a thousand blue fish

I really feel privelleged to have a blog.  It is this wierd freedom that allows me the time, the space, to speak, to think to dream.  And I feel challenged.  I have read so many blogs of late that really inspire me.  They speak life and quietly, beautifully reflect God the way I want to.  It really saddens me that so many people are pushed away from God because of Christians.  These blogs that speak of a yearning to know God and to live out His purposes on earth, also speak of the reality of what it is to be a child of God.  We struggle and strive, and at times want to throw up our hands.  We do this not because we doubt God, we just do not always remember who we are in God.  I want my blog as an extension of my life to inspire, to encourage. I have been really challeneged to have my life reflect God.  I desire to be the example of Christ, the representation of Christ, Christ to the world around me.  I want to love and b...

First thigns first, i' ve noticed all the gorgeous blogs seem to have loads of pictures. I even read tips on one suggesting less wording. I like the more visual idea but losing words, not happening. Todays post will be exculisively words because I'm posting it from my husbands phone. Yes the phone can take picture, but even I have no interest in looking at grainy photo's not intended for that size. One thing about having kids is that your life and time is not yours, at least while they're little and awake. I have had some crazy afternoons where even the human need of spending a penny (trying to work out the best way to say that) loses it's importance. So yesterday came and I was soooo excited to be getting dressed for husband and going out to a friend's birthday at grown-up place. I'd even painted my nails. Everything was mostly going well until I started having the worst tummy ache. Then for some strange reason I had ringing in my ears and pound...

We do not have the internet at home yet, as we are the house parents for a small Bible School, so when I get to blog it is at my parents' house.  This is usually only in the afternoons when the babies are determined not to play along.  I guess until we get the internet at home, blogging is slightly selfish.  Beatrice moans until I get up to say hi and my little sister or my mom or whoever gets to play with Alexander.  Alexander in the afternoon is not the most fun that can be had.  So I think in the interests of being I good mom.I need to say arrivederci! Please wouldyou be so kind as to say if you like the changes.  I have discovered so many truly beautiful and inspiring blogs, and I would like for my blog to me somethinglike that. thanks 

Turn your ear To Heaven and hear The noise inside The sound of angels awe The sound of angels' songs And all this for a King We could join and sing 'All to Christ our King!' How constant How divine This song of ours will rise Oh, how constant How divine This love of ours will rise Will rise... CHORUS: Ohh praise Him! Ohh praise Him! He is Holy! He is Holy! Turn your gaze To Heaven and raise A joyous noise Oh the sound of salvation come The sound of rescued ones And all this for a king Angels join to sing 'All for Christ our King!' CHORUS {x2} Oh la la la la la la.. Oh la la la la la la.. Oh la la la la la... laaa laa laa laaa! CHORUS How infinite and sweet This love so rescuing Oh how infinitely sweet This great love that has redeemed As one, we sing... OUTRO: Hallelujah, Hallelujah He is Holy, He is Holy OUTRO CHORUS Oh la la la la la la.. Oh la la la la la la.. Oh la la la la la... laaa laa laa laaa! OUT...

"A long December, and there's reason to believe   Maybe this year will be better than the last" A Long December (Counting Crows) So maybe December wasn't that long, and I guess the way December is used doesn't really apply to us as we have long hot December's not cold ones, but I really was hoping this year would be better then last year. I am in a very fragile place, yet another door has closed and it seems as though we are in trouble for not doing the things expected of us properly.  But for the point of not continuing down the really dark road that it seems I am taking I am going to tell you about the things that make me happy. My husband.  I didn't think I would ever get the guy I thougt was good looking and at one point I was preparing myself to become a nun.  My man is my safe place.   I love Emiel more than words can explain and I am so grateful for him in my life. My children.  It is the most amazing p...

I am so exhausted.  I am physically, mentally, spiritually at my end.  I woke up to a sore eye.  Apparently there are lots of nerve things situated around the eye.  Stress sometimes causes things to behave badly.  Great! I love my life.  Its just that there are so many things not running the direction I'd thought they'd run.  And then the heat (we have had really hot weather, that will last until end Feb/March), my sunny-ish disposition is just not so sunny when its too sunny. Sore eye progressed to rip roaring fight with my beloved husband.  It wasn't a nice fight.  I said some very nasty things and behaved in a most revolting manner.  I remember a ridiculous thing mean teachers used to say, 'you are working on my last nerve.'  Today I understand it.  My last nerve got worked on.  My babies don't like being hot, so they were not too happy today.  Then my darl...

When I started this blog I wanted to write something that all my friends could read and not feel alienated by it being a Christian blog. I didn't want it to be a Christian blog. But in writing I can't deny that my life is fully what it is because of God. I can't write anything that doesn't reflect my utter reliance on Him or the amazing work He has done. I also write from a place of desperately wanting my faith to reflect what I believe about my God. One of favourite songs has these lines in 'I will praise you in this storm'(its a Casting Crowns song). Since first hearing that song I've had many times when I've needed to listen to it. It was like I needed them to sing so I could praise. Of late i've learnt (learned?) how to praise. I don't need anyone else to direct me or lead me in, I can praise. We have a needs list and a wants list. The needs list has gotten longer and the wants list has remained untouched. This is where I wan...

I laughed today. I laughed more than I have in a long time. It felt so good to laugh, I felt free. I need to make the decision to laugh more. My laughing made me happy, made my husband feel loved, made my children feel secure. Such a simple thing laughter but with such healing power. I wish I had laughed more over the years and worried less about all of the millions things available for me to worry about. My husband challenged me the other day with this: in every situation ask the question how do I glorify God in this? I think my laughing today glorified God. I think it said I can laugh because I know I don't have to worry about what I can't handle and I don't have to worry about what I can. I can laugh because I know my God holds me in the palm of His hand.

I recently chatted to a friend who told me that she had suffered really bad post-natal depression.  She had had a really bad time for a while and none of her friends knew about it.  I felt really sorry for her, not that that helps now because she is mostly over it.  Yesterday I read about a 16 year old who got hold of his dad's gun and shot himself so he didn't have to go back to boarding school. This morning I read about a 17 year old who threw herself in front of a train because she felt guilty about waisting her mom's money after failing a grade. There are often stories of teenage moms dumping babies in latrines or worse or simply abandoning them. On a different kind of extreme I've recently read the blogs of people running away from church (the institution), because they believe it is no longer looking like what God intended it to look like.  The sadness for me is that while I can understand the frustration and disillusionment I do not unde...

Yesterday was Alexander the gorgeous' first day of playschool. I had no expectation of him thinking it amazing or even wanting to be there.  My little guy is not that into socializing with other kiddies of his age.  That is the only reason on earth that we would ever consider him starting school before turning 2.   This is what his first day looked like.   School started at 9:00 and ended at 11:00 and for the entire time my beloved child played by himself.   That being said he enjoyed most of the activites offered.  What is glaringly obvious is that my child is so like me.  I am as happy as can be in my world with my husband and my children.   When I go to birthday parties or teas I tend to draw away.  I sit by myself until someone thinks I'm looking lonely and comes to sit and talk to me. I am more than likely too intense, or I take way to long to explain something and the person scuttles off to find lighter convers...

So today I discovered one could eat acorns. And why that is exciting, is because I didn't know it before. Apparently they are rather yuck if you eat them raw, possibly even toxic, so you need to boil them wash them boil them a bunch of times then let them dry then roast and eat like nuts or make into flour. I haven't tried it yet so pls don't try it unless you've researched it yourself. I discovered the acorn things while searching for recipes on how to make almond milk. Almond milk is apparently yummier then soy and rice. I don't think we get it here in sunny South Africa hence the recipe search. Still have to try it but I'm looking forward to that. We do the rice milk which is not super appertising and have started getting Alexander chocolate soy milk and yoghurt but there seems to be some debate on the genuine health benefit of too much soy. I wish I knew what to believe. The funny thing is despite the lack of cheese (which Alexander and I love, w...

Today started out so badly.  We had been waiting for a phone call.  The phone call would have been to say that Emiel can start working at a school we've been involved with.  The longer we waited the more fear rose up in me.  I am in this place where I am really not sure we've made the right decisions.  That being said it could just be how uncomfortable our situation has become.  The small things are obvious but the bigger ones seem elusive.  What is supposed to happen for an income?  Big question for most people.  I know God is in control and I know that if I seek His Kingdom and His righteousness (Matthew 6:33) things like money He'll take care of.  Man I'm being a baby.  I am sitting here typing and my chest is closing up and I want to cry big salty cathartic tears. This morning my chest was so tight I thought I might die. I don't like fear.  When I moved back in with my parent's after my time at fashion...

When I was little I was determined to be different, to stand out.  I was different anyway, so what I did to my outer appearance was supposed to somehow clothed what I thought my inner looked like.  Layers and layers of different items or hats.  I think I even went so far as painting my clothes.  My dress sense evolved out of that to something not quite horrific and something I am mostly comfortable and happy with.  I even sometimes stand in front of my mirror and think, wow, you look good.  I was bigger than all the other girls, still am mostly and a very fat teenager, so to be able to say that is huge.  And it is not simply clothing or not being fat, I know who I am, I know I am wonderfully made.  I am a creative type.  And a head type.  I studied fashion designing.  And I write.  I tried art lessons (which I may try again).  I love learning new things.  For example, did you know that the one of the oldes...

I wrote this entire post out on my husbands phone two days ago and just before I could post it the phone died, only to restart immediately.  And I was writing so smoothly and beautiful.  I still want to share what I was going to share, but it may sound nothing like my first attempt.  Here goes: My husband and I walk most of the places we need to go.  He pushes Alexander in the pram and I have Beatrice strapped to me chest.  The walking is not our first choice.  Up until mid last year we had a car.  It was stolen and our insurance didn't pay out enough for us to buy anything decent, so we decided to wait.  We also knew that God was giving us the first big lesson in our road to financial health and good finacial stewardship and that was not to go into debt by taking a loan.  So we walk. The walking as been both amazing for us and hard.  We have been exposed to so many different things that flying past in a car we have almost ...

I have thought about what I wrote day before last since I wrote it. Whatever I said about my church and race needs to have this added to it: our church chose to to be muticultural/multi racial before the end of Apartheid in 1994. We have received so much love across the race lines. Our closest friends here are all different colours. For what is not working there is life coming in. And boo to me. I really want to be choosing peace and love. I should have written from a place of peace and love previously. South Africa is a country whose history is so entwined with racial tension. The cover of one of our papers had a story about really inflammatory flyers in a hugely popular shopping centre that advocated genocide against whites. It was put there by young black people. I remember a church service where it was announced that a really harsh white South African who had been involved in some really racially motivated attacks in the past was murdered. Something was said about th...

Today was, well, one of those days. The kind you go to bed shattered from. It started out well and then snow balled uncontrollably into a splat (doesn't have to make sense i can visualise it). All because of racism. I go to a very multi-cultural church, well a lot of different raced people go to the same church. I'd had my suspicions it was only surface deep and today confirmed it. Man it was ugly and ignorant and I'm not impressed. I really don't see Christ behaving like that and if Christians are Christians because of Christ what the heck is going on? It (and a bunch of other things) got my husband and I chatting and we know as we know that we have to live as red-letter Christians. We also know we have to 'be the change we want to see'(don't know who said it). And then the other thing was the finance thing, Jesus said it for a reason that we can't serve both God and money (again a red-letter thing). It is funny the lack of finance is as much a g...

This is just a random blog because my head is too numb from real-life things and a gorgeous little boys numerous temper tantrums. Today I'm blog one of my favourite things on earth, series (that word just doesn't sound right in my head, but i'm not sure how it should be). The whole love affair started with an 80's version of Sherlock Holmes done by Granada. We started watching this towards the end of my first preganancy and we survived the night time feed finshing it off. Then we discovered Boston Legal. Oh my goodness did we laugh. It made us think about things we wouldn't have which was good but it had way too much sexual humour. K, I'm not a prude and niether is my hub (he's a guy). There are just certain things we've chosen to be aware of and anything sexual is a biggy. Then we found Criminal Minds. Love Criminal Minds! I would only watch Criminal Minds but we are still waiting for season 5 to arrive at our DVD store. So we tried CSI but it was...

I am loving my year bible. I think I am managing consistency better because I understand how to do it. With all things in life read the instructions, they are there for a reason. One of the cool things about things about doing the bible this way is that you reading over things you have maybe read over a thousand times but you are required to read the section as they are laid out and there are no headings and subheadings to distract one from what is there. It is important to read things in there context. Anyway, what I want to share with you is this from Matthew 5 47”You have heard the law that says ‘Love your neighbour’ and hate your enemy.44 But I say love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! 45 In that way you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good and sends rain on the just and unjust alike. 46 If you love only those who love you, what reward is there for that? Even corrupt tax collectors d...

I have been told quite a few times in my 27 almost 28 years of life that I am not a grateful person. It is something that really, really upsets me but if I lay out the facts it is easy to see there may some truth in it. I don’t write thank you cards, I forget to phone my gran to thank her for birthday and Christmas presents, I guess I often overlook the blessings God pours out over my family. I think I even sometimes I get jealous when my husband has something amazing happen to him and not to me. So I have decided to do an “I’m grateful for…” page as soon as I’ve figured out how to do the pages thing (I actually want to eventually have this blog become something beautiful and colourful with different sections, I have so many different things going on in my brain all the time). But seeing as leaving it until my internet savviness has increased may help perpetuate this character flaw, I’ve decided to start posting some of the things I have to be wow about. My husband: This man is ...

My all time favourite portion of scripture is this: Psalm 139 “ 1O, LORD you have examined my heart and know everything about me. 2You know when I sit down or stand up. You know my thoughts even when I am far away. 3You see me when I travel and when I rest at home. You know everything I do. 4You know what I am going to say even before I say it, LORD. 5You go before me and follow me. You place your hand of blessing on my head. 6Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too great for me to understand! 7I can never escape from your Spirit! I can never get away from your presence! 8If I go up to heaven, you are there; if I go down to the grave, you are there. 9If I ride the wings of the morning, if I dwell by the farthest oceans, 10even there your hand will guide me, and your strength will support me. 11I could ask the darkness to hide me and the light around me to become night- 12but even in darkness I cannot hide from you. To you the night shines as bright as day. Darkness and light ...

Alexander, my beautiful 22month old boy child has eczema. It is not the worst thing in the world but for my husband and I it was one thing too many. My darling boy was born after 12 hours of labour in a homebirth situation. It was a miraculous experience which I will probably write about at a later time. By day 3 or so he was mustard yellow, a couple of days later he was in hospital with such high billary(not sure of the spelling) count that I was being told if I didn’t do xyz then his brain might fry. Not to mention he was put into the pediatric ward of a government hospital beside a little boy with meningitis. The nurses were lovely but not too sure on how to use the ultra-violet light bed-thing, so darling boy cooked for the first day. He screamed incessantly. I should have realized that by that stage I did not have enough milk and my child was starting to starve. I did everything under the sun thinking it was working, but by his 6week check-up he was classified as failing ...

With it being the beginning of a new year I’ve again decided to try the One Year Bible. I say again, because I tried last year and the year before that and I never actually manage to stick with it. Funnily enough the introduction points out that this is the perfect bible for consistent readers and that I am not, but I want to be. I love the Word and believe implicitly that I will never make a difference if I am not studying it all the time. I need to be swimming in it, feeding from it, drinking it in all the time. So I am on day 3. Yeah! Hopefully I will make it to the end. Emiel and I have made the decision to help each other out with sticking to what we are committing to, kinda like giving each other permission to irritate the other if need be. Day 3’s New Testament reading was Matthew 3:7-4:11, but what really whacked me was this from 3:7 to 3:10. But when he (John) saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming to watch him baptize, he denounced them. “You brood of snakes!” he ex...

After dropping my gorgeous husband at the beach for surf coaching, I went to my spend the day at my parents house. It is like I can't spend time alone for such a long period of time. Ok so I'm not really alone, I have Alexander racing around the house and Beatrice who is starting to need mommy to play with her. I just don't like being where I live without my hub for any period of time. Anyway, had a lovely day at my parents, found a possible venue for the business mom and I want to start, ate the most gorgeous chicken dish my mom concocted. And i had plans to write more but after putting Alexander to bed, gorgeous hub is waiting to watch Fringe. So cioa... Wait, it seems that Alexander is need of a nappy change and seeing as dad is being awesome I get to write more. Nope its done, so i guess, i'm also.