The day I met Jesus. Want to hear about it?

 This morning, at that time when I hadn't quite opened my eyes yet, I was thinking about baking a loaf of bread. I was wondering about how much flour I had and whether or not I had any yeast and so on and so on, you know how thoughts just seem to stream through your mind at awakening time. Well I did know I had some self raising flour, about one kilogram, not the best to use for bread, I also knew I still had some bread flour but only about 250 grams or so, well I sort of formulated a plan in my mind to combine both types and see what transpired. I did have yeast and of course that and two teaspoons of salt mixed with water and baked normally produces a loaf of bread. Sounds pretty logical, right?

Well I got up and went through to the lounge and there on my kitchen counter was a whole two and a half kilo bag of cake flour, just sitting there unopened. My little sister had dropped it off when she brought the dog bed up earlier, well much earlier actually. For bread, cake flour certainly seemed a much better option than self raising flour. I was delighted and rather surprised, and then the tears came, thank you Lord. Just to let you know, I don't have any money and am very happy in that state. Can't go to the shop and buy a bag of flour but that's okay, I know Jesus and the sort of things He does for me so money isn't a big deal for me but surprises are wonderful. You are my hero Lord.

You may be asking yourself what on earth has this to do with meeting Jesus, well this is only part of today's episode of the love God has for Geoff, the rest goes far back to a time when Geoff  had not yet met God nor His Son Jesus and what happened immediately after.

I am one of those bizarre people you come into contact with who, although seemingly very intelligent and knowledgeable seem to freak you out by their beliefs and lifestyles and understanding. It's not intentional, it's just the way I am. I have spent almost my entire life on my own, even as a child I tended to keep to myself, and in the process I have read an enormous number of books and done rather a lot of research and observation mostly in the non-fiction writings. But until I was about thirty I hadn't taken any notice of nor read anything in the Bible. That was about to change BIG TIME.

Some of my traits that have caused severe annoyance in other people have in the long run been very beneficial for me but disastrous at the same time, or so it seemed then. I am very naive, still to this day. I tend to overthink things a bit too much as well and on top of that I am insanely honest. So if you ask me a question I will answer with the truth about the question you asked. For example: In 1978 military conscription was mandatory in South Africa and I was drafted into the signals corp for basic training and counter insurgency training. This involved physical fitness training, long marches, extreme effort trying to get through the obstacle course, and being trained to be obedient to all superiors. but I was that one freaky honest guy who had not the faintest clue about war training nor obedience, they were about to find out just what they had on their hands. 

One morning early we, about 600 of us, were mustered on the parade ground and marched off to the place known as "Stink spruit" (stink stream, in other words the swamp") to the obstacle course, in full kit, and the fun began. Backwards and forwards over and over again, covered in mud and other disgusting stuff for hours. 

At lunchtime we were again mustered on the parade ground and told to form up which we did. The corporals, of course, were strutting up and down in front of the troops like strutting cocks laughing and having a whale of a time. One of them shouted out; "Now who didn't enjoy that?" I thought about it for a moment or two, looked at the other troops and decided to put my hand up. I didn't enjoy "that" and they had asked whether anyone had not enjoyed "that." All hell broke loose. I don't know whether you know what apoplexy looks like but that day about 600 troops saw exactly what it looked like on the faces of the corporals.

After the screaming and ranting abated a little I was marched from the parade ground to the office of the staff sergeant. He was not happy and asked what was going on. My answer was: "Staff, they asked a question and I answered with the truth, I didn't come to the army to learn how to lie." He wanted to blow up but to be honest, I think he enjoyed this worthless little troop putting these corporals in a quandary. From there I was marched off to the Commandant and the same thing happened, They asked a question and were given a truthful answer. What could they do?

The corporals in the meantime had been going through the barracks informing everyone that after lunch they were going back to Stink Spruit. Of course by the time I got back to the mess hall everyone was seriously upset with me. But to tell the truth, I was the only one out of 600 who had the guts to stand up and speak the truth, and there was nothing they could do about it. 

We were marched back to the swamp area and told to sit, smoke talk, whatever while the corporals did a search of the barracks and unfortunately caught two of my friends hiding away in the ceiling. After that I became rather an admired member of the group. Strange how things always work for the good of those who speak the truth. Jesus tells us, "My truth will be your shield and rampart." And it is.

There is a lot more to this story but eventually I was discharged after completing the mandatory 2 years national service. I was told, "Hand back all your kit, we don't want to see you ever again," and that was it, no three month camps every year, no call up papers. For me it was done. The South African Defence Force had not gotten the better of God's truth.

Between this time in my life and when I came to know Jesus a huge time passed with an amazing number of things that happened to me. My Dad died, I got married, I became Dad to two little children, I became a single father, I landed up working in East London on the east coast of South Africa and this is where I finally met Jesus for the first time.

I have lots and lots of things to write about my walk through life, both with the knowledge of Jesus and without as it was before. Things are different now for me and I would love to tell someone about it. If you want to hear how Geoff met Jesus and how that first meeting changed my life then let me know in the comments.

It's been a long time I know, sorry about that.

Lots of love from Geoff in Johannesburg South Africa.

A New Plan.

 

So I think what I'm going to have to do from now on is to reply to your comments in the next blog post. 

Comment Reply.

Sandi, I'm glad you can still read my replies here. Thanks. Yeah this has been going on for about four months, very frustrating.

Brenda, hi.

Thanks for the blessing. I seem to be improving each day, thank you Lord.

Today's post.

Wow! 2022 certainly has been an eventful year this far.

I moved into my new home early in January, a month to the day later my daughter finally left the country and that night I had a heart attack. 

It didn't kill me, I prayed all through the event trustinng that the Lord would pull me through and He did.

Because of that event though ,I've developed Oedema, otherwise known as water on the lungs. Very debilitating indeed, brought me to a complete standstill from the moment I woke up in the morning. I'm still in the process of recovering, still very weak but definnitely getting better and better. I think one of the most difficult aspects for me at this time is trying to come to terms with the thought, "Maybe I do still have a future here in this world." I did think I was going to die and had given up on anything that was beyond tommorow.

The whole story will eventually come out, probably through this blog.

Anyway. The world has certainly turned upside down this year, that's for sure. I can't think of one country not embroiled in political turmoil right now. I could have moved to another country earlier in the year but decided I like South Africa, good decision I think. Yes we have rolling blackouts and all that implies, yes we do have crime and all that implies too but hey, we're South African, we'll cope.

Africa has had rather a rough time for the past few hundred years or so but God Himself blesses Africa and we appreciate His blessing. WE ARE AFRICAN AND GOD LOVES US WITH A TENDERNESS BORN OF HIS LOVE. Even me.

Anyway, I can't get spellcheck to work and my keyboard is giving me a bit of a rough time too so, I'm going to call it a night and see what I can get sorted out in the morning, maybe the keyboard issue.

Glad I can at least post.

Blessings all and love from Geoff in Johannesburg South Africa.

comment struggles.

 Hi. I'm unable to reply to your comments, sorry about that.

I've been struggling to sign out of my blg as well, can't do it.

I can post by the look of it though. Let me know in the comments whether you can see this post if possible.

Love you guys, Geoff.

P.S. I'm okay.

Geoff survives another medical emergency.

Yep, another very serious medical emergency almost took Geoff out this time. Sudden onset Cardio pulmonary oedema, basically life threatening heart attack with heart failure following in the footsteps and masive water retention after that, very debilitating.

I'll try to explainn what happened, very briefly.

It was the middle of the night and I was getting ready for bed, my daughter had just left for the United states and I was tired. I was sitting on the bed when I felt this pain in my chest, I knew what it was, a heart attack, but I also knew that with a bit of relaxation and rest it would pass. Well it went on for a short while then dissipated as expected. What I wasn't expecting was what came next, there was this uncomfortable pain, also in my chest, but it didn't feel like a heart attack, just uncomfortable. Well this also dissipated after a short while and so I went to sleep. The next morning my whole life came to an abrupt halt.

When I finally woke the next morning I couldn't move. Taking three steps was out of the question. I had absolutely no energy at all. Just switching my computer on was way out of my ability, everything came to a crashing halt.

Anyway, after months of trying to work out what was going on, struggling all the while, I finally got to see a doctor and from there things were sorted out, sort of, and I escaped the hospital on Saturday evening. So back to work, again sort of, today on monday and this blog post is the first thing I'm attending to, to let you know that I'm still alive.

There is so much I want to tell you about but that will have to wait for the next post.

Blessings from Geoff in Johannesburg in South africa.

An Accomplished day I'm not ashamed of.

Today was a good day.Thank you Lord, I love you.

Nothing really spectacular happened but compared to yesterday? I'd say It was quite good.

I missed a post, two so far this year, not really a good start on this "A blog post a day" goal I've set myself for the year but that's okay it should pick up in due course.

Jesus is very good to me and today he gave me an accomplished day I'm not ashamed of. All I did was move stuff to the new home and organise what I'm going to be moving tomorrow, sort of got my head into this new phase of the whole process.

My daughter and her husband will be out of here by the end of January and I have to be out of here in about a week or so to give them time to sort out whatever has to be sorted out.

This whole process started over a year ago and the renovations and alterations have been leading up to this time so things are in the final stages right now. Every step of the process as been accomplished by treating each aspect as a different phase, it's how I cope, if that makes sense. No stress, this is what the Lord has brought about, Bless You Lord. 

I must admit that I had, among a whole lot of other tablets (actually all vitamins), a vitamin B capsule this morning. Vitamin B has a profound effect on me, I become super motivated and pretty much work my arse off the whole day and then cannot for the life of me fall asleep at night leaving the following day a disaster. No motivation at all to get anything done, completely exhausted and having no desire to do anything but sleep. But tonight I had a little red wine, hey come on! South Africa has one of the finest wine making industries in the world, let me indulge now and then, ;) Anyway, hopefully I'll sleep tonight. 

Yesterday I didn't have any vitamin B and I only got one load moved and lost motivation. Don't you hate it when that happens? I had all these things planned and only accomplished one. So sad.

I will try to take some photographs tomorrow but recently I have been rather more focused on moving than taking photos, I'll change that and make a priority of both. 

This post I will update tomorrow evening, wish me luck.

Blessings from Geoff in Johannesburg South Africa.

No New Resolution, Just carrying on regardless.

 

This year I'm hoping to write more blog posts than I did last year, only 22. That's an average "time space" between posts of about 16 days, or more than two weeks. Not very good at all. 

Since I've dedicated this blog to talking about God's love, His kindness, His faithfulness and everything He's done for me, I'm going to try to write a post a day in honour of my God this year. We'll see how it goes.

Who is this God I call "My God?" you may ask. That would be the Lord God almighty, the Father of Jeshua otherwise known as the Son of God. He has many names, Jahweh, Elohim and a number of others.

His son Jeshua, who came to reveal the truth to all who seek Him also has many names, I Am, Messiah, Lord and so on. The Son of God and the son of man was raised from the dead after living His whole life according to God's law and being judged worthy of ruling over God's creation. In Him I put my trust. Trusted by the Creator, trusted by Geoff.

I'm an old man now. I also have Asperger's syndrome so my social abilities are rather useless so you can imagine what kind of abuse I've endured over those many many years. 

I was reading last night in the book of Matthew 24 verse 9-14.

9) "You will then be handed over for punish-

ment and execution; and men of all nations

will hate you for your allegiance to me. 10) Many

will fall from their faith; they will betray

one another and hate one another. 11) Many

false prophets will arise, and will mislead

many; 12)  and as lawlessness spreads, men's love

for one another will grow cold. 13) But the man

who holds out to the end will be saved. 14) And

this gospel of the Kingdom will be pro-

claimed throughout the earth as a testimony

to all nations; and then the end will come.

When I read that it made me think about how difficult my time in this world has been, how many times I've been belittled for my belief in Jesus, how many times I've been beaten up, how many times I've had to endure unspeakable abuse, well despite all of that I've remained loyal and have endured. I've held out. Strangely people seem to respect and admire my faithfulness for some reason.

Today the onslaught on people of faith has become not only obvious but it seems to have escalated to an insane degree. Clinging to the word of God written in the Bible, praying to someone you really believe in and trust is essential. 

You have a choice; Do you choose life or do you choose death? Choose life. 

This life we are experiencing isn't for ever, only a time and then it will come to and end. After that there are only two destinations and I know where I want to land up. The other place isn't at all pleasant.

Our souls do live for ever, one way or another.

The Bible is the truth, where else do you think you are going to find truth if you dismiss the Author of truth, where are you going to go if you "Give Up?" What do you think will happen if you turn your back on God and forget about Him? Do you think God will care about you when all hell breaks loose? or do you think it would probably be best to be faithful and loyal so He can care about you?

Men have turned their backs on God and forgotten Him, not a good idea. Don't be one of those, hang in there and don't ever forget that God the father and His Son both love you like no one else ever could.

It's been worth it. Where else can I go to find what this world has no interest in revealing. If I wrote about the innumerable times Jesus has stepped in and changed a very difficult situation I've landed up in to my favour, I would be writing for ever.

So today is the third of January and I've started moving boxes and the small stuff over to my new home, it's quite cool if you think about it, a new year, a new home and a new start for Geoff, lets see what the Lord has in store for the rest of the year. It's going to be interesting, of that much I'm sure

Bless you Lord, may You have a fantastic year.

Blessings to all. Geoff.

Happy New Year, be blessed.

Happy new year everyone, may the Lord god almighty take note of your faithfulness and loyalty and may He bless you for it this year. May you see His hand in your life every day for the whole year long and may you lay your head down each evening with a heart filled with love and peace.

The lord Jesus loves you and will take you through the year no matter what happens. His word says so, it's His promise.

Blessings to everyone in the name of Jesus from Geoff in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Old men on Christmas eve. What do they do?

 

Over the past year or so I've been trying to create a home for myself, It's been a very busy time for me. But tomorrow is Christmas day and I have recognise just how hard I've been working on getting presents ready for whoever is coming tomorrow for Christmas lunch. So far I've only bought one gift, all the rest I've made in the last three days. It's been a very pleasant change from the daily grind of working on the cottage. 

I don't have any money and I've been told you need money to buy stuff, strange I know, but it seems to be true. Who would have thunk of such a thing, not me, I just went ahead and sanded some pieces of beautiful African Blackwood, all of them off cuts from my kitchen counter tops and turned them into hard wood kitchen cutting boards. Two of them are thicker than the others, they are my favourites. 

Something else I've done is to cut all the small off cuts into blocks of lots of different shapes and sizes for a very smart little boy who's also coming to our Christmas lunch, a whole container of building blocks. Time for him and dad to start having fun together, dad's getting a cutting board for himself, apparently he really enjoys cooking. Good for him.

I've been so busy with everything going on that I've not had time to take many pictures, neither the cottage progress nor the cutting boards, but will take a whole lot of pictures on Boxing day. I'll do an update on everything that has happened over the last year and post them for you to see. It's been an interesting year wouldn't you say.

For now though, I still have presents to wrap, coconut ice to make and a loaf of onion and cheese bread to bake. The bread can wait till the morning though.

From Geoff in Johannesburg South Africa I would like to wish you all a very blessed day tomorrow and may you recognise the blessings when they come.

Blessings from Geoff.

And that's what has been keeping me so busy for so long. 

I'll be moving in early next year. 

What do you think?

When I landed up in hell.

 Hi.

So, I've been asked to describe hell. Well firstly let me advise you  that I don't really know much about 'Hell." But I did go there once. The best I can do in this post is describe only what the experience was for me, what I saw, what the atmosphere was like and so on. Forgive me if I don't align with other writers and their descriptions. This is what it was like for me.

Some time ago I had a huge fight with the Lord God Almighty. 

I gave up after having just come back from the worst nightmare set build I had ever done. The build had taken place in the Transkei, part of the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. 

Anyway, I came back from the build where I had been very viciously victimised for the past eight weeks, to find that the person who I had employed to "House sit" had done just that, sit. Everything was falling apart right around me. I was very upset about what had happened in the Transkei to come home to mayhem, even my dogs were in on it, they had made themselves a nest of my bed and as we lived on a farm and it was rainy season, well you can imagine. Mud everywhere.

I think I only got back to  the farm late in the afternoon and then spent the night lying in my mud filled bed. Not really, I stripped the sheet and duvet off the bed and slept on the mattress and had a miserable night. 

The next day was raining again and my house was a complete mess. Oh there are so many stories I can tell about that time but some of those stories will have to wait for another time.

Anyway, I had a bottle of brandy that day and landed up drinking the whole lot, got very drunk. Had a huge fight with God and went to bed. 

Some time in the middle of the night I awoke in somewhere not here on earth, I had landed up lying face up in the palm of someone else's hand being supported above the surface of what appeared to be a body of water, but it wasn't water, it was something else but see through like water.

I couldn't see who's hand it was that was supporting me. All I could see seemed to be in some rather large black dome, like outer space without the stars, sort of like a dome of black mist. In front of me , sort of looking past my feet direction I could see a pair of red eyes. The eyes weren't glowing but very red and staring straight at me with a very unpleasant demeanour.

I was lying on my back so don't know how I could see below me but somehow I could see things going on below the surface of whatever I was hovering over. When I say hovering over I mean with my back actually in the water like substance.

Below me I could see tentacle like things and people impaled on these tentacle like things. The tentacles were in appearance like octopus tentacles but not as slimy, no suckers with a sharp pointed cap type thing at the end. A bit like a thick war javelin but also flexible like an octopus tentacle. These tentacles were piercing the people below me, coming up from below, through their backs and coming out their fronts. They were in agony and writhing and screaming. It was terrifying and I was terrified out of my wits.

It was very dark everywhere, above the water as well as below but I could still see. The air was dark and thick and as I was looking at what was going on below me I saw one of the javelin tentacles coming up below me. I'm not sure whether or not it reached me but I cried out "JESUS HELP"  and woke up in my bed.  

The effect that excursion had on me was how this blog came about and has changed my life in so many ways. 

There is one thing I can tell you with absolute certainty; God is real as is Heaven. Hell, also real. You definitely don't want to pay that place a visit, it's horrible, terrifying and permanent. 

Through the love and faithfulness of God, His Son Jesus and His Holy Spirit I have, over the past dozen or so years, come to cling to the promises written about in the Bible. No one else has ever said, "I will rescue you even from the very gates of hell" and then done exactly that for me. No one. 

Well I think that's it for a description of an unpleasant place known as hell. Yep, I've been tested and sifted continually, I've also been looked after by God almighty but most of all, I am loved by God the father and His son Jesus even though I'm so so unworthy.

Blessings to everyone from Geoff in Johannesburg South Africa.

 

I had another "Near Death' Experience this morning and I'm okay.

 This morning I got up and started doing the usual morning business like going to the bathroom, having a headache powder, some water to wash it down with and so on, but this morning it was different. 

I was standing at the kitchen sink looking out of the window at the beautiful sunshine, we've had a lot of rain lately and for a long time so seeing sunshine was fantastic. Even the clouds were beautiful, sort of puffy with wisps of higher clouds, sunshine all around. 

I stood there marvelling at the beauty and thanking the Lord. I had already taken the headache powder and lifted the glass to my mouth, took a sip and all sorts of pain broke forth in my throat. I swallowed the water but it wouldn't go down, like there was an air-block or something and I started to black out. 

This is something that has happened before, a few times actually, and I know that I have about three seconds to get on the floor and lie down. Not doing this will result in me falling to the floor anyway, so why get injured by a fall. 

I got on the floor immediately and lay down.

I knew I was passing out and what usually happens is I go black for a couple of seconds then start recovering while shaking uncontrollably. But not today.

I found myself in a field with yellow flowers and grasses about as high a a kitchen counter. There were children playing with each other sort of in front of me and in the distance, what seemed to be a farm house structure with trees in front of it. There were no clouds in the sky which was a clear blue colour, there was sunshine but I couldn't see the sun just the early morning sunny atmosphere all around.

I didn't take note of time at all, so trying to asses how long I was there isn't possible. I do know that in earthly terms it was about ten minutes which is way, way, longer than ever before.

While I was looking around at the children and the flowers and the horizon, thinking how absolutely beautiful, I realised that something was amiss. I said to myself "I'm dying."

The moment I said that to myself everything changed all around me.

I was no longer wherever I had been but was back in the kitchen on the floor. 

Trying to change from one place to another wasn't easy, wow, focus and so on, very confusing.

I felt nauseous, confused and very out of focus. Getting up off the floor was a very wobbly business.

This isn't my first "Near Death" experience.

A very long time ago I had been shown what "Hell" was, that changed my life hugely and has haunted me for the past fifteen odd years. 

This time I was shown what to look forward to, not what to dread.

I didn't see anyone but the children, unlike last time when I saw the eyes of another very dark person. This time there was no darkness at all.

I'm not sure why my time has not yet come but I would like the Lord to know that I look forward to that time and to spending the rest of Eternity in His company. 

Bless you Lord and thank you.

All my love with everything I am, Geoff. 

I'm still wobbly, six hours later, and weak too but I'm okay and taking the day easy, like a Tuesday Sabbath. 

I wish all of those reading this post to have and end of days like I had this morning, it will come sooner or later. May you be blessed for all of eternity.

Love from Geoff in Johannesburg South Africa.