Tag Archives: faith

My three things

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A friend recently challenged me on a New Years resolution kinda question (or should I say series of questions):

Her challenges were: 

1) What do you want to grow in?

2) What do you want more of?

3) What do you want to let go of?

And, for the sake of transparency, and to encourage you all in your own thinking… Here are my answers.

What do I want to grow in? I want to grow in the knowledge and understanding what it means to have faith and trust in God. For me personally, I need to take myself out of the drivers seat and attempt to grasp the hugeness of who God is and what it means to just trust. Trust.

What comes with that is an understanding that I am not on my own, and that at any time, I can ask for help and wisdom.

Also… Minimalism.

What do I want to let go of? I want to do my best to let go of the need to control. To control my family, my future, my picture perfect image of my life should look like (or at least what I imagine it to be). I think this need to control is more exhausting than I realize and while I love order and neat and tidy, I need to relax and just be.

I also need to let go of my obsession with my phone. I really do. This obsession with checking apps mindlessly must GO.

What do I want more of? I want more of a life rhythm. I am a typical number 7 on the enneagram. Outgoing, Adventurer, GO GO GO, experience, experience, experience. But with two little people at home, a new year with a new house, building renovations and and and, this spontaneous wild at heart never-say-no girl, must learn to sloooooow doooown. I need more of a groove, of a rhythm.

Everyday when I pick up my 3.5yr old from play school he asks me where we’re going. To which I reply ‘home’. And he’s always disappointed. As it turns out, the constant trips (post school) to the grocery store, aquarium, ice cream place, smoothie shop etc. has encouraged a little person with rather high expectations for an adventure every day.

“Sorry buddy, it’s home for peanut butter sarmies. Let’s go.”


We’re well and truly into 2016. What are your new life goals, personal challenges or dare I say ‘resolutions’?

Picture Credit: shawellnessclinic.com

You get what you get

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Clayden (our almost 3 year old) comes home from school with some classic one liners.

His most recent has been ‘you get what you get and you don’t get upset’. When Clay was going through a (painful) ‘I don’t want to’ phase, I asked his teacher what an appropriate response would be (as opposed to ‘I dont CARE’ which seemed slightly insensitive and un-role-model like), to which she suggested ‘well, sometimes we have to do things we don’t want to do’. It’s come back to bite us in the ass from time to time (from the mouth of our very own first-born himself) but it often jabs me with conviction when I speak those words to him, while inwardly having my own private kicking-and-screaming tantrums about my own life.

If I’m honest, our life is a bit of a mess at the moment. We’re in a fairly intense holding pattern. It’s like we’re sitting in the boarding lounge of an airport, checked in, ready to go, travellers angst building. We’ve waved goodbye to what’s behind us but have not yet boarded the plane we’re so anxious to board. It’s like we’re waiting, desperate for that announcement informing us that our gate is open for boarding.

Between moving continents after a (and I know I sound dramatic but significantly) life changing season, landing afresh in a city we haven’t lived in in 10 years, selling property, buying property, living with family, finding jobs (real, grown up jobs), creating some sense of security for the kids, being afraid of settling and being desperate to settle at the same time, longing for routine and denying the promptings of the next adventure. It’s a mess. Fights are real, stress is hard, the future is unknown and it’s a raw, struggle-filled, constantly-evaluating-everything, swimming-through-mud kinda slog. It’s ongoing. And it’s been almost 7 months.


But, ‘sometimes we have to do things we don’t want to do’. Sometimes we need to say hard goodbyes, close doors, make difficult phone calls, allow yourself to feel, or accept the tougher climb. We need to grind our teeth, push hard, sweat it out and embrace it. And, amazingly enough in the end, we’re so much better off for it. We might have some battle wounds, but wow, life is raw and beautiful on the other side. I sound as if we’re on the other side – we’re not.

What we are though, is stronger, braver, and more courageous. Don’t think I’m all heroine-like. I’m far from it. If you could see how quickly I can chew my way through a brick of fondant icing in a moment of weakness, you’d be horrified. Oh beautiful, beautiful sugar, my go-to. My soft spot.

And so I hold on, by my fingernails, because ‘the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything’. (James 1:3-4) 

‘We know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope, does not disappoint’. (Romans 5:3-4)

And so sometimes you get what you get, and sometimes we have to do things we don’t want to do. Sometimes we need to dig into a tin of condensed milk and watch pitch perfect for the thousandth time or we may need a long hard run and a cry in the shower, either way, it’s okay. Let’s walk this journey together.

As my friend Claire says, all jobs (tasks, adventures, struggles, celebrations…) are better with a friend.

So cheers to you my friends. You’re rock stars.