Thoughts and Other Things

Our gym group class had a challenge for the past six weeks. Today we were weighing in, seeing how much weight we’ve (they’ve) lost (I gained – blame it on the weather; vetkoeks and stews wayawaya ). We were also measuring muscles around the body, not much change there for me either. But I have a thigh gap, so yay! While discussing with my trainer, we agreed that focus, or lack thereof, was the reason behind such results. She resolved that with our next eight-week challenge, she’d do more to keep us focused, or as she put it, to keep our eyes on the prize. This got me thinking about a Scripture I taught earlier this week which addresses the issue of focus. Now I’m one person who easily loses focus. Not in an attention disorder kind of way, but I easily panic when things take an unexpected turn and therefore easily get distracted. Like Peter who moved his focus from Jesus to the waves and began sinking, I find myself sinking a lot when I’m fixated with what’s going wrong instead o...

Before I get swallowed up by preparations for our Mother’s Day celebration, I thought I should share my thoughts on motherhood. Well actually, this post is more about the lack thereof. Although over the past few years I’ve grown a fondness (if not obsession) for this beautiful ministry, I’ve also grown a sensitivity to those who’ve lost children, those who’ve lost mothers and more so those who struggle with infertility. I understand that the celebration of this day can be especially difficulty for them as it emphasizes their painful reality. Together with the prayers I offer for them, this year I want to share the hope there is for them. God in his wisdom, has littered His Word with characters who’ve been through the same. There’s a handful of women who lost their children in the Bible. The first, is the very first woman that lived. Eve lost her lastborn son Abel to the jealousy of her firstborn, Cain. In the process, she also lost Cain, not to death, but to the consequences of hi...

I had a mini adulting melt down recently. I vacated my hiding place under God’s wings and found myself taunted by feelings of stagnancy and helplessness. You know that feeling of being stuck? Like your life isn’t moving in any direction but backwards? You then start questioning yourself and what you’re doing, trying to find fault in either. You assume that there’s something different you have to do because what you’re doing obviously isn’t working. But when you can’t find what it is that you can do to bring the change you long for, you fall into the trap of feeling helpless. It’s a long dark tunnel from there on. (Tell me I’m not alone.) Albert Einstein is credited with saying ‘Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.’ I think I understand what he meant, but I also feel the saying can be misleading (I know, how dare I question Einstein. But hear me out). The deficiency with this statement is that it undermines the power of consistency. ...

It’s no secret Francine Rivers is my favourite novelist. So it goes without saying that I was pleased to find one of her latest releases added to her part of the shelve at the public library seeing that I had already read through all the other older books. I’m half way through with Bridge To Haven  and I’m loving it, I read it every chance I get. It is a lovely story, told beautifully in a way that oozes faith. I read the last chapter this morning. It’s a bad habit of mine, that when I get half way through the book, I read portions of the end (I’m inpatient like that). It’s also why I google the plot of each movie I watch. (I suck, I know.) Anyway, there’s something that has gotten to me so strongly about one of the characters in this book. I’ll try to get my point across without turning this into a spoiler. I’m so taken by how Pastor Zeke finds it so easy to trust God. His answer to everything is prayer, and once he has prayed, he refuses to feel anxious over the matter, and...

I’ve been revisiting Joseph’s story, through it learning more about forgiveness. Forgiving is one of those things we always have to be doing because, well, we live among other people and in living among them, we get hurt by their words and actions. Sometimes we are the ones doing the hurting. In most cases, when we are the ones who’ve hurt another, we expect understanding but the same doesn’t usually apply when we are the ones hurt. Forgiveness is a lovely gift to receive but a costly gift to give. Joseph was the one hurt, hurt in the worst way because the course of his life was altered by what was done to him. It also didn’t help that he was hurt this way by those closest to him, his own flesh and blood. That’s when it really cuts deep, when the pain is inflicted by those who were supposed to love and protect you.  “And he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard him, and Pharaoh’s household heard about it. Joseph said to his brothers, ‘I am Joseph! Is my father still living...

I am a sucker for love stories and I mourn tragic endings . Of all the photos of recently deceased Winifred Nomzamo Madikizela-Mandela that are being shared, none get to me like the ones in which she is together with her late ex-husband and former president of the republic of South Africa, Nelson Mandela. Seeing them, and reading the letters they wrote one another, one cannot doubt that they were deeply in love. (I can't believe it took her death for me to want to know what really happened) They were married the year my father was born, in 1958. Only five years later, Nelson was sentenced to life in prison. It would be twenty seven years before he was released. It would only be two years before they were separated and four years later officially divorced on grounds of irreconcilable differences. Reading the different versions of this love story, I found a few red flags that contributed to its sad ending. Firstly, I think it matters the foundation a relationship is founded o...

I am such a hoarder. I have SMS’s from 2013! I realized this when my sghedlemba (Nokia C3) wouldn’t receive any messages because the storage was full. Before I could receive any new messages, I had to delete some old ones. This got me thinking. Sometimes we have a hard time receiving and keeping new things that new seasons in our lives bring us because we are still held up on past times. When I read these texts from all those years ago, I felt loved, and warm and fuzzy inside, and I guess I kept them for so long because that’s how they made me feel the first time I read them. But I hadn’t come back to read them since, so me keeping them hadn’t been so useful after all. We hold on to things mostly because of the emotions we attach to them. If you’ve watched Clean House, you know what I’m talking about. People there hold on to the most useless items simply because of the memories they’ve attached to them. It’s usually only at the end of the show that they realize holding on to all ...