Fall in Love with Life (via Upworthy)

I found this video on Upworthy (originally Tedx) and it is just absolutely INCREDIBLE and BEAUTIFUL! I sincerely suggest you watch it! - http://www.upworthy.com/clear-your-next-10-minutes-because-this-video-could-change-how-happy-you-are-with-your-entire-week?g=2&c=ufb3

It is about the work (time lapse photography on http://movingart.com/) of an artist named Louie Schwartzberg, where he goes deeper to explore how we can fall in love with life and find happiness. No easy feat! But he begins to explore the topic through beautiful imagery and a new project he is working on, introducing it from the view point of a little girl and an old man.

Truly beautiful! Do yourself a favour and watch this! :)

Blessings!

Ronell x

“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.” {Psalm 19:1-4}

{photo credit: http://iamthenetconnector.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/beautiful-beauty-clouds-creation-god-light-favim-com-724381.jpg}

A Lovely Soul

I read this tonight and just had to share! Doubly blessed by the character of the old man and of this woman!

Blessings!

Ronell x



A Lovely Soul

Our house was directly across the street from the clinic entrance of Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. We lived downstairs and rented the upstairs rooms to out patients at the clinic. One summer evening as I was fixing supper, there was a knock at the door. I opened it to see a truly awful looking man. “Why, he’s hardly taller than my eight-year-old,” I thought as I stared at the stooped, shriveled body. But the appalling thing was his face, lopsided from swelling, red and raw. Yet his voice was pleasant as he said, “Good evening. I’ve come to see if you’ve a room for just one night. I came for a treatment this morning from the eastern shore, and there’s no bus ’til morning.” He told me he’d been hunting for a room since noon but with no success, no one seemed to have a room. “I guess it’s my face… I know it looks terrible, but my doctor says with a few more treatments…” For a moment I hesitated, but his next words convinced me: “I could sleep in this rocking chair on the porch. My bus leaves early in the morning.” I told him we would find him a bed, but to rest on the porch. I went inside and finished getting supper. When we were ready, I asked the old man if he would join us. “No thank you. I have plenty.” And he held up a brown paper bag. When I had finished the dishes, I went out on the porch to talk with him a few minutes. It didn’t take a long time to see that this old man had an oversized heart crowded into that tiny body. He told me he fished for a living to support his daughter, her five children, and her husband, who was hopelessly crippled from a back injury. He didn’t tell it by way of complaint; in fact, every other sentence was preface with a thanks to God for a blessing. He was grateful that no pain accompanied his disease, which was apparently a form of skin cancer. He thanked God for giving him the strength to keep going. At bedtime, we put a camp cot in the children’s room for him. When I got up in the morning, the bed linens were neatly folded and the little man was out on the porch. He refused breakfast, but just before he left for his bus, haltingly, as if asking a great favor, he said, Could I please come back and stay the next time I have a treatment? I won’t put you out a bit. I can sleep fine in a chair.” He paused a moment and then added, “Your children made me feel at home. Grownups are bothered by my face, but children don’t seem to mind.” I told him he was welcome to come again. And on his next trip he arrived a little after seven in the morning. As a gift, he brought a big fish and a quart of the largest oysters I had ever seen. He said he had shucked them that morning before he left so that they’d be nice and fresh. I knew his bus left at 4:00 a.m. and I wondered what time he had to get up in order to do this for us. In the years he came to stay overnight with us there was never a time that he did not bring us fish or oysters or vegetables from his garden. Other times we received packages in the mail, always by special delivery; fish and oysters packed in a box of fresh young spinach or kale, every leaf carefully washed. Knowing that he must walk three miles to mail these, and knowing how little money he had made the gifts doubly precious. When I received these little remembrances, I often thought of a comment our next-door neighbor made after he left that first morning. “Did you keep that awful looking man last night? I turned him away! You can lose roomers by putting up such people!” Maybe we did lose roomers once or twice. But oh! If only they could have known him, perhaps their illnesses would have been easier to bear. I know our family always will be grateful to have known him; from him we learned what it was to accept the bad without complaint and the good with gratitude to God. Recently I was visiting a friend, who has a greenhouse, as she showed me her flowers, we came to the most beautiful one of all, a golden chrysanthemum, bursting with blooms. But to my great surprise, it was growing in an old dented, rusty bucket. I thought to myself, “If this were my plant, I’d put it in the loveliest container I had!” My friend changed my mind. “I ran short of pots,” she explained, and knowing how beautiful this one would be, I thought it wouldn’t mind starting out in this old pail. It’s just for a little while, till I can put it out in the garden.” She must have wondered why I laughed so delightedly, but I was imagining just such a scene in heaven. “Here’s an especially beautiful one,” God might have said when he came to the soul of the sweet old fisherman. “He won’t mind starting in this small body.” All this happened long ago – and now, in God’s garden, how tall this lovely soul must stand. - Author Unknown 

Amazing Teacher and Father

Oh my word this man is an inspiration! Please take the time to watch and be touched inspired by someone who loves so deeply and goes so far beyond the extra mile!

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10201121146883732&set=vb.1021022489&type=2&theater

Blessings!

Ronell x

How To Be An Epic Lover: Beautiful advice from a divorced man after 16 years of marriage

I found this article on James Russell Lingerfelt's blog tonight and thought I would share. It is directed at men about how to fully love a woman, but there are obviously many things that us ladies can glean from it too! Enjoy!

Blessings!

Ronell x

Beautiful advice from a divorced man after 16 years of marriage

My advice after a divorce following 16 years of marriage, by Gerald Rogers.

Obviously, I’m not a relationship expert. But there’s something about my divorce being finalized this week that gives me perspective of things I wish I would have done different… After losing a woman that I loved, and a marriage of almost 16 years, here’s the advice I wish I would have had

1. Never stop courting. Never stop dating. NEVER EVER take that woman for granted. When you asked her to marry you, you promised to be that man that would OWN HER HEART and to fiercely protect it. This is the most important and sacred treasure you will ever be entrusted with. SHE CHOSE YOU. Never forget that, and NEVER GET LAZY in your love.

2. Protect your own heart. Just as you committed to being the protector of her heart, you must guard your own with the same vigilance. Love yourself fully, love the world openly, but there is a special place in your heart where no one must enter except for your wife. Keep that space always ready to receive her and invite her in, and refuse to let anyone or anything else enter there.

3. Fall in love over and over again.  You will constantly change. You’re not the same people you were when you got married, and in five years you will not be the same person you are today. Change will come, and in that you have to re-choose each other everyday. SHE DOESN’T HAVE TO STAY WITH YOU, and if you don’t take care of her heart, she may give that heart to someone else or seal you out completely, and you may never be able to get it back. Always fight to win her love just as you did when you were courting her.

4. Always see the best in her. Focus only on what you love. What you focus on will expand. If you focus on what bugs you, all you will see is reasons to be bugged. If you focus on what you love, you can’t help but be consumed by love. Focus to the point where you can no longer see anything but love, and you know without a doubt that you are the luckiest man on earth to be have this woman as your wife.

5. It’s not your job to change or fix her… your job is to love her as she is with no expectation of her ever changing. And if she changes, love what she becomes, whether it’s what you wanted or not.

6. Take full accountability for your own emotions: It’s not your wife’s job to make you happy, and she CAN’T make you sad. You are responsible for finding your own happiness, and through that your joy will spill over into your relationship and your love.

7. Never blame your wife if you get frustrated or angry at her, it is only because it is triggering something inside of YOU. They are YOUR emotions, and your responsibility. When you feel those feelings take time to get present and to look within and understand what it is inside of YOU that is asking to be healed. You were attracted to this woman because she was the person best suited to trigger all of your childhood wounds in the most painful way so that you could heal them… when you heal yourself, you will no longer be triggered by her, and you will wonder why you ever were.

8. Allow your woman to just be. When she’s sad or upset, it’s not your job to fix it, it’s your job to HOLD HER and let her know it’s ok. Let her know that you hear her, and that she’s important and that you are that pillar on which she can always lean. The feminine spirit is about change and emotion and like a storm her emotions will roll in and out, and as you remain strong and unjudging she will trust you and open her soul to you… DON’T RUN-AWAY WHEN SHE’S UPSET. Stand present and strong and let her know you aren’t going anywhere. Listen to what she is really saying behind the words and emotion.

9. Be silly… don’t take yourself so damn seriously. Laugh. And make her laugh. Laughter makes everything else easier.

10. Fill her soul everyday… learn her love languages and the specific ways that she feels important and validated and CHERISHED. Ask her to create a list of 10 THINGS that make her feel loved and memorize those things and make it a priority everyday to make her feel like a queen.

11. Be present. Give her not only your time, but your focus, your attention and your soul. Do whatever it takes to clear your head so that when you are with her you are fully WITH HER. Treat her as you would your most valuable client. She is.

12. Be willing to take her sexually, to carry her away in the power of your masculine presence, to consume her and devour her with your strength, and to penetrate her to the deepest levels of her soul. Let her melt into her feminine softness as she knows she can trust you fully.

13. Don’t be an idiot…. And don’t be afraid of being one either. You will make mistakes and so will she. Try not to make too big of mistakes, and learn from the ones you do make. You’re not supposed to be perfect, just try to not be too stupid.

14. Give her space… The woman is so good at giving and giving, and sometimes she will need to be reminded to take time to nurture herself. Sometimes she will need to fly from your branches to go and find what feeds her soul, and if you give her that space she will come back with new songs to sing…. (okay, getting a little too poetic here, but you get the point. Tell her to take time for herself, ESPECIALLY after you have kids. She needs that space to renew and get re-centered, and to find herself after she gets lost in serving you, the kids and the world.)

15. Be vulnerable… you don’t have to have it all together. Be willing to share your fears and feelings, and quick to acknowledge your mistakes.

16. Be fully transparent. If you want to have trust you must be willing to share EVERYTHING… Especially those things you don’t want to share. It takes courage to fully love, to fully open your heart and let her in when you don’t know i she will like what she finds… Part of that courage is allowing her to love you completely, your darkness as well as your light. DROP THE MASK… If you feel like you need to wear a mask around her, and show up perfect all the time, you will never experience the full dimension of what love can be.

17. Never stop growing together… The stagnant pond breeds malaria, the flowing stream is always fresh and cool. Atrophy is the natural process when you stop working a muscle, just as it is if you stop working on your relationship. Find common goals, dreams and visions to work towards.

18. Don’t worry about money. Money is a game, find ways to work together as a team to win it. It never helps when teammates fight. Figure out ways to leverage both persons strength to win.

19. Forgive immediately and focus on the future rather than carrying weight from the past. Don’t let your history hold you hostage. Holding onto past mistakes that either you or she makes, is like a heavy anchor to your marriage and will hold you back. FORGIVENESS IS FREEDOM. Cut the anchor loose and always choose love.

20. Always choose love. ALWAYS CHOOSE LOVE. In the end, this is the only advice you need. If this is the guiding principle through which all your choices is governed, there is nothing that will threaten the happiness of your marriage. Love will always endure.

In the end marriage isn’t about happily ever after. It’s about work. And a commitment to grow together and a willingness to continually invest in creating something that can endure eternity. Through that work, the happiness will come. Marriage is life, and it will bring ups and downs. Embracing all of the cycles and learning to learn from and love each experience will bring the strength and perspective to keep building, one brick at a time.

These are lessons I learned the hard way. These are lessons I learned too late. But these are lessons I am learning and committed in carrying forward. Truth is, I loved being married, and in time, I will get married again, and when I do, I will build it with a foundation that will endure any storm and any amount of time.

If you are reading this and find wisdom in my pain, share it those those young husbands whose hearts are still full of hope, and with those couples you may know who may have forgotten how to love. One of those men may be like I was, and in these hard earned lessons perhaps something will awaken in him and he will learn to be the man his lady has been waiting for.

MEN- THIS IS YOUR CHARGE: Commit to being an EPIC LOVER. There is no greater challenge, and no greater prize. Your woman deserves that from. Be the type of husband your wife can’t help but brag about.

—

Did you like this article about exploring the love, marriage, and the pursuit and value of women? Make sure to check out The Mason Jar, a coming of age love story from the male perspective by James Russell Lingerfelt. The novel helps readers find healing after severed relationships.

The Mason Jar movie is scheduled for pre-production in 2015 and will be directed in the same dramatic and romantic tones as The Notebook (2004) and Pride & Prejudice (2005). Follow him on facebook or twitter for updates.

Help at Animal Shelters {Mandela Day} 4 / 67 ways to change the world

This one also comes under the category of 'Think of others':

4. Help out at the local animal shelter. Dogs and cats without homes still need a walk and a bit of love! 


I have a cat and a dog and I love them to pieces! I cannot even begin to imagine them being out on the street, unfed, cold, alone and unloved! They have been spoiled in my house for 11 years (Mia, moggy cat) and almost 8 years (Lugie, sausage dog) and I struggle to imagine life without them (and sometimes to remember that they are not in fact people...). 

Think of all those cats and dogs who have been abandoned by their owners (often after many years) or abused and left to die who have now found themselves (thankfully!) rescued... but unfortunately it is still not like having a 'home'.

Help to make an animal shelter their home by caring for and loving on some abandoned and rescued cats and dogs today! Or, even better, adopt one (or more!) and give them an actual home!

Blessings!

Ronell x
 
{photo credit: elmhurstanimalcarecenter.com}

{photo credit: www.lifewithcats.tv}

Share your "Happiest Moments"

Journalist Richard Deitsch unwittingly unleashed the following trend: when he saw a heartwarming picture backstage to a story he was working on, he tweeted to his followers, asking for other "Happiest Moment" pictures. 

He got more than 200 pictures - so powerful in capturing the essence of love inside people's hearts. 

Each picture wordlessly shows what life is about, what we strive for and dream about - the sweetness and preciousness of life and loving.

"I thought to myself how remarkable it was to have an image of what was clearly one of the best moments of Steven's life. I wondered: How many others have a similar image?" Mr Deitsch said. "I could never have expected what came next." - See the pictures here: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.611169228922970.1073741835.295429577163605&type=3 

So the Everyone Matters community passed on the challenge, and I am now passing it to you: Share YOUR "Happiest Moments" pictures online (facebook/twitter/instagram/etc) - and tell your friends and followers why- watch it brighten up their day and give hope and inspiration where you did not even realise it was needed! 

Blessings!

Ronell x

My happiest moment of 2013.. watching my best friend marry the man she loves (and being a bridesmaid)

Love Aggressively // Give Sacrificially

I read this tonight and the example below of a "free gift" really resonated with me. You never know how much a gift you make to someone (no matter how small) might mean to them; and you don't know whether it is a precise answer to prayer for them! So keep your spiritual ears open to God's promptings about what/how/when/to who He wants you to give. So this is the challenge posed by Joyce Meyer: love aggressively and give sacrificially! 

Blessings! 

Ronell x

Love Aggressively

by Joyce Meyer - posted May 04, 2013

This is My commandment: that you love one another [just] as I have loved you. No one has greater love [no one has shown stronger affection] than to lay down (give up) his own life for his friends. —John 15:12-13

As the children of God, we must love others as God loves us. And that means aggressively—and sacrificially.

Love is an effort. We will never love anybody if we are not willing to pay the price. One time I gave a woman a nice pair of earrings. My flesh wanted to keep them for myself, but my spirit said to be obedient to the Lord and give them away.

Later that woman stood up in a meeting and told how she had been given the earrings she was wearing as "a free gift."

The Lord spoke to me and said, "Yes, it was a free gift to her, but it cost you, just as salvation is a free gift to you but it cost Jesus His life."

Love is the greatest gift of all. When you show forth the love of God, do it freely, sacrificially—and aggressively!

---

From the book New Day, New You by Joyce Meyer. 

Adopted

We are doing a series on the book ‘The Emotionally Healthy Church’ at re:generation church at the moment. Over the past weeks since starting the series, the talks on a Sunday and also the Life Skills sessions have just been exceptional- challenging and enlightening. God has really been moving and one of the areas that He has been touching on in my life is my relationship (or lack thereof) with my dad. A deeply painful topic, but one that God has used to really refine me recently. God has also been showing me that 1) He (God) always has and always will be there for me, even if my earthly father hasn’t/isn’t, and 2) that if I really understood how much God loves me and how much He loves other people, I would place a lot more value on myself and on others!

I read this post by Joyce Meyer and it really encapsulated what God has been sharing with me recently. I hope you are challenged by it to step out in faith and out of your comfort zone!

Blessings!

Ronell x

We're Adopted

by Joyce Meyer - posted April 30, 2013

Although my father and my mother have forsaken me, yet the Lord will take me up [adopt me as His child]. —Psalm 27:10

Today’s scripture has been particularly meaningful and encouraging to me over the course of my life.

I was abused as a child. During my childhood, my mother was deeply afraid of my father, so she was unable to rescue me from the various kinds of abuse he perpetrated against me. I felt very alone, forgotten and abandoned. I have come to understand that multitudes of people that we encounter daily are just trying to survive until someone rescues them—and that someone could be you or me.

The Bible says that in God’s love, “He chose us [actually picked us out for Himself as His own] in Christ before the foundation of the world” (Eph. 1:4). He planned for us to be adopted as His own children. These beautiful words brought a great deal of healing to my wounded soul. God adopts the forsaken and the lonely, and He lifts them up and gives them value.

Mother Teresa of Calcutta felt that each person she met was “Jesus in disguise.” Just try to imagine how much differently we would treat people if we thought of them as she did. She realized that God loves everyone as His own sons and daughters. If someone insulted, slighted, ignored or devalued one of my children, I would take it as a personal insult, so why is it so hard to understand that God feels the same way when one of His children is mistreated?  You and I belong to Him, so we need to love ourselves appropriately and treat ourselves well. We also need to treat others as part of God’s family and do what we can to build them up and add value to their lives.

Love God Today: Always be on the lookout for Jesus in disguise.

From the book Love Out Loud by Joyce Meyer.

Love: Truth, Mercy and Justice

I read this post from HTB / Nicky Gumble’s Bible In One Year program and thought I would share:

Love: Truth, Mercy and Justice

When Nelson Mandela left prison after twenty-seven years and became South Africa’s first democratically elected president, he called upon his old friend, Desmond Tutu, to chair The Truth and Reconciliation Commission.  This commission was a series of hearings – some of them public – in which both victims and perpetrators gave testimony about their experiences and actions during apartheid.

At one of the hearings, a policeman, called van de Broek, told of how he and his fellow officers shot an eighteen-year-old youth, then burnt the body.  Eight years later they went back, took the father and forced his wife to watch as he was incinerated.  She was in court to hear this confession and was asked by the judge what she wanted.  She said she wanted van de Broek to go to the place where they had buried her husband’s body and gather up the dust so that she could give him a decent burial.  Van de Broek agreed. 

She then added a further request.  ‘Mr van de Broek took all my family away from me, and I still have a lot of love to give.  Twice a month I would like for him to come to the ghetto and spend a day with me so that I can be a mother to him.  And I would like Mr van de Broek to know that he is forgiven by God, and that I forgive him too.  I would like to embrace him so he can know that my forgiveness is real.’

Spontaneously, some in the courtroom began singing ‘Amazing Grace’ as the elderly woman made her way to the witness stand.  But van de Broek did not hear the hymn, he had fainted, overwhelmed.

In this story truth, love and mercy flow together.  Facing up to the truth of what had happened was the foundation for love and mercy.  The same is true with God’s love – he does not ignore our sin, he chooses to forgive us.  In the story the woman was able to forgive Van de Broek because she chose to forgo her right to justice.  God’s love and mercy is even more extraordinary, because at the cross there is justice as well as mercy.  ‘God is love’ (1 John 4:16) and ‘God is merciful’ (Daniel 9:9), but he is also the God of truth and the God of justice.

1.  Love and truth

Psalm 40:9-17…

2.  Love and mercy

Luke 9:28-56…

3.  Love and justice

Numbers 35:1-36:13…

To read the rest of this incredibly challenging post, go to http://acs.alpha.org/bioy/commentary/465

Blessings!

Ronell x

Trust

Tonight at re:think/life skills at re:generation church, we discussed trust from the point of view that we need to trust that we are not here by accident and that God did not just throw us together in a hurry, but carefully chose all our physical features and our characteristics to make us exactly how He wants us to be, long before we were even conceived. Once we learn to trust this, we can learn to trust that He has an incredible plan for our lives.

God commands us to love our neighbours as ourselves, but in order to love our neighbour, we must first learn to love ourselves the way God has made us. He also instructs us to pour the love that He places in us out on others. So, in order to be effective at loving others and making a difference in the lives of others, we need to love and trust the way God has made us and to learn to walk in that trust to find the path He has set out for us.

Blessings!

Ronell x

Trust in Christ to Lead You

by Joyce Meyer - posted March 26, 2013

You will guide me with Your counsel, and afterward receive me to honor and glory. —Psalm 73:24

We believe that God is inherently good and that He is also in control of our lives. Therefore, when tragedy strikes or loss occurs, we don't understand why God does not prevent such things from happening to us and hurting us so badly.

Faced with tragic loss, often we become angry and ask, "If God is good and all-powerful, why does He allow bad things to happen to good people?" This question becomes a major issue when it is we, God's own children, who are the ones suffering.

At such times, reasoning wants to scream out, "This makes no sense at all!" Over and over the question, "Why, God, why?" torments those who are grieving over losses in their life, just as it also tortures the lonely and the dejected. Excessive reasoning, trying to figure out things for which we will not be able to find an answer, torments and brings much confusion; but Proverbs 3:5,6 tells us that trust in the Lord brings assurance and direction: Lean on, trust in, and be confident in the Lord with all your heart and mind and do not rely on your own insight or understanding. In all your ways know, recognize, and acknowledge Him, and He will direct and make straight and plain your paths. When we face a time of crisis in life, we need direction. These scriptures tell us that trusting God is the way to find that direction. Trust requires allowing some unanswered questions to be in your life!

No matter how badly you may be hurting from a loss or tragedy, the Holy Spirit can give you a deep peace that somehow everything will be all right. Being angry at God is useless because He is the only One Who can help.

{From the book New Day, New You by Joyce Meyer}

 

Brian 'Head' Welch

Tonight at Alpha (re:generation church) Alicia spoke about who Jesus is and who we perceive Him to be. Alicia discussed how many see Him as a fictional character that people use as a crutch or for escapism. She then proceeded to show the following testimony by Brian ‘Head’ Welch (formerly from Korn) on the I Am Second site, discussing how real Jesus and God are in his own life and how the total, undeserved love and grace of God, reached in and saved his life. You can watch the clip here.

Blessings!

Ronell x

“Deny your weakness, and you will never realize God's strength in you.” {Joni Eareckson Tada}