Kind of different

OK, here's a test for you Victorians. If you're from SA you're not allowed to play..

What do you think these are???

1.



2.

3. A 'terrace' is a what?

4.



5.
Answers (pronounced aarnswers) soon!

Through the harshest drought...

Jeremiah 17:7-8
7 “ Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD,
And whose hope is the LORD.
8 For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters,
Which spreads out its roots by the river,
And will not fear when heat comes;
But its leaf will be green,
And will not be anxious in the year of drought,
Nor will cease from yielding fruit.

(coincidently also biblegateway's Verse of the Day)

I found this verse pretty encouraging. God is still here and is still faithful in whatever drought or trial I seem to be facing (many). I also feel a great sense of joy through it all (joy shouldnt be confused with the worldly view of 'happiness'. There is a difference! One is of God, the other isn't.)


This is the way life should be. In fact it very much should be if the bible says so!

I hope this encourages someone as much as it just encouraged me..

On that I got thinking about the drought Australia is in. I know a lot about the drought. I grew up in the outback (although we had an abudnace of underground water), and now I live in the very drought-stricken Bendigo.

Last week I went to an event that raised money for 'drought-relief'. Now this is a really good cause, and I love to get behind drought relief, because the drought has distraught so many lives. But on that I know that the true drought relief we need is rain.. And I've come to the realisation that we can raise all of the money we can, but only one thing is going to make it rain.

And that is God!

And in my honest opinion, I think we, as God's children, need to get down on our hands and knees and pray for rain! Because, I look around, and this place needs it! Also for a spiritual rain to fall down! Because like water, this land can be so void of God's spirit! Because a tree needs the water to survive, and we can't survive if the tree isn't planted near the water when there isn't any!

Stay green, Australia!

passionate?

This morning I was innocently sitting waiting for a lecture on health to start, when one of the guys in my course stood up the front with something to say.

Now I do know this guy, we're not best friends, but we worked on a tute presentation together, hence why I know him. He's a very rough type of guy, known as an "emo", a bit out there and crude, almost what your average education student would be.

Anyway he starts off speaking about something utterly random, but then goes on to talk about his beard (..okay?) and to answer everybody's questions, he had been trying out new styles with his beard because he was going to shave it off.

He is doing shave for a cure, and in my mind, I thought, fair enough, so are a lot of people. I then waited for the general ask for a donation, but instead he went on to say why he was doing this.

It turns out he has had people close to him (some pretty young) pass away from Leukemia. And he was so serious about raising money to fight the disease that he said he was going to match whatever somebody donates to him (ie, if I give him $2, he would then put another $2 toward the cause = $4).

Now, I don't usually like to compare myself to the world, and although this man isnt a christian, I could feel this passion just radiating off of him. This had touched his heart so much that he was willing to sacrifice his finances, and hair to make a difference in this world.

This got me thinking, what am I passionate about? What has touched my heart so much that I am passionate to see a change in the world?

May He grant you according to your heart’s desire, And fulfill all your purpose. - Psalm 20:4

He will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him; He also will hear their cry and save them. - Ps 145:19

Yes, in the way of Your judgments, O LORD, we have waited for You; The desire of our soul is for Your name And for the remembrance of You. - Isaiah 26:8

It does not, therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy. - Romans 9:6

I've found so many good verses I wanna blog about! Maybe later..

My desire, my passion, is to see God's will be done! I want that at the moment above all shiny things. I desire to not conform to the world and to be content in that.

I may be back!

So I'll do a Cara (pose a question).. what are you passionate about?

when I'm found in the desert place...

A friend asked me a little while ago what psalm 63 meant. I decided to write her an email, going through it bit by bit, and it ended up being a sermon.. I've added more since I sent it to her!

Psalm 63
1 O God, You are my God;
Early will I seek You;
My soul thirsts for You;
My flesh longs for You
In a dry and thirsty land
Where there is no water.
2 So I have looked for You in the sanctuary,
To see Your power and Your glory.

3 Because Your lovingkindness is better than life,
My lips shall praise You.
4 Thus I will bless You while I live;
I will lift up my hands in Your name.
5 My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness,
And my mouth shall praise You with joyful lips.

6 When I remember You on my bed,
I meditate on You in the night watches.
7 Because You have been my help,
Therefore in the shadow of Your wings I will rejoice.
8 My soul follows close behind You;
Your right hand upholds me.

9 But those who seek my life, to destroy it,
Shall go into the lower parts of the earth.
10 They shall fall by the sword;
They shall be a portion for jackals.

11 But the king shall rejoice in God;
Everyone who swears by Him shall glory;
But the mouth of those who speak lies shall be stopped.

OK, so starting at verses one and two..

1 O God, You are my God;
Early will I seek You;
My soul thirsts for You;
My flesh longs for You
In a dry and thirsty land
Where there is no water.
2 So I have looked for You in the sanctuary,
To see Your power and Your glory.

We find ourselves in different situations that seem like a 'desert place'. Everything seems to be going not our way. It's like being thirsty, and needing to be refreshed by something, and God is that refreshment. God can only supply the needs for our deepest longings. Jesus says in John 4:14: but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.

It also says in this verse: 'early I will seek You'. Have you ever looked for an answer for something and it be there right in front of you, but you seem to take ages to find it? It's somewhere I seem to find myself often, searching for something that I have left in the most obvious place, but I search everywhere else until I find the thing I am looking for in the place I should have looked at first.

Early we need to seek God. He has the answers! Why would you look everywhere else when our answer is right there? I am very guilty of something going wrong, and then instantly messaging Steff saying "the sky is falling!". God tells us to seek FIRST the kingdom of God (says it twice in the Old Testament and Once in the New Testament). Seek for a godly response to situations in everything you do. God's power and glory exists in the people who dwell in Him, and seek Him first.

3Because Your lovingkindness is better than life,
My lips shall praise You.
4 Thus I will bless You while I live;
I will lift up my hands in Your name.
5 My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness,
And my mouth shall praise You with joyful lips.

God is ultimately awesome! And he deserves our praise all the time, when we have an abundance of good things and things are going great, and even in the desert place. It's like in the song: Blessed be Your Name.

6 When I remember You on my bed,
I meditate on You in the night watches.
7 Because You have been my help,
Therefore in the shadow of Your wings I will rejoice.
8 My soul follows close behind You;
Your right hand upholds me.

This sounds like me the other night. As a little girl I used to be really frightened of thunder storms. Now I open my bedroom window and watch them from my bed all night! I love storms, it reminds me of God's great power! :)

God protects us. We are so precious in His sight. Cling onto this promises. He is the creator of the universe, he is MASSIVE! And he knows you by name. He cares about you so much and would not let anything bad happen to you.

Jeremiah 29:11 says For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope... This verse is often quoted to give inspiration, and I agree whole-heartedly, but I think an important part of this is in the next few verses.. When you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you, says the LORD.

So many people throw this verse around here and there, sometimes just as a general band-aid fix, but forget that end bit. When we pray, GOD WILL LISTEN. When we seek earnestly with all we have for God, WE WILL FIND HIM. It sometimes just takes perseverance. The enemy often fills our heads with doubt that we will never get anywhere, that this is useless.. It just takes a lot of perseverance through everything.

Rely on God through the storms in your life! It's through these we can grow stronger with God (when we let Him) and He teaches us important life lessons. I find that most of the hard things I go through, down the road I will stumble along someone who is in the same situation, and I can help them because I have been in the same thing. Evidence of this can be found in 2 Corinthians 1:3-7: Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort. (oops I have totally tangented here.. moving on...)

9 But those who seek my life, to destroy it,
Shall go into the lower parts of the earth.
10 They shall fall by the sword;
They shall be a portion for jackals.

God has absolute favour on His children. You ARE God's child. Jesus never promised it would be easy, and there sure can be persecution from all directions sometimes. People can try all sorts of things to manipulate us, to make us feel low, but we are God's, and the people who do wicked things against his genuine children will pay in the long run. What makes me so sad is when God's children do things against their fellow brothers and sisters in Christ! But God is a just God. He knows what is right and wrong, it just takes discernment (which can be gained simply by knowing what is right and wrong according to His Word, and also that 'spiritual' discernment) on our part. Sometimes it's obvious and people don't want to admit it.

God's word is like a double edged sword. It is the TRUTH. And I wholeheartedly believe that what is in there is how God wants us to live. If something someone is doing doesn't have the same values as the bible, I am always wary of if it is really Godly.

11 But the king shall rejoice in God;
Everyone who swears by Him shall glory;
But the mouth of those who speak lies shall be stopped.

OK, we are not kings, that was probably relating to David, the author of the psalm, who was a king. But God has called us to be His children, and because of this, we are children of the king (God being the king!), and when you're that, it means we are princes and princesses!

Whoever says that they are His, and works with what he asks, are seen as so precious in His sight. But those who want to go against the children of God, the ones that speak lies against us, will be stopped. It's a promise. Don't see it happening? Pray. Claim it as a promise, because God's word is full of them!

[ Kudos to Spatch for sending this verse in a sms to me :) ]

do yourself a favor

To me this is the funniest commercial ever. For those *cough*victorians*cough* who don't understand, there's an intense rivalry against victoria here in South Australia. This commercial made me LOL! (yeah, I know it's a beer ad, but it was oh-so south australian!)



Will blog about my South Australian experiences later!

God has ADD

It's true! I swear. I think I am a creation person after all!

"look at me, Sammy, look at me! Look! Look! Look at me now! Look, look look now what I'm doing!"

I think I've become a nature admirer. I've had this thing for clouds lately. We've had some beautiful clouds and storms over Bendigo lately.

Just ask my housemate Claire how much I'm obsessed with clouds. We were sitting out the back yard and I was in total awe of this cloud.

The other night I was staying with Cara. She lives a little bit out of Bendigo now. I like going out there because it's really peaceful. A real change, as I live pretty close to the city near a very busy road. (can you tell I'm from Pinnaroo, land of no-cars and technology?). At about 4 in the morning, there was this absolute massive downpour of rain, thunder and lightning! At first, my anxiety kicked in and I felt really scared. My mind went in and out of, is my car safe, is my underwear on the line going to end up in Mandurang? Stupid little Sammy-thoughts. But then God was doing his ADD thing. "Bang, crash, flash! Sammy, look at me! Look at me Sammy am I not pretty? You have nothing to fear, this is Me! Bang, crash, flash!" Yes God, YES GOD, OK. But it's 4am and I have to be at church tomorrow.. No, actually. I felt really happy and content. I wanted to stay up and watch God all night! I felt safe. I felt like the same God who is putting on a mighty storm out there was also looking out for me, and knows the number of hairs on my head.

After church the next day, God did the same thing. The clouds formed a beautiful storm over the city. More and more of "look at Me! Sammy!" Bang crash flash...

Days go on, and I am continuously telling Claire that I love the clouds outside.

Last night I was with Cara again, and I was telling her and Sandy how much God has ADD, and is screaming "look at Me! I'm pretty!"

Then today, I was innocently doing something on my computer when I heard God again.. "booooom. Thunder! Look at me Sammy!!!" So I go and lie on my bed and look out the window. I'm just like, wow God.. Then I fell asleep!!

After I woke up, Cara came around to find me very dopey and sleepy. We went out for tea at this Turkish place on Mitchell Street for a 'kebab' (get it right, it's a Yiros stupid Victorians, a kebab is meat on a stick!). As we were innocently eating, there was this glorious sunshower. It was actually really bizarre. More, "hey look at me now! weeee!" Usually sunshowers don't last for long. This lasted for a good 20 minutes, and stayed in the exact same spot (we were on the edge of it). It seemed so bizarre, there was heaps of wind but no movement of the rain! At one stage I went outside to investigate (perhaps it was a leak somewhere.) But yeah, it was God, showing off again :P

When we were walking back to the car, I noticed a rainbow.. Oh God you really are showing off now!

How awesome to think that this great mighty God who puts on all of these weather displays is looking after us! It makes me fall more and more in love with who He is. Yep, maybe I'm a creation person after all!

As Cara and Sammy were going home from the airport on Monday, Cara realised that the water in her water bottle, was in fact from New South Wales! Interstate water! Sammy then came to the realisation that her water was indeed from South Australia, as her mother gave her an abundance of this under the realisation that Bendigo is indeed in a drought. Cara and Sammy rejoiced in the fact that there was water from two states in the one place, not the state we were currently located. The duo then looked over to notice that their travelling buddy, Luke, also obtained some water, and it occurred to the trio that Luke in fact had Victorian water. The trio (more so Cara and Sammy) then rejoiced in the happiness of having water from three states.

The end

This is just a preview of what you will find in The Adventures of Sammy and Cara.

Yes another blog!

RSS it today! Remember the URL: http://samara-adventures.blogspot.com

Hungry!

(Sammy amuses herself further...)

*Meanwhile, back at the ranch (mission HQ), Cara and Sammy outside having a 'd 'n' m'.. Rach then walks outside*
Rach: "girls, dinner's ready!"
Sammy: "I'm not hungry"
Cara: "You told me before you were hungry!"
Sammy: "I meant in a biblical sense, you twat!"

Have you ever felt so hungry for God that you just want to eat him? Ok, enough of the silliness now. I'm serious, I have these days where all I want to do is know God more and more and it's just like, wow!

You can be hungry for many things, but in my honest opinion, and what I've come to know, is that knowing who God is, and knowing his character, comes from his word. It is a crucial link that I see is lost in so many scenarios today. The way to know God is to know His word. I encourage you - read it, it's tasty! Get into it, it has so much good stuff in it, and it's so so so so powerful!

(then what? Pray about what you've read, that's another crucial way of getting to know him too!)

Amazing grace.. how sweet the sound...

"There is nothing we can do to make God love us more. There is nothing we can do to make God love us less"

I actually read a book, and finished it.

The book: What's so amazing about Grace by Phillip Yancy.

And I know, I know, you've probably read it. But I think it came up with some good points.

"Church! Why would I want to go there? It would just make me feel worse!"

You know what's funny, though, is that many Sunday mornings I have woken up and thought that same thing in my own church! I think it is impossible to find a church that is fully 'graced'. We get so tied up in condemning people who don't follow the rules, that we completely overlook forgiveness.

"God in heaven holds each person by a string. When you sin, you cut the string. Then God ties it up again, making a knot - and thereby bringing you a little closer to Him. Again and again your sins cut the string - and with each knot God keeps drawing you closer and closer."

I really like that quote. It is how I want to view my life at the moment. I'll let you reflect on that...

Review:

Good things:

• Real life situations
  
• Easy to understand
• Thought provoking
• Can be applied to everyday life
• 
  

Not so good things:

• American (haha, sorry Jamie :P )
• I really would have liked to have seen more scripture references to see how it links back to the bible. That could just be me and the way I learn.
• Still a good read and I HIGHLY recommend it!
  

Blasphemy Challenge?

I don't know about you, but I find this really sad!

http://www.blasphemychallenge.com/


My 2 cents is that they are in such a position of influnce, and so many people don't even know what they're doing. It disturbs me!

hatiku percaya

(title is Indonesian for "my heart believes")

Over the course of the mission in Bendigo, I was constantly reminded about my desire to be a missionary in Indonesia.

Things were really confirmed for me on Sunday at church when my friend Zoe told me that she was serious about coming with me. She said that we probably couldn't do it this year, and I don't think that God is really calling me there yet, but I think that when He does, it may happen all very quickly. I have no time frame at the moment, but I know God does. Yagh! It freaks me out that there is a possibility that this is probably what God has in store for me, yet it is all exciting at the same time...

Before mission, I didn't want to go. I didn't want the stress, I didn't want to be tired, I didn't think I could do it, and I didn't think I could handle the heat... How ironic, hey? God put that all back to me and said that if I couldn't handle these things here in Bendigo, how on earth would I survive over in Indonesia?

For those who don't know.. I have actually been there before. I went back in 2002 with my school to places now you could only dream of going to (due to the danger). There was so much poverty. I grew up so much. I remember sitting on a bus, going through the city of Yogyakarta (yeah, no exotic trip to Bali), and watching all of the native Indonesians go about their business, and I thought to myself that God has made them, just like He has made me.. But nobody here knows Him. It broke my heart. My heart is absolutely broken for this country.

When I came back to Australia, my friend Kylie described me as a 'fly buzzing around in a jar'. I felt so depressed, and heartbroken about this country, about how they could not see the light of God..

For those who are statistically minded or want to know, Indonesia is made up of: Muslim 88%, Protestant 5%, Roman Catholic 3%, Hindu 2%, Buddhist 1%, other 1% (1998)

... Is this hope?

(youtube video)



The words to this song are
TUHANLAH KEKUATAN DAN MAZMURKU
DIA GUNUNG BATU DAN KES'LAMATANKU
HANYA PADA-MU HATIKU PERCAYA
KAULAH MENARA DAN KOTA PERLINDUNGAN

REFF :
KU MAU S'LALU BERSYUKUR
S'BAB CINTA-MU PADAKU
TAK KAN PERNAH BERUBAH
HATIKU PERCAYA

WALAU BUMI BERGUNCANG
GUNUNG-GUNUNG BERANJAK
NAMUN KASIH SETIA-MU
TAK PERGI DARIKU

I dare you to try and sing along! And for those who are not Steff (I expect you Steff to know all this... says the girl whose about to get their dictionary to translate this), the rough translation of this is:

God who is strong and my song
He is a strong mountain and my happiness
Only unto You my heart believes
You are a tower and a city of protection

I always want to thank God
Because my love is in You
It cannot be erased
My heart Believes

Even though the land may shake
Mountains move
Your love is always there
It won't leave from me

Does this look like an Indonesian Hillsong to anybody else? Me being against 'shiny christianity', this concerns me for some reason.. I'm guessing these guys would be in the city of Jakarta, but this isn't what Christianity is about? Worshipping God, yes, but it is really hard to imagine it is in Indonesia? After what I saw when I was there?

Bizarre...

kids4life

I'm sure a few of you have noticed my absence for the past few weeks, the reason for this is I have been away being a missionary. I'm amused that I am the first (Trav, you don't count! You get half a point :P) one out of the immediate Bendigo team to actually blog about this, and I thought I was slack!! I'm sure they are all catching up on some much needed rest! Wait, no. I was wrong, Craig has bet me.

Now when we think of being a missionary, we always think of being in an exotic place overseas, near a beach (for those from Bendigo usually involved in mission there was beach mission to Warnambool). This mission was at the drought stricken land of Bendigo.

It made me think about how we can get extremely concerned about things going on a fair distance from us, but there is always a 'mission' closer to home. That said I do believe Jesus does send us out into the world.

At first I didn't want to go on mission. I didn't feel like I was 'fit' enough in many aspects, and also another contributing factor was that in the past few weeks the Bendigo weather had been making me sick (I'm DEFINITELY a winter person!), luckily, God pulled me through, and, haha God you are funny, it rained! On top of all of that, my anxiety has been a bit rough.

Upon arriving (we stayed at the Bendigo AOG, while the mission itself was held at a school in Golden Square), it was clear to us that satan didn't like what we were doing in the city. One of our team members (and I think others) had become unwell. Prayer for team health was a priority.

Every day we were blessed by having 'quiet time' for about half an hour each day. I spent my quiet time trying numerous different activities. Usually I spent it outside at the end of Soloman Street watching the sunset over the city (a truly remarkable experience), praying, one day I actually had a shower. Oh the possibilities!

Back to seriousness now. It came to me (well, I kind of have known this for a while now) that Satan sometimes can attack us in ways that others can't see. For me it has really been anxiety. Although my anxiety levels on mission were remarkably lower, there was the odd occasion where I would feel unbelievably feel anxious and loose focus. I almost didn't go on mission because of my anxiety. It's a growing progress, I really just want to be 'healed'!

Another strange thing that happened at mission is this. I had my bible out, ready to read from it to the kids, and suddenly something just grabbed me, like, it literally felt like someone had put their arms around me and squeezed me so tight I couldn't breathe! I went away for a moment, just crying out to God to help me. Slowly whatever it was let me go. The whole thing probably only lasted merely 30 seconds.

I have been on many camps in my 20 years of life, but this was my first mission. I found that some people struggle to distinguish the difference between 'mission' and 'camp'. Camps are usually where we go out bush somewhere and build ourselves up, learn about God etc, have a great week. A mission is different. We are literally on a mission. We need to be focussed on what the Will of God is, and the task at hand.

That said, mission has been an immense time of spiritual growth for me. I feel as though I have matured five years. God has revealed many things to me, I even have realised who I really am. From this, however, I have a lot of things to work on now that I'm back in reality.

Another thing I have come to realise over the duration of mission is that to see change, we sometimes need to make sacrifices. Many have sacrificed family, friends, boyfriends, girlfriends, finances, time etc to see change. It's that whole 'storing up treasure in heaven' thing.

I've learnt a whole heap about being genuine. We had a few 'situations' on mission where things just didn't sit right with me. In fact, in one of these situations, I got up, and ran out of the room! Now I was seriously so upset, I went and sat on the curb and cried, and I didn't understand what God was doing, but then I realised (with a little help from other wise individuals, you know who you are) that I really had discernment that night.

I hunger to know God as He is, not in the places so many people put Him. I know the way to do this is to read His word and, yep, pray.

But more about the program itself. I was the head-leader-doosy-whatsit person for the kinder-prep group (being the prep expert that I am! haha). Although they're only preps, amazing things happened. God really 'facilitated' a discussion and we were all running around so happy! God really worked in these kids lives.

I began to get discouraged on the last day as there were not any 'decisions' been made from the kids to follow Christ. Sometimes we can be so concerned that we get them 'over that line', that we forget that God is even working in their lives, preparing them to make the decision.

Anyway, here are some key memories from mission:

• The kinder-preps saying "It's ok, God loves you anyway".. became a bit of a catch-phrase
• That whole "poof" thing
• I said a Boom-chicka Boom!
• We don't burn down the school, we don't eat soap, we don't drink vinegar (eeewgh!)
• Doug, Dougless and Dougette (yay, I was Dougette!)
• McFlumpy
  
• "one" - haha, on ya Craig!
• The whole joke thing
• The censored word: M-ne
• Hey ain't that funky now
• Praise the Lord, I saw the light!
• I feel like Royal- Tea. Woah woah (Sammy's pathetic rip-off of Hillsong Kids song "royalty")
• Steff and Sammy's stupidity on friday night. (Think Sammy with a red cup on her head and Steff very much ROFLing. Gotta love tiredness)
• Late nights
• Early mornings!
• And above all, God and his power moving in everything.

And just for the record, check out what I wrote about mission back in September

wiiouch!

who needs a gym when you have the wii. I was going mad in baseball New Years Eve, and I woke up with the SOREST arms. I woke up this morning and they're even looking bruised.

Ouch. :(

a bronze babe and a chocolate Steff

On Wednesday night, Steff and I dyed our hair at about 1 in the morning. Oh the things you do when you're tired and under the influence of Sammy!

The lovely Steff went a lovely brown chocolate, while I went for a bronze babe. (How wrong does that sound!?) The results were impressive.

We also watched a retro movie called Down with Love. Well, Steff watched it, I slept through parts, munched on chicken twisties to try and stay awake, and still managed to get the general jist of the movie. It inspired me to invest in a beret.

4-5am saw us in bed, sending hilarious 1c texts across the house. I somehow managed to get up at 10am and cleaned parts of the house.

Pictures? Well, because it's either my dial-up or blogger being stupid I have uploaded them to my deviantart. Click here to see before and after pics. Click here to see even more pics!!!

Your Hair Should Be Orange

Expressive, deep, and one of a kind.You pull off "weird" well - hardly anyone notices.

What's" Your Funky Inner Hair Color?

so this is christmas...

I have noticed that so many people get caught up in the commercialism and business of Christmas. It doesn't have to be like this, there is a choice.

In John Lennon's song "So this is Christmas", the end line repeats and fades into the end of the song: "war is over, if you want it". It's true. Christmas is like a war. A war with commercialism. But it doesn't have to be like that at all. It is only this commercialised stress because that's what you make it. The war can be over, but only if you want it...

community scale

This is what I call the 'community scale'. The orange pentagon is the church, the green is our community (not the church community, for example, for me, it would be Greater City of Bendigo), and then the blue is more on the world scale.

This has come from me thinking about how I see churches 'reach out' to the community. Vinyard Church run breakfast for people who don't have enough to eat, the salvos, well, do lots. And our church? I'm not sure what we do. I guess we are reaching out to the community of Epsom by planting a church there.

Me, personally on the scale? I can be in many places. I can be very church-centric, hiding between the walls of the church. I am involved in a mission that is reaching out to kids from Bendigo, and then then I am a bit in the blue, too. I'm here and there in SA, I sponsor a child in Senegal, and I plan to go back to Indonesia.

Jesus told us to go out into the world. Where are you?

the worship language of Sammy

after God's own heart.... by ~notsoemobadger on deviantART

^ If you can't see the picture in the embedded object up there, click here.

I have realised that I need to paint more.

I believe we have different 'worship langauges', and I don't think they should be limited by what a book says, if that is there are only 5. Some people do it through singing, some dancing, some through conversation (another one of mine).

Worship is a when you are 'connected' with God. I discovered my connection when I painted this picture.

I have always liked art (yet this doesn't mean I am good at it!). It is a way I can just sit back, relax, and draw/paint what's on my mind. I notice that when I don't do it once in a while, I begin to get agitated! I felt like I could really connect with God by doing this. I listened to a sermon, and some music while doing it. I could pray, I expressed to God through what I was doing. Worship is a verb, it's an action!

The painting I did this morning was inspired by David, known as a Man after Gods own Heart. And you can see that through the kind of things he wrote in the bible (if this is wrong please correct me!). That's what I want to be. A woman after God's own heart.

My worship language is seemingly art, and I'm happy with that.

smokin'

Last Friday I spent all day in the smoke with my friend Cara.

The smoke was so thick, you could barely see 5m in front of you.

This was the cathedral at about 11am,



and this is the same thing a few hours later..


If it is this bad here, it must be really bad where the fires are, over 300 km away from here...

wally and grace

I brought some fish yesterday, redirect to my dA for more:

• My fish
• A Christmas for my fish
  

Feel free to comment here

a song that saved my life

over a month ago I was going through a really bad patch. A friend of mine e-mailed me out of concern. He emailed me a copy of this song:

Skillet- The last night

[ listen to it on YouTube ]

You come to me with scars on your wrist,

You tell me this will be the last night feeling like this.

“I just came to say goodbye,

I didn’t want you to see me cry, I’m fine”

But I know it’s a lie

This is the last night you’ll spend alone

Look me in the eye so I know you know

I’m everywhere you want me to be

The last night you’ll spend alone

I’ll wrap you in my arms and I won’t let go

I’m everything you need me to be

Your parents say everything is your fault

But they don’t know you like I know you; they don’t know you at all

“I’m so sick of when they say:

‘It’s just a phase, you’ll be okay. You’re fine’”

But I know it’s a lie

This is the last night you’ll spend alone

Look me in the eye so I know you know

I’m everywhere you want me to be

The last night you’ll spend alone

I’ll wrap you in my arms and I won’t let go

I’m everything you need me to be

The last night away from me

The night is so long when everything’s wrong

And if you give me your hand, I’ll help you hold on

Tonight, tonight

This is the last night you’ll spend alone

Look me in the eye so I know you know

I’m everywhere you want me to be

The last night you’ll spend alone

I’ll wrap you in my arms and I won’t let go

I’m everything you need me to be

I won’t let you say goodbye

And I’ll be your reason why

The last night away from me, away from me

First of all I need to confirm that I was not suicidal. I am not a suicidal person, because I would be absolutely scared to a) die, and b) face God after I did something like that.

Now before you get all angry about this being a song that sounds suicidal, it has a fantastic point to it.

I just think this is a fantastic song, because it has so much truth in it. God is everything we need. We will never be alone. It's just wow. Self explanatory. This song made me cry, it made me feel valued, and a bit special.

So the thanks for this goes out to Tim. This song 'saved my life', share it with a friend today and save theirs.