Finally I See

AGAIN simply means ‘ another time, once more, returning to a previous position or condition ’ (Oxford Dictionary). What I have been personally learning and walking through in my Christian walk so far is the FACT that God wants every area of me to be ALIVE (living, not dead – Oxford Dictionary). He invites and wants ALL OF US; inside and out, to be AWAKE (not sleeping) – John 10:10. To be awake can take on many forms and can mean many different things; it’s individual to each of us. These could be our dreams, careers, relationships, hopes and desires for the future; etc, anything. I want to share a small testimony (story) which I hope will show you what ‘again ’ can look like for a person. For those who don ’t know me, I LOVE DANCING. All my life I have danced, danced and danced. At the ages of fourteen and fifteen, I did GCSE dance at secondary school but dance changed for me. A group of girls; what we would call ‘the mean girls, ’ would always knock everyone’s confidence. ...

A friend once told me that the definition of the word beautiful is ‘Be You To The Full.’ I never really understood it at first. I thought it was just another silly saying or overused hashtag caught on by today’s youngsters. But oh boy was I wrong! Once I adjusted and re-climatised my thinking to what she said, it simply meant ‘BE YOURSELF’ – warts and all. To truly accept yourself for who you are and never being anything less than yourself. It was quite a hard pill to swallow at first as it deals with the core acceptance of self; not in a vain or selfish context, but in a way that means loving yourself as a person. But let’s face it, this can be very challenging at times. One of my most enjoyed Christian ministries is Ransomed Heart Ministries with John and Stasi Eldredge. Whilst relentlessly scrolling through Instagram the other week, I found an inspirational quote from Stasi: “He made you you – on purpose. You are the only you – ever.” It read as water to my ...

You may be familiar with L’Oréal’s slogan ‘ because you’re worth it’ ; but how many of us know our worth? When we think of things of worth, we may think of expensive cars, jewellery clothes, the renowned name brands and all things worth a lot of money;  Either because they are hard to find, one of a kind, special edition, handmade, carefully crafted, made with the finest, high quality materials or built to last. However, on the other hand, you’ve perhaps spent money on something and thought…well that wasn’t worth it. Perhaps because it didn’t last as long as you thought it would, or it didn’t live up to your expectations. I tend to love watching Bargain Hunt, Suddenly Rich and other shows where antique items are sold at a low cost and discovered to have such a high value after taken a look with a closer view. Funny enough I too is a fan of finding vintage treasures! These examples tend to happen when someone fails to see any worth in an item perhaps because it is ...

Most times in life we can complicate things and we don’t need to. This theme of #SpeakLife is simply to think about the words you say before you release them.  When you begin to understand that the words you speak have the power to create and bring life or death (Proverbs 18:21), you then should begin to think about the words you say with a higher level of conviction (a strong opinion or belief), responsibility (good judgement and the ability to act correctly and make decisions on your own), and accountability (a situation in which someone is responsible for things that happen and can give a satisfactory reason for them) – all definitions are from the Cambridge Dictionary.  Yes, sometimes life throws things your way and it’s not always your fault as it can be out of your control, but in the midst of this #SpeakLife journey why not ask this question: WHAT DO YOU SAY? If you was to get a journal; on one side write your daily thoughts and on the other side write...

We expect the sun to shine in summer and we expect the moon to come out at night because that's the way it always tends to happen, until the unexpected happens, an eclipse.  We then become surprise as it messes up our normal routine or way of seeing things; our expectation is forced to change. Such is life when we try to live up to the expectations of others. Because we always feel we must keep it up, so we find ourselves feeling drained, exhausted and finding it hard to run off the little fuel we have left to just be ourselves. Expectations are not always bad at times, it can be good especially when we and others may have high expectations of us but then we can see that they can be unhealthy when it becomes a bar too high to reach, because we then realise either it was never our character and more about what others were trying to project on us. Perhaps like myself you're the sort of person who always is strong for everyone, never seen shedding a tear, so automatica...

The tongue can be seen as a foul member of the human body. One minute it’s saying loving and caring things, then the next minute it could strike like a panther and cut deep. So how do we 'train' our tongue to speak that which is good and not bad? A simple definition of what it means to train is: ‘to develop or form the habits, thoughts, or behaviour of (a child or other person) by discipline and instruction.’ If you ask anyone who trains, or even if you train yourself, you’ll know that it’s not always easy. You start out all fired up and raring to go, it’s fresh, new. Then you go through the awkward middle stage. Sometimes the excitement has worn off and perseverance has to kick in. You have to push harder in order to achieve a good end result. And then the end stage, of course, is where you physically see a breakthrough. But, the cycle continues, and there needs to be consistency, otherwise it is easy to fall back into bad habits.  It’s also a mental act as well...