I don't care what the world has to say

Don't be too hard on yourself, today. It's ok to break a bowl, spill some paint, burn some cupcakes.
Take some time out. Be still. Treat yourself. (A cup of tea in a pretty cup, a long shower, putting your feet up on the table.)
It really is ok to have some respite on the toilet seat.

(Somedays, we all need to take advice from a cat.)

Take comfort in your friends

Mel and Gen. July 24, 2005.

Put on my blue suede shoes

It's Sunday.
It's Sunday!

It's a sunny, sunny morning (21 degrees!) and i can actually step out the door without four layers of clothes wrapped snugly around me. I'm off to a coffee festival at The Rocks. I want to breathe in the scent of freshly brewed coffee. So comforting. So Sunday.
(Today marks my third coffee-free day.)

You give your love but you don't

Tonight i went to my favourite bookstore cafe. I had a lullaby. A lullaby is a concoction of milk, malt powder, honey, cinnamon and nutmeg. Drinking the lullaby made me feel the way getting into bed at winter makes me feel...all warm and snuggly and dreamy.
Tonight, i remember that i've been tried, tested and tempted. I almost gave up, gave in, picked up the phone and called him. But i didn't.
And that makes me very happy.

You are amazing, God

It's a perfect winter's day. The sun is shining and the sky is so blue. So blue. Outside, the leaves on the trees are rustling in the wind. The wind is cold. But i am inside, seated on my bed in a such a position that the sunlight falls gently on my freshly washed hair.
It's my one-on-one time with my Father. (In fact, i get lost in repeating this over and over again: Father, Father, Father...).

As the sun warms my neck, i imagine myself being embraced by Him. This is the embrace, the embrace that makes every other embrace that came before seem weak. This embrace comforts, counsels, loves and strengthens. I don't want to let go. I don't have to.

My bible falls open to Habakkuk 3:19, which says:

The Sovreign Lord is my srength; He makes my feet like the feet of a deer, He enables me to go on the heights.

I write down the verse and realise how similar it sounds to the verse that was put up in church yesterday:

The Lord God is my strength, my personal bravery, and my invincible army.

And then i see it. Below the verse in church is written, Habakkuk 3:19. It's exactly the same verse but from a different version of the bible.

Now, this verse is my verse. I have adopted it as mine. I repeat it to myself.
The battle is not mine, it's the Lord's. I need only to be still.

The sweet love that you give to me

I type in my user name and password, click on the "create new post" button and then.
.stop.
There is nothing to write about.
There is so much to write about, so much to say, so much to tell you but i just want to keep it all to myself. It's like that time i tried so hard to capture the sunset with my camera before it dawned on me to put my camera away and capture the scene with my mind and revel in it.

But i can tell you this:
I wore a red coat last Saturday night. I saw a blooming rose tree. It's exactly a month and half into winter. Spring is a month and a half away. I've had epiphanies. I bought some summer sandals today. I'm learning to let go. I'm trying to let God. I've been stretching with my little Larsi bear, the boo i nanny. I've been eating heaps of strawberries. I went to the beach today.

Wonders anew

I'VE HAD AN AMAZING DAY!!
And it all began simply with a mug of soy coffee in the morning, made exactly the way i like it. It continued with the bus arriving fifteen minutes late but me still making it to church with time to spare. The message preached in church, by guest preacher Joyce Meyer, was so relevant to my life and it was exactly what i needed to hear. As i was heading out of church, i bumped into Lisa and we decided to treat ourselves to a cuppa at Gloria Jean's. We've decided to pray earnestly about something that could change both our lives for the better and i cannot wait to see what's going to come out of that.
I made myself a salad for lunch, cleaned my room, changed the sheets and put up my new blinds! Four hours later, i made some lentil soup for dinner (so yum!) and left for church once again.
The 7pm service in church was absolutely electrifying. You could totally feel the spirit moving in the house. I met Daryl, who told me something regarding my research that just blew me away. I don't think i realised the implications of a good thesis. I could possibly change the world by effecting change of some kind.
And that's not all.
The lovely Cheryl blessed me with a book. I bumped into Josh on the way into church. Josh makes me giddy. *blush* But i know you don't want to hear about boys so i'm moving along..
I also met Tim and Liam, two lovely blokes from England who are here for the Hillsong Conference. Together with John, who's a Kiwi, they had a rather intellectual debate on the semantics of soccer/football. In this part of the world, football refers to rugby (or roog-be as the English boys call it) and Liam claimed that was ridiculous because....oh gosh, let's not even GO there. Carston, who was voted the best barista in Gloria Jean's, made me a WONDERFUL mug of hot chocolate (it was so pretty!) and gave me FOUR marshmallows. We all agreed it must have been because i was special. :)
On the way to Central from church, we sat in the bus. Together with the boy. We burst into laughter when Liam started talking about "Poof Daddy", refering to Puff Daddy, of course. It was such a great bus ride home and when i bid the boy farewell, i had a huge grin on my face, he had a huge grin on his face and it was just one of those good goodbyes, if you know what i mean. I wasn't thinking about the fact that i had spent the last three months being in love with him. I wasn't thinking about how he had a girlfriend. It was just a plain and simple goodbye.
That made me smile.

As i stood in the cold waiting for the bus that would take me home, i prayed that it would come soon. It seemed as if i had missed it by a mere one minute and the next one was due to arrive a half hour later. WELL! God sent a bus to me just three minutes later! How good is He to me? I know. He's TOO good! But i deserve it.

I'll be shuttling between work and the Hillsong Conference the whole of this week and probably won't be able to write for a bit but i hope YOU have an awesome week filled with heaps of laughter and a peaceful heart.

(I'm still smiling.)

The hope in every heart

June 30, 2005:
Rain. It doesn't stop. Wind. Very strong. It becomes almost useless to carry an umbrella because you feel like the wind could plausibly carry you away along with the umbrella, which has flipped up and is now looking rather odd. I wish i were at home, watching Love Actually, with my feet tucked warmly under the duvet. But all i do is walk in the rain with my friends. Friends can make walking in the rain seem almost fun. I arrive home drenched and exhausted. To de-stress, i cook for my friends. We sit in the living room and have bowls of steamed jasmine rice and satay chicken. My friends give me gifts they've brought from home. I can't believe my dearest June is here. I give a little yelp and jump up and down excitedly when i see what Jo has sent along with my friends. Proverbs 18: 22 says this: Friends come and friends go, but a true friend sticks by you like family. My girls are my family. At 11pm, i finally get into bed with my hot chocolate (and marshmallows from the USA, which thankfully don't smell like cough syrup like Aussie marshmallows do). I pick up where i left off in Bergdorf Blondes. I amaze myself with my choice of literature sometimes. Mrs.Dalloway will just have to wait. As the clock strikes 12, i extricate myself from the lives of the Park Avenue Princesses and get ready to sleep. The deejay on the radio announces that You and Me will be playing next. I give a sigh and turn off the lights. I never get to hear the song.

July 1, 2005:
The alarm rings at 6:15am and i wake up with a start. I put the clothes in the wash and get back into bed, lying there trying to decide if i should go for a walk. A decision gets made 20 minutes later and i put on my runners. As i walk, i can't believe the sun is out. The air is crisp and i want to leap like a gazelle. I manage to contain myself. I come home, hang the clothes out to dry, take my shower, flat iron my hair, have a cup of soy coffee and run for the bus. The deejay plays You and Me. I give a sigh, lose myself in the song and become a little bit dreamy. I arrive in church, have raisin toast that the Brazilian boys made and get ready for service. Cheryl, my new friend from Northern Ireland, sits next to me. We learn to discern between princesses and prima donnas. I'm quite alarmed to discover that there's quite a bit of prima donna in me. God is definitely trying to get me to change and it's time i checked myself. During the service, i also spend some time trying not to look at the boy who's on stage playing the guitar. It proves to be a a tad difficult since he's directly in my line of vision. I tell myself that it's ok to be attracted to him even if he has a girlfriend because you and i know that i'm not the sort of girl who does something to jeopardises someone else's relationship. But anyways. I take some photos in church and then ask Cheryl if she'd like to accompany me on my search for an mP3 player. She does. We walk around for five minutes before i realise that what i really want to do is talk to her. Turns out Cheryl wants to talk too. We settle ourselves down in Gloria Jean's and Cheryl buys me a Macadamia Nut Latte. The coffee and the company are excellent. Two hours later, we walk back to central- me to catch a bus and she to catch her train. In the bus, a man with very big hands sits in front of me and i spend some time secretly examining his hands and then looking back at mine, which seem teeny in comparison. I notice that the hands belong to a man who also happens to have very nice eyes. I turn towards the window and look out. I arrive home with blistered feet and make myself a fruit salad. I turn the computer on and smile widely when i realise that i'm the recepient of encouragement- from Andrea (a friend of a friend who will soon become a friend) who left a very lovely comment on my previous entry and from Craig, my supervisor who tells me he knows i'm going to have fantastic material for my thesis. Also, i have finally gotten my ethics approval and can thus begin my interviews. I'm excited! I realise i need to have a time-table now but it's all good. It's all going to be good.

Rain or shine, God is here. He's my rainbow.