The Spider in the Hall! - A Dose of Encouragement

If you have read other posts on this blog you will know that my husband travels often on business.

Although some people think this has perks - it rarely does.  In fact there are so many other things that are downsides of this fact.


The Spider in the hall being just one of those.

When we moved into this house in December 2010 we noticed a lot of spiders appearing in the first 6 months here.

Suddenly we would be sitting quietly watching a dvd in the lounge when something would run along the floor past us and Fred would have to jump up to get it and kill it before it disappeared again.  Slippers were even known to have been thrown across the room in some cases.

These spiders were not wee tiny things but quite big and therefore noticeable when they tried to sprint the length of our room.


The 2 good things about that time was that

• Fred was not travelling much so he was there to do the killing (please don't judge us for killing them).
• It came to an end, we presumed the spiders had been hiding somewhere after being free to roam the house while it was empty before we bought it and now they had all ventured out and been GOT.

I'm not saying we didn't get any spiders since then but to be honest we got more outside on the patio than we did in the house and the ones in the house were not big.

Until September last year that was.

It was enormous!
I mean really enormous!

But worse than that - Fred was away on business!

I was on my own in the house!

It was 1.15 in the morning when I should have been in bed fast asleep but well.....

All I could think of was

That thing could make it to our bedroom 

and the door of our bedroom doesn't close properly 

and this thing could be crawling all over me in bed. 

 I would never be able to sleep.

It has to go!

But there was no Fred to get it for me.

Now just to prove that I did not zoom in on this spider to make it look BIG you can see it compared to the mirror which is about 4.5 feet long and 2 feet deep.  The spider was just approaching the corner and was about 1.5 feet from the mirror.

Before I decided how to kill it I had to take a picture because otherwise Fred would never have believed me about the size of it.

My biggest problem was I did not want to squash it on the wall because I did not want to mark the paintwork - too lazy to have to clean it!

I would have to act quickly before this thing ran off.

But I didn't because the spider seemed content to just sit there while I took the picture and stared at it considering my options.

No way was I going to try to scoop it onto a piece of paper and try to take it outside - it would have been far too close to my hands.

It had to be the flick it off the wall and stamp on it method!

But I was in my slippers and my feet are small so I had to go get a newspaper and would you believe that brute just sat there on the wall and waited for me to come back.  I think he thought I would be no match for him.

Then with a swift flick off the wall (making no mark), I threw the newspaper on top of it on the floor and jumped on top of the newspaper.  

GOT IT!

I actually think it was so big it couldn't move as fast as smaller spiders.

After what probably would have looked to others like a little flamenco dancing on the newspaper it was definitely dead.

Well I felt so good (not because I had killed a spider) but because I had managed something I usually relied on Fred to do and I would be able to sleep unworried about the spider.

But then the thought struck me

What if there was a spider's mate somewhere in the house?

How quickly I could go from one feeling to another!

How quickly my mood could be changed by one little thought!

But the devil sure knows which little thought to put into our minds - that one little thought that will be the one to do his evil work.

He knows just when to slip it in to rob us of any joy we have.

He tries it all the time.
He is an expert at it.
He thinks he knows us so well.

And let's face it he does know us well.

He knows all those thoughts, feelings, fears, reactions, worries that he can attack us with.

But

God knows us better than anyone.

God does not attack us.

God does not rob us of joy.

God does not throw discouraging thoughts at us.

God does not plant niggling fears in our minds.

God is the one who gives us joy.

God is the one who helps us overcome all that the devil wants to pull us down with.

So next time you feel your joy being sucked away by the devil and his whisperings in your ear think about this story of the spider and 

imagine you are flamenco dancing on the devil 

because 

Jesus has the victory over the devil and so do we.

Don't let the devil hold you back!

4 Accidents and a ......... (pt3) - A Dose of Encouragement

Who would believe that you could slip on a powder?

That's exactly what happened to my husband one night on the road between Londonderry and Strabane in Northern Ireland.

   The third accident!

Fred decided to go to a prayer meeting in Strabane while I stayed at home with the kids.  Not a very unusual thing for him to do but the phone call I got about 30 mins after he left home was very unusual.

Fred was on the phone from someone's house (we didn't have mobile phones in our family all those years ago) to tell me that he had had an accident in the car and that he was fine but he would not be able to drive the car home so I would need to come and pick him up in my car.

Then a man took the phone from Fred to reassure me that Fred was okay and in his home and he could stay with them until I got there.  I got directions and then arranged for the grown-up daughter of our next door neighbours to stay with my kids while I went for Fred and her mother seeing I was rather shocked about it all decided that she would come with me.

We had no trouble knowing when we had arrived at the right place because we could see the car lying on its side in the field beside the road.  

Around the field was a wire fence with cement posts.

All we could say was

How did the car get past the posts without Fred being injured?

Fred doesn't know the answer to that one either.  

As he was driving along suddenly the car seemed to slide and it spun out of control off the road turning over a couple of times and landed in the field on its side with Fred hanging there held up by the safety belt. 

The police arrived and told him that a tanker carrying powdered milk had spilt most of its load along the road a few hours earlier but it had been washed up and they didn't think that could really be the cause of his accident.

However the next day Fred went back to the home of the man who had taken him in that night to thank him again and to take some pictures of the car before it was towed away.  


When he got there another vehicle had had the same problem and had gone off the road through the hedge at the opposite side.

 A couple of hours later another accident happened with a car going off the road at the same spot and it hit a telegraph pole.

In the end the road had to be cleaned again because it was decided that washing up the powdered milk had left a slippery skim on the surface of the road.


3 cars were written off but all three drivers were unharmed even though they would admit that they had no control of their vehicles once they hit the slippery patch.

The only person who was in control of the situation was God and we are forever thankful that he kept Fred and the other drivers safe.

There was no warning; there was nothing to visibly see as the car approached the dangerous stretch of road.

It was not Fred's fault that he had that accident.

I have often thought of how we don't have any warning when the devil is getting ready to try to harm us spiritually too.  

However God has warned us in the Bible about the nature of the devil and his intentions  towards us so that we can be prepared for the attacks to come.  
God has likened the devil to a roaring lion hoping to devour us. 
Such a strong picture.

Thankfully we have a God who is all-powerful, stronger than the enemy and when He is on our side who can stand against us.

The devil certainly could not take Fred's life that night as the car bounced off the road and into the field, those cement posts did not harm him.

 God miraculously kept Fred from all harm.

Is God in control of your life?

Have you allowed Him to be in control?      

Do you truly trust in Him?

Click Here for part 1

Click Here for part 2

Click Here for part 4

The Devil and Our Minds - A Dose of Encouragement

There is a passage in the Bible about someone very strange.

Someone whose mind the Devil had invaded

Let's Look at Mark ch 5 v 1-17

This passage tells us about the encounter the man called legion had with Jesus.

1 Then they came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gadarenes. 2 And when He had come out of the boat, immediately there met Him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit, 3 who had his dwelling among the tombs; and no one could bind him, not even with chains, 4 because he had often been bound with shackles and chains. And the chains had been pulled apart by him, and the shackles broken in pieces; neither could anyone tame him. 5 And always, night and day, he was in the mountains and in the tombs, crying out and cutting himself with stones.6 When he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and worshipped Him. 7 And he cried out with a loud voice and said, “What have I to do with You, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I implore You by God that You do not torment me.”8 For He said to him, “Come out of the man, unclean spirit!” 9 Then He asked him, “What is your name?”And he answered, saying, “My name is Legion; for we are many.” 10 Also he begged Him earnestly that He would not send them out of the country.11 Now a large herd of swine was feeding there near the mountains. 12 So all the demons begged Him, saying, “Send us to the swine, that we may enter them.” 13 And at once Jesus gave them permission. Then the unclean spirits went out and entered the swine (there were about two thousand); and the herd ran violently down the steep place into the sea, and drowned in the sea.14 So those who fed the swine fled, and they told it in the city and in the country. And they went out to see what it was that had happened. 15 Then they came to Jesus, and saw the one who had been demon-possessed and had the legion, sitting and clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid. 16 And those who saw it told them how it happened to him who had been demon-possessed, and about the swine. 17 Then they began to plead with Him to depart from their region.

Below are some questions I asked the kids in our church one Sunday morning.

I'd like to ask you the same questions:

• What was his name?
• Where did he live?
• What did he do?
• Who loved him?
• Who didn't love him?

When we think on these questions we get a picture of the circumstances of this man's life. Not a life we would like to have.  

He was tormented within and many people today are also tormented within, not perhaps in the same way as this man but still tormented within feeling unloved, lonely, no self-worth.

The answer to the last question is very important.

Satan doesn't love any of us. 


Satan wants us to

• Feel unloved
• Be lonely
• Hurt others
• Hurt ourselves
• Hate God
• Blame God for everything that happens
• Or at the very least just not think about God

Satan DIDN'T solve any of Legion's problems because 

he DIDN'T care about Legion.

Jesus DID care about Legion and deliberately went to help him.

It is the Lord who is in control over all and only His titles matter.

Above we can see just a few of the titles or names that the Lord Jesus has.  

In this passage of Scripture we are not told the names of the many demons that were trying to kill this man because their names do not matter.

 It is the Lord who is in control over all and only His titles matter.

Satan wanted to destroy Legion's mind

And he wants to destroy our minds too.

Satan wants to destroy our minds.

Jesus loved Legion.

And He loves us too.

Legion became like a new person, a new creation, when he met Jesus, and so can we when we turn our backs on Satan and don't listen to him and instead turn to Jesus and let him be the Lord of our lives.



If you enjoyed reading this post you may enjoy some of my other 

Devotional or Bible Study Type Posts

or

Encouragement Posts

or 

read more from Mark ch 5

I'm thankful that Jesus loves me and is my Lord.


Do you know that Jesus loves you too?

Waiting for ..........? - A Dose of Encouragement

We have to wait for lots of things, some seem to take an eternity to happen and some not so long.  Some periods of waiting are long but seem shorter because you are in good company as you wait or you have something else to occupy you while you wait. 

 I rarely go anywhere without a puzzle to do, book to read or something to plan & a list to make when I know there might be something or someone to wait for.

I've waited for transport; I've waited for a journey to be completed; I've waited for an event to begin; I've waited for friends to arrive; I've waited for my mother while she was at hospital appointments; I've waited for my kids to get out of school or other events; I've waited for my kids to come home in the evenings; I've waited for my husband to finish a call for work so we can have lunch; I've waited for my father to come through an operation; I've waited for others when they've been busy talking to someone; I've waited for my husband to come home from business trips; I've waited at the dentist, doctor, hairdresser etc.

Then there are the things I've had to wait for that have involved a long period of months or years like waiting for Christmas, a birthday, my wedding day, each of the children to be born, a holiday time to arrive. 

There are also things that we don't consider we are waiting for but they are going to happen, the main example being the death of a loved one. 

During the past month I wasn't waiting for the month to be over but now it is over and the time, as we are always saying, "has just flown".  

          What did I do and what did I not do?  

                     What was I waiting for that happened or didn't happen?

Well we had different visitors, we went to a wedding, we visited family etc.  
Those were some of the things we waited for and they happened.  

But what about the things that didn't happen?  

I waited for a good time to restart being serious about losing more weight - didn't happen, I waited for a good time to clear out the garage - didn't happen, I waited for a good time to think more about writing this blog post - didn't happen until now during the next month. 

          Why did these things not happen?  

                    Simply because I allowed them not to happen.  

Always saying "not right now, too much else to do", or "not today, there will be another day when I feel more like doing it".  The whole month has gone and I could have done those things, but basically it was my choice not to.?????

We do not know how much time we have on this earth so what are we waiting for?

When I think of how easy it is for me to pass the month and keep simply putting things off to "another day" I can understand how many people put off thinking about the most important question in their lives - 

What will I do about Jesus?   

Putting it off to another day is not just setting it aside without a decision, like it is "pending", instead, it is the same as saying 

I don't want Jesus in my life.  

We cannot say "Jesus just hold on until I'm older, or until I have sorted out the rest of my life" it doesn't work that way.  We are really saying  "no"  to Jesus each time we put it off.


Will we follow what the Bible tells us to do?

Because this is what He wants us to do.



Because this is what makes this life really worthwhile.



Because this is what we have always been waiting for   -   what we were created for.

We do not know how much time we have on this earth so what are we waiting for?


The longer we wait to do something the harder it gets to actually buckle down and do it.

  

 Oh how the devil loves that because it keeps so many people 

just where he wants them  -  away from the Saviour.

If you want to think about this some more or see just how simple it is to believe and have faith in Jesus then please watch the short video  3.2.1  at the top of my sidebar.

Here are some other  Doses of Encouragement