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The Gift of Advent By Mary Coin Every year I wish Christmas was less hustle and bustle and more contemplative. The events of the Christmas story are so extraordinary that one day in the year does not seem enough time to savour them properly and absorb all that they...

Lamentations By Mary Coin If you have ever sung the old hymn ‘Great is Thy Faithfulness’ you have uttered words from an ancient book of mourning called Lamentations. Several years ago I read the whole book in one sitting. Its content is grim but its poetry and...

18th August 2017 Today, I’m reading Psalm 143. It reminds me that many days are hard. The Psalmist himself is being pursued and crushed. He feels like he’s dwelling in the darkness and going down to the pit. And some days we relate to that. This week has been hard....

Do you know this bible verse? “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding.” It’s one of the bible’s better known verses from Proverbs 3:5. And it appears in the context of acquiring all the wisdom that God and his world have to...

One of the lovely things about young children is they don’t have a filter. They look right into your soul! At least that seems to be what’s happening when you look into their eyes, or when you give them focused attention or engage with them in conversation. But sure...

Gladness and joy will overtake them; sorrow and sighing will flee away.  Isaiah 35: 10 Flannel flowers are my favourite Australian flower. The celebrity gardener, Don Burke, calls them ‘the disaster flower’ because they thrive in harsh conditions, poor...

It is dark; inky, jet-black. I wave my hand in front of my face, the air moves but I can’t see a hint of my fingers. Once my eyes adjust, I can just make out the door of the tent. I crawl over, hunt for the zipper and peel it open. A short stumble and I am out in the...

We’ve been studying Hosea at church this month, and it’s not a book that I read very often. Actually, it’s not familiar at all, so on re-reading, I was struck by almost everything. This is how God feels towards his people. He pursues them passionately. He longs for...

In the biblical text of Hosea, we read the following words in Hosea 4:1 Hear the word of the LORD, you Israelites, because the LORD has a charge to bring against you who live in the land; “There is no faithfulness, no love, no acknowledgement of God in the land”. Here...