How to have friends!

Random Acts of Kindness. I love this. 
Have you heard of this concept? I would be surprised if you have not. 
I love it when people do 'kind' or 'caring' things to another. A lot of times this act is associated with doing things for a stranger, again I love this, and think we should all be doing this. But, sometimes I think we can forget a little about our friends!!!


Truth Moment: Bring back the TAF - Towards A Friend.

Sometimes in the dazzle and frazzle of life I feel like, and I know, I can take my friends for granted. 
I mean, they are always just there. 
They are a wonderful and vital part of my life and I could not live without them, but I can forget about stepping out in my tired, busy state and do an act of kindness towards them. - And I'm not talking about just being there for the big moments as you and I would be, this is in the 'just everyday'. 


With a "drrr" and a self imposed slap up the side of my head ;) , I need to simply show my appreciation to my close friends for being in my life and encourage them in theirs too. I attach 'TAF' to my life.


So this week I determine to do a TAF! Yep, a 'Towards A Friend'. 

What do you think? -Please share what you do for your friends that let's them know they are appreciated and loved in everyday Life?  

Pop that balloon!

Do you ever just randomly stop and think about your life, and no matter how good it is or maybe how frazzled you feel, the thought and feeling of not being in control sneaks in. You noticing that your life is not really how you ever thought it would have turned out as a graduating teen dreamer - Pop that balloon!

Sometimes it feels that so much of life is not a choice anymore and some of my ideas from my 20's where foolish dreams. 


Life is a real mix of responsibility, changing stages, unpredictable surprises (the good and the bad), some striving to stay in touch with youthful dreams, settling or forgetting or giving up on dreams, and it's all moving so fast that it can be hard to keep up. - Arrrgg, balloons popping, shrinking, and not being blown up anymore, everywhere!


Truth Moment: Keep blowing up balloons! -  But it's what you fill them with that is the difference.


I am learning that it is important to keep having dreams and forging ahead to make a happy, successful life, but I need to fill my dreams, my life, with the power of choice and live out of those choices. In what life throws at me or how I feel, I choose balloons full of:


- Love
- Happy
- Truthfulness
- Giving
- Friendship
- Peace

No matter what my life turns out to be in the end, no matter how many of my dreams I achieve, the stages I go through, and with those unpredictable, unexpected  curve balls in life I know, going forward and through with my 'balloons', I have lived well, dazzled!


Let's float some balloons: What do you think?  Share with us what  'balloon' of 'choice' you think is important to have in life.
(Click on the comment link below.)

How to be beautiful.

You feel spectacular! The best you've felt for awhile. Your hair is 'modern glam', your makeup pretty much perfect and you have spent weeks finding the most beautiful dress - You're actually out of jeans or worse 'trackies' for once and sticky finger or nose marks from the kids that usually accessories your outfits are nowhere in sight. 

You feel gorgeous, elegant, stunning, hot in your own right and... ...Oh my, across the room is another women wearing the same dress!!!!!

Your heart sinks instantly, you feel that beautiful feeling you had just a second ago disappear, "does she look better in it?" -You can't help think. 

You look around to see if anyone has noticed yet. You have a second to work out what you are going to do, and you:

a) Get out of there as fast as possible, race home and change into something, anything, else...

b) Laugh at it, declare that the other women has impeccable taste and get on with enjoying yourself and congratulation the other women on fine taste...

c) Cringe and spend the rest of the evening hiding behind your friends or hubby with one eye on 'that women' while trying to stay at all times at opposite ends of the room from her...

...Well what ever you do it doesn’t really matter, because the real question is: Why do we care so much when this happens???? 

We've all had this moment and we all feel a touch deflated when it happens. Why? - Because every women wants to feel and be beautiful as her own unique and diverse beauty.

Truth Moment: You already have been created: beautiful, diverse and unique, valuable, important... and we need to embrace it.

It is so easy to feel, and quite unknowingly, that we are competing with every other beauty out there and it doesn't help living in a media age with 'beauty bombardment' every where you turn. 

Competing is all about comparing. When you compare yourself to another you always come up short because it's your flaws that you see which only serve to overwhelm, depress and suppress you. 

Embracing you, your own beauty, your own uniqueness, and your own value may not come easily, especially if that chocolate bar you ate last night is bulging out of your hips right now, but when you do, you have within the essence of being free. 

Free to be: you, happy, being able to stand confident, to not have to be absolutely perfect, to be proud of what you do love about you, and not being bothered deep inside by other beautiful women around you. 

The only way to embrace you is by choice. It is a choice to accept you, by you.

When you choose you, and choose to believe you are 'the above Truth Moment', you can: smile, know you really do light up the world, and you realize this world needs your diverse, unique, beautiful self, and that you are the only one who can take your place as the beauty you are amongst the beauty of it all.

There is nothing more beautiful, rare, original, elegant and stunning as a women who has embraced herself.


How to be beautiful? It's a choice.

Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out; you formed me in my mother's womb. I thank you, High God—you're breathtaking! Body and soul, I am marvelously made! I worship in adoration—what a creation! Psalm 139

Filled 'Empties'!

Ever had one of those weeks where you just feel low? Of course you have, we all have them. Well I am having one of them for no reason and every reason -isn’t that how it goes?

I have just moved town away from family and friends, my dear family suffered a tragic loss just on us leaving, I have a teething crying baby and right this week I am doing a body cleanse of juice intake only = challenge. Hmmmm… This all sounds like life and yep it’s deflating me.

So I do the smart thing and tell my husband “Hon I’m feeling low and I need some encouragement.”

Now I love my hubby and he is a great encourager in his bloke way yet sometimes it does not seem to hit the spot. However, by him I do feel a little cheered up: tick, loved: tick, he even gave me flowers: tick (yay *kiss*), but deep inside I am still feeling frazzled and a bit empty. Now, sure our family and friends can and should encourage us (so can chocolate) and it does make us feel great, but what happens when it does not hit the spot (tears or fireworks from the mouth!!!!).

Truth Moment: My family and friends cannot be my only source of encouragement.

I need another source of encouragement and it is:

God.

God has to be my bottom line source. Now before you think this is getting all so fluffy and lovely etc… Let’s get one thing straight: When faced with challenges and low moments in our life going back to some of these ‘fluffy basics’ is important. God being our source is a ‘basic’ and it’s these ‘basics’ that give us the foundation to life that we can stand on. So bare with me.

God is the ultimate encouragement source because He is the ‘way’ (John 14:6).

He is a ‘way’ out of discouragement and low days as well as a ‘way’ in the fun times and wins of life. He wants to encourage us wherever we are at: sad, happy, mad, ordinary, board, angry, confused, excited, pained, devastated, frazzled, dazzlingly… (Did I miss one?)

So today I make that choice. I am opening my Bible to get my encouragement to fill that emptiness up with positive words straight from God. (I’ll tweet a few.)
Does anyone find it easy to pick up the Bible when we feel down? How about no! (Except to all you saints out there. ;)) Yep it can be a challenge. This is something we have to continually expend in and make the choice to do. It does not come naturally.

So here is a cheer to open Bibles and filled ‘empties’.

Taken from my deck, and always reminds me of
God's presence in this crasy world!

Thinking: Where do you get your main source of encouragement from????? Is it time to open that Bible again? What are your fav places in the Bible for encouragement?

Side Note: Now just don’t open the Bible and start reading any old place because this is sure to end in dust collecting on the top of a shelved book. Look up books of the bible that are full of personal encouragement. My fav places to read for encouragement are in Psalms or 1st John.
Then when we read it, think about what it says, it is the only thing that fills the empty, lift the lows and sometimes this takes time. As a bonus it can give new perspective on circumstances.