Author: Amanda Viviers

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enough for today

Worry
“So never worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

Yesterday as we dipped in and out of the ocean all day, I had an meandering conversation with my Mum talking about everything and nothing. We watched my babes build sand castles and rescue imaginary people with helicopters. We taught my little how to swim and not be afraid. We solved the world with every word, contemplating the complexity of human relationship.

One little quirk I noticed in my conversation is how many times we started our sentences with…

“I worry that…”

“I worry about…”

“I worry because…”

As two mothers chatting with decades of experience between us, one of the greatest struggles we were divulging was the impact of worry on our motherhood.

I am a dreamer, I spend much of my day thinking about the future. I play around with different ideas, I seek pastures of fulfilment, I spend a lot of my today in tomorrow.

As I look across the unfolding landscape of twenty sixteen, if I am really honest some really big dreams I have held for many, many years are coming to pass. In just a couple of months time I am going to Bangkok and Nepal, a dream that has laid dormant for decades. Most months of this year I have been invited to speak at events right around Australia including Darwin (which I have never visited before), Sydney and Melbourne. In October this year I turn forty and honestly I am so excited about the prospect of this opportunity because I simply have no regrets. I have lived my life wide and open, my today is honestly breathtakingly difficult and I am not ashamed to say I am living the life I have dreamed of.

With my littles in tow, with a beach shack that provides shelter, a community of friends and family who are my portion, a sense of contribution that is life defining. I am so grateful. I am more than grateful, I am completely overwhelmed at the goodness of God.

Despite this humbling perspective, I still worry.

Each invite to travel I get, I worry desperately about my children and whether enough is enough.

Each time I listen and document someone’s story, I play out the plotline across my own and I worry whether my life will take such a drastic turn.

I worry my son spends too much time with technology.

I worry whether his chicken nugget obsession will make him turn into one.

I worry if I am enough for my friends, my husband, my God…you get the picture.

And then I find a scripture like the one from Matthew 6:34, where Jesus encourages us to remain present in our today.

“So never worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

It sounds a little dark when you take it out of context, but across the whole passage, it is imploring us to trust that the Father of all, that the Creator of the universe, He is the one who brings all things together and is at work in our today.

So this year, rather than making decisions out of the handicap of worry, I am determined to change my language to one of trust. I am determined to shift my focus into one of gratitude for what is present in my today and every time I say that I worry about…

To shift my language and perspective to one of thanksgiving for what I have, rather than what could possibly happen.

For Today.

I am thankful.

For Today.

I am grateful.

For Today.

I will remain in the peace of his promise rather than the worry of tomorrow.

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Is my messy enough

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New Zealand, January 2016

I often question whether my messy is enough.

At the moment on our bed is a doona, that from a distance looks pretty sweet, but the closer you get the aftermath of two toddlers in a small war zone undoes the mirage of perfection.

We have some red texta squiggles, we have some coffee spilled stains, we have life in abundance dripping over its falling apart seams and I love, loathe it in the same breath.

I am the speaker that rocks up to the pulpit with food stained down my dress.

I am the guest who drops her plate in the middle of a fancy supper and does her very best to hide into the background of the room recovering from my loud entrance.

I am the girl who has paint splashed on her jeans, mould growing on her fruit and sand dunes flowing out of her back seat.

I am messy.

I live messy.

My head is a little messy.

In a world full of perfection, filters and cameras ajar. Social media streams, pinterest storage solutions, spotify list intense displays. I am not that slick.

I am often late, I forget moments and beginnings, my brain is always designing a new way and the new way doesn’t often fit the mould that everyone is trying to fit in.

My instgram feed doesn’t have a brand or a flow because that’s not how my life looks.

My life she is a messy.

This morning in the midst of hosting a retreat, for fellow truth seekers I have been trying to do my diary for the first few months of twenty sixteen and it is a little messy.

My Mumma heart has the guilts because I am travelling overseas the few days before my little man is scheduled for an operation. My wifey heart is double guessing about how much is too much and what is important and what is just an opportunity.

My enough often looks a little messy and I am seeking peace in the midst of its imperfection.

The new comes my friend swiftly and quickly but it is always messy.

If you are looking for a neat, ordered, simple tomorrow, maybe you are containing its possibility in your enoughness.

Maybe you are stopping something fresh and interesting from landing on your door step, because you are afraid of the messy part.

The goodbyes, the culling, the letting go of, the reframing, the renewing, the old…

All of this process, she is a lot messy.

This year I am stepping out and trying to be okay with my messy parts so that I can step into the possibility of the new.

Nothing new comes clean and ironed, easy with instructions.

The new is like being given a 10,000 piece jigsaw puzzle and it is a lot messy before the picture forms.

So my friend let your enough be a little messy this year, you never know what could be around the corner and if you are like me, you rock up with your blackened roots and splashed coffee down your shirt, with your 2 am revelations and your 10am headache, let your messy be enough my friend.

Be a little kinder to your messy.

You never know what beauty is arising from those ashes.

Because I believe indeed there always is.

She is arising my friend.

Beauty she is in the eye of the beholder and I see perfection in imperfection, I see beauty in the midst of chaos, I delight in the extraordinary.

You my friend are that.

A little messy but a lot more than ordinary.

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can my courage be enough?

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gather + grow [photography for the un-photograher]

On the weekend we gathered with a group of girls, who love photography but would not call themselves photographers. We each pulled out our cameras and dared to turn them off automatic and start to shoot manual.

There is something about gathering with people who are honest enough to say, I want to learn and enjoy the process but at the same time am unsure. Our gather and grow sessions require courage. Courage to sit at a table with strangers, courage to say this is who I am and I want to learn. Courage to show up. Courage to speak about areas we don’t know much about. To admit that we don’t know.

Everytime I do something that takes me out of my comfort zone and stretches my capacity, courage grows.

I think sometimes I just expect of myself that courage is something I should have. I question whether the little bit of courage that hovers in my soul is enough. People often ask me how I do the brave things I often do in my world, like write, speak, my crazy random ideas and mostly I tell them honestly “I am just having a go and making most of it up along the way.”

The reason I am so passionate about creativity is it is like an elixer for our courage health. Creativity connects us to our true voice, the part of us that communicates without words with our worth. When we express something, when we learn a new skill, when we find a nugget of truth and it sinks in to bring health and intention to our self esteem.

When we open ourselves up with courage to do something we have never done before, it is like the muscle of courage is excercised and it makes us stronger.

Do you ever feel like you dont have enough courage?

Does your fear of failure stop you from stepping into situations that you kn0w would be so good for you but your courage wanes?

I know that feeling well. You may read my writing and watch my life stream through social media assuming that courage comes easily to me, but thats not always the case.

Everytime I do something new, everytime I show up in a social situation, each time I speak the truth even when it hurts, it requires a big dose of courage and there are some days that I worry whether my courage will be enough.

Like today, I am in hospital again having surgery on my leg, just day surgery, I am going home to my family sometime soon but this morning as I floated away under general anesthetic I seriously questioned whether my courage would be enough.

In pre-op, I heard families chatting about their pending birth of their baby, I heard a four year old screaming in pain, I watched nurses tending to their patients. I needed to excercise my courage muscle.

I breathed deeply, I prayed silently, I en-couraged myself softly.

Courage is not something that we each have, it is a part of our life and love that grows.

The people who are most courageous are those who have grown their courage and nurtured it.

I love this Psalm 27

Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage.

The reason I love it is because the poet is telling us courage is available for the taking. We can find it. We can gain it. Courage is a big part of our life that can grow. Every time we show up and do something we never thought we could, it’s like we inject our hearts with courage. Every time we fill our minds with the truth rather than negative false truths, courage arises. Every time we do something that is deeply connected with our love, passions or purpose courage grows.

If you are questioning whether your courage is enough for the new season that is awakening, just know that it is a seed that has the potential to grow.

Whether you are contemplating leaving your job and stepping into a new season, wondering how you will survive another year like the last, going to an event that scares you, book in for a mentoring session, take time to answer the New Year questions, write a blog or even use your camera without the automatic settings….

Everytime you feel the fear and do it anyway, your courage may not feel like it is enough but it grows.

The only way your courage recedes is when we don’t step out and do the things we have been intending to. Courage is only activated in the doing.

Dear Lord,

Help me to step out and activate my courage this year. Show me ways to trust and breathe in deeply the truth of your words. May my life be an example to others of strength in You. May my life be a beacon of courage, even though often it feels so far from it. May I have the courage to keep stepping forward towards dreams I have held deeply for years, even though there are times when I question whether I am worthy.

Amen

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He is enough

piano
New Zealand

 

Have you ever known something, but even though you know it, like really know it, you still question it all the time?

A hesitant knowing.

I have known that I have needed to write this post for weeks. Weeks of musing, weeks of thinking, weeks of mind debating but I have a hard out heart-war to declare what I know to be true.

These coming words have not been flippant, quick cliches, that are rolling out of my keyboard without deep contemplation. These coming words have been an internal fight to turn into an external song.

Over the last couple of years (Okay maybe five years) I have really wrestled with the idea of prayer and healing. Not specifically prayer for healing, the concept of them separately.

I have questioned after many a series of calamity, whether prayer is actually as powerful as I have been lead to believe.

I have wrestled.

I have pleaded.

I have asked simply for revelation.

You see I have seen many answered prayers come to pass over this season of contemplation. It is not whether I have seen fruit from my faith. The problem is I have seen and watched many people at the same time pray with as much fervour and faith, without any answer.

I am hesitant to write, that I have often questioned whether God is enough.

Is He enough?

I really want Him to be, but so often I live a life that does not show this to be absolutely true. A life that wrestles with the possibility that maybe, just maybe, He just cannot hear all the time.

Maybe just maybe He skips some prayers and answers others.

Maybe just maybe He is playing a divine game of Russian Roulette.

Maybe.

Or Maybe not.

The haunting part of this state of questioning, is that I know. I know that I know, He is real. I know that I know, that I know, I have prayed and He answered so clearly that either I am a little loopy or He is a lot real.

I’ve seen people helped, I’ve seen miracles unfold, I’ve spoken words that are profoundly not my own, I have written passages that have come to pass, I have seen Him move.

I have heard His voice.

I have known that He is absolutely good.

The problem is often my perspective and often I have just seen many crazy things done in His name as well. These two things combined, has wearied my heart to trust that He is enough.

People and perspective have been my greatest let down but I layer this belief onto the sovereignty of His will.

My heavy heartedness from the way people have projected their questions onto His way, has grown and grown.

When people are experiencing devastating seasons of loss, the last thing they want to hear is that maybe God has another plan. When friends have waited and waited, prayed and fasted, yet their breakthrough has been slow to unveil, the last thing they need sprouted off to them is a quick witted cliche that makes the person saying it feel better about the awkwardness of the situation.

Every time we fake our response to someone and speak irrelevant, insensitive untruths to make ourselves feel somewhat more comfortable in the state of in-between for the person we are interacting with, we reinforce this unspoken question of whether He is enough.

He is enough.

I know He is.

He has shown me over and over again at the power of His presence.

The problem I have always battled with is changing my perspective on what enough looks like for me, this side of eternity.

My enough, is so different to His.

My version of solution is very shallow in comparison to His.

My answer to his tarried response is never with the insight of what is to come.

He is enough.

Even when we have come to the very end of our capacity to trust and hope.

He is enough.

I am certain of it.

Even though I question.

I know it to be true.

But he said to me, “My grace is enough for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” So then, I will boast most gladly about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may reside in me.

2 Cor 12:9

As I step into this New Year, with the potential for amazing grace and heartfelt mercy, I am reminding myself once again that His power is made perfect in my weakness.

In the midst of my questioning, this wandering heart is leaning in to hear from his soft, gentle whisper.

Amongst my heart that heaves and groans awaiting his perspective, I can say without a shadow of a doubt He is enough.

Lord, change my perspective this year about what is enough in my world.

Help me see your ways above my own.

Amen.

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you have enough

Monday night dinners
Monday night dinners

This morning we woke slowly, ground coffee and walked thoughtfully through our morning routine. We fell onto the beach by nine and watch clouds roll past, chatting about nothing and everything in one breath. My two babes played on the sand and I floated softly in the ocean. Watching the sky change every minute with thoughts of fires, friends and what is truly important this year. If you had have asked me four weeks ago, I would have said, number one priority for twenty sixteen, to find our little team a bigger abode. Today that is the furtherest thing on my mind.

My mind quite emphatically has been reassuring my wandering heart, that we have enough. We have enough.

Enough room,

Enough toys,

Enough time,

Enough technology,

Enough towels, sheets, clothes, shoes, jewels, food, delicates.

We have enough.

How often are our days motivated by the culture of scarcity, rather than a culture of gratitude?

Do you rush hoping to fit more in, so that you can purchase the latest trinket?

Do you worry your kids will be rejected because they don’t have the outfit recommended by the most amount of likes on instagram?

Do you fret when walking into a social situation that you will be outed by your nineteen nineties hand bag?

We, those holding our iphones, ipads, macbooks, windows glittered technology we have enough.

Enough.

There is a big enough line, drawn across our hearts and unless we are determined in defining it we can live our days accumulating things rather than people.

We can spend our days ignoring people in our present, whilst stalking people from our past. We scroll through hidden advertisements masked as people’s social media curated life, thinking that unless we have more, unless our house presents a pretty picture, unless we are decorated in finery that we are not enough.

My friend you are indeed enough, if you swam naked today in a beach filled with onlookers you are not only enough, but I am sure that you also have enough.

I remember so fondly the year that I did not buy any new clothes. It was the most fantastic season of growth in my whole life. I redefined who I was outside of layers that covered my soul and I lived free of approval addiction.

So as we step into twenty sixteen and a pile of carefully culled decorations from our jam packed little shack sits in the corner and everything within me wants to hoard up that jar in case one day I may need it and I stare at my cupboard assuring myself that I indeed have many things that I could wear, I am declaring across my life and yours that we have enough. We have enough and everything we need to grow, mature, stretch and become is within our reach.

The scarcity that echoes in our hearts saying we need more to be happy, we must have more to be fulfilled is a big fat lie.

What if this year we prioritised people and experiences over possessions?

What if this year we used generosity as a growth strategy rather than an obligation?

What if we became a river that gave away our possessions, without the feeling that they may never come back, but a river that shared our life sacrificially with others not counting the cost, but revelling in the rebellion?

What if our instagram following was not the measure of our success, but the amount we secretly gave to empower another?

My friend we have enough.

Enough clothes,

Enough space,

Enough possessions,

Enough technology.

Snuggle those who are closest to you and don’t fall into the trap that another toy or gift will win over their love. Time, kindness, grace, forgiveness these are the kind of currency that the world is indeed in poverty from.

Faith, hope, believing the best, loving the unlovable, putting our devices away and loving the ones that we are with.

This year I am hoping to….

Make generosity my growth strategy

What about you?

Do you believe you have enough?

Because honestly someone, somewhere is praying for that which we don’t even notice is a answered prayer of ours from long ago.

What is your enough line?

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