Posted on 4 Comments

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?

signature

Posted on 2 Comments

she shares her stuff

Flowers, Mums

Lately I have been struggling to share.

I spend my whole life telling my three year old to “sharrreeeeeee, Maximus” but personally, I am struggling.

Recently I was having a day where I had to take deep breathe more than once and I remembered a little story that had a huge impact on me at the time.

I was in a small town in the middle of Thailand and we were running a creative festival for the children in a village. Most of the children had lost their parents to AIDS and it was an opportunity where their Aunts and Uncles, come yearly to visit their nieces and nephews. A special afternoon, one that I have never forgotten.

A little boy whose name was “Got” stole a little piece of my heart that week when we spent time with the children preparing for the concert together. He had just seen his Uncle for the first time in two years and had been given the Thai Baht equivalent of one Australian dollar. He ran off into the little village, with his pocket money, so excited because he rarely got given anything that was just his own.

About fifteen minutes later, I saw him running down this dusty road back to the group of friends, that were sitting with me on the side of the road. In his gorgeous little hand he was holding the most expensive ice cream he could buy with his precious coins. As he slowed to walk back towards the group of his friends, you could see all the eyes of the children who didn’t get anything from their family drop a little.

As Got re-joined our circle, he had the biggest smile you had ever seen. The next thing that happened is as one of my all time favourite memories of my trips to Thailand. He walked from child to child and gave each of them a lick of his ice cream.

He wasn’t asked to share. He knew what it felt like to be the child who doesn’t get what he wanted and sharing was just a natural part of their culture. The little that he had, he knew that he needed to share it with all of the kids who were his gang.

Enter my current reality. We have a tiny apartment, filled with lots of amazing, creative personalities and as a novice mum there are just some moments that I want my own space.

Recently I was pretty overwhelmed when I won a brand new Ipad air on facebook. I was seriously so excited. When it arrived, I remember thinking straight away, “I am not sharing this with anyone.”

As soon as this thought hit my brain, I remember thinking about this story of my little friend “Got”

It was like his little face, his big smile and his kind heart bombarded my soul.

IMG_8049

Wisdom says that a generous heart will live a generous life.

Proverbs 11:25 The generous will prosper; those who refresh others will themselves be refreshed.

I know the way I want to raise my kids is with a generous heart and life. It is one of the core values I hold dearly, but children follow what we do, not what we say.

So lately every time my little man comes to me and asks to share my food, my desk as I work, my ipad as I scroll, my bed in the middle of the night, I am trying to remember the beautiful lesson that my little friend Got showed me, that when you share, even when you don’t have very much, your life is deeply enriched.

That my friend is a lot easier to say, than do.

To read my next post in this series click here: She knows who is in her tribe

signature