Getting above the clouds, Kidshaper 2014.

I took this photo on my way home from Melbourne on Saturday. I took it because it was a beautiful view of sunshine and fluffy white clouds (I haven't seen that sunshine since being back in Sydney!!), but in reflecting over the past week I think this image represents a lot more. I was above the clouds, soaring high, and that's how i've felt since coming home from Kidshaper conference. It's more than just a post conference high, something significant has shifted in me and it's taken me a few days of processing and journalling to be able to articulate exactly what has changed. You see there have been clouds in my head for the past 39 years, clouds of self doubt and insecurity, clouds that made me second guess every decision I ever made, clouds that made me feel inadequate if everything wasn't perfect, clouds that overwhelmed me, that made my stomach churn and my head swim in a constant state of crippling anxiety over everyday things..... and they are gone.

I have a sense of peace that certainly passes my understanding and a boldness i've never known before. I am confident in just being me, confident in who God made me to be, confident that I am enough in God and that not having the answers is ok because He does have them. I have never felt peace like this before. Even in the midst of some very hard days lately with my teenage son I have been amazed at how I was able to stay calm, ask God for help and respond well, it would not have happened like that a couple of weeks ago. I saw some differences on the last day of Kidshaper, such as stepping out to pray for people I didn't know and worshipping down the front jumping and dancing around with a freedom I have never felt before, but i've noticed it more since coming home to my real life. I am different and it is all God!!!!

And you know what, that's not even all of what God did. I came home with pages and pages of notes from the sessions and could probably talk for hours about all the things God spoke to me about. I have never been to a conference where every single session and speaker impacted me so profoundly. The conference was for kids pastors and leaders and I learnt a lot of practical stuff for kids ministry, but it was so much more than that as it focused on 'building something of worth' which starts in your own foundations and your family. I feel like my foundations were literally rebuilt over the 3 days and that I was equipped with the tools I need to now keep building on those foundations, both in my life and family and in ministry with kids and my team. I am so excited and expectant for the future and what life could look like now that those clouds are gone!!!

I also had a lot of fun in Melbourne. I loved exploring the city and sampling too much yummy food and it was great to be able to meet other kids leaders from all over Australia to not just share tips and ideas but to be part of a community of people passionate about kids ministry. I felt understood, like I found 'my people' and that alone would've been worth going for.

I am so grateful to be part of a church and a team that sees potential in people and not only releases them to pursue their passions but also equips them on that journey. The best is definitely yet to come!!

Life on the other end of the magic number....

If you've read my earlier posts this year on flourishing you would know I've been on a weight loss journey. It's been about 14 months since that journey started, but I reached my goal weight several months ago, that 'magic number' that was going to make me happy. That number put me in the healthy weight range in the BMI charts, that number put me in an average clothing size instead of the plus section where I had lived my whole adult life, but that number did not magically make me happy.

Yes I was healthier and fitter, but there was still plenty of jiggly flab to be found, especially around my middle, not to mention the saggy skin that happens after losing lots of weight, plus add the flappy skin & stretch marks from 3 babies to that. I still looked in the mirror and saw nothing but flaws, nothing but more work to do. Feeling defeated that even with working so hard I looked nothing like any of those fitness motivational pictures on pinterest that used to inspire me and now taunted me. Living terrified of gaining back even 1 kilo. I had lost all this weight in a completely healthy way without obsessing over it, but now found myself in a negative, unhealthy mental state constantly criticising everything about the way I looked.

So I signed up for the 8 week beach bod boost challenge at my gym thinking that it would help motivate and inspire me and that maybe my weight hadn't just found where it was meant to be maybe it was a dreaded plateau and I just wasn't tying hard enough. It is now 5 weeks into that challenge and the results have been very different to what I expected, not because of any numbers, not because I learnt any amazing new nutrition or fitness information, but because along the way I have had a mental shift, let me share it with you, it's mind boggling......I discovered that the numbers on the scale do not dictate my life!!!!! You might already know that, you may think how is that mind boggling, but the reality is deep down I thought that a number would make me happy and I have only just realised that it didn't.

You see part of that challenge is a weekly food coaching & weigh in session. The first week I got weighed and measured, the 2nd week I lost weight, then weeks 3 & 4 I gained weight which I expected after some crappy food choices, then this week after getting my eating mojo back to normal I lost all the weight I had gained. I came home after that session yesterday and had a good laugh at myself because I suddenly realised that I actually know how to eat well and live healthy now and in those 5 weeks of focusing on the scale all I saw was the number fluctuate a little up & down and end up right back where it started. It all of a sudden seemed completely ridiculous to be worried about that number.

 I had a good long look in the mirror and realised that the woman I see is healthy, she is fit, she is achieving things she never though she could, she can jump and run and play with her kids without getting puffed, and despite the flaws and imperfections she is beautiful, and that woman is me!! All this time I thought that magic number would make me happy, but I had to actually choose to be happy, to love myself as I am, to accept myself flaws and all even if I never ever have a flat belly, and I can honestly say that for the first time ever in my life I feel comfortable in my own skin, flappy bits and all.

Life is a journey and that number will probably move up and down many more times, but once this challenge is done in 3 weeks time I wont even be worrying about the scales anymore. I will be enjoying chasing fitness goals (which includes the mud run, eeek!!), eating the good food I love that nourishes my body, embracing life in the skin i'm in and hopefully passing onto my daughters a much healthier attitude about body image.

On Mission

Ever since I was a little girl I have wanted to go to the mission field. To go to another country and help people, mainly Africa but as I got older I also wanted to go to India and eventually made it there on a short term missions trip. I grew up with the mindset that 'mission' was out there somewhere with people who spoke another language and it is, but that's not all it is and I have realised this year how much my vision needed enlarging.

I have shared already in another post about how God spoke to me at Colour conference this year on the importance of my role and calling as a mum, but over the past couple of months I have seen that I have another mission field as well as my family, and I was already in it I just didn't see it!!

You see this year I took on the role of overseeing cubbyhouse which is the 1-3 year olds at my church. I put my hand up for the role when I saw that it needed filling and felt that I was ready to get more involved in church after just serving once a month last year. It sounds simple enough, see a need fill a need, but I was not quite prepared for what the job entailed. I loved being with the kids, but leading a team was much harder that I anticipated, actually recruiting team, ensuring they show up, training people, it turned out to be a very daunting task and after the first couple of months of the year I wondered what on earth I had gotten myself into and wanted to quit. The beauty of when God enlarges you though is that He equips you too and I found myself under the direction of some great leadership who sat with me while I vented (and on a few occasions cried), offered practical suggestions and sought to make sure I was trained for the task. Part of that training was to do a 7 week leadership subject at Hillsong evening college and during those weeks something changed in me.

During those weeks I caught the vision of Hillsong church. I've been going here for 3 years but to be honest I still felt new, after being a Baptist girl for 35 years and being in a church where you knew everybody this was a huge shift for me to make, one that I knew was from God but making this place home has taken time, it's been a process and it took a lot of grieving on my part to leave a church that had been my home for so long. I've made friends here and had gotten a little bit involved, but it often still felt all overwhelming to this small church girl. But during those 7 weeks hearing different speakers and discussing things afterwards with our small group I began to understand the heart behind everything that happens at church, a heartbeat and vision that sees every little thing we do as a mission to share Jesus, glorify God and help people feel welcome in what is God's house here on earth. Whether it be directing people to a parking spot, saying hello at the door, cooking a sausage, looking after children, it's all part of a big body working together so that people can meet with Jesus. I had never truly grasped that before and began to get excited that I am part of a place with such vision and focus, for what happens on Sundays, but also way beyond that with citycare, street teams, school mentoring, prison ministry to name a few, as well as partnering to help overseas with orphans, disabled children, fighting human trafficking and many other things.

People say many things about Hillsong, I have heard them all, sometimes those criticisms have come from people close to me and have hurt, but I have come to see what an enormous privilege it is to be a part of this house. A house where I have flourished through incredible teaching, incredible worship, seen amazing generosity, it all comes from a heartbeat and vision focused on being a glorious bride on the earth for Jesus. When you catch a vision like that it changes you!! I started hearing things in that leadership course that inspired and encouraged me like a throw away comment in one session about bringing skills to church and of all things he mentioned people throwing great kids birthday parties, well hello that's right up my alley and I realised I had never translated that kind of creativity into our kids ministry and suddenly saw new opportunities to really sow into Sunday mornings with skills I had never thought of as spiritual gifts.

That was only half of it, I also started to grasp the mission calling in what I was already doing. I have always felt a calling to work with children, I had thought when I was younger I would be a teacher on the mission field or work overseas in an orphanage, but God gave me revelation that my calling is right where I am, doing what i'm doing with what God has placed in my hand. As I look after children while their parents go to church I am 'facilitating miracles' (another comment from the course) as the adults meet with God, some of them for the very first time, but I am not just babysitting, I am also introducing those children to Jesus as well. The very last night of the course was taught by one of the children's pastors and his passion for seeing young hearts meet God fired up something inside me, I signed up the next day to do kids at Hillsong conference. What God did there was truly amazing!

Kidsong at conference was a full on, crazy, exhausting week, but it was one of the most amazing and profound experiences of my life. Watching people pour their heart and soul into teaching kids about God, seeing kids as young as 3 lost in worship, seeing my own Bethany worshipping, praying out loud, growing in confidence, those kids met with God and I was blown away. I guess I had always thought that the young age of the kids I have in cubbyhouse meant they were too little to understand much about the Bible, and some weeks we have lots of cryers and it's hard to even do the story with that background noise, but I came home from conference with a whole new vision and purpose and have been putting it to use the last 2 Sunday mornings and also at home with my own kids. My calling is to a mission field of children, but I don't have to leave the country, my suburb or even my home to do it, it's right here in my hand, in front of me the whole time, and if this is what God has in mind for me to spend the rest of my life doing then bring it on. The photo at the top of this post is my girls at conference and it says it all, young hearts like theirs (especially theirs) are my mission field and these kids are gonna change the world, what better investment could I make!!!

Am I still passionate about overseas missions? Absolutely, which is why we have 6 sponsor children, it's why we support child rescue, it's why we buy fair trade, it's why we sowed into the heart for the house offering at church this year beyond what was comfortable for the first time, it's why I am doing a fun run to raise money for A21, it's why we have prayer maps, we are involved in overseas mission by doing our part from here using what we have. That may not be revolutionary to you, but it's been a massive revelation for me!!

I am still very much on a learning journey when it comes to leading a team and am very grateful for the help and wisdom of others as I grow in that role, but I can see that God needed to put me outside my comfort zone so that he could enlarge not just my vision, but also my capacity to outwork that vision. I am excited for the rest of the year ahead and beyond and look forward to seeing God work miracles in beautiful little hearts. :-)

A Dora rainbow party

When Elora turned 3 in April she decided she wanted a Dora party. I had already started planning a rainbow themed party in my head before she asked for Dora so I decided to combine the themes to make it a Dora rainbow adventure.

I bought Elora a Dora costume to wear and she looked so cute!! I decided to turn myself into a rainbow fairy and Bethany got a rainbow dress too.

 

I decided that to truly be a Dora party there had to be a map, and backpacks and an adventure. I printed out backpack's face from the Nick Jr website and then cut and glued them onto different coloured paper bags (so it was a rainbow instead of just purple), then I added a map to each bag, plus a plastic flute and star shaped sunglasses in various colours that we would need for our adventure.

The first stop was the crocodile jungle so we could incorporate Diego into things. I had a blow up crocodile we use for the pool and I found a blow up Diego on ebay (sadly neither the crocodile or Diego survived the experience!!).I put them on a blue car cover to look like water and made crepe streamer vines and big leaves out of green paper. I scattered a whole heap of plastic jungle animals in the 'water' and each child could have one but first they had to make the crocodile happy by using the flute in their backpack to make music for the crocodile. I downloaded a Dora and Diego crcodile rock song to play for this part but 24 kids playing plastic flutes is rather loud and you couldn't even hear it.

The next stop was star valley. I used the template on the Nick Jr website to cut out lots of explorer stars and drew faces on them then stuck them all around the playground at the church hall where we had the party. I also added some decorative shiny hanging stars for more effect and they actually glistened in the sun so as we walked outside to 'star valley' it was shining which was great!! Before we went outside the kids put on the star shaped glasses from their backpacks cause star valley is bright and then their job was to collect explorer stars. There was also a surpise guest in star valley beacuse swiper tried to beat us to the stars. It was my husband with a blue blindfold and gloves but Elora loved it!!

 

The last place we had to visit on our map was rainbow garden where we would find the lollies that Swiper had stolen from the lolly bags inside the rainbow pinata.

 

The kids all loved this map/backpack adventure and my girls still have their maps and use them to go on adventures in our backyard. This all actually happened halfway though the party though. To start with for when people arrived I had a craft table set up with some rainbow colouring sheets, glue and glitter and cotton balls for clouds. There was also a cookie activity table where kids could ice shortbread star cookies I made with lots of bright colours of icing and use lollies to make faces like explorer stars. There was face painting from a very talented lady who goes to my playgroup, there were lots of coloured balloons all over the floor to play with, plus plenty of food to eat.

The first game we played was pin the tail on swiper which I just printed off from the Nick Jr website and the prize was a stuffed swiper. Then Dora arrived. I found her on the internet and hired her which I was nervous about not having this person recommended by someone I knew but she was great with the kids and happily went along with what I had planned. I was hoping none of the kids freaked out and at first Elora was a bit anxious and I thought it would turn out to be a bad idea but she was so good with the kids that Elora warmed up quickly and then Dora wasn't allowed to leave her side. Once Dora arrived we played pass the backpack and I had wrapped parcels inside the backpack of Dora lip gloss bracelets and stickers for the girls wrapped in pink, and animal wristbands and Diego stickers for the boys wrapped in yellow. It was then time for our map adventure that I already shared above, followed by some singing and dancing with Dora until cake time.

 

 

Ready to grab the backpacks and head off on a rainbow adventure with Dora.

 

 

Next it was time for cake, goodbye cuddles with Dora and lolly bags to take home. I hired a friend of a friend to make the cake and she did such an amazing job, way beyond what I was expecting.

 

Originally I was going to just leave the backpack bags as the lolly bags but I saw these Dora rainbow bags and so many cute rainbow things and decided to do goodie bags as well.

The girls lolly bags. The little unicorn packet had lollies in it in shapes of rainbows, stars and unicorns.



The boys lolly bags with a sticky lizard instead of a unicorn toy and a Diego pencil instead of a Dora one.

Despite being a Dora party most of the decorating and all of the food was done in the rainbow theme. Using colours was cheaper and prettier than using Dora stuff so I used 1 Dora tablecloth for the table that had the backpacks and game things on it, a Dora scene setter for the back wall, I found a cheap Dora happy birthday sign with a rainbow on it and I got Dora and Boots helium balloons that I put on the Dora table. Everything else was rainbow.

For food I made rainbow cookies that I saw on pinterest, jelly cups that I made into a rainbow, honey joys, a fruit rainbow, fruit veggies, coloured popcorn, coloured lollies, it was fun to make it all so pretty. I also made som Dora, Boots and Diego choc pops that went home with the goody bags and some choc star pops for the table.

 

 

This party was so much fun to do and the kids all had such a great time, especially my little Elora the explorer :-)

Learning to flourish part 2: running my own race.

When I last blogged I mentioned that other things had spoken to me greatly at Colour conference this year about flourishing in my life and today I have finally made some time to sit down and blog about it. I can't pinpoint one exact moment when this message became loud and clear, it was a build up of many.

There was Wendy Treat talking about opening the door to a dark room, swithcing on the light and stomping her foot to scatter the bugs, and how sometimes we need to be stomping to scatter the critters in our own lives, to be pro-actve for our families. There was Bobbie Houston talking about how what we say changes the atmosphere around us, what's coming out of our mouths that young hearts are hearing? There was Dr Leaf with all her scientific wisdom on the choices we make and our thinking shaping our brains and that we can renew our minds and change our lives. There was Christine Caine talking about being people of excellence in our lives whatever we are called to do. There was Wendy Treat again talking about staying in our own lane in life and not comparing ourselves to others, then it all finished off with a beautiful presentation of girls walking in holding lanterns to 'light the way with our lanterns on' as we bring God's light to the world around us. I came home from Colour absorbing all that and so much more, including some amazing video testimonies of ordinary women using what they had where they were to do world changing things, amazing moments of meeting God in worship and knowing something deep had stirred and changed in my heart. It took me a few day to even figure out enough of what was going on inside me to put it into words, all I could do the day after the conference was cry!!

You see I went to Colour this year a very overwhelmed, stresed out uni student who wasn't even sure I had time to go to the conference but didn't want to miss it. I was tired, I was in survival mode with my house and kids and I was feeling enormous pressure to hold onto a dream that I thought was important even though it was crushing me. What came togther in my heart and spirit processing all the stuff above was that I wasn't running my race in life properly. I was looking at other people wondering why they could juggle it all and letting that condemn me as a failure, instead of realising that each family's needs are different and what I can do is unique to me. I looked at what I was doing in life, 3 kids, uni, leading a church team, husband, house, and I wasn't doing any of it very well cause I had too many things in my head all the time. I was always rushing to the next thing and yelling at the kids to hurry up or get out of my way, I had no quality time with anybody and I was so very tired. But uni has been a dream for so many years that I was holding it so tight in my hand, an unreachable goal that I have just never been able to complete. It's not from lack of ability, in fact probably the opposite because I am a perfectionist who is used to getting distinctions and high distinctions and was trying to convince myself I could live with a credit. Surely if God gave me academic ability then He wanted me to use it right, I mean a degree can open so many doors to achieve so much and especially this degree because it was about peace, development and human rights, the passions of my heart. I wanted this piece of paper to change the world.

And then Colour made me stop and look at my smaller world and realise that my passion was lacking there. I was finding motherhood such a challenge that I was constantly negative, rarely finding any joy in my days, just getting by and not being pro-active about anything, I couldn't even remember that last time I had purposefully sat down and prayed for my children and all they had heard from me was negativity about being 'stuck at home' with them. I certainly wasn't enjoying my children, I was wishing the days away until they were grown up enough so that I could do something important. And I had everything backwards. I'm not saying that other people can't study and be a good mum, i'm saying that I realised I can't. If I can't even be God's light in my own home cause i'm so busy and stressed trying to do something to be the light somewhere else then I have completely missed the point. My kids will grow up, other opportunities may come, but right now this is my race and it needs me to be passionate about it. I felt like I was in a triathlon, trying to ride a bicycle through the swiiming section of the race, not a good fit at all. So I took Bobbie Houston's advice to 'resolve' and I resolved that I will flourish where I am with what I have in my hand right now and that is my family, to be the light first in my own home and it will spread out from there.

I still have mind numbing days of kids fighting, house trashed and need a coffee just to get past 9am, and I have still had moments of losing it, yelling at kids, venting on facebook, but I am also finding so much more joy on the journey. I am seeing what a gift it is to have 3 healthy children, a home and a husband and I don't want to lose sight of that. I have a 4 year old who is incredibly fragile emotionally and is currently going through the process of being assesed for being on the autism spectrum, I have a 14 (this week) year old who is on the spectrum who is retreating within himself and who as school gets harder is hiding homework and throwing assignment sheets in the bin rather than asking for help, and I have a 3 year old who never runs out of energy. That's a different race lane to other people and God knew that the people in this lane need a focussed pro-active mother who has the time, the passion and the focus at this particular time for where they're at and what they need. And I can still be the light outside my home too. Whether it's the children we sponsor, the families I impact through kids ministry at church, the people around me I can encourage, meals I can drop to families, fundraising that I can help with at a pregnancy support service, or even signing up for my first ever fun run to raise funds for A21 as they fight human trafficking. There are many, many ways to change the world, but not all of them are part of my lane right now. I don't have to be 'important' or even visible to make a difference, I just have to be faithful. And so I choose to flourish first in my home and bring light to the world starting from here.

Learning to Flourish Part 1

Last year at Colour conference there was a lot of emphasis on the word 'flourish'. I went to that conference only recently having wrestled with God to a place of peace after a very emotional journey of losing my grandma and then having a miscarriage and I turned up as a bit of a wreck who just needed to meet with God. The weekend was a soothing balm to my soul and I left knowing it was time to heal, stand up, move on and flourish, I just wasn't exactly sure how. God started revealing to me bit by bit that an area I really needed to address and flourish in was my health. I was very overweight and facing some issues because of it and knew it was time to face the giant of food that has been an ever present nemesis since my teens resulting in more than a decade of struggling with bulimia. So here I was knowing it was time to face my giant and that God was with me, but no idea how this time would be different, then I heard Dr Caroline Leaf.

I had heard of her through a friends blog and knew she was a brain scientist person but wasn't sure what to expect when she came to Hillsong sisterhood one day. Her talk on renewing our minds through the power of our choices and that we can actually regrow the barren parts of our brains into flourishing trees by choosing God switched on a lightbulb for me and I went home different. I can't explain it any better than that, what she said (which was way more complicated that what I just said) just clicked. I suddenly got that everything is a choice and that as I submit my choices to God I can choose life and flourish, and so I did. Since that day I have lost 23 kg, gone down from a size 22 to a size 14, found energy and strength, and fixed hormone issues, fatigue and headaches with no medication, just by making good choices.

It wasn't a magic potion that made it easy, it was just a revelation on the power of choice, there was plenty of hard work involved in the process. I joined a gym and started exercising, including personal training which is not something I would've ever considered before and I really enjoy the challenge of it. I have found myself doing things I never imagined like bench pressing and boxing! And I started eating right, eating the food God created for our bodies and cutting out packaged, processed crap, the difference it has made not just in my weight but in my health and how I feel has been astounding!!

The picture on the left is from my birthday in April 2012, I don't even look like the same person!

 

These are examples of what I now eat, lots of yummy salad, veggies, protein, some whole grain carbs at breakfast and lunch, fruit and lots of water. Do I feel deprived when I skip the sugary stuff? Nope I feel empowered that I am making good choices for my body and health and I can say no food is worth the way I used to feel. I love clothes shopping now and it's a whole new world that I am LOVING!! I do have occasional treats but they are just that, treats, and then I return to normal eating, the difference is I used to think I needed 'treats' to get me through every single day!!

(This is home made hummus and it's so yum. This was afternoon tea for me and my kids and yes they ate the vegies too. The rice crackers were for the kids but I did eat a couple of them, they are not a regular thing that I eat though.)

 

And I have spent many hours literally sweating my backside off like this....

to achieve goals like this. When I first started at the gym I could barely last 2 minutes on the rowing machine. Once I started doing 5 my trainer set me the goal of doing 1km in 5 minutes, this was my personal best a couple of weeks ago, 1169 metres in 5 minutes. I love it when I smash goals cause then I just set them higher for the enxt time and I love the challenge!!

 

So this year I went to Colour conference and Dr Leaf was there, I got to hear her in more detail and learnt even more, I bought a new flourish t-shirt (in a much smaller size) and I came away with fresh revelation that I will share in another post about other areas of my life where I need to make better choices. It's a journey, I will always be learning, but I think I have made a good start :-)