Late one balmy evening, King David was strolling across his roof terrace when, in the distance, he spotted a neighbour’s wife, Bathsheba, bathing on her rooftop. Shoving to one side the inconvenient fact that she was already married (to a soldier called Uriah), David sent for her and they slept together. As a result, she […]
Author Archives: Paula Cummings
Practice what you preach
I spoke at church on Sunday, a message which had been nudging my ribs all week, called ‘When God takes you the long way round’. It was a whistlestop tour of the book of Exodus and the story of the Israelites’ long journey through the wilderness. I wanted to show that sometimes the things which […]
Why I’m not taking part in the women’s march
On Saturday, my Twitter feed was ablaze with pink. People were tweeting and retweeting pictures from the women’s march in London and from other similar demonstrations across the western world. I’ve been aware of the movement since it began, from the controversial hats (you know which ones I mean) to the rainbow flags demanding rights, […]
How to start over…at a new church…
Finding and settling into a new church is jolly hard work. Over the years, I’ve done it a few times, both as a student and later, when moving (several times) to different cities. For me at least, it all begins with a bit of googling, trying to work out if a church’s values are close […]
An answer to prayer…
Two Sundays ago, as I was leaving church, I got a phone call to say my dad was on the way to hospital, after developing chest pain. We found out later that evening, that he’d had a heart attack. My dad’s had quite a few heart challenges over the years. In his early 40s, he […]
It’s time to wake up…
About a month ago now, I had a really amazing and lovely encounter with God. If I’m honest, I wasn’t expecting it to change my life quite so dramatically, but it has. The only thing I can say, is that my eyes have been opened to this whole new world, a whole new spiritual reality. […]
This is what miracles are made of…
So it turns out that Acts is about the most riveting, exciting book of the Bible you’ll ever read. I’ve read it before, lots of times but I’ve never really, really read it. It’s like lately, I’m reading my Bible with the spiritual equivalent of Google glasses. I can see things I didn’t see before. […]
When God changes everything…
A few years back, I got caught up in the middle of a hurricane. Not a real one, with lashing rain, storm lanterns and food stockpiles, but an uncommon type of emotional storm which has a similar effect; rips the roof off your house and leaves you stranded. Or drowning. One night, feeling pretty bad, […]
Don’t believe your own publicity…
When I was a kid, I loved the story of Esther. A family friend gave me a tape cassette with an accompanying book (in rhyme) of the story and I listened to it so many times, I eventually wore the tape out. Most great stories have a goody and a baddy and the evil villain […]
Stop playing dead…
When I was a kid, my dad used to play this game with us. He would flop on the floor in the middle of the big sheepskin rug and ‘play dead’. Our job as kids was to tiptoe oh-so-gingerly across the carpet, seeing how close we could get before he’d grab a leg, a finger […]
