Little Me.Big God

People who have known me for a while will testify to the fact that I have long term contentment issues. Even worse is that some people who have known me for a while wouldn’t. I’m very good at hiding them. I’m a master at turning my discontentment into someone elses sin or negligence (in my mind anyway). While im less prone to do that in current times the feeling of loosing out or longing for more than I have is still there, despite God’s abundant provision.

While we were away we visited someone I’ve known for a really long time. She has trained in science at university, she has a great whit and a quick mind. She is a fountain of knowledge, both biblically and worldly. She is a mother of two children and a Godly wife. She also has MS. Over the last two years MS has taken over most of her body, she can no longer walk, feed herself or talk clearly. She needs help moving and needs constant rest. She finds it hard to control her emotions and muscles and is loosing parts of her memory. By worldly standards, in her early 40’s, she has lost much of her identity. In spite of this, every time we see each other I am amazed at her Joy in Christ. She is always surrounded by books and feeding on Gods word. She is quick to praise her King in conversation and lean on him in her every day need. Above all her contentment is delightful, she is the last to complain or act as though she has not been given her fair share of blessings. The less there is of her to offer the more room there is for God to show his glory and provision.

In all of my discontentment, what is it that I actually want?

I want the faith and joy of my friend. I want to be faithful to the word and to the people I love (and don’t) in prayer. I want to be able to offer myself as a living sacrifice (Romans 12) and live zealously in the body (Ephesians 4).

I have every reason to be content. God has been kind and merciful in giving me his spirit. May there be little of me and more of Christ, may I long for his bigness, rather than mine.

Car Wisdom

Long trips generally result in thoughts. Some good, others pointless, some distracting. Here's one.

We are scared to age because we spend our lives building ourselves up, to know more, be skilled at more things, to look a certain way and to not rely on anyone (except maybe the one we choose). Age makes us un-able, our bodies decay and we have less control over them. We are less able to develop new skills, and our old skills are sometimes outside of our ability range. We forget the things we knew and sometimes become untrained in the self controlled and charismatic tongue that made us likable in the past.

If we look at how God has designed the body of Christ to be, it is clear that we don’t grow too old for his church.

“You, however, must teach what is appropriate to sound doctrine. Teach the older men to be temperate, worthy of respect, self-controlled, and sound in faith, in love and in endurance.

Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. Then they can urge the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God.” (Titus 2:1-5)

There is a place and plan for us as we age. We spend a lifetime trying to be wiser, healthier, humbler, more elite, skilled…but if we take Gods image of the body seriously we will see that it is not these things that make us eligible.

“There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” (Ephesians 4:4-6)

We are made eligible by the spirit, the same spirit we had when we are first brought into the kingdom, that one God is the God of our young and able bodies, just as he is God over our ageing, helpless ones. If there is a place for us in the kingdom, despite the decay of our charismatic and virtuous abilities, then it must not be these things that are worth putting our hope in.

Melbourne.

2800 kms.

8 days

51 hours of driving.

Recently my Mum, Sister and i took a trip to Melbourne. The primary reason for going was so i could get enough hours u on my L-plates to took my P's. The secondary, yet probably just as important, reason for going were to spend some time together before I get married in February. While i'm really looking forward to starting a new family, submitting to, helping and prioritising Josh above all others, the family i have been part of for the last 19 years is spectacularly unique and a treasure to be cherished. Here are a few happy snaps from the trip.

Bronte playing with the shutter on the roof top

Great Ocean Road

Below is the chapel street Bizzare. It was impossible to capture it in photo's but it was a store of rooms and rooms of antiques. I found some vintage lace for my bridesmaid dresses in the gloves-lace-tie room...

Dinner on Lygon street

E-shoot

Recently, Josh and I did an engagement photo shoot with our wedding photographer, Ben Adams. Here's some of the shots...we are v pleased.

Homey Things #1

One day we might have a house with more than 3 rooms and i might make some of these for it...

Ruffle Shower curtain - Adventures in Dressmaking

Iphone cushions - Etsy

Chalk board walls - Apartment Therapy

Patchwork Drawers - Adventures in Dressmaking

Ruffled Quilt - Adventures in Dressmaking

Systems.

Every evening i plug my phone in to charge and sit it on my desk (which hangs below my top bunk bed). I then climb the ladder, fall against the mattress, do some thinking and go to sleep. In the morning my alarm goes off, so i hastily descend the ladder to turn it off and there i find myself out of bed! It's a brilliant system. Climbing back into bed would be more effort than its worth.

Josh and I have bought a lovely Queen sized, brand new bed. According to him it's extremely comfortable. But there is no ladder...how will i get up in the morning?

Dear self...See you in a while.

In the past few weeks I have caught up with a few people who have been significant facets of my past (and some of which, my future, I hope). I am beginning to notice that there is a type of scientific, out of our control thing that goes on with relationships. Have you ever noticed that you act differently around different people? I don’t mean hypocritical or two-faced differences, just subtle aspects of your character that always exist but are sparked up or subdued when mixed with certain personalities.

Sometimes how we act is determined by the other having a particularly exuberant personality, or perhaps the opposite…but this can happen with any body, it is not particular to those from our pasts. The thing I find more interesting is that our personality traits (around said other)

can be liked to all the mini-details of life when you were friends. Perhaps it’s not all of life, perhaps its just particular circumstances that created a different set of traits in you for a time, either way, people act as little linkages to our pasts in a way powerful enough to make as act and feel as though we were there again.

Recently, a great friend from school returned from England where she has spent the last 10 months. We caught up for dinner. Allot has happened since I saw her last. I have a fiancé now, I work full time, I pay bills and buy groceries, I’m more level headed and go to bed much earlier, I’m interested in kitchen appliances and comparing broadband deals, I am less easily excited, less sarcastic and less worked up. I’ve changed a fair bit. However, from the moment we sat down for dinner my light hearted humour that got me through the last few years of high school returned to me, she was in stitches as she had been through many an art class or drama lesso

n. It was clear that there were parts of me that went to England and back and that only come out of the shadows when she is around to shine light on them.

I had a similar experience last Sunday when we visited uni church. Josh and I were standing around, joking as we usually do, meeting new people here and there, and then I suddenly spotted a boy, who 4 or 5 years ago would turn me silly in an instant. Unfortunately he happened to sit behind us in the service and for a little while (until Josh grabbed my hand and I remember who I was) I became the same self conscious, self absorbed girl I was when I knew him. To clarify, there is nothing about this boy that would or could make me go silly now, but he acted as a link to my 14 year old self in such a real way, it was fascinating.

So much of us (more for some than others I would imagine) is determined by those who surround us. Our humour, preferences, priorities, temptations are moulded and shaped by

those we spend time with. If our identity is in Christ, he has a perfect design for the unity of his people (You can see snippets of it in Ephesians 4, Psalm 133, Romans 15:1-13, Colossians 3:12-15). God, as our maker, knows what we are like, he knows how we absorb one another, our personalities thriving on and rebelling against aspects it sees in another. He has designed believers to exist with other believers. I am so thankful for those I get to absorb each day. Thankyou for your humour, preferences, priorities and temptations. Gods design is good.

HSC Drama with friend mentioned above