England Won

England won on Sunday! They beat Australia at a proper sport- Cricket!

I really don't like football. I find it soooo boring. You can watch a whole game for 90 minutes + all the added on time for the theatrics when the players have pretended to be injured and there be no points scored at all! I can never remember that happening in a game of rugby. There is always something on the board! I love Rugby. All this nonsense about England not having won the World Cup since 1966. Yes they did! In 2003 - in Sydney at Rubgy!

I would like to say that now that England are out of the football world cup, that this means that we don't have to have it on in the house anymore but I live with a husband who likes every sport from motor racing to carpet bowls! ( Well he doesn't really like horse racing or sycronised swimming but most other things)

OK rant over!

Well except to say that generally speaking we do have a tendency to overlook some victories. Our English cricketers won against the Aussies! How great is that?

How many times do we fail to thank God for victories won and blessings received because we have focussed on something that has not gone the way we wanted it to.

I will admit that sometimes I have come home from the meeting and the preaching was good, the worship uplifting, the prayers fervent and the fellowship supportive but I can only think, there were not so many there today and nobody put the Bibles away!

So I'm thanking God today for some victories won over the enemy that I have seen in the past few days.

Some kids turned up for our new Quest group and listened to a short message about God being real.

Late night Prayer Patrol in Bristol on Friday was strategic and we heard God speak through his Spirit. Told a drunk God loved him and prayed with a volunteer ambulance man.

One of our soldiers trusted God and obeyed the prompting of the Holy Spirit to do something very difficult.

Prayer School- What a joy. Testimony of a spiritual breakthrough, freedom in sharing and lovely prayer time, This was especially good as some who said they found it difficult to pray freely in front of others did great.

Personally disciplined myself to leave work behind and sit on a beach for two hours and relaxed!

On a really hot day, when we didn't expect kids to turn up for our Lunch time Drop in, we had a bunch of kids turn up and stay. We were able to come alongside an offer support to one girl in particular.

We're a band that shall conquer the foe
If we fight in the strength of the King
With the sword of the Spirit we know
We sinners to Jesus shall bring

I believe we shall win
If we fight in the strength of the king


God bless

Carol

Evangeline Booth on the scourge of alcohol

I was reading a book on holiness called Go and Sin no More by Micheal L. Brown (Regal Books) which I picked up at a second hand book shop when I surprisingly came across a quote by Evangeline Booth expressing her views on alcohol.

She says, "Drink has drained more blood, hung more crepes, sold more homes, plunged more people into bankruptcy, armed more villains, slain more children, snapped more wedding rings, defiled more innocence, blinded more eyes, twisted more limbs, dethroned more reason, wrecked more manhood, dishonoured more womanhood, broken more hearts, driven more to suicide and dug more graves than any other poisonous scourge that ever swept its death-dealing waves across the world."
(Cited in Albert M Wells, Jr Inspiring Quotations: Contemporary and Classical (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1988)

I don't think she likes the stuff!

Anyway it was one more confirmation for me to keep going in supporting the campaign to introduce minimum pricing for alcohol in the UK. And if I needed more confirmation I returned from holiday to find out that there were several violent disturbances in our village last Saturday during the Annual Rag Day Festival. This was fuelled by alcohol and sadly involved a lot of under-age drinking. It spoiled what had been a lovely community event.

Since my last posting I have received an email back from Tesco's thanking me for supporting their policy on alcohol pricing. However in response to my suggestion that they take the lead and setting their own controls they pointed out that they would fall foul of competition laws and if only one supermarket raised their prices unilaterally, people would just buy their alcohol elsewhere. Well I'm not really surprised by their response but at least I had a reply, which is more than can be said for the Co.Op.

Anyway I'm not giving up. I'm going to keep writing to other supermarkets and talk to local politicians. And pray. I would love to hear from anyone who is interested in getting involved.

God bless

Carol