We've Moved!

To my faithful readers of the last 5-odd years, thank you for reading all my posts and indulging me as I continue to discover the world of writing and sharing my thoughts on the internet. I am currently less than 24 hours away from embarking on the greatest adventure of my life - I am moving to Austin, Texas for a year on a university exchange! Because of the added topic to blog about, as I want to share all my adventures with everyone back home and the few other people who stumble upon my blog, I am moving this blog and adding a second branch.

So, you can now find all my blabberings and also now all my adventures over here. Most of the current posts have moved there as well, so you won't miss out on anything.

Love you all xx

Dear little sister

I wrestled with this one for around a month, and then it all came to me while eating a pizza thanks to a certain little miss.

Dear little sister,

Your body is uncomfortable, your hair unruly and your personality awkward. Embrace it, we’ve all been there. The pre-teen blues have hit us all and the roots of your struggles still haunt all of us today. That girl behind you in class who was flirting with the boys and told you that your hair looked stupid, she’s just as uncomfortable as you are, also trying to find out where she fits. Ignore her torments, don’t let them scare your beautiful heart. I always wondered why I got stuck being the middle child, but tonight little one you helped me see why. God placed me between two sisters to have someone to try catch up with, but also someone who I could cushion if she fell and to have someone who I can encourage to run a little faster, while showing her where all the pot holes and hills were coming up.

Loving you is a great adventure! Sometimes it looks like singing and dancing in front of your whole year group to try embarrass you (we all know you were secretly stoked because I’m way cool). Sometimes it looks like an “I’m sorry” in the form of face masks, hair masks, candles, and bathbombs while we sit and sip our drinks for two hours. Sometimes it looks like allowing you to crash my hangout with my friends. Sometimes it looks like waking up early to do your hair for school. Sometimes it looks like holding you when you cry. Tonight, it looked like me overcoming my own hangups and insecurities to allow you to see that I mean it when I say that “anything looks good if you wear it with confidence.” It looked like me wearing a ponytail so messy that I would never wear it outside the house and rocking the same hairstyle as you at my old stomping ground, to show you that being different is stunning and so much fun!

Eldest said to you this afternoon that when people feel uncomfortable and threatened that they will try to drag you down. That is true, beyond just situations where you clumsily say something that you should have kept on your side of the filter. The world tries to drag you down even when they are meaning to compliment and edify your identity. The labels we hang on each other to identify one another, end up restricting our characters. People will be slow to compliment your looks because the girl sitting next to you has already been labelled “The beautiful one.” They will be slow to tell you how amazing you are at netball, because the other girl in your team has been labelled “The sporty one.” They will be slow to recognise your creativity because the boys at the back of the class has been labelled as “The musical one,” “The artistic one” and “The performer.” They will not esteem your grades because someone else has been titled “The smart one” and your jokes are ignored because someone else wears the sticker saying “The funny one.” You will question your identity because your sticker remains blank for so long. Then one day you realise that over time you have gathered not only one, but a few stickers; people have recognised something in you and plastered it on your jacket. The problem is, that you do not feel that there are enough stickers. That is understandable, I am still fighting to have some of mine slapped onto me.

We as humans like things to be as simplistic as possible, but in our very nature we are beautifully complex. You can carry both strength and gentleness in your soul, you can be an extrovert who craves alone time or an introvert that has a booked out social calendar, you can be both an athlete and love all things girly and you can be both an old soul and a child at heart. You fortunately are growing up in a generation that is very aware how damaging some of the labels that have been plastered on women are and have been, but you will still grow up effected by them. Please try to embrace only the positive labels tossed your way, and please dear sister, do not be acutely aware of the ones that are withheld. I doubted myself so much because the labels of “feminine,” “gentle,” “caring,” “domestic,” “beautiful” and “patient” were always given to Eldest, while she doubted herself because I was given “dedicated,” “strong,” “disciplined,” “leader,” and “successful.” I dreamed of receiving a gentle gaze while she dreamed of walking away with a trophy. It’s messed up baby girl. A woman is so much more than a beautiful face and bikini body, but also more than a strong spirit and intelligent mind. You are a beautifully complex individual who cannot be summed up with all the words in the world.

So little sister, accept the compliments that the world will dish you, cherish the ones that come repeatedly, but never let them become so dear to you that they define you. Do not get so caught up in trying to look pretty and on trend. Do not worry about presenting a consistent image, confuse them by wearing phat pants and messy hair one day and makeup up and heels the next. Keep them guessing baby, be every part of yourself as fully as you can be! Never hold back, if you can be more you, be. The world will try to understand you, try to define you and then try to compliment or instruct you to me you a little bit better. Do not listen, no one can be you as well as you or tell you how to do you better. No one can define you because there is not a label that captures the fullness of you. Keep your head up, rock your big curly hair, and look life right in the eye and laugh that infectious laugh of yours. Be you, and be you bravely, one day you will change the world.

I'm here.

From a year to six days, we are making progress people! Thank you for all the wonderful feedback, means the absolute world! Without further ado, I'm here:

After dipping a toe into Pandora’s Box last week I got scared about what to write about next because any further in would have to be a head-first, full submersion into the deep end. A friend of mine raised the point however, that in order for you to be authentic with someone and be honest about what was really going on inside, trust and openness is required on their behalf as well. Half of the fear of opening up comes from how you will be perceived. Now please do not misunderstand last week’s post, I am not advocating for a life where you throw your bleeding heart out on every table. No, that is just asking for more pain and heartbreak. Matthew 7:6 sums up the caution required with who you share with quite well and is a verse that has been rippling through my head all week: "Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.” In order to share we need to know who to share with, so as I prepare to dive into my own Pandora’s Box I thought I would first write about being “here.”

I feel as though our knee-jerk reaction to a bleeding heart is to feel uncomfortable and then shove it aside with a promise of support at a future time – “I’m here if you need to talk.” Though we really mean, “Just not right now because I am not ready to deal with this.” It is too awkward to face the music when it is playing, so we hit pause. We are disturbed by the sudden imperfection of someone’s mask, and the fact that they are willing to take theirs off scares us as being there for them comes at a cost. It requires us to take off our mask; we must meet a human mess with a human heart.

I have found in the last two months, as my life took a rough tumble, that so many people say that they are there for you, but few follow through. I do not have the best track record as far as maintaining friendships is concerned so trusting someone enough to open up was scary. My heart was yearning for someone to come pick up the pearls that had fallen from my neck, and as I had heard many times before “I’m here if you need someone to talk to” was on repeat throughout conversations. I brushed aside all the “I’m here” statements as I was sick of hearing them. I was sick of never having a hand extended out when I was in a crisis, beyond wanting to know out of a gossip-centred curiosity. I was sick of people not being open to the messiness of my heart because they expected me to be put together all the time.

But the extraordinary happened. The first friend followed up. She pursued me with persistence until I met her for a sugar-loaded hot chocolate and brownie date and wanted to know how my heart was, not the details of what happened. Then the next friend followed up with a block of my favourite chocolate and a thoughtful note. Then a care package arrived from another. Friends brought me tissues and held me when I cried and I was overwhelmed. I did not know this kind of genuine friendship and I saw that through their authentic care and my vulnerability doors were opened to get to know my friends in new ways. I showed them my insecurities and bleeding heart and instead of being put off or just trying to cover them with bandages, they put theirs on the table and we just let the pain sit together. I found comfort in silent cries, unspoken confessions of a terrible day and tales of life-long battles. My pain did not seem as enormous and the mountain before me was no longer unconquerable because there were people beside me with similar burdens on their back and blisters on their feet.

It convicted me of all the past “I’m here’s” that I have muttered and how little of those that I have followed up with. I was also surprised at the number of memes that I came across depicting our avoidance of emotion and honesty out of fear of awkwardness and discomfort. We need to learn to accept that friendship is uncomfortable and awkward at times, and that is okay. It is okay to not know how to handle tears and it is okay to not have the answers for your friend’s problems. What is not okay is letting that put you off not being there. Embrace the uncomfortable and just be there, just listen and ask them the next time you see them how they have been – do not just be there for a once off conversation. A friend said to me the other day that is when you are going through a crisis that you find out who your real friends are and I could not agree more! The friends that offer to call you when you send out an S.O.S. text message, that ask you the next day how you are coping, that check in on your crisis management plan months after disaster struck – those are your true friends.

Showing your support does not need to be in the form of a tangible gift or a catch-up that costs money; the times where I was allowed to just sit and cry on the floor at church next to a friend was enough. All it needs to cost is time and vulnerability on your side to receive their bleeding heart and hold it gently. As Bob Goff said, “Most people need love and acceptance a lot more than they need advice.” I challenge you this week to reach out to a friend that has shared something of their heart with you before and follow up, ask how they are doing and put actions to your “I’m here” statements. It may come up empty, that they are not hurting anymore, but you would have opened a door to an authentic friendship. You would be stepping out of the pig pen to pick up their pearls as a friend. It requires that two take off their masks and open their hearts for there to be honesty, comfort and restoration. It takes two to successfully navigate Pandora’s Box.

Also a MASSIVE thank you and big shout out to those friends that have challenged me in the last year to be authentically me and those that have held my bleeding heart with graceful awkwardness and confident discomfort. You are the real MVP.

Good thanks

So, it has been roughly a year since I last posted which is shocking, but I sat down today and poured myself onto paper and hoped for the best. My friend Mima also blogs (found here) and has been doing a few series as of late which has inspired me to do one of my own. I have no idea exactly where it will lead, but hopefully down a good rabbit hole. Without further ado, welcome to my new roller-coaster friends!

I’m good thanks.

Three words we use multiple times a day. Three words that often make us lie multiple times a day. In a world that is increasingly connected, many people have noted that we are becoming more emotionally disconnected from those around us. It infiltrates relationships, friendships and even your understanding of yourself. Saying that you are okay has become the knee-jerk reaction to when anyone asks how you are doing because we are constantly in the pursuit of presenting ourselves as put-together online that we do it in person as well. It is very rare that someone feels comfortable enough to really share what is going on in their mind. It is then very rare to say of someone, “what you see with them is what you get.” In other words, we are not authentically ourselves.

In recent conversations that I have had with friends at university I have realised how little my friends away from home really know me. As soon as I set foot in my family home for holidays it as though I am taking off a jacket and allowing myself to fully be myself after months of constraining myself. Why? I feel as though my lame dad-joke humour goes unnoticed among my friends and I do not feel as though the drinking, partying culture leaves much room for me to be something other than a party animal. I enjoy a good party, but enjoy it so much more when you are genuinely connecting with those you are dancing with and can laugh about it for many months to come. When pure excitement makes you lose your inhibition rather than having to down enough happy juice to have a good time. I hate that I have hidden myself for over eighteen months, despite trying very hard to be more myself.

But the problem goes deeper than that, I was going through a super hard time last year, but told no one because I felt isolated and ashamed in my struggle. No one talked about struggling, no one ever talked about the struggle I was facing. Because they were all “good” all the time. Nothing bothered them in their sugar coated public lives. I decided that enough was enough, I was not good and needed to talk to someone. The more I opened up about what I was going through, the more I found that everyone was struggling and just needed someone else to come forward and be real. Even my most hidden and shameful struggles proved to be points of understanding with the most outwardly perfect people I knew. People sat behind closed doors, covered in a blanket of shame and loneliness, when reality was that every one of their neighbours were fighting the same battles. It is sickening how we isolate ourselves in a crowd of people because no one is brave enough to take the first step and say, “I’m not okay today” or “Actually, I’ve been struggling lately with…”

What sickened me most about this? It happened at church, the one place you should feel comfortable enough to put your heart out on the table. Everyone at church was joyful and excited to be there, which is infectious and wonderful. But there was no space in the path that I walked at church where anyone said, “today sucked.” The more I confronted this and confided in people though, the more doors opened for “I’m not okay, I’ve been struggling” conversations. These were hushed in private conversations after services and then extended to cafes when 20 minutes was not enough to speak your heart. But no one dares stand in front of the whole church and admit to something real. We talk about trivial struggles all the time, but never the real ones. It seems that Jesus’ sacrifice was enough to forgive our sins, but not the shame and guilt that comes along with it. It is true that no one wants to go parading around their dirty laundry, but why is it that no one seems willing to even admit in a safe environment that it exists?

Over the next few posts (that hopefully will be less than a year apart), I plan on airing my laundry. Publicly and on the internet. Not because I am looking for attention, because considering the people that this is exposed to I would much rather keep in hidden, but because I want to start the conversation. I want people to be able to say when they sit next to their friends in lecture halls that they had a terrible weekend, to be able to tell their flat mates that they are feeling sad and to open up to others about the taboo struggles that are only taboo because they are messy and uncomfortable. So please friend, whoever you are, treat these next few posts with sensitivity and care because Pandora’s Box needs to be opened. 

Becoming the Strong Independent Woman

Another, longer, ramble. All these ideas (I think) will make more sense when I put them into the context of my own life at the end of this mini-series thing. Again, please share your thoughts at the end!

 

Oh my.

Need.

We are always told that we as women feel the desire to be wanted, needed and loved. From my experience this is true, but it is not as strong or as negative as the world makes it seem. We are also told that in order to give love and receive love, we must love ourselves “truly.” This is also true and not as difficult as how the world makes it seem. We are told that in order to overcome these desires we must become a “strong independent woman who don’t need no man,” seemingly ignoring these desires or selfishly getting them fulfilled in the here and now with whomever tickles our fancy.

 

There is a great DIY, self-help culture lately, especially with YouTube vlogs, which makes it seem as though there is a great journey to reach the point of self-acceptance and where your desires are met. I think the testimony culture within churches escalates this as well, we believe that if we do not have an instantaneous revelation or turnaround that we are on the road of a long journey to freedom. Is there no middle ground? Is it possible to reach this point without the 5 key steps, long wrestling match with doubt and constant stumbling?

I was watching a spoken word piece yesterday that spoke of the guilt of enjoying the physical interactions that we know do not fit in with how we wanted our life’s story to pan out. The lady in the video said rightly, this guilt should not be felt. We were designed to enjoy physical touch so we should not feel guilty about enjoying it or craving more of it, but we should recognise the right time and place for it. Just like within a relationship there are wrong times for PDA and right times and places to enjoy intimacy, in life there are right and wrong times to be enjoying physical touch.

How would love work without vulnerability? If we didn’t have that desire to be needed and wanted would we even go looking for love? We are told that as women we use sex, romance, dates, physical touch and all those things to gain love and that this is a bad thing. Now I’m not advocating going and using all these things to fill the void that can only be filled with love but I am going to say that I think that we, especially us Christian girls, view this desire as a negative thing where it is a natural, beautiful thing that if channelled correctly can enhance love.

As with anyone else, I have made my fair share of mistakes and continue to, so this is written as much to encourage myself as it is to do so for you. It is really hard writing this without including my story as that’s how I processes best, so I will include my journey in the next post. I need to exclude myself though so that I have a set of raw truths to come back to myself.

It all comes back to what I said in my last post, love is a choice that we make, and a choice that must be carefully timed. We must be content without love before we are ready to receive love, otherwise it will become like a drug and we would not be able to function without it. If we approach love as a whole, full person then we will have love to give and not have to rely on another person to fill our empty void.

Okay, so we have the need to be needed and a void that cannot be only filled with love but these must be met and fulfilled before we are ready to receive or give love. How does that even work!? The need we have to feel as though someone needs us and to feel completely, unconditionally loved. No mention of romance there. You can be needed by many people or groups in your life, whether it’s as simple as your dog really needing you to survive, your little sister needing you to hold her while she cries, your gym buddy needing you to keep them motivated to get up at 6am for a run, or your clients at work really needing you, your need to be needed can be met in another capacity if we focus away from finding a significant other.

Non-romantic love can fill that void in the same capacity. The most fulfilling way to satisfy the need for love is learn to love yourself. It is a great cliché, but it is so true! Loving yourself is being content with where you are, accepting where you have been and being determined to make yourself and your future great.

Connecting this back to my original question that started this blog – is this either a journey that lasts a long time or an instantaneous revelation or is there a middle ground? I believe that there is no need for it taking a long time to figure out, however long it takes you to believe that you are loved, needed and desirable and adjust your outlook and behaviour to that is all it takes. There will be no definite finish line as self-worth is something we have to decide daily, but I do not feel as though the journey is quite as long as we sometimes make it out to be.

These needs are only human, but believing that they control us and determine our sense of self-worth is perfectly Freudian. You are needed, loved and wanted in many capacities. Recognising this, deciding this and walking it out on a daily basis is the way that I am finding works to change our mindset to become that “strong independent woman that don’t need no man.” Waking up each morning and realising that you are wanted, needed and loved, complete without a man by your side yet completely and utterly desirable will set you free from being controlled by the world telling you that you need to have your desired fulfilled by a man in order to be happy.

These desires were not built into us to control us, as this normally brings heartbreak and a lost sense of identity. Instead, we were meant to control them in order to and depth and intimacy to our relationships in a safe and healthy way. Without proper control and understanding of these desires we end up in a string of moments to try and quench the here and now. Having a good grip on them will deepen and make a true love more beautiful. Not true love in the Disney sense, but a true love in the sense that your connection with this person is multi-faceted and that it is based on mutual respect, trust and a desire to benefit, grow and bless the other while protecting your heart. A love that you will remain thankful for every day, even if it were to end.

To love is a choice we make

Okay, so there will be a theme for the next few posts (shock horror, I am actually structuring my blog!) around love simply because I think about it a lot in many different ways and it has been on my mind a lot lately. So here is post number one, it is a ramble of musings that I scribbled down tonight.

If we align ourselves with God and pursue an intimate relationship with Him, He will bless what we do because we will align our actions to His will out of a desire to want to be with and like Him. When we understand who we are and whose we are, everything we do will be to strengthen that and to empower the person it is that we believe we are. If we understand that we are great and destined for greatness, we will align ourselves with people that reflect the same.

The whole thing of "it takes one to know one," works in a positive way too - we recognise what we are, in others - it is the principle that discipleship and replication in leadership is based on. This is why we take the love that we think we deserve, because what we want to grow or shield within ourselves is what we look for in people that we believe have potential to grow with us and extend us, people that will both take from us and give to us.

That balance must be maintained in our relationships so that we do not start viewing the other person as a projection or turn them in to our parent or source of fulfilment. It is like stretching dough, as you pull one side you must pull the other so that you do not end up with a lump of dough ripped off from a flattened piece that takes work to kneed back together, but rather a whole piece that is perfectly flat. In the same way that you are stretched you must stretch the other person and vice versa. It is a balance that must be consciously maintained.

So we choose who to love and how to love them. Our culture tries to tell us that there is a formula to finding someone and a way to love them - that we have a certain "type" and while it is true that there are certain personalities, characters and habits that we will be good, better and best with whilst other pairings will be toxic, I truly believe that we could make most of our failed attempted relationships work.

A little more tolerance, a little more patience and a little less eagerness and rush and I believe that we would save a lot of heartache. If we were more deliberate in our choices of who we loves and how we loved on a daily basis we would have many more beautiful stories to tell with more happy tears and blocks of chocolate and tubs of ice cream shared.

Hope that made some sense! Please someone drop me a comment and let me know if it did and what your thoughts are! xx

Made to Bloom

If you can, listen to this while reading: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPeudF7tcD8

I am supposed to be studying for finals in my first semester at university. I am supposed to be memorising the rules and equations of STAT110, but it is really killing my brain and I realised on Sunday that I have not written in ages. So here I am, on a study break from doing what I detest, doing what I do best instead. Or at least, what I think I do well. I will keep it very short though as I really do need to study.

At the beginning of the year I attended a student camp at my new church. I was going through a period of immense struggle after moving away from home and university life being rather lonely if you’re underage and not into clubbing as well as working through great personal issues. God used this camp to extend a metaphor that I had received late last year when preparing to graduate high school, an acorn.

My mum bought me Max Lucado’s “The Oak Inside the Acorn” and an acorn necklace for graduation and I loved the metaphor of the story. In a nutshell, the story is about a little acorn whose oak tree mother always said to it that “Inside you is a great oak” and the acorn’s journey of falling from the tree, being planted and never understanding its potential because it kept comparing itself with the other plants in the garden. Eventually the acorn found its purpose.

In the period of life that I am currently in I am constantly having to fight to find my purpose, my dream and my goals in life. God is revealing to me slowly that the expected nature of having a five year plan on what to study, when you are going to get married and settled down, where you are going to live and what job you are going to do is not how my life is panning out. It is more like a series of steps and discoveries. At the moment, I have just been planted. My dad said to me when I left home, “The work has been done, the soil has been prepared and the seed has been planted. It is now time to grow.” What I did not realise it what it requires of a seed to grow.

I may not be 100% scientifically correct, but the metaphor works for me, so here goes. When seeds are planted their only environment is the soil immediately around them, there is nothing but darkness and dirt. They rely on a farmer or water source to water them and on the soil to provide them with nutrients. Without the right environment their life will not begin. Even in the right environment though seeds need to break before they can grow (here is where my biology is a bit fuzzy). An acorn is encased in a hard shell and in order for it to be able to sprout roots and grow it has to break open this shell and then the cells of the seed must divide like crazy to develop – right? Well, that is how I see it anyway. From what I can imagine this period of breaking and dividing in order to grow would be rather painful if I were a seed and that is what I felt was going on in my life at the time.

This picture taught me to put my pain into perspective; all the pain and breaking off of dead cells was to lead me to be able to grow better and stronger. It also taught me that I need to rely on other sources to carry me in times of pain – in my case God was my gardener, and life was my soil providing me nutrients through His word and my family and loved ones. I had to learn to rely on them if I wanted to be able to grow to see the garden that I was planted in in order to understand my purpose.

I am not saying that I have it all sorted or that since discovering this metaphor that life has become easier, I still stumble and heaven only knows that I really fail at life some days. The important thing is that when I take a step back to breathe that I can put it all in perspective and accept it for what it is.

I cannot wait to break through the soil and bloom!

GUCCI Girls' Night

About this time last year God lead me to host a girls' night at my high school and focus strongly on identity. My heart broke when I looked around me and within myself and saw the lack of identity or identity being determined by the wrong things. Tonight we had our girls' night and I am sitting here blown away by how amazing God was and how much of a success the whole evening was! We called it GUCCI, Girls United in Christ-Centered Identity, and that is exactly what happened. By the end of the evening pockets of girls were getting together to talk about the real things that we face as girls and getting around one another to support each other while we all enjoyed the girly things in life while eating cupcakes and painting our nails. We really united as girls in Christ.

During the evening I shared my testimony with the group, the reason why I started this blog as a means to relieve my heart and so I thought it appropriate to share it on here too. So, if you are reading this please (if you know me) read it in my voice, but a very emotional voice and when you're about half way down imagine that I'm almost crying. That way you can sit in the auditorium with me and enjoy girls' night too.

Am I special? Am I good enough? Am I beautiful? Do people like me? Am I loved? Will I amount to anything? Is there even a point to me being here? These are just a few of the questions I began to ask myself as a junior high school student. Unfortunately, the answer I decided to most of these questions was no. No, I am not special, good enough, beautiful or loved. People do not like me, I will not amount to anything and there is no point in me being here.

 This was all because I was looking for my acceptance and worth in all the wrong places. No, I was not a rebel nor did I venture off the rails; I was actually more behaved and sheltered than I am now. I was just looking to my friends and my sport for my identity. I am a people’s person, I am happiest when I am with a bunch of people having fun and therefore looked to social interactions for energy.

 I am not going to go into complete detail but I’m quickly going to take you down memory lane and introduce you to the Petro of days gone by to help you see the full picture. As a toddler I was a very happy child, always running, smiling and laughing. I was however, very shy. Mum often tells me about how I used to cling onto her and hide behind her leg when we were in public and would never talk to people I did not know well.

 This was my reality up until the age of eight, well I had given up clinging onto Mum but I was still otherwise the same. At around the age of eight I began to realise that the tactic that I had adopted to make friends, being loud, silly, sarcastic and rude to the boys, was not working for me. Sure, I was making plenty of friends, but even at that age I realised that I was losing myself; it just wasn’t me. As soon as I changed tactic though, I began having daily fights with my friends; which turned me into a really grumpy, rude person.

 I spent most of the next three or four years on my own or floating between friends. I cried most afternoons and was always unhappy. It was around this time that I discovered that I was pretty alright at sports and began to gain recognition from my peers in that. I based my identity and happiness in sport, so I became super competitive and always compared myself to others. I met Christ at the end of year six and the bitterness in me began to fade. It took about two years for the change to fully set in and for my peers to begin recognising the change in me. I began to happen on the social scene and my netball began to take off big time; people wanted to know me and wanted to be my friend. This gave me such satisfaction and became an even more crucial part of who I was. I was not happy with myself unless I was successful and social.

 I lived this shallow existence through Middle School but reality kicked in towards the end of year nine. Year nine and ten were hands down the worst time in my life. I lost four extended family members in quick succession, all very suddenly and unexpectedly. My friends all abandoned me and I lost all sense of confidence. I remember praying often as I lay in bed, “Jesus, I cannot do this anymore. Please, just don’t let me wake up in the morning.” I contemplated ideas such as self harm or anorexia because I needed to be able to control something in my life and viewed myself as overweight compared to the girls that I went to school with. I saw myself as worthless, unloved, and unwanted and a failure. I did not fit in anywhere and was stuck in a mild depression.

My saving grace was my family, my sport, and my Saviour. My parents picked up pretty quickly that I was not myself and they came alongside me to support me. Instead of food and pain being the things that I controlled in my life, my sport became that area of control. I played in such a way that I could control the game and the movement of my opponent. I turned to writing that year, I bought a notebook and began writing my emotions down in poems. It soon became pretty addictive and I wrote on anything I could my hands on, notebooks, napkins, worksheets, paper towels, receipts, folders, whiteboards, absolutely anything and everything. I am a greatly emotional person so being able to express my emotions in a sometimes exaggerated form but in a safe place helped me deal with the stress in my heart. My poems were mostly all very dark and sad until I began to turn to God. I realised that I did not want to die, I did not want to hurt myself or make myself sick because when it came down to it, I enjoyed being alive and being with my family. I started ending my poems with a prayer or statement of hope. Sometimes this hope was false but I wrote about how God was going to pull me out of this situation and restore me as a declaration. I knew in my heart that He would pull through and save me because I had felt Him change me four years previously.

 Like my change in year six, my restoration from depression and looking to others for acceptance was not immediate, it took some time. I only really became comfortable in my own skin last year, but in the mean time I stopped looking to people and started looking to God. I developed somewhat of a “And what?” attitude towards people’s opinions. Although they still matter to me very much, I started realising that I cannot possibly please everyone and there will always be someone that I will disappoint and at this stage if it is not someone who I respect or look up to, I don’t really mind what they think of me. The old thing of, “Those that matter don’t mind and those that mind don’t matter” began to sink into my brain. I realised that wanting to change for others was pointless, I just lost myself in the process and trying to live up to the expectations of others just left me feeling empty, but God thought I was awesome – He chose to spend time with me 24/7 and call me friend. He made me the way I was and although He is constantly working in me to help me become more like Christ, when He made me He stepped back and saw that I was good. I was good enough for Him. I was special to him. I was beautiful to Him. I was loved by Him and therefore it didn’t matter if people liked me. I will amount to something because He gave me unique gifts and promises me a prosperous future. There is a point to me being here because He gave me a purpose to wake up in the mornings. And do you know what the best part about that is? It is the same for every one of you too; He loves and cares for you just the same.

Perfection Perception

I was cleaning out my room these last few weeks – it was quite a mission… and I stumbled across one of my many notebooks. In it I discovered a poem that I felt compelled to share here because its message rings very true with many teenage girls. I have no idea when I wrote it, but it slapped me in the face when I read it.

 I, like most teenage girls, have had my fair share of struggles with body image and self esteem. I believe that it is a daily struggle for most of us, as we stumble our way through puberty blues and try to develop an image for ourselves that won’t repulse us every time we look in the mirror. I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one that goes through the daily “Oh my word, what is that!?” when I look in the mirror, the “This definitely makes me look fat” and the “How is she so flawless.” But then there are those days where you look in the mirror and think “Dang girl, how are you still single!?” No? Okay, maybe it’s just me… I began wondering why it is that we can love ourselves one minute and hate ourselves the next and this poem answered my question this morning. It’s all in our perception of perfection. 

I have a really healthy relationship with my mirror, seriously it’s distracting because it’s right next to my desk, but I still need the reassurance from family and friends that I am alright. I caught myself looking at other girls’ facebooks who have around 155 likes on their profile picture and seeing that mine only has 15 and wondering what I am doing wrong. Then I realised that I don’t really care what people think of me online, it doesn't change what I look like and I don’t want to change my pictures to change what I look like either. My older sister is drop dead gorgeous; she has a model’s build, flawless skin and a beautiful face. People are constantly telling me how stunning she is and that became another stumbling block for me, that people would never tell me that I’m pretty and only compliment my clothes if she was wearing them. But I again realised, their words aren't going to change what I look like either and that when my idea of perfect beauty looks in the mirror, she sees a list of flaws too. We look to someone and see perfection, yet they still look at themselves and see 'not good enough.'

I realised that in order to look pretty, you have to feel pretty and in order to feel pretty you have to think pretty. Whoa okay that was badly written, I confused myself. Let’s try again. In order to look and feel pretty you have to be confident in your skin and work with what you have. I am by no means over my body image struggles, but I have reached a point where I have stopped comparing myself to other girls and look in the mirror and only look for good things about myself. I never point out my flaws to myself anymore, I know what they are already, I just remind myself about the good bits. I have learnt to look at myself through God’s eyes, because when He made me “He saw that it was good” and change my perception of perfection. 

So without further ado, here is the poem and an amazing song by Britt Nicole that covers the same idea. 

Perfect in Him

Her bony finger,
Clawed deep into,
Her matted hair. 

Her sharp cheekbones,
Smeared damp with,
Her salty tears. 

Her steel blue eyes,
Fixated strongly on,
Her tired reflection. 

She sighs deeply,
As she peers at what,
She believes to be ugly. 

She can’t bare to,
Look at this daily,
She wants to change. 

But when He looks,
From the other side,
Of societies mirror,
He sees beauty,
Freedom,
Love,
Acceptance,
He sees perfection. 

She takes a step,
Outside of her body,
She looks through His eyes. 

She begins to look,
From the other side,
Of societies mirror,
She sees beauty,
Freedom,
Love,
Acceptance,
She begins to see perfection. 

She couldn’t bare to,
Look at herself daily,
She wanted to change,
But now she sees His perfection. 

On her own she was blemished,
In Him she is perfect. 

Britt Nicole - Gold

May I Have This Dance?

I love dancing, from a young age I was always dancing through the house making up my own dances. I took ballet for eight years and absolutely loved it! Since then I have had to give up ballet in favour of netball but still love dancing; I hear random beats or music in my head and I’ll just be dancing in the middle of nowhere while talking to someone. No judging, I’m a unique child. Often when I am feeling really romantic I put on slow romantic music, such as Taylor Swift’s ‘Tim McGraw’, and slow dance with myself in my room. Again, no judging, I’m single so I have no one to slow dance with if my Dad’s not around – and I am not sure he would want to slow dance to Taylor Swift after watching ‘A Walk To Remember.’ Anyway, I love slow dancing but have no partner; that is the important bit.

I want to focus on two pictures that have meant so much to me this year; one is the idea of ‘Dancing Backwards into the Future’ which I got from my sister’s best friend, and the idea of dancing with Jesus, which I got from a young mum at church.

‘Dancing Backwards into the Future’ is the idea of being lead by God into the future. When you partner dance, the girl dances backwards as the boy leads. The girl cannot see where she is going, she can only focus on the handsome (hopefully) boy in front of her who is guiding her so that she does not crash into anyone. He leads her step for step. This is what life with Jesus is like; He leads us into our future, He can see where we are headed when we cannot, He leads us step for step and will never step on our toes. All that we have to do is keep our eyes on him and enjoy the dance.

The idea of dancing with Jesus is a literal, physical thing. When I am feeling lonely, when I feel as though no one loves me, or when I wish I had a boyfriend, I dance with Jesus. Because, let’s face it, we all have those days when, no matter how secure we are in ourselves or how content we are being single, we wish we had a dance partner. Well, I have learnt from a young mum at church in those times, to dance with Jesus instead of looking for someone else to dance with. That is when I put on my music and I begin to waltz, pretending I have someone guiding me while I talk to Jesus. I literally dance with Jesus. I can honestly tell you that it works, you feel loved and cherished.

So, in a literal sense, and in a spiritual sense, I try to dance with Jesus as often as I can. I try to spiritually dance with Jesus non-stop, that he is guiding me through my daily life and I physically dance with Jesus whenever I feel lonely or romantic. The great thing about dancing with Jesus is that whole thing of ‘I wish this song would never end and I could dance with you forever…’ is true, it is actually possible. The Song of Salvation never ends, once you accept Jesus’ invitation to dance He dances with you forever. He is the best dance partner, He is gracious, He is gentle, and He is loving and protective of you. I have never seen Him but I can imagine that He is the most handsome possible dance partner ever. Plus, having Him as your dance partner sets your standards high, so you will not settle for just any dance partner, you will only say yes to your Prince.

That is my short-ish blog for now, I have another idea that I will write up soon. I am thinking of writing one about True Friendship (Don’t fret, I will think of a more creative name) and one on Prince Charming (Once again, the name will be less cliché). So for now, good bye and thank you for leaving a comment on my previous post anonymous, you made my day. J So with that, good day, I love you all! xxx

Time to say hello to goodbye.

As 2012 ends and 2013 begins, we enter our annual short-lived 'can-do' season. We begin to see the faults in the theatre company we call 'The World' and the flaws in the characters we are playing, and we decide that this year we are going to fix everything. But we blindly fall into this trap every year. This is not going to be one of those empty New Year's posts about how I plan to loose weight, be successful and be a better person or an anti-New Year's post. Instead, I would like to look at saying hello to goodbye.

I have had my fair share of goodbyes in life, so much so that I hate saying hello in fear of goodbye. It does not stop me from saying hello though, nor from crying when goodbye comes. But alas, the annual goodbye to the good times and bad has come and it has made me think of what to do with last year now that I am standing in a new one.

Throughout last year God kept reminding me not to look back, to keep my eyes focused on the road ahead of me, even if I cannot see the finish line. Me mother was often reminding me also to 'Run your lane my Poppie.' I realised a while ago during a wonderful run on the beach that in order to do both these things, I had to stop comparing today to yesterday. Coming into this year I realised that not looking back and running my lane meant not planning this year according to last year and not comparing them either. Ever.

I do not mean to forget last year entirely, to do so would be foolish. We must learn from last year's mistakes, enjoy the memories of the good times - they will be our fuel in the tough times - and grow from last year's challenges. My "Word For You Today" echoed this idea when it spoke about letting go of last year's grudges and sins and moving forward in peace, happiness and right-standing with God. So that is my challenge for 2013; not to look back but to run forward in peace, happiness and right-standing with God. But I do not want it to be like the stereotypical New Year's Resolutions that only last three weeks; this is my day-to-day resolution as I say hello to saying goodbye once again.

Walking into 2013 I plan to be at peace, happy, be right with God, work hard in chasing my dream instead of waiting for it on a silver platter, and to not daydream. The last one is already proving a challenge... And, of course, to actually remember about my blog...

Happy New Year everyone! Remember to forget about the negative events of last year, cherish the precious times, remember those past, embrace those here and be excited for those coming this year. As we walk into a new year, remember to smile frequently and laugh easily, cry when necessary and love unconditionally. Don't look back at last year, keep your eyes set on the path ahead and the One who is leading you down it. I pray that 2013 will bring you all joy and blessings, bond old friendships and bring new ones. Looking forward to 2013 with all you beautiful people! ♥

So, if you are reading this, and I can see if someone has been here, please let me know what your New Year's Resolutions are, I would love to hear from someone other than my devoted family who have to comment or face my wrath. You can drop one as 'Anonymous' or create an alias. If  my sister can do it so anyone can!

Oh, I have totally revamped my blog for 2013, new metaphor and all! Here goes to running the Race in my lane in 2013!

A Random Number of Random Things About Me. :)

Inspired by a Nameless Samosa.

1.       I am an absolutely hopeless romantic – seriously, I am in love with the idea of being in love; I’m that girl that they portray in movies, the one that is super single but has a huge crush on the hot lead male but no one knows? Like the girl in 27 Dresses that is so in love with the idea of love? Yeah, that’s me :)

2.       I always look at people’s teeth, eyes and hands when I talk to them – their hands totally give away how much they take care of themselves.

3.       I am totally frazzle brained – I can’t remember something that I said when I’ve finished my sentence, I just babble.

4.       I used to be a total spendaholic, I now hardly ever buy things because otherwise I’ll buy the whole shop.

5.       Hugs make me incredibly happy.

6.       I have a fetish for shoes and have way too many pairs of pyjamas.

7.       I just have too much clothes. Period.

8.       I love photos.

9.       Sunflowers are my favourite flower.

10.   I have a really big range of weird laughs.

11.   I find mirrors super distracting!

12.   I cannot wrap gifts to save my life, I prefer giving gift bags. Wrapping all the gifts at Christmas is slightly heart-breaking.

13.   I find disrespect (the whole bad-boy thing) and low-riders super unattractive.

14.   I don’t understand why people need to swear.

15.   I love compliments – I know it sounds dumb but the smallest compliment can put me out of a massive bad mood.

16.   I write too much.

17.   I am secretly a very mischievous person and love pranking people. This apparently can get mistaken for flirting if guys are involved… But it’s not.

18.   My laptop hates me.

19.   Those security beepy things outside shops and escalators scare the life out of me!

20.   I cry in most movies.

21.   I am actually extremely shy but when I am comfortable around you I never shut up.

22.   I have never had a sleepover not at my house. Ever.

23.   Since this is number 23… September 23rd stands out to me as a date. I have no clue why.

24.   I always have the urge to dance at the most random of places.

25.   I cry my heart out when other people cry, even if I do not know why they are crying.

26.   I love going for walks.

27.   Whenever I feel a breeze on my face, it feels as if God is dancing with me.

28.   I cannot tell you how much I appreciate my friends and our inside jokes.

29.   I find 29 a random enough number to stop on :)

 

Not Your Average Girl

Just your typical girl next door; wild hair, dedicated nerd and sports enthusiast. Yeah, that’s pretty much me. Apart form the ‘typical’ bit. I am by far not your average girl.

Most girls my age have had a boyfriend, or two, have been drunk, are chasing after boys, party all weekend and wear as little as possible. I’ve been single my whole life, only ever had two glasses of champagne at two different celebrations, see boys purely as fun friends to have (for now ;) ), am far too busy to have a social life and have a very modest sense of style. And guess what!? I love it!!!! Still think I sound foreign? I put a little something together with the help of my very supportive family to help you; here it is:

Not Your Average Girl

She is mischievous,

She is loud,

She is bubbly,

She is devious,

She is the life of the party.

But she is moody,

She is shy,

She is intense,

She is cautious,

She is a dedicated nerd.

She is genuine and kind,

But she does not get crossed twice,

She is fun and competitive,

But she does not handle crudeness,

She is loving and caring,

But she is not one to get romantically involved,

She is faithful and loyal,

But she is not a bible-basher,

She is part of the crowd,

But she is not your average girl.

I do not mean at all to criticise people in teen relationships, you make my life dramatic and fuzzy with love, but I am not at all an advocate for teenage relationships. I see dating as practice for marriage – agreed? – and so I take on the teenage approach and I am not practicing for something that is not going to happen within the next few weeks. I am a devoted Christian, but I am not one to tell you that you have to be one too. I will share my faith with you and pray for you but I will not force you into anything – your life isn’t mine. I am a loud, bubbly person who loves getting up to no good  but I am shy at heart and probably won’t be the one to approach you in town and ask for your number. I am a touch person; you know you are in with me if I touch your arm when I talk to you. But, like always with me, there’s a catch. I do not touch boys. Now, before you leave your computer screaming ‘Nun!!!!!!!’ please let me explain because I often get a lot of stick for this one. Because I am such a touch person – seriously it’s really bad… - I get really affected when people touch me. Honestly, I know it make me sound like a dodgy person but it’s just my love language, when people touch me –from a touch on the arm to a hug – I feel really warm and fuzzy inside. Because I get so badly affected I stay away from touching boys due to a little thing called hormones and another little thing called purity.

Ok, it’s really late, the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Concert is nearly finished, I am exhausted and I have had a blast in the snow that fell today – I may leave you a photo down below… – so I will love and leave you there on that very scrambled note. I hope that I have left you with a bit more of an insight to my very blonde, space head brain and a little more of an understanding of that kid at school with the strange rules and regulations; dig into their brains, there may be a nugget or two of wisdom in there for you.

Oh, just to finish off, I’d like to share the lyrics from what I have adopted as one of my ‘theme songs’ :)

"Average Girl" by Barlowgirl

So what I'm not your average girl

I don't meet the standards of this world

Chasing after boys is not my thing

See I'm waiting for a wedding ring

No more dating

I'm just waiting

Like sleeping beauty

My prince will come for me

No more dating I'm just waiting

'Cause God is writing my love story

Boys are bad that's certainly not true

'Cause God's preparing one for you

If you get tired waiting till he comes

God’s arms are the perfect place to run

Sleep that's the only thing

For me 'cause when I sleep God’s

Preparing one for me

Expecting Change – or Changing Expectations

When life becomes unpredictable; do you expect change or change your expectations?
The last four months of my life have been challenging; everything has changed, and then changed again. All the expectations that I had for the move, all the hopes that I had for the future changed. Maybe I had my head in the clouds, dreamed to extreme and never gave myself a reality check. Even though I expected change, life forced me to change my expectations.

Changing schools for the first time, having to make new friends and having to start building a new name for myself on the netball court, took a bigger toll on me than I expected change would. At heart I’m a shy person so having to make new friends chilled me to the bone. It still does. I came across very unapproachable, probably stuck up, but honestly, I was dying inside. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, I didn’t want to be able to trust anyone, I didn’t want to open up to anyone. I didn’t want to be happy here. Why? Because after a few days; I was forced to change my expectations.

I moved with the expectation that everything that my family had built up over the past 12 years in New Zealand we would just find comfortably on the other side. I expected that I would be welcomed into my new school like we used to welcome new kids at my old school and that I would succeed further on my past victories. Basically, I thought that I would just be able to continue with my old life once I moved. Yes, I expected that there would be change but not on too large a scale. But, like I mentioned before, it only took a few days for reality to kick in. I realised that my expectation of just continuing with my over-easy life would have to change. I wasn’t in the same community, not even the same island, so I couldn’t expect to live the same life. Expecting the change in my life was easy, because it was a cliché expectation. But having to change my expectation on what to expect was tough.

I said earlier that I didn’t want to be happy here and sadly that is true. I was frozen with shock when I realised what the word change means – nothing, or barely anything, stays the same – and I was nervous that what I would find would not suit me. I was comfortable where I was and I wasn’t in the mood for discomfort, having to fit into a new mould so I sub-consciously made up my mind to not be happy. I didn’t realise it until recently, that I was choosing not to be happy. I knew that I was miserable, that I wasn’t settled and that change was getting the better of me and that I desperately didn’t want to be miserable but I never realised that I was doing it to myself. I missed my old life, my friends and my future that I had built for myself at netball and was intimidated by my new environment, scared by the very different type of person that I was encountering and disheartened by having to start all over again but I let that steal my happiness from me.

I wouldn’t say that I am totally settled yet, I am still getting to know how this community works, how the people live life and everyday I am having to pioneer my future all over again but I have to admit, with changed expectations and a new outlook on how I am going to do things, life has gotten much better. I am now relating to those around me with more ease, I hope that I am seen as more approachable and am seeing all my previous struggles as challenges – but the type of challenge that is looked at positively. I am willing to take on the tasks set ahead of me, willing to take the risk or discomfort and pain for the sake of my happiness and my future.

I am faced with a lot of pain in the world, I can see it in people’s eyes and hear it between the lines of their conversations but I am determined, that as I changed my expectations in life and brightened my life, that others might start doing the same.That the sweetness that now lives in my heart, will rest on those that I encounter. I heard a really nice analogy once; that sweet people are like a rose garden. After spending time in their presence, you leave with their aroma on you. I hope that with my new transformation of mind and heart, that I will become a rose garden to my community, that I will be able to give back some of the sweetness that I have found in myself since moving here.

This whole journey so far has taught me that life is truly just what you make it out to be; how you look at life and take on each day determines what you will get out of it. I have taken up the challenge and dare you to do the same; take a look into how you are seeing life, examine what your most frequent emotion is and change your expectations to give you more happiness. Don’t expect too much of yourself and those around you, be realistic.

Emotional Memory

That hit song, that familiar scent, that childhood friend, that comforting dish, that favourite clothing piece, that specific place, that humorous phrase, that heavy weather, that family occasion, that certain time of year. These are all nostalgic things that trigger an emotional memory.

An emotional memory; what is the difference between that and just a plain old memory? It is an idea that I have been toying around with for a while and still struggle to find the right words to describe it. It is more than just remembering some thing, some one, some time or some place, it is experiencing them all over again. No, not just experiencing them; letting them flow through you. Letting yourself be overthrown by the emotion, smell all the aromas, see all the sights, hear all the sounds, react to the people, process the thoughts and then having it mix in with reality. There are a lot of long lists in this post but I want you to read them slowly again and chew over them in your mind.

I am going to go through a few of the triggers one by one, starting with the three that have been surprisingly the strongest to me lately.

Smell, probably the most underestimated of the senses but for me, one of the strongest ways of experiencing the world and remembering the past. Smell in a way encompasses all the other triggers: people normally have a certain smell, some places can have a very distinct smell, certain weather and seasons’ smell is very memorable. But it is the personal aromas that trigger my memory. I have what may seem a very peculiar habit of smelling people when I am near them. Subtly of course, I do not just stick my nose at them and take a nice big nose full; that would just be creepy. But with the amount of perfumes, soaps and deodorants around these days, especially those heavily applied ones in teenage circles, make it very easy for someone to develop a distinct personal smell. I find that when I smell a certain deodorant or perfume, I always associate it with someone which then in turn triggers the memories surrounding that person. I tend to jump from deodorant to deodorant; being a sports person I have quite a collection. I recently have switched back to a deodorant that I used for basketball in winter last year which triggered all the memories from then.

Time of year and weather may seem a very strange trigger to some, as it was to me when I first discovered it. But the more I thought about it, the more obvious it became, we often focus on the weather for memories. “I remember another day like this when…” Ring a bell? Recently, with the change in the weather, past wintery memories have come flooding back to my mind. Days when my thoughts would wander out into the winter, get caught up in a gust of wind and only come back to me when the weather calms. I find that it is annually, during the autumn and winter seasons that my imagination become overactive as the rest of me freezes. In summer and spring, the hot days bring back joyous memories. This trigger relates back rather strongly to my previous post on Heart Seasons as I find that as the weather goes, as does my emotions; just sometimes the other way around – I am my happiest in winter and rather bored in the summer. Time of year and weather cover most of the other triggers as often you will use things in certain seasons or at certain occasions that may trigger a memory.

Songs are a very obvious one. We’ve all had that one song that we’ve spent hours singing and dancing to with friends or family or that song that played at a very monumental occasion that now carry the emotions of that time(s). And sometimes the lyrics of the songs, I have found, relate perfectly to the memory – I am a word person (as you may have gathered…) so the lyrics of songs really stand out to me. For example, a few years ago I went back to South Africa for my cousin’s wedding. We spent the week on a game farm and I had the time of my life with my sister and cousin – we got up to all sorts of mischief. At the actual wedding, which was the final event for the week, the song ‘Dota’ played about six times so as you can imagine that song now carries a very strong emotional memory for me. Every time I hear it I think back to that time, what was bubbling through me and consequently all the other mischievous things that I have done with my cousins… My biggest emotional memory attached to a song though is by a mile ‘Firework” by Katy Perry. I am by no means a fan of hers but that song was my netball team’s song by mistake last year, it gained dance moves and was performed all over the North Island – at UNISS, a random BP station in the middle of nowhere, Sports Prizegiving and my team even flash mobbed me with it at our yr10 conference. Since then, hearing it at my new school in drama, it brought back that hoard of emotions and I was obliged to tell the story. We consequently flash mobbed our Easter Service with the song and if I have to say so myself, it was amazing.

Friends, places, occasions and phrases – such as a movie quote or inside joke – are very obvious triggers; they are the ones that often send us down a 

Memory Lane

trip to be cliché and more often than not, leave us in painful hysterical laughter. They are so extremely obvious that I am not going to bother going into them. If you are not sure of them – leave me a comment below.

Food dishes; they are probably one of my more radical ideas if I am to be perfectly honest. Most of us will have that meal that is our mother’s fall back option of busy days, the other meal that is devoured by our family before we can think of having some and that very traditional or cultural meal. Maybe it is that one that we always have at a birthday or Christmas or one that is tied to your ethnicity. They might all be connected to another trigger – time of year, weather, place or occasion. But all hold a definite emotional memory. Think of your favourite dish – when do you most often eat it? What affect does it have on those around you? What do you feel when you’ve eaten it – other that satisfied of course? Bam, you have yourself the most delicious emotional memory ever.

Clothes are another one of my strange ideas but I have found that they definitely carry an emotional memory. As I have already mentioned, it is now nearing winter time here in lil’ ol’ God’s Own and that means that the time has come to don the kilt, long sleeved blouse, tie and blazer. Last winter I got my first blazer and it was during quite an emotional time of my life so when I walked onto campus at my new school this year I was almost expecting to walk into a rainy Auckland day at my old school and I could even imagine the conversations that I was about to have, who I wanted to go see, who I wanted to get a hug from, who I wanted to tell about my holiday and who would be waiting for me to go to class. So you can just imagine the disappointment that I faced in not finding who I was looking for and it being a sunny day. But every time that I adorn myself – wow, reading Pride and Prejudice really has increased my vocabulary – with my blazer I get assaulted by all of the emotions that I faced last winter, the triumphs and the defeats of my soul and the thoughts that passed through my head. But I have noticed that as the term has progressed, new emotions are linked to my blazer, new memories founded with new friends. It has been amazing to me, the emotional memory that is carried by a piece of clothing. Just now thinking through some of wardrobe, I am taken back to many different days filled with many varying emotions presented to me by the different items in my closet.

Before, a memory to me was merely just that but have a newfound love for the experience of the memory. Reliving them, pushing yourself through them once again and coming out the other side warm and fuzzy or chilled to the bone. I am not too fond of recalling the ones that chill me but I find it fascinating the effect that a song, a scent, a person, a dish, a piece of clothing, a place, a phrase, a weather pattern, an occasion and a time of year can have on my heart. Take some time, I challenge you, to fish through the pond of triggers and push yourself through your memories properly, feeling them once more.

I feel so much better now that this has been posted! :)

 

My Sincerest of Apologies.

It has come to my attention through much gentle verbal abuse from a friend that I haven't blogged in about a month. I must apologise for this. You see, I have started on a new post but it is one that I have to wrap my brain around a few times before it comes out right. So I will be hopefully posting it soon!

Oh, just bare in mind that my busy time of year has kicked in and my spare time is few and far between. But if you want a new post please leave me a comment on the existing one and I will work a little bit harder on it. I aim to haopefully blog atleast once a month.

*Shout out to Karpetroly Romie Swartier!!!* My devoted blog reader, scholarly friend, afrikaans student and brain. :)

Jesus Rush

Wait.

 

Can you feel Him?

 

My Jesus.

 

I can feel Him everywhere.

 

In the wind...

 

... in the air...

 

... in the light.

 

He's all around us.

 

All you have to do is open yourself up.

 

All you have to do...

 

... is wait.

I was at Parachute Music Festival this past weekend and I experienced Jesus in a surreal way. I felt Him move me like I did when I was younger. I felt Him in the wind.

As a young girl, whenever I pressed into Jesus and started feeling Him move my spirit, the breeze would blow through the shutters. He would blow through and physically refresh my body. Hug me with the breeze, envelope me with his love through his creation. Even in churches where there were only small windows, I felt Him in the wind.

When I took the time to think it through, it is when the wind blows outside that I feel Him the most as well. It is then that I experience Him the nearest, press into Him the deepest and feel Him the dearest. It is then that He builds me, encourages me and refreshes me. When I feel Him in the wind.

While at Parachute the breeze started circling me, I was reminded of the time spent with Jesus in the wind and the quote from August Rush that I edited above. There is such power in the opening phrase for me, such awe and belief. It sums up my experience with Jesus in full, feeling Him in the wind, smelling Him in the air and seeing Him in the light.

The last three lines teach me truly how to experience Jesus with your senses. ‘All you have to do is open your self up. All you have to do… is wait.’  When we stand in God’s presence, we soak ourselves in His love and open ourselves and our senses up we experience Him in a supernatural, sense blowing way. There is a verse in the Bible, in a Psalm where it speaks about finding strength in the Lord, praising Him and seeking Him, it finished with ‘Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD.’

 I challenge you, open yourself up, soak Him in, wait for Him and feel Him, see Him and smell Him in the world around you. Experience the Jesus Rush.

 

Heart Seasons

I was sitting in class the other day, thinking through the emotional ups and downs that we all go through. We, especially as teens with the hormonal help, all go through rollercoaster ride, but all experience it differently. Some give in to the lows, becoming depressed and finding little joy in life. Others fixate themselves with the highs and are happy all the time, feeling absolutely no emotion. Both are dangerous places to be. Others just buckle in and make the most of the $2 they paid for their ticket.

When we are so focused on what goes wrong in our lives, dwelling on the pain inflicted on us and the mistakes we make we cannot possibly find any joy because we are out looking for miserable situations. We do not expect to find happiness, so we do not recognise it when it comes our way, we see only the pain. We are not able to share our passing joy with others even if we do find it because we feel as if our joy is insignificant compared to what is going around us. We begin to ostracise ourselves, pull away from the constantly happy because they make us feel bad about ourselves but also avoiding the others who are constantly in pain because they only bring us down further.

The same is true for those of us that focus purely on the happiness. Often it is to run away from severe pain in the past, just to experience joy because one miserable moment can bring it all back, or it can be just a mask we wear in public. But when we only see the happiness, which is portrayed as the ideal person to be in our world, we miss the pain and suffering of others, miss the opportunity to comfort them and relate to them. When you are in pain, is it easier to talk to someone who seems to only have ever had together, always happy or someone who you know has gone through your pain but has come out the other side? Also, when we are constantly living that happy-high life, we may not realise when we hurt others because nothing bothers us anymore. We do not see the impact of our words because we do not realise anymore what hurts and what helps; neither are experiences we have anymore.

But when we strap in, hold tightly to the hand rail, scream when sprayed with water or dropped upside down, smile with our hands up in the air by the camera and go for a second ride when we're done; that's when we truly enjoy life. Going through the ups and making the most of them, plunging into the lows but learning from them and ensuring that we are supported by the people around us. We need to learn to go with life's emotions; experience them, learn from them and make the most of them.

Our emotions are not quite like a rollercoaster, where you can see every turn before you even get into the cart, but more like the weather. Well, Auckland's weather; unpredictable but following some sort of rough pattern; summer, autumn, winter, spring. But the only difference is that our seasons may not last for the standard 3 months, differing like Auckland with all four seasons in one day.

I have written a poem while in the pits of the emotional low, but it's too depressing to share here and so I thought I'd jot down a positive poem about the rollercoaster of our hearts. So, without future ado, here it is:


Heart Seasons

 Just like our home,
This planet on which,
We find ourselves,
Our hearts too,
Go through seasons.

Troublesome times bring,
Torrential teardrops,
Hurricane gasps,
Horrendous heartache,
Our heart winter.

After tears, must come,
The shining rainbow of,
Forgiveness and renewal,
A time for new dreams,
Our heart spring.

Intensity of feelings,
Joy, love and success,
Escalating emotions,
Time to just soak in,
Our heart summer.

Times of change bring forth,
Falling and colouring feeling,
Again tough times,
Disappointments and change,
Our heart autumn.