honesty is the best policy...

I raise a cup for new adventures and exciting things ahead... 

I am captivated by certain things in life. I believe these certain 'particulars' to not just be something to which I humbly profess as the most honest and real moments of life, but absolutely without doubt that they are sacred. These are the things I get a kick out of....

I love waking up to sunshine on my face. Nobody told me to like it- I just do. I also really love going to sleep when it rains or thunders, I feel so secure being inside.

I adore the smell of Autumn air. 

I love scarves, I used to dress up with them when I was small. I still remember that one lime green scarf of my grandmothers that I would adorn over my face and wrap around my hair and neck.

I can sit and think about the things I love all day. I love to love these things, its never wasted time.

I make lists of 'desires' nearly once a week. Things I want to achieve, things I want to wear, things I think will make me happy.

I own certain books that I can read, look through countless times and learn something new upon each time. 

I cannot resist fine fabrics. They feel like everything that makes me a lady.

I am in awe of glass things, I used to get lost in department stores, I would somehow always be found laying on the floor looking at the chandeliers. I love how glass changes, how it forms.

I am obsessed wood, with drift wood especially. I can touch it and look at it all day.

I think white is the best colour. 

I love open fire places. I have fond memories of falling asleep under the Christmas tree looking at the fairy lights and being warmed by the fire. 

Christmas is without a shadow of a doubt my favorite time of the year.

I love silk and cashmere. They are my favorite fabrics.

I love coffee, I don't drink it often, but I love the smell of fresh coffee and I love when someone really knows how to make it. This is the only time I will drink it.

I love brown leather boots,belts and bags, rarely will I wear any other colour than this. I don't understand why.

I think I was born to live in the country, but by city and the beach. I am trying to find a happy medium in Sydney. 

I love when people are honest. It has to be the one value I hold most close to my heart about friendships. Honesty is the best policy... 

Pressure

I am sitting awake trying to attain great grades whilst feeling a sense of pressure. I am aware of how my life is changing constantly and at the present time I feel a sense of limbo about everything. I am really seeking truth, what my life exists for beyond what I already know and how I am ever to go about doing the things that are within my heart. It's strange to be finishing up degree this year, it has been one of the best times in my life and although I don't want it to end, it must- part of me is so glad to not have to study in such an academic tone again.

 My passion has always been art, for the past four years I have only dipped my feet in it and my soul craves the feeling of oil paints between my fingers, sewing machines running as I draw with stitches, fabric dyes that excite the eye and huge-bigger-than-life-canvases that I can be at one with in my spirit. I ache to display the information in my soul. I cannot believe that these four years have been like this, how some days I feel like I am about to burst with paint out of my mouth, yet unable to express what I feel. Instead this colour, this emotion and strong sense of being has been put into academics, tightened into a small box called assignments and timed into moments alone before the dawn breaks, just trying to figure out who I am as I read in all honesty who Jesus is. Theology has changed me, it has also constrained me. 

I have to admit in this four years I have hidden myself, Although I'm pretty opinionated, enthusiastic and in your face... I have hidden even with my closest relationships who I am inside. It's funny how you get called 'the painter' or 'the singer' when really nobody has ever seen you paint, or heard you sing. I talked with my best friend about this the other day, it's as if these things are written all over your face. I feel like such a hypocrite when people say, "oh she's that painter" I feel like bluntly speaking what I ask inside, "How the hell do you know?" because none of me feels like a painter... not one ounce of me feels like I have a slightest memory of what it is to paint. Knowing that in just a short few months I have the choice to acquaint myself with an old friend (paint) I wonder will he still be my friend? Will I have changed so much that we do not recognize one another anymore? 

I bite my nails. 

pedagogue

The other day I was enjoying a few broken minutes of time between study and I decided to do a little personality survey. I have done many of these before as it seems in a Leadership College they are a bit obsessed with helping you find out what type of person you are, what you are great at and also how to help you strengthen in the weaker areas. So... after a few years of saying I am a choleric sanguine I decided to find out the other 'me' of leadership. After a few odd forty questions it was there... ENFJ Extrovert, Intellectual, Feeling, Judging. The quiz took me through what sort of person I most likely am, what my strengths were and my most horrid weaknesses in friendships, personhood and even relationships are. I have to say everything was correct with the exception of one sentence. Pretty good eh?! 

After examination of my personality I came across an incident where I realized something life changing. I only ever come across people who will either love me, think I am the bees knees, or... I come across people who absolutely hate me- no matter what I have done. In the past years I have found this most difficult to swallow, feeling insecure, trying to find a middle ground with that person etc... to no avail. I have no clue what the combination of 'me' that is so detestable, but generally I come across one person per year that just can't stand me. I used to feel so upset because I could not make them like me, or persuade them to see a nicer side to me. After spending my wasted energies I have learned that it's o.k. not to like everyone and that I can continue to be myself proudly and to not shrink back and to continue in love. I have come to be more confident from learning this and accepting of who I am. There is nobody like me, nobody like you. The World would be missing something if you didn't exist. It's not about people pleasing, otherwise World leaders would cower into corners, and it's not about everyone liking you, that doesn't sit well either. It's about making the difference that only YOU can make. make it a good difference... 

mediation meditation.

Church life has been wonderful, and wonderfully busy. We held our first Art from the Heart festival at Easter... what to say??!!! It was challenging, changing and influential. I love how we think that another event in Church is just so we have a versatile and influential church, however these things change us in ways that can never be placed in the boxes we try to put them in. I am remembering promises, I am remembering prayers and I am remembering prophecies. Things are happening...

Things are changing for me, the weather is changing and I can feel it affect me. The change is not just in the weather. It's in me. It is becoming winter here, it feels as if the past year has been a winter/spring sort of spiritual season. Spring is definitely under way, the expectations I had for this year are being met quicker than I had hoped. In 2008 my year motto was that it would be a year of growth and promise. For 2009 it is for this year to be one of prosperity, fulfillment and expansion. I sometimes forget my roots for the year, but the fruit on the tree and the stretching and expanding branches of my life are testament to the expectations that I place on myself and on my Father for living a life of purpose, destiny and fulfillment of His kingdom. I am reminded of these goals today as I feel the cold weather hit my toes and my nose. 

For the past three years some gifts in me have been silenced, I have not so tangibly felt the unction of God calling or drawing me to do something in particular like He did when He told me to come to college here, it was the most real feeling of life that I had ever felt. Since that time things have been in silence. The other day this unction came back. I felt it inside of me like as if I had just seen an old friend, it didn't feel different- it was familiar and felt so good. I actually had to stop and think about it, it was such a familiar feeling, but yet I hadn't experienced it in three years. This comes when I know that my Father is up to something, up for teaching me new things, up for breaking my stubborn back in worship, and up to guiding my direction.  

My prayer today; teach me. 

sniffle nose

Had a bit of a hectic and amazing week. We had our annual women's conference, but I aptly re-named it 'change the world conference' packed full of women who don't just want to hear a message of beauty (although that is of worth) but actually a company of women who believe that God has created us to be the solution, not a problem on the Earth. 

I was inspired, cried a full day and saw some of the best views of the City from the Shangrila Hotel...

It was immense and although I managed to get quite a lot of rest I was tired afterwards and am just now catching up with life and sleep( consequently I have a sniffle nose...). I have come to realize that Church here has truly become my home. Many of the other conferences I watched in full awe at the stage, the productions, the talent and the amount of people who come from all over the earth just for a few days in hope that God is going to do a new work and start something fresh in their hearts. This year @ Colour I sat every service in the front section, didn't ever feel like it was a conference or something I am just visiting, but rather my home- my pastors, their friends visiting to speak and generally HOME. God moved, spoke to me and I received with a grateful heart, but none of that had to do with the lights, none of it had to do with the preachers, it wasn't a message that I had never heard before, but as Lisa Bevere said 'it's just simply putting weight of what you already know in your hearts" All of what I heard was Him alone. I love that. 

So as I try to piece together my schedule and plan together the Art from the Heart Festival Gallery for Easter I am reminded that it is HE ALONE who satisfies me and who gives me good things. I will listen... not to the awe, but to the voice. 

Learning French again...

Ok so I have a funny title for my blog today, but honestly it explains what is going on. Today I went shopping for the first time in a very long time. The past year I made a commitment to ony buy things that I needed and it was a great experience to deny myself that pleasure of shopping that can so easily make us greedy. No consumer compulsions for me... It was a strange thing to go out with the idea of buying something for 'me'... I know that this sounds crazy, but it was such a liberating thing for me to be thinking about what I am buying with a sense of decision rather than compulsion. At the beginning of the day it was difficult, I spent about an hour or so walking around like a headless chicken. I didn't really have a goal to buy anything in particular, maybe some skinny black jeans for work- but just to break my shopping fast was the goal. Don't get me wrong I'm not going to go crazy spending my pay- I just knew that I had to break the continued fast because otherwise I would get stingy with everything- thinking only in terms of "Well... this costs a whole month of support for a compassion child" I's good for me to think on these terms honestly- it makes my life worth more than the money in my pocket or for some it denies the tie of worth simply being what you don't have. 

I bought....

Chai tea in David Jones. It's a brand called T2 (Highly recommend it!)

One top  with a horse on the front... I like the freedom displayed in the print

One top that reads Pepsi on the front. Honestly I bought it because for me it speaks of the underdog (reference to Coca Cola) I thought that it would be funny to wear because nobody else would understand why I bought it unless I say.

So I'm learning French again. Well... in a sense. Something I spent years learning and unlearned because I should. And picked up again just because- well just because you never know what sort of French language skills you might need, and you never know when someone might ask you why Pepsi and not Coca Cola... You might just get to share with them a bit about how other people live without shopping. 

AMORE!

A sense of loss

This week has been one of my most trying yet. I feel as if I have been tossed around in a huge tsunami wave. I began a new job here- the work is hard, the people are lovely and I am enjoying every moment of going to work, working and indeed getting paid. My college life finally has begun it's last year of degree, my week is consumed with more things than I care to say and every week I am learning, growing and shaping up to being an adult- finally! 

The point?? As I was walking to work on Friday I was praying and attempting to listen to God as I walked (This is quite difficult for me as I talk more than anyone I know)anyway... as I was 'listening' I heard Him say that today would be an especially hard day. I thought to myself 'are you joking me?' after all, I was starting my day right- praying, worshiping, doing the pentecostal thing of speaking in tongues, thanking God for my job, my work colleagues etc what more do you want from me? but still- that was all that needed to be said. Nothing more after that statement, despite my questions... just silence. 

So I started work, nothing seemed too different at first, then I made a few mistakes which made me feel stupid ( is this the hard day?) Later on I noticed that something was slightly different in the atmosphere my boss was a little stressed out and certain things would just not go to plan throughout the day. It sucked officially. Then... I got a message from my dad- asking to speak with me... dum dum duaaaaaah (movie music) so upon taking my break we 'discussed' a topic I never in my whole life expected. I found out the 'hard' part of the day. It wasn't in my plan, wasn't something I expected, but through it all just knowing that God foretold me made me feel a sense of security in it- that everything was going to be o.k. that I didn't have to worry, that I STILL belong to Him. That He is in control over my life, not my circumstances, not my family, not even my own plans. Just Him. So despite my feelings of loss this week, my pain and my anguish He is God and I will love Him more every day of my life.