Here's a book I'm currently recommending and looking forward to its release. It's called Destination Hope: A Travel Companion When Life Falls Apart and is by author team Marilyn Nutter and April White.
​I read this book as a pre-release because I put my hand up to be part of a book launch team. I'll admit, I was quite hesitant at first because I didn't know either author. But there was something about the book - Maybe it was the title? Maybe the cover illustration and the familiar pot-holed road? Maybe it was lockdown desperation? - Whatever it was I said yes. I downloaded the book to my phone and read it bit by bit over a couple of weeks. And I really enjoyed it.

The book is written in a gentle style. Short chapters interspersed with additional stories from a variety of women all facing grief of one kind or another. From the death of a spouse, to the loss of a child. Chronic health issues, the loss of friendship. Grief is tackled with honesty, encouragement and hope. There are also questions along the way to support reflection and helpful quotes and Bible verses. Tools to help and kind words to comfort are paired together. 
This isn't a heavy read. It's more like balm to the soul and would be useful for anyone, really. Because we all experience grief at some point and in some way in our lives, and we are all the friends that support others too.

Destination Hope: A Travel Companion When Life Falls Apart will be available for purchase from Koorong, ChristianBook.Com and Amazon from 28th September 2021. Well worth a read and a share.​ I've ordered myself a hard copy so I can do just that.  

There was once a farmer - check that.
Let's start again...

There was once a mum in lockdown who ordered garden seed - quite a few packets - for online delivery. She waited very (almost) patiently until eventually, the first packet of seed arrived.
Doing her best to fit planting between the COVID updates, she hurried outside to sow the seed. 
But she was too distracted by the news, and as she fumbled to check her phone, she dropped the seed along the path. That night, the possums and rats explored her new garden and snatched the seed away. 

The next day another packet of seed arrived.
This time, she tried to stay focused. She returned to the garden to plant the seed, but her mind was busy with COVID statistics, vaccination percentages and arguments for and against different types of freedom. The seed she held fell among the rocks. Without soil to sink it's roots into, the tender seedlings sprouted fast and wilted just as quickly. 

Luckily, several days later, another packet of seed arrived. 
This time the mum in lockdown pulled on her gardening socks and secured her hat. She gripped the seeds tightly and wandered into the garden. But as she looked around for the best place to plant, her mind was filled with a never-ending list of worries: from health to financial impact, career opportunities and mental health, forgotten friendships, strained relationships, loss of confidence, fear, stress, melancholy, depression... She froze. Her grip on the seed forgotten, they dropped to the earth where she stood. Locked down by her concerns and grief, the prickles and weeds began to grow around the seeds. The weeds blocked the sunlight. The prickles choked the growth. The seeds finally gave up trying and died. 

The weeks passed. She no longer counted how long it had been. The seed packets continued to arrive. Ignored. Unnoticed. Unopened.
Until one raining day, when cabin fever shook the lockdown home, the lockdown weary mum selected a single packet at random. She headed outside. She trudged to the garden bed. With rain dripping down her forehead and off the end of her nose, she dug into the soft waiting dirt. She placed the seeds down, one after the other, in repentance and sorrow and bone weary hope. Then she sat back on her heels and closed her eyes to the sky. 
The rain fell - as it does, on those who do evil and those who do good. It soaked the earth. It washed her face. It drew her to her feet and carried her inside to dry off. 

COVID continued. Lockdowns carried on. But outside, up in that garden, there now grew a field of flowers. Tall, glorious, fantastic and blossoming bright.
Hope with it's roots down deep despite it all.

Based on Jesus' Parable of the Sower in the Bible, Matthew 13: 18 - 23.

'Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.' - The Bible, Matthew chapter 6, verse 21

I read these words this morning. 
They are not new. They are Sunday School verses, these ones. Drilled into a good Christian kid. Repeated, reminded and diligently studied as an adult. 
But this morning they felt new. 
This morning they stood up quietly. Humbly. Like the child outside the principal's office, best work in hand, waiting for the prized Gold Sticker of recognition. 
This morning they spoke into the tumbled up space of my Greater Sydney Lockdown. 
Without blame or accusation they gently nudged my spirit and asked: Where is your treasure today?
And I came up blank. 
I know where it should be.
But have you noticed how lockdown shakes our priorities from the neatly arranged agendas we've set in place and tips everything out on the floor?
Our angst and worry, our frustration and boredom, they all reveal how we've propped our good and Godly sounding treasures with a plethora of other good and busy occupations. When it comes to weighing the daily 'I wish I could.... but lockdown won't let me' complaint against the the immovability of the gospel, we realise something. And it's not that startling, really. Somehow, in all the comfortable spaces we've lived in before now, we have unconsciously, thoughtlessly - accidentally even - replaced the treasures of Christ with lesser shiny things. And our hearts are struggling. 
Our hearts were meant to beat in time with that of the Almighty God. Our hearts were meant to seek and love and be sought and loved by Him. Our hearts were meant to walk in adventurous trust in His Spirit and His Son. This is where our heart longs to be. 
Lockdown strips back the clutter. It turns down the noise - if we let it - and our hearts are shown to beat for the treasures we've collected, whatever they may be. 
Where is your treasure today? 
The question remains hanging and my heart nudges me to respond. I wonder whether I'll let these words into my lockdown, offer them a seat and give them that Gold Sticker for work well done?

There are some parts of the Bible that I read without much self-confidence. The book of Isaiah is one of these. You see, I’m not a seasoned Biblical scholar. I’m not well studied in ancient prophecies and their modern interpretations. I am keenly aware that the context and content of this part of Scripture is more about Israel, than about me. But even with all these disclaimers, there is something huge and wonderful about reading these old, old words. Isaiah speaks in riddles and rhyme. It points to the future and the past. Familiar phrases leap out from paragraphs of seemingly distant description. And amongst it all, the majesty, humility, incarnational mystery of Christ comes calling out with such accuracy my heart threatens to break.
And I think this is why I love the Bible so much. Because it’s not just a ‘here and now’ text. It’s a ‘then’ and ‘what’s next’ and ‘despite it all’ type story. Even in passages I approach like a foreigner I can see the character of God burst and whisper and weave an invitation to something more.
Like today, nestled between a tricky description of judgement and salvation, I found this verse: ‘This is what the LORD says: ‘As when juice is still found in a cluster of grapes and people say, ‘Don’t destroy it, there is still a blessing in it,’ so will I do on behalf of my servants; I will not destroy them all.’ Isaiah 65:8
And I’m caught again. Can you see it? The tenderness of God’s compassion? Yes, his holiness demands a response from us. Yes, it exposes our best efforts as feeble flapping. And yes – if we are honest enough, we know we have fallen short in so many ways on so many days we deserve more than we get. But the character of God isn’t one of ‘measure up or get out’. It’s incredibly kind. He sees the struggle in our hearts. He knows what we’re up against. And he reaches out to us, sees the blessing still in us and instead of destruction he draws us to himself over, and over, and over again. 

NOTE: Think about such things is a new series of posts I'll be writing and sharing on The Penny Drops. They'll be more reflective than newsworthy, as I ponder and marvel at the grace and wonder of God.  

In the middle of a Greater Sydney lockdown, my newest picture book was released! 

The book is called One Potoroo: A story of survival and tells the story of one of the last remaining Gilbert's potoroos at Two Peoples Bay, Western Australia.  

This book is SO beautiful!

The illustrator is Alicia Rogerson. You can read more about her work on this book here, or visit her website to see some of her time-lapse videos of work on One Potoroo. 

The book is published by CSIRO Publishing and is available for purchase now. 
(To buy author signed copies,  go here.)