Victoria Sponge and Gethsemane

Put a lady called Victoria Sponge into a mixing bowl, add in the story of Jesus in his last week of life and what have you got? A story that combines everyday life with Hope. 

Have you ever had a Gethsemane experience? Victoria Sponge did, but like so many of us we do not know that we have. 

Gethsemane, the Mount of Olives, a place Jesus frequently went to pray. There he became sorrowful and troubled (Matthew 26:37), he prayed as a human, asking his Father to take away the impending events that awaited him (Mark 14:36) as the Son of God. However He knew that he must obey his Father and bowed down to God's will (Luke 22:42). 

How saddened Jesus must have been to see his disciples sleeping when he had asked them to watch and pray, albeit at a distance, with Jesus. Twice Jesus had to wake them, the third time he left them sleeping. How broken His heart must have been, seeing his friends sleep as He sweated blood (Luke 22:44). 

At night Victoria Sponge always asks God to reveal to her the question that she has said 'Yes' to in her early morning prayer. 

Extract from: "How to make Victoria Sponge"

"Oh Lord, reveal to me your question that I answered so long ago this morning. What did I say 'yes' to today and did I succeed in my answer to your question?"

And God answers:

"Vicki, I asked you to be with me in the garden of Gethsemane, to stay awake and be of comfort to me in my time of anguish, and you were. You were not found asleep or failing in your response. Thank you for joining me in my victory today for being open to my call."

Victoria is surprised by God's response and asks:

"When was I at Gethsemane Lord?"

God then goes on to outline the moments in her day when she supported a friend and listened to her son's anguish. These all echoed Jesus' own experience in Gethsemane. However, Victoria had been awake to the needs of others unlike the disciples, she had not been asleep to their tears. 

The book "How to make Victoria Sponge" is an example of how the New Testament is relevant today in our lives. 

I hope this small insight will encourage you to enter into the life of the Sponge family.

Many blessings

Margaret Kazmierczak (author)

To read more about Victoria Sponge and her journey with God please take a look at the website below:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Make-Victoria-Sponge-Incorporating-Jewel/dp/1906631425

This is what inspires me - God's incredible imagination/creations.  

(Photos taken this morning in my back garden)

Ice

Book signing continued....

Well dear friends thank you for coming to my blog site and looking at my posts.

My last post was to do with my book signing.....

This post is to tell the story of what happened.

I can sum it up in one word, 'nothing', 'ingenting', 'nada', 'niente', 'niets', ekkert, I think that is enough ways of putting the point across.

After advertising in the local newspaper, who got the advert wrong by advertising a cake book sale, and putting up lots of posters, alerting the local radio station and using many social media sites, the event attracted no new buyers. If my friends hadn't come to support me and eat Victoria Sponge Cake and drink the coffee and tea provided I would have had a very lonely first book signing.  

I thought before Christmas, with ideas of what to buy for your loved one foremost in people's minds, this event would be of interest to a market of discerning Christian readers. Having received replies that people were coming, and hopes high, this absence of customers or potential buyers was a hard cake to chew, and my pride ran out of the cake like the jam when you bite into a jammy doughnut. 

So it is back to the drawing board.....

Of course when I wrote this book, I had plans for a big Christian publishing company taking it on and doing all the marketing and promoting, and the message travelling to all four corners of the earth. It would be a success because I had answered God's call to write it. 

Yes I was naive, but I was also a poorly housewife and mother, (in the sense of not been well at the time) with a thousand other roles to occupy my day with, that drank at my limited energy levels. Taking on the role of marketing and promoting my book was not even remotely on the radar.  

With an introvert nature and speaking to audiences a feared thing, the way forward was clear. The book needed a large publisher to take it on. 

However this did not happen, my book was seen as not a typical Christian read. It was too different!

So another route was followed....

My book was published, but by a small company who did not specialize in marketing and promotion. 'God's ways are not our ways', He knows the beginning and the ending of this path. His path is one of trust. 

It appears that there is a lot of help 'out there', certainly if you are able to part with money, but as the book needs to make a profit in order to produce money for publicizing, marketing and promotion, it appears that the road will be trodden with feet rather than in a fast car. 

Lamentations 3:21-26

 This is what comes to mind,

    and therefore I have hope:
22 Because of the Lord’s gracious love we are not consumed,
    since his compassions never end.
23 They are new every morning—
    great is your faithfulness!
24 “The Lord is all I have,” says my soul,
    “Therefore I will trust in him.”

25 The Lord is good to those who wait for him,
    to the person who searches for him.
26 It is good to hope and wait patiently
    for the Lord’s salvation.

This does not mean that I don't continue to keep trying just because my first attempt at book signing was unsuccessful. Rather it shows me that in all things there are challenges to be overcome and learned from. God grows things slowly, in His time and for His glory. This book was never for my own glory, but to bring others closer to Him, to be drawn to a more personal relationship with God through every day events and challenges. And how we must continually say 'yes' to what He wants us to do each day. 

My prayer now is a heart felt "I trust you God" because He lay it on my heart to write this book and He will fulfill his promises to prosper as Jeremiah 29:11 says "For I know the plans I have for you," says the LORD. "They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope."

God bless you all.

("How to make Victoria Sponge" by Margaret Kazmierczak in Kindle and paperback through Amazon)