Finally I See

As with the end of every day, month, chapter and season in life, there comes a new one – and now we are celebrating another New Year. As we passed from 2016 to 2017, we look back on the year with either a smile or a frown and look ahead to the New Year with anticipation and ambiguity.   What will the new year bring? Will it be better than last year? When we step into the New Year, we have crossed a landmark; it’s another phase, another level. See it like entering a new house, or starting on a fresh blank page. I love watching ‘Extreme makeover’ and watching these amazing designers and builders transform an old battered house into an amazing home within 7 days. That’s evidence of a change taking place. What do you want to see in this New Year? What do you need to throw out from 2016 that you don’t want resurfacing in 2017? If you don’t like what you see? Change it. If we use the Bible as a reference of new beginnings let’s look at Genesis 1:1. The beginning of life, e...

Writer’s are capable of writing anything, whether they know a topic or not. With a little research, a good draft and continual re-drafts, what they could potentially produce can be quite wonderful. For me, in order to write about something I must first connect with it. There must be a resignation and resolve with it in my heart and mind.  Pondering this, this is very much the same for hope. No matter how much we define hope in terms of a theoretical definition (expectations towards someone/thing, desire, believe, trust – Dictionary.com), it must move from being a simple black and white word on paper, to becoming an absolute assurance in our thoughts and hearts, in order to become a physical manifestation in our lives. We must connect with hope on different levels, internally and externally. Beautiful Faces (BFM) has seen in the whole of 2016 with this theme of hope. We have had sessions that have included definitions, discussions and shared experiences about hope in...

Life, at times, can be a complicated game of chess. You can sometimes feel like a pawn being darted to and throw amongst intricate pathways on a board, each box representing a situation or circumstance. Looking at the game chess we can see is a strategic game. Anyone who plays it must think before they act. Strategically they must consider where to move each piece on the board in order to win the game. They must plan, each stage. Every move they make is a step closer to winning or losing. Like a chess player, we also need to take this above approach in life. This doesn’t mean that we need to have a rigid routine of which no free flow or change can be made, but we must think ahead and out of the box before making a move or decision. The Oxford Dictionary defines a decision as; ‘ a conclusion or resolution reached after consideration.’ When we come to a conclusion it means that we have come to an end of something, that something has been determined; set. This suggests t...

There have been many times when I have tried to be like other people.  Growing up I have had many types of influences around me both good and bad. But either way I have never really wanted to be myself! Why? I don't 100% know. I guess for me I always thought that trying to be or act like that beautiful lady I walked pass on the street, looked at on the train applying her make up, the one in a 'so called relationship' or just knew off had more of a significance than I really did. But then I realised that as I grew older and as you know they say wisdom starts kicking in ...ha! I started to notice that through my experiences and understanding of who I actually am and then thinking on how much I used to try to be like someone else instead of myself was the biggest lie I could ever tell myself. Remember this saying: Or maybe this one that Oscar Wilde said nicely: So true! You see, I found out that there is nothing wrong with admiring others & t...

Careers are a big part of our lives. We spend a majority of our time on Earth working in our professions, whether temporary or permanent. Regardless of whom we are and what we do, we should all have one common denominator when it comes to our careers… vision . Vision is important because we must have direction in life. We can get by on the ‘go with the flow’ mindset for some time, but at some point we find that this theory will crash and burn, as there’s no clear route. There are many stages in life that prepare us for progression, and careers are one of them. In order to progress it means that we must become better at something. We must take time out from our busy schedules in order to master or strongly craft a particular area.   The route for most of us is to start off in education, where we acquire the theoretical knowledge. This then moves to a more practical, real time experience route such as work experience etc to further fine tune and acquire new skill...

Relationships are one of the most precious things we have in life. They are simply a connection, association or involvement between people. The ability to speak to someone about our lives; about what’s going on with us. This can be shared about the ins and outs of what we have and been through, things that bother us, successes, emotional tangents, our good days, our dark days… it’s endless; but something so key to our humanity. We often take forgranted relationships. We can misunderstand, mis-judge, de-value or de-prioritise someone’s ability to listen, offer counsel, advise, encourage, speak truth, shed light on what we may or may not see, educate us; change and challenge our perspectives… again the list is endless. But if we look at some parts of our lives we will tend to find that our circumstances and situations sometimes get the better of us. We get in the way of our relationships and they change. What we go through at any given time gets in the way of what is importan...