My man has recently taken to growing our own ‘organic’ ginger plant and tomato plant.

Here it is:

The three green sharp shoot are the ginger, and the slender shoot with leaves is the tomato. Isn’t it neat?

Actually, what interested me was the chopsticks. So I asked him what the chopsticks were for.

He of course, told me to guess.

And I, the urban, non-agriculture city girl said, ” Oh … it’s so that that plants can rest and support on the sticks …”. Because I was looking at that poor waif-look tomato plant with the slender body, but looking as if she needed to rest on some strong man.

My man said,” ….hmmm, partly, but that’s not the real (primary) reason.”

Then, to answer my question, he proceeded to put the ceramic plate which was holding, ON TOP of the sticks.

Then, he did this.

And he said, “If you accidentally ‘touch’ the plant or drop something from the top, where do you think it will hit first?”

He continued,” The chopsticks are a hedge. A hedge of protection for the plants …”

And of course, this is where God dropped his mini-tender revelation into my heart: The bible says that God put a “hedge” around Job and his household and around everything he had.

Hedge or “gader” in Hebrew is a wall, a hedge and a fence. And is some translations, a sheepfold. He protects us like the tender shoots, so that when the enemy throw his fiery darts at us, they hit His wall of protection, while we rest secure within.

And many times, we may not even know what we have been protected from the outside …

Isaiah 5

Now let me sing to my Well-beloved …

… a song of my Beloved regtarding His vineyard:

My Well-beloved has a vineyard on a very fruitful hill:

2 And he fenced it, and cleared out its stones, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a winepress therein: and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes.
3 And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, between me and my vineyard.
4 What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?
5 And now go to; I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard: I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up; and break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down:
6 And I will lay it waste: it shall not be pruned, nor digged; but there shall come up briers and thorns: I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it.

1) I hate conforming. Like an angsty teen, I still like to shock and provoke; sometimes for the sheer pleasure of it. But it’s taken a milder form now as I grace through the years.

2) I love oldies even when I was a kid. That means at 10 years old in the 80’s, I enjoyed music from the 60s. Which means now, I love super-oldies.

3) I was born with my hair standing up. And it continued to stand in my toddler years. Mum always had to comb it down. They say babies born like that are STUBBORN. I proved it once again.

4) I have 2 mothers. One mum is the first wife, she brought me up. The other mum is my biological mother, she is the second wife. She was there about 3-4 years of my life… I think

5) Since I was a kid, I always had this paranoia that someone somewhere is watching. Maybe he’s even using binoculars. It’s weird and irrational… but the feeling has always been there. So as an adult today, I like to do a sudden turn around to make sure no one is looking or following me.

6) I love to sing. As a kid, when I was sad (i.e Mum scolded me), I would look for my dog, Princess, and look at her and sing. And her eyes spoke volumes when I did that, like she knew I was sad. And she would not wag her tail as usual.

7) I miss Princess. She was an Alsatian mixed breed. Just like me, Mixed. They say when you are of a mixed race, you never really belong. Both sides feel you don’t totally look like them. Both see you as belonging to the Other.

7.5) I like bright, citrusy colours because they cheer me up.

Last Sunday in church, I went up to be prayed for, for a cyst in my body. The left side of my chest to be exact (geographically).

I think …it was…the whole atmosphere. You know when heaven comes down and kisses you on the forehead ( to borrow a phrase).

There was a whole line of people to be prayed for, various physical ailments. About 30? I stood at the far left of the line. The speaker was praying down the line. I was the last to be prayed for, not that it mattered.

But there something about the atmosphere when I am just there. The only one. Like God sees all 30? 40 of them, each as the ONLY ONE. As if no one was standing on their left or right. That’s how God sees us.

Except in my case, I was really the last one left. And ..well…almost as if led by the Holy spirit, he asked the whole congregation, who at this time was still praying in tongues, to simply …be still. To quieten down. And just …BE STILL.

And this unearthly peace and silence descended on the place.

And you know how, when you experience a change in state, you know it? Even though you cannot put words to it. This is how I can best describe it. I was ‘tight’ and ‘tense’, without even realising it. But when i was loosened and relaxed, then i felt it. And it was also then I realised how ‘wound up’ I was.

I knew I was healed.

To cut the long story short, I went back to my seat and felt for the lump and it was gone! So in delirium and high, I testified later in the day in front of about 80 people! The lump in my chest was gone!

Later that night, when i went home, I felt the cyst again. But markedly smaller.

What am i saying?

1) I know I am healed, and the manifested evidence is the marked decrease in size.

2) The enemy will make me think I am not. And even remind me how I have made a fool of myself by “testifying” in front of the …gasp …church!

3) Finally, I feel I wanna see a doctor to get the truth verified. Facts can change. Truth doesn’t.

Forbidden fruit is like a glistening apple that breeds worms in the mouth of its eater.

It entices you from afar. Swaying flirtatiously in the teasing breeze, as it hangs from the tree.

Dancing to the billowing wind.

An apple red and yellow, promising endless delight to the eater. To the taste bud. To the senses.

But I don’t want to pluck it.

Because I know in the day I eat of it, I shall surely die.

I will fall and my heart shall be torn in a million pieces.

And that which was once a fleshy fruit shall become as creeping crawling maggots in my mouth.

And I will fall to the ground in disbelief, of how something that enticed so magically,

something that hypnotised

could now be ‘death’ in my mouth. A bitter root and a bitter fruit.

So I walk on. And refuse to let my eyes linger a moment longer.

]]> http://itisjoy.wordpress.com/2008/06/01/7/feed/ 0 thatnameexists http://itisjoy.wordpress.com/2008/06/01/moment-by-moment-day-by-day/ http://itisjoy.wordpress.com/2008/06/01/moment-by-moment-day-by-day/#comments Sun, 01 Jun 2008 12:03:05 +0000 thatnameexists http://itisjoy.wordpress.com/?p=5 ]]>

The Lord’s Prayer is something I often gloss over. An entire chunk often swallowed as a capsule, without ever permitting myself the luxury of savoring every grain of truth.

But God opened my eyes, once again just now.

And it is that single, one-liner verse 3, sandwiched right in the heart of this eleven-line prayer. And it is:

“Give us

DAY by DAY

our DAILY BREAD”

Wow. Day by day. And as if that is not enough to underscore His point, He says “day by day our daily bread”. He could have just said “bread” and it would not have changed the meaning.

And look at it. The Prayer begins at verse 2 with “When you pray, say:”, goes on for 5 lines, ending at  ” On earth as it is in heaven”.

That’s just verse 2 taking up a total of 6 lines!

Then verse 4 continues the other half of the Prayer with “And forgive our sins” and ends it at “But deliver us from the evil one”. That’s 5 lines for one verse.

So right there in the middle, you have verse 3, with five lines above and five lines below.

A single line speaking volumes

“Give us day by day our daily bread”

Like a heavenly highlighter highlighting every word with BRIGHT ORANGE (FONT 40!!)

It’s like an intentional “half-time”

A breather.

A reminder to pause regularly … even as we conquer new grounds or face new challenges or meet new people or take up new jobs or marry our loved ones or set new goals or handle new projects or write new blogs or lead more care groups or handle some more new projects and ….

Selah.

Day by Day, He tell me to Be Still.

To walk every moment

One day at a time.

To enjoy the Bread, to enjoy Him

every day.

*And the things of this earth will grow strangely dim. In the light of his glory and grace*

]]> http://itisjoy.wordpress.com/2008/06/01/moment-by-moment-day-by-day/feed/ 0 thatnameexists http://itisjoy.wordpress.com/2008/05/27/first-post/ http://itisjoy.wordpress.com/2008/05/27/first-post/#comments Mon, 26 May 2008 22:07:04 +0000 thatnameexists http://itisjoy.wordpress.com/?p=3 ]]>

….is always exciting.

Firstly, it was pretty tough getting a username. “Sorry, that username already exists.”

I kept seeing that phrase that out of part frustration and part jest, I typed “thatnameexists” as my username!

And it went through.

Then later, i was thinking that it’s quite a pretty cool name. Like the Jews who cannot even utter or write God’s name, or the LORD’s name, because they esteem God’s name to be so holy, that no profane lips or tongue should even utter it.

Yahweh

The Jews called Him, The Name.

So now, when i key in my user id, “thatnameexists”, it’s sort of a little reminder.

That Name exists. The Name ….He exists. Even when I am doing something as ordinary and mundane as registering for a blog account. It’s not a fluke. He is there. Silently in my breathing and typing and walking and waking. And in my writing.

This Word

He exists.

]]> http://itisjoy.wordpress.com/2008/05/27/first-post/feed/ 0 thatnameexists