My soul is so dry

Lord...
My soul is so dry that by itself it cannot pray;
Yet you can squeeze from it the juice of a thousand prayers.

My soul is so parched that by itself it cannot love;
Yet you can draw from it boundless love for you
and for my neighbour.

My soul is so cold that by itself it has no joy;
Yet you can light the fire of heavenly joy within me.

My soul is so feeble that by itself it has no faith;
Yet by your power my faith grows to a great height.

Thank you for prayer, for love, for joy, for faith;
Let me always be prayerful, loving, joyful, faithful.

Guigo the Carthusian, died 1188

Guigo was a Carthusian monk in the 12th Century (1140-1193) who elaborated on St. Benedict’s practice of Lectio Divina from the 6th Century. The Carthusians were a contemplative, ascetic religious order of monks founded in the early 12th century.
Guigo knew the sweetness of meditating on Bible passages and he wrote about this almost 900 years ago in his book, The Ladder of Monks. 

You don’t have to be a monk to climb the ladder of monks that stretch up into the heavens! His words set the table with the manna from heaven that we all hunger for!

This morning, I picked up 'Just as I am' by Ruth Etchells, a wonderful prayer book that I enjoyed reading a few years ago. And as I read the above prayer I wanted to know a  bit more about the author, Guigo the Carthusian. 

Have a blessed day!

God keeps his promises!

This morning at Hixon church, St Peter, I welcomed four children that I 'd never seen before. As an introduction, I asked them to tell me anything they want about the Lord so Tom mentioned that the Lord had created the world so we all agreed. This was a good start. Then I asked them if they knew about the Lord's promises and Soph (one of the younger ones) mentioned the boat and Tom who must have realised what she was talking about,  helped her: 'Yes, she means Noah's boat. So we talked about the Lord's promise to Noah: the covenant (agreement)  is in Genesis 9:14-16 14 Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, 15 I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life.16 Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.”

I then asked them if they'd heard about somebody called Jacob and they said yes! This was fantastic so we moved on to Jacob's dream at Bethel. We read Exodus 28: 11-15 and then watched this video: http://vimeo.com/61097262 A character called Commander Cosmo speaks about Jacob, his dream and the Lord's promise to look after him. Then for the main activity we used the resources that Lisa, a fellow blogger put on her website. Here is the link. http://ourcountryroad.blogspot.co.uk/ So we all had a very enjoyable session.

Have you experienced the feeling that the Lord 'watches over you wherever you go'? Even when I rebelled and did not want to think about the Lord, I know now that He was protecting me and helping me. And this is an awesome feeling to know that He is patient and loving.

For now, I am back marking and planning for the week coming. Do keep us in your prayers; may the Lord bless you in abundance, in Jesus' name. N.