Welcome to the journey :-)

Welcome to my new blog. I had intended to stop blogging but instead felt inspired to start fresh and simply share my journey. I have discovered in my wise old age (at almost 36) that it's not about where we get to, it's about how we get there. I have spent so many years looking for my purpose, calling, destiny, whatever you wanna call it, that I kept missing what was right in front of me. That what God asks of me is to walk day by day surrendered to Him and that my journey with Him is the purpose of my life! I am on a journey with my Jesus and embracing that has changed my perspective on many things.

 I have always wanted to do great things for God, I spent many of my younger years wanting to be an overseas missionary and since that didn't eventuate I have often felt like I was doing less than I was supposed to. I have begun studying degrees a few times, always with the intent of how I was gonna use this piece of paper to serve God and there is nothing essentially wrong with that, except I never finished any of these courses (1 of them got cancelled but the rest I just stopped doing for various reasons), because I ran out of oomph or passion and life kept getting in the way.

But God in His grace has never given up on my confused and wandering heart and just keeps gently calling me back to Him. My purpose and passion in life are to love God with all my heart, when I get that part right then anything that I 'do' for Him is flowing out of His heart inside me, and yes He has placed passions in my heart but He has not asked me to singlehandedly save the world like I sometimes thought! He has asked me to simply share His heart. And what has He placed on my heart is so simple that I missed it so many times, what is on my heart is to love the kids of the world. First of all my own whom I have the amazing privilege of raising and yet was so busy looking for my purpose that I was not enjoying these precious years with my beautiful blessings! Then there are other kids who are on my heart too, kids living in poverty around the world, those who are forgotten, trafficked and abused, and kids here in Australia who never get a chance to be born.

God has opened up some amazing opportunities for me to get involved in some things this year that I am very excited about, things that use the talents and gifts He has given me without impacting too much on time with my own kids. In February a friend and I are running a Micah Challenge event called a 'Survive past Five' birthday party, which is to raise awareness of the 8.8 million children who die each year before their 5th birthday, mostly from preventable things caused by poverty. I have been very challenged by God that we use our money to help out (through sponsoring kids and supporting other things financially), but that He wanted me to step outside my comfort zone and actually use my voice which for someone who is actually quite shy underneath is a very scary thought, but I could not go past several passages I kept reading, especially Proverbs 31:8-9 "speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly, defend the rights of the poor and needy."

 Interestingly those verses come directly before the Proverbs 31 verses about the wife of noble character and when I read through it all togther I realised that doing those things is not separate to being a wife and mother, it's just something I should be embracing as part of a being a woman seeking after God. So I am putting some of those 'mum' skills to use because one thing I am good at is birthday parties, except this one is to help many other kids and not my own. I pushed through the butterflies in my stomach to get in touch with our local Federal member and he is coming, and now I need to push past more butterflies to open my mouth and keep talking to people to get them there!

Another opportunity I have this year is volunteering with a pregnancy support place opening up near where I live. It is to help girls out with unplanned pregnancies and offer them emotional support and  counselling, and also practical support if they have the baby through mentoring programs and baby goods etc. I will be going one morning a week while my mum and also my beautiful friend and godmother to my girls take turns to mind my littlies just for a couple of hours. I will be helping out with admin, fundraising etc (again stuff I seem to be naturally good at) and I will also be mentoring young mums. I have been a young, single mum with an unplanned pregnancy and I have certainly struggled in my journey as a mum so I'm sure God can use me to be there and support someone else. The office for this service is just a few metres down the road from an abortion clinic which I think is amazingly strategic of God, the opening of it has been delayed however due to getting caught up in some government red tape so we would definately appreciate some prayer!!! The lady who is the counsellor has been doing this in a different suburb previously and has a 98% sucess rate of girls not having abortions after being offered help and support.

I also have it on my heart to do some more letter writing to supermarkets and companies about fair trade since Woolworths is so longer stocking fair trade instant coffee and also trying to raise awareness with people of the importance of buying fair trade to stop kids being trafficked and forced to work on cash cropping farms!

Now that might all sound like a lot, but it's simple things that I can do as a wife and mum and passionate follower of God, no degree necessary, and in fact Jaden is actually really excited about helping me do games and things for the survive past five event and I love that he has a heart for kids living in poverty too.

2010 was quite a tough year for me... adapting to having 3 kids, 2 of whom are very close together, walking through the very dark valley of postnatal depression, changing churches, and dealing with some very dark patches in my marriage too and yet through it all God has taught me so much. He has stretched me and grown me and shown me dark places in my own heart that needed His touch and I find myself starting this year with a deeper grasp of His love and grace and realising that the only destination I am aiming for is heaven one day, until then it's all about the journey and my Jesus will show me the steps to take, one day at a time :-)