Growth and Realization

At Church we have had many opportunities to be able to stand up and preach. My first sermon was on the 10 October 2010 and since then I have only spoken a short message since. I am very uncomfortable with public speaking but my reasoning for both times was that God had a message for me to say and to tell others, so I did.

My first sermon was about Trees. We had been studying the book of Matthew at the time and throughout, there were many links or metaphors established to trees. This was an easy one to establish but felt difficult to put across without thinking too far into each metaphor. The main message from this sermon was that the deeper you put your roots into the earth of Christ, the further you can spread your branches and produce good fruit. One section I have pulled out is talking about how a tiny seed, the smallest being the mustard seed grows into a mighty large tree and the link this has to our lives.

A tiny seed has so much potential, just like each and every one of us has a potential and a purpose in life, no matter how significant we may feel. It takes time to grow. Think; is a parent in the delivery room ashamed of the baby? Of course not, they are proud. They know that growth will come with time. So does God. With the support of God we can grow into a large tree, providing support to others and contributing to the world providing life.

From this I have then thought about where God has taken me in the past year and my growth. Although I am unable to see it, I feel different in good and bad ways. I have found that I am able to use my own initiative more, but whilst doing this and experiencing new things, I have also given up on some things that were important to me. One main one is helping with the younger children at church. I used to attend every week and assist, but as time went on and I had other commitments, this one has decreased more and more and I am beginning to miss it considerably. Another very important thing is with the new changes in my life, I have meet new friends, but in doing so, it has been hard to keep in the same contact with my old friends and I have felt the brunt of it many times this year which I regret. But through it all I have felt God guiding me and letting me learn my lessons to understand what is important in my life. I have mended some bridges and realized what I must prioritize. It has definitely not been the easiest of journeys but if you never fail, you can never learn to pull yourself back up again, and through it all God has guided. He brought people into my life and messages that have lifted me back up again and continued with life's ups and downs and my point of view on many things has changed.

Overall I don't really know what this post was about, if it was really anything or just a chance for me to finally put down in words what I've been feeling so that now I even understand it. Looking back now I have really come to realize how much God has helped me without realizing and reminds me that He is always there even when you feel most alone. God bless.

Gifts

Dancing has always been a massive part of my life, and from it, I have had many incredible opportunities and met wonderful people. Dancing is a form of expression, a way to create a world of your own. During my ballet exam, we had been encouraged to imagine a beautiful place and during practices, it had always been a garden. However the Sunday before my exam I was telling my church how I wish to dance for the Lord. This changed the beautiful garden I used to dance in into the Garden of Eden and it was an amazing experience.

Since then I have had to dance on stage a few times, and each experience was really special and I hope my dancing changes so I am dancing for the Lord each time. He is worth it and has given us all gifts that we can use to show off His wonders and praise Him.

Use your gifts for God's glory

Inspiration

To look and to see

What is inspiration? Where do we get our inspiration from? It is for something different or everyone, whether it is a song, a speech or a story, a picture, a garment, a new construction. Inspiration is an important aspect in our lives as it influences our thoughts and our creations. You could easily look at a child’s smile and be motivated for a new advertisement, look at birds sitting on power lines and receive the starting notes for a new musical masterpiece, listen and observe strangers on the street and create the plot for a new best selling novel.

But why do we need to search for inspiration? Why are we suddenly inspired after weeks of hard work? Why do we need to dig deeper than a simple sunset and instead find the new colour scheme for a successful fashion business? To look deeper than what meets the eye?

What are you looking at? What can you see?

We do not need a purpose to look for an inspiration, however we must become more aware of the significance and the natural wonders the world gives us, the adventures waiting to be sought and explored. We need to be more attentive to the minute details to our life and environment that change the whole view and overall success of a creation. Often observing people can inspire as there is life and mysteries hidden behind their faces. But more often we never reflect on ourselves. While inspiration can be personal, an evaluation of an event within your life, sometimes we need someone else’s perspective for us to realise who we really are and our significance to other people. We can use our own knowledge, experiences, and encounters with life to reflect upon. We ourselves are natural inspirations. It is often believed that our subconscious thoughts inspire us. That our childhood memories that are hidden from our memory, but express themselves in different ways. They resurface themselves from deep within, influencing our thoughts and actions. However it can be hard to look deep into yourself, as you are often scared with what you may or may not find out. This could be a cause that stops our true, innate feelings and thoughts to be expressed.

We look but do not see.

The world is not always what it appears as only a small part of it is really seen. It is very uncertain what lies underneath which inspire those who want to face that challenge and dig deep. Those are the people who want to make a difference in the world. They look at the world and at people from a different angle and see things many of us do not. They start to see the world as it really is, not how many people try and portray it to be. Do you want to become one of these people who really see the world, not just look, but see it for what it is beneath the mask that is thrown over our eyes? We do not always look beneath the top cover, below the surface of life. The world, people, colours, nature, what do these have in common? They are very different but each contain some motivation that could change what we know, what we live by.It could develop masterpieces like Shakespeare, DaVinci, Mozart who were influenced and inspired by life, creating immortal works. We can relate to these works and concepts as they express who we are as people. We all live life, and although we are all different, there are many characteristics we can all relate to. Human Nature.

See, do not just look.

So next time you look around where you work, the people you spend each day with, the expressions of nature, look deeper until you become more aware at the wonders surrounding you. Become more observant, aware, and attentive! A smile, a sunset, a drooping flower, a raindrop, anything can be yours if you just look for it!

Joy and Thankfulness

As you may or may not know, I am currently in a show at the moment and I was thinking the other day who I was doing it for.

My friend sent me a text during the week saying that although I’m generally exhausted, my joy needs to comes from God a it says in Nehemiah “don’t be dejected and sad for the joy of the Lord is your strength”. It’s important that I continue to drink up his Spirit, even if I sit for 5minutes and just wait on him, his joy will continue to strengthen us.

So I just wanted to remind everyone that no matter how stressed you are, how much we have on, and little time we have spare, if we rely on God, He will strengthen us and give us Joy. We must also do things for him. It says in Philippians 2:14 “Do everything without complaining or arguing” and I often think that one verse is a good reminder everyday life that the things you do are for God, and you must live out His joy. This is also said in Colossians saying “whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as though you were working for the Lord and not for people”.

The opposite of complaining is being thankful so often instead of complaining, you can think of the things you are grateful for. It also says in Philippians to always pray with a thankful heart. So I finish now by saying be joyful and live your life God’s way.

Mia's 1st Birthday!

This post will be different from my usual ones but its important. As it says on Bayla's blog, it was Mia's 1st Birthday on Saturday! She is such a big girl now!!! This blog is just posting some pictures that I took to show her special day!!! But are of Mia so should be shown to the world!

This is a picture of our (Bayla, Snusan and I) 

decorating the house like

 a rainbow!

Bayla beforehand

Mia's Friend Thomas

Mia's Friend Summer

Mia unwrapping presents!!

The Very Hungry Caterpillar Book! Cool!

Bayla's Present - my first kiwi - especially from Eketahuna!

Welshies Present - rainbow leg warmers.

Mia wearing our present! So cute!

A dolly! Her first!

Susan and Bayla watching her unwrap

Mia / Maz blowing out the candle

Mia and Summer playing together

Mia reading one of her cards. Notice she has a cup in her hand. 

She wouldn't put it down basically the whole time 

and Maz said she was likely to take it to bed with her as well!

Our adorable birthday girl! (she still has the cup)

So thats some pictures from Mia's Birthday party who is such an adorable 1year old!!!

Power

A few nights ago I was thinking of a book I read when I was very young but can't remember what it was called. The part I was thinking of was the little quirk between a father and daughter while the daughter was young. They used to have long conversations about super-heroes and what the best super power of all was. The father wanted Strength while the daughter wanted Super Speed. The only thing they both agreed on was that Flight was the best. This became their quirk between the two of them and would refer to it often as the daughter grew up. However, one day when the daughter was a teenager, the father did something that embarrassed her greatly. Trying to fix it up between them, he referred back to the small saying they had... "what power would you like?" Sadly she replied saying

 "Invisibility"

If you could have any power in the world what would you have? Would being able to be invisible be worth it or even being able to fly? Would super speed or strength help you in your day-to-day life in any way? Look what happened to Samson, he had the 'power' of strength but his weakness was found and used. Everyone has a strength or 'power' but it may not be extra-ordinary. It might be something that you're good at. A god-given gift. AND... everyone has a weakness... But we must use these gifts we've been given to the best of our ability and to help others the way Jesus used to. 

Go out into the world and use the super powers God gave you for what is right, even if it is opposite to what everyone is doing or is hard. "What you do for the least of my brothers you do for me" Go fly into the world with super strength and speed without the need for invisiblity

True Colours

Your true colours, are  beautiful 

like a rainbow

Imagine the world without any colour. You look out the window in the morning and see colourless grass and a colourless sky and God wouldn't of been able to promise with a rainbow because it would look plain and boring, not the wonders of colour that shine through a single droplet of rain. If you look around, colour is everywhere in the smallest of things. We are in a world where colour dominates our lives, from reading signs on the road to see if fruit is ripe and yummy to eat. It affects our moods - blue is calming, red can make us tense and hungry, orange expresses energy and enthusiasm. We use and experience colour everyday in our lives without even appreciating it. 

I found this song about colour and I thought I might share a few verses that I truly loved. The site link is www.imeem.com/ifankucel/blogs/2008/02/07/1AdAe5p8/can_i  if you want to go and read the whole song - i recommend it. The verse I like is the verse about grey:

Maybe I'll stick with pencil

Just a grey, ordinary pencil.

Who can I colour in with grey?

Grey is the colour between all the rest

Maybe I can find something to colour with grey

Something that won't go wrong.

Something that can feel everything and nothing at once

That's it!

Who can I colour in with grey?

I can colour the world.

These lyrics (I think they're lyrics anyway) made me realize what God must feel. He made all these colours for us to enjoy and express happiness and ourselves with but instead they have turned against Him and made our lives angry, conceited, envious, sad, empty and lonely. But we can easily change our world of grey back into the colour it is meant to be by thanking the Lord for His creativity that He put into the world He created for us. We can turn our world into one of love, laughter, relaxation, a dream, innocent, private by being positive and putting a smile on your face, to turn your world and other's back - to the colourful world that God created just for us!

Mmm....

Okay, you know chocolate: a food made from roasted ground cacao beans, creating a delicious sensation that melts in your mouth, the rich flavour soothing any bad feelings... Mmm........ The fate of chocolate has fallen into my fellow chocoholics out there, but I have a challenge. To go a WHOLE month without a single pinch of chocolate!!!!

BREATHE!! Get up, if you've fainted off your chair and listen. I just completed this challenge in one of the worst times - 3 week holidays!! The amount of things with chocolate in them shocked me. I couldn't have some of the simplest biscuits and ice-cream or muesli bars, I feel really sorry for those people out there who are allergic. The amount I did was July 2 -> August 2 because I ate chocolate on the 1st so I couldn't start then...

Whenever I was asked why I was doing this, my answer was because I felt like it but now I have a true confession. Part of the reason was because of the teasing I got about myself but also I actually found quite a lot about myself.  This challenge really made me think about how easy it is to fall into the temptations of the world today and how hard it is NOT to fall into them. Whenever I went into a supermarket (which is quite often), the chocolate was laid out in view for anyone and I actually realize how hard it must be for people how suffer from the more serious temptations. I challenge you to take something out of your life, however small it may be, and go a month, or two, without it. You'll find how strange it is to go past it everyday and feel yourself saying "Why not, you can have some when no-ones watching and n

o-one will know", but please don't fail, think of when the time is over and you can go back, eat that stash you've had hidden for a while, and feel good that YOU managed to last so long without it! 

Good Luck!

I must say that on the 2nd of August when I could actually have chocolate, I didn't actually feel like having any, I did however have a nice warm hot chocolate and then that night, I got out my stash and had a blast!! So go out there, find something, as small as no chocolate, 

as large as no tv or car, and challenge yourself to fight that temptation you have!! Once again, Good Luck!

Sisters

Susan and I.

Being exactly 1 year apart, we have always been great mates. 

When we love each other - people say its adorable 

but when the claws come out, watch out!!!

Our bond has always been forged by doing everything together 

from the time our memories started. I can't even remember 

what it was like without a sister (even for one year!)

Two girls forming a friendship that can never be broken, no matter what life brings across our paths. We truly are linked with heartstrings!

The God in the sky.

My friend has this quote that she really likes. Okay, its not really a quote, its more of a joke.

'Silence is golden, so pretend you're Midas'

Btw, Midas is a greek god that has an ability that anything he touches turns to gold. I found this joke very interesting because it reminded me of the last yoof group we had before the holidays. We watched a Nooma video called Noise (Rob Bell). This movie REALLY affected me because I find that silence is special. This is because I love the silence and being alone, upstairs in my craft area, on the beach when deserted, outside - especially under the sky with the stars. 

The stars are like one of my links to God. If you think, they're always there, day and night, even though you can't always see them, There's so many and to think that He put so much care into each of those gigantic stars as He did with me. Also, if you look at the constellations, there's the southern cross that is showing Jesus in the sky, but if you think, it is also the shape of a sword to say that He will protect us, and the pointers that point to the cross, points us the way to God... That's not all, the sky goes on forever, just like God's love for us...

So next time you look up and see the wonder in the sky with the stars shining brightly or looking at a cloudy day, wishing for the clouds to move to have sun, remember the magnificence of the God hidden behind the splendor of the sky and how much He loves you, you're unique to Him, never forget that.