Iron

 They say you have to strike while the iron is hot. This means that when you have an opportunity to do something you have to do it before you lose your chance. It is a pretty well-known saying and a fairly good motto to live by. But wouldn’t it be better to just strike the iron until it is hot? In other words, create your own opportunities. If we keep on waiting for things to happen for us we will never get things done.

I am a naturally lucky person. I believe this because of all the great things that have happened to me and that I have been blessed enough to experience. That said I also believe that I created my own luck. We can’t sit around and wonder why nothing is happening for us. We need to do small things well in order to strike luck in the big things.

"Luck is the last dying wish of those who wanna believe that winning can happen by accident, sweat on the other hand is for those who know its a choice so decide now because destiny waits for no man. When your time comes and a thousand different voices are trying to tell you you're not ready for it listen instead to that lone voice of dissent, the one that says you are ready, you are prepared, it's all up to you now" - The Grind

A couple of months ago I created a bucket list for myself. On the list are small things that I want to do for myself and others, and big things I also want to do for myself and others. I believe both have equal weight. I put some things on the list that I have done (but not well, and it wasn’t on my list back then) to tick off again. Things like paying off my credit card, random acts of kindness, etc. Most of these will not bring lasting happiness but will show me that I am still heading in the right direction, and I'm in control.

With this list I will keep striking the iron until it is hot, all the things I have put on there might not happen soon, and the circumstances for me to do these things might never arise if I don’t create them. I am the master of my own future, no one else. Every page I write on is written in my own handwriting with my own signature at the bottom. I am thus responsible for all my actions, non-actions, mistakes and victories.

A couple of days ago Nelson Mandela passed away - the poem that he kept in his prison cell was some of the most amazing words I've ever heard... Invictus, by William Henley.

I am a work in progress. I might be raw, but I am ready. I am more ready now than I have ever been in my life, but tomorrow I will be more ready to take on tomorrow’s challenges. Stop believing in one day and make one day happen.

Liefde

Iemand het my 'n ruk terug gevra of ek ooit eers weet wat liefde is. Die vraag pla my, want ek weet nie of ek weet nie. Ek is nie seker wat 'n verhouding is nie. Ek is onseker oor baie van die klein dinge en ek ken miskien nie al die regte antwoorde nie.

Maar ek weet een ding. Ek weet nou al wat die tipe man is waarvoor ek sal kan lief raak. Hy moet die brein van 'n arm seun hê, met die hart van 'n verowenaar. 'n Straal in sy menswees met sprankel in sy gees. Moet kan erken as hy faal, met sy kop omhoog. Bederf sonder om te blik of te bloos. As hy gevang word in die reën moet hy kan lag en dans en uitsien na die reënboog wat kom. Hy moet my nie net aanvaar soos ek is nie, maar elke dag uitdaag om die beste te wees wat ek kan.

Ek soek net die een man om my lief te he, maar sy liefde moet wees; vry soos 'n veldbrand, mal soos die maan, altyd soos more, skielik soos 'n asemhaling en oorwinnend soos die gety. Ek soek net dit. Met die tipe liefde sal ek gelukkig kan wees. 

"A soulmate is someone who has locks that fit our keys, and keys to fit our locks. When we feel safe enough to open the locks, our truest selves step out and we can be completely and honestly who we are; we can be loved for who we are and not for who we're pretending to be. Each unveils the best part of the other. No matter what else goes wrong around us, with that one person we're safe in our own paradise. Our soulmate is someone who shares our deepest longings, our sense of direction. When we're two balloons, and together our direction is up, chances are we've found the right person. Our soulmate is the one who makes life come to life." - Richard Bach

Boiling Frogs

They say that the best way to boil a frog is to put him in cold water and gradually turn up the heat to a boil, this way he won’t recognize the threat until it is too late, but if you put him in a pot of boiling water immediately, his survival instincts will cause him to detect danger and he’ll quickly jump out.

Much of my life has presented in this way. I know because I just jumped before it was too late, just like the time before last. I was in too deep and the heat was turning up. I would have done any and everything to stay in that nice warm pot, but I realized that if I don’t jump now I would surely boil. My pot was pretty, cosy and amazing, but apparently this pot was not good for me, and I didn’t fit.

I read Lamentations 2:11 the day that I jumped, it described my feelings after getting out of the pot... “I have cried until the tears no longer come; my heart is broken”. I was sad to leave the pot, under other circumstances maybe the pot would have been a good place to be. But now this one was hurting me, I didn’t feel it immediately but the heat was slowly but surely being turned up.

We all reach a stage in our lives when we realize how much sin we have let in and how much we have sacrificed to stay in this comfortable warm area of our lives.

The enemy is fairly clever with how he presents you with temptation, he doesn’t throw it all at you at once, he lets you slide on the small things, a swear word here or there and maybe a drink or two too much. Slowly he presents the flesh as being more and more attractive. We let sin creep into our lives little by little, bit by bit.

They say there is nothing like the fire of a new believer (or a recently born again Christian) they want to set the world alight with their passion and flames. They throw out the old and make radical changes. So often those changes don’t stick. I was lucky enough to when I decided to make some radical changes have an amazing support group. But some of the changes that the Lord has made are still taking time to manifest in my life. I am sometimes weaker than I care to admit. And sometimes I feel like the changes didn't stick, for every now and again I fall.

In university I had the most worldly friends you could imagine and for me to change within their setting was so hard, don’t get me wrong if asked on a form what their religion was, about 90% of them would say Christian. But God started working on me, making me realize that this was not what He had planned for me, His daughter. So we started making changes to my lifestyle little by little, as not to upset my worldly friends too much, or be labelled an outcast or worse a freak. A popular theme song I didn’t want to my life to dance to, look at what she’s done and now she’s being all holier than though, what a hypocrite!

I started my first job after varsity where God gave me a lifelong great spiritual mentor only down the hall from me, and the most amazing mature brothers and sisters in faith in the building. We had daily prayer hours in our lunch and I saw miracles and started loving the Lord in a deeper way. After that, by the Grace of God, I went to the Netherlands for 6months, I learnt a lot about myself by travelling with God daily, an outreach in Hungary and a month of backpacking later I was back, ready to spread the Gospel and Love because He had loved me. I was made strong to be poured out!

But the enemy saw my all my weaknesses  and slowly but surely I let little sins I had done in the past become favorite habits again. I was still going to church, helping out wherever I could and passionately in love with my Lord but somewhere along the line I had a paradigm shift, from a Gospel World View to a more Worldly (but Christian) World View. You know the one, pushing the boundaries, and justifying everything I did. I was in love with the Lord, but I loved the world too. I realized recently...

Sink or swim. Adapt or die. Jump. Change. The lessons are fairly simple. I was in a pot and it was starting to boil. I had to jump or die...

The important thing is not how far you fall, but how well you get back up, that will be what defines you.