its been so long since my fingers have even began trying to type on this blog, for that reason I am so unsure. Something just didn't seem right, I can't say they do right now but I can say, I have nothing to lose. This entry may also be all over the place, because I have nothing pressed on my heart that I feel I can write a lot about and that is ok. However, with that said I can say that I am broken, my heart is crushed, my stomach is in my mouth, and I feel as though I am sitting in a dark room alone with nothing but the sight of a small candle burning.
I was feeling pretty sad and decided to go to bed at watch friday night lights, in the midst of watching it I had the biggest edge to listen to Oceans playlist by Hillsong United, I then ran into the song your love is better by United pursuit band, then how i need you. i guess I don't have much to say other than listen to your heart cry, I need that, I want to be loved, to not feel lonely and sad, to have fun and be happy. To choose joy. It becomes so difficult and sometimes I feel I just need to be OK with NOT being OK. I need to be real about being broken and hurt, to listen to something that will sooth my heart. It may take hours but I need that.
I need more than false happiness, and short term cover ups. I need rest, and healing, and the ability to want to be real and vulnerable. I want to stop pushing people away, and instead draw near. I often play everything off like I'm ok, and that I will move on. Honestly though, I need time. I owe myself that time.
More than anything right now I just want to go for a run in the rain and sit on a cliff and watch the sunset. I want to camp under the stars and see the world again.
Thursday, 27 March 2014
Tuesday, 5 November 2013
We Are Human.
We Are Human Living in Perfect Love and Fleeing Fear.
Now if you answered this question within minutes or seconds I am beyond impressed. I began thinking about this question in the summer when I was faced with feeling guilt and hurt, I never even thought about the possibility that being human played such a role on EVERYTHING. When we feel that we fall short well that's only human because we aren't expected to be perfect, instead we are made perfect in love. This doesn't always transition back into our day to day lives, whether it's failing a test, being beaten at the finish line or not reaching a goal you set for yourself we will always have a moment when we are unhappy with the outcome, it is at these moments that the idea of being made perfect in love becomes so important. Yes, I have made mistakes, I have felt guilty, ashamed, hurt, unhappy, stranded, lonely, all very familiar emotions and feelings but I can also say I have overcome those feelings by just thinking and trying to better understand PERFECT LOVE (let it just sink in). I think for a while I couldn't process this idea because so many relationships had left me feeling abandoned, hurt, upset, lonely and all that jazz so the idea of a whole, abundant, satisfying and completely phenomenal love was something that I just couldn't picture. I mean I have felt it, I had tasted and seen (and it was good). I had found that love so satisfying so when I would search for that around my community and I wouldn't find it, I would become unsatisfied and easily lost sight of that perfect love, I stopped searching for it. Every now and then I would get a grasp of it but then it would disappear, I would stop searching for it. I became lazy.
There is so many different ideas around perfect love and fear although both so interconnected. I would often take the phrase "there is no fear in perfect love"and question whether I was in constant fear or not. and if i was then am I not loving like I am supposed to. Then I realized that being human we are in no way expected to understand what that means, and despite learning over time we still have the tendency to fall short, which is totally ok! We ARE susceptible to hurt and pain that lies within this world and that can and mostly likely will have an affect on us, we must look past that though and ask for ignore the fact that we have been hurt, we can learn from that but we shouldn't allow that to stop us from giving people the same love we have received from our Father. We have to give the love we are given, but we must also be prepared to receive a love back, this love won't be like our father's but it will be from him, you will taste. We need not fear the love we deserve but we should fear accepting the love we sometimes think we deserve.
Wednesday, 31 July 2013
JOY.
Sometimes its hard to find and hard to see. When things seem to be in the worst possible situation you could imagine it’s something that defiantly doesn’t come easy. I think that more difficult it is to be joyful the more we have to strive to chose joy. These past couple days it feels like the enemy has been trying to take any possible joy I have and replace it with sadness and lies. I choose JOY! Today I was feeling down, upset and rather just overwhelmed, so I decided to go and grab the one thing that can change any mood i'm in; BUBBLES. I stood in the middle of the section and just spun in circles holding out the wand creating massive beautiful bubbles. I must say this session it has been hard for me to find joy in things, and choose joy but today I have chosen Joy. I have seen this joy become contagious to the people around me.
The point of this post;
CHOOSE JOY ALWAYS.
Friday, 26 July 2013
Seasons of Change
I so often realize what I can't do, what I've fallen short of, or what I am incapable of achieving. After a year of what I see as my hardest yet I find myself broken, and unsure of myself.
Coming to camp I began to realize my broken self and uncertainty that has grown within. I realize how much I have changed this year, how I became someone so afraid of being what God wanted, someone so overcome by trials and temptations that I lost hope in everything. I entered a slippery slope of falling short of everyone's expectations, and then my own. I was so frustrated, angry and broken by the worldly lies that I became consumed by them. Consumed by the idea that I would never succeed, that I would always fall short of everything, that any hopes and desires were no longer something that I needed to have. I began to lose confidence in my relationships with people, losing trust in what they were saying, always so unsure of what was true and what wasn't. I'm still struggling with that now, knowing what is true and what isn't. Here at camp people are always encouraging me and pouring into me, I don't know how to receive it or how to believe those truths over myself.
Something that is so prominent on my heart right now..
How can I feel lost but still lead people to God, how is it that I feel so empty and so dry, and so Godless but people see Jesus in me. Why do people say I shine and yet I can't believe it over myself.
I want to, but I need to feel that truth, I want to feel the realness in that and believe it. I need to stop second guessing and over thinking. I want God to reign in and through me but not forget to include me, I want to feel God the way people feel Him through me, but how. How can I do that?
So tonight I cry out, asking for guidance.
I declare freedom from these lies in Jesus name.
Coming to camp I began to realize my broken self and uncertainty that has grown within. I realize how much I have changed this year, how I became someone so afraid of being what God wanted, someone so overcome by trials and temptations that I lost hope in everything. I entered a slippery slope of falling short of everyone's expectations, and then my own. I was so frustrated, angry and broken by the worldly lies that I became consumed by them. Consumed by the idea that I would never succeed, that I would always fall short of everything, that any hopes and desires were no longer something that I needed to have. I began to lose confidence in my relationships with people, losing trust in what they were saying, always so unsure of what was true and what wasn't. I'm still struggling with that now, knowing what is true and what isn't. Here at camp people are always encouraging me and pouring into me, I don't know how to receive it or how to believe those truths over myself.
Something that is so prominent on my heart right now..
How can I feel lost but still lead people to God, how is it that I feel so empty and so dry, and so Godless but people see Jesus in me. Why do people say I shine and yet I can't believe it over myself.
I want to, but I need to feel that truth, I want to feel the realness in that and believe it. I need to stop second guessing and over thinking. I want God to reign in and through me but not forget to include me, I want to feel God the way people feel Him through me, but how. How can I do that?
So tonight I cry out, asking for guidance.
I declare freedom from these lies in Jesus name.
Thursday, 20 June 2013
Goodbyes.
Goodbyes are never an easy thing. EVER!
I can say that last year my goodbyes were almost nonexistent, I knew that I would be coming back to a place where everyone would still be, that the only thing I would miss was the summer stories which didn't take long to catch up on. I was gone 10 weeks, I hadn't really told many people when I was leaving or for how long, I just kind of got up and left. There was such a beauty to that, a mysterious wonder that left me at such a peace. Now saying goodbye at the end of those 10 weeks is the hardest thing I have had to do, last year was the worst.. knowing that people's live demand different things and that doesn't always mean returning to camp. Not knowing if you will ever see one of those people that had such an impact on you ever again, it's such a confusing feeling; i find myself questioning "why do I encounter people that have such a huge impact on me, only for them to be pulled away" it's hard meeting someone knowing you will never see them again, or at least not for a while. Last summer I met a girl named Aliesha, she has to be one of the inspirational people I have ever encountered, she is so humble but yet so proud of creation. Over my time at camp we grew so close, we would share things thats I have never spoken about to anyone, there is just something about her that is so inviting, maybe it's because we are alike in so many ways. I used to hide behind her cabin and pop my head up from behind the 'wall' (more of a tarp waterproof flap) and scare the living daylights out of her, we would then spend the next 10 minutes rolling on the ground laughing so hard we have tears running down our faces, or sometimes we would go to the hidden hammock and talk for hours about what ever, if she was feeling sad I would instantly change that by making her laugh and vice versa. We just had such a sisterly connection. Now over the last two weeks of summer I realized how hard this goodbye was going to be, now we would write each other letters with jokes or draw funny pictures and place them on each others bunk, now about 3 days before the big goodbye was coming she wrote an unusual letter, and it began with the work GOODBYE.. the word I had been hiding from for over 2 months. Well the day came to say goodbye, it was horrible. See I forgot to mention Aliesha is from New Zealand and that's pretty far... Again kind of ironic because my sister lives in Australia. Anyways we said goodbye, it wasn't a normal i'll never see you again goodbye, somehow we both knew we would see each other again.. In January she arrived at my house to spend a couple days with me before heading home.. Such good times. When I said goodbye for the second time, it was much like the first. I knew it would be a while before we get to see one another again, but there is something about goodbyes that makes it easy to tell if its truly a goodbye (this wasn't).
This year I leave for camp for 3 days then come home for graduation and then go back, but this year in september i won't be returning to what I left from. Everyone will be off in different directions and places, beginning a new chapter of their lives. Its beautiful but also so scary, I don't know if it will be the last time I see them or if it will be the last time all our friends are in the same place together. The people who I've spent the last 4 years with are all dispersing in different directions. There is no knowing when I will see them next and there is no telling when our lives will ever cross paths again, I guess i'll just have to face these goodbyes.
I can say that last year my goodbyes were almost nonexistent, I knew that I would be coming back to a place where everyone would still be, that the only thing I would miss was the summer stories which didn't take long to catch up on. I was gone 10 weeks, I hadn't really told many people when I was leaving or for how long, I just kind of got up and left. There was such a beauty to that, a mysterious wonder that left me at such a peace. Now saying goodbye at the end of those 10 weeks is the hardest thing I have had to do, last year was the worst.. knowing that people's live demand different things and that doesn't always mean returning to camp. Not knowing if you will ever see one of those people that had such an impact on you ever again, it's such a confusing feeling; i find myself questioning "why do I encounter people that have such a huge impact on me, only for them to be pulled away" it's hard meeting someone knowing you will never see them again, or at least not for a while. Last summer I met a girl named Aliesha, she has to be one of the inspirational people I have ever encountered, she is so humble but yet so proud of creation. Over my time at camp we grew so close, we would share things thats I have never spoken about to anyone, there is just something about her that is so inviting, maybe it's because we are alike in so many ways. I used to hide behind her cabin and pop my head up from behind the 'wall' (more of a tarp waterproof flap) and scare the living daylights out of her, we would then spend the next 10 minutes rolling on the ground laughing so hard we have tears running down our faces, or sometimes we would go to the hidden hammock and talk for hours about what ever, if she was feeling sad I would instantly change that by making her laugh and vice versa. We just had such a sisterly connection. Now over the last two weeks of summer I realized how hard this goodbye was going to be, now we would write each other letters with jokes or draw funny pictures and place them on each others bunk, now about 3 days before the big goodbye was coming she wrote an unusual letter, and it began with the work GOODBYE.. the word I had been hiding from for over 2 months. Well the day came to say goodbye, it was horrible. See I forgot to mention Aliesha is from New Zealand and that's pretty far... Again kind of ironic because my sister lives in Australia. Anyways we said goodbye, it wasn't a normal i'll never see you again goodbye, somehow we both knew we would see each other again.. In January she arrived at my house to spend a couple days with me before heading home.. Such good times. When I said goodbye for the second time, it was much like the first. I knew it would be a while before we get to see one another again, but there is something about goodbyes that makes it easy to tell if its truly a goodbye (this wasn't).
This year I leave for camp for 3 days then come home for graduation and then go back, but this year in september i won't be returning to what I left from. Everyone will be off in different directions and places, beginning a new chapter of their lives. Its beautiful but also so scary, I don't know if it will be the last time I see them or if it will be the last time all our friends are in the same place together. The people who I've spent the last 4 years with are all dispersing in different directions. There is no knowing when I will see them next and there is no telling when our lives will ever cross paths again, I guess i'll just have to face these goodbyes.
I think it was peter pan that said.
"never say goodbye because goodbye means going away and going means forgetting"
I think that's what I'm most afraid of; forgetting, I don't want to forget, I want to remember the memories, the friends, and the journey, and most of all I want to see everyone again at some point in my life. I want to be at peace with leaving, some of my friends say "are you really leaving this summer, our last summer together" and as much as it kills me to leave this community and my friends here I know that I'm being called to leave. I hope that my goodbyes will be ones that aren't truly goodbyes but see you laters.
so i'm going to leave it at this.. [;]
";" is used when a sentence could have ended, but didn't. I'm using the semicolon to represent a goodbye that could have ended, but didn't.
;
Wednesday, 19 June 2013
Its been a while.
Hmmm.
Where to begin?
I have not written in a while, to be honest I don't know why!
I think I shut off a part of me that wanted to express myself, I have been on a journey...
..not an easy one at all, rather a long, lonely, bare, cold road which I have been walking along for a while now. I remember at the end of last summer I saw myself walking along this road, I had felt like it was going to be a hard year, others told me it was going to be a really great one, I think we were both right. This year has been so many things except easy. I've had to face more decisions in one year than I have in the rest of my lifetime. More things standing in my way of reaching every single one of my goals than I could have ever fathomed. You always hear people say "just push through it, you'll get there" but once your faced with those situations that single phrase becomes so much harder to say and to follow, it almost discourages you a bit. I remember thinking "only a bit more, i'll get through it", I remember having this idea that it is solely my situation, that I wasn't supposed to call upon anyone for help, or confide in anyone just me... yea that defiantly wasn't right! I may have even pushed some of the most amazing people away, which was not on purpose. As each new obstacle I face came and went, I began to disengage myself from things; one of the firsts would be swimming (my most favourite sport, which I was/am oh so passionate about), secondly was probably my close friends, and then it was my parents of coarse, this continued... I'm not sure what it was that made me do this, maybe my trust being broken, or feeling like everything good was abandoning me, or if there was something good in the mass of my confusion and sadness. I used to listen to this song called Something Good by RAC remixes of two door cinema's song and pray that the words I were singing were truly real, that something good was coming. I'm not sure if I was blinded by the confusion or the obstacles that I lost sight of that, along with my willingness to fight for what I believe to be true and real in my life. I felt as though I had given up on myself, it was something that I was running from. I don't know why but I've always had some commitment issues, in september I had everything lined up for me, I was a candidate for the national swimming, great opportunities for scholarships, I was determined and motivated ready to plunge into school.. by december that had changed; my passion for swimming had been crushed by a single man, my motivation began to dwindle, my chronic headaches got worse (which was a major cause of my lack of motivation). I felt like nothing, like my head was just above water. And of coarse at the time I made no sense of any of this- I can gladly say i'm beginning to see the bigger picture. I guess i'm writing this because I need to face some things that have happened this year that I ignored and hoped would disappear, well truth is they never disappear. If I sitting here vulnerably face all my obstacles that i've either conquered or failed this year, can I come to terms with them? I guess I can't really know that, I can hope that something good will come of it. I think a good description of this past year would be lost... lost from what or whom I do not know, but I do know I was not walking on familiar ground.
In my last post I spoke about a Highway and road blocks, and about not looking down at our circumstances... now i may seem contradictory but both are real to me. I have moments when I realize my circumstance sucks or things aren't going well, and I can look up and hope for the best but then I have days, months and possibly and year where that almost feels impossible. Things can be so far from good and ideal as well as being far from terrible. I guess its just different, we can't truly test ourselves if were never challenging ourselves, we can't reach our full potential if we don't push ourselves.. now i need to clarify something when I say 'our' i don't necessarily mean our own version of what we can accomplish or our own idea of where our life if leading but i mean 'our big picture' where our life is calling us to be, calling us to accomplish. Now this year I learnt that they may be two very different directions; if i can give you one piece of advice: don't fight it. Don't be so hard on yourself to give up your societal ideal for your life your future, but let the things you love and know to guide you, if you come to that unfamiliar ground don't fight it like i did, walk on it, make a new path.
This summer I just want to do what I love and let that be my guide.
ps. sorry if this entry makes no sense... i'm a bit concussed.
Where to begin?
I have not written in a while, to be honest I don't know why!
I think I shut off a part of me that wanted to express myself, I have been on a journey...
..not an easy one at all, rather a long, lonely, bare, cold road which I have been walking along for a while now. I remember at the end of last summer I saw myself walking along this road, I had felt like it was going to be a hard year, others told me it was going to be a really great one, I think we were both right. This year has been so many things except easy. I've had to face more decisions in one year than I have in the rest of my lifetime. More things standing in my way of reaching every single one of my goals than I could have ever fathomed. You always hear people say "just push through it, you'll get there" but once your faced with those situations that single phrase becomes so much harder to say and to follow, it almost discourages you a bit. I remember thinking "only a bit more, i'll get through it", I remember having this idea that it is solely my situation, that I wasn't supposed to call upon anyone for help, or confide in anyone just me... yea that defiantly wasn't right! I may have even pushed some of the most amazing people away, which was not on purpose. As each new obstacle I face came and went, I began to disengage myself from things; one of the firsts would be swimming (my most favourite sport, which I was/am oh so passionate about), secondly was probably my close friends, and then it was my parents of coarse, this continued... I'm not sure what it was that made me do this, maybe my trust being broken, or feeling like everything good was abandoning me, or if there was something good in the mass of my confusion and sadness. I used to listen to this song called Something Good by RAC remixes of two door cinema's song and pray that the words I were singing were truly real, that something good was coming. I'm not sure if I was blinded by the confusion or the obstacles that I lost sight of that, along with my willingness to fight for what I believe to be true and real in my life. I felt as though I had given up on myself, it was something that I was running from. I don't know why but I've always had some commitment issues, in september I had everything lined up for me, I was a candidate for the national swimming, great opportunities for scholarships, I was determined and motivated ready to plunge into school.. by december that had changed; my passion for swimming had been crushed by a single man, my motivation began to dwindle, my chronic headaches got worse (which was a major cause of my lack of motivation). I felt like nothing, like my head was just above water. And of coarse at the time I made no sense of any of this- I can gladly say i'm beginning to see the bigger picture. I guess i'm writing this because I need to face some things that have happened this year that I ignored and hoped would disappear, well truth is they never disappear. If I sitting here vulnerably face all my obstacles that i've either conquered or failed this year, can I come to terms with them? I guess I can't really know that, I can hope that something good will come of it. I think a good description of this past year would be lost... lost from what or whom I do not know, but I do know I was not walking on familiar ground.
In my last post I spoke about a Highway and road blocks, and about not looking down at our circumstances... now i may seem contradictory but both are real to me. I have moments when I realize my circumstance sucks or things aren't going well, and I can look up and hope for the best but then I have days, months and possibly and year where that almost feels impossible. Things can be so far from good and ideal as well as being far from terrible. I guess its just different, we can't truly test ourselves if were never challenging ourselves, we can't reach our full potential if we don't push ourselves.. now i need to clarify something when I say 'our' i don't necessarily mean our own version of what we can accomplish or our own idea of where our life if leading but i mean 'our big picture' where our life is calling us to be, calling us to accomplish. Now this year I learnt that they may be two very different directions; if i can give you one piece of advice: don't fight it. Don't be so hard on yourself to give up your societal ideal for your life your future, but let the things you love and know to guide you, if you come to that unfamiliar ground don't fight it like i did, walk on it, make a new path.
This summer I just want to do what I love and let that be my guide.
ps. sorry if this entry makes no sense... i'm a bit concussed.
Sunday, 3 March 2013
Highway Houses.
This morning I woke up to my dad making me breakfast, pancakes and bacon with a cup of chai tea... Mhmm it was so good. We then drove to my school where a short bus with ten seats awaited. My volleyball team of 9 girls walk on the bus, each getting our own seat. We embark on our first senior girls volleyball ofsaa EVER! Everyone has been so excited, I don't think it hit me until right now. I find myself sitting on the bus and just realizing how amazing each person is and how we all compliment each others personality. Two of my closest friends are sitting across from each other playing Guess that Tune, its hilarious... all three of us are killing ourselves laughing. I began to realize how blessed i am to have people like this in my life, I think over the past couple weeks I was hurt and just wanted to move on but wasn't able to because I wasn't actually looking at the good stuff. I find as a society we tend to look down when things go wrong, getting caught up in questions like; "why did this happen", "what did I do to let this happen". We begin to focus too much on our faults, and we begin to blame ourselves for these situations happening, but i'm beginning to realize this has nothing to do with our faults and failures but has everything to do with the natural order of things. Now when I say natural order of things I don't mean society or media, I mean God, the universe, where we fit in, and where we are called. God often uses situations and experiences as periods of growth and strengthening, He teaches us, He puts on the straight and narrow. I recently read a quote that said
"we lose hope when we look down at our circumstances. Instead, look up to the one who can change everything"
Now I don't think you have to be spiritual for this quote to be relative, I still believe that if we are constantly looking down at our circumstances or situations we are constantly are looking at what we did wrong or who we lost and expectations we didn't meet. If we look up, we have everything to look forward to, we see opportunities, a life full of adventures and new people, new experiences and most of all our future. If we look up we don't waste any present time being stuck on that road block.
.. now how does this all relate to the 6 hour bus ride, well we've been driving on the same Highway for a long time now, we went through multiple areas of construction, many road blocks, uneven ground, but eventually we will arrive. Im sure of that. Thinking of this highway is a good analogy of our lives.
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