I guess all those who know me will know that I am into 'Eucharisteo' the art of giving thanks.jA while back  I started writing a list of all that I was thankful for.

This idea came from the amazing book '1000 gifts' by this wonderful woman called Ann Voskamp. If you haven't read it get it on your Christmas list! 
I realised that daily I had so much to be thankful for or on the days when it was a struggle if I thought about my day I still found at least one thing to be thankful for. 
This last month I have got out of the habit and guess what? I am not as joyful!
Gratitude therefore must plant joy and constantly finding things to be thankful for then must water the joy and make it grow.
I don't know if any of you my friends journal but I have been doing it for years and I often look back to last year's journal and realise I was in the same place as I was then as I am now! God is soooo patient with me!
So I want to start planting joy in my joyless self so am going back to writing my thankful list
These are a few from a week where I have been really struggling with a painful mouth and not wanted to look for things to be thankful for!!

1. Lovely friends surprise parcel that made me laugh outloud!
2. Gorgeous smelling roses from my hubby
3. My oldest making tea
4. My youngest constantly looking after me and giving me hugs

There I have started again!! I read this quote this week " Grattitude opens the gates of heaven!"

Anyone going to join me in a Thankful List?

Seasons of the soul!

 I once heard it said that our souls go through seasons and I am starting to think that it is so!
I love living in England where we get all four seasons I can't really pick my favourite but I love the colours in Autumn.

I was blessed to have a days retreat in a lovely quaint house that had a beautiful garden the Autumn colours mesmerised me and I spent most of my day looking out the window and reflecting at what I saw.

I was watching leaves fall from a huge strong tree and on one branch remained a stubborn bright orange leaf, it would not let go!! It made me think what do I stubbonly keep hold of? I wrote a few down to remind me to work on letting go!! Unforgiveness, selfishness, these two is what I battle with I know all I need to do is just let go and I would free fall into God's arms of grace.

I then watched a lovely lady try and rake a huge lawn of leaves I asked myself Why? She would have been there all day and what for just to do it all over again the next day as that tree certainly had a lot of leaves to fall off!!
I realised that a pile of leaves blocks what is underneath just like this path the wet leaves would be treacherous for anyone to walk on them but look how clear and safe it looks when all the leaves have gone!


Thats just like my life I can easily ignore the pile up of stuff that
is blocking my walk with God or I can rake them up and ask
God to work with me on cleaning up my soul so that I can
walk through the seasons of life not bogged down by mulch of dead leaves. I want to grow so things need to be got rid of for that to happen.

Happy Autumn Everyone

He delights in us!!

Sunday nights seem to be my blogging night!! This week I have been continuing to mull over the idea of servant hood verses friendship! Questions going through my mind like Am I just serving God or am I working with God?


God delights in us he has adopted us as children and wants us to be his friend and yet I see him as my master and serve him and not always with a gracious heart. So if  I am  a friend of God I would see Him differently.

 Lately he has been getting my attention throught amazing dreams and I have really had my eyes open wow he wants me to talk to him as  a friend as He talks to me.

That got me thinkig of what kind of friend am I? I often serve my friends and offer encouragement and a listening ear but do I bare my soul to them do I let them in?

I have been challenged of sharing my dreams with God what are my desires for future and for my family and I got excited at the possibilty of God takeing my ideas and putting them into reality because if I take the verse from Psalm 37 v 4 seriously then  he wants to give us our desires doesnt' he?

So those are my ramblings for this Sunday I would love to hear your thoughts
I love and appreciate you my friends my lifers!!

Mary verses Martha!!

Do you know which one you are??

Is any one out there like me? You spend alot of your time doing rather than being!
I wear myself out by doing the things I think I ought to be doing and not eneough time asking God what his plan is for my day!!

I scurry around from one hamster wheel to another trying to fit in everything in one day when no one has forced the  long written list upon me I did that myself!!

Realisticly there are things that need to be done on a daily basis otherwise we wouldn't eat or be clothed ( Adam and Eve have a lot to answer for on the clothing front!! We would save so much time if we were in the 'natural' no washing or ironing!!) but there also other things that really we need to just put down.

I read Bill Johnson slant on the Mary verses Martha story and it hit me hard!!
Jesus came to vist the sisters and he wanted to be with them instead Martha was making sandwiches for Jesus that Jesus didn't order!!!!! Wow!
I am so like Martha I think the house needs to be cleaned before people come to stay I think they need baking in to make them happy, I always feel the need to take baking to peoples homes even though I am tired!! I find myself saying I ought to go and visit so and so hmm God must be shaking his head!!

Jesus wants us to work along side him as friends not work for him as a servant, a servant doesn't know what his master mind is but Jesus reveals himself to us and wants to confide in us we need to take the time out for intamacy so he can whisper his ways into our hearts. We then we work with him and it doesn't become a chore but a pleasure. I am so ready to sit with him and just be in his presence anyone care to join me?

Not to self 'Angela stop making sandwiches that Jesus hasn't ordered!! '

 

A Glimpse at God's Perspective

Well what an experience our lovely family bought for us, 16 month ago vouchers for Virgin balloon flight! After a couple of cancellations the day finally arrived that we were able to step into that rather large basket and trust one man and an awful lot of material and a few ropes to keep us afloat 2,000 feet in the sky!!!

The evening was warm and very calm all 16 passengers got to work together in laying out the balloon and preparing it for flight. We all listened intently to the pilots instructions especially what the landing position looked like. He warned us that the basket may tip over on landing and may drag all of us across the ground and if this occurred we had to hold on to the handles at all times!! Was I scared? Not a bit I was so up for the adventure bring it on!!


For those people who like detail the balloon first had to be filled with cold air by two gigantic fans then when it was inflated the pilot turned on the gas burners when this happened we had to speedily jump into the basket.
Before we set off the pilot threw off a gas bottle and reconnected a tube to another bottle at this I was a little concerned thinking does he have enough bottles to keep us up there!!

We climbed ever so slowly the burners were very hot and noisy we waved at small people and even smaller children as we floated by!

We rose to 2,000ft and just stopped, the air was so still it felt like we were no longer moving and all 16 passengers stopped talking it was so peaceful. Looking down we had such a clear view of people's homes, gardens children playing in parks, cars speeding down roads.
It got me thinking of how God must look down on us and see our busyness and how he must want to shout SLOW DOWN be at peace! It was easy being at peace up in the clouds we had nothing else to do but enjoy the view  and enjoy the moment.

I want to experience peace even in the midst of business I guess its reminding myself to look at things from the creators perspective and not let my mind be so overwhelmed with the worlds view of things.

The landing was perfect we just slowly descended and hovered about a foot away from the ground and just stopped amazing.

Thankful for family who sent us up Thankful for the Pilot who brought us back down and Thankful for my Creator God for the amazing views!

 



Its ok to have a bad day!

Confession Time

This is my second attempt at this blog because I typed it all up then forgot to save it and it all went away! My bad day just got worse lol!!

I hear two women today talk about confession they were having their children take there first communion and they all had to go to confession they were appalled at the idea as confession is not what you see in films! Not a nice priest in a box listening to you as you confess your darkest secrets the Priest just sits next to you and you fess up!!

So they say confession is good for the soul so here goes!!

My name is Angela and I am

• Not perfect ( even though I try far too hard to be)
• addicted to diet coke
• not always gracious
• not always forgiving
• notalways  holy
• not always positive
• HUMAN
• just a cracked pot that God chooses to use!!
• in need of words of affirmation and encouragement

Today was a flat day in fact all week has been a crappy( sorry Su your right I couldn't bring myself to use the other word!!) week, feeling overwhelmed with the list that is never ending and the feeling that I am juggling lots of things and therefore not doing one job really well. I have so not been gracious or being quick to forgive and it all just came to a head today when instead of going home I drove to the beach to have a pity party for one ( they are not fun so you didn't miss out!!) I moaned at God then at a friend who rang me just when I got so deep in my pit I wanted to cry!! Then she made me laugh and allowed me to have a pity day then I felt soo much better.
So for all those who put me on a pedistal and think I am super human please take me off before I fall off.
I read this the other day You are Beautiful so  may being beautiful on the inside is being honest with yourself and others and just letting go of the reigns a little and saying I cant do this but I know you can God.
So thanks for being part of my  confessional today am greatful for all of you and for my enourmous God who has mighty big shoulders and listens to my and watches over me and picks me up dusts me down and gives me a fresh start.
Tomorrow is another day x

Which Path?

Saturday found us taking a walk at Castle Eden Walk way after a big meal with our friend we need to stretch our legs and get into the sunshine the boys so didn't follow our thought pattern!  I had to drag them out but once there they loved getting there aggression out by using large sticks to whack the weeds! The other reason for going was I wanted  to collect dead wood for the chiminea we ended up going of the track and collecting a good bagful, it was great to see our friend playing pine cone base ball and pine cone golf!!

We walked further along this path and the path came to fork which path to take the choice was ours?

 

We took the one on the right! Our friend wanted to spot squirrel they all were hiding but we were stunned by beautiful dragon fly and amazing spiders and their intricate webs and  a few butterfly.

What would we have seen on the other path who knows? Did we go on the right path?

It got me thinking about life, I have made choices that led me away from God, relationship choices that harmed me not helped me, made quick decisions without consulting God.

As I was growing up I heard people say that there is only one path that God has marked out for you and you need to make sure you take that right path, I got so hung up on it that I was constantly anxious that I was making the wrong choice's. Looking back I now realise that what ever path we choose God doesn't shake his head and say " That's it you have done it now, your on your own!" He loves us enough to teach us lessons on those paths and can guide us back on track.

I know I want God's best for my life so I guess I need to consult Him more!!

 

Psalm 25 v 4 and 5

Show me your ways, O Lord, teach me your paths, guide me

in your truth, and teach me, for you are God my saviour,

and my hope is in you all day long.

 

 

My mum had many sayings that she used repeatedly and one of them was

 ‘Do you have a D.R.A?’ Dirty Rotten Attitude!!! I used to hate the question because more often or not she was right I did have a stinking attitude!

 Other questions, which I so wanted to avoid were “How’s your soul?” Or “What’s God teaching you right now?” I miss those questions now that I appreciate what they do! They make you revaluate your whole thought processes!!

I thought of attitude today and I thought ‘Gratitude helps towards positive attitudes’ you can’t have a D.R.A when your thanking God! I was slipping into one tonight feeling overwhelmed with my to do list and everyone wanting a piece of me, I was shooting up arrow prayers trying to be thankful and trying to let go of my list and then I thought of Mum again!! When mum was dying of a brain tumour we all took it in turns to nurse her it was the hardest thing I have physically and emotionally done but the biggest privilege! She decided like Abraham she wanted to give each of her daughters a blessing before she died of course as the youngest I was last and these are the words she gave me..

The daily round the common task

Furnishes all we need to ask

Room to deny ourselves the road that leads to God

I was sooooo disappointed in her blessing! deny myself what was all that about?

Now 13 years later I get it, I may not like it but I get it! I am a naturally selfish person I would much rather sit in the sun reading than be in doors preparing services, youth club or cleaning, I would rather have lazy days doing nothing than helping others, but that’s not what God intends for me or any of us!

It’s often in the daily common tasks that I can feel God trying to get through to me like washing up! I have many heated discussion with God with my hands in soapy dirty water!! One more mumism!! J.O.Y Jesus first Others next Yourself last!

So thanks mum I think!!

 

Carbohydrates and Protein feed the body

Words feed the soul!

 

Do you have a D.R.A

My mum had many sayings that she used repeatedly and one of them was

 ‘Do you have a D.R.A?’ Dirty Rotten Attitude!!! I used to hate the question because more often or not she was right I did have a stinking attitude!

 Other questions, which I so wanted to avoid were “How’s your soul?” Or “What’s God teaching you right now?” I miss those questions now that I appreciate what they do! They make you revaluate your whole thought processes!!

I thought of attitude today and I thought ‘Gratitude helps towards positive attitudes’ you can’t have a D.R.A when your thanking God! I was slipping into one tonight feeling overwhelmed with my to do list and everyone wanting a piece of me, I was shooting up arrow prayers trying to be thankful and trying to let go of my list and then I thought of Mum again!! When mum was dying of a brain tumour we all took it in turns to nurse her it was the hardest thing I have physically and emotionally done but the biggest privilege! She decided like Abraham she wanted to give each of her daughters a blessing before she died of course as the youngest I was last and these are the words she gave me..

The daily round the common task

Furnishes all we need to ask

Room to deny ourselves the road that leads to God

I was sooooo disappointed in her blessing! deny myself what was all that about?

Now 13 years later I get it, I may not like it but I get it! I am a naturally selfish person I would much rather sit in the sun reading than be in doors preparing services, youth club or cleaning, I would rather have lazy days doing nothing than helping others, but that’s not what God intends for me or any of us!

It’s often in the daily common tasks that I can feel God trying to get through to me like washing up! I have many heated discussion with God with my hands in soapy dirty water!! One more mumism!! J.O.Y Jesus first Others next Yourself last!

So thanks mum I think!!

 

 

Carbohydrates and Protein feed the body

Words feed the soul!

The Eve of new things( Or the last day of summer!!)

Tonight I sat in our newly made over yard with the candles lit creating chalk pictures on the flag stone's.  I started to feel a little sad, thoughts like 'its the last day of the holidays', 'back to work and school' and 'back to routine's and meetings' then I thought 'why do I have to think of it as the last day of everthing I could think of it as the eve of a new term or the eve of new things!'
Just because I am going back to work doesn't mean I have to stop sitting out in candle light or catching up with friends or going out for treats!  

This summer I have read a great book called When the game is over IT ALL GOES BACK IN THE BOX!! by John Ortberg its a great book very challenging I am going to share a page from it ( am i allowed to do that in a blog? Please tell me if I am not as I am new to all this!!)

Fill each square with what matters most

 

The board that you and I play on comes in the shape of a calender.

It is filled with squares, and each square is another day. We live

one square at a time. A very wise Dutchman by the name of Lewis Smedes wrote this several decades

ago.

 

I bought a brand new date book yesterday, the kind I used every year, spiral bound, black imitation leather covers wrapped around pages and pages of blank boxes.Every square has a number to tell me which day of the month I'm in at the moment.

Every square is a  frame for one episode of my life. Before I'm through with the book, I will fill the squares with classes I teach, people with whom I ate lunch, everlasting committee meetings, I sit through and these are only the things I cannot afford to forget. I fill the squares with things I do not write down to remember, thousands of cups of coffee, some lovemaking, some praying, and I hope, gestures of help to my neighburs. Whatever I do, it has to fit inside one of those squares on my date book. I live one square at a time. The four lines that make up the box are walls of time that organize my life. Each box has an invisible door that leads to the next square. As if by a silent stroke, the door opens and I am pulled through, as if by a magnet, sucked into the next square in line. There I will again fill the timeframe that seals me fill it with busy ness just as I did the square before.

As I get older, the squares seem to get smaller. One dat I will walk into a square that has no door. There will be no mysterious opening and no walking into an adjoining square. One of those squares will be terminal. I do not know which square it will be.

 

 

The author goes on to say we live such busy lives that we never seem to have the time for, important things like God, Joy and People and he encourages his readers to put them first and fit everything else in around them as everything else is tempory. I want to live like that not to cram as much in my days as I can to accomplish what is on my to do list at the cost of spending time with family or friends

Today on my list was to much out my youngest bedroom then spend the afternnoon with both boys I was interupted by a phone call hmmmmm our interuptions our God's opportunities I think that came from a Godly lady who liked to tick of lots on her to do list!! That phone call ended up me listening and praying and I felt more blessed that the lady who called me!!

I want to be an invester of what is important!!

Happy Eve of New things!! x



Laughter the greatest medicine!

 

I love holiday's, chilling out and spending quality time with my family why?

well life just slows down and we all become different people. We laugh so much more and things look different through holiday eyes than work eyes!

 

Today was shopping for school shoes day and this is one chore I really loathe but I was in holiday mode so it was easy!! My gorgeous tweenager and I laughed as we walked into the shoe shop actually laughed out loud. The reason for this I guess you want to know was that we were talking about how we are so chilled out when were on holiday and I told him I don't want to go back to work and become all serious again!! He said "Mum just put a reminder on your phone that says laugh more" I said that was a good idea and when I don't find anything funny I will just force my self to laugh!! I then demonstrated a forced hysterical laugh that then led into real laughter that made him laugh and me nearly wetting myself!! So the day went so much better than I thought because of laughter!!

We went for a drink together I embarressed him by singing out loud to a pop song that I really didn't know this led to me laughing out loud when he took the car keys and walked out of the shop in disgust!!

 

So next week is back to work and I so want to be more Joyous about it, for one thing I have a job and others don't. I am in the job that I believe is God shaped for me. I am also in a job that needs more joyfilled people to work there so I am

going to take my sons advice and surround my self with notes to remind me to laugh out loud more anyone else going to join in the challenge?

 

God is perminently Hugging us!!

 

 

 

 

  

I love hugs not those kind of wimp one armed hugs but those bear squeeze your breath out of you hugs!
So when I read Psalm 139 v You hem me in behind and before, you have laid your hand upon me!
Well I just thought thats a bear hug he wraps his arms right round us and He never lets us go ever!

And yes I know God doesn't have arms or legs I wish he did so we could feel those hugs of His but He has given us arms so go hug someone today!!

Familiarity

They say 'familiarity breeds contempt' right well I dont agree!!
I like familiar!! I like it when people know me and know what I like.
My man knows that I love ice in my water he knows that I dont like tepid drinks!
He knows I hate black currant!
My close friends know that if they open any cupboard in my kitchen they will most probably have soemthing
fall out on them!! My arty friends know that I am so not arty!!
I love that my friends know my past and I don't have to explain everything to them.
So when I read in Psalm 139 v 3 You discern my going out and my lying down, you are familiar with all my ways..
that just blows my mind. The creater of the univers knows everything yes everything about me my little quirks and my not so little failures and He loves me just the same wow!! More about Psalm 139 another time x

Keeping It Real

I was taught by my dear mum to get life lessons out of any object

it became a game who could tell a story out of say a cereal box!!

So this is what this blog is about life lessons out of the ordaniary!

I guess its also about my journey wiht God and what inspires me

I hope you enjoy the ride as much as I am!!