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Rest. Can you? 

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAThe irony of the season I find myself is this; Novice motherhood has taught me to rest. Ridiculous I know, but it is only by giving up so much that I have realised how out of control my stress and career was.

Sixty hour weeks, two and a half hours of heavy traffic in peak hour, always feeling like I was letting someone down, working the whole weekend. It is only now that I have come to realise how important rest is in the balance of a life sown generously.

You cannot give to someone out of what you have not sown in your life. If you are scraping the bottom of a deep well of energy stores, you are often robbing not only yourself of a quality of life but your family as well.

We all need at least one day of rest a week.

One day of no social media

One day of long walks interspersed with deep breaths.

We all need times of sleeping in.

Pyjama days.

Movie Marathons.

Rolling moments of rest and relaxation.

Maya Angelou, one of my favourite writers explains her need for this brilliantly…

Every person needs to take one day away.  A day in which one consciously separates the past from the future.  Jobs, family, employers, and friends can exist one day without any one of us, and if our egos permit us to confess, they could exist eternally in our absence.  Each person deserves a day away in which no problems are confronted, no solutions searched for.  Each of us needs to withdraw from the cares which will not withdraw from us. Maya Angelou

I find in my line of work that creatives need this more than anyone. You cannot produce out of something you have not grown in resting inspiration time. My current muse is knitting. I rest while my hands and head engage in something that is creative and meditative. I love that if I am knitting my phone is not in my hand and I am free from the head space that the internet steals from my inspiration tank.

For you it might be music, writing, playing on the piano, taking photos.

Eating with friends, meditation, sport.

What makes you feel most rested?

Maybe a 48 hr weekend once a month with no phone, internet going back to the basics with loved ones like our family easter farm trip. Maybe it is the beach. Maybe it is going for a run. Maybe it is extended times of sleep.

Whatever it is that you need, make sure you schedule it in to happen.

You cannot keep giving out of a place that has not been refilled regularly.

Rest, Can you?

It is a learnt skill. One that I am so grateful for this pause season in my life for.

A season where the corporate ladder and success has not taken over my life.

For the first time in a long time, I am in control of what I say yes and no to and it is seriously the freest place anyone could ever live in.

So grateful.

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People are often unreasonable

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After spending the weekend at our family farm, with no shower, no toilet and lots of children, one would think we are all a little insane. My mums twin sister and her husband have bought a big piece of land and have just built a big farm house shed on it. It is still in its infancy stages, thus the humble start.

This Easter weekend was our families first time all staying there. We had eleven kids, thirteen adults and one puppy dog. It was crazy beautiful. Often people say I’m so lucky to have a family that gets along and doesn’t want to kill each other. They are wrong, we want to kill each other but we choose not too.

Our family is far from perfect and we annoy each other often but we choose to love deeply anyway. We have each other’s back, we create memories and traditions for our children to thrive in. We choose to dig deep and celebrate large because that truly makes life brilliant. 

I have had this poem by Mother Teresa floating around my mind these last few days…it eloquently describes what I am trying to say. 

Love them anyway. 

People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self centered.  Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives.  Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies.  Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you.  Be honest and sincere anyway.What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight.  Create anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous.  Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, will often be forgotten.  Do good anyway.

Give the best you have, and it will never be enough.  Give your best anyway.

In the final analysis, it is between you and God.  It was never between you and them anyway.

You know what people are often unreasonable. Love them anyway.

Happy Easter my inter-web friends.

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what is love?

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There are many days that I find it difficult to explain love.

Days when I have been betrayed by a friend who I thought had my back,

Days when I am so tired from being a Mum of two, that my legs drag and my heart aches,

Days when I am confused by words, trying to decipher between their lies and secrets held.

Love is not easy to explain, because I think culturally it has been expressed as a feeling, rather than an action.

We say it’s love; when we feel caught up in the emotion of infatuation…

We say it’s love; when we receive something of worth…

Love is in fact the way we act when we have nothing left to give but ourselves.

Love is the moment we say yes, when everything within us wants to say no.

Love is believing the best, love is accepting a difference of opinion, love is holding on when everything in your heart wants to let go.

Love is saying sorry when it hurts, love is finding a way to let go when you think about that situation over and over.

Love is not subjective, love does not have boundaries of race, gender, age or disability.

Love is way beyond an emotion.

Today is the one day that I find myself overwhelmed by love.

A day of reflection, a day of betrayal, a day of sacrifice.

One of the greatest scenes in the Easter story is the one where Jesus hangs between two thieves and he gasps ‘Not my will be done but yours.’

He didn’t want to walk the path towards death. He laid down his will, to prefer another.

Throughout the centuries, the cross has been used as a tool of judgement, a tool of shame, a symbol of exclusion, used to deny people access to the Father through works.

This goes against the very fibre of what the cross actually signifies.

No matter where you stand today surrounding and watching the Easter story unfold. Whether you think it is a fable, whether you feel excluded and stand in its shadow, whether you feel disappointed by its terrible historical implications, whether you are indifferent…

Today in my view the cross equals love.

Nothing more.

Nothing less.

From one who was betrayed, to one who was crucified, to one who sacrificed his life to prefer another…

This is love.

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life is a feast but who is in the house next to yours?

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There is a feast awaiting each and everyone of us but it is not the meal we are each expecting…

Today is the last day of school around my part of the world and tomorrow we will wake to a day of rest for most families with a public holiday. A time for family, food and relaxation.

Let me introduce you to my neighbour, we have met only a few times. A wave on the beach, a ball over the fence, a cup of tea in the midst of both our busy schedules. Today is more than a special day as a teacher for her as she signs off from the desk for quite a while. She is due her third baby in a few short weeks so I thought I would drop a bakers dozen at her front door, when she arrives home from work this afternoon.

The feast is not the banana muffins or the raw balls or even the choc chip cookies…

The feast is broken humanity noticing and acknowledging each other.

The feast is knowing my neighbour and the small, inconsequential milestones that my nearest humans are celebrating.

Yesterday my Mum told me a story however that could be a feast awaiting but at the moment it remains lonely and broken.

My Mum runs a home for homeless pregnant women and their greatest joy is to set up house for the ladies as they shift with their newborns into a new accommodation. She was grieved yesterday because a refugee beautiful woman, who is here without her husband because he is in a refugee camp in Sudan, was in need and she was not able to help this lady because of the overwhelming needs in the house right now. The lady with a newborn, had just shifted into a new house from the House of Hope (Mum’s refuge) yet had hardly any furniture and couldn’t even set up the bed she had been given because of her pain from childbirth.

She may be your neighbour?

She may be just around the corner from you…

And she is hurting.

She is afraid.

She is the most vulnerable that she has ever been.

The feast awaits.

It could be a cup of tea and a biscuit.

It could be a washing machine.

It could be so many things.

The problem is the feast remains a famine because of one little thing.

A tiny little thing.

It takes courage to check in and ask the question.

Today marks the beginning of the Easter week journey. Jesus sat with his closest companions to feast and prepare for the greatest act anyone can give. To lay down their life for another. Mixed with sadness, joy, brilliance and betrayal, this feast went ahead, even though it was far from perfect.

In fact it was a very imperfect offering.

But this was the feast…

A call to prefer another before ourselves.

What feast awaits you this Easter?

Maybe it is a little different to the one you imagined

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deny

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Have you ever walked into a room and realised that there is someone in it, who you really don’t want to see?

I have.

You know when you walk down the aisle in the supermarket and someone walks towards you, causing a quick reflex, duck for cover action…

I have.

When I walked through the crowd at church and I see someone that I really don’t want to have ‘that’ conversation with.

I have.

We all deny our knowledge of people at some point in time. Hoping not to have an awkward conversation, hoping not to be included in their drama, hoping to be spared somewhat the anxiety.

We all have done it.

But what if that someone was about to be punished for a crime they didn’t commit?

What if that someone was one of your closest friends that you had spent time with every day of the last few years?

That is the beginning of the real story of Easter.

It begun with denial.

It begun with people closest to the patriarch of the story, it began with those who loved Him. It began steeped in deep betrayal, of those closest.

The walk towards Calvary, began with his closest friends denying that they knew Him.

Peter Denies Jesus

54 Then they seized him and led him away, bringing him into the high priest’s house, and Peter was following at a distance. 55 And when they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat down together, Peter sat down among them. 56 Then a servant girl, seeing him as he sat in the light and looking closely at him, said, “This man also was with him.” 57 But he denied it, saying, “Woman, I do not know him.” 58 And a little later someone else saw him and said, “You also are one of them.” But Peter said, “Man, I am not.” 59 And after an interval of about an hour still another insisted, saying, “Certainly this man also was with him, for he too is a Galilean.” 60 But Peter said, “Man, I do not know what you are talking about.” And immediately, while he was still speaking, the rooster crowed. 61 And the Lord turned and looked at Peter. And Peter remembered the saying of the Lord, how he had said to him, “Before the rooster crows today, you will deny me three times.” 62 And he went out and wept bitterly. Luke 22:54-62 (ESV)

How awkward.

How difficult.

How terribly shameful.

We have all done things that we are ashamed of. We have all had moments, when we know that we need to address something or someone and we have averted our eyes. We have all had times when we wished we had spoken up for someone and didn’t.

We are often plagued by denial because it is such a passive emotion. Easily argued away by the voices in our heads and excuses in our hearts.

It doesn’t change the way it alters us.

The only way we can move past denial, is admitting we have been wrong and asking forgiveness.

This forgiveness often is most difficult in applying it to ourselves.

I want to be someone who faces those difficult times in my life and truly, authentically, even when it is terribly awkward tells the truth.

How about you?

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Come and join our creative #inspire15 journey and follow these April Prompts to do something creative this month. I will be highlighting and profiling some of the amazing work that people are producing as a part of this journey.