DAY 10-12 It is the weekend, and tbV and Aaron and Sarah and myself are having to Yosemite for the weekend to stay in a Yurt [look it up!], and it might be partially enforced for us, but I want to encourage you to try this for a couple of hours, or a day, or if you’re really feeling brave, the whole weekend. Task: unplug yourself from the screens... Turn off the television, step away [...]
Married 15 years this year... "It's important to remember that there is a difference between being an awesome team and an awesome couple. Teams can work well even if the teammates don't connect on a deeper level." As time goes on, the roles and job descriptions for everyone in your family unit sets in. Who sorts out the kids lunch, who buys the milk, who pays what bills, who handles the social calendar…after a while it [...]
i don't think we talk about Friendship enough. in fact, i think too often, too many of us might take it for granted. i don't think i do. i am just so constantly made aware of how many incredible friends i have in and around my life - the term 'best friend' relates to at least 7 people i can think of straight away who are all 'best friends' in differing but equivalent ways. and [...]
I recently went back and looked over our photo books, images from our first date back in 1999 through marriage and the births of our two lovely children and couldn't help but smile at all those memories. Kathy and I met at a Scripture Union holiday club in 1997, we were both in Matric, there was an infatuation, but neither of us pursued it as Kathy went off on foreign exchange for a year and [...]
DAY 9 Task: Read through and pray this prayer of humility [taking time on each line to let it sink in and really mean it as you speak it,and if possible i would suggest that you find a space where you can speak it out loud so you can hear the words as you say them] O Jesus! meek and humble of heart, Hear me. From the desire of being esteemed, Deliver me, Jesus. From the desire [...]
We got married on 9th August 2000. A good date for two reasons… very easy to calculate how many years we’ve been married… and a South African public holiday so we always get a day off to celebrate! From the off – marriage has been amazing. For us there was little adjustment… we kind of flowed into being married and we are ver y marriage-positive. One thing we hate is when people make negative comments to [...]
Finishing off my video blogs of the Gospel of Mark as i work through the last four chapters with thoughts and insights from each passage as I go: All men will hate me? Mark 13.1-13 Be ready, be very ready Mark 13.14-37 Jesus, perfume and space for the interruption Mark 14.1-11 Having your enemies round for some pizza Mark 14.12-26 why DID Jesus keep them around? Mark 14.27-42 Jesus heads to the garden and gets arrested [...]
How do you put a positive spin on the words, "All men will hate you because of Me"? Especially when they come from the mouth of Jesus [which makes them a little bit harder to ignore or explain away]. Perhaps that is why Mark 13.1-13 is not a particularly popular passage for those who don't specifically preach continuously through the Bible? The rest of it is End of the World stuff which generally is good [...]
DAY 8 Woke up to some really bad news this morning. A close friend had suffered one of the hugest losses imaginable. Task: Weep with someone who is weeping. If you don't know someone personally that is weeping, then pick up a newspaper or go and visit a website, because there is enough corporate weeping going on that you can join - the families and friends of the missing airplanes, the people in the various [...]
Just heard that today is National Grammar Day. Only problem is they were not too specific on which nation so I'm claiming it. One of my pettest peeves has to be when people use the word "loose" when they are intending to mean the word "lose" - that always makes me just want to loose it. [where "it" is a fire-breathing dragon that will rain down burning molten lava upon the unsuspecting person who butchered [...]