I feel lost; but all is not lost. I can see some light.

I take comfort in my new lostness in Psalm 23 (NKJV):

“The Lord is my shepherd;
I shall not want.
He maketh me lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside still waters.
He restores my soul;
He leads me in the paths of righteousness
For His Name’s sake.”

When I feel lost, as I do now, I sing this to myself. I have taken to singing it with the children at bedtime, with me singing the alto part. When I am lost, I sing. This restores my soul and I am reminded always to look to the Lord.

We moved house. We moved cities 1600km (995miles) from our previous home. We left the comfort of friends and family. We let go of things in our lives that fed our souls. We have moved away from the New Church community that we loved and were part of. This has been a difficult move. I feel lost. Continue reading Seeing the Light →

I feel that it is my responsibility to learn to act rationally in spite of how I feel in any given situation. Feelings can be destructive if allowed free reign, yet feelings are the very essence of life. Feelings are a way of communicating what we feel is right or wrong in the world around us, they give us insight, and can be a way to communicate with the Lord.

I am working with my children and myself through a time of great change. We are moving from one city to another in South Africa (Durban to Cape Town 1600kms apart). We are leaving the home, friends and family, church community, and school we have known for the past 9 years. For me, it is another move, not as great as the last one from the UK to South Africa, but significant enough to unsettle us all.

My greatest challenge has been to ‘control’ how I feel about it in order to better support our children. First was denial (I didn’t want to go), then acknowledgement (this is going to happen no matter what), to acceptance (I’m okay with this let’s see where it goes), finally to trust. Trusting that it was okay to feel the way I did. They were healthy feelings and healthy for my children to see that I also felt uncertain at times. As long as I didn’t take out those emotions on other people, which happened in times of stress, that was not okay. Ultimately, I needed to trust my feelings and trust in the Lord to support us during this time of change. Continue reading Trusting My Feelings →

One of the most commonly heard phrases in our household, due to a propensity towards heated arguments recently, is “do unto others as you would have done to you.” But what does this really mean to us in our daily lives?

First of all, the original quote is a command based on the words of Jesus Christ in the Sermon on the mount, and is a central teaching in Christianity, often referred to as the Golden Rule.

Matthew 7:12 “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.”

Luke 6:31 “And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.”

This commandment is stated in similar ways across many ancient religious books: The New Testament, the Talmud, the Koran, as well as the Analects of Confucius and in the writings of Socrates. Continue reading Do Unto Others… →

As I grow older as a parent of three children, I grow to have a deeper appreciation for my own mother and come to understand the decisions she made and the way she raised us. I feel grateful when I realise that, apart from the Lord, she has been my guide and my inspiration for the person and the mother I have become.

There were definitely some tough lessons, but always from a place of love. I see how much we as parents are the role models for our children and the pressure I sometimes feel because I cannot live up to being the ‘perfect parent’. However, I realise that as long as I am a ‘conscious parent’ who can be aware of and guided by the needs of my child and supported by the Lord and His Word, then I am doing the best job that I can do.
Continue reading My Journey to Conscious Parenting: My Mum – My Inspiration →