Friday, March 14, 2008

Forever the bride of the King

I want to sleep, but I can't.. I need to write.

Tonight I was reading Song of Songs, a book that never really connected to my heart before. Tonight was different; I could hear the words spoken to me, I could see the garden in all its attractiveness and I captured the love in my core.

I started to write down what I discovered and something so precious revealed itself to me.

Chapter 1. The King falls in love with the vineyard keeper
‘Behold, you are beautiful, my love; behold, you are beautiful; your eyes are doves.

Chapter 2. He asks her to marry Him
‘My beloved speaks and says to me: ‘Arise, my love, my beautiful one, and come away!’
‘Come my shy and modest dove – leave your seclusion, come out in the open. Let me see your face, let me hear your voice. For your voice is sweet and your face is lovely.’

Chapter 3. The wedding
‘My King-Lover, dressed and garlanded for his wedding, his heart full, bursting with joy!’

Chapter 4. The honeymoon
‘You’ve captured my heart, dear friend. You looked at me, and I fell in love. One look my way and I was hopelessly in love! How beautiful your love, dear, dear friend – far more pleasing than a fine, rare wine, your fragrance more exotic than selected spices. The kisses of your lips are honey, my love, every syllable you speak a delicacy to savor.’

Chapter 5. Marriage is consummated
‘I went to the garden, dear friend, best lover! Breathed the sweet fragrance. I ate the fruits and honey, I drank the nectar and wine’ (he).
‘His legs are pillars if marble set on bases of pure gold. His appearance is like Lebanon, choice as its cedars. His mouth is sweetness itself; he is altogether lovely. This is my beloved, this is my friend’ (she).

Chapter 6. Purification in the garden
‘My lover is already on his way to his garden, to browse among the flowers, touching the colors and forms. I am my lover’s and my lover is mine’.

Chapter 7. Matured
‘I am my lover’s. I’m all the world to him!’ ‘And there I’ll give myself to you, my love to your love.’
‘Love-apples drench us with fragrance, fertility surrounds, suffuses us. Fruits fresh and preserved that I’ve kept and saved just for you, my love.’

Chapter 8. Eternal love
‘Love is invincible facing danger and death. Passion laughs at the terrors of hell. The fire of love stops for nothing – it sweeps everything before it’ (she).
‘But my vineyard is all mine, and I’m keeping it to myself'(he).

I love how the girl becomes more matured in her love. In the 5th chapter she says: 'This is my beloved', in the next chapter she goes on: 'I am my lover’s and my lover is mine' and in chapter 7 she is so secure in his love that she can say: 'I am my lover’s. I’m all the world to him!'.

That is the place I wanna be in, so secure in His love that I can say: 'I am my lover's. I'm all the world to Him!'

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

More to life than coffee..

My house mate is from Britain and she absolutely LOVES tea. She tries to convince us that she can perform perfectly normal without her daily shot of tea, but the truth is that nothing can stop her from drinking PG tips... And another thing is that nobody is allowed to make her tea other then herself and her British friend Lulu.

Yesterday she accused me for not being serious enough about the way I brew my tea. Well I guess I took it serious enough to go on the internet to check some stuff out. And I found a site that is just as crazy about tea as Jenn. This site is seriously cool. I think it's gonna be my favorite for a while :). There's a lot of info about how to brew your tea and an online test to find the perfect tea for every mood and situation. I'm ready to go pro.. WATCH ME JENN!

Today I'm Honey Green Almond..already lovin' it ;)!

You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me. ~C.S. Lewis

Monday, March 10, 2008

Skirt arrived!

10 days ago I asked my mom to send me my denim skirt, because I forgot it after my Christmas break back home. I really wanted to wear it during Colour Conference, so she promised to send it to me the same day... More then a week later, 2 days after conference, my skirt arrived in Australia :). A big brown envelope with Dutch Christmas stamps and a little personal drawing from my 'super-creative-mom' (I assume the girl in the skirt and the curly green hair represents me...) just got delivered at my house. Just in case you are wondering how much it will cost you to send a little skirt from Europe to Australia, the exact answer is 19 Dutch Christmas stamps of 0.29 euro each = 5.51 euro = $ 9.23.

That is all it takes to make a girl really happy!
My mom is the best!

Isaiah 60.13

Ok, so I got asked to help pack up the dressing rooms after the Album Recording yesterday evening. In one of the rooms I found some post-it notes on the mirror with verses to encourage the band. Because everybody had already left and the notes were still there, I took them.

One of the notes said: 'the glory of Lebanon will come to you'. I was like...uuhm, unusual verse to write down, so I looked it up in the Bible. Found something I just wanted to share :).

The glory {n} of Lebanon shall come to thee, the fir tree, the pine tree, and the box together, to beautify the place of my sanctuary; and I will make the place of my {o} feet glorious.

(n) There is nothing so excellent which will not serve the needs of the Church.

(o) Signifying that God's majesty is not included in the temple, which is but the place for his feet, that we may learn to rise to the heavens.

That last part; which is but the place for his feet, that we may learn to rise to the heavens....

Sunday, March 9, 2008

'the I heart revolution'

see the world is a place made up of places.. and every place has a history.. and every place's history is reflected in what becomes it's culture.. and culture itself is defined through its people.. and the people; well, they are the future… and the future is now..

so then - looking at it in the same light but from the other side of the room; at this moment in history, we are the people in the places.. and we are the ones defining cultures.. and we are the ones creating history.. and so the question must be asked…. If we are the future; how's it gonna look..?? - Joel Houston -

Er is een dag

Er is een dag,
waar al wat leeft al lang op wacht,
een dag van blijdschap,
als heel de schepping wordt bevrijd.
En op die dag,
dan komt de Heer en haalt zijn bruid,
die rein en stralend
Opgaat in zijn heerlijkheid.

Spoedig zullen wij Hem zien
en voor altijd op Hem lijken
en Jezus kennen zoals Hij is, amen!
Nooit meer tranen, nooit meer pijn,
want wij zullen met Hem leven
in zijn nabijheid, voor altijd.

Dus kijk omhoog
en zie wat nog verborgen is,
maar wat beloofd is,
dat blijft in alle eeuwigheid.
En als je lijdt,
weet dat het maar voor even is.
Als Jezus terugkomt,
deel je in zijn heerlijkheid.

Tot die dag...

Phil 1.21 'For to me life is Christ and death is profit.'

Soms denk ik wel eens...is dit alles?! Dan schreeuw ik uit naar GOD, is dit alles wat U voor mij heeft...want het is niet genoeg! Als dit alles is dan zal ik altijd moeten blijven zoeken en dat is niet goed genoeg voor mij. Ik moet zeker weten dat er een dag komt dat ik niet meer hoef te zoeken, dat ik niet meer hoef te vechten, dat ik niet meer hoef te huilen.

Ik hou van Jezus met alles in mij, Hem volgen is mij leven, mijn vreugde en mijn hoop. En de tekst in Fillipenzen geeft me de zekerheid die ik nodig heb om te weten dat er meer is. De dag dat ik mijn Koning zal ontmoeten zal de dag zijn dat ik voor eeuwig zal ontsnappen aan zonde, verleidingen, zorgen, schaamte en dood. Die dag zal een dag zonder einde worden samen met Hem, mijn Redder, de zon zal 's morgens opkomen om nooit meer onder te gaan.

Maar tot die dag zal ik leven voor Zijn glorie, zal ik Zijn handen en voeten zijn in een wereld die gebroken is en zoveel pijn kent. Hij is mijn kracht en bij Hem mag ik schuilen.

Gelatians 2.19-21 'What actually took place is this: I tried keeping rules and working my head off to please God, and it didn't work. So I quit being a "law man" so that I could be God's man. Christ's life showed me how, and enabled me to do it. I identified myself completely with him. Indeed, I have been crucified with Christ. My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God. Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not "mine," but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I am not going to go back on that.

Is it not clear to you that to go back to that old rule-keeping, peer-pleasing religion would be an abandonment of everything personal and free in my relationship with God? I refuse to do that, to repudiate God's grace. If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, then Christ died unnecessarily.'

Saturday, March 8, 2008

New grandmother

An official message to let the world know that today I found a new grandmother, her name is Lidia Schryver and she is 85 years old. Next to her other 13 grandchildren, she adopted Nathalie and me at the last night of Colour Conference 2008. During the conference we did Dutch translations for her and she was adorable. She fell in sleep a couple of times during the messages... how cute...asked me to whom I was talking and talked back to us while we were translating, but nonetheless we had the best time with her. She made my day and I will seriously miss her, and Nathalie, and the team, and all the 17.000 women, and the great speakers, and the fun, the joy, the love, the commitment, the food, the coffee trips to Muffin Break and my volunteers t-shirt. Next year I hope to be a delegate myself in the Royal Albert Hall in London :). We shall see...

Friday, March 7, 2008

Colour Conference

Ik kom net terug van Colour Conference, de tweede dag. Het was geweldig, je kon Gods aanwezigheid letterlijk voelen. Het mooiste moment van de dag: deel 2 van de 'Incredible' presentatie van Louie Gigllio. We serve an incredible BIG God! Zijn adem creƫert sterren die miljoenen keren groter zijn dan de aarde en diezelfde adem gaf jou leven. Jij bent een wonder, jij bent iets onvoorstelbaars, iets dat niet te verklaren valt, dat ver en dan ook heel ver buiten ons denken omgaat. De mensheid is er achter gekomen hoe je DNA uit kunt schrijven...wist je dat het menselijke DNA 3000 miljoen verschillen karakters kent, zo uniek ben je...zo bijzonder.

The devil is a LIAR!! JESUS is my Lord, my Saviour and my Liberator...Truth is on my side!

Moet morgen weer om 6 uur op, dus ga nu slapen.
Zegen!

Monday, March 3, 2008

Red

I live in Australia for almost 2 years now and there is one person in particularly that I miss much. My beautiful little sister, Saskia. She is by far the most coolest & prettiest girl on the face of this earth and I totally believe in her. The last time I saw her, was during my holiday break in the beginning of January and I promised myself to pray and think about her every day, until the day I would see her again. Since that day I wear red nail polish and I make sure that it never goes off completely before I put a new layer on. Just to remind me that even though we are separated by more then 16564.906 kilometers, she will always be my friend.

I love you.

Sunday, March 2, 2008

One of my favorites

Listen to my voice in the morning, LORD.
Each morning I bring my requests to you

and wait expectantly.
-Psalms 5.3-

Podcast by Johanna Weerstand

Click on button below, Dutch version only:


The audio quality is not really good, but gets better after the first 3 minutes. Worth listening to :).

Words of power

This week I got so challenged in going after God in the hard times. Next week is Colour Conference and the enemy is trying hard to steal our joy and our health, so that we might give up. A little baby died, another baby is in hospital, one of the pastors is seriously injured and also in my personal life I can see the attack. For about a month now I take medication for my skin and this week I got an allergic reaction to the medication. I have had a headache for the last four days and just very distracted and a blurred vision. But I won't give up, to God the victory! He is my Healer, my Restorer, my Shield, my Protector, my Hope, my Everything!

Yesterday I started to write down all the promises of God in the Psalms and it is amazing to see that there is so much we can access in heaven; provision, help, healing, power, grace, wisdom, mercy...! Lately I really start to see that only Gods words are so full of truth and that are released into this world with so much creating power. And that when I speak His words, they contain the same power, this is how Reinhard Bonnke says it: “ I suddenly realized that the power was not in the mouth – the power was in the Word”. Isn't that amazing, the words we speak contain creating power! Do you really realize that when you speak into someone's life, or when you just talk to someone, or when you pray?! It blows my mind, I cannot contain it I guess. God gave us the keys of the kingdom Himself. Jesus says in Matthew 16.19: 'And that's not all. You will have complete and free access to God's kingdom, keys to open any and every door: no more barriers between heaven and earth, earth and heaven. A yes on earth is a yes in heaven. A no on earth is a no in heaven.'

I just read Galatians 3 and there it is explained so beautiful how God's promise to Abraham and the law could go together. In verse 18 it says: 'For if the inheritance could be received by keeping the law, then it would not be the result of accepting God's promises. But God graciously gave it to Abraham as a promise.' So we cannot do anything to receive the promises of God for our life, but just accepting God's grace for us. If you are His Child, His promises are also for you. Claim these promises over your live!

Did you know that only in NSW, Australia, there is over a 26 million dollars of unclaimed prize money in the lottery?! Maybe this money belongs to a divorced woman with 4 kids who can hardly get around in life...would not her life be so much easier if she just knew that she could claim her prize money? Well, I guess the same principle applies to you, would not your life be a lot more easy if you claim the promises of God over your life; His promises when you feel worried, His promises when you are sick, His promises when you give, His promises when you feel tempted, His promises when troubles come, His promises when you need peace, His promises when you feel angry, His promises when you doubt God, His promises when you need confidence, His promises when you feel lonely and a lot more.

I am not going to write down all the promises God has for you, because I think they will have more value when you discover them for yourselves in God's Word.

Just a little verse to meditate on: Hebr 13:8 (KJS) Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.

Be blessed, love God and love each other!