Love the one you're with

Hello sweet angels of the earth

My mind is all higgledy-piggledy so I go outside and walk on the earth .... and unexpectedly the thunder rumbles and the rain falls ... a passing thunderstorm and I run in the rain and stretch my arms up to the heavens and I let the fresh sweet smell of rain on hot earth fill my senses and it is a beautiful unexpected gift.

My heart is filled to the brim with the message of love the one you're with.  Love the earth you are standing on, love your body, your skin, your thoughts and love your partner and your children and your friends and your community and your Church and unreservedly love this time right here right now.  Love the one you're with, cross the line, reach out, open up and love where you are right now.

I don't think this means settle for where you are, I don't think this message equates to this is as good as it gets,i t doesn't mean don't question the status quo absolutely not.

Be thankful today so you can appreciate all that is still to come.  It means if your heart is filled with love you can appreciate all the good in your life, you can make good choices and sound decisions.  It means you will feel good and people you meet along the way will feel good for spending time with you.  It means the world will be a better place.

Our time on earth is a passing gift, a time to live and grow and love and enjoy.  So many people have trodden on the earth before me and they will continue to after me and I don't know how long I have, nobody does.  I want to spend my time planting seeds of love and joy, because I know these seeds will grow and the harvest will be reaped for generations to come.  Galatians 6:7 "Don't be misled -- you cannot mock the justice of God.  You will always harvest what you plant".

Every time I watch an episode of Who Do You Think You Are? an Australian television documentary series on SBS I am astounded at the effect the experience has on all involved.  All of the celebrities are deeply moved when they uncover the actions and life experiences of their ancestors, many of whom lived hundreds of years ago, still impacts on the everyday life of people today.  Not only do we reap what we sow, so will our future descendants, what you think, say and do really does have long lasting consequences.

Feelings of inadequacy still creep in for me, I feel like I should do more, my house should be tidier, I should work more hours and earn more money.  Sometimes I get filled with fear about silly things like superannuation and university fees for our children and needing more clothes or shoes or a new car but this is just the message large corporations and the government are compelled to relentlessly repeat so they can make money - it is not a message coming from love rather it comes from greed and fear.

So on this beautiful Friday can I encourage you to catch your thoughts and words, and take time to love the ones you are with today, tomorrow and every day there after.  If you are in a place where this seems excruciatingly impossible call on the Lord as Psalm 34:18 says "The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit".

May you experience an avalanche of ordinary moments this weekend that fill you with love, and may you take the time to appreciate and treasure each one.

Written with much love
Justine xx

The beat of angel wings

I love!!  I love love.  I love to surround myself with love, people I love, places I love, I feel incredibly blessed, and sometimes deeply drained, because I regularly feel overpowered by feelings of love. I love!!  I also get furiously mad, I get filled with such anger and frustration.  Sometimes I want to yell or push or smash or retaliate or hurt but thankfully mostly I don't because love triumphs, mostly.

I genuinely believe we can live a life overflowing with love, God chose to create us out of his great love "I have loved you with an everlasting love" (Jeremiah 31:3). Love can hurt, badly, when we have it, when we give it completely and it gets snatched away, and out of fear of loss or hurt or pain or of the unknown or of rejection we simply withhold our love, we try to keep it on a tight tether, maybe try to keep the upper hand, try and stay in control, maybe we hold back as a survival mechanism.

Love to me is soft and gentle and good, and should not need to be withheld ever.  It brings with it joy and sadness, it brings with it triumph and loss, it brings with it a myriad of feelings I am unable to articulate but each one worthy of being felt and treasured.  I have witnessed the deepest heartache and pain the loss of a child has caused, but would that parent ever wish they never loved with their whole heart, never.  I have seen a devastated spouse bury their true love, on bended knee crying and wishing for just one more day.  Do they regret one ounce of the love they shared, I doubt it.

Has anybody ever said "My greatest regret is that I loved too much"?

I try and imagine love as soft and gentle as a butterfly, it can not be captured or held against its will, it can not be manipulated or bought or sold, love is in the rhythm of our bodies, it is the beat of angel wings, it is not of this earth, and it is magnificently gloriously wonderful and bold and ever present.

I am loving the poetry of Nayyirah Waheed and one of her poems reads
if you are softer
than before
they came
you
have been loved.

We are loved, it is infinite, we are surrounded by pure loving energy, each one of us can access and live in this love we just have to want to feel it.  To be vulnerable, to open our hearts to it, to speak it out over our homes, lives, family and friends, it is free for us to share and give and gracefully receive, it is in words and deeds, and in places and things, it is abundant.  It is a choice, love is a choice.

So my prayer today is that all of us choose love, set it as our highest goal, our most revered ambition, that we let go and fall into the loving arms of our Creator, that we see love swirling around each one of us, being breathed in and out, opening out our chest and letting love flood in to fill every part of our physical being and to just be a little bit softer, on ourselves, on those around us and on our planet.

Go softly my love xo

Five things I have learnt this week

Mahatma Gandhi said "Live as if you were to die tomorrow.  Learn as if you were to live forever".

My sister, a teacher, is always telling me about how anything in life is possible if you are committed to learning.  She is not necessarily talking about studying a structured course or the type of learning that will get you a certificate to frame and hang on the wall, rather the every day learning that comes from having an open, interested, alert and engaged mind.

Twenty-sixteen is shaping up to be a turbulent year for me in terms of spiritual growth, breaking down long held and unhelpful paradigms and planting the seeds of my dreams in the soil of reality. So it seems it will be the perfect opportunity to track some of my learning along the way.

1/ Psalm 34:3-6 says " Oh magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together! I sought the Lord, and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears.  Those who look to him are radiant, and their faces shall never be ashamed.  The poor man cried, and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles".

I am not sure I had read this before this week but I love it ... there are so many more beautiful lines in the Psalm "Seek peace and pursue it" and "The Lord is near the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit", 'Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good", it is full of love and hope and reassurance and it has been a real blessing for me this week.

2/ I attended Radiant Light Yoga for the second time and it was truly amazing.  I have never experienced anything like it.  For just a few minutes in the 90 minute session I felt a soul soothing happiness, a total release from the pressure of life and it was magnificent.  I can't wait until next week.

3/ Rain makes us happy.  It truly does, it is renewing and uplifting, it brings hope and joy and the promise of new life and prosperity and  abundance.  It cools everything down and settles the dust of the land and the spirit.  Awww sweet sweet rain how we love you so.

4/ Wise and kind friends are golden.  This I already knew but I was reminded of it this week.  Proverb 27:17 says "As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another", who we spend our time with can deeply enrich our lives and kindred spirits are nourishing soul food.

5/ When you photocopy documents to be certified make sure it is an absolutely true and correct copy without even a full stop missing, otherwise you will not get your document certified.

Life is more exciting and interesting when you are always looking for new things to learn ... my sister is definitely right.

Have you learnt anything this week you would like to share?

You can't handle the truth

Tonight after the rain, the stars were out, the crickets chirping and the frogs croaking, I walked up our driveway crying out loudly because the words my daughter said to me before she went to bed were straight from my heart and I hated hearing them from her.

At dinner tonight I asked our eight year old if she had been asking another little girl in class for answers.

Well what followed was a bunch of excuses, tears and dramatics about not being able to concentrate, not knowing enough big words to answer the question, not being allowed to go on the computer all the time ... she was obviously getting desperate to avoid being blamed for something.

I tried to explain she wasn't in trouble I just really wanted her to answer her own questions and use her own mind.  I didn't care if her answer was wrong or right just so long as it was hers.  I went on to say she was amazingly clever and creative and thoughtful and could answer any question any way she wanted to.  Please I begged just use your own mind. I believed every word I was saying, I was speaking absolute truth.

A lot more tears and hugging and she said 'I am not clever Mummy, I can't answer the questions, I won't get it right' and at that she sobbed rolled over and went to sleep.

I tried to shrug it off, that she was just tired and emotional but five minutes on and I was crying.  All the time I tell myself, I am not clever at anything, I can't do it, I can't do life as well as those around me, I am a failure and I am worthless.  My own insecurities that I try so hard to hide and mask I have inadvertently, through actions and deeds, passed them on to our precious daughter.

I walked up the drive crying, looking up to the stars, calling out to God about all my failings as a mother, wife, individual and I cried really really hard and hoped for answers.  After a lot of wrestling I turned and walked home and I knew, the only way she will ever feel worthy is if I feel it and demonstrate it first.  No matter what I say to her she is somehow seeing straight past the words to my thoughts and heart and she is cutting straight to the crux of it.

I don't know how to feel worthy, I try genuinely hard, I have every single day of my life, I have tried but I just don't feel it.  I do know I am God breathed, I know that Jesus loves me, I believe I was created in God's image and I am somehow part of His perfect plan.  I know these facts in my head, but I still do not feel worthy, it is not a truth I can easily accept but tonight demonstrated  how absolutely crucial it is otherwise I am going to accidentally burden our children with similar unhelpful and untrue worries about their worth.

And so this parenting journey continues ... it is so raw and honest and soul wrenching and challenging on every level and I just need to be real with myself before I can pass on any real wisdom to our babies and it scares me because I don't know what real is, what if I can't handle the truth.

May this home be firmly built upon faith

We have spent these past summer holidays in some beautiful parts of Australia with people that we love dearly.  Now we are firmly deposited back home in Roma and I must admit I sometimes ponder why we love living here so much, and a lot of people ask us often 'Gawd ... why on earth do you live in Roma' {grimmace face}?  

It is remote for us (I don't think we have another blood relative within about 800kms and it is hot a lot of the time, really hot and dry.  Our garden has a lot of fleabane weed which is proving near impossible to kill, we have planted hundreds of trees which take ages to grow, if they survive,  because it is so hot and dry and freezing cold in winter, and we still have so much work to do on our little property to bring our dreams to fruition. The vision is GRAND!!  

I admit to dreaming about living in a cute cottage in the breathtakingly beautiful hills of Bellingen, or just somewhere that is a wee bit cooler and greener and within maybe 200kms of the beach.  Why do we feel most complete and happy living at Herbgully in Roma? 

There are so many reason we continue to happily live here, the gorgeous country school our girls go to, the passionate, kind and very proactive teachers and parents, oh and the girls dance teacher and singing teacher are both overflowing with kindness and talent and give of their time so generously and the volunteers who teach them touch football and netball are the best.  They have so many opportunities to learn and grow and express themselves freely and they are loved.  Our Church, oh my goodness our Church is beautiful and the Church family that exists within its walls we love with all our heart. We have celebrated numerous baptisms, Christmas and Easter Services and birthdays together.  We have been through pain and disappointments and frustrations and grief but we keep doing life together, it is real and hard and teaches us about faithfulness. 

The people we have met during our time in Roma are some of the most inspiring, kind, loving and funny friends we have ever met and just this week I have met two more beautiful souls who are sharing their knowledge and wisdom with me.   People come and go from Roma all the time, which has caused us much heartbreak because we have loved many of them deeply (you know who you are) but we will be friends for life and we look forward to meeting those who we will cross paths with this year. 

The beauty of Roma is not instantly apparent, you need to look for it, you need to slow down and feel it, you need to take the time to love the people, you need to choose to see the good and the positive. This tough climate breeds tough people so it can seem harsh and off putting to begin with but the strength of spirit is second to none. The circumstances that bought us to Roma twelve years ago are funny and very hard to explain and I believe it was deeply spiritual.  
I don't know much about the ancestors of this great land but I think they were probably very happy, strong, healthy, wise and content here before the invasion, and I think they may have lived good lives and their energy remains in the earth.  

Then there is the town name itself, Roma.  Roma was named after Lady Diamantina Bowen (Contessa Diamantina di Roma), what a magnificent name that has great and powerful energy. Diamantina was described as "pretty" but tempered perhaps by the remark "her beauty being in her expression rather than her features", just like Roma the town.  She was described as slender but graceful and coming from an aristocratic family she had a privileged well-educated upbringing.  She could play the piano and sing well.  Diamantina spoke English well but with a slight accent and it is claimed she spoke with her husband at home in her native Italian. All these wonderful qualities have been bestowed on our town because of the name.

Considering only about 8000 people live in Roma obviously a vast majority of people do not feel the same as us, we love doing life in Roma and feel incredibly blessed.

All my possessions for a moment of time

"Enough is enough" I declared as I looked around the house at the end of school holidays, "We simply can not fit anymore stuff in our house and we are drowning in books, DVDs, clothes, craft supplies, pens, pencils, hair ties, necklaces, shoes and loads of little tiny things and it is painful.  I am throwing it all out".  My family just stood by in stunned silence wondering if they too may get thrown out.

Our pantry is full, our closets are full, the toy boxes are full, the bookshelves are full, the jewellery boxes are full.  Every conceivable cupboard, drawer, shelf and bench space in our home is full.  It burdens all of us with a huge responsibility to look after, pack away, maintain, use and appreciate all of these things which is increasingly more difficult.  Each birthday, Christmas, Easter, trip to town we get more and it is unsustainable.

In my infinite wisdom I was going to introduce a moratorium on all presents whether it be clothes, books, craft supplies, ornaments, decorations, cards anything at all, it was all going to be prohibited from Herbgully. Our new family motto was going to be 'Stop buying stuff and start doing things' and our hashtag was going to be #stopthestuff.  It was all perfectly planned.

However, I had dinner with a beautiful and wise friend who suggested maybe I was being a little too extreme, that same night another dear friend just said 'well I will still buy you stuff anyway because I love you'.  The very next day we went to Eumundi Markets and saw so many beautiful hand crafted, clever and amazing things designed and made by creative artisans and my moratorium would've meant my home and life could never be blessed by any of this gorgeousness....EVER.

Further adding to the situation is that we live a long way from all of our family so the giving of gifts is a wonderful way to show our love, our children are loved deeply by many and they are often given gifts as a sign of love.  I recognise that gift giving is a love language and it is how some people show their love, including myself.  However we have run out of room.  Short of extending the house we just do not have the necessary storage space for anymore of anything.

As I wrestled with how to move forward I turned to the Bible and in Luke 12:15 it says "Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions" and this brings me some comfort because my life does not consist in the abundance of my possessions, Life was not breathed into me so I could spend my days picking up, packing away, tidying up, yelling and feeling exasperated by all that we own.


However I do live in a beautiful world.  The universe was created by the word of God and just in the past six weeks I have been to some of the most gorgeous wonders, including beaches and water falls and mountain streams and it is obvious God withheld nothings from His creation.
He poured beauty into it.  When I look into the faces of my children and feel the intense love I have for my husband I know that God adores beauty and splendour and abundance.  Even strolling around Eumundi Markets admiring the works of so many talented and creative souls, God created them to bring beauty into His world.

One's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions, it has never been and will never be about the stuff but it doesn't mean having lovely things is bad, because lovely things make us smile and bring us joy.

We are going to try the process of holding everything we own near our hearts and determining if we love it, 'no love no stay'.  Once we have more space to think and breathe we can be much more conscious about all future purchases and gifts and I really do think wonderful and unique experiences will make for some beautiful presents in the future.

It is just about being thoughtful and purposeful and intentional in all that we buy so we don't accidentally end up living a less than satisfactory life but rather so we can truly enjoy this life the way God intended.

Do you have any good tips of trying to reduce clutter from your home?

Believe and do not doubt

I have spent much of January at the beach, hanging out with some of my most favourite people in the whole wide world.  I have spent many hours writing out my dreams and hopes for the year, doing up dreamboards for 2016, selecting a word for the year and really trying to surge into the year full of hope and optimism, using the wonderfully inspiring Leonie Dawson resources.  I have no end of great ideas and dreams but since returning home and with the practicality of life becoming a bit more real I am riddled with doubt.

This isn't a mild case of doubt but kind of severe, leading to a bit of self-loathing and overwhelming feelings of uselessness, despite starting each day with a brisk walk and a positive affirmation my mind has those little niggling voices saying 'ha as if you can do all that', 'oh Justine you are so silly getting your hopes up, you can't do anything let alone that'.  Mean huh!!

The Bibles says, in James 1:5-6 "If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously without finding fault, and it will be given to him.  But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind".

I can relate to that.  These dreams that I have written down for 2016 are not new, some of them I have been carting around for a decade, most others about three years.  Too long.  For some obscure reason I sabotage myself, I doubt that I can really do these things, I get tossed and blown moving erratically and definitely not strategically from place to place and let self-doubt win every time.

We all have these days, don't we, when we doubt ourselves and think everything we do is crap, and we feel sad but then we also have those days when we feel like Superman (these are the moments we share all over social media) and I guess it is all just supposed to balance out.

But I am tired of being tossed and blown like a wave, and I'm sick of waiting for it all to just balance out in the end, it is bullshit and 2016 is the year I draw a line in the sand and say 'no more', I sound big and tough but I'm not really, it is a much more timid murmur from the safety and security of my lovely comfy bed, but I mean it, I really do.  I get one life, that is it, and next year I turn 40 so I am kind of almost half way through this life so it is time to get going.

Quite literally the only thing standing between me and my dreams is the self talk going on in my head - which I can control!  One of my motto's for this year is 'When in doubt do it' so it is settled, I must do it!

What are your dreams and goals for 2016?  Is the talk in your head helping or hindering those dreams?