Does that ring a bell?

"Does that ring a bell?" - How often have we heard that saying? - some long time memory forgotten maybe? Something that has just been brought back to your mind?

Maybe a phrase or a word or especially a name can bring good or bad memories flooding back to our hearts and minds - often overwhelming us with joy - or bringing us into dark despair.

My life has been one of topsy turvy feelings when I look backwards - which is something I do with uncertainty and often BIG regrets and something I try to avoid doing on a regular basis.

Just a few months ago I wrote about the elephant in the room and I figure sometimes it is so much better to address the obvious in your life so that we can eventually put it behind us - we can so easily dodge around the hard things in life - knowing they are there and quite clearly stopping us from moving forward as it were but so often we decide to ignore the truth and just press on anyway.

So it is with many of us  - never quite game to evict the elephant and grow stronger especially in Jesus - NO! we decide to dodge the obvious and let the elephant thrive and continue to grow until like my problem, it becomes really huge and hard to evict.

I was sexually abused as a child of 13 by an older brother and the guilt I carried around with that was enormous and it still is - now that I have grown old myself it has become even harder to expel from my life until I have had to admit that it really is time I have put it to rest.

I had no idea my guilt feelings were effecting my own family until just recently when all sorts of things and events start happening which pointed the light fairly and squarely at the good old elephant in the room and I found myself breaking down at the slightest provocation and finding it hard to continue.

My faith in God has seen me through probably THE most toughest year of my life so far and yet I still find myself needing reassurance and positive thoughts so that my immediate family is not scarred further with how my own life has played out.

Seeing professional help is certainly not a wrong thing to do and I know deep in my heart that God has given people amazing gifts and talents and I really feel that they may be able to help, to a certain degree, in outing the past and to live purposefully and in victory.

There are a lot of Christian psychologists and psychiatrists out there but even there they are unable to give you the perfect answer to complicated and long ago problems. They can certainly help us identify long hurts and grievances and maybe even to put to bed old wounds and scars that have tripped us up over and over again.

The real truth is that there is only ONE place that you will get the real answer to your problems and that is on the Word of the Living God - it is here that you will receive the tools and ability to really get behind that elephant and give it the heave ho out of your life for good.

I am just so sorry that I didn't realise the entire truth of the God's amazing Word years ago which would have saved me so much heartache and despair and also stopped putting my own family through turmoil and distress.

Do I blame the perpetrator? - I must say I have struggled with this question over and over again - I have approached him and tried communicating over the years to no avail whatever - I have, many times brought to it God in prayer. To be completely honest with you and myself, I often wonder what I would have done if he had reciprocated and returned my overtones? Would I have truly forgiven him?

Forgiveness and putting things behind us is amazingly and overwhelmingly HUGE and a problem that can only be solved through the incredible work of the Holy Spirit living inside of us - I honestly don't know how I would have survived these past years without His work in my life.

So where do I go from here? If you have faced or are dealing with your own elephant in the room, where do you go from here?

I personally am about to receive counselling which probably at my age can help - it's certainly not out of the question but ultimately it is really up to the individual. You and you alone are responsible for taking seriously the Word of God - you and you alone are the only one to allow God to transform you into the person He wants you to be.

Our personal growth in Jesus depends on just how willing you are to want God to change you which He can do in remarkable ways. I know because he has changed me.

Yes! I am still in the woods and sometimes my days can be dark and foreboding - but you know deep down - deep way way down is a real peace that this world and our pasts can never take away from us.

Jesus is alive - He is so willing to love you in such a special way that your past and what ever happened to you along the way will start fading in miraculous and spectacular ways that you would never think possible.

Yes! I will receive counselling and Yes! I am looking forward to it helping me somewhat - but the real lifeline through all of this is how Jesus is slowly transforming me into His likeness which I guess is what Christianity is all about anyway.

So as you trundle along in today's world, maybe carrying along with you your own guilt or trouble, if something keeps 'ringing a bell' with you, take it Jesus - I wish I had I earnestly do, because I really feel that He could have worked miracles in my life much sooner than I had let Him.

God bless you this week as you address your own problems or guilt feelings. Just please remember that any counselling you receive must be filtered through your own knowledge of the Word of God. Yes, people can assist, they can motivate and help us put things into perspective but it is ONLY Jesus that can ultimately put our hearts and souls at rest in Him.

Singapore, Australia, World War 2 and Radji Beach

In was 12 the February, 1942 and Singapore was in the grip of a mighty Japanese invasion that would see hundreds of people scrambling onto the wharves to flee.

Among those were 65 Australian Nurses serving their country through the last days of the fall of Singapore.

They boarded a coastal freighter called the SS Vyner brooke but it was not meant to be as the doomed voyage was attacked by Japanese aircraft and sunk.

A group of  survivors including the 22 nurses eventually were washed up on Radji beach a remote beach off the coast of Singapore and due to their onerous plight voted to surrender to the Japanese rather than to starve to death.

A Japanese patrol found the nurses but did not accept their surrender and divided them into three groups and the executions began.

The Australian nurses were in the last group and died in a hail of bullets as they walked abreast into the sea.

Miraculously, there was one survivor, Vivian Bullwinkel, who in spite of a bullet wound which actually passed right through her side, missing vital organs and feigning death she endured 13 days in the jungle before surrendering to another Japanese patrol.

Vivian was re-united with the other surviving Vyner brooke nurses in a makeshift camp and these 'beyond' courageous women went on to experience the internment camps, starvation and disease over the next 3 and 1/2 years. Twenty four including Vivien made it home to their beloved Australia.

(excerpt from ON RADJI BEACH  by Ian W. Shaw)

What a courageous, amazing and gutsy women these nurses were in the 2 World War, suffering so badly there in Singapore - not really all that far away from their homeland Australia.

Their story touched my heart enormously when I read it and filled me with an overwhelming sense of pride to be an Australian - what fortitude - what bravery.

Even while the SS Vyner Brooke was sinking these nurses were assisting the wounded and the dying. absolutely astounding!

During the bombing raid Vivien recalled how many many passengers and crews were thrown into the water. She continued "No sooner had the passengers hit the water than the enemy aircraft returned, firing into the water and causing utter chaos, devastation and torturous and lingering death to many"

Vivien eventually made it the shore of Radji Beach by holding on to the side of a lifeboat. Vivien had watched many of her colleagues swept away in make shift rafts never to be seen again, she had seen many of her friends brutally killed by machine gun fire and many others drowned horribly that fateful night.

After her remarkable repatriation to Australia Vivien was awarded numerous awards for her contributions to nursing, only accepting them to keep the memory alive of her fallen comrades.

I know it is hard to believe but after 50 years on from the massacre on Radji beach, Vivien returned with fellow nurses who were with her aboard the SS Vyner Brooke and unveiled a memorial on the beach to her friends and colleagues whose bodies were never recovered from the terrible massacre.

To my mind Vivien was a real commander in chief - a woman destined to lead - a women strong, brave and courageous - always putting others ahead of her own needs - keeping alight encouragement and always building up never tearing down - a positive and confident young woman showing incentive and fortitude in one the most horrible and soul destroying places on earth.

When I think of Vivien and her attributes I can't help but think of another young man who at only 33 years of age gave His all to save us - He was our very own Commander in Chief - our own Jesus Christ the Saviour of the world.

That same Jesus is coming again one day - he will come in a twinkling of an eye and every person will see Him - not sure how but Hey! I truly believe what the Bible says and that every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is indeed the Lord the Saviour of the world.

During that horrible and horrendous experience that Vivien and her nurses went through one message kept them going and that was "just hang on". Even though they were brutally treated - even though towards the end their skin was stretched over their skeletons and you could see every bone - even though they were all sickly and frail that message of "just hang on" rang true and clear.

They did indeed hang on and were eventually rescued - we so need to 'hang on' through today's world.

Every day it seems it is getting harder and harder to be a Christian. Every day more and more of the world is turning against our faith and our beliefs. Here is Australia we are certainly getting the message of hatred and enmity against Jesus and what he taught and stands for.

My message to you is just to "hang on" we need to be true to Jesus and true to ourselves. We need to show the world out there that whatever they throw at us it will not dampen our wills and our love for the Lord who saved us.

Jesus will come back - we do not know when but we can rest assured that He will one day and when that day comes we can claim the victory through Him.

No matter what you have done or where you have been Jesus loves you with an amazing and constant love that can far outreach any human love here on earth.

Come to Him without delay, ask his forgiveness and accept His free gift of eternal life. It certainly isn't going to be an easy ride but what Jesus does do is give you a deep down peace that can surpass anything you have ever experienced before.

His very own Spirit will come and live inside of you giving you a joy and love for others that you never thought possible. Also your past is gone - gone and forgotten. You won't have to keep dragging it around behind you any more. Jesus died to take away that past with all of its twists and turns and guilt.

So hang in there and stride out with Jesus. With Him by your side your life can change in the most miraculous ways.

My prayer this week:-

Lord when the path seems crooked and I stumble, remind me that you are 

always just ahead of me leading the way. Amen