Category: emo/ thought provoking/ too much green tea

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squashed banana, rolled eyes and dust parties

Tonight as the grey water drained away at my sink, leftover pieces of onion, celery and cheerio’s lay drowning in its wake, my eyes rolled as I forced my hand in to scoop them into the bin. Lately, a short, little sentence has been dancing around the inside of my mind.

To be served or to serve?

Ouch.

Motherhood can be just so ordinary, squashed bananas in my four hundred dollar rug, dust parties with leftover grout and tile glue, my ordinary is so very ordinary. Just like you.

I’m not wanting to complain but I struggle so often to find my place of peace, where I can accept my today with grace and fortitude. Some months it comes so easily and others, well let’s say tomorrow is another day.

to serve orbe served-

I know this question isn’t one that is difficult to answer just for Mums of small children. It is for wives, for daughters, for friends, it is something that we all wrestle with on a daily basis.

When the dishes are left piling at the work sink, to be served or to serve?

When someone does something that you have been longing to do, to be served or to serve?

Being human is a call to service. Yet we live in a culture and an age that preaches constantly to us about entitlement. We are entitled to dream, we are entitled to live big lives, we are entitled to a fair go.

The more I see the age of entitlement grow, the more I am realising that it is causing a deep dissatisfaction in the ordinary parts of our lives. We see windows into our online friend’s worlds and we compare every moment, every filter and every follower with our own.

To be served or to serve?

What a profound question. As I stand in the queue at the post office like I did today with my not yet two-year-old screaming for the Peppa Pig Book placed right in her eyesight. As I pick her up and she kicks me ferociously, “To be served or to serve?”

As I sat down tonight to write, stealing a quiet moment after dinner and I hear my family gather on the couch to read a book and all I want to do is ignore it because Daddy is home and it’s now my time. “To be served or to serve?” So I quietly put my computer to sleep and walked out to the couch knowing that this time is precious and irreplaceable.

When the washing pile stinks and the dishwasher lay unpacked, when the sheets need to be changed and the floor cries to be swept.

To be served or to serve.

In a society that tells us what our rights are and how we need to look out for ourselves to find our peace. It is through serving another that humility, grace, patience and fortitude they grow, they manifest and they change our very core.

In a society that preaches the self-made man and the girl boss who wins. When I listened to the news this morning the preacher said “I don’t believe you go find yourself, I believe we need to make ourselves” how do we find perspective and grace when we are surrounded by pressure to live successfully by making ourselves seem amazing?

What if the mark of a successful person was the way they served those closest?

What if the most impressive attribute of a CEO was the way they treated their staff?

What if the person who served the most was the one with the most likes on social media?

What if our politicians spent their days seeing their role of one of service to humanity rather than a privilege?

What if we taught our children the way to win was to let another go before?

To be served or to serve?

I find myself lately realigning what impresses me and it is no longer stats, or numbers, people following or attendance, I am impressed by the way those in privileged places serve in the quiet moments with no spotlight. How they chat with people who cannot help them. If they dismiss and ignore the forgotten, the lonely and misrepresented.

I am watching the leaders as they walk slowly through their supermarket aisles.

I am aching to see leaders serve with a heart that is not impressed by status or what the world deems successful.

I am desperate to see a culture that teaches our young that it is indeed better to serve than to be served.

So for tonight as I put away my computer and snuggle up to my husband. When I sweep the floor and pick up those dirty clothes. As I wash another load and I listen for my children’s cries tonight deep in the dark of winter.

Please, Lord, continue to echo in my broken heart to be served or to serve.

Amen

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learning to be flexible enough to dream again

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Muse nine scents candle: French Pear.

I have always been a dreamer, a big believer and a people collector. From the earliest age I can remember, I was the producer, the director, the dance teacher and the event coodinator. We would arrange lavish productions for our family and friends, with oranges down leotards and lipstick for days.

I dreamed of creative productions, I coordinated people in my dreams and woke with bossy words dripping from my lips.

My mum always encouraged me and I am sure my Dad constantly had a roll in his eyes, but dreaming for greater days has always been natural for me. The hard part has been navigating seasons of wait and not allowing the dream to die in the midst of the valley.

Dreams die hard and fast when the reality of daily life sets in. People criticise, morgtages drain funds, memories of failure linger and hearts quiver at the thought of trying again.

Lately I have been learning that one of the greatest inhibitors to my voice finding freedom, is holding on to tight to the journey towards the actualisation, rather than the dream birthing. I am a hustler by day and a dreamer by night. I have no problem working loyally and sacrificially to make something happen.

In the realm of our life’s signiture, when we push too hard and fret about the end result, the process of realisation often becomes stuck.

The more we grip, the longer it takes.

The tighter we hold, the more stressful the outcome.

I have been learning that flexibility is the key to dreaming again and hope is the answer in allowing a new sound to arise.

There is something so unique about your voice, whether it is through writing, speaking, designing, creating, taking photos, expressing yourself, cooking, hospitality and how you arrange your home.

You have a voice.

You are unique.

You have purpose.

You are delightful.

I have found in my own dream walk however, that when I cling onto things, when I try too hard, I am like a teenage boy trying to speak in the shift of their voice changing and all that comes out is a loud squeak.

I am learning to be kinder in my self talk and swifter in letting something go if it is just not working but determined in beginning again. Everytime something fails, I am learning to not spend so much time going over what went wrong but stepping forward into the grace that is available for the new and trying again.

Are you stuck?

Does your voice sound hoarse?

Are you struggling to dream again?

My question is this for you…

What are you clinging on to?

What are you trying to control?

Where is there a place of tension, that you are unable to gain peace?

This may be the answer to dream again. Flexibility is not loosing all control, in fact it takes a lot more skill and strength to be a yoga ninja who can bend, hold and extend themselves to find their place of balance.

Be flexible.

Don’t hold on so tight.

But have a go.

Step forward into your new my friend and find your voice, by beginning to dream again.

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finding your way, again.

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Liberty Elizabeth, aged 18 months.
Three words have been resounding around my heart and head for twenty sixteen and this blog. This little message began to emerge as a reoccurring theme towards the end of my last season, as they often do and have not left my day to day.

These words are basic yet profound. They are powerfully simple and I know that they are a message for my own life as well as some others who follow my random thoughts over here on this piece of the internet.

Last year the theme of the in-between, was so strong that I could not let go of its message. I walked around and around its citadel until late in twenty fifteen, until I felt a simple encouragement rise from the depths of my very being that whispered softly “The in-between is now over.”

The theme for my new season is this…

“find your voice”

There is something so strong emerging, where I know a strength of womanhood is arising, where there is a company of women realising that through authenticity, through facing weakness, by not being afraid of failure, they can step out and bring their uniqueness to their place in the world.

A company of women is arising.

A strength of womanhood, that is not saying that they are better or stronger than their male counterparts, they are just not content anymore with quietening themselves to make others happy.

A breadth of womanhood who is not filling their days with gossip and strife, but stepping out into places of breakthrough where they begin to live the life they have silently dreamed of.

Women who write with courage.

Women who speak with conviction.

Women who are not afraid of their submitted power.

Women who do not compare themselves with other women and pull them down in their moment of victory.

These are the thoughts that have been consuming me of late, thoughts of encouraging a sound from women who have been suppressed, abused, beaten and accused.

I feel so compelled to help you to find your voice again. Helping you to speak a little louder, to not be afraid of the shout that is forming in your chest, to speak out what has been plaguing you and to bring your finest expression to your perspective.

To implore you towards counsellors, pastors, prayer and perspective. To inspire you about going back to university if that has been on your mind and saying yes to the opportunities to speak out.

To like loudly when I see your posts on Facebook of the new initiatives, books, blogs and creative pursuits that are filling your days.

To write here bravely and keep sending my manuscripts to publishers, asking that doors be open, because every time a door opens for me, it opens a space for those who follow my heart and life. 

Every time a door opens, it means that new opportunities for those closest and those who comment, those who engage, those who are a part of my tribe. We walk into these new places and lands together.

It confuses me sometimes when women struggle to celebrate a friends release into a new season, opportunity or accomplishment. Every time we are filled with rage, jealousy, comparison or competition, we exclude ourselves from the absolute joy and satisfaction of revelling in another achieving what they have dreamed of.

I declare this new day to be here. A day when we help each other find our voices and not shut each other down. That we dance when our tribe wins a victory and we mourn when they are weakened in battle.

A company of creative women is rising.

A group of uncommon poets and artisans.

Women who live surrendered to the power of community and seeing the company of womanhood win, rather than the individual teared down. Women who start to write, write, write until their hands ache and their heart sweats from the intentionality of their focus. Women who desire greatly to serve with their whole hearts and follow it up with the tone and tension in their words. Women who design differently, who bring a fresh voice of committed dedication, women who strive to lay down their ego and listen to anothers dreams.

A company of women who believe for greater days, pray for breakthrough like never before and a people who are so deeply aware that life is so very fragile and short.

Women who are the same tenure at the school gate, as they are in their church bathroom stalls, women who see the pain in another woman’s eyes and rock up at their front door with a meal cooked for their children. Women who create without fear of being criticised by her gang, but cheered on for taking a step and expressing the pearls that lay dormant in the depths of her person.

Women who encourage honestly and cheer loudly.

Women who say sorry but not for being born.

Women who find strength when they lift another and speak out for the injustice that plagues societies core.

Women who raise young women who are not afraid to be different.

Women who find what they were created for, even when life has made them forget.

Passion is writhing in my soul, to see this company of women find their voices and their way again.

Twenty sixteen, you have my attention.

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Is your dream big enough?

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Dwellingup |  Photo: Amanda Viviers

We were shopping for something very specific, school shoes, school bags, you know the painstaking trip. My three year old became fixated on a pair of shoes that didn’t really match my idea of what was school efficient, plus they were a size and probably a half too big, with no smaller options. A meltdown was ensuing on both sides of the Mummy and Max team, with Libby slowly pulling anything within reach off the shelves.

This was the beautiful background context to today’s inspiring story.

We were one month old in launching our new business Maximus & Liberty, we were one week out of the craziness of a last minute trip to New Zealand and my patience was thin from the pain of growth and living a life inspired.

In fact, I was probably regretting taking courageous risks, more than I was feeling the beauty of our newborn dream realised.

Have you ever had those days.

Days of regret?

Days with overwhelmed feelings of “what have we done”?

Days when you realise that your friends and family are asking the exact same question without whispering the words out loud?

Dreams awakening are not for the faint hearted, it is easy to come up with ideas, but to actually have the courage to take the risk and have a go, that is next level faith. Back to Target and our school shopping expedition and what happened next.

As we walked past the linen and home wares aisle, my husband pulled a throw pillow off the shelf and threw it casually into our school themed trolley. I looked at him, not much was said between us, until I got home and I rolled my eyes.

As much as I live my life seeking and drawing out inspiration, there are days when another quote is just not what I need.

The pillow said this…

If you dream big enough anything can come true.

Some days lately I have wanted to throw the pillow out of our window.

Living an intentional life, living a life where you are designing the type of future of your dreams is not the kind of life for the fearful.

We were sitting in church on the weekend and our pastor spoke a message that challenged every regret in our today. His words were steeped in faith and expectation. He spoke about courage and taking risks, it was the exact message we needed to hear.

Courage to take risks,

Courage in wisdom,

Courage to take the steps necessary to live the life you have dreamed of.

It reminded us of a message we heard from Erwin McManus last year when he made this profound statement;

One of the great ironies is that most people do not think of themselves as artists or believe that they are creative.  Yet we all have dreams and aspirations.  We all have, if only as a quiet whisper, a voice within our souls calling us to awaken our creative essence.   Too often the voice calling us to embrace our artisan soul is overshadowed by all the voices that tell us we are less.

Most people have been diminished by the voices that have silenced their childlike wonder and faith.  Here, by the way, is a good measure for when you are hearing the voice of God- God never makes you less human; He always make you most fully and beautifully human.

True courage takes great risk.

The future does not belong to the faint hearted, it belongs to the brave.

Ronald Regan

Every day that I see that pillow sitting on the chair in the corner of our lounge room, it is like a beacon of hope to my soul and it implores me to take heart and courage stepping into the brilliance of God’s plans for our future.

Are your dreams big enough my friend?

Or can you do them without hope and help?

If your dreams are not scaring you, then maybe they are so achievable that you are making them safe and therefore God-less.

Step out and dream brave my friends.

Take risks and have courage to actually act today on the dreams that lie dormant.

Pick up that manuscript,

Type that blog,

Put on those exercise clothes,

Step into the great unknown,

Pull out that camera,

Write that book proposal,

Contact that person,

Step forward with what you have in your hands today, even if it is very, very small.

Be bold and courageous, your future self will thank you.

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I don’t have enough time

Point Peron, 18th January
Point Peron, 18th January

One of the greatest challenges of my current season is the statement I say often which is “I just don’t have enough time.” It is the peril of brilliant motherhood. When we complete every task with pinterest perfection, when we meet every need that is tugging at our heart strings, when we win in others lives, something loses.

When our schedule is dictated by perfectionism, someone is left behind. Whether it is our little people who are tagging behind us as we shout “Hurry, hurry into the atmosphere”. Maybe it is our nearest and dearest, those people who are the ones we are supposed to be doing it for in the first place. Maybe we are the ones who are losing sleep, losing peace, losing love as it slowly leaks out of our over stuffed lives.

When we shout into the universe that we just don’t have enough time, we lose the present, we lose.

I love lists, I love order, I love to feel like I am living with deep convictions and equal compassion.

I love a good hustle, I love to fill my life with people and task, with passion and purpose.

I am learning in this season though, that time some times just does not make sense. You know those moments where we say to each other “Is it just me or the years getting faster?” or “Can you believe it is Christmas, Easter, Winter, Spring already?”

We say statements like…

“Where did the time go?”

“Before I knew it my child was grown up, it just went so fast.”

We get angry when Hot Cross Buns appear on our shopping shelves before we have even taken down the Christmas decorations, but the truth is it is only ten short weeks away before Easter is skipping across our days.

Time doesn’t change.

Seconds don’t speed up.

Years have mostly the same number, with an occasional extra thrown in for good measure.

We have enough time.

I think what changes is the way we allocate their resource across our days.

A scripture that has always intrigued me is this one…

But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 2 Peter 3:8

It is like it is saying that time is irrelevant in the midst of the insight that eternity brings, that when we are waiting, that when we are seeking, that when we are frustrated, time is not in debt to these things.

We have enough time, somedays it is just reframing what is important, what is irrelevant and what is exhilarating in our schedule.

I am learning to keep massive chunks of my day free and allowing an organic approach to my task list detail. Rather than getting frustrated with my lack of progress, I am giving myself space to choose in the midst of the day what is important, what is irrelevant and what is exhilarating.

When I couple the things that excite me, along with those that are important, I fit so much more into my days and I allow the normal ebb and flow of my family life to dictate that which is important.

I am also realising that some of the things that demand my attention (emails, facebook messages, phone calls) with things that seem so urgent are actually not what I should be giving my enough time to.

So rather than scrolling mindlessly through facebook to comfort a heart that is wanting to escape a little, I am putting on some music, singing along and sweeping our floor.

Instead of packing my schedule full of all the people and tasks that are necessary, I am committing myself to one thing each day and anything else I achieve is an absolute bonus.

I am wading through all the obligations in my diary and releasing myself from anything that I have said yes to out of habit of wanting to please people rather than the intention of what I want to give my time to.

I am listening a little more to the areas of my life that there is a grace for and allowing that sense of peace to lead and guide me.

We have enough time my truth seekers, there are just some things that we give our time to that don’t really deserve it’s precious treasure.

You have enough time my friend, take back ownership of its direction and become the captain of that ship again.

We have enough.

We really do.

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