when i grow up i want to be me!

Love After Love The time will come when, with elation you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror and each will smile at the other's welcome
And say, sit here. Eat.You will love again the stranger who was yourself.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart to itself; to the stranger who has loved you all your life, whom you ignored for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, the photographs, the desperate notes.
Peel your own image from the mirror.Sit. Feast on your life.

i found this beautiful poem on the lovely heidi's blog so firstly...thankyou!

why is it that the majority of people spend half their lives wishing they were someone else? What is it about society that has made everyone so incredibly discontent? if you have straight hair you want curly hair if your tall you want to be short, if your good at science you want to be a famous singer! why can we not all be happy with who we are? soar with our strengths - not someone elses. i watch so many young people struggle to find out who they really are and then fight against what they find. who is it thats told us we all have to look like a movie star, have the talent of a rock star and the intelligence of a nobel prize winner? do they not realise these goals are impossible? these false images have led to a generation of people who are all striving to be something theyre not, and when they fail to reach this ridiculous ideal society bemoans the state of this generation...do they not stop to think, why?
a young girl lying in a hospital bed because she thaught her life wasnt worth living, a boy in a police cell because he tried to fit in with the "cool" kids, a generation of children seeing things that would shake the most experienced of adults. and why? why is that as adults and role models we insist on reinforcing these ridiculous ideals? why are we not telling our daughters that they are beautiful and our sons that they are loved? why are we encouraging our 16 year old girls to 'enhance' themselves with a surgeons knife? why cant we encourage each other to chase the dreams in our hearts, to throw ourselves wholeheartedly into our passions and to trust what our hearts are telling us. why cant we just be happy being ourselves?
i think its time to look in the mirror again - look for what is really there. not a distorted image but the truth. start to see that who you are is valid and beautiful and worthwhile, start to love who you are. who is that person looking back at you out of the mirror? what are their dreams and fears, what are their loves and passions? who are they? i cant wait for the day when we can look in the mirror and know and love the person staring back at us.

feel the fear and do it anyway...

JOSHUA 1
3 I will give you every place where you set your foot, as I promised Moses. 4 Your territory will extend from the desert to Lebanon, and from the great river, the Euphrates—all the Hittite country—to the Great Sea [a] on the west. 5 No one will be able to stand up against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you.
6 "Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their forefathers to give them. 7 Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. 8 Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. 9 Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go."

yesterday i was feeling so underqualified and unworthy of the responsibilities God has given me and the people He has put in my world and then what happens but He trusts me with more...

i do not, and probably never will, understand the way God works. i know that i CANNOT do what God has called me to do BUT i know that God most definately can. throughout history God has used people who are, for want of a better word, rubbish!! God seems to have a habbit for taking broken vessels and reshaping them into beautiful works of art. you only need to look at the bible and theyre all over the place - i mean seriously, Paul was a murderer of Gods people, Rahab was a prostitute and David was the son his father didnt even bother to call!!!
i get so afraid of failing, of letting God down and somehow managing to mess up His plans and then i look at these people, i look at Moses who didnt even have the courage to speak, and i remember that God can and will work even in my failings. there's a beautiful song that goes, " what if i stumble and what if i fall, what if i loose my step and i make fools of us all? will the love continue when my walk becomes a crawl? what if i stumble and what if i fall?" and it reminds me that if i stumble i fall straight into Gods hands...what an amazing place to be!
im not really sure what it is im trying to say except this, dont let the fear of failing stop you from doing what Gods placed in your heart. run at your dreams with everything thats in you, dont look back, keep you eyes firmly fixed on the prize and trust that God would never give you something to do that He hasnt equipped you for. Run hard people and remember that if you do fall its straight into Gods hands!!!

passion

PASSIONATE WORSHIP
PASSION - AN ABONDONED EMOTION
THAT BRINGS FREEDOM

i just want to thank Alex for making me think about passion again - what am i passionate about and what is passion anyway?

so often when we think of the word passion we're thinking of the wrong thing, we think sex, revenge, infidelity and one night stands. how has such a beautiful word been so distorted? what is it about jilly cooper novels that makes the words 'unbridled passion' stick in our memories? how is it that images of 'crimes of passion' so graphically displayed in our media so easily become the food of over active imaginations? what happened to the passion of david? where in history did Godly passion get replaced with carnal lust? people have been duped into accepting less than second best - we need to start getting passionate again...david passion!
passion follows truth - david only knew that he could overcome goliath because God had already been with him when he faught the bear and the lion. davids passion didnt faulter because he made his decisions based on truth not circumstances. what we so often overlook is that before he was a king david was just out in the fields looking after a bunch of sheep!! he was a passionate worshipper when no one was looking, he was passionate in secret and so when it came his time for public passion he didnt hold back.
david knew that passion brings freedom, thats why he refused to let goliath hold back what God had for his people. in that moment of truth passion brought freedom from the philistines but passionate worship will bring freedom from invisible enemies too, fear, doubt, insecurities; passionate worship can free us from so much...we have to abandon ourselves in order to be set free!
God is so passionate about us we need to start getting passionate about Him. God abandoned his son for us...what are we prepared to abandon for Him? 2 sam 6vs21-33, how undignified are we prepared to get or are we scared that this kind of passion might infringe upon our political correctness? maybe we prefer the jilly cooper kind of passion, the kind that doesnt last but also doesnt require anything from us. be passionate about the things God has put in your heart, step out a bit, stop living in your little box of comfort and get some passion!

poppies...just another flower?

i wonder how many people have died over the years in wars...did they know what they were doing? did they enter into it knowing that despite what politicians tell us it could all be futile. so many people have died, physically and emotionally in battles over the centurys and yet when a young girl was recently asked why she was wearing a poppy she just shrugged. i know that the men and women who have given their lives have done it to free us from the likes of Hitler and Bin Laden but if the future generations forget then war really is futile; we may free society from one dictator but eventually evil will arise from another place and in another generation and there will be no legacy of wisdom to prevent thousands more giving their lives to the cause of peace. i know this is morbid but it so important that on days like today we really do sit and remember what a poppy means, the lives it stands for and the generations to come.

hey cool!!!

cousin it here i come!

my gorgeous niece!

isnt she the cutest kid youve ever seen!!!

first timer!

Well i have no idea what im doing here but figure ill get on the blogging bandwaggon and keep in touch with all my beautiful friends on the other side of the water (in whatever direction!). Natanya-Joy has given me a brief lesson on blogging in return for a lesson i gave her years ago...but we wont go into that hey nat!
Well i would say keep your eyes firmly glued here but as i am more than likely to update this on a fairly sporadic basis i wouldnt hold your breath - pop back sometime and ill let you know whats goin on in the crazy world that is my life!!!