No title available
Cosmic Funnies
todays bird
bliss lane
No title available
pixel skylines
The Stonewall Inn
Interview Vampire Daily
No title available
★
KIROKAZE
𓃗
I'd rather be in outer space 🛸
Misplaced Lens Cap
ellievsbear
if i look back, i am lost
hello vonnie
macklin celebrini has autism
titsay
ojovivo
seen from Pakistan
seen from Brazil
seen from United States
seen from Germany
seen from Malaysia
seen from Venezuela
seen from Türkiye
seen from Singapore
seen from Colombia
seen from Germany
seen from Kenya
seen from Malaysia
seen from Malaysia
seen from Germany
seen from France
seen from United Kingdom
seen from Greece
seen from Pakistan
seen from Singapore
seen from United States
@atravellersheartsong
Trust that breathing in His pure, unadulterated passion for the broken-hearted— is what creates in the broken a pure heart. And what makes even us whiter than snow —is melting into the depths of His unfathomable love.
Ann Voskamp
For hands stained with unqualified regret, for all us Davids who murmur it: I have failed and fallen, in what I have wholeheartedly attempted to do, and what I’ve wholly
We all NEED this...“...to exhale the expansiveness of grace that is weightless.” I love Ann’s powerful words.
First Time Mom: Weight of Glory
October 2018
It’s been just over a year of feeling this way. It’s a heaviness I never understood before I felt it in my own mind and body - the weight of being fully responsible for another human life. The weight of being a mom.
We “dedicated” our son at church a while back. It is often mistaken for a christening, but it is not a baptism into the church because only the child can make that life-changing decision when they are ready one day. Rather, it is a public declaration by the parents that they will do their best to teach the child about Jesus, and model obedience to God’s commands.
We promised we would. I feel the weight of that responsibility every single day.
To Hurt
Now I understand all those memes about ‘walking around with my heart outside of my body’ as I watch my little one exploring his world. He is oblivious to dangers, no fear of anything. He falls and bumps and jumps and climbs, learning what hurt is and what pain feels like.
No matter how hard I try, I can’t protect him from everything. I have to place my trust in God. A difficult enough endeavour with my own well-being, but that much more difficult with the body, mind, and soul of my child.
To Guide
Proverbs 3:5-6 has stayed with us throughout our decade of marriage, and now in our parenthood this last year. It is a beautiful reminder of God’s heart for us, guiding us, lighting our way through life, and never betraying the trust we place in Him. The verse is as true and applicable as it has always been.
“Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct your paths.” Proverbs 3:5-6
I’m feeling heavy as I imagine God must feel heavy for his children. I love my son as my God loves me, watching as he stumbles through life and learns things the hard way, if at all. I guide my son now hoping that one day he chooses the right path on his own.
I promised I would show him the way, but it also means I have to show him what to do when he loses his way, as I do so often.
To Learn
He keeps wanting to toddle right off the steps, as I keep wanting to toddle into places, thoughts, and pursuits that threaten my well-being. God watches as I learn, standing beside me to catch me, warn me, and leave me to make a decision. God teaches me daily, as I continue to make the wrong decisions, encouraging me to turn around or to notice the details, to think about what I am doing.
Raising a child is a weight of responsibility I have been gifted by a loving Heavenly Father. He knew it was the only way to make me truly understand how much He loves me, and that sometimes He needs to watch me make mistakes. Mistakes are how we learn best, but it doesn’t mean this doesn’t break the hearts of those who love us and watch us stumble.
To Let Go
I am learning to “let go and let God” in a big way. I would die for my child, but even that would not protect him from everything that seeks to do him harm in the world.
I cannot control anything, I can only pray, and guide him toward Jesus, with intentionality, and humility.
7 I praise the Lord because he advises me. Even at night, I feel his leading. 8 I keep the Lord before me always. Because he is close by my side, I will not be hurt. 9 So I rejoice and am glad. Even my body has hope, 10 because you will not leave me in the grave. You will not let your holy one rot. 11 You will teach me how to live a holy life. Being with you will fill me with joy; at your right hand I will find pleasure forever.
Psalm 16:7-11
Increasing our bandwidth
I recently listened to a podcast about scarcity. This is the main idea in economics - referring to how our needs and wants are satisfied with limited resources. How resources are allocated depends on who wants and needs what, and how much they want or need in comparison to everyone else - the relationships of demand and supply.
A London School of Economics Public Lecture, Scarcity: A Talk For People Too Busy to Attend Talks, it was presented in the context of behavioural economics. Since economics is my thing, I was captivated by the idea that scarcity of time and money colours the behavioural responses of all sorts of people. More significantly, it affects how much of their ‘bandwidth’ is consumed with these areas of focus.
Bandwidth is Capacity
The lecturer mentioned a few interesting and mind-boggling studies that were done to demonstrate the responses of different people groups. The rich and the poor, for example. He explained how these responses had an effect on everyday life, our choices, and our situations.
The idea is that we all have the same bandwidth available, but it is used up differently. The ‘limited bandwidth’ concept refers to our capacity in general. Cognitive capacity for memory, planning, and critical thought, for example.
A poor person might be exclusively focussed on money. In every instant, money shapes their perspective of their world. If the poor person loses $10, they naturally think about struggling to pay bills by a further $10 that week. Thoughts are constantly on disaster planning, rent, debit orders, ‘what if’ scenarios, and get-rich-quick schemes. There is no time for work presentations, studies, or innovation.
Conversely, if a rich person loses $10, they might be annoyed, even angry, but not for long. They think about the inconvenience for a few minutes and then move on. The rich person is not worried about how losing $10 affects their bills for the rest of the week.
Think about it. The loss for both people is equal - it is only $10. The response to the same loss is completely the opposite because of their financial situations.
The Difference Between Us
This may seem like common sense, but the lecturer took it further. He pointed out that because of our limited bandwidth, people operate at a significantly different ‘capacity,’ which affects every facet of life.
If a poor person had more bandwidth available to pursue their ideas instead of their bills, they might easily surpass the achievements of a rich person. If a poor student had more bandwidth available to study and create, they may be top of the class. Instead, they are struggling to finish homework, holding down a night job while babysitting siblings, feeling perpetually hungry, and worrying about everything.
Could this be the only real ‘difference’ between the rich and the poor, the academic and the labourer, the CEO and the tradesman? If we all operated on similar bandwidth parameters would we be more accepting of each other's’ similarities and situations?
A Test of Character
It is a sad part of human nature - our critical judgement of those we rank above or below us. We all share a tendency to think ‘poor’ or ‘uneducated’ people are not as ‘smart’ or ‘creative’ as ‘rich’ or ‘educated’ people.
It might be ‘proven’ in an office context, for example, that richer, better- educated employees out-perform less fortunate colleagues. When you think about how much extra bandwidth a poor person is using on a daily basis, however, it is not surprising they are less focused and less available than someone who does not have this same intensity or anxiety.
Increasing My Bandwidth
I think it is time I took a harder look at myself and my bandwidth. Comparing myself to others is useless, and dangerous. It is a far healthier pursuit to try and free up my bandwidth for greater things.
Less worry, less judgement, less complaining, and less time-wasting. Imagine if I could choose to let go of worry, and trust God. My focus would shift from my own stuff to His, and to helping others increase their bandwidth.
If each of us trusted God more and freed up our bandwidth for His purpose and glory, we would change the world.
First Time Mom: Out of the Valley
30 September 2018
We made it.
In the Trenches
Trudging through the first few weeks of motherhood was like wading through the knee-deep mangrove mud on a kayaking tour in Thailand that one time. Except, this time I was sleep-deprived, perpetually hungry, and worried about every detail of my life. I was also responsible for another human being twenty-four hours a day.
The First 100 Days passed incredibly slowly, yet incredibly quickly. I built confidence as I got to know my child. I learned more about myself in one year as a mother than I had in ten years of marriage.
I prayed so much during the past year I thought God may want to mute the connection for a while. He didn’t though. I saw snippets of his grace and provision even where the tears refused to jump back into their bottle.
Fly Away Home
My baby boy grew and so did I, imperceptibly, like a butterfly painfully pushing through the rough walls of its ugly cocoon. I clung to bible verses, songs, and loved ones. I wanted to start jogging again, but my body needed time. So did my heart.
One morning in January I woke up and I felt better. I felt amazing, in fact. The blanket of despair floated away for a bit, and I could breathe without crying. I went for a jog on the farm, and actually enjoyed it!
The months which have followed have been far from smooth sailing, but nothing like those first few. There have been ‘usual’ difficulties like fever, teething, milk supply worries, making real friends, and sleep deprivation. I haven’t stopped praying, but after month four, I have laughed more than I have cried.
Walking Around
I have “low” days regularly, but these are few and far between. It is just a low day, not Armageddon. I’m still here, walking around and practising being grateful.
There is already a whole year’s worth of memories behind us. Thank you, Jesus, for this beautiful thing called motherhood. Now I know Love is all there is.
Do you also have low days?
Heather Lind weighs the mom guilt against the mom joy of having a baby. A piece about my own real life as a mother? Where do I start? I never got around to the other write-in competition, but it still appears on my to-do list ...
Some other thoughts I shared online about ‘mom guilt’ and motherhood.
First Time Mom: 100 Days
The darkness that set in after the first week was like a heavy blanket over me. It was uncomfortable and embarrassing. I had a beautiful baby boy in my arms, and between the moments of joy and wonder, I felt like my whole world had ended.
The First 100 Days
There was something to be said for those ‘first 100 days’ of darkness so many mothers and mommy bloggers had described in my prenatal reading material. I brushed it off, sure I could succeed, even if this ‘darkness’ appeared.
As we entered the first three months, referred to as the ‘Fourth Trimester’ it deteriorated. We arrived home and I tried to rest but my baby needed to eat every 2 to 3 hours, day and night. I was so hungry all the time I could probably have eaten an elephant (at every meal).
My body was healing but somehow I knew it would never be the same as it was before I grew a human and pushed him out of it. My emotions fluctuated wildly. I couldn’t think clearly with the lack of sleep and I cried every day. Every single day.
I had mastitis three times in the first four weeks. I fed my child while I sweated out a fever and massaged my milk ducts. I walked around with cabbage leaves in my bra (try smelling like cabbage and feeling sexy). I’m pretty sure paracetamol saved my life.
Real Love
My husband was extremely concerned. He helped me immensely by putting our screaming baby to sleep every three hours after a feed. Scream for an hour. Sleep for an hour (if we were lucky). Nurse for an hour. Repeat.
We were both exhausted, and extra worried about our son whose first week in the world was such a difficult one. We were obsessed with his weight, his growth, his appearance, his comfort, and his nutrition. I was breastfeeding exclusively, so most of this concern felt like a direct measurement of my own physical and emotional performance as a mother.
Each person who commented about our ‘skinny child’ or ‘small baby’ was another knife in our chests. Another measure of my failure. Hindsight wasn’t a luxury we had in those first 100 days.
My wonderful, loving husband quietly admitted to me a year later that those were the most stressful days he had ever experienced. He said at times he didn’t know whether to shout, cry, run away or hold me down. He felt like he was balancing the welfare of his child with the mental health of his wife.
I thank God every day for sending me a man with this much capacity to love me in my darkest moments.
A Successful Failure
I am one of those people who has been told how “good” I am at everything from a young age. “An all-rounder”, a “hard worker”, they say. I have never felt like I have struggled with anything - not a real struggle, not to the point of actually failing to achieve something or finish something well.
Before I became a mother, I never really noticed that I had largely succeeded at everything in my life. As it turns out, the success wasn’t mine in the first place. It wasn’t the result of something I “did right,” who I was or my talents. My success has only been a series of pleasant coincidences, privilege in a nation of inequalities, and God’s grace.
As a mom, though, I felt like a true and utter failure from the very first week.
Mother Nature
I believe in perseverance, tenacity, faith, and the relentless pursuit of what is right. I believed it was in me to succeed as a mother, as it always had been with other things. Women had been mothers forever, how could I not be a good mother when they had all managed?
I had no idea, and maybe that was a good thing. I am too stubborn. I needed to learn some things the hard way.
I needed to go through it to see what all those women before me had learned:
...being a mother is harder than anything you could ever imagine.
...being a mother is losing your body and your mind for a while.
...being a mother is not glamorous.
...being a mother is the best way to recognise your own weakness.
...being a mother is willingly losing control.
...being a mother is to experience the love God has for us.
...being a mother is a privilege, not a right.
...being a mother is not what makes you worthy, or valuable.
...being a mother is not a path to happiness, just as marriage, money and prestige aren’t either.
...being a mother for just one day is worth all the pain and sacrifice in the world
101
If you are still reading, let me stop and encourage you. We got through the first 100 days. We got through the first year.
We did succeed as parents, and our son continues to grow, and play, and laugh, and learn. Our marriage survived - strengthened even. My emotions levelled out.
My son learned to nurse better and stopped screaming. There was more time between naps to enjoy each other, to play. There was more time for me to think, and to accept things had changed.
My body is different, but I am okay with how it looks and feels for the moment. I jog slower now. Sometimes I garden instead of exercising, and I’m okay with that choice.
When my little boy lifts up his big blue eyes and plants adorable open-mouthed kisses on my face, everything is right with the world.
First Time Mom: Week One
If you are a first-time-parent-to-be, the most precious gift you will ever receive is almost here. Cherish the moments you have alone together. Sleep in.
STOP READING NOW. Come back when your child is a few days old and you want to know if it was the same for me as it is for you.
3 September 2017: finally.
It happened just the way I had imagined it would - if almost a week late.
Naturally. Waters breaking, a long and slow labour, and then the first cry. Nothing could have prepared my heart for it - for the love that would instantly bloom when my overwhelmed husband shouted, “It’s a boy! It’s a boy!” before the doctor could even speak.
I knew then. This was it. This was the realisation of all I had wanted since I was only a little girl. I was a mother. Finally.
Day 2: into the world.
We impatiently waited to leave the hospital, 12 hours after birthing a beautiful baby boy. Maybe I thought the beginning of “real life” would make things easier.
The ten-minute drive to my folks’ place was enormously stressful. How can a tiny person fit comfortably into those gigantic straps anyway? Baby screamed. Mommy bawled. I felt like a terrible mom. Were we going to manage the long trip home in a few days time?
Day 3: jaundice.
I cried during the entire panicked call to the paediatrician. We did not even know we needed to have a paediatrician picked out before the birth (nobody told us). We saw it for the first time on the hospital admission form.
She advised sunlight. It was torture watching my tiny yellowish newborn scream his little lungs out for the whole five minutes advised. My baby’s naked skin was flawless in the rays of sunshine streaming through the window. I felt like a terrible mom.
Day 4: milk.
Finally, my milk “came in” a day later than the ‘books’ said it might. Relief flooded in. I had already nursed my hungry child over 25 times since he first breathed the same air I did.
My body was still in shock. Aches and pains were a constant background feature. Blood. I was exhausted. It was the fourth day, the fourth day in a row I had cried.
Day 5 and 6: family and friends.
Anxiety and guilt shrouded me before each visitor arrived. My newborn screamed, I screamed louder, silently. I cried in the bedroom. I cried in the bathroom.
I didn’t want to see anyone. I didn’t want to talk or cry or answer questions or think about my body. I didn’t want to share my baby.
I did it all anyway, because they love him, too.
1 week: paediatrician.
We didn’t know it was normal for one-week-old newborns to go for a check-up (nobody told us). It was more expensive than we imagined. We sat in the waiting room, praying we could go in before he was due to sleep or eat or have a nappy change.
Doctors don’t have reliable appointment schedules though. Feeding time came but we didn’t know we could feed him in the little room on the side (nobody told us). I wasn’t a confident breastfeeder yet to brave a room where everyone was close enough to see me struggle and grimace.
Eventually, we were called up. We went in, relieved the experience was almost over. She encouraged me to nurse him while she talked and asked questions. I tried to concentrate, and to calm the panic below the surface.
Then the doctor told us our child was basically ‘failing’ four of the five major checks. I cried (and did not really stop for the next three months). Our most precious treasure had lost a little too much weight for the ‘normal’ antenatal loss.
He also had a tongue tie and some other unsatisfactory ‘markers’. Feeding was torture - pain, blood, worry. My husband and I felt like we had failed the first week. I felt like a terrible mom.
Loved ones and confidantes told us not to worry. Everybody told us things would get better. The darkness set in then and I entered a place I had never been to before.
Nobody told me having a baby would be this hard.
[1 Chronicles 16:11] Seek the Lord and his strength; seek his presence continually!
Back to the Light
I admit it’s been ages!
I don’t know why I haven’t posted in so long, but I’m a mother to a busy toddler now and life marches on quickly these days. I’ll soon be sharing a few of the past year’s experiences and I wanted to invite you along for the ride.
Life has taken me through some dark places for a while, but the Faithful One keeps guiding me back toward the light.
Stay tuned.
Little Lions
“The young lions suffer want and hunger; but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.” [Psalm 34:10]
Photo credit: Anne Elliott
12 May 2017
Today I came across this Psalm and was completely blown away by the truth it holds, especially for me. My love for wildlife is well-known, as documented by our world-hopping travel blog. Lions are one of the most fascinating, ferocious and awe-inspiring creatures I have come across in my life - and yes, I have seen countless lions in the wild because I live in South Africa.
This chapter of my story is jumping ahead from four exhilarating years of adventuring as English teachers in South Korea. Right now, we are homeless and technically unemployed, happily pregnant with our first little one and still living out of suitcases more than a year after deciding to leave our fantastic jobs overseas and come back home to sunny South Africa. There were plenty of reasons for our decision, but nevertheless, a choice it was.
Almost unbelievably, in all the uncertainty of our current situation, we have not once lacked a roof over our heads, a warm place to sleep, clean clothing, nourishment for our bodies, work to keep our hands and hearts occupied, finances to get through the month, a way to get from place to place, good health for us and our growing baby and loving, gracious people who keep showing us how happy they are to have us in their lives.
Even in small things, like my search for work as a stay-at-home-mom-to-be, God has provided me with exciting and stimulating new avenues to explore. In the past few months, I have been able to set up an online presence as a freelancer, using both my passion for teaching and business and my love of writing, in a flexible way, which just might suit the hectic mommy duties only a few months away.
The online teaching employer found me (I wasn’t even looking in that direction!) and insisted I set my own times, with no minimum or maximum number of lessons required in a week. The writing contracts steadily pour in one after the other, having evolved from a few random projects across various subjects, into the challenging, extremely fulfilling niche of Christian writing. In this season, God is allowing me to work, to be flexible, to prepare for my baby, to have time for my husband and my health and to inspire others through my writing - wow! Is it all a dream?
Adaptable mobility has been built into the essence of who we are and it is our prayer God will use this to His glory, wherever it may take us. The past eighteen months have been an incredible time of growth and contentment for both my husband and I, in our lives as individuals, as well as in our 9-year marriage. Our whole married lives have testified to His faithfulness as He continuously leads us into new adventures. Not that there has not been anxiety in the face of a thousand unknowns. There is a peace that surpasses understanding, however, which finds its way into my heart before I completely break down.
God is so, so good. He is faithful in all things and reveals His plan for us in His own perfect timing, as He has promised. Everything is going to be okay because my Heavenly Father is in control of it all.
So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. [1 John 4:16]
#SheReadsTruth - a wonderful reminder today of God’s many promises for those who love Him, fear Him and obey Him. Take a few minutes to read from SheReadsTruth.com (You Hear & Deliver - Day 3) then complete the ‘treasure hunt’ and reflect on the promises God has given us in Psalm 34.
What a great and awesome God we serve!
Finding my Living Hope
Travelinds photo: Malapascuan fisherman, Cebu, The Philippines
A Timothy Keller Sermon
I recently listened to this Timothy Keller podcast called “Born into Hope” and was deeply moved by his take on 1 Peter 1:3-9 about living hope. Here are a few excerpts from the sermon that I’ve been inspired to share with you.
The foundation of our character is our hope. It’s this living hope that we are born into when we are ‘born again’ in Christ and receive the Holy Spirit.
STOP. Spoilers below. Go ahead and listen to the sermon first and then continue below.
**
Timothy Keller explains how we handle suffering as Christians...
To handle our suffering with hope, he says that, as Christians, we need to understand the difference between religion and the gospel. Religion is basically gambling that “some day maybe God’s gonna love me if I do things right (God owes me because I’ve worked for it)”. The gospel is knowing for sure, by putting faith in our hope, Jesus Christ, that our salvation is kept for us as an absolute guarantee (God has provided our salvation, not because of our own works, and we owe Him our whole selves)!
In order to activate this ‘living hope’, therefore, Keller states that we don’t just say to the Lord “just send power down” - that's abstract. “(Peter) doesn’t say well just know that someday when you die you're going to live in that wonderful mansion in heaven. That's not gonna do it.”
No, we don’t look at the abstract, but instead we focus on Jesus. “Though you have not seen him you love him and you rejoice with joy inexpressible and glorious (verse 8).” We activate our living hope by looking at Jesus Christ to pull us through it! “Look at him until by the Spirit's power you sense a glorious love for him.”
Compare this to how Jesus handled His own suffering...
Jesus did not “think positive”, or ask God to help him be strong, or focus on that he knew he’d be someday in a mansion in glory! He went through the cross and hell - how did he do it? In Hebrews 12 it says, ‘for the joy that was set before Him, he ran the race, endured the cross and despised the shame.’
Why did he do it? For the joy that was set before Him. What is that joy? There was something so exciting put in front of him that he could endure hell, the cross, pain and being the object of God’s wrath for it. What could possibly have given Jesus a joy THAT amazing and motivating?
Get ready for the goosebumps (drumroll, please)...
Isaiah 53 says, “The results of his suffering he will see and he will be satisfied. For my servant will justify many.”
Who are the many that are justified by his suffering? US.
Why did Jesus suffer? FOR US.
“That must mean that the thing that gets him excited enough to endure and have the living hope that he had, was the joy he found in the idea of being with US forever. He was so excited about us. He was so excited that he would have us in his arms. He was so excited about the day in which he could shower us with his love and delight. That was his living hope.”
WOW. This is completely mind-blowing and I don’t think I’ll ever get used to hearing that I am the joy of Jesus Christ. And so are you.
Reaching for hope...
“Now if you think about that, does it move you? Here’s what’s going on: you being His living hope, knowing that YOU ARE HIS LIVING HOPE, is what makes Him your living hope!...” Only once you have got this and personalised it, so that “you’re looking at him and you love Him, (only then) you will have living hope in Jesus Christ.”
“The approval you really want that you're sucking out of everybody else, and the wealth that you really want to you're sucking out of everybody else and the honor that you really want that you’re sucking out of everybody else, is in His heart and it’s going to come down on you and finally you will have what you were built for.” Jesus Christ is our all, our reason and our living hope.
How can you not be touched by the love of our great and awesome God?
One of the dangerous problems with being stuck in the imagination of our hearts is that we'll never really be able to deal with sin in our lives because we're always finding its source in other people instead of looking deep into ourselves for the true issue. So what ends up happening is that we start blaming others, justifying ourselves, and living this really weird life where we've got this long, boring story about how everybody's done us wrong. We turn ourselves into martyrs. And all along, we're never able to recognize our own culpability in our sin or our own responsibility to love, forgive and strive to be at peace with all people as much as possible. Look, maybe you are the first human being legitimately betrayed by everyone you've ever known. It happens. But it could be that there are some deep heart issues that you need to submit to the Lord. Keep a close watch on your heart, because it is so easy for the proud to get lost in the imagination of their hearts.
Matt Chandler (To Live is Christ, To Die is Gain)
In our prayers, we talk to God, in our Bible study, God talks to us, and we had better let God do most of the talking.
D.L. Moody
Meet Lucy
Click here: Why Generation Y is Unhappy
This was a great article about why generation y (that’s me) is “unhappy in life” and why this has come about - thought-provoking, accurate, interesting, convicting and definitely worth a 5 minute read.
New Mercies
Struggle
I’ve been having a rough time this year. Yesterday was my 29th birthday and it seemed to be the culmination of a difficult year, coming to terms with my life’s direction, getting older but apparently not too much wiser, unrealised dreams, comparison’s to the ‘progress’ of others, changes in plans and a period of restlessness. My life is good, better than good, there is absolutely nothing to complain about; and yet, I have been struggling to feel the presence of God in my life these last few months.
I struggled with being unsure of my short-term direction, as always. I struggled with being ‘almost 30′ and not being a mom, even though this is completely our own choice and a result of changed life plans and timing. I struggled with not having travelled as much as I wanted to, even though we have travelled more than we could ever have hoped a few years ago! I struggled with being far away from family and dear friends. I struggled with the culture differences presented to me in daily life in our current location. I struggled with feeling self-centred, negative and ungrateful, where my heart was fighting my head. I struggled with wanting to be ordinary, even though I’ve prayed so many times for God to give me an extraordinary life and purpose.
Search
Why? I have prayed more, studied the bible more deeply, meditated on God’s promises, listened to the wisdom and experiences of others, read books, sung God’s praises in spare moments and analysed my life choices to identify where this disconnect originated.
The answer is a simple one, as old as time - sin. Blatant, destructive sin that is a daily struggle for all God’s children on earth. Sin is placing anything above God, which is disobeying his command for us to ‘love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and strength and mind’ (Luke 10:27). I was idolising myself and my own dreams, putting these things as the MOST IMPORTANT thing in my life. I was finding my value in ME and failing miserably to feel loved and affirmed. I did this, knowing better. Instead of glorifying God and being humbled by His gift of eternal life, which at great cost to Himself he gave to me, for FREE, while I was dead in my trespasses.
Grace and Mercy
He has poured out His completely undeserved favour - His grace. It is amazing, mind-blowing, beyond understanding and radical. I was so focused on ME that I lost sight of GOD, MY personal Saviour who loved ME when I was DEAD to Him. He saved me, gave me his Spirit, adopted me, changed me and continues to change me.
I am happy to report that I have been blessed out of my socks by what God has been showing me and it seems that I have turned a corner (again) thanks to my loving and patient Heavenly Father.
Happy Birthday
And one more thing, I had been feeling low and for the last few weeks had been looking around for some lipstick to make me feel pretty. This may seem like a silly thing, but I’m not a person who wears make-up or knows anything about it, so in Korea it is that much more intimidating to find something - I can’t consult with the attendant in words, only gestures; or understand the write ups. Anyway, not to worry, my Heavenly Father saw my struggle. On my birthday, which I had not told any of my colleagues about, a little Chanel bag appeared on my desk, the only present I received at school because of course, nobody knew it was my birthday! I looked inside. Can you guess? My co-teacher had bought me some lipstick, a light pink, glossy, not-over-the-top PERFECT LIPSTICK for me! And nobody but God knew I wanted it.
He loves me. Happy Birthday, My Beloved Child, here is a small gift to remind you that I love you. You are important. I value you. You are beautiful to me. You are mine. And all this is for My glory.
Lamentations 3:22-23
22 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; 23 they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. (ESV)