The most important thing.

Love is the most important ingredient.

‘There are three things that will endure- faith, hope, and love- and the greatest of these is love.’- 1 Corinthians 13:13

Ok, what is with this girl!? She has this obsession with love! If you are a regular reader of my blogs then you might be thinking this way. Well, it is important! It really is what the world is missing, think about it, if most people in the world had and gave love.

‘Love is patient and kind... is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude... dose not demand its own way... is not irritable and keeps no record of wrong...rejoices whenever the truth wins... Love never gives up, never losses faith, is always hopeful and endures through every circumstance. Love will last forever...’ – 1 Corinthians 13:4-8

Wow, imagine if more people were like THAT! How much better would the world be!?

But what is stopping you?

“God gets blamed for a lot of things these days... we see bad things happening... we wonder why doesn’t He do something. Why doesn’t He stop it? I don’t really know, but I wonder if God ever wants to ask us the same question.”- Chris from To Save A Life.

I know how hard it can be to love some people, I know!

I’ve been praying most of my life asking God to please help me to love my enemies, cause crikey it is hard! But you know what? It is a great feeling when you do, because you know and God knows that you have and are doing the right thing, and that makes God happy. :)

Let me share with you a story of mine...

When I was in high school, there was this nasty girl who was bulling me, just emotionally, but she was scary... and very good at what she did, she would fake it and manipulate people to hate me for something I never did.

I don’t know why she did these things but it made school life and home life a regular battle, but I never stopped smiling.

One day she spread a nasty rumour about me, and my whole grade heard it including the office, next thing I know, the deputy principle pulls me out of class asking me what I was doing? Why I did it? When I hadn’t done anything, it was a lie. And some people were asking why I was being so horrible to the girl who was actually the bully manipulating them with her fake tears and lies.

Well I bolted to the toilets in a complete mess! Bawling my eyes out, and feeling sick. I had every reason to hate her, but do you know want to know what I did instead? I allowed God and the Holy Spirit to influence my thoughts and emotions, and not what the world says to do. When I was in the toilets sobbing I prayed this prayer.

“Lord, I can’t believe this is happening, how can someone be so heartless!? I want to ask you to make her come to school bald, but I guess for someone to do something like this must mean that she is really hurting inside, so Lord, will you please help her.”

Yep, one of my proudest moments I think, it took fair more effort for me to pray good things for her but the peace I had in my heart I could not have achieved any other way, not even with revenge.

‘You should behave instead like Gods very own children adopted into his family- calling him “Father, dear Father.”... His Holy Spirit speaks... deep in our hearts... tells us that we are Gods children... Since we are his children we will have his treasure- for everything God gives to his Son, Christ, is ours too. But if we are to share his glory we must also share his suffering.”- Romans 8:15-17

Don't give up!

Yes life is a battle, it can be depressing, it can be hard and sometimes way too hard, it is unfair and takes things away from you very easily.

But this doesn’t mean you should give up, there is always a smidgin of hope somewhere, just sometimes it takes a while for you to find it, but keep searching and never give up, others may give up on you but don’t you ever give up on yourself!

You are valuable, important and unique, there is so much spectacular wonder about you, trust me I know there is, and sometimes you just need others to notice it for you.

Just because it is stormy now, doesn’t mean it will rain forever, hold on, keep your faith and keep your hope, the sun will shine again someday.

Ignore those hurtful comments made by haters, remember the nice things your loved ones have done for you rather then the hurtful things.

If you find yourself in a bad, depressing situation then for goodness sake get out of it! You may not feel as though you have a reason to live but I will bet that there is someone in your life that can’t live without you, and that’s got to give you a good enough reason to stay!

If you are reading this and wondering what on earth I am going on about, well a good friend of mine who I went to school with for a few years committed suicide.

And I want to encourage you to support others and for those going through a situation like this to never give up! Share love around and be kind to everyone, you never know what someone may be going through.

My cosine heard about it and asked the question “Why?” great question, and my answer was “He just didn’t want to live life anymore.”

Faith is not a T-shirt.

Faith can’t be like a T-shirt; you can’t share it around or take others whenever you need it.

It has to be your own.

If anything faith is more like underwear, if it’s not yours then it will be to lose or too tight, if it’s not your own then it just won’t support you.

Faith is a beautiful powerful thing between a human and God, and if worked on and strong enough it can be unbreakable.

But unfortunately I know so many people who just don’t have their own faith; they rely on everyone else’s faith such as people in their church, friends and family.

They just haven’t taken that leap, they need to trust God, let go of what you are holding onto and hold onto God.

It can be a scary thing I suppose but well worth it, you may be high of the ground but you just got to keep your eyes fixed on God.

When Peter (from the bible) stepped out onto the water to meet Jesus, he took a huge leap of faith, but the minute he took his eyes off Jesus is when he started to sink, did Jesus let him drown?

Instantly Jesus reached out his hand and grabbed him. “You don’t have much faith,” Jesus replied. “Why do you doubt me?” – Matthew 14: 31

Of course not! He walked over and grabbed his hand saving him.

He will do the same for you, ‘all it takes is faith, trust and a little bit of God in us.’ :)

He loves you.

Why can it be so hard for us to love ourselves in a good just way?

I mean all it takes is people to not try for us, to give up on you after everything you have done for them. For someone to not even give you a chance. And our confidence is shattered and we look at ourselves thinking, what is wrong with me?

But that is so silly, why do we think that way when the maker of the starts loves US! Yes, God, the God of love, mercy, compassion, power... everything we keep looking and searching for is staring us in the face, He longs to have a relationship with us just as we long to have that relationship, to have that love!

He wants that relationship so much that He sent His son Jesus Christ to walk among us then die on the cross for us, so that His son Jesus, an innocent man, whom has never sinned, could take our sins for us, so that Jesus could be the way, the bridge for us to reach God, to have a relationship with Him. (Jesus then came back to life)

He is holding out His hand to you, and all you gotta do is take it. He will forgive you for the wrong you have done, He wants you to know that He loves you so much, and He is desperately waiting for you to grab His hand and love Him to.

He doesn’t care about your skin colour, hair colour, culture, weight, height, abilities, disabilities, friends or no friends, orphan or family member... what He cares about is your heart, He can read your heart, you may be smiling at someone on the outside yet wanting to hurt them on the inside, He sees that, sorry but you can’t hide from Him, and in saying that, if you are honest and truly want to be with God and have that relationship and follow Him, then He will have you, He will forgive you.

Why? Because He loves you, I know that life is unfair at times, and sometimes you will think, He doesn’t love me, look at what He has put me through! This may be hard to believe but sometimes He puts us through these things because He loves us and wants only the best for us, He may be putting you through something so that you may come out of it a stronger and better person, lessons that God teaches us you can’t learn at school.

And don’t be thinking of earthly love when I say He loves you, no I mean real love, this love never stops and it can’t but taken from you, this love will never hurt you or make you fall, it will give you the hope and courage to carry on, to keep fighting, and most importantly to keep loving others. He fills us with so much love that if we keep it to ourselves we will blow up, so share that love around, it is never ending.

Try spending some time with God today, find some time and sit, you can take a bible with you or you can just pray to Him, God loves spending time with you, and don’t think it is a minute wasted because it is minutes gained.

LIVE!

This is an encouragement to everyone, to not just be a part of life but to live it! Enjoy it!

I totally understand that life can be a big dark hole and also a drag, trust me I know, but why should that stop you from being who you want to be and having fun!

Sometimes all you need at the end of a horrible week, day or year is to have fun, go swing on the swing set, slide down a slide, dance in the rain, roll down a grassy hill, go with a friend to the beach and tackle them into the surf.

Let the child inside of you roam free for once, I challenge you to spend at least an hour outside doing something fun and stupid, I want you to go out, on your own or with a friend, forget about all your worries and fears and just focus on having fun, when we were kids all we focused on was getting across the monkey bars without falling, be that kid, and forget about life for a moment. You will feel much better, you will feel life.

Also spice up your life a little, I catch the train all the time now, and it is so sad, people are stone faced, sleeping or ignoring each other. There’s no talking or smiles, so many times I have been sitting in a full carriage of people, yet I felt I was the only one there. And in those times I have just had the urge to jump up and start dancing with an umbrella! (Not that I ever would)

Instead of walking on the foot path, balance on a safe ledge, when you walk past some great music stop to appreciate it, stop to smell the flowers. Have you been walking past something you have always wanted to walk into, or have a look at but you have been in such a rush you just haven’t? Well do! Leave a little earlier so you can do those things without being late.

God didn’t intend us to be sad, sorry pathetic people just scraping through life; He gave us life so we may live it!

“So I conclude that there is nothing better for people then to be happy and to enjoy themselves as long as they can. And people should eat and drink and enjoy the fruits of their labour, for these are gifts from God.”- Ecclesiastes 3:12-13

“So I saw that there is nothing better for people than to be happy in their work. That is why they are here! No one will bring them back from death to enjoy life in the future.”- Ecclesiastes 3:22

“Young man, it’s wonderful to be young! Enjoy every minute of it. Do everything you want to do; take it all in. But remember that you must give an account to God for everything you do.”- Ecclesiastes 11:9