Happy birthday Irene...

So very, very much to be said tonight, so few words.

I went hunting for the passage the speaker was talking about tonight, its in 1 John 3. Looked a little broader in this chapter by 'accident' and it's hit home pretty deeply, and beautifully...

1 John 3:11 'This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another.'

1 John 3:17-20 'If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.'

I suppose tonight my heart condemned me a little.

To fill you guys in, it was a really moving service at XS tonight, guy from compassion spoke to us about goodness and how true goodness is using the unique thing that God made you brilliant at, to make a difference in a world where three quarters of the worlds food is eaten by one quarter of its population, and the amount that quarter wastes is more than the other three quarters actually eat. In this world where 25,000 children under the age of five will dive of starvation and preventable disease tonight, as I sleep in my warm cosy bed. And as I get up tomorrow morning, whinging about umpiring netball in the cold, I'll earn in an hours easy work what they would earn and live on in a week and a half.

We think we are stuck in a rutt? As we complain about school, work, issues with our relationships etc, feeling that we are walking the same road again and again, going over the same cycles, the cycles of poverty perpetuate too. Twenty five thousand. Thats twice the adelaide entertainment centre. Every. Single. Day. One child every three seconds. Watch a clock. Count.

Personally, I can't do it because it's simply too painful. I'll start crying within a minute of starting. So maybe that's a good challenge for you, find an analogue clock and count for a bit. one, two, three. Make a list of people you know, anyone who matters to you, and watch a clock. Every three seconds, cross one off. See how many people you loved would have died in two or three minutes.

Every time I hear a sermon like that, or watch the videos, I can't help but cry. I prayed in a song once, asking God to 'break my heart for what breaks yours' and sometimes I wish I hadn't. But I know that this pain that sometimes overwhelms me, to the point where I cry myself to sleep, it will motivate me to use the gifts God has given me. Holy discontent style.

So yeah, I cried a lot tonight haha, that just kinda seems to happen to me, I'm an emotional person I guess. The thing was, I got home and my sister said I had a letter from compassion. I didn't leap with joy or anything, because often they are appeals for more money, which as much as I would love to give it to them, I truly and sadly do not have. But tonight was one of those magic nights, a letter from Sharon, my sponsor child in Uganda.

And the most special thing about it? She signed her name herself, for the first time ever. She's five, turning six in february and she makes my heart sing. Sponsoring her is one of the most active things I can actually do in the world right now, that and advocacy and prayer, of course.

But yeah, then I got home and found that verse and it was like 'woah, awesome'.

So yet again, I lay my big fat questions of 'OHMYGOODNESSBLARGHWHATAMIGOINGTODOWITHMYLIIIFEEEEE' at the foot of the cross and leave them there. Because really, what am I going to do with those questions anyway? Nothing useful, that's for sure.

So even though I feel much better, and very hopeful about God's plans for my life, I have to remember that the pain of the world is still there...

So, to todays twenty five thousand...
I am so, so sorry. I wish I knew your names...

I'll just sit back...

So uh, I was just wondering.

Who exactly turned the world to shit while I was looking the other way?



and a random bit of story...

'So there she was, after all she'd been through. Stalking facebook groups and old email accounts for chain mail, sending them all out to everyone she knows, hoping desperately that they would come true. 'I'll be kissed on friday?' 'my true love will find me if I send this to eight billion people?' and fingers crossed, she sends them whizzing through cyber space, as she wishes on 11:11 and 12:12 and 1:01, hoping with all she had left that something, anything would change.'

we're holding up the bypass

Sometimes I have this need curiosity.
About you.
I used to know you, so, so well. Or I thought I did at least, until we were done with that part of us and I discovered all the skary skeletons in your kloset.
I thought we ended so cleanly, but sometimes you only find the worm in the apple when you cut it open, even if that cut seemed to be so clean and sweet and easy, worm juice. Bitter and sticky and all pervading.
That was those months before you found the new place to fit yourself, where you fit properly and truly like I thought we had but we hadn't.
But that is all in the past now, the way we treated each other whether lovingly or bitterly, the antagonisation that you thought didn't matter, the tears and the yelling and the text messages I made myself delete but think of often. The days spent watching silly english comedy and making out on your couch. I ate hot cross buns with your mother, talked about you and her boyfriend with your sister, and made polite if awkward conversation with your dad. We went shopping for plasticine and candles in cheap-as-chips at seaford and I went back there the other day, realising that the last time I was there was with you, helping you with bio all those ages and stages ago.

All of it is in the past, the good, the bad and the ugly, on both sides.

And now we are friends again. We took our bloody time getting here, but here we are.
And these questions come up. They have lost a lot of the emotion behind them now, but part of me still wants to know, in a curiosity way, rather than a desperation way.

Why didn't you ever call me beautiful until worm juice?
Why didn't you tell me?
Why didn't I let myself see it?

Did you really love me, and if you did, had you loved anyone before me?
I suppose I want to see if we matched up.
I don't know that what I felt for you was entirely love, but I thought it was at the time, and that certainly means a lot.
I always thought you were beautiful, a lot of the time I still do, in an odd objective unemotional way, a calm contented reminiscence of the way we used to be, it's much easier now.
I'm finding that the only things that are still raw are the things I never let myself do until now, like listening to that song. That was still hard, but thats because I didn't let myself go through the pain to have the gain of contentedness.
And I almost always think you're funny.

I think you were the first person I loved that way. I know I had him before you, but much too much of that was fear. Like I said, I know that I will love someone more truly and strongly than I did you, one day in the future, just as you now love her. It's beautiful to see you together. I remember that I told you once that you'd make someone very happy and I wish that could be me, and you didn't want to hear it.
It came true, and that is intensely beautiful.

I heard once that you never really get over someone until you love someone else more than you loved them.
I don't believe that this is true. You have to be very, very brave to get through the seemingly endless stage when it feels like that is true, but its not. This knowledge is a huge comfort to me, as I hum my way along through life connecting with as many people as I can in hopefully a deep way, loving and validating people as we all walk down this road together, all walking in different ways but the same direction.

Some march, some crawl, some skip, some strut. Everyone does bits of it all.

I've marched, I've crawled, I've skipped, I've strutted. Now I hope to spin, looking forward to the future, back to the past, sideways to the people around me, and into myself.

I know you used to read this, I don't think you do anymore.
If you do, and you feel like answering all these questions, go ahead. If you do and you don't want to answer, then don't. If you don't read it, this will never matter.

It matters a lot, but not in an agony way, in a significant painful part of my young life being over way.

Looking forward to our continuing degrees of normal.

Who is the lamb and who is the knife?

Today I picked my parents up from the airport, as they came home from whats called a discovery trip with Samaritans Purse, Operation Christmas Child (the shoebox thing, but not just for the tsunami like that one time that they were really badly organised by some other group and never got there) in Vietnam.

For those of you who don't know a) I went to Vietnam for four weeks in Nov/Dec 2008 and b) OCC is an amazing christian mission thing that allows a fantastic organisation to get a foot in the door and brighten up children's lives, as well as doing other amazing work in the communities.

So my dad showed me one of the videos of this little boy, who got a cat in the hat toy in his box and for some reason it really got to me. I guess cos its such a simple thing that we take so for granted, and yet it was so amazing and beautiful to this little boy, that it made the whole thing become that way.

It reminded me of when I was there, I played catch with this little girl at a school we visited really briefly, her name was chai and we played catch for like, 45 minutes until we all had to stop playing with the kiddies, give them the tennis balls and footies we'd been mucking around with and head off.

Sounds simple enough I guess, but our guide had to tell her about three times (in their language too) that it was for her before it really clicked properly, and the look on her face was simply incredible.

Another time we gave away a football and had to tell the young boy three times (this time with us attempting his language with help from the guide) before he realised, and he cried. Our guide told us that this was one of the poorest villages around, and that he had never had anything like it, and may never have if we hadn't given him it. Heartbreakingly beautiful.

And then there was slum survivor a while back, I came back shaken up, convicted and actually kinda disturbed, I cried myself to sleep that night thinking of all the people who never get out of that situation.

Part of my point here, is that I learn so slowly. I think part of me is afraid of being passionate, afraid of the type of deep convictions that simply must be acted upon. Ok, forget 'I think', I know.

I get so many opportunities to be truly ignited for a cause that matters, and often I am, but never for long enough to do anything about it, and I bet that is a huge reason behind it, fear of action and its repercussions, fear of...
Well the unknown I guess. What a silly thing to be afraid of...

Only two options, Love and Fear.
Only two results, Love and Fear
(I should memorise this lol)

I'm always harping on about love, blogging, writing, talking, painting, writing songs, drawing, wasting time not actually doing anything at all...

So how do I get past the fear?

this sweet madness...

I want to ask you stupid questions.
I want to ask you what type of cereal you like, whether you like vegemite, whether you drink tea or coffee, whether you want to stay in adelaide or move away, I want to know if you wanna be a dad, and if so how many kids and have you ever wondered what you'd name them?
I wanna know your favourite movie and your least favourite TV show.
I wanna know what advertising jingle makes you want to punch babies, or if you're too chilled to give a damn, or if you don't even watch much TV.
I want to know what kind of old person you wanna be, or if you've even ever thought of it.
I wanna know your favourite season, your favourite time of day, your favourite type of tree.
You favourite flower.

I wanna know what kind of questions you'd ask me.
I wanna know if you've noticed what colour my eyes are, or the state of my favourite shoes.
I wanna know who you'd ask if I like you... If you wanted to know.
I wanna know if you'd ask my dads permission
I wanna know if you'd protect me from blowflies and staircases.
I wanna know what kind of a car you'd dream of having.
I wanna know what kind of car you'd imagine me driving.
I wanna know if the idea of me driving scares you, or makes you laugh, or if you even give a damn.
I wanna know if you can imagine me driving kids (ours?) to football, or netball.
I wanna know if you can imagine drinking tea with me on the morning of my eighty seventh birthday.

I wanna know if you would put the sauce bottle in the pantry or the fridge.
And if you'd change to the pantry just for me...


I wanna know if I'm weird for thinking of all of this stuff..


i am sitting here inside my heart armour, too small for it now, bashing against the walls.
screaming, begging for somebody, anybody to let me out.
I wish it could be you beautiful angels, but like an idiot, I decided to narrow the criteria, just a LOT too much...

echoes of mercy, whispers of love

the wonder and beauty of the fact that
'you provide for those who fear you'


and I, for once, am not afraid of my questions, of my doubts.
For once, I dare to ask you.

What about the others?

we drift here alone with nothing to do

these questions don't answer like other questions do...

untiloneofusmakestheotheronecometrue

<3glitter