God makes beauty from ashes

I talk to myself. A LOT. Mostly I try to encourage myself. I think it's important to be your own advocate because in those deep, dark times where you are all alone - then you have to be your own cheerleader. You have to. What I was thinking about today was how easy it is for me to give advice to others but then not take it myself. ...because when it comes to me - I am very hard on myself and even the most simple things tend to get very, very complicated. The other day, Alun and I were watching one of his new favourite shows "peep show" - an English comedy series about 2 guys being idiots, really. It is an interesting take on a comedy because it does constant voiceovers of what the guys are thinking and not just what they're saying out loud. Yesterday's episode was that one of the guys - Mark, was paying all the rent and all the bills and buying all the food, even though Jeremy lived there, too. Naturally, Mark was fed up that Jeremy wasn't helping, so...

"I'm just giving you tough love because I care" Well. Care enough then, to shut your mouth. And keep it closed. Thanks. As you can see, I'm not a fan of 'tough love'. I think when you love someone - it shouldn't hurt. It shouldn't feel like someone is taking a jackhammer to your soul and battering it about while shouting "this will be good for you in the end" Will it? Because I think that's garbage. I understand the concept of it. I do. It's when someone wants to stop being gentle with you and they want to tell you off and be rude, blunt and hurtful - and get away with it. The Bible says there is a time for everything. In the case of 'tough love', I can see that people would think there was a time for being stern with someone - a time to 'help' when it comes to a person 'snapping out' of something. I can see in extreme cases where everything else has been tried and has failed that a person might wa...

My friend Jack said to me the other day that he's amused with me calling myself a Christian because I'm one of the cheekiest people he knows. "You're not very religious, Janet" I know. So I thought I'd address that in today's blog. Lucky you, eh? I am in Christian in the sense that I love God whole heartedly. I love Jesus (so much!) and I love the Holy Spirit. I believe God is the reason for all things. I believe Jesus is God's love seen in human form so that God can know what it's truly like to be a person and I believe the Holy Spirit is God's heart. God's gentleness and lovingkindness. I have had trouble in a lot of my Christian growth picturing the Holy Spirit. Is it a ghost? A lot of steam? Is it a person? A thing? Then I read the book "the Shack" (fictional but oh my gosh, so beautiful) and the author describes the Holy Spirit as "Sarayu" - a wind . I really like that. In the book, the Holy Spirit is repese...

Mojo. I don't know how to describe it, but I think we all have  sense of what it means. To me, it's like your inner spark...the beautiful shiney part of your soul that is the best part of why you are who you are. Mojo. Sometimes, we can lose it. Life throws some huge-ass waves at us and it knocks our confidence. It takes away that sense of "I can do anything" and it makes us worry we're just not enough. That's who I'm writing today's blog for. For you. The beautiful girl who lost her mojo. Firstly, I want to say that this isn't the end . This isn't how you will always be or how you will always feel. Because things will get better. One of my favourite Bible verses is "This too shall pass" because I have experienced - as you will have - some pretty rotten things in life...but we survive them, don't we? We get through them somehow. I believe 100% that God carries us through them.We might come out battered, bruised an...

Now that I've written that, I can remember other things I've loved spending HUGE amounts on: * The first time I got my hair chemically straightened :) * When I bought Jon a "year's pass" to the movies - he loved that gift more than anything else I've ever given him * Any time I give Mom 'board money' because she's always so grateful and seeing her smile is a blessing anyway *sigh* back to the point... ...today I'm writing to you from a Travelodge Hotel Room. I know...not the most amazing Hotel - but you wouldnt believe how nice my room is. It's a "deluxe suite" and is big, comfortable, pretty and best of all *big smile* it's airconditioned!!! OH YEAH!!! In this horrid, dry and yet super humid Perth heat...being able to sleep to the hum of a working and LOVELY air conditioner is definitely worth the money I've paid. Here's what lead to this: My anxiety began with coming home to find the car...

Alun was struggling last night. It is the anniversary of his best friend Paul hanging himself and every 2nd of August is hard on him. Alun cries hard every year and wonders what he could have done to save his friend. I see first hand the effects of suicide and it is a never ending effect of ripples in a pond - they go on and on...in this case 11 years after Paul died and the grief for Alun is as fresh as if it just happened. So every 2nd of August - and leading up to it, I pray for Alun. I am extremely loving and patient and I let a lot of things slide. But this year, I am struggling, too. I have something called "a trapped nerve" in my spine which makes my entire body hurt. Badly. I haven't experienced pain like this - this relentless and awful - in a very long time. I can't escape it. I can't sit or stand or lay down without being in pain. My whole body aches. Mostly all down my left arm for some insane reason. It feels constantly like someone is twisting i...