Happy New Year!

Last years’ theme for my blog was Awake and Alive. That’s actually a Skillet song that I thought would be catchy and cute, it turned out to be exactly what the year turned into. 

January: Enjoyed all the benefits of being single and not searching for the first time in a long time. Transferred to City Campus.

February: Discovered the Jesus Culture Band and a new love for worship.

March: Experienced God’s love in a tangible way for the 1^sttime

April: Heard about Worship auditions

May: Turned 22 and realized my life needs to take a different direction.

June: Auditioned and joined worship team

July: Passed my CPA exams

August: Finished probation and became an official member of WT. Made a couple of mistakes that were quickly rectified.

September: Decided to dream big and reawaken myself to the possibilities I believed in in High School

October: Discovered Mark Driscoll and learnt a lot

November: On stage for the 1^st time

December: No matter how much I run and hide, He tracks me down.  Also, started sending in my applications. Also finally closed a door that I’ve left open far too long.

These are the general themes that ran through each month, but what I can’t put into words is the small moments that marked every single day this year. I can honestly say, this has been the best year of my life. The friends I’ve made, the places I’ve gone, the experiences I’ve had, the mistakes I’ve made, the conversations I’ve had, the love I’ve felt and the ability to enjoy and appreciate every moment. 

My favorite song of the year has to be Bethel Worship’s “This is What You Do”. The chorus goes like. “This is what you do, you make me come alive” and this is definitely how I’ve felt this year.

A new year brings new things and a new theme that I hope at the end of the year will accurately describe how the year has gone.

I’ll explain the meaning tomorrow.

For now, have a HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

xx

Jo

Self-Awareness

I was talking to a friend of mine about how important it is to get to a point where you’re settled and find fullness in yourself. Not in a job or in a relationship or in all these other external stuff. I’ve definitely been feeling that this year, as you all well know.

I have to admit I have lost my footing for a while, I won’t lie, serving in Church last month was HARD! I was at Church practically every night and if not at Church then doing a Church related activity, reports or reading for Mizizi, vocal class, rehearsals, Mizizi classes and on top of that studying for campus exams, it was just a lot! I wasn’t really doing it from a place of overflow because well, I wasn’t getting filled up.

I miss Bill Johnson and Kris Vallotton and Jeremy Riddle and Jenn Johnson…i.e. my Bethel Church podcasts, I haven’t had time to watch my favorite people.

December hasn’t been any better because family has been intense, my sister’s due date is fast approaching so I’m trying to pitch in where I can and help her and keep my nephew occupied so she can relax and have some fun before life completely changes again. My nephew though is a stubborn one and when he screams "I want mommy", no amount of distraction from me will work :-)

I read my Bible maybe twice a week at best…so my identity has definitely been shaken. The past two weeks I’ve just been thinking, “Who am I?” and then it hit me, wait, haven’t I already answered these questions before? I know exactly who I am, I know exactly what I want to do, I know where I’m meant to be and that is simply with God. Obviously there’s specifics: career, where to live, who to be friends with, but point is all that comes from me knowing who I am in God. 

I keep saying I don’t have this whole God thing figured out. I don’t know how that will happen, the day when I’m always “on” or connected. But honestly, this week, I felt pursued. After ignoring God for weeks, I get a text from a new blog reader ;-)and it reminded me of this whole thing, who I am and why I do what I do. A couple minutes later, I stumble upon Bethan's blog about life at BSSM. Then a song comes on and wah, never-failing thick presence, I felt a rush of love, and I know I TOTALLY don’t deserve to be loved or pursued by someone I’ve treated so badly, but that’s just what He does.

So, me and God, I am so in this, there’s no getting out. I’ll have to figure out how I’ll make time and how I’ll maintain that because life hasn’t stopped being busy, in fact it’s about to get busier in 2013, but I need to figure it out.

The wedding I went to also had a sort of reverse impact on me. I’ve said before how when I was in High School I knew without any doubt that I would be married at 22! I turned 21 and said, ok, maybe by 24, but now, I’m like, that’s probably not what’s going to happen with my life. 

Marriage and relationships aren’t the be all, end all of life. I have tons of dreams and stuff I would love to experience in my own life and I can’t keep molding innocent people I date into what I want same way I can’t keep changing myself to fit into the personality of whoever I’m dating. 

So right now, I’m like whatever happens will happen, I’m not actively pursuing anything specific. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely want love, but I’m not going through any stress or sadness or drama to get it. I think when 2 people want to be together, 1 party doesn’t have to do the heavy lifting, it just happens. In this phase of my life I’m Zen.

Yes, also the fact that the bride and groom hadn’t slept together despite dating 6 years rocked me...a whole blog post needs to be done about this statement alone, hehehe.

My family and friends have been absolutely essential to me this year, from Joe telling me how I’m an awesome friend or Michelle telling me I’m a full package all on my own and also showing me some crazy tough love, or my sister and Abby telling me to enjoy every moment of life now but keep things in perspective, or Ted who's constantly teaching me the value of patience and understanding, honestly I have the best BFF’s. I know self-awareness is all about me knowing me, but they deserve recognition too.

Anyway, more to come on this.

xx

Jo

Weigh-In Monday

I haven't done a weigh in for the longest time, probably because nothing has changed. My weight is always around 57 to 63. When I started this blog I was at 63 kg, now I'm at....


ten tereren

58 KG!!

Cue the fireworks and marching band. The funny thing is and I'm letting you into a secret here, I'm writing this post about an hour after devouring a plate of fries and onion rings...hold up...before you start judging, if ya'll knew the week I had, plus saw this number on your scale you'd wanna celebrate too :-)

I have lost my tape measure, so I can't do the inches thing although I doubt there's much change, not too sure, but I'll do that next time and take a few pics, although again I doubt there'll be much change. 

I'll do a proper post soon, right now, I have too many issues with my internet.

xo

Jo  

Just Call Me Master

Last time I was on here, I talked about bringing God into your health journey, and I was so true on that. Weeks later that post is still rocking me and I've been looking for practical ways of doing that and one thing I've been doing is using this Bible Study/Course I found on Setting Captives Free called The Lords Table.

I cannot tell you what this course has done for me! I'm on day 8 and these first few days are a bit tough, breaking old routines but it has been incredible just finding out new things about God and growing closer to Him.

Basically what happens is, there's some notes, scriptures and testimonies to read and it's interactive so you also have to answer some questions, and there's also a food plan, not meals or recipes, you still control that, but the point is to show you that your body wasn't designed and doesn't need to be fueled by constant snacking, God created us with an internal pager to tell us when we're hungry, when we're full etc. It teaches you the spiritual significance of hunger and that we don't have to constantly jump from diet to diet, food is not the enemy, our attitude is.

Why do we know in our hearts that, if I ate half this packet of fries, I'd be full, yet we still eat the whole packet, plus a sausage, plus a half liter soda? Is it because we really are hungry or are we trying to use food to cover up our stress, emotional issues, boredom, loneliness etc? Are we looking to food to be our comfort and satisfaction instead of God, are we putting food before God?

Anyway, there's a lot more I can add, but check it out for yourself and see if it's for you.

They also encourage you to add exercise at least 30 minutes a day into your schedule and you may also be assigned an accountability partner/mentor who you can talk to, ask questions, vent to etc. I hit the jackpot of mentors and mine usually throws in some prayers and encouragement on email. God is good!

Anyway the hugest lesson I've learned is this:

This was my after dinner dessert a while ago, pink lady apples and peanut butter. I'll post the recipe soon.


All The Love and Encouragement in the World,
Jo

Come As You Are

I've always heard the phrase "come as you are" in church and the basic idea is that we can't change ourselves or get our act together - and we don't need to do that so that we can get to be with God. Wherever you are, come as you are.

 

I remember this year when it finally hit me, it's not my job to fix myself, and let me tell you, I have come to God with a tennis racket and a mattress in my anger screaming at Him, I have come to God in my sadness and tears asking Him why, I have come to God in my joy and laughter asking Him, why me, why love me? I've come in a lot of ways and ache time, it was as I was and each time, He meets me, not immediately and I have gone to bed angry and woken up with dried tears on my face on many occasions, but one way or another, He has always met me.

But if from there, wherever you are, anger, tears, confusion, doubt or laughter, you seek the Lord, you will find Him. He's merciful and He keeps His word, He will never abandon you.

xx

Jo

Re-Vamp

So you might have noticed the blogs got a little make-over? The word that's been ringing in my mind the past few days is re-vamp. Change is firmly in the air, for the blog, for me, for my life.

There's a hunger stirring deep in my soul for something more. I don't know what it is, I suppose right now, maybe I don't need to, maybe I just have an entire overhaul and in that process, I'll figure out what it is.

Two things that have already changed;

1. My devotional/quiet time, I think after waking up earlier consistently for a week, I can say it's become a habit. I read somewhere that you should read the Word of God until you pant for it, so far I'm loving it, I really need to do it. I'm so desperate for more of God. I feel like there's so much more and I'm barely scratching the surface. Especially since I'm serving this in church this month, (Worship Team + Mizizi). Man, I NEED MORE. I'm so tired of the ordinary, going to church, sitting around for an hour saying hi to a couple of people and coming back home! I want it to be different, I have such hopes and expectations and I'm s desperate for them to be met, do you feel me? I need more!
2. Ha, FINALLY quit Facebook. Wah, I feel like for the most part I'm so done with keeping up with strangers lives when you've never had a conversation. I mostly used it for photos anyway and now I have this blog, I can just braindump over here. Even Twitter is definitely going next. All I want/need is this blog. I definitely still want a place to write and release thoughts or whatever, but I always feel this pressure of "this is going to be on someone's timeline, people might not like it" but here, if you've sought me out, you must like my thoughts, so I can write it.

Anyway, as always whatever else I do, you'll be the first to know.

xo

Jo

Joanne the Songwriter

Ya’ll already know I write.

Brief history, back in school (Primary/High School) I used to write amazing pretty great compositions. I like to think I’m a little bit creative. (Speaking of creative, I had this dream last night about a scene I’d created for Modern Family between Mitchell and Cam, and it was so funny, I woke up in the middle if the night LAUGHING! I drifted back off to sleep thinking, God I hope I remember this in the morning that was too good not to share. Sadly, I don’t remember it. Still, I woke up laughing in the middle of the night. That was awesome!)

Anyway, so I wrote stories and compositions in school. In College, I wrote poems and Spoken Word type of things… I had a bunch on Facebook and my old computer but lost them when it had problems. I still wrote though. Then I was in this “kind-of” dating thing with a guy from my youth group and he knew I wrote, so one time he wrote this little poem for me. Irrelevant, but that’s one of the sweetest things any guy ever did for me, so I thought I’d mention it.

Then I totally fell off the God wagon and fell deep into this other relationship and. Needless to say, this guy wasn’t exactly from my church youth-group. I lost myself. Seriously, the whole time I was in that relationship, I lost my inspiration. Good thing is, I realized I wasn’t really/it wasn’t truly love, (a little too late though,) because love inspires and stirs up the music inside of you. I made a lot of mistakes back then, and ruined a great friendship, anyway...

So, my soul was quiet for a long time, as I went through what I call “The Dark Years” but finally this year, (I’m smiling as I write this) the music came back.  God totally healed me from the mess, I’D created and he put inspiration back in my life.

So, I write, Christian songs here and there as the Spirit leads. Which is a fancy way of saying, it doesn’t happen every day! At different points and different days, the way I connect with God changes. One day it’s singing, tomorrow might be reading the Bible, after that might be writing. It never looks the same for me and I’ve learnt to go with that.

Anyway, I haven’t written a song in a while, but I’ve written over 50 blog posts over the past 2 days scheduled across all my blogs for the next month! This week, I’ve been connecting through blogging J

For some reason songs come to me when I’m sitting on the corridor floor next to the stairs (pictured)

xo
Jo