Category: emo/ thought provoking/ too much green tea

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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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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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you are enough

The farm
Eagle Rest, Dwellingup

Each day awakens across our Earth with the same number of moments. There are families in this very moment savouring each and every breath as they wait and watch their loved one pass, there are Mothers today regretting times when they said something that fractured their family apart. There are wives sitting without husbands, counting the days, seconds and milli-moments, hoping they could rearrange and go back to a place when what was lost could be re found. There are men crying at the charred remains of their beloved homesteads.

Every moment across our Earth, people are succeeding, people are fading, people are burying and people are birthing.

We each have the same amount of moments, but we each spend these moments very differently.

The last month for us, has been a crazy ride of delight and devastation. From losing loved ones, to welcoming favourites from overseas. From opening presents, to New Years reflections. From the bushes of the outback of Western Australia, where scorpions landed on friends legs, to winding back lanes in New Zealand, foraging to celebrate the life of a dear friend.

Tonight as I sit here and write, the farm where this photo was taken just a few short days ago, is just one town from a raging bushfire. Life is increasingly fragile and the more we give in to the delicateness of its trust, the more we struggle with our capacity to move forward into new days.

As I have traversed the highs and lows, the long plane trips and the slow, telling forrest highways, I have had a little something raging in my heart of hearts. A few words that change absolutely everything.

These words are not just for me this New Year I suspect, I am thinking they are for you as well.

Words that have haunted me, because if I was absolutely down right, disgustingly honest. I did not achieve either of my goals for twenty fifteen. Both of them remain unfulfilled. With every valid excuse in the world, I just didn’t pull them off.

How about you?

What about your New Year?

Has it been quiet?

Has it been devastating?

Has it been uneventful?

What about quietly inspiring?

The words that have been whispering to me in the wake of such a unexpected and dramatic end to twenty fifteen are these simple three words.

You

Are

Enough.

You are enough my friend.

My dear friend Ruthee has taught me more in her passing, than any moment of intense conversation that we have shared together. That life is so short, it is a vapour, it passes through our hands, leaving joy and questions in its wake.

What stops us often from stepping forward into days of deep satisfaction, is we spend our days looking backwards and trying to make sense of our past mistakes.

This New Year the greatest gift you can give yourself is to be kind, forgiving and gracious to yourself more than others. By telling yourself you are enough.

You alone are enough

You have nothing to prove to anyone.

Maya Angelou

We stumble and we fall, we step over and around people and memories, we are impacted greatly by grief and unanswered questions but one of the greatest hurdles to living a deeply satisfied life is always carrying the burden of shame and not enough-ness. (I know it’s not a word, but I like it).

Not only are you enough, but those who are closest to you, your kids, your husband, your friends, they are enough.

Isaiah 41:10 reminds me of this…

Do not be afraid for I am with you.

Do not be discouraged, for I am your God.

I will strengthen you and help you.

I will hold you up with my victorious right hand.

In the wake of seasons that don’t make sense, when you are unsure if you can keep walking into a New Year, New Day, New Season, New Month, New…new…new..

Be kind and forgiving, take it slow and be soft with yourself.

You are enough.

Lower your expectations of yourself and just walk.

Walk slow, walk kind, walk…walk…walk.

And if you haven’t taken time to reflect this New Year yet, then it is not too late.

Ask questions.

Forgive yourself.

Let go.

Step over.

It is a new day and you are enough.

I had so many plans about how I would launch twenty sixteen, with new looks and new ideas, but honestly for today, this is enough.

Join me in tagging your creative pursuits or what inspires you this year with the hashtag #inspire16

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Finding faith when it seems to have been lost.

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Some days to keep walking by faith and not by sight is a treacherous journey.

You know those days.

When you have prayed every prayer that your little heart can muster. Those days when you feel all dem feels and more. Those moments where you cannot believe the circumstance of what is falling down around you. Those days when you are not that sure whether you have anything left in that tank of belief and you are scraping the very bottom of the barrel.

Today for me is not one of those days, but I have had conversations full of stories this week that resemble the desperate moments I am describing.

Moments of disbelief.

Moments of complete and utter dismay.

Moments of exasperation.

Mainly with God.

How are you doing today?

Are you struggling to find faith?

Honestly it is totally okay. I am not sure when we started believing that faith was a crutch or the sign of weakness. The faith that I wrestle with is an active one. Honestly the days that I believe I have found my oasis of security, then something else crumbles within my reach. The sands shift, illness unveils, difficult conflict emerges.

Faith is and never was a place of assured standing. Faith is a grapple with the possibility that there is a purpose in the midst of the very worst days.

I have never met anyone who has done something of substance with their days that has not questioned, wrestled and gotten angry with their faith. Those who have believed in something greater than themselves, they to me are the warriors, they are the champions of great strength, they are marked by humility. I have found it is when I step into places that I no longer have faith for that my life and character are revealed

Faith is not for the faint hearted.

Faith is not for the weird and weak.

Faith is for those who have been knocked down, feel angry and afraid, yet stand up once again and start to slowly believe again for greater days.

Last night I rushed out our front door with a one year old, a three year old, a friends little man who I was looking after and a big pot of green curry. We all jumped in the car at 4.30pm and didn’t get home till after 7pm. I walked up to our front door and saw it wide open.

My first thought was “Oh my goodness we have been broken into”, as I walked from room to room it looked as if everything was just fine. I put the kids to bed and didn’t think of it again until this morning at ballet.

All the Mums were chatting whilst the teacher prepared the class, one of the Mums was describing how her Mother in Law had been broken into last night and the neighbour, the neighbours neighbour and in fact most of the street.

I went white and asked slowly what street and she said mine. Apparently our whole street had been victim to burglaries last night during the time that I had left ours wide open for any one to walk into.

The crazy thing is our house was left untouched. Most probably because the lights were on and music was playing, they probably assumed that we were home.

Faith.

It is a strange old thing.

I do believe that we had a hedge of protection around our little piece of paradise. I do believe that good things come to those who wait. I do believe that God can handle our anger, our pain and our absolute disbelief.

I think he comes closer as our heart and lives wane in faith. He delights over us in our darkest days, he is close to those who need his touch and presence. When we take time to sit, wait, breathe, restore, express, let go of the need to understand the bigger picture and to find the grace for our now. He comes near.

His gentleman’s grace comes flooding into those sore places that no one else can understand. He brings a strength to places that feel so weak that no one could understand their broken places. He is strong, when we are so terribly weak.

Somedays all we can do is cry, wait, breathe and seek.

Faith is not a crutch.

Faith is a place of protection.

A citadel of hope in the midst of a burning exodus.

If your life is crumbling and you feel like you have nothing left to give, He can strengthen even the darkest of places. I know this, because he has walked me through the shadow of the valley of death and I still fear no evil. I know this because I have come to the very edge of my faith and nearly lost it, time and time again, finding that he has been so ever faithful even during these days.

1-3 God, my shepherd!
    I don’t need a thing.
You have bedded me down in lush meadows,
    you find me quiet pools to drink from.
True to your word,
    you let me catch my breath
    and send me in the right direction.

4 Even when the way goes through
    Death Valley,
I’m not afraid
    when you walk at my side.
Your trusty shepherd’s crook
    makes me feel secure.

5 You serve me a six-course dinner
    right in front of my enemies.
You revive my drooping head;
    my cup brims with blessing.

6 Your beauty and love chase after me
    every day of my life.
I’m back home in the house of God
    for the rest of my life.

His beauty and love chases us. He brings all things together for good. Even when we have no hope left to be found. Every day he protects us.

He is faithful.

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