Soap for Jesus

Once I thought I was going to do something big, not change the world, but make a mark on it for the good. Then I mucked up. Then I struggled back with the marks and the stains and the scars. Then I got married. Then I realised that my life was going to consist of losing/distancing friends, working incessantly, budgeting like crazy, a few hard-clung-to times with my new husband while realising more and more that family and parents are getting older, bigger, growing, moving on. There are new goals in life - saving money, buying a house, having kids. Social life reduces down to a few shared news articles, playing a few e-games people tag you in, and sharing other people's posts. Any significant news in your life may not want to be shared by another person, so you leave it in the quiet. People 'like' or 'read' your news in decreasing numbers. Your impact on life is minimal. And your days march on. I like change. Within a controlled or known measure. I don...

I apply the last bit of mascara and blink. There. Perfect. Only wearing mascara today because, with blonde lashes, I look bald without it. My husband prefers no makeup on me, because he says I'm beautiful with and without, so I'm trying to accept myself without, spots and blotchy skin and all. I'm about to leave the house in half an hour to go and meet him after work. He finishes at 4, and then I'm going to talk him into an evening walk in the park with me before we go home. Ever the romantic! Plus, it's healthy, and it's Autumn. Haha! One of my favourite months. I did something today. I've been changing a lot recently. Marriage is a great changer of people. Especially when compared often with the relationship of Christ and His church. Today, I made a plan and ditched it. Ever since my life messed up five, almost six years ago, I've had a passionate fondness of plans. Order. KNOWING what is going to happen. Living in a situation where you don't...

When I rededicated my life to the Lord in my late teens, I began what seemed to be a lesson a year. First it was love - God began to teach me how to love with His love, to see with His eyes, as I prayed for it. The next year was faith, and the following faith and trust. It wasn't like I picked these to work on - love was what brought me back to Him - a breakthrough from my friend Taylor W. - and faith and trust have always been struggles, partly because I like to understand things, and partly because I've never learnt to trust deeply, easily. Faith, as you know if you live by it, is a walk in trust. The two, though different, are deeply and intimately connected. To walk by faith is to walk in trust, and to trust fully means utter and complete faith. One of the joys of following Jesus has been to see His love through different aspects of my life - as I like to say, "God's love is of the same beauty and diversity as a many faceted diamond." First, I learned His...

I was thinking about some of the people I've bumped into over the years who struggle with depression, anxiety and/or suicidal tendencies. As I've been going through the counselling process with C., I've also come to realise that while it might trigger the "growing up" bit I missed, and is definitely help me link things together and providing coping techniques to override my body's now-natural patterns of worry, freak out, withdraw, not deal with issues, invert anger and stress until overload, it probably never will cure my depression spells completely. My man tries to reduce all stress levels for me wherever he can and says he thinks it can be healed, but I don't know. Whether it is a "mental illness", (which, while I am coming to accept the term, is one I dislike due to its connotations of limited capability and inferiority) or whether it's some switch tripped by the years on the rough path, as I subconsciously recognise the symptoms o...