The Party That Never Quits

That is the second stanza from Dorothea MacKellars famous poem "My Country". It is, quite easily, one of the most known four lines in our country, perhaps second only to the opening lines of "The Man From Snowy River"

The vast majority of Australia has been in the midst of drought for many, many years and on very strict water restrictions.

In March last year, some good rains came.

It was wonderful, and we rejoiced.

In December, it rained some more. The catchments were full. We were delighted!

But this time, the rain didn't stop.

It's been raining in Queensland continuously for about a month. At the moment, there are recordings of 4" per hour.

The parched ground hasn't been able to absorb the rain quickly enough, and the south east of Queensland, an area the size of France and Germany combined, is now under water.

Last night, Toowoomba, a town with no river, was hit with an "inland tsunami"





8 people died. Including a woman and her child, who couldn't get out of their car before it was swept away.

In total, 15 people are dead (as at Jan 10), and there are 72 people missing in Queensland.

The floods began in Rockhampton, and have since claimed 22 towns (at last count) and affected approximately 20 thousand people. The damage is reported to be in the AUbillions. 3 hundred roads have been closed, including 9 major highways.

Brisbane (state capital) and surrounding areas have started to be evacuated.

To give you an idea just how catastrophic these floods are, I found a couple of inset maps and then I drew on them*...

It really is horrific.

Please pray for our country.

When we knew we had to start looking for a house, we knew we needed at a minimum, 4 bedrooms. Troy does not share well, and he needs a place where he can go and chill out and calm down before facing the world again.

We had a word from a visiting prophet back in June that the lord would provide a house for us that was exactly what we needed.

I'm pretty sure I've said this before, but I can't be bothered to go and find it.

Anyways, we wrote a list for what we would like in a house. Nothing really extravagant, really, considering we are going to have something like 5 teenagers at any one time, and teenagers invariably come with friends.

The house that we have been approved for to move to for the next year checks enough of the boxes for us to know that this is good for now, but not enough for us to be convinced that the house is still to eventuate.

I found the list in my prayer journal while I was tidying (!!) up today, while I was packing, and I thought I might post it here.

Again, I think I said I'd do this.

So. We prayed, in faith, for:

* 5-6 bedrooms (for office/guest room & a music room also) X It has 4
* A big yard or block a 4 acres is plenty big enough :)
* Shed/man cave a It's a three car garage
* Separate lounge/family room X But the master bedroom is big enough to have a small sitting room
* Be close enough for on call. a Just.
* A large, in ground pool a 8X4m
* Good neighbours with appropriate friends for kids - Not sure yet.
* Big, open plan kitchen a I can move the island bench around :)
* Airconditioning throughout a
* En suite a
* Private a we have 1 neighbour, and their house is a paddock away from ours. the next closest is the people across the road. Well, and the land lady, who lives in a flat on the property, but that doesn't count :)
* Girls and boys bathrooms X
* Entertainment area a Huge verandahs
* Formal dining X It's open plan... ie, living/dining/kitchen in one room
* No snakes or dingoes a & X They don't have dingoes, but they do have snakes that come for the chickens. Nothing prayer can't fix!
* Good climbing trees a
* Walk in robes a & X There is a walk in robe to the master. The kids don't have cupboards at all
* Walk in pantry X I was a little concerned about the lack of cupboard space in the kitchen
* Big laundry room X The laundry is situated outside on the verandah, which I hate.
* Storage a It has a loft! I was so stoked. It was a little thing that I wanted, but I didn't actually write down. God likes me a little bit :)
* Fully tiled a (I hate carpet up here. It makes everything so hot.

So, there it is. And out of 21 requests, with this house, we got 14 :)

I'm so thankful God hears us. At the moment, we are just crazy excited to be getting out of this wee place. We know this new place is just a stepping stone.

I just like that it's a big one ;)

Some days, all I can manage to pray is

"Be with me, Jesus"

And often, I don't even have the strength to create sound. Some days it's mouthed, others it's a whisper inside my head.

I am tempted to see this as a failing. That my prayers aren't beautiful prose, that they aren't sprinkled with verses and the promises of God.

But always, this story comes to mind:

"Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.'

"But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.'

~Luke 18:10-13

God would much rather hear my hearfelt 4 word prayer than any long winded thing I spew out because it makes me look holy and sanctified, and satisfies some part of me that says I've just done it 'right'.

My little prayer carries many answers, and I hear them being softly whispered to me as I pray my desperate petition;

"I will never leave you or forsake you..."

"I am with you always..."

"Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, "This is the way; walk in it."..."

"I carry you, weary mother..."


It is such a comfort to know that whenever I manage to muster up this cry

"...God has surely listened and heard my voice in prayer. Praise be to God, who has not rejected my prayer or withheld his love from me!"

You know how you can go through the Bible and take the day and month of your birthday and find "your" verse?

I decided to try it for our wedding anniversary... 7/6 (that's June 7th for you northern hemespherians. We do it day-month, not month-day down here)

I wanted a nice one obviously, so I discarded the ones that spoke about descendents being slaves and mistreated (Acts), four headed winged beasts (Daniel), honouring lips but distant hearts (Mark [though convicting]), deceit by friends (Obadiah) and shocking family relations (Micah). And forget a bout Job. Miserable man.

I kid, I kid.

There were a couple which made me stop and think... are they apt for us?

Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet (Matthew)

And when you were eating and drinking, were you not just feasting for yourselves? (Zechariah)

There was a cute one...

How beautiful you are and how pleasing o love, with your delights (Song of Songs)

In the end, I setled on two that I wanted to speak out over my marriage.

Firstly, from Deuteronomy;

For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be His people, His treasured possession

And secondly, from Luke, and probably my favourite for it's simplicity...

So Jesus went with them.

{{Selah}}

May you always, Lord.

At our church (and most likely yours) we have a "Prayer Chain", a phonecall based ministry that works on the premiss of "get prayer request, pray, then call the next person on the list to do the same".

At the present moment, the blogland twitterverse has been called to prayer action for a friend of a friend. Crystal Renaud, founder of Dirty Girls Ministries has asked for prayer for her friend Amy... a 24 year old dancer who suffered a severe stroke last Sunday.

She writes:

On Sunday, May 23, Amy Wooddell suffered a stroke and underwent 7.5 hours of surgery to remove the clotting in her basil artery. Additionally they found that her right vertebral artery was torn and was repaired with a stint. She awoke responsive and could even whisper her own name. However, a few hours later her brain began to bleed resulting in an emergency procedure to relieve inner cranial pressure. On Monday, May 24 she was comatose with brain function of only 3 (normal is 15) and it was uncertain that she would survive.

But she did.

On Tuesday, May 25, Amy was considered in stable condition and brain activity began to increase (between 5-7) but was still in and out of consciousness. Inner-cranial pressure had dropped from high 20s on Sunday night down to 1 on Tuesday night. She is responding through blinking (made direct eye contact with Jonny (her husband) on Tuesday night and on Wednesday morning blinked 5 times in response to “Amy, blink a bunch of times if you want Jonny to buy you lots of diamonds” and 3 times for “I love you”). And she is now breathing on her own 8 out of 18 breaths a minute.

But she’s been unable to move her limbs. A recent MRA is showing some blood in near her brain stem which is hindering motor skill movement.

Amy is only 24 years old and has been married to Jonny for 4 months. She is also an accomplished dancer.

While we are seeing God’s healing touch on Amy, we know she has a long ways to go and any permanent damage is still unknown. We are asking for your prayers for Amy’s complete healing.

More information can be found HERE or by following her husband’s updates on twitter.