Nature's Medicine

After watching the movie August Rush recently, I was reminded of the therapeutic power in the sound of nature. Unfortunately, our lives have become so noisy with man-made sounds that we have tuned out God's medicine for calming, quietening and relaxing our minds, and restoring our peace and creativity. Walking my dog along our canal recently, I purposely switched off my headphones and listened to the natural sounds around me instead and I was blown away... 

Who would have thought such diverse sounds of nature could make such a harmonious melody and that it could bring about such a sense of overwhelming peace to my soul. There were different birds chirping, ducks quacking, frogs croaking, trees rustling in the breeze, water gushing, canoeists rowing and together they made a beautiful song.

It is no wonder people buy nature sound CDs to fall asleep to. I honestly believe that when we reconnect with nature and focus on their sounds, we can tune out our worries and problems and bring peace to our minds. I encourage you to try it - close your eyes, switch off your phone and your music and allow the therapeutic sounds of nature sing peace to your soul...  And if you live in the city, check out the free collections on the Internet to download!

Rejoicing with Jealousy

I was reminded recently of how difficult it is to be happy for someone when they achieve something you strongly desire. After my second miscarriage, my sister fell pregnant, leaving me in an awkward emotional journey of wanting to rejoice with her, but being consumed with anger at the unfairness of it and being so jealous of her.  Fortunately, I only had to endure 2 months of my ashamed fakeness with my sister, before I myself fell pregnant again and we were able to rejoice together! 

I have since learnt that being able to rejoice for another persons good-fortune, while you are dreaming or have lost your own, is a sign of great character maturity, that takes some years to learn.

As an aspiring writer, I often encounter authors who have successfully become published, and find it hard to understand why they are often so tight-lipped about sharing their secrets or contacts. If I ever become published, I aim to go out of my way to help others achieve success, for I will have walked in their shoes and will have experienced their journey of repeated rejections. Sometimes experiencing things from both perspectives allows us the capacity to empathise, and it is only in having gone through it ourselves that we will fully know and understand the level of excitement. I believe God brings certain people along our path to either help them or for them to help us, and recognising the role is crucial.

So next time you encounter someone you are intensely jealous of, be honest about your feelings with them and as hard as it is, force yourself to share in their joy, even if it does feel fake.  Focus your jealousy on learning from them. 

And for those who may be in the position to gloat, be sensitive to others whose emotions are raw and tender. 

I believe that when we learn the lesson of rejoicing with others in our jealousy, we will learn the valuable lesson that when we put another person's happiness above our own, we end up attracting our own heart's desires! 

The trouble with silent treatment

It saddens me to hear of how many couples resort to the silent treatment after there has been an altercation or quarrel.  Be it for reasons of punishment, control or simply because of clamming up due to a lack of communication skills to adequately express ones feelings, it is never the answer, and in most cases, just makes the problem worse. What I've learnt is that silent treatment only magnifies the problem, causing a greater rift or wall in the relationship.  What the silence does is to force one to have to presume and interpret things falsely.  Ignoring someone is as powerful and damaging as emotional abuse. 

Although I do believe it is healthy to give each other some space to process any negative emotions, there needs to come a point where you sit down and discuss what happened and allow each other to express themselves openly and honestly, without pointing fingers or placing blame. When one sticks to 'I' language instead of 'you', then this allows each other to view the problem from the other persons perspective.  If your emotions are too raw or sensitive, then the best solution is to write the person a letter. Bottling our emotions up, especially negative ones, is extremely unhealthy, not only for your spirit, but I believe it causes illness and disease to take root in our physical bodies as well. 

Unfortunately as is often the case, when the one spouse or partner becomes silent and abrupt, it often causes the victim to do tit for tat.  This dysfunctional cycle continues until some crisis forces them to communicate or God forbid, the bitterness and resentfulness is allowed to grow to such an extent where the relationship becomes terminal.

The other side of the coin, which is just as dysfunctional, is when couples act as if nothing happened after a fight, bottling up whatever negative feelings they had, hoping for them to dissolve, which they never do - they just become volcanic weapons we hold onto in our hearts for the next fight.  Communication is the key to a healthy and happy marriage! Only when we force ourselves to be vulnerable enough to express our feelings honestly, can we break the pattern of silent destruction. It is only with the truth that we are set free from fear, where the healing in our relationship can begin...

Christmas - Festival of Lights

After looking at some Christmas photos of our tree and balcony decorated with colourful lights this past year, I was forced to smile as I recognised that as Christians, Christmas is our special "Festival of Lights"!  Hindus and Jews may have their own, but for Christians, we too should consider that the lights that we decorate our Christmas tree with are symbolic and have a far greater meaning than we give them credit for.  If you consider how God used the light of the stars to prophesy to the wise men of when Jesus would be born, and how again the light of the stars were used to guide both them and the shepherds to where he was born, we can conclude that Jesus is the our light in the darkness!  So next time you see Christmas lights shining, give a thought to what they represent - just like the gifts we get under the tree should remind us that not only is it's Jesus's birthday, but that He was the greatest gift of all...

Going to bed angry

I've always tried to follow the bible verse in Ephesians 4:26 that I've interpreted to mean not to go to bed angry with someone.  There have been times when this has been extremely difficult to do and has left me feeling like a fake, a fraud and a hypocrite. It is one thing to say you are no longer angry, but to be fully released from those feelings is another story entirely.  Trying to make peace in a hurry doesn't fully resolve the issues, it just delays them.  I've recently discovered that in an investigation that was done, one of the traits of a truly happy marriage IS to go to bed mad at each other, sleep on it and then resolve it in the morning, if there is still a need to. It turns out that some issues only require a good nights sleep to change your perspective about a situation. 

The person was saying that in fact, it is very harmful to try and resolve issues before bedtime, when both of you are tired and grumpy.  You are more likely to say things you don't mean or agree to things you shouldn't.  I was relieved to hear what Psalm 4:4 says - Be angry, and do not sin. Meditate within your heart on your bed, and be still.  I guess in order for me not to sin with my anger, I do need to sleep on it and be still... 

Delaying God's Timing

After a year of trying to wait patiently on God's timing, we have finally had our prayers answered in finding ourselves a bigger home! 

Our journey of searching for one has been pot-holed with many  doubts, confusion and disappointments, but as a faith-believing Christian, I continued to trust God for His perfect timing in answering my prayer.  

However, in retrospect, I am left wondering if I might have been delaying God's timing, by what exactly I was praying for.  You see, I was so focused on my wants list, believing for God's favour, that I never stopped to give any thought to what it was we actually needed or if it even fitted in with God's will for our lives.  I had thought that if I had these desires for a specific home, then it must be okay to ask God for it... It was only in the week before we found this new home that the angle of my prayers had changed - perhaps in a resigned desperation, but I began to pray 'according to His will' and to trust Him with our needs, laying down my detailed want list, which has left me with this thought...  Maybe we do delay God's timing when we become so focused on what WE want, instead of what God knows we need...  Although I still believe that God loves us so much that He does want to bless us abundantly with His favour, we should never treat God like our Fairy-Godmother! 

It is only when we can lay down our wants and pray for what it is God wants for us and what we actually need, with the right motives, that we can expect God to answer our prayers...

Silence is Acceptance

It is said that we often teach people how to treat us, just by allowing it. When we do not object to being bullied and emotionally or for that matter, physically abused, it is our silent way of telling the perpetrator that we accept it. It does not matter who is doing the abuse, we need to make a stand and let them know that we deserve better.  They will never feel it necessary to apologise if you have not made known that you have been hurt and offended by their words or actions.

So often when we have conflict in our relationships, we cringe away in fear, keep silent and instead pray for peace like it's a magic wand to remove the friction - instead of allowing God to use the conflict to bring a more solid kind of peace.  Very often it is the friction that is the catalyst that will smooth out the bumps, when handled correctly.  

By bottling up our offences and not expressing our emotions, we are just delaying the explosion, because the truth is that negativity ALWAYS has a way of becoming exposed, one way or another!  God often doesn't want our prayers for peace when there are obvious issues that need to be addressed and dealt with.  There are too many people who wear a smile on their faces, but who are carrying a bandaged and bruised heart, only because they continue to carry on as normal, pretending nothing was said or done and acting as if they deserve it! 

Sometimes in life, we don't only need the peace and calmness of a lamb, but also the courage and boldness of a lion...