It’s my birthday!

Ok, not really.

Technically it’s the blog’s FOURTH birthday but c’est la meme chose, non?! It’s been four incredibly fun years of sharing my weird thoughts and journaling my journey through life with the fantastic witness that is this blog. So happy birthday to us, because this is not simply a celebration of my contribution to my little space of the world, but to all of you who’ve ever read me! May we all always touch and hold on to our hopes and dreams! I am hoping to write more and maybe share my love of photography as well here. As I’m not active on any social media platforms besides this, I figure this might be a good space to offer a peek into bits of me that might help someone else. Because many ways to skin a cat the gospel.

So on to the day’s business. I promised to share more lessons 2016 taught me. Here are 4 more, hopefully they help us all have a better 2017….

4. “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.”

-1 John 4:18

It’s important to be kind to yourself: Put it like this, if you cannot be kind to you, who will? Certainly not the world! It is okay to make mistakes. Mistakes are life’s  little checks and balances that encourage us to pause in our journey and take stock of where we are in comparison to where we ought to be. They are simply a plot twist, a detour in your life’s film, not the end of your movie! It is in your power to correct and reshape the rest of your life. So be kind to yourself, you don’t have to be perfect. A wise man once told me that to strive for perfection is perfection in itself. The bible asks us to “…live righteously”, it didn’t say “…be righteous” because we can’t do it ourselves, if God were to count our sins which one of us would stand?! So use my AFC model when you make mistakes: Acknowledge, Fix and Carry On!

5. A person who fears the Lord can make real friendships, because he will treat his friends as he does himself [ or because his friend will be like him].

-Sirach 19:4

Woooow so in 2016 one major, shocking revelation I got was this: Bridezilla is a mythical creature!!! Yup, right up there with King Kong and Tinker Bell. Yes ladies, just because you are getting married, you will not be excused for reprehensible behaviour. Who began with giving people these hall-passes for bad behaviour simply for marriage sake please?! Come on something good is happening in your life, why should everyone else pay for it? Now I’m about to be a bride I find myself seriously worried about how much people have to sacrifice to be part of my wedding (flights, accommodation etc) and I’m quick to leave those that tell me they can’t make it because it’s about my groom and I…not the hype and feferity a wedding is supposed to bring. The truth is many brides forget that while it’s your wedding and so much wonderful stuff is happening to you, real life is happening to other people (read: your guests). So it’s unfair to drag everyone into your fairy tale…and then blame them for lowkey thinking “Girl just hop on your fairydust-farting unicorn and ride into the sunset with your prince and lee-me be!” #AboutThatPegasusLife #HighHorseLiving. Lol.

“So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you…” – Matthew 7:12

Play nice

6. “Learn to love appropriately. You need to use your head and test your feelings so that your love is sincere and intelligent not sentimental gush. Live a lover’s life, circumspect and exemplary, a life Jesus would be proud of.”

-1 Phillipians 9:11

The world we live in has such a warped perception of love and this insidiously finds its way into our minds. So many of us use the wrong indices to measure love. I have heard grown women- with fully functional capacities, mind you- say that love is determined by the highest spender. I have seen grown men with substantial intellectual prowess measure love by the woman most skilled at providing  domestic support. I wonder truly if anyone is reading 1 Phillipians 9:11 at all, if anyone understands that the love God calls us to model in human relationships is a reflection of His love for us: Unconditional, dependent on nothing but his commitment to our happiness and growth.

So many people today are struggling to find genuine happiness with compatible partners but when you ask them what they’re looking for in a mate, you suddenly understand the dearth of romantic love in their lives.

Everyone is focusing on credentials not connections

The 13^th century Iraqi Poet Rumi says, “Your task is not to seek for love but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” This year can I challenge you, Reader, to put your checklist away and see FIRST who you connect with?. Life can be an undulating journey full of peaks and valleys. Don’t base what someone has today or who they are or aren’t right now as the reason for loving them. Tomorrow they might have more. Tomorrow it might all be lost. Tomorrow they might have grown into a different person, situation, stage of life. Life is fickle, time is short. Build connections first, open yourself to love and model the type of love you want to receive. After all even the bible says “A man who must have friends must show himself friendly.” (Proverbs 18:24).

Be good to others regardless and you will be surprised to see how readily goodness is drawn to you. Look at Rachel and Isaac, she did an honest good deed to a stranger, as was clearly her normal way, and that singular, innocent act was what led her to her destiny as wife of Isaac and mother of Israel. Because here is the thing, when we seek to bring out the best in others, we bring out the best in ourselves.

7. “When they go low, we go high!”

– Michelle Obama

That’s not a scripture but it might as well be! Lol. Jesus spoke about this when he says “When someone asks you for your t-shirt, give them your shirt AND jacket as well…because being kind to your enemies not just your friends is the real effort!” (Luke 6:29 paraphrased). We aim to treat even the most undeserving, not as they deserve, but in line with who we naturally and genuinely- through God’s ferocious work in us- are. Because trust me it’s not easy to give your t-shirt and jacket when all you really want to do is throat punch a kneegrow, tear of THEIR t-shirt and jacket and submerge them in North Pole temperatures. But thank God for Jesus y’all. Lol.

Don’t get off Pegasus, girl! Don’t let them drag you down to the muck with them. This is because it is never about them but always about you. Simple courtesies are necessary, they are the little life sweeteners that smoothen your way.

8.  Stand firm, and you will win life.

-Luke 21:19

2016 really, really showed me that people only treat you the way you allow yourself be treated. I really don’t stand up for myself often enough. I let a lot of things go and while some people will appreciate that, for some it is a recipe for abuse.

*In 3LW voice circa 1998* “No more, no more baby I’mma do it right!”

So 2017, I am ready and rather delighted  to lose friends and alienate people if needed.

That’s 4 more lessons 2016 brought me. I’ll share the final 3 as soon as I can escape real life again. 🙂