Hi! That’s me, Sarah, with my dear Paprika and with my back-surfing baby, Coriander. You also met my late, lovely Basil on the home page. 🙂 Though my love of cats isn’t the most essential thing ‘about me’, it may be the most obvious! Neither is what I do, but, regarding work, I’m a care-giver. And, of course, in being here, you also know or are discovering the other things I do! As an introduction to the heart of my work, here are three songs I love, love, love:
“Come Behold the Wondrous Mystery” by Matt Boswell and Matt Papa
“God You Are” by Josh Baldwin and We Are Messengers
“King of Glory” by Third Day
Twinklings was not chosen for the “twinkle” connection to that well-known children’s song, but I’m thankful for it! It sort of ties in my work on children’s books, but is purposefully the only part of the website design that does so because this site is for adults. It’s not that anything on here is inappropriate for kids, it’s just that kids are not the ones I have in mind for the various items that I intend to make and, more importantly, I’m not trying to sell any of the books directly to children. The messages are good, but I have no intention of sneaking them in; thus, this site isn’t designed for kids.
Twinklings was chosen because it’s in one of my favorite phrases in the Bible. In 1 Corinthians 15:52, it is written that “in the twinkling of an eye we shall all be changed”. That’s how the Holy Spirit, through Paul, described what will happen upon Christ’s return for those who have received the salvation God gives through His Son Jesus Christ. I love this phrase…in the twinkling of an eye. It speaks beautifully of God’s excitement, His desire and delight, His joy at bringing about the fullness of His promises in raising His people to new, imperishable, purely good resurrection life with Him.
God is not an impersonal force and, more than that, He loves us and wants to share life with us now and forevermore (see John 17 (especially verse 24) and Revelation 21:1-7!). So, I hope “twinklings of hope” is also a reminder when I must write of hard things that nobody really wants to hear about, like our accountability before God, that it’s for good purpose. God wants us to believe Him and His Word, to turn to Jesus and receive pardon and redemption, to enjoy life with Him forevermore. God needs only a moment and a receptive heart to give us eternal salvation through Christ, all of which He brings about for us. Then, we may be that day “with [Him] in paradise” (Luke 23:43), or, as is usually what follows, we continue here, but now by faith in Him, apart physically yet completely in the care and keeping of our Good Shepherd, until He takes us there with Him. This hope would absolutely be futile if we made it up, but it comes from God and depends entirely on God–on His love, ability and faithfulness to His Word, all of which He proved once and for all in His Son’s atoning death and resurrection. No matter what leads into or comes after this moment of being “born again to a living hope” (1 Peter 1:3), one universally essential part of truly receiving Jesus and all that God promises through Him is hearing, really hearing, the truth. The whole truth has some hard parts for all of us since we are all sinners who fall short of the glory of God (see Romans 3), but the truth is also far better than any of us can imagine or fully convey.
As for me, I was in darkness before the truth dawned on me, or rather in me, as God made truly known to me the Lord Jesus Christ and His love and gift of salvation. My whole life, up until that moment, I mistook church-going for belief and knowing about God and Jesus for actually having salvation from God. I didn’t see yet that I didn’t really know God, I didn’t actually believe what I’d heard, and I had been ignoring, denying, and rejecting Him all along. Then, in my mid twenties (about a decade ago), as I struggled to process some terrible things, I began to hate God. Of course, I had always been going my own way without real faith in or love for God, but, in this period of time, I became decisively against Him. And as I further hardened against God, I somehow, terribly and astoundingly, forgot about Jesus–not to where I would have said “who’s he?” if someone had brought Him up, but to the point where He was nothing to me…dead to me. But then Jesus came into my darkness, which was greater and worse than described here, and He redeemed me. In what was also a twinkling of an eye, He–the Word made flesh, the Light of the World, the promised Messiah, the Good Shepherd, the Resurrection and the Life and so much more–brought me to belief in Himself and gave me the forgiveness that He had given His life for and changed everything. The crucified, risen, and reigning Lord Jesus Christ brought me from death to life; from my assumptions, opinions, and misunderstandings to the truth; from trouble of mind, heart and soul to peace; from hopelessness to all of the promises of God, who always keeps His Word; from empty religion, apathy, and deliberate rebellion to wholehearted reconciliation, love, and an ever-deepening relationship; from darkness to light. He truly abounds in life-giving goodness, mercy, grace and love.
While God certainly has future plans of glory that will finally come about “in the twinkling of an eye”, the Almighty, who calls Himself the “Father of mercies and God of all comfort” (2 Corinthians 1:3b), cares for us and for every aspect of our lives far more than we know and desires that we have peace and comfort with Him and from Him, especially in hard times. I hope everyone finds a little of that in my work. Life hasn’t always been easy and sometimes it’s been terribly, unexpectedly worse than desired, but having gone through troubles and tragedies both before and after I could rightly call Jesus my Good Shepherd, I know that having and trusting Him changes everything. Long section short: it’s all sincerely written and/or made and I hope they’re a blessing to you. For those who already know and trust in Jesus Christ, I hope you are encouraged by these works and that you’re reminded to “take heart [because He has] overcome the world” (John 16:33). For those that have not yet met Him, I hope you give each work a chance. Read critically, but with your mind open to the King of Glory, our living hope.
Thanks for visiting twinklingsofhope.com!
Please, stay awhile.