“I tell you, you can pray for anything, and if you believe that you’ve received it, it will be yours.”  Mark 11:24

This morning, when I opened the curtains at 6.30am, the sky was dark and moody looking. I looked across Belfast Lough at the County Down coastline, and most of it was in shadow, except for one part, the small patch where the huge, iconic Harland and Wolff cranes stand. Any dawn light there was seemed to be concentrated around that spot, lighting up the cranes and the small surrounding buildings. It was as if they were on stage and a spotlight was on them.
“So?”  You may be thinking. Well the instant I looked at this little scene, I remembered something again… God’s incredible faithfulness to me. And I felt the light of His love and faithfulness shine on me.

You see, all the years in South Africa, I missed home so much. Don’t get me wrong, South Africans are lovely people, but I missed potato bread, soda farls, the sense of humour and banter of my own people, and the simple but spectacular beauty of our little county. And weirdly, I missed those cranes.
When I lived here before, I used to get the bus into Belfast every day to go to work, passing those big yellow cranes, on the way, and they became part of the landscape of my early life.

When I was about six months away from coming home, after nineteen long years away, I asked the Lord for two very specific things. An old house to “fix up.” And to be near the sea. There was a third thing I asked Him for, but it seemed silly, and almost greedy to ask – I said, “could I maybe have a view of the cranes Lord?”

Well, here I am, married to the best man in the world, living for our 10th year in our 160-something year old house, (which we renovated ourselves) with a beautiful view of the sea. And….there those old cranes are, visible from every front window of the house, every time I look out, reminding me of how very much my Heavenly Father loves me, and how faithful He is to answer prayer.

Never think the genuine cries of your heart, brought to God in prayer are silly. He delights in you. The answer might not be in the timeframe you’re expecting, it may not look as you expected it to, but God always, without fail, answers prayer, simply because He’s good.

Jill 💜