I'm happy when I'm being creative

The past few days I've been working on photos for family friends, and I've thouroughly enjoyed doing it, gives me joy to experience joyful events and family being around each other happily. This is Joanna, it was her first communion, she's catholic and this is a big event in a child's life. It was awesome working on these images :)

I am truly happy when I'm creative :)

Will you love Jesus more...

I feel quite sure if I did my best

I could maybe impress you

With tender words and a harmony

A clever rhyme or two

But if all I've done in the time we've shared

Is turn your eyes on me

Then I've failed at what I've been called to do

There's someone else I want you to see

[CHORUS]

Will you love Jesus more

When we go our different ways

When this moment is a memory

Will you remember His face

Will you look back and realize

You sensed His love more than you did before

I'd pray for nothing less

Than for you to love Jesus more

I'd like to keep these memories

In frames of gold and silver

And reminisce a year from now

About the smiles we've shared

But above all else I hope you will come

To know the Father's love

When you see the Lord face to face

You'll hear Him say "well done"

[REPEAT CHORUS TWICE]

I'd pray for nothing less

Than for you to love Jesus more

Credits - this song is not by me, just sharing the beautiful Lyrics by Phillips, Craig & Dean

I wonder

I've been thinking about death; loss of loved ones and the possibility that my loved ones will also one day lose me. I often hear people speak about getting their affairs in order, to prepare for this, save enough money for your children, have trust funds, the list is endless, the religious say, make sure you're right with God before that happens...

I've been thinking about Job, with  all the calamity that he faced, he sometimes questioned God, sometimes wanted to quit..In my musings about the final destination on earth, I read Job Chapter 14 vs 1-5:

1

Mortals, born of woman, 
    are of few days and full of trouble. 
2 
They spring up like flowers and wither away; 
    like fleeting shadows, they do not endure. 
3 
Do you fix your eye on them? 
    Will you bring them^[a] before you for judgment? 
4 
Who can bring what is pure from the impure? 
    No one! 
5 
A person’s days are determined; 
    you have decreed the number of his months 
    and have set limits he cannot exceed.

Verse one and two describe the frailty of our lives, "they do not endure", the last verse...God knows our days and we cannot add any more hours or minutes to it. 

If I have no control whatsoever on my living, why is it that I am so convinced that I am "in charge" of my life, how am I so in charge of planning a schedule whose end I do not know?

This thought humbled me, and as I lay down to bed tonight I do not know if I will see tomorrow and all the things I have planned to do will come to fruition...

...I wonder, what if i did it all in reverse order, speak to God first, hear His plan, sit on the passenger seat, and let HIM drive this life, He knows the destination and how much more fuel we have?

I will share a song in my next post..for all those I will come across, this is my prayer...

Life as I know it at 29

The family member that was ill has since passed away and been buried, leaving behind a 6 month old baby girl :-(

I wonder about that baby girl's future, I wonder about her persepective on life, her values, her influence and her character. Will the influence be positive, negative, bitter, graceful, etc. Questions only time can answer...

Shy?

I've heard this said a couple of times this month and wondering if its a message to share. I was introduced to a group of ladies and one eagerly said 'tell us ALL about you!' I found that a bit daunting and said ' well i'm a bit shy, will share with time, as i get accustomed to you.' Someone else said how, she's done being shy, she was shy all her life and now she's done...she's catching up.

She said she realised that there was absolutely no value for her in retrospect.

I have been thinking and feeling the same way lately, that there's a reason I have a brain and an opinion...it adds value to conversations and interactions. I am not ALWAYS shy, but it is the curtain I hide behind at times.

So this is new developement for me...I've told myself to find five great (not good) reasons or benefits, of shyness by a certain time, or that word and mindset is going out the window. Life is just simpler when I'm upfront. I think I adopted 'shyness' as a gender and culturally acceptable characteristic.

There's gotta be a reason God designed us to see things our own way, He didnt intend for us to blend into the background...

Question posed...

So I asked this question on facebook and twitter:

Why do some friendships last forever and some only a season? When is it time to let a friend go and how?

This seems like a question which really depends on the situation, but probably one that a lot of women have had (perhaps men as well) but I think mostly women.

In essence I think what has worked is to realise when your give and take scale is tipping, yes you may be a giver (time, resources, support etc) but when that becomes a one way street...that friendship is not healthy, no matter how much joy you get from giving whatever to your friend, you are helping create and unbalanced friend scale (i just created a concept lol)

On a serious note, my opinion is that friendships are also God given, I have learnt in my almost thirty years of life (remember I have a friend I made when we were one?), I have learnt that God shields me from certain people. Sometimes God gives me just the spring in that relationship because He knows I cannot handle that person's autumn (stripping of leaves, and raging winds), perhaps I cant handle that person's winter as well, and the summer might be scorching. God then gives me the spring.

Sometimes he gives me that person's winter so I can water their 'garden'. It is all in God's hand, the key thing though in all of this is in this picture:

A song of encouragement

Today I feel low, someone dear to me is very sick and hasnt really been telling the family how bad it is, very sad to imagine the reasons behind it and how alone she must be feeling.  I realise that in this life, we cant know all the answers to 'why', 'how' etc. This song gave me comfort.

Tempted and tried, we’re oft made to wonder
Why it should be thus all the day long,
While there are others living about us,
Never molested, though in the wrong.

Refrain

Farther along we’ll know all about it,
Farther along we’ll understand why;
Cheer up my brother, live in the sunshine,
We’ll understand it all by and by.

When death has come and taken our loved ones,
It leaves our home so lonely and drear,
Then do we wonder why others prosper
Living so wicked year after year.

Refrain
Farther along we’ll know all about it,
Farther along we’ll understand why;
Cheer up my brother, live in the sunshine,
We’ll understand it all by and by.

Faithful til death, said our loving Master
A few more days to labor and wait,
Toils of the road will then seem as nothing
As we sweet through the beautiful gate.

Refrain
Farther along we’ll know all about it,
Farther along we’ll understand why;
Cheer up my brother, live in the sunshine,
We’ll understand it all by and by.

When we see Jesus, coming in glory,
When He comes from His home in the sky,
Then we shall meet Him in that bright mansion,
We’ll understand it all by and by.

Refrain
Farther along we’ll know all about it,
Farther along we’ll understand why;
Cheer up my brother, live in the sunshine,
We’ll understand it all by and by.

Words and lyrics by J.R. Baxter & W.B. Stevens

Sincerity

I drive the same route when I drop off my kids at school and have seen this about three times, today I am moved to share; I see a man walk out of his home, he is perhaps a husband and a father. He kisses goodbye a lady at the house, and looks back at her. When he gets to the gate, he waits at the gate and prays, today he seemed in a rush but he stopped at the gate and prayed, then he ran off towards the train.

I was inspired, when something is important to you, you MAKE time for it. This man makes time for his daily prayer even in the big rush in the morning....Do your actions show what is important to you? Do mine?

Childlike interactions

Being a mother of toddlers who just started in new schools, I've been worried about things like: will they fit in? will they make friends like the friends they left behind? etc.

My daughter (6) had a very good friend called Caitlin and they said they were best friends and I was quite worried about them parting, four days into our stay here in Dublin, she had a new best friend Joanna, who is our neighbour. At school she says everyone is her friend and she's happy there :)

My son (almost 4) was very withdrawn around strangers, so I was more worried about him starting school for the first time ever, well three days after starting there, he told me "mummy I like my new friends here", so I eagerly asked, what are their names and he said calmly, "I don't know." Yesterday, he brought home a slice of cake from a 'friend' and when we asked whose birthday was it, he said "my friend" and that was enough.

See, it doesn't look like friendships are complex from the early days of life...when does it become awkward to just call everyone your friend without being a weirdo...

Will I ever learn?

Why is it that my life seems to be the same stuff happening over and over again, just different people.

I read a book once, "The friends we keep" Sarah Davis, and i remember reading a part where a man had said the friendships seen on sex and the city were impossible in real life, because women were incapable to be real with each other in that manner...

I have a very good and wise friend, she is like my clone (from another race), we seem to go through very similar things, sometimes its a bit freaky...similar fears, illnesses, likes, dislikes etc. We've been friends for a while (7 years). I mentioned to her that I was feeling a bit down as another  friend just decided to attack me today, for being me, plain old me who will tell you what I think without wrapping it in pretty pink boxes with ribbons on (learning for me, I need to sugar coat!), perhaps I was over familiar? friendships are so complex, it can be draining!

 My clone friend, just said to me "i've been there...". I asked her jokingly, "will we ever master adult life?" married, two kids later, still can't understand the science of female friendships?

I mean there are those that last, one very dear from pre school (awesome and firm friendship) and others that have stood the test of time...wondering " Will I ever learn?"