The Fabric of Friendship
Spread the Fragrance
I had the most amazing day yesterday. I woke up with a Facebook message from one of my university friends saying "you are phenomenal!
Then I came home to find a gift from one of my other friends under my car, with a note telling me how much she appreciated me. Oh my goodness! I was totally amazed by these small gifts of appreciation.

It wasn't even my birthday!


Don't you just LOVE moments like these? These small gestures of appreciation from friends that fills the soul with joy.

These gestures moved my heart in a special way, maybe because I am living in the UK and felt somewhat isolated yesterday.Three years ago the Lord called my husband and I to London. We both have some amazing friends back in South Africa. When we chose to follow God's leading to come to the UK, one of the most difficult things we had to sacrifice was time and memories with the people we love. Just this week I've missed my childhood friend's wedding, and the photographs looked so amazing.....I couldn't help but wonder why "the call to nations" felt so exciting a few years ago!


When I arrived in London it was quite difficult to make new friends. You can easily just enjoy the people you know and that you are comfortable with, without challenging yourself to move out of your comfort zone for God to use you when you live in a place you've known all your life....hmm....thus the word "home country!". But if you move to a foreign country, you have no choice. God connects you with people that will shape you, people that you wouldn't necessary choose for yourself, people that He chose for you to invest in.

I was blessed to live with a few "new girlfriends" during my engagement to George the first few months when I arrived in London. We were famous for our amazing food, wooden floor house and exciting company and drew people to our Openview House like a moth is drawn to light. People filled our lounge every day of the week to enjoy the amazing fellowship we had in the Spirit. And some invited others who in return invited more people. It became the safe haven for many. I had a similar experience during my High School years when we had a connect group that became my spiritual family. We are still a very close-knitted, Holy Spirit Anointed group of friends living out our covenant to one another to be there for each other - till death and beyond. The sweet love between us drew others like the Royal Wedding drew the Britons. There were prayer sessions, share sessions and pizza! Don't forget the pizza!

These experiences are a Gift from God that I value dearly - but it also causes a dilemma.

When I go to parties or visit with friends I always feel this surge of frustration coming over me when I don't experience the connection and joy I know exist. And I always come back to the same nagging question in my heart....

What is the fabric of friendship that holds everything together?

So, after a lot of prayer and thinking, I am more convinced than ever that the fabric that holds friendships together is the words and actions that flow from a pure heart.
The friends I am the closest with are the friends that verbalise the way they feel about me. Their words are full of grace, acceptance and compassion. Some compliment me on the way I look, other express their excitement to see me while others say how much they miss me. These are the friends that want to esteem me higher than themselves, without comparison sucking the life out of the relationship. They celebrate and honour me as a person. They compliment me without any hidden agendas or jealousy lurking up in their hearts. They buy gifts, offer to teach me "how to sow on a button", schedule a coffee date and invest in me as a person.

These valuable friends are also interested in my relationship with God - they share their personal journeys and open up their hearts for me to know them intimately, without walls of insecurities blocking the way to get to know them. They are open and vulnerable and not scared to share themselves because they no longer live, but Christ lives within them.

I admire those who will go the extra mile to do something special for a friend. I want to be a friend like that - someone who sows grace lavishly. My passion is to slowly learn to give without expecting something back, to give because I value people, I love people and I want to be a friend to many.

I wanted to share this because I believe that the world is in need of good friends that will lighten up someone's day with their sacrificial love.

Proverbs 22:11

He who loves purity and the pure in heart and who is gracious in speech--because of the grace of his lips will he have the king for his friend.

Proverbs 27:9

Oil and perfume rejoice the heart; so does the sweetness of a friend's counsel that comes from the heart.

May God help us to be good friends to others..... and maybe soon you will be the one sending an awesome Facebook message or hide a gift underneath's someone's car....

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Masterchef in the Maker
Spread the Fragrance

Most women like the kitchen - I am not one of them. Just the word "cook" makes me uncomfortable. I do not volunteer to help in the kitchen, and shy away when women start discussing recipes. When I got married I struggled to figure out when meat was properly cooked - so my poor husband always had to come and save me from embarassment. The kitchen tests my courage. I wrestle with food, dishes, the oven and the fridge and always feel like a hero when I come up with a concoction that looks decent - it is like looking at your new-born baby and thinking: Did I make this?

I've been watching the well-known TV series Masterchef and admire the guts of the contestants. The way they stir the most unusual ingredients together, and pretend as if they know how to flog a bird. For me it seems very bizarre! They can look at ingredients and make it work - they stir exotic spices together and cook up a storm with such elegance, such style, such precision.

Sometimes in my christian walk I feel like a recipe in the making. Have you ever just looked at a bowl of flour? It seems so simple and useless - actually it is pretty useless until you add eggs and milk and butter and stir it altogether....then it becomes dough and the whole taste, flavour, texture and purpose of the flour changes.

I sometimes hear christians say: "I feel a stirring in my Spirit." Have you ever felt the stirring they are talking about? It is a feeling in your spirit that mixes everything together, makes everything seem grey, undefined, unplanned. You don't always know whether you should move or stand, run or hide....those stirrings normally lead you to ask people for prayer, or to seek wisdom from your mentors. Everything seems out of place. But yet there is an excitement, an expectancy for something great, because the whole form of your simple and useless flour life is taking on a new texture....and soon you will turn into something tasty.


If you are emotional like me these times are the most difficult to understand and cope with. It challenges your relationship with God. But this is what is truly amazing about being stirred in the Spirit...you are in the hands of a Masterchef, and not in the hands of someone that hopes the recipe will come out right (like me!!!) God looked at you and had a plan, an idea to not only keep you in your current form, but transform you into something that will taste good, something beautiful and spectucular that will cause people to come back for more.

So what should I do when I feel the stirring of the Holy Spirit? It is interesting that the Greek word for stirring means "to kindle afresh" or "keep in good flame." In these times of chaos and shaking, it is as if God is rekindling our love for Him, our desire to make him our only True love. In the old Testament the word "stirring" sometimes referred to people being moved to offer of themselves, to give something of themselves. Exodus 35:21 says: "And they came, every one whose heart stirred him up, and every one whom the Spirit made willing, and they brought the Lord's offering to the work of the tabernacle of the congregation, and for all his service, and for the holy garments." It is interesting that from the stirring came a willingness to offer, and then came a release into service.

Sometimes the stirring of the Spirit helps us to rekindle the flame of passion for God to offer ourselves to Him completely and be transformed so that we can be released into new things. Timothy was stirred in his giftings after the elders prayed for him, and he was released into new things. But in order for God to release us and change us into a new form, He first has to get us to a place of surrender to His goodness, acknowledging that He is the Masterchef, so the release into new things can glorify Him and be an offering to the church. People want to taste the goodness of God in our lives, and the Masterchef can only create it in our lives if we surrender to His stirring.
I am challenged to view these change in circumstances, these new revelations flooding my mind and challenging my flesh, these mixed emotions and uncomfortable stirrings as an opportunity to be rekindled, refreshed and released for the Glory of God and the enjoyment of all people!

Let the Masterchef create something spectacular out of your life!
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