Charades: the World's Most Irritating Game.

Recently, my boyfriend lost his voice. Seriously, he could not say a word! Of course, I couldn’t exactly blame the poor guy – he didn’t seem too pleased with it himself... But that didn’t change the fact that it was, well, kind of irritating. Allow me to place this in context:

            I had planned a lovely, romantic picnic for the two of us – I’m talking chocolate; hand-cooked crisps; liquorice; wine gums; sandwiches... You name it! The day arrived and I couldn’t wait to see him! Then, I received an SMS – it was my beau, telling me he was on his way and that I should just know he had lost his voice, so he advised that I bring a book to read. Of course, as someone who’s never lost her voice (the day that happens, it will snow in outer-space), I thought it would be fine and that we’d still be able to chat. But when he arrived to pick me up and he presented me with a whole bunch of little notes, asking where we were off to and so on, I realised how serious it was.

The day entailed the two of us communicating via means of sign-language (something of which I have very little knowledge) and what might have seemed like charades. I’m sure on-lookers would have looked at us and thought “What a sad couple. They’re so easily amused with old-fashioned games!”

Of course, I absolutely loved spending time with my boyfriend (albeit in full silence) and I did come to the (contradictory) conclusion that “it says a lot about our relationship if we can spend the day together in silence and yet still have a good time.”

             But that didn’t change the fact that I was a little irritated. Although it was still fun, I had found the whole day was a test of my patience! I found myself getting really irritated when I couldn’t understand what he was trying to say and I’m sure he was equally frustrated when I didn’t catch on to whatever message he was trying to put across.

So this got me thinking: relationships are hard work, but they’re even harder when there are communication issues! We’ve all been in a similar situation to the one I’ve just described – where you try to communicate with someone (albeit verbally, via SMS or via some other means of communication) and you don’t get a response! It leaves you feeling frustrated; unacknowledged; perhaps even neglected. But it also – undoubtedly – leaves you with very little patience.

All that said and done, I can only imagine how God feels sometimes. Are we so cheeky that we:

·         Neglect God

·         Test His patience

·         Leave Him unacknowledged

It’s like He’s just trying to communicate with us, but we block him out. Or perhaps we acknowledge Him, but we don’t actually respond. Maybe it’s not even intentional: we’ve had our voices “lost” to worldly obligations such as work or exams and so we can’t respond the way we want to i.e. we can’t give God the attention He deserves. There really shouldn’t be an excuse. He created time and therefore we should be able to give Him some of ours. We should be communicating with God as regularly and as sincerely as possible.

“Pray at all times and on every occasion in the power of the Holy Spirit.” – Ephesians 6:18; NLT

“Keep praying.” – 1 Thessalonians 5:17; NLT

“But when you ask Him, be sure that you really expect Him to answer, for a doubtful mind is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind.” – James 1:6; NLT

He’s standing right beside us, talking to us; guiding us; yet all we can do is respond with a shrug of the shoulders or by ignoring Him. It’s about taking the time to listen to Him and taking the time to give Him the response He deserves. Take Courage and take time – listen to the Lord and communicate with Him. It’s not fair if we expect Him to do all the talking.

*Silence is [not] Golden.

Silence is [not] Golden

So here’s the deal: I am a talker. Born and bred to ramble on for longer than most people can keep up with. Losing interest already? Well  – it’s ‘cause I’m a babbler! Right, so now that you know that, you might understand why my last entry was a billion words long (all of which were necessary, of course) and you can probably guess that I’ve been told – more than once – to keep quiet by most people who get an over-dose of my melodic voice. Of course, family and friends do grow tired of those two words and over time have become more creative and rather than just telling me to “ssshhh”, they’ve shut me down with age-old sayings:

“Children are to be seen and not heard.” (Great, I’ll pass that on to the children)

“The emptiest vessel makes the loudest noise.” (I’m not empty, dearest.)

“Silence is golden.” (Well, ladies and gentlemen... Noise – on the other hand – is platinum.)

 OK no, you can’t turn around and actually say that (it really doesn’t go down well and it’s quite disrespectful), but you can apply it to your spiritual life:

“Shout joyful praises to God, all the earth! Sing about the glory of His name! Tell the world how glorious He is.” – Psalm 66:1-2; NLT

For those of you who don’t know, platinum is quite valuable – it surpasses gold in value and has many different uses! It’s durable and pretty and it’s never out of fashion. But it’s also unnoticeable: if you ask me, I’ve never really been able to tell the difference between silver and platinum, which really makes spending a lot of money on platinum seem really silly when the same thing (I’m really referring to jewellery here) could have cost a quarter of the price if it was silver. But that doesn’t change the fact that its value is still higher. So why is it that, like a piece of really valuable platinum, we choose blend into the background. We have so many uses; so much value and potential; yet we just take the camouflage route! I’ll say it again: Noise is platinum. Therefore, Noise is valuable. Noise has many uses. Noise is not always bad! We should be shouting for joy! Not because we feel obliged to do so, but rather because we are compelled! As though we can’t contain ourselves! I mean really, we’re loved – unconditionally – by Someone so powerful, Someone who doesn’t even need us and yet, we’re quiet about it, as though it’s no big deal!

I’m sure some of you have been in love? You’ve just wanted to climb a mountain and let the whole world know?! Shouldn’t it be like that with God? Shouldn’t we be so in love, so sold-out and so head-over that we can’t contain it?!I say: Yes. Of course it should be like that! And it should undoubtedly be done with joy!

“My lips will shout for joy when I sing praise to you – I, whom you have redeemed.” Psalm 71:23

“Shout for joy, O heavens; rejoice O earth; burst into song, O mountains!” – Isaiah 49:13

Shouting can be worth so much more than a whisper! Yes, it’s a big challenge... I’ll second that a hundred times! But I’m encouraging you to Take Courage and give a shout out to the One who deserves it! Sure – I’ve got to take my own advice too, but that shouldn’t stop you. Let’s shout for joy! We’ve been saved; we’re loved unconditionally!  

Shout it out!

 

Knowledge of the Lord and Expired Face Masks

"Fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Only fools despise wisdom and discipline." - Proverbs 1:7 [I THINK ;) ]

Ok so this is how it is. Knowledge is important. It's vital. We need it to survive. We need it to live. We need it to love... We need it to save a bit of dignity.

No, really.

Today I decided to treat myself to a spa-type-facial-thing. Not just the usual cleanse, tone and moisturise. Oh no. I decided I'd use a face mask! This was for real. Now, it should be known that the only face mask I could find had been hiding in my cupboard for months, perhaps even years. I knew this as I opened the packet, but thought "Hmmm, can't be too bad, what could poossibly go wrong?" and completely ignored the little "You'll regret this." voice.

Well. I suppose that tiny little cautious feeling within me should have been taken more seriously:

There I was, defiant and ready to apply the [won't say any names] "product". I followed the instructions; I avoided the hairline, eye area and mouth area and I smeared the stuff (which may be compared to gunk) all over my pretty face. It hadn't even been on my face for 30 seconds when the burning feeling had me wondering how soon I should be taking it off. "Leave on for 10 minutes." read the instructions...
"10 MINUTES?! Well," I thought "if this is supposed to be on my face for 10 minutes, is it supposed to be burning me despite it only being on my face for less than 1?" I knew the burn that was suddenly penetrating my skin wasn't the usual soothing sensation I had been looking for. My mind stared racing: "Did it do this last time? Yes. OK not really. Last time it was a soothing tingle and a different product that had been bought the day before - this is decades old and seems to be burning - not tingling!"
So, I (not so) calmly turned on the tap with shaky hands and washed the darn thing off - I was sure the manufacturers didn't intend on their clients enduring 10 minutes of such a sensation and I wondered what the result of my enduring 2 would be...

Well, at first everything looked fine. But the blinds were down. So, I flipped them up and turned to the mirror a second time, to see myself in the light. I was met by an expectant tomato-faced girl who seemed to be saying "What has happened to my face?!" I was briefly amused by her worried expression until I realised I was looking at me! In that moment I may have been compared to an orange-faced teen from Jersey Shore, except the difference was: I hadn't had a say in the matter! My face was bright red and burning and it looked as though I'd fallen asleep in the sun. What made things worse? I had pale circles around my eyes and mouth and a distinct line right before my hairline where the face mask hadn't been spread... I looked ridiculous. At that moment, my sister got home and burst into laughter - I did too but then I started crying. Of course, I'm very dramatic, which only made things more traumatising!

Anyways! My sweet sister  prepared an ice-cold, rooibos-soaked face cloth which I left on my face for what felt like hours; after removing it I was back to my lilly-white self but I found myself to be a at a loss for words and dignity. "What were you thinking?" my sister asked.

"I have no idea." was my fruitful response.

So - today I learnt a whole lot in the most traumatic 3-or-so hours of my week... Firstly, don't use expired face masks; secondly, listen to the feeling that says "don't use expired face masks." and finally: a soothing tingle and a deep burn are two entirely different sensations!

But the real point of this message was not to alert everyone of my ditsy moment, rather, it was to draw a few examples...

We are blessed with knowledge (because two certain people (*cough* *cough* - Adam, Eve...) decided to eat off of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil...) and we are thus able to distinguish between right and wrong; good and bad; silly and smart. So why do we ignore it [knowledge] anyways?! I'm not really referring to the face mask anymore... I'm talking about smearing our hearts in sin even though we have that cautious little feeling that says "This is wrong - perhaps I shouldn't do it." So why do we ignore God? Because inevitably that's what we're doing when we ignore that voice. If we have the audacity to ignore our Creator, I'd assume we don't really fear him and therfore our lack of knowledge is explained...

"Fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge." See?

 Did anyone else just have an "Ah-ha!" moment? I did! So, my challeng for the week: Take Courage, suck up your pride and realise that you really should be God Fearing! I mean really - this Alpha is capable of anything (technically He made that face mask and He was the cautious little voice saying "Don't use it, Missy, it's expired..." - that's made me God fearing...)

Still A Baby

Sometimes I feel like I'm still a child - a baby! Seriously - it's like you get to this age where suddenly you're expected to know everything - and if not everything, then at least something of relevance. It's weird - I've spent my whole life thinking I know enough (some friends might argue that I think I know too much) but I've hit this wall where I realise I don't know anything. I wish I was only referring to Science, but I'm not. I'm referring to relationships; how people work; my faith.

I mean, I know the basics: I believe in the One and Only - A Great God who sent His only Son to die for this sin-soaked species known as man. I know that sometimes I get angry at Him and I question Him and sometimes I even have the audacity to turn my back on him and yet He still takes me back every time. I know that He loves me - even though I can't understand why... But I don't know how to serve Him as much as I'd like to! I feel like this little child that has all these things to say, yet doesn't have the vocab yet - you know what I mean? Like, all I want to do is say "Give me more of that delicious puree that you love serving in arb aeroplane-inspired ways!" but all I can say is... Well, nothing. All I can really do is cry, because I haven't got the words yet, only a means of expression.

It's as though I'm limited to this environment where I'd love to serve him but can't find the right means of doing so. I mean - what am I supposed to be doing? Is it something nice like "feeding the baby" - where I'm ministering in little ways? Or is this like a "change-the-nappy" kind of thing where I'm supposed to change my life (I'm not saying my life may be compared to a nappy, by the way)? I guess these questions are all answered over time, but sometimes - being an impatient little kid - I can't quite stand the idea of waiting for an answer...I just feel as though I need to be something more. Don't you ever feel like that?

Perhaps that's what it comes down to.I do need to be something more. I can't just keep in sitting around waiting for an opportunity to serve Him... I've got to make or find opportunities, I guess they're everywhere! It's jut about taking innitiative, being less like a child and more like an adult...

I guess I should take my own advice and Take Courage.

Keep "keeping on"!

Highschool. University. The Big Wide World.

Young adults are faced with some tough decisions and challenges nowadays - and with the way life sometimes DRAGS on, it's hard to stay motivated. It's hard to remember why you're enduring Engineering or Journalism or perhaps a repeat of your final year... Yet, you can take comfort in this: you've always got Someone to lend you that Helping Hand, or to teach you a lesson.

This blog is for words of wisdom and inspiration for Christians that are experiencing new things in life and who'd like to share with others. From personal experiences to Bible verses and general thoughts about life - I encourage you to Take Courage and to "keep keeping on"...

May this serve to be the boost you were looking for!