Abide in Him

            Photo taken by Jess Leigh

“The Lord your God is with you, He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing.” – Zephaniah 3:17

When you are overwhelmed by circumstances and don’t know what to do, when your world is falling apart and the ache inside is too much to handle, abide in the Lord. Wherever you are, whatever you are going through, He’s the One you should go to. Jesus won’t let you down. He’ll pick you up in His loving embrace and carry you when you can’t take another step. Abide in His arms and He’ll heal your heart.

I know this from experience. I find that when I’m at my weakest and lowest moments, that’s usually where God reveals Himself to me the most profoundly. I love that verse above. It reveals some of God’s heart to us. When we’re going through hard times, He’s there with us; He’s there to save us. When we’re full of questions and just don’t know why something’s happening, He quietens us with his love. I believe He’s singing over us until our hearts begin to heal. He’s the loving Father who takes great delight in His children who are walking in the light.

To abide means to “to remain or dwell in a place”. We need to abide in Jesus and trust Him to get us through whatever comes our way. Even when we don’t know why bad things happen, God has a plan and He promises to be our Comforter as we choose to abide in Him. His arms are the safest and best place to be. And Jesus will be there for us, no matter what. Sometimes I wonder how God puts up with me and why He sticks around someone like me. But the only answer I can come up with is that His mercy is so great and that He is Love! So I choose to abide in the Lover of my heart no matter what happens!

The Golden Kingdom

   Photo taken by Jess Leigh

After this life, after death has taken me

Awaits a Kingdom by the crystal-blue sea;

There I shall meet the Saviour of my life

But first I have to go through the trials and strife

Oh, the beautiful Kingdom by the shore

Where only love and joy forth-pour

There I shall never cry or feel pain,

There I shall see my Lord and King reign

Before Him every knee will bow and

And every tongue confess that He is Lord. In that great land

Shall we glorify the King of kings;

To the Lord of lords all creation sings

The Golden Kingdom full of beauty and grace

Will meet me at the end of life's race

There I will live forever more

With my Saviour by the glorious shore.

Rain Drops Falling On My Head

I love walking outside after a heavy rainfall. The air feels cool and fresher, as if the earth has been washed clean. Somehow, a peaceful atmosphere is left behind. Quiet reigns and a gentle beauty fills the air. The sky looks soft and happy, as if she knows she’s performed a good work. Sun rays shine through the clouds joyfully. The moments after the rain has stopped falling are ones to enjoy and soak up. They make me feel happy and peaceful.

Another thing I love, which may sound unusual, is walking in the rain, especially when it’s a gentle but constant and slightly heavy drizzle. The feeling of sloshing through the mud and wet grass with the rain falling on me from above is invigorating. I love the fresh, clean smell of rain, as it falls down and brings plants back to life.  After one of these exploits, I often come back inside with muddy jeans and sopping wet hair. Walking in the rain, with raindrops falling on my head, gives me a care free sensation, and I think in those moments I recover some of the child within me that doesn’t want to die. Nor do I think it will ever fully die.

Next time the rain is falling gently from the sky, take a nice long walk in it and inhale the fresh, clean smell of rain. You might worry about dirtying your jeans or getting frizzy hair, but in my opinion, it’s worth it. Rain drops will fall on your head, stirring something within, something  that doesn’t really want to die inside any of us. 

The Greatest Artist

Photo taken by Jess Leigh

With great ingenuity and artistry, the Creator painted a beautiful Universe. He called forth the stars and made them shine in a sky of many different blues. Planets came into being and one of them He called Earth. Earth was special, for there he placed and created his living creations. The Creator painted a masterpiece of wonders and beauty with dashes of colour and inspiration. Works that leave you breathless with awe came into existence with a touch of the Artist’s brush.

All the beauty and nature around us that has the power to leave you speechless was made by the awesome Artist, the magnificent Creator. Sunsets of red, orange and pink, seas of deep, azure blue and forests with sun streaming through the spreading branches are all His design. God is the greatest Artist ever, the One who gave a black world colour and form. 

What we see here on earth is just a glimpse, just a peek-hole, of his brilliant glory, which one day those who follow Him will see fully. And on that day, no one will be able to stand in His presence; all will fall to their knees in worship of the Artist, the King of kings and Lord of lords.

Even though human beings have harmed and even destroyed much of his handiwork, there is still beauty to be seen wherever we look, and all of it is the beauty made by the King. Whether that beauty is in the face of a friend, the sun sinking in the sky or in a field of flowers, the Artist’s unique stamp is unmistakable.

God’s artistry is so amazing, so beautiful. No matter how hard those of us who love art (like me) try to copy his masterpiece, we’ll never get it perfectly right. For God is the greatest Artist there will ever be. His glorious nature and creations continue to astound me. And what we see now is just a tiny glance of Heaven. I can’t even begin to imagine what the Artist has painted there, but I know it will be worth waiting and fighting for. Meanwhile, I shall continue to be overwhelmed and in awe of the greatest Artist, the Creator of the Universe. 

The Pleasure of Reading

It makes me sad to think how more and more young people these days have a strong dislike of reading.  They seem to associate reading with school work, and groan inwardly at the mere thought of reading a book outside of school hours. How did such a beautiful thing such as writing became reduced to magazines full of rubbish and newspapers full of problems? How did the pleasure of reading become looked upon with disdain?

Reading a good book at one time was an entertainment and a way of educating yourself. Writing was an art and highly appreciated. Even the standard of writing has lessened and lost some of its flavour. Where has that enjoyment and appreciation gone to? Now days, you’re bound to get a strange look from someone if you talk about your love of reading.

I think people need to change their thinking of books and pieces of writing. Instead of seeing writing as a tedious exercise and “school work”, look at the art of writing. Writing can captivate and involve a reader in a mysterious way. Words can flow and ebb together to create a masterpiece. Reading can influence you in more ways than you think. A good piece of writing can change your whole mind set or bring to light something you’d never even thought about.

For those who don’t like reading, remember that not all books are Shakespeare with thou’s and thy’s. There are many good, modern day novels that can get you hooked. Once you seriously begin, you’ll struggle to tear yourself away.

Reading is so much healthier for your mind than TV or the internet, though both are nice. I think it’s so much better for you to get stuck in a book than to sit in front of the TV or computer like a couch potato for hours, for soon you may start looking like one. But reading can improve your mind and exercise your imagination, as long as what you’re reading isn’t junk.

Books are a blessing to be used and enjoyed. Reading isn’t some boring thing you have to do to get through school, but it’s something you can take pleasure in. We mustn’t let the love of books and reading perish from this world forever.

Hidden Beauty

Here's a poem I wrote in August last year, and I hope you enjoy it.

Part of my heart finally feels like singing

And my enclosed emotions feel like ringing;

Breaking forth from where they’ve been

Hidden, and they shall rise again to be seen.

God made this world full of loveliness

But we’ve brought into it ugliness

Instead of the colour and love

That will set me free like a dove.

God made a beautiful world

But so many of us have killed

The true beauty within the soul;

We need to be again made whole.

Keeping our beauty hidden within us

Will rob the earth of who we really are, and thus 

The beauty that will be lost

Will us our inner freedom cost

God is the restorer of all;

He can renew the call

To be ourselves and paint the land in a different shade.

Our hidden beauty must rise or else fade

People think that those who are different

Are eccentric but they don’t get the hint

That we’re the ones who throw

Colour into a grey world and make it glow

We can’t conform or the earth will stay

The dull shade of grey.

God can release the beauty hidden

And we will rise by the world unbidden.

Winds of Change

Before all these changes come suddenly and without warning, I want to let all my followers and fellow bloggers know that I will be doing some changes to my blog in the next week or two. They're not major but I do want to tell you about the biggest one.

New Name: I'm changing my blog's name to Colours of the Rain. 
First of all, my reason for changing the name is that naming it after myself is a bit boring and I only did that because at the time I couldn't think of anything else. Now a better blog name has come to mind and I've decided to go with it.
Secondly, you might be wondering at the meaning of the name. Well, in my eyes, life is a lot like the rain, always changing; sometimes stormy, sometimes peaceful. And through all this, life is also full of different colours; sometimes grey, sometimes full of colour. Also, I love both rain and colour, and see them as beautiful, just like life, though it doesn't always feel that way. And somehow, the name fits my topics: different aspects of life, which can be anything under the sun actually. Sometimes this blog is about my life, sometimes about things we all go through in life, and sometimes just things in life in general. But I always want this blog to be about the Creator of life: my Lord and Saviour Jesus, the one who gave colour to this rainy life. He's the One I want to glorify. So in some time, you shall see the heading Colours of the Rain at the head of my blog page.....

Additional changes: along with the name change, will come some other small changes to fit it, such as design etc, but nothing else that big. My URL won't change and I shall still be called Jess Leigh.

So that's about all. Let me know your views and opinions on this new name.

Love,
Jess Leigh