Just a note to my readers that The Faith Cafe will be taking a short break for the next while.
I’ll look forward to reconnecting with you later in the summer with more articles about God’s love and how we can find Him all around us.
In the meantime, I hope you have a wonderful summer filled with God’s richest blessings!
In Christ,
Lori Cartmell
Did you know that some birds and bees can see things that are completely invisible to us? They’re able to see in infrared, just beyond the wavelengths of the visible light spectrum that human eyes can detect.
What looks to us like a regular pink flower might resemble a helicopter landing pad to a bee. Where we see only the uniform expanse of one colour, the bee may see a target-shaped design involving different colours. The bee’s infrared vision allows it to home in on the most nectar-rich part of the flower.
The world looks completely different when you can see in infrared.
I sometimes think that God sees us in “infrared.” He can see things in us that are invisible to others, and even to ourselves.
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Once this pandemic is over, psychologists warn that many of us may suffer from post-traumatic stress for some time to come.
Some of us will have seen our business close down for good, suffered isolation and loneliness, or may have even lost a loved one during the COVID-19 crisis.
But is PTSD a given in these circumstances? Is there different outcome that can occur, an unexpected benefit that may arise out of these difficult times?
Psychologists say yes: there’s such a thing as post-traumatic growth.
It’s been found in survivors of war, cancer, and natural disasters. Some people emerge from a crisis with increased spirituality, a greater sense of personal strength, new priorities and closer relationships with others. What could have broken them actually made them better.
This phenomenon reminds me a bit of “sea glass.” Sea glass, or beach glass, found washed up on shores, starts out as merely cast-aside pieces of broken glass. Perhaps they’ve been tossed overboard from a ship, or thrown into the sea from land along with other garbage.
These shards of glass endure years of being buffeted against the stones of the sea bottom. It seems like they’re being dashed about mercilessly by the relentless action of the waves. Surely no good could come of this?
But then, something almost magical emerges.
Read moreHave you ever heard the phrase “start as you mean to go on”?
Maybe your parent or teacher taught it to you. But what exactly does it mean?
It means to begin doing something in the same manner that you intend to continue doing it: to set a consistent pattern of behaviour right from the start.
That way, everyone will know what to expect from you, and they won’t end up disappointed.
Many of us have a hard time being consistent. We start out the new year with grand resolutions about exercising more, being a better parent, or reading the Bible.
But then our enthusiasm wavers, we get busy, and our resolutions fall by the wayside.
What about Jesus? Did Jesus start as He meant to go in His earthly ministry?
Let’s take a look at His first miracle and see what we find out.
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Has your head been spinning with all the changes the world has undergone in the past several years?
We stumble through one crisis, only to find another totally unexpected one emerge. We wonder if life will ever truly be the same again.
It’s at times like these that we need something that never changes, much like conifers.
During the winter, when deciduous trees are bare, I’m thankful for coniferous trees. These loyal friends, like the spruces, pines and firs, still have their mantle of green, which they’ll keep year-round. These silent sentinels might not be flashy, but we can count on them not to change.
God’s character is like that, too.
When the world seems to be in turmoil, and life is changing in ways that are distressing and unpredictable, we need something unchanging to hold on to. That something is our eternal Heavenly Father.
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When you’re feeling stressed, do you reach for comfort food?
Many of us do.
This is perfectly understandable. We’ve been dealing with a pandemic for several years, and are now facing additional crises, including war and rising inflation.
Who would blame us for reaching for cookies, ice cream, fried foods or nostalgic casseroles to console us, even if they can only do so temporarily?
But is there a more lasting source of comfort, preferably one that’s low in fat and calories?
Yes, there is…
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Do you have a collection of old family recipes or cookbooks?
Many of us are fortunate enough to have such treasures, lovingly passed down to us. They’re worth hanging on to.
The recipes might be contained in a cookbook, or written down on index cards and filed in a plastic or wooden box. They may be handwritten and neatly organized in a binder, or simply clipped from the newspaper and stuffed haphazardly into the pages of an old cookbook.
But no matter how the recipes are filed, there’s an easy way to tell which ones are the best:
The pages they’re on are a bit of a mess.
The best recipes probably have food stains on them, from when a cook referred to the recipe and absentmindedly pressed a finger, still wet with sauce or melted chocolate, on the page. Or the page got splattered when the cook was stirring the batter with a bit too much gusto.
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What would cause you to walk away from your greatest success?
It would have to be something pretty compelling, wouldn’t it?
Because people don’t normally throw in the towel when they’ve just achieved something unimaginable, when their wildest dreams have just come true.
If your business has finally had a banner year, you’d want to build on that and grow the company even bigger, not turn your back on it.
If you’ve just won several awards for achievements in your field, that’s probably not the time you’d suddenly want to quit.
So why would someone abandon it all right after a sensational triumph?
If they’d discovered something infinitely more valuable and worthwhile.
That’s how it was for three fishermen named Peter, James, and John.
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Before musicians play a piece of music, they get their instruments in tune.
But how do they know which is the true pitch to align with?
The piano might think it’s got the correct “A” note, but the violin begs to differ. Or maybe the clarinet insists that it’s the only one who truly has the right note; a mere trumpet certainly wouldn’t know.
To settle the arguments of squabbling instruments, there’s only one solution:
Use a tuning fork (or its electronic equivalent).
When struck, a traditional tuning fork vibrates at 440 Hz to produce a pure “concert A” note. Once this correct pitch has been established and sounded, all the instruments can tune to it instead of to each other.
This guarantees that the whole orchestra will be perfectly in tune.
I think there’s a little lesson that we believers can glean from this…
Too often, we want other believers to get in alignment with our viewpoint, our “pitch,” as it were. We insist that only we have the correct revelation from the Word of God about this or that matter, and everyone else needs to get on board with us.
Read moreWhen you read a cake or muffin recipe, it will usually instruct you to preheat your oven and get your baking pans prepared before describing how to make the dessert itself.
But why do it in this order? Why not make the batter first, and let it sit there in the bowl while you leisurely grease or line the baking pans and let the oven slowly heat up?
There’s a very good reason to have everything prepared before you start the actual baking, and it has to do with how leaveners behave.
As soon as a raising agent like baking soda comes into contact with the liquids in your cake batter, a chemical reaction starts to take place. Gases are generated, and bubbles begin forming. You want those bubbles to stay trapped inside the cake to give it loft and airiness.
If you let the batter sit there on the counter for too long, the gases would escape into the air. This would prevent your finished cake from being as light and fluffy as it could be. So as soon as the leavening agent is added and mixed in, put the batter into the prepared pan and get it into the heated oven as quickly as you can.
It’s the same way in life, isn’t it?
When God adds the circumstance or person that will be a catalyst to change your situation, things often begin moving very fast. If you’re not ready, it might catch you off guard. You may end up stumbling instead of stepping confidently into the new level God has in mind for you. You might not rise as high as you could have.
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