We are Truly blessed by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority

This is an actual case registered by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority...

"Around 9pm, on Monday, 29 September, a Westpac Rescue Helicopter was tasked by NSW Ambulance and asked to plan for a winch extrication of a passenger suffering a serious medical condition on board a cruise ship off Seal Rocks, northeast of Port Stephens. 

Due to the distance offshore, an aircraft from Essendon in Melbourne was dispatched by AMSA (Australian Maritime Safety Authority) and provided top cover during the rescue. The NSW Ambulance critical care paramedic from the helicopter's critical care medical team was winched onto the vessel and treated a man in his 60s, who was stabilised before being winched off the ship and airlifted to John Hunter Hospital."

This is just one of the most frequent cases of paramedics saving lives off our coast here in Newcastle, Australia - we are really and truly blessed.

It happens all too often, unfortunately - many people come to all sorts of grief off our coast. We have so many beaches that it is a constant job for so many people in all kinds of situations. As I mentioned, we are truly and honestly blessed to live where we do.

Grief is an awful thing; so many times we have seen people truly overcome by grief, which can affect all of us in so many ways. What some people see as truly immeasurable grief, to others, it may not seem to be grief at all.  Everybody is so different.

I am truly overawed by the very grief in my own family - sad but true, and sadly, where we have been overwhelmed by sadness and grief, others see it as 'just life', so get on with it.

Our neighbours agree with me that the world is going crazy with all sorts of grief and pain - we are often overwhelmed with the news we hear - the horrible and ghastly things that are happening in our world - none of us is immune to anything that happens.

Grief is an emotion, a huge emotion in our human experience, and I guess we all suffer from grief in our own way as we go through life - heaps of people recorded in the Bible went through grief, and we still are.

Sadly, we all experience all sorts of grief - it is a human experience and is part of life, unfortunately. We lose all kinds of things - and of course, people,

BUT...the amazing part of grief is that we have our hope and trust in God alone, knowing that He is strong and willing to help us carry whatever burdens we may have.

In Matthew 11, God's message to us is that  "His yoke is easy and his burden is light"; in other words, he is strong enough and so willing to help us carry our burdens.

We can give all of our troubles to Him - our hurts and our disappointments - our bereavements and our solitude, and he is strong and willing enough to help us carry them.

If we ask God to help us through our troubles, He will give us, through the Holy Spirit, a special comforter. In John 14 and verse 16, he says: "I will ask the Father and he will give you another advocate (helper) to assist you and be with you forever!"

Life can be so short - it wasn't all that long ago as I sat beside a dying man in a nursing home, he held my hand and he said to me, "Is God really there? - Can he see me where I am at the moment?'

It's so sad, isn't it? I always had the impression that this particular man knew God and had asked Him into His life to lead Him - I know He had a quiet time each day and read God's word through his bible, and yet here he was on death's bed and wanting to know if God was indeed real.

Praise God that when we give our lives to Him, He will come in and there He will stay.

You know we need faith, and that's what brings us to God in the first place - if we accept Christ and have him in our hearts like this chap did and ask him to lead us in life, then Christ does come in and will make His home in our hearts.

Praise you, Lord, that salvation does NOT depend on us - if it did, then it definitely could be lost and lost forever. BUT it doesn't depend on us at all!

We can all have doubts, but God's word, especially on the subject of ETERNAL LIFE, cannot be temporary - God won't ever EVER go back on His word - In Titus 1:2 it plainly says "GOD DOES NOT LIE."

In John 10, it says, "I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand."

So how encouraging is this! God is with us if we truly believe in His word and put our whole faith and trust in Him!

Have you done that? Are you ready to give your life to Christ? Ask Him today!

God bless you this week.