I made it to the end of today

I sat down - correction - I flopped down on the bed, unzipped my boots & breathed I made it to the end of the day. Suddenly a big smile covered my face, my body. I made it to the end of today! Praise Jesus I made it to the end of today! He is real. Miracles happen because I made it to the end of today!

Do you ever start a day or a week feeling like there is a mountain in front of you, not necessarily a bad mountain just a mountain.  The kind that goes as high as you can see & is as wide as you can imagine. The kind that makes you feel really, really small & really, really ill-equipped. Ill-equipped like you were prepared to walk over a hill or not even a hill, more a slight incline but then you get to the incline & realise it's a steep incline & it's definitely more mountain than hill. Yep it's a mountain. A big, ginormous mountain. A you can't walk around me, you have to climb me mountain. That was how I felt at the beginning of this week. I was at the foot of a mountain & at the beginning of today I was still really at the foot of the mountain.

Yeah I had Monday & Tuesday so you would think that by Wednesday morning I would have made progress but honestly by this morning I still felt like I was at the foot of the mountain. I guess I had made some plans, packed some of the equipment I needed, maybe touched the face of the mountain but I hadn't really done any climbing. I talked about climbing but I was still at the bottom looking a long way up to the top. Yuck!

This morning I had that cranky, argh feeling I get when I am beginning to feel overwhelmed. I had the "nothing is going to go right" humf/sigh thing going on. By about 10am (after our 1 hour so what have you been doing team meeting) I was at the photocopier & could actually feel myself beginning to stress out about everything I had to do. I actually looked at our secretary & said "Deb, I can feel myself beginning to stress out." She looked at me surprised & we both had a giggle. I walked back into my office silently saying to God "I can't do this. I can't do this", I took a deep breath, made a cup of tea & began climbing the mountain that stood between me & the end of my day.

I didn't do anything differently to yesterday or the day before. I just did one thing at a time, one application at a time, one advice call, one meeting. I just stepped one foot in front of the other & before I knew it it was 12 & I was stopping for lunch & doing it all again... One foot in front of the other, one task at a time & suddenly I looked up & the mountain didn't look quite so big. I had reached a different level. I had crossed something substantial off the never-ending to-do list that sits on my desk. I felt great. I stopped & enjoyed the new height I had reached, I breathed in the cool crisp air before jumping in the car & heading to evening college.

I arrived to find a smaller team than we're used to plus a few technical  logistical issues thrown in for good measure :s for a second I felt like I was at the bottom of the mountain again but then I looked down & saw how far I climbed.. Instead of looking up at the mountain in front of me, I put down my bags & got about the business of doing what needed to be done. Slowly more team members arrived & the night fell into place & before I knew it I was sitting on my bed taking off my shoes to the realisation that I made it. I made it to a new level, a new plateau. I don't know what I did to get here, to get to the end of this day having climbed a significant chunk of the mountain but I'm here & I made it & it feels great.

Hmm I guess the turning point in my day was when I stopped trying to be superwoman & realised that I couldn't do this day all alone, that I couldn't do it all at once, that I needed to stop, lean on God & just take one step at a time. It was when I stopped trying to do it all on my own all at once that the shift happened. It was when I let myself be human when I stopped for a moment & went I can't climb that mountain in one giant leap but I can read this application. Ok I've done that now I can do x. Ok I can do y. It was when I changed my focus.

I spent 2 days looking at everything I had to do this week & feeling overwhelmed by it, feeling inadequate & not good enough because when I looked at it all at once it seemed too much & yes I got things done early in the week but it was hard & it didn't feel like I was getting anywhere. Then today I shifted my focus from everything that was in front of me this week to the one thing that was in front of me in this moment & honestly I got more done today than I have in weeks & I feel great. I feel alive & energised, ready to take on the world & all I needed was a shift in attitude, a shift in focus. So simple.

It made me wonder where else in my life do I need a shift in focus? Where in my life do I need to stop looking at the mountain & start stepping into what's in front of me, one step at a time on the path that God has lit in this moment..

We all have our mountains. Everyday there is a new one, some are big, some are small. What are the moutains in your life? What are the things that you look at & say "but God I can't"? What if instead you looked at them & said "God I can't do that but I can do ......."? How many mountains would you climb if you stopped looking at what you can't do & instead focused on doing what you could do? What kind of a difference would that make in your world?

Praying that you stop choosing to look at your mountains & instead choose to boldly walk on the path God lights for you this week. Be blessed Min xoxo

Paralysing pain

My heart hurts so much now that I can hardly breathe. My head is pounding, there is a deep numb pain behind my eyes - it starts just above my eyebrows and goes down to my puffy cheeks. I want to cry but I don't know if I can or worse, if I do cry, I'm not sure I'll be able to stop. My eyes feel heavy, I want to close them and go to sleep, go to sleep and wake up and have it all be some crazy dream. I just want it to not be real but it is real. This is all real and I just don't know if I can do this again..

Have you ever loved someone so much that you can feel their pain? Feel it as if it were your own? Have you ever felt like the agony that you heard in their voice was so strong that it felt like it came from your very own bones, like the anger that bubbled in them followed by the despair of their tears came from your very own soul, like every drop of pain they felt dwelt in you? Have you ever felt what someone else is feeling so deeply that you can't feel where they stop and you begin?

That's how I feel right now in this moment. All I can see, hear and feel is her pain, her deep, dark pain. Her voice is in my head like a song on repeat, she only said a few words but the sheer emotion of them has captured my mind, my heart & right now I am gripped by the sadness and fear. I can't see anything else, I can't see anything but her pain & it breaks my heart, over and over again, it just keeps breaking my heart. I breathe in a short shallow breath, fiddle with my nails, touch my fingers to my lips - of I were a biter, I would bite my nails but I'm not, so instead I slide my fingers away from my mouth to below my chin & rest my head on them - thinking. I am frowning I can feel it on my face. My skin is tight. I fiddle with my nails some more. I do this over & over again but it doesn't stop the pain. I am stuck here in this cycle again.

She is sick & I am helpless. I sit & watch as she makes choices that hurt her. I watch as she self-destructs again. Right now I hate this illness. I hate the way it takes hold of her mind. I hate the things it causes her to do. I hate the way it is destroying her life. As I write those words the hate disappears washed away by my tears as I mourn for her. I mourn for the days that she has been robbed of, the life that she doesn't get to live, the opportunities that have been lost, the woman she isn't getting to become. I cry for the lost joy, the lost love, the lost life. I cry because I miss her, because I love her, because I want nothing more than for her to be happy and right now in this darkness there is no happiness. No happiness, no joy & no peace. Just darkness.

Suddenly I am released from the situation, it's paralysing hold over me is broken. I can breathe again. It was like the overwhelming size of this was released with each tear, it was as if I needed to cry through what I didn't & still don't understand. The pain is now my own & it is more like a soft sadness that rest on me as I realise that I am not the solution. I cannot save her. I cannot fix her. There is a certain peace that comes with that realisation.

Sure I cannot save her, I cannot take this away from her, I cannot feel it for her but I am not helpless. I can love her, pray for her & be with her. I can have faith for her. I can take my eyes of the situation & look up, I can look up & remember the dark places God found me in, the pain that he healed, the miracles he performed. I can believe those things for her. I can believe in who I know my God to be & I can rest in the comfort of knowing that this is not bigger than my God. My God specialises in dark places, he's the God of miracles & he has overcome this. I can not save her but I can believe in what I know & that is I don't need to save her because Jesus already has.

I pray that when darkness sets in & pain paralyses you, you will remember to look up & see the light xo 

The gift of my mum

Today is mother's day and at church this morning one of our amazing female pastors Rachel asked us to think of the gifts of the generations before us, to consider what we had been given by those who came before us and it got me thinking about all of the gifts that my mother has given me. My mum is an amazing woman and there are pages and pages of things I could write about what I have learnt from her but perhaps the biggest gift she has given me is her heart.

You see from the moment my mum gave birth to me she loved me with everything she had, with her whole heart, there is not a piece of love that my mum has that she wouldn't give to me and it is in the safety of that love that I live. I can do anything or nothing and I know that it doesn't matter because she loves me as much today as she did yesterday and she will love me that much tomorrow. She loves me like God does, there is nothing that she wouldn't do to see me happy because I am her daughter and she delights in me. For her my being born was enough and I don't know what it is about her or my childhood that means I know that but I do, I feel it all the time whether I am with her or not, I can feel her love for me. When I speak to her I hear it in her voice, when I am with her it radiates across the room and fills me with joy. She loves me and the older I get the more amazed I am by her and her love.

I look back over her life, our life and I see the trials and tragedy, the things that would make others give up in despair and I realise how for me it never felt like that. It didn't matter what was going on because we were a family and we had each other and loved each other and at the end of the day it would all be ok. So despite all the bad stuff, I look back and all I remember is the joy, the laughter and the love. My childhood, more than that, my life has been full of peace and love and joy because of the home my mum created, because of the woman she is and the love she gave and continues to give. My mum is amazing and the gift she gave me, access to her whole heart, is one of the greatest gifts anyone could be given. I love my mum.

and breathe

I feel like my life is out of control. Like I am spinning and spinning and spinning and spinning and if I don't just stop for a minute, I'm going to get dizzy and pass out. I feel like I just need to take a brief moment to catch my breath. The last month has been one moment of unbelievable joy after the other, it has been great, it is great but I just need to take a moment to check out of it and into me. Don't get me wrong my life is wonderful, glorious, amazing and I only have good things to say about it. I am so happy, so very very happy. I don't actually remember a time in my life where I have been this happy but the joy of this season comes from something other than the romance of it all, it comes from discovering me.

I just swirled naturally into this new life, this beautiful magical world of romance and joy, the ease of the transition from single to couple surprised me, he surprised me. It was like one day I woke up and there was this amazing man in my space and he just wanted to love me, all I needed to do was say yes. I thought it would be hard, I thought it would mean losing myself in him, in our relationship, I thought he would want something from me that I couldn't give but it wasn't like that at all. I thought I would feel trapped, stifled, bound, like the freedom to be the woman I was created to be would be taken away but it wasn't like that at all. I thought I would need to put on a mask, to play a version of me that suited him, to pretend I was happy but it wasn't like that at all. I thought I would have to compromise who I was and what I believed in, that my relationship with God would suffer, that all of my relationships would suffer but it wasn't like that at all. It's so different, so strange, so far removed from anything I have ever known and I LOVE IT!

I love it. I love this life. I love this man. I love the woman that this relationship allows me to be. I don't pretend here, I don't pretend to be something I am not, I don't pretend that things don't matter to me when they do or do matter to me when they don't. I don't try to create a space for myself to fill in a life that I don't belong in. I just turn up and be me. It's like there is a different space here, a space that belongs to me, space in his world that only I can fill and space in my world that only he can fill. Everyday I am learning something new about myself, about the way I care for people, about the way I love, about the way I think, about the things that are important to me, about the woman I am becoming. Everyday he shows me another part of myself that only he can see, it's amazing. I love it.

It is extraordinary to watch as your dream comes true. To sit inside the middle of the biggest prayer on your heart coming true and to watch it unfold around you. I have almost been afraid to look in case it wasn't real so instead I have been spinning and swirling and twirling but now that I have stopped and can breathe, I am fascinated by what I see. I see a man who is my best friend, a man who cares for me, who cherishes me, a man who at the end of the day just wants to love me, I see a man who is seeking God, a man who loves God, who honours God. I see a man that I am learning and growing with, a man I want to keep learning and growing with. When I look some more I see myself, I am a woman coming alive, letting my heart be free to love, a woman allowing myself for the first time to fall in love with a man who will love me back, giving myself permission to be happy. I see our future and I see me and when I see all of this I am happy and free...

It's amazing what you can see when you stop to catch your breath. We all get lost in the twirling and swirling of life, whether it is good or bad, our lives are so busy that we can get lost in the stuff, we are so busy trying to live that we forget to take time out to breathe, to sit and stop, to be still and look at the dance we are in, to check whether the life we are dancing in is real, to see if we are being ourselves or poor versions of someone else.. I think it's important to stop, to sit and to look, to take time to appreciate this season, to look at the lessons you are learning, to see whether the dance you are dancing is helping you to become the person you were meant to be.

I pray that this week, as Easter approaches we take the time to stop and look at all we have been given by God. Time to look at the dance we have chosen, to see whether we are dancing closer to or further away from the people we were created to be xx

Choosing rest instead of chaos

Right now I am dancing in the chaos after months of change and movement and stepping up, I feel like I am constantly spinning and twirling and whirling around. I am laughing and joking and having lots of fun but at some point I need to stop, at some point my feet will start to hurt, at some point I will need a drink and some fresh air. At some point I will need to walk off the dance floor, out of the chaos and into the cool crisp air. That is where I feel like I am right now. I feel like I am walking off the dance floor, the chaos is still there and people are still dancing in it but for now I have had enough dancing and I am ready for a break.

I allow God to take my hand and lead me off the dance floor, through the door and into the garden. As I walk outside, I feel tired weary, a little like maybe it's time to go home but then the cool air hits my body and suddenly I am alive. The joy of dancing lingers in my body and a smile overtakes my face as I bask in the freedom of dancing the night away. When I was dancing, it was as if I was dancing to my song, a song written just for me, for my life and as I fumbled through the chaos trying to learn the steps I slowly, awkwardly began to roll with it, at some point I started to dance (kinda). It was magical, a dream come true and a part of me can't wait to get back out there but right now I want to be still.

Right now I want to sit on a bench wrapped in God's arms looking up at the stars he created, silent, peaceful enjoying the beauty of the dark blue night. A stalk contrast to the chaos there is no spinning here, no twirling, no dancing around. Here there is peace, purpose, rest. Here there is joy. As close my eyes I lean into him and allow his arms to wrap around me, I rest my head on his chest and I can hear the beating of his heart, as I listen to it the night gets lost, I get lost, I am consume by the tender thumping in his chest I listen to everything it is telling me. I am overwhelmed by his love.

In this moment I feel completely lost and undoubtedly found all at once. For this is the only place where I am truly free to be everything I was destined to be, in this moment I am doing everything I was called to do, in this moment I am his precious, loved daughter and I know without a doubt that I am completely loved, completely safe, completely protected and that nothing I can ever say or do will ever change that. I smile in the security of his love, a deep smile that consumes my entire being. I almost fall asleep but his soft voice gently wakes me. There is more dancing to do, more lives to touch, the night is not finished and they are playing my song again. Would I like to dance some more? He reaches out his hand and I take it.

I rise slowly to my feet and let him lead me onto the dance floor once more. As we approach the dance floor the chaos seems to have disappeared, I see people dancing now, I kinda know the steps, as we get closer he asks me if I will let him lead this time. If instead of trying to work out all of the steps for myself I will just look up into his eyes and trust him to lead us? Will I partner with him, following his lead? Will I look up, will I look at my feet or will I look at the chaos of couples dancing around us? Will I trust his feet? Will I give him control? Will I allow myself to relax into him on the dance floor like I did outside.. will I lose myself in him and allow him to make sense of the chaotic dance floor.. will I look up and dance with him

I pray that as I get up to dance again I will choose to rest in the arms of the one who created the dance, the one who wrote my song. I pray I will gaze up into his eyes and allow him to lead me around the dance floor listening only to the beating of his heart as he spins and twirls me along to my song x

Cluttered space

The space around me seems very cluttered at the moment. In so many areas of my life I feel like there is more in the space than the space can handle. Whether it be time, place, my emotional & mental space there just seems to be whole lot of clutter going on. I find it frustrating, the clutter. Nothing is more frustrating than feeling like there is too much going on in the space whether that be in a physical space or a mental space & I guess right now I feel like there is more going on than can fit in the space. I feel like my life is full to capacity  & that what I need is for God to expand my boundaries, to expand my territories, to add another room or something. That's not true. That's what it feels like but I know that that's not true.

What I need to do is accept that my life has changed and that I with that I need to change to. Don't misunderstand me I don't need to become a different person but the way I do things needs to change. I can't put the same amount in but give 4x more out. I can't squeeze extra stuff in without moving some of the old stuff around & I can't take something big & new & exciting & plop it in the middle of my life & try to move around it. I can't open up new parts of myself & not move some things around in my head space. I'm not sure I'm explaining myself.

So if my life were my bedroom & I suddenly decided that I wanted my desk to be in my room I wouldn't just drag it in & leave it in the middle of my bedroom floor & then move around it when I needed to get from the bed to the door or the mirror to the wardrobe. No if tomorrow I decided that I was going to move my desk into my room I would stop and consider the space. I would sit down and look at the room, look at what was in there and where it was placed. I would look to see where the spaces currently were and if the desk would fit in them. If there was no space big enough to fit the desk in then I would look at how I could move the furniture around so that the desk could fit in. I would shuffle things around so that it could find it's place.

I feel like that is what I need to do right now. I feel like I need to take some time out to clear some of the clutter, to have a good look at everything that is in my space & work out how to make it all fit together. I need to spring clean my life, my time, my energy, my heart, my mind. I really feel like right now I need to stop and clear the clutter so that I can see the space & appreciate everything in it.

I pray that before we go rushing & adding things into our space we will take time out to see what is currently in the space, to move things around & to lovingly place the new things in our space xo

Inspired

"a restoration of the feminine expression within the body of Christ" Bobbie Houston

my heart stopped and joy filled my body when I heard those words. The kind of joy that comes from hearing someone express the desire of your heart, the kind of joy that can only come when your spirit hears the expression of it's purpose articulated clearly for the first time, the kind of joy that captures your life and takes you on a journey with God, the kind of joy that overflows and infects the world around you, the kind of joy that inspires.

It is an inspiration that connects with what is being birthed deep inside, it feeds it, nurtures it until it has no choice but to come out. It is true inspiration, soul inspiration, God inspiration.

I pray that you will allow life to stop you, that when you hear something that speaks to your heart, when you hear something that opens you eyes, in that moment I pray that you will stop, stop and listen to the words. Chew on them, digest them slowly savouring the flavour all the way to your soul xo