As Black from White / sally graham

www.asblackfromwhite.com.au

Sally Graham Interview.

When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?”  (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)

 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)

 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”

Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”

 “I have no husband,” she replied.

   Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”

 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”

“Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.  You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.  Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.  God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”

Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”

Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”

Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people,  “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?”  They came out of the town and made their way toward him.

Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.”

But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”

Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?”

“My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.  Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.  Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together.  Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true.  I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.”

Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.”  So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days.  And because of his words many more became believers.

 They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”

mother daughter

Mother Daughter.
A picture tells a thousand words

Having spent the first 30 years of my life running it all into the ground, with drugs and alcohol ...it continues to amaze me, the depth of restoritive work that God has done. People often ask about my children, how are they , how have they coped with their upbringing? A picture tells a thousand words!

As the daughter of a criminal ,my daughter is seven times more likely than others to go to prison herself. As the daughter of a drug addict , having been raised in such a dreadful environment , my daughter has every right to be bitter and resentful. When her father died of the complications of years of drug taking , she and her 3 brothers might well have rebelled against their mother , felt hard-done by and angry at me, at the world and at God. Perhaps they would inturn seek to numb their pain with drugs and alcohol like their parents had modeled for so many years.

A picture tells a thousand words.

Here is the miracle ! A young woman living healed and free, a teenager willing to stand beside her mother in the grace of God.

This mothers day, perhaps we can all grow a little more in love , step in a miracle and LOVE. Mums love our daughters and dare to believe they are more than "just teenagers" when we give them the opportunity and humble ourselves. Daughters forgive and live in the freedom that Jesus bought for us all on the cross.

Thank you to all my beautiful kids who dared to believe God is bigger than our childhoods

When I was a little girl. I wanted to be a ballerina.

Grandma had treated me to the production of Swan Lake .

We sat in the scratchy woolen seats of the Festival Theatre in Adelaide and I was transfixed.

The willowy ballerinas seemed to me the epitome of beauty and womanly grace. I wanted to be just like them. At home I would practice turns and stretch my toes to points just like I had seen.

The music still played in my mind and seemed to beligh the fact that at 12 years of age my own frame was already far larger than that of most petite young swans.

I attended dance classes for a very short term and was quickly placed in the "creative dance" stream. There we would imitate trees blown about by silent winds or fiery stallions battering through stable doors. My love for ballet never left, but as the years passed that love became to me, more a theatrical tragedy than a joyful romance.

Once at high school I was a gangly six foot tall with enormous feet and the grace of an ostrich dancing in the desert.

My physicality certainly did impact my Psyche.

By the time I was in prison I was pushing weights in order to bulk up all the more.

In prison we played basket ball and I felt more like the "chief" from "one flew over the cookoo's nest" than any Globe trotter.

Now I am 46 years old. As the mother of 5 children my body has indeed "been a good friend" to quote Mr Cat Stevens ..and I am more aware than ever that "I wont need it in the end."

The freedom comes now with knowing that I do not have to conform to the eager pressures of Western culture to be something I am not. To be younger or slimmer or even more graceful in my movements and interactions with the world.

I no longer feel I have to apologise for being not quite..something.

When I dance clumsily with my husband I feel the most beautiful and loved of all great dancers.

And in my quiet times I await the time when I will dance before the Lord in the fullness of release that comes on the other side of this mortal body

A year or so ago both my beloved grandmothers died.
Gran had a fall at home and after several months in hospital
slipped away frail and withdrawn. I painted her nails each time I
visited but she had lost any recognition of us.
True to form she remembered Dave, he is a teacher ! A teacher like Gran, a teacher
like my mother. Gran valued education above all else. but her last moments on this
earth were fitful and restless.In the end it was her mind that went first.
Grandma “at the beach” on the other hand, had a massive heart
attack. She had been sick and frail for much of her life , though
sturdy of character she was bent over and bald. She had worn a wig
for as long as I remember.
Her lifetime of sickness had made her a little misunderstood by her
family and even her church community I think. What do you do with
the Christian woman who doesn’t get healed? For those of us in the family who were athiest the notion of a Christian with ongoing illness just didnt seem to compute.
To add to the seeming anomaly Grandma was a divorce,’ back in the
days when that was simply not proper.
She also took in borders! Not that there was
anything lurid going on, she simply needed to find ways to support
her two children. She never learnt to drive a car. Nursed her mother
and cared for her abusive father and outlived all seven of her brothers.
She faithfully attended church every Sunday, and prayer group and
bible study during the week. Sang in the church choir and grew geraniums which she
would say were as beautiful as any rose. She was not trendy or
clever but she could cook and sing and pray!
She had prayed for her son who went to prison in Thailand, and died
in the America, she prayed for her daughter my mother and she
prayed for me , her only grandchild.
It was a great joy to me to get to know her as an adult Christian woman new in my faith and
to be able to share faith with one another. On many occasions God
used her in my life to bring balance and perspective. I can still
remember her saying “Don’t you quote scripture at me young lady “
Then God would convict me also and I would get down from my
high horse and apologize ,but nothing brought as much Godly
perspective to me as grandma’s death.
The last time I saw Grandma was in the hospital after her stroke.
As I entered the room I could see her wig on the side table. She was
bald and her tongue protruding from the corner of her mouth. Her
eyes were open but slightly rolled back in her head, vacant but fixed
on the ceiling.
When I entered the room I was overcome with the sense that she was
in that moment, the most beautiful thing I had ever seen!
The presence of God was so thick on her that I wanted to hop into
bed and lay beside her , but I worried I would tear her thin skin.
As I leant over to kiss her face I felt God saying to grandma “Well
done good and faithful servant.”
At her funeral, the small church was filled with people. Telegrams
came from all over the world from people who had boarded with
grandma. They had remained in contact with her for years. Many
spoke of her great faith and love for Jesus.
At her wake the ladies group provided an amazing array of homemade sweets
and treats just like I had nibbled on as a child. We drank tea in china
tea cups and celebrated her life together .
As we gathered our things to leave a young man approached me
flustered and apologetic.
“Are you Coral May’s granddaughter ? I am sorry to interrupt like
this !” he continued “ sorry to come to the funeral without an
invitation... but you see I had to tell you, I had to let you know;
In the last days before your grandmother died I was at the hospital
and she spoke to me about Jesus and I gave my heart to him! I had to
let you know I have been going to church ever since!”
That’s Gods perspective on the matter! That’s what I want. Not her
infirmities but rather her faith and her willingness to speak and
preach the love of Jesus to who might have ears to hear. Grandmas
death has reminded me that Christ does not measure a life by the
same rule as mankind.