine signs, miracles or wonders.  Just an ordinary, not-very-brave individual whose first thought was not to go charging off and do your bidding, but to high-tail it as far in the opposite direction as he could get.  How like Jonah are so many of us!  Just as well you remain faithful enough to us to bring us back on track – by whatever fish or fowl method you devise.

Then, in chapter three, Jonah finally gets to Nineveh, was obedient to preach the word you had given him, and low and behold, repentance galore, and the Ninevites are saved.  What happens next though is a real surprise.  Is Jonah happy?  No chance.  Instead he’s ‘greatly displeased and angry’ that you wasted his time by making him go all that way for nothing.  Quite what he had expected I don’t know, but I love what happens next.  Jonah stomps off, makes himself a shelter and waits for the fireworks to start.  Then the text says “Then the Lord God provided a vine and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort”.

I’m blown away by this picture, Lord, blown away by the idea of you being so compassionate as to give Jonah shelter when he was clearly in the wrong.  It is such a beautiful gesture given that it was so much more than Jonah deserved.  And, like a revelation, it came to me that I am Jonah.  So often I rail and complain when you ask things of me.  My first reaction is always to run.  Then, by big or small ways, I come to a reluctant obedience, then get angry again when things don’t work out the way I think they should.

How often have you grown a vine over me, Lord, and extended your amazing grace over me so that I might have shelter while I quite literally get over myself?  Too often, I’m ashamed to say.

I also love the next bit of the story where you then take away that vine, not content to let Jonah remain in sin but keen to move him on.  Of course, true to form he does not take this well either (in fact he said he was angry enough to die!) but you make it clear that we must play by your rules and not by our own impressions or expectations of what is right and wrong.

Lord, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for your salvation, for your patience with me as I learn to walk with you, and for the times in my life when you have provided me with a Jonah Tree.  Thank you that you love me too much to let me stay as I am but that you are keen to lead me into a greater understanding and knowledge of you and your ways.  Thank you for the opportunities I have had to be a Jonah Tree for someone else and to provide them with shelter at their greatest time of need.  I humbly recommit myself to you today and pray that you would forgive me for those times when I have run like the wind.  Help me to be ever more obedient.  I lift all before you in your precious name…Amen

Anzac Day today, Lord.  No doubt there have been plenty of people up early to go to dawn services to honour and commemorate those Australian and New Zealand soldiers who lost their lives in past wars.  The world might have been a different place but for their sacrifice.  It’s just a shame such sacrifice was needed in the first place but then I guess the world has always been a turbulent place to live (well, post-fall at least).  You’d think by now, or even throughout the last century, that we would somehow be beyond all of that territorial, power-driven stuff that causes people to go to war in the first place.  You’d think that your sacrifice was the last and only needed for people to live in peace and harmony.

Thank you for the blessings we enjoy here in this relatively quiet corner of the world, Lord.  However I guess the real battle is more about what goes on in the hearts and minds of ordinary men and women.  This is a battle far from won given some of the displays of tension and rivalry seen at last night’s trivial pursuit evening.  It seems clear that conflict, ambition and competition never stray far from ordinary men and women.  Some tables took the evening so seriously you’d think world peace depended on their ability to answer a question like,  “What is the only number that has all of its letters in alphabetical order?”

Anyway, I had better get moving because we need to be ready to go to church a bit earlier this morning since we have to swing by the olds’ house to pick up Emily and Nathan.  Of course we could have just had a week off and skipped church or even had Mum and Dad bring them home later but Libby has sold the kids on some special Anzac activity she has planned so they are both keen to go.  Nathan also mentioned he might be in need of some remedial breakfast in case Grandma got any bright ideas about preparing anything more adventurous than cereal.  I’ll have to pack something.  Besides, since the house is still full of people there’s hardly any point in staying home anyway.

Bless our time at church.  Bless Daniel as he comes to speak to us.  Forgive me my many and plentiful sins and cleanse me from all unrighteousness for your namesake.  Bless Libby and the lesson she has prepared for Sunday School.  Amen.

P.S.  Author Note:  In case you’re wondering, the correct answer is forty.

Morning Lord!  Well, another early start this morning but at least I’m awake in enough time to spend some time with you.  No sign of any improvement in Christian yet with this new diet but then he has really battled with Caroline over the change and probably hasn’t eaten enough for it to do anything.  I must say I am really impressed with Caroline’s willpower – she’s determined to do this and is not giving in.  I continue to pray for you to strengthen her as she plugs away at this.

As for the rest of us I pray that you would have your hand on us today.  We’ve got no fixed plans at all so it would be good to receive some inspiration so that we get a good balance of rest and relaxation with enough productivity thrown in to make sure the house doesn’t turn to chaos.  Having said that the children are off to stay the night at Mum and Dad’s tonight for a change (in spite of Nathan’s nervousness about what Mum might serve for dinner tonight and breakfast in the morning).  Meanwhile, Andrew and I are off to a trivial pursuit fundraiser evening at school tonight.  Libby (of course) roped us into getting tickets and has put together a team so hopefully we won’t regret it too much.  I’m not a trivia expert by any means.  Some days remembering my own name seems an achievement in itself.

The other big news from yesterday is that Andrea has resigned from kindy.  Now that she has finally reached her goal and is having a baby she is fearful that the strain and physical nature of working with kids might somehow compromise the pregnancy.  She should wait until the baby is born before she learns about strain and compromise is all I can say.  However, I for one will not be sorry to see her go, although I suppose it isn’t entirely Christian to admit as much.

Anyway, Lord, be with us today…I pray in your precious name…Amen

Morning Lord!  Well, I will say that although I am back at the café today as planned the twenty-four hours in between has been most unexpected.  For starters I had completely forgotten about Bible Study starting back until Libby called just before lunch to make sure I was still on.  In fact I was far from on since it hadn’t even crossed my mind but I soon motivated myself to be out the door.  It was better for both Nathan and me to be somewhere else as Caroline weathered the storm of Christian being presented with a whole new lunch menu consisting of no wheat or dairy whatsoever.  Saying he was not best pleased might be something of an understatement.

The study Libby had prepared was very interesting.  It looked at where your true riches lie and she had devised some very penetrating questions for us to consider.  One of the biggest things I got out of it was a question that made us identify our own true riches, then look at how we spend our resources – particularly our time and money.  Libby then challenged us to see how what we considered most important matched up with the way we use our resources.  It was a good point and timely to stop and think about the things that matter most and whether or not we are actually investing anything into those things or wasting time on things that don’t really matter – especially in an eternal sense.

For me there were three things I put on the list – you, Andrew, and my children.  It was really challenging to consider how much time I truly spend on these relationships.  Funnily enough, all the other women at Bible Study wrote down much the same things so we had a great discussion about how to make sure our priorities are just that.  We all agreed that motherhood was very high on our list of true riches but how difficult it is not to let the monotony and menial nature of some of a mother’s tasks to overshadow the value of what we are doing.

So, Lord, today I want to pray for all the mothers I know and that you would provide us with not only a glimpse of you but with a glimpse of the importance of what we do.  I think it just needs those small reminders to get our minds focused on those true riches.  I pray you would encourage those mothers in their relationship with you.  I pray especially for Caroline whose motherhood experience is testing her limits of maturity to breaking point.  Bless her, Lord.  Amen