Where is God now?

I want to share a story with you about a lady that Luke's mum knows. This lady has said so many things that have encouraged and uplifted me and now, I hope, I will do the same for her.

She had two children. Recently she had to bury both of them. They died separately in unrelated circumstances. A parent should never have to bury a child, let alone all of them.

Just a few weeks ago her department at her job was restructured and she was left without a job. She has said that in losing her job she has lost her second family that she had made at work.

Today she was diagnosed with secondary cancer in both her lungs. This means that the cancer has taken root somewhere else and spread there. She is facing death. She has said that she is dying from a broken heart.

My friend, as you read this please know that my heart and my whole being is weeping with you. Please know that my prayers, in words and in groans, are for you. There are no answers for what you are going through, there is no fairness or justice to what you have experienced. My words that follow seem weak and pathetic against such deep pain and grief, but I hope that maybe you will hear the love in them and they will bring you a small measure of peace.

Where is God in your pain?

He is with you.

He is right beside you holding your hand and crying for you and with you.

He is in the love that others give you.

He is in the community that surrounds you.

He is in the prayers that people pray for you.

He is in the hope that people have in your recovery, whether you desire it or not.

He is in every breath you take in to your broken lungs.

He is in the silence as a friend sits with you.

He is in your memories of your children.

He is in your strength.

And He is in your weakness.

My friend, life has been so unkind. I pray that whatever happens you will know love, you will know hope, you will know peace, and above all,

you will know God.

(I ask that others who read this comment on facebook or on the blog site with prayers and words of love for this lady who has lost so much. I know her story will be touching all of you. I will make sure the comments are passed on)

Masturbation...yay or nay?

First of all let me say welcome to my new readers from India! I hope you find something worth while in my simple words.

Secondly, no I am not obsessed with sex. I believe that it is the most misused and most misunderstood functions of the body, in Christian and non-Christian alike, and so therefore I think it is somewhat necessary to write on it, in all its forms.

Thirdly, please have some sympathy for me in regards to how careful I had to be googling images for this issue!

Masturbation.

Let's admit it, we have all done it and, as far as I know, no one has gone blind from it yet.

But is it ok? I mean, from a Christian stand point, does God approve of one exploring their own body and satisfying themselves sexually?

Now, my non-Christian readers might find this dilemma kind of funny, but it can be a real issue for Christians! I know people who feel so guilty for giving themselves pleasure, and feel that they are sinning every time they do. Or they don't do it all.

In my humble opinion, it isn't a simple as "yes or no" when it comes to whether masturbation is good or bad.

I think it is more about where your mind is at that where your hands are at.

We all now know my views on porn (read my last blog "50 shades of PORN") and so it goes without saying that looking at videos and pleasuring yourself at the same time is demeaning to you and to the people you are watching. If you want to know why read the last blog.

However, I think the same goes if you are consistently fantasizing about one person (or who knows, a group of people?) while you are doing the deed. 

(just a random aside - how does one talk about this without using terms that either sound cheesy, dirty or downright funny????...

...and we're back).

If you are fantasizing about one person then are you really valuing them for who they are as a person, as a human being that is loved and cherished, or are you substituting that person for porn videos? I have heard, and this is 100% real, a guy say that if he fantasizes about his girlfriend while...you know....that then it will help keep him away from porn. WRONG. It is just making his girlfriend a porn star.

On the other hand, if you are separated from your partner for a while and are unable to have sex with them, maybe it is better to be thinking of them than anyone else.

I also know a person that says that when they masturbate they don't picture faces, they only picture the bodies of the people they are thinking about, but they don't know if that is because they are honouring the people or because their brain is too lazy to think up faces. Either way, this is still objectifying people to the point where it is only their bodies that we are interested in, not the people themselves.

So what is the answer? Should all those good boys and girls who try so hard to abstain until marriage go around sexually frustrated for all the years that it takes to find a partner?

Is it so bad to help yourself out a little?

My personal opinion is no, it's not. I think it is healthy for people to explore their bodies and what they can do. It can take away fear of sex and can make people (girls particularly) aware of parts of their body that may not otherwise get much attention, and in some cases can be reviled!

I think it can help with tension release, particularly for those that are trying not to go too far with their gf/bf and want to keep it clean but can't handle the tension that it creates!

But it can also lead very quickly into lust and desire that is unhealthy and demeaning to you and to your love interest.

So be careful. 

God has created your body as a wonderful and glorious creation that is meant to work as it does.

Let's just not misuse and abuse and make something beautiful an instrument of the degraded.

50 Shades of PORN

If you have been living under a rock for the last few months you may not have heard about the phenomena of the book "50 shades of Grey".

It is a fairly recent book that has received worldwide fame and sold more books than the Harry Potter series! 

And it is porn.

Seriously.

The main story-line goes something along the lines of woman meets man, man is attractive, man introduces the woman to his red room, red room is a place where they get to go sadomasochistic on each other and cause pain for sexual arousal, woman falls in love, more pain inducing sex.

And this obviously deep and meaningful plot line is the best selling book of our era.

Have to say the most brilliant pic I saw recently was one that said "anyone who says that 50 shades is excellent literature needs to be beaten with the complete works of Shakespeare". But I digress.

My issue here is not the writing style of the author or even the subject which she chooses, but the fact that it has been so phenomenally successful.

Sex sells.

Porn sells even better.

What is the difference between porn and sex? Is there one?

I think there was a more defined line in the past. Selling sex was about using pretty woman and men and product placement to insinuate a connection between the two.

Now it is much harder to define as selling sex often means just that. Barely clothed woman and men, often in compromising positions are used to sell, often barely mentioned, products. People don't want to see what they could be any more, they want to see what makes them aroused.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is porn.

Interestingly enough there are dictionaries that don't even mention sex when defining porn. For example:

television shows, articles, photographs, etc., thought to create or satisfy an excessive desire for something,especially something luxurious: the irresistible appeal of foodporn; an addiction to real-estate porn.

 "the excessive desire for something".

Porn, the sexual gratification kind, not the real estate kind, has a grip on this generation like nothing else. It is easier to ask a group of people 'who hasn't seen porn' that it is to ask who has as the numbers will be easier to count.

It is instantaneous gratification that is accessible anywhere if you have the right kind of phone with web capabilities.

It forgoes the issues of having to build a relationship (see my last post "Give me love!") and skips straight to the sex with no need to call them the next day, or to even know their name!

And it is so unbelievably destructive that I would rank it near the top of why there are so many failed relationships.

If you watch porn a lot it desensitizes you to the need for love in sex. It forms your ideas about what a male or female body should look like (and trust me NO natural body looks like that) and it puts in your head desires for sex that you may never find anyone actually willing to do, submitting you to the possibility of only finding sexual gratification through porn.

And it demeans and objectifies people in a way that makes them something rather than someone.

Every time you watch porn you are making those people less than human in your eyes.

You don't care about them, you don't care if they are drug induced, sex slaves that have been stolen from their homes and trafficked into the business.

You don't care that they may have been sexually abused as a child and found that this was the only job they felt they were good at.

You don't care that they carry STD's and are passing those to every sexual partner they have.

You don't care because they are less than human to you.

And they don't care if your marriage or relationship breaks up because of them. They don't care that you views on your partner may be warped because of them. They don't care

because you are less than human to them.

You are the one that gives this industry a reason to keep going.

You are the one that keeps them in business.

You are acting less than human by even watching porn.

I know a young man who said once that watching porn was the ultimate hypocrisy. He watched woman with no thought of who they were or respect for them and yet he believes in treating his female friends with dignity and respect.

It's because in his eyes, at that moment, those women were less than human to him.

As a woman who has been coerced into having pornographic pictures taken of her, the possibility that they are on the web and that some of the men in my life that I care about could maybe one day click on a link and see them fills me with a horror that I cannot begin to describe. It makes me wonder if the women in porn feel that sense of shame and disgust as well.

There are far more that just 50 shades of porn and it is becoming more and more apparent on everyday television and movies. 

Next time you think to watch porn, ask yourself

"What if this site shows me young pics/movies of my mother?"

Let's start to humanize people again and give them the respect and dignity that they deserve.

Give me love!

I was listening to Ed Sheeran on my iPod this morning while on the bus (totally awesome singer/song writer, check him out if you have the time!) when his song "Give me love" came on. It's a beautiful song but there is this one bit that gets to me everytime; Ed starts yelling "Give me love" in a way that is so heart rending, so emotional that you can almost feel the desperation in his desire to be loved.

I think this cry of his, this calling out for someone to love us, is at the core of every being. We all want to be loved in a way that is deep and meaningful, in a way that the person sees us as we really are, not all the pretentious crap that we put out for the world to see.

You know what I mean, we want someone who sees past the clothes, makeup, swagger, heels, language and money (or lack thereof) and sees the insecure, crazy, silly, stupid, funny, sensitive person that we try so desperately to protect all the time.

And this is why when relationships end it hurts so damn much.

If you think about it the whole idea of a meaningless relationship (call it friends with benefits, one night stand, fling, whatever) is an oxymoron.

Relationship implies a knowing of each other that allows for honesty and openness.

Relationship means understanding each others fears, or at least committing to the process of discovering them.

Doesn't sound very meaningless to me.

And, let's face it, no one comes out of a relationship of any kind unscarred.

Take a one night stand for example. I know plenty of girls and guys who will testify that you can have sex with someone and it mean nothing. It's just some harmless fun to get your jollies and then you are gone.

So explain to me why when the dude doesn't call the next day he is call a series of words, most that have to be spelt *****?

Tell me why you will avoid that person at any cost if you see them at the bar the next weekend?

Why is it called the 'walk of shame' if there is nothing wrong to be ashamed about?

If we start at this, the most fleeting of relationships, and go to a long term marriage ending, the most enduring of relationships, we will see that no relationship ending leaves people unhurt.

Because we all want love, and when that love ends or is not fulfilled or disenchants us, it hurts like a b***h.

The sad thing is that in this life all love will end. Be it through breakup or death, at some point the person that we love, that we scream "Give me love" to in our hearts, won't be with us any longer.

And that thought scares the bejeezus out of most people. So we substitute real relationships with 'meaningless' ones because it means that when it does end it can be on our terms. We can pretend that it didn't hurt, we can say 'I dumped them' and lie to ourselves about the damage in our own person.

Whoever said "it is better to have loved and lost than to never love at all" obviously had never been through a serious breakup. Most people I know avoid deep love because the possibility of losing it makes them scared and vunerable.

We are weak as humans.

We will hurt each other and break each other, unintentionally and sometimes for fun.

We want the power and we will fight each other for it.

And yet the cry still echoes;

"Give me love!"

There is only one person who can fill this deeply ingrained desire for love.

The very fact that this cry is in us from the time we are young points us towards a God who loves so unconditionally, so completely, that we will never be abandoned or hurt by them.

The only place to find this love is in the cross that Jesus sacrificed himself on, in the resurrection that brought him back to life, and in the forgiveness that he extends to all.

The cry doesn't need to go unanswered.

You ARE loved!

Check this out. Old school video I did a few years ago about a ministry I was involved in. Gotta love the nappy pin in the ear!!!!

The Fear

Today it hit me while I was waiting at the bus stop.

It's been known to sneak up on me while out with friends, lying in bed, shopping, working...pretty much just about anywhere.

It stalks its prey silently, deviously, and waits until they are their most unsuspecting and then...

...WHAMO!!!

I know it's got you too before.

The chilling little voice in your head that paralyses you with fear.

The voice that says "Is there really any point to this?"

So there was I, at 6:50am, waiting nonchalantly for my bus, quite at peace with the world and all that dwell in it. Two seconds later I was in the grip of an epistemological crisis and questioning the reason for life, the universe and everything.

All because a little voice asked me if there was really any point.

I don't know about you but this type of thinking can really scare the pants off me! I am a fairly imaginative, deep thinking person anyway, so get me started on a topic like this and I start jumping from one scenario to another and soon I am ready to quit my job, leave New Zealand or, failing both of those things, run back to bed and hide under the covers.

Because, really, at my core, I do question the reason for everything. I guess my life has taught me that the one sure thing that will happen in life is that it will bite you. At some point, life is going is going to get hard and you won't know why, you won't know if it will change, and somehow you have to find meaning in all of it.

So colour me pessimistic but I haven't seen a lot that changes this opinion. Crap happens. All. The. Time. To everybody, everywhere.

So what is the point of life if all I am doing is getting up at 6 to go to a job that is full of angry and stressed people to try and work and not getting angry and stressed at the same time? What is the point of earning money just to see it disappear every week into someone elses pocket?

What is the point when where you are and where you wish you were in life are so different that you can't even see the connections to get from one to the other?

How, in other words, do you stop getting so miserably depressed at the thought that all you are going to do for the rest of your life is work a 9-5 job (if your lucky!), save for your retirement, maybe have children who you will break over everytime they hurt, and then die with nothing to show for it, that you don't go and throw yourself off a bridge somewhere and meet God early?

Yup, that's what went through my head early this morning.

At that moment a song came on - "You Are Holy" by The Digital Age - and I had an epiphany.

There may be no point in working!

But it's ok, because work was never meant to give meaning to my life!

If work is what defines me then I am screwed! Bring on death I say! Take me from this hell hole we call consumerism!

It defines so many people's lives though, it makes them who they are, teaches them their self worth and then when they retire we wonder why old people are so depressed and grumpy.

it's because they have lost the reason they lived!

Life is not about work.

Granted I cannot live without my paycheck and Luke would not be too impressed with that as an excuse if I quit my job tomorrow and lived off the dole.

But there is something more to life than just the same old stuff we see around us.

There is hope.

Not "hope that one day I will be in heaven so HAH! to all you suckers I am outta here" hope.

No, true hope comes from knowing that one day this, this stuff all around us, the world and all we see, the famines in Africa, the plagues and dtroughts and storms and miscarriages and diseases and homeless people and child abuse and rape and deforrestation and global warming and greed and anger and stress.....all that stuff...

one day it will all be made ok again.

One day we won't have our hearts broken by what we see and what we have done to us and what we have done.

One day we will see this all as it is meant to be.

One day Jesus will return and the crap will stop.

And that ladies and gentlemen, is my hope.

That one day it will all make sense, it will all be healed and we won't have to struggle to find meaning or fight off the fear or anything because it will be as it was.

I need this hope like I need air.

Without it my world would collapse and I would be the most depressed person ever.

With it I find joy in the little things, hope in the big things and love in everything.

And it makes me realise that after all the crap I have been through, I am still here! My life is good; I have a steady income, a loving husband, a nice place to live and food to eat. I have more than I need in accumulated stuff and I live like a Queen compared to most of the world.

The fear is really a construct of my own pig-headeness and desire to be autonomous. I want to be able to quit work when I like and still get paid, still live as I do and not have to work for it! That is selfish and self-serving and yet that is where the fear is based; in the fact that I can't just do what I like and have what I want for nothing.

When it comes down to it, when I focus on what he has done, and what he will continue to do to his glory, and I pull my head out of my arse long enough to breathe in the quiet morning air and stop focusing on myself, I see that, honestly,

 the Fear pales in comparison to Love.

Injustice, weight loss and other stories

Ah insomnia.

Such a wonderful motivator for updating my blog.

I can hear Luke in the next room breathing gently, sound asleep in our warm bed, and here I am, in a freezing study, wrapped up in blankets wondering why the heck I am so wired!!

But enough on my sleep patterns, or lack thereof, I have far more interesting tales to keep you addicted to this blog (seriously, I am finding that my ego relies heavily on how many reads I get per post atm. Sad but true!).

My first deep, probing issue that I want to raise with you all is that of injustice.

Light topic for 1am I know.

Luke observed tonight that I have a major issue with injustice and people believing me. At first these too issues don't seem to relate; people not believing me doesn't really seem to be an issue of injustice. But it really is! If I am telling someone the God's honest truth and they flat out refuse to believe me the sense of injustice I feel is overpowering!

It seems like a strange thing to get my knickers in a twist about but there is nothing more frustrating, more hurtful, or more maddening than not being believed.

It was in the course of discussing it with Luke that I began to realise that a lot of these feelings stem from being a child and not being believed. I have memories of the silliest things that still grind me up because in the situation I wasn't believed. I want to pull those memories up in front of those that dismissed me and demand justice, demand that they believe me!

And then I got to thinking (small wonder I am still awake right) that if anyone understands injustice and not being believed it would be Jesus. I mean the dude was nailed to a piece of wood and left to die because people thought he was such a liar.

And he forgave them.

*sigh*

It would be so much easier to live like Christ if he wasn't so freaking good all the time!

So I guess now I have to show grace and mercy and extend forgiveness. Now that I am aware of the issues do I really have any other choice?

All I am really doing by holding on to the anger is swallowing the poison and hoping the people in the wrong will die.

Mercy is about giving to those what they do not deserve and withholding what they do deserve.

They deserve to have their arses kicked.

They don't deserve my forgiveness.

And yet, with God's strength I will try to forgive and perhaps the anger will fade with that.

I really am an angry person. Not nearly as bad as I use to be but I still hold on to a lot of things that hurt or made me angry and it's not until a long time after that I realise I have done that.

I get angry at myself more than anyone else.

Like I found out this week that I will probably need surgery in order to keep losing weight.

Basically my body has slowed down the weight loss so much that I will be 45+ by the time I am a healthy weight, which means health issues and problems if we want children in the near(ish) future.

And so surgery seems to be the way to go according to two unrelated doctors.

I am angry that I let myself get this bad. I have destroyed my body and I didn't even mean to. I can't blame anyone but myself and, though I have lost lots of weight already, it is my body, me, that is stopping me losing weight au-naturale.

It scares me that I am facing such big health issues that surgery seems to be the right way to go.

It worries me that people will think I am lazy and couldn't be bothered trying and so I went with surgery to avoid diet and exercise.

Most of all I felt I have let myself down in such an insurmountable way that I can fix it by myself, and I hate that. I have this huge urge just to ignore the whole thing, throw my hands up in the air and yell "I QUIT" and then spend the rest of my life eating whatever I want, whenever I want, and not caring about the consequences.

But then I talk to Luke about our future plans and I know that that won't fix anything. I can't run away from this, I have to accept that I did this and now this is the way out.

Can't say the list of things that can go wrong in surgery really helps!!

               me at my biggest (2008)                                          me couple of months ago