Family Fun! Part 2

Ok, so within 48 hours of saying goodbye to my family we found ourselves welcoming Benjamin, Mandy and Matt to our "shoe-box" for their Sydney holiday!

We didn't quite complete as many things as the week before, but we still had some fun! I must say it is a lot harder to keep up with this little treasure...he plays hard, as you will see in the pictures!

A little teaser photo for Uncle Steve who was away when he arrived...his eyes just say "Where are you? Come play with me Uncle Steve" to me!

We didn't waste much time before hopping in the car to the closest park to let this little one run wild!

Day 2 and yes, more playing, more adventures in the park...Ben would play all day in the park if you let him I reckon!

After some hard work playing in the park, BJ certainly deserved a little refreshment!

Sydney, so close, yet so far away. Our walk to the end of the headland could have been done at a cooler time of day, but we wouldn't have got such a bright beautiful picture of this little family!

"Let me in!"

"Oink, oink"...Ben started talking to the Pigs, so cute! And he tried to feed them his finger!

Time to cool off at the watering hole! The other adults missed out! It wasn't such a relaxing dip as it was stressful trying to make sure we both didn't fall in!

Riding Sky-High with Uncle Steve...the view couldn't be better, but for a little independent man, it was a bit restrictive!

This sums up the rest of the trip...play hard, sleep hard!
(Next time I will play it smart and sleep when you do!)

How blessed we were that you visited us Ben...we won't ever forget it!

Family Fun! Part 1

What an October!

The reason for my blog-absence has simply been family! Yep, I'm blaming it on you! After-all, I couldn't reach my computer because you were camping in my computer room - you know who you are!

Seriously the best few weeks we've had down here has been the ti
me we have had to share it with our families and friends. This month we had a marathon of family love for two whole weeks. First, we shared our very small unit with Mum, Dad, Anna, Ever and Lolly (a 1.5 bedroom unit.) What didn't we do in this week? Climbing the bridge feels like the only thing we missed! I jam packed the days with adventures because I wanted to share every special piece of Sydney that we have discovered ourselves. So it ended up quite a big list:

- Greenwich tour by car
- Berry Is. by foot
- Sydney harbour by ferry
- Circular Quay
- Watsons Bay
- Shopping on Ocean St- Balmoral Beach
- Palm Beach
- Whale Beach
- Taronga Zoo
- Luna Park
- Ferry ride to Manly
- A visit with Dad's relatives
- Sunday Hillsong service
- Lane Cove National Park
- Bronte train rides for Ever
- Shopping - Berkenhead Point
- Shopping - Chatswood Chase
- X-factor live show taping

I think that was all...there could have been more but it's all a blur. That hectic schedule was completed in just over 6 days. This may not seem hectic but with two girls under two in toe, it was a triumph! Bravo to the family for holidaying hard in Sydney! I'm sure they were glad to be home. Here's a snippet of our time together:

Ever arrived in style on her "Bee" bag!

Ever waiting for her first Ferry ride!

October isn't so much Spring as it is late Winter in Sydney...it was a tad cold on the ferry!

Ever pointing at "Sydney" - her name for the Opera house!

The first of a few photos Ever didn't want to take!

Granddad's little girl!

Getting down to ice-cream business...one of Ever's funnier looks!

Grandma's little treasure!

Everyone piled into the Tarago...Granny in the back!

Watching Whales off Palm Beach...aka Summer Bay

Zoo day with Uncle Steve!

Another of the many ice-creams consumed!

Sheer Beauty - Blessed are the Meek

So it has been a while since my last post and a lot has happened. The first thing I want to blog about however is Sheer Beauty. It seems a life time ago now but I attended Sheer Beauty just last weekend and I want to share with you a snippet of how it impacted me.

I am going to try to be brutally honest here. I headed off to the weekend with an expectant heart ready and willing to receive what God was going to share with me, but unguarded and therefore unprepared for the way in which the Devil was going to try to ruin this weekend by assaulting me lies.

Over time I have found that one of the devil's favourite games to play with me is the "Compare Yourself" game. This does not take much participation on my part just observation. The game works like this. 1. Find Chelsea amongst a company of fantastic women. 2. Convince her that she has NOTHING to contribute compared to these women and that on this planet she is NO-ONE compared to these women.

I know most of you probably play this game with the devil yourself, but I think this is one of his favourite games to play with me because there are so many areas of my life that he has brought it out and we've played together. We've played in the presence of my family, school friends, uni friends and church community, and slowly but surely in each situation I have marked myself as the inferior sister, daughter, wife, friend, student, worshipper etc...the one everyone puts up with and allows to take up a space even though they have nothing to contribute. The quiet one. The one with nothing to offer.

Well this weekend was no different, apart from the fact that it was all these scenarios rolled into one with so many different relationships represented in the company of women that I shared the weekend with. By the end of the weekend I had convinced myself that I was invisible, that I was unseen, that I would never be chosen for a significant role, and that others' opinions of me mattered over that of my Lord God. Wow, how easily he (the devil) wins the game sometimes.

In most games, once someone gets a significant lead on you, you've lost your chance of gaining any dignity back - you've simply been beaten. Praise the Lord for He holds the "wild cards" of life, the ones that can simply turn everything on it's head in the blink of an eye! After a weekend of battling it out with the devil (and I mean secret battling, I didn't even realise how I was being defeated), the Lord exposed the game with one simple wild card - The Rose Ceremony that concluded the weekend. For those of you who weren't there, this was a time of receiving God breathed words through the anointing of oil by His faithful servants Leigh and Misty. This ceremony was unexpected, but what was more unexpected was how thirsty for His touch I felt after a weekend of soaking in His presence and His word. I jumped out of my seat to get in line, I didn't want to wait an hour, I wanted His words now! (I realize in hindsight this had a lot to do with how exhausted I was from playing these devilish games.)

I came expectant and the Lord spoke to me and said "You are not invisible, you are just meek." I broke down. I did not know I needed these words, I was oblivious to the games I had been playing. Eight simple words. Eight simple words that stood almost completely alone to the rest of the words spoken to me at the time, yet hit me so powerfully. Not invisible, not invisible, not invisible I repeated to myself. Restoration, revelation, all in those first few words. I ignored the fact that I did not really know what God calling me meek meant and took the promise that I was visible to him all the way home with me to Sydney.

It was only today that I sat down to unpack Him describing me as meek. My first point of reference was to check the online dictionary meaning by doing a google search:

Meek - Humble; gentle; long-suffering; patient; not likely to complain, argue or react strongly; submissive; easily imposed upon.

Nothing. Not a word of encouragement or love here, not a word that stands beside my revelation of being Visible.

I exited the page rebuking this definition and sought through my search results for something else and saw a page entitled "Blessed are the Meek" containing a break down of a Biblical understanding of Meek and the answers I was looking for:

1. Meek from the Greek word "praus" used to describe a soothing medicine, a sailor's gentle breeze or a broken colt. (The author highlighting that all these situations describe great POWER and STRENGTH, under control.)
2. Biblical examples of Meekness - Abraham, David, JESUS, Moses (I would not call these men "easily imposed upon!")
3. A.W.Tozer's description - The meek man is NOT a human mouse afflicted with a sense of his own inferiority. Rather he may be in his moral life as BOLD as a lion and as STRONG as Samson; but he has stopped being fooled about himself. He has accepted God's estimate of his own life. He knows he is as weak and helpless as God declared him to be, but paradoxically, he knows at the same time that he is in the sight of God of more IMPORTANT than angels. In himself, nothing; in God, EVERYTHING. That is his motto.

Need I say more? There is nothing for me but LIFE, STRENGTH and DIGNITY in these words. I WILL no longer believe the devils lies about my Meekness. I WILL not be ashamed or disappointed by my Meekness. I WILL hold God's words close to my heart. I WILL hold my head high as this is a God given name. I WILL pull out this Wild Card and refuse to believe that my Meekness played out at times in my submissiveness and humility is less than POWERFUL, BOLD and STRONG, and that I am not anything but IMPORTANT in the story and EVERYTHING to my Father.

~ I hope that made sense ~

Dreaming of Spring

Just a quick blog today. It is the 9th of September and yet I cannot feel it. Normally this time of year stinks of Spring and tempts me to wear Summer wardrobe numbers, but as I write this I am cold. I am wearing slippers, long pants and three long-sleeve layers on top! Not to mention I also have our fireplace on! Steven and I went out to see a movie two nights ago dressed up in winter jackets to shield us from the crisp cold! Where is Spring?

Sadly I think I know the answer...it is in Brisbane. I have seen pictures of my Brisbane babies in t-shirts and shorts, and I am so jealous. I love spring, I love summer and I don't want to miss any of it! I love packing up the dark, serious colours of winter and stepping into those bright and cheerful spring/summer fashions. I love heading outdoors. I wait in anticipation for the sun to get hot enough and the breeze to warm to warrant a beach day and the start of beach season. I love love love spending time on the beach with family! I LOVE the warmer months! I am therefore SUPER excited to visit Brisbane next weekend. As my friend Sheryl says "I'm gonna soak up the sun!" Watch out Brisbanites, I will take it all home with me if you don't get out there and soak some up too!

Some of my favourite moments in the sun...(not all glamorous, but hey that's what you get when it's hot!)

Not as brave as at the start...

So I have a bit of catching up to do with you...

A couple of weeks ago our "things" arrived on a sunny Saturday morning. After a week of sleeping, eating and relaxing on air mattresses we were so grateful to have a couch to sit on and a real mattress to lye on in bed. Ahhhhh we thought, we can settle now. It has taken two weeks of manipulating our things in our tiny apartment though to really make it feel comfortable and give it the "like home" feeling.

Once we had everything in place I found myself feeling a bit more on top of this move thing and ready to start our new life. I was not aware that this comforting feeling of "home" was slowly sneaking complacency and contentment back into my life and wiping away the brave spirit I had brought with me to Sydney. Add that my old friend procrastination also jumped out of one of the boxes at some stage and you have one "chicken" living a life of comfort baking, internet surfing and tv watching her way through the 11 hours her husband was not home.

I was blissfully unaware that this new spirit had come upon me until it came down to crunch time the other day...I had nothing more to bake with, no internet credit left to surf and one looming responsibility to get off the couch, find a job and start my real life. It was at this point I realised I had no strength, no depth, no life to draw on to these write applications. I could not see what I had to offer but I sat down anyway and tried to review my resume.

As I read my resume I wept. My resume appears to have no direction, no theme. I have a string of jobs that don't seem to equal a career. Who would want me? What can I offer the workplace? All I saw were many "failures" on my resume - many broken commitments to employers that I promised to be faithful to, than later realised I could not stand to work for. What will people think of me when they see this? Who would want to employ me? What experience do I really have? What can I honestly say to a new employer that I want to do with my life? My resume has no direction, I felt I had no direction. I wept for a good part of the morning, feeling hopeless and ultimately avoiding the task that I had set myself - to submit at least one job application THAT day!

I ended up finding myself on the couch watching TV (a great way to escape the moment, and not face the ultimate pull I had to talk to God about it.) I decided I would flick on Martha Stewart and dive into a land of cooking, craft and decorating, and I was more than satisfied with this decision. Just as I tuned in, Martha was throwing to a clip that showed how her Art team set up a Halloween party at her house. They detailed the table linen, the construction of the intricate decorations, the tableware, the place cards, the music and the appropriately themed food that they had designed to make this occasion more than just a dinner party. I was enthralled to say the least and blissfully unaware that God was about to speak to me. Very softly at the end of the clip I sensed a notion in my heart saying "there is a reason you are watching this, remember how you too enjoy making occasions like this? Remember the buzz and the joy of spoiling others with such an experience? I gave this desire to you for a reason. Why don't you do this?" (~Silence~)

I was gobsmacked and still am. Did He really say that? Did I just make that up? I don't think so because it scares me in a good way. Could I? Really? Isn't it too late for me to pursue this dream? (Ha!) The questions doubting the validity of this moment have not stopped since it happened, but I will not deny that this was a God moment. I am still just soaking this suggestion in and have even been too scared to go back to Him and explore this notion, but I am excited. From one simple touch of God I feel life inside me. My courage is developing as I remind myself that if God is for me, who can be against me? My strength is gathering as I remind myself that with God all things are possible and I am beginning to stand as I remind myself that He is Lord, He is Creator, He is Life-Breather, Sustainer, and that in Him we already have the VICTORY. I'm not saying it will be easy, but I have been brought back to life by being reminded that He is always with me, so I am saying that I will give it a go!

Savvy in Sydney!

Ok, before I share some solid revelation that I had today, I must first boast of the little victory I had today...

This morning I decided I was going to head out and attend a Sisterhood morning (BY MYSELF.) A little nervous but feeling brave I drove myself without GPS or husband to Hillsong's City campus and back without getting lost! (Victory! You may cheer now!) This may not seem like much but this was my second solo drive in Sydney and I am quite proud of myself and rather savvy!

On reflection, I'm not so sure it was all my doing...I think God REALLY wanted me to be there to hear Donna Crouch share the Word and so He made sure I didn't take any wrong turns! Donna spoke this morning on Wisdom and I received some really timely words. "Get to know the season you're in, and embrace the challenge of that season and decide you are going to thrive." Having been home on my lonesome this week with nothing much to do but wait for Steven to get home from work, these words have put things in perspective and given me the "get up and go" that I needed. Thank you Donna!

Tears, Tantrums and Travelling Home

So it's been a whirlwind couple of weeks trying to cram in all the fun I could possibly have with my family in Brisbane before making my home in Sydney. I've had fish and chips at Suttons, bacon and egg muffins at Sandgate and burgers at Seaworld...this is nothing of course to the dinners served up at Mums. I've snuggled up with nieces to watch movies, and chased my nephew in the park, sneaking in as many kisses and cuddles as I can with the little ones. But it has all come to an end for a while.

Last night we sad goodbye to the family at the airport. I originally didn't think anyone was going to come to the airport, or even come in to see us off at the gate for that matter, but one by one I discovered they all wanted to come to say goodbye, so on the verge of our big adventure I found myself surrounded by family.

Up until the airport I think I held it together fairly well apart from a few secret tears shed watching Ever play around the house. The airport however was another story. The call to board the plane came out and the tears ran! I kept wondering "how on earth did we get here and who made this decision?" (It's amazing how in the midst of great adventure you can get scared and begin to totally doubt what you are doing and the panic sets in.) As I swept through family sharing hugs and kisses and sweet words, I think too much panic came over me to actually be in the moment and take in what was going on around me. Before I knew it, I was on the plane and couldn't remember what anyone had said. (Apart from the fact that Ever threw a tantrum in the airport and I almost didn't get a proper goodbye.)

After many silent tears on the plane holding Steve's hand, I realised we were half way home and I felt a bit of relief. Steve and I were actually heading home TOGETHER, ahhhhh. (We have up until this point been living apart for the past 5-6months and I had only recently realised that I had become used to this and built up a sort of skin to deal with it.) I realised in this moment that things were going to be ok. Our adventure was starting up again, no longer were our lives going to feel stagnant, praise God!

But there are things that I will miss terribly and things that I hope I won't forget...like the scent of Lolly (the good scent), the way Ever would endearing call out to me in the house "A' Shayshay" and the cackle of Ben's laughter at the hands of Uncle Steve's tickles and tricks! The nature in which Dad's steadfast presence around their house brings a peace to the family. The way in which Mum's hospitality reminds us that we're loved. And last but not least the fun and fury of sharing your life with your adult siblings...always there to bring the best and the worst out of you! I will miss it all.