patience

Dawn shared this song with me yesterday called, "Mended." I really like it.

Here's the link to it on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuklreZnlfU

I am reminded to not give up on people. In Galatians it says that one of the fruit of the Spirit is longsuffering. Now that doesn't sound too pleasant. We want things to be easily fixed and then out of our memories; however, how come it says that we ought to have this sort of patience that endures discomfort/ hardship? Although it is not easy to journey with others, I want to be dedicated to the friends and family I have by sticking close to them despite the situation (side by side- rib to rib). I believe this is a great testiment because too often people abandon others when the going gets tough and then come back to their side when things are "better." That's the easy way! A little while back a friend spoke some words to me that meant the world to me. He said, "You encouraged me to get into the game of living, and you made me feel like I was worth something when I felt worthless. You told me I could do things when I never thought I could and you told me to believe in myself when I thought the next hurdle was insurmountable. I don't want anyone or anything to hurt the one who told me to get right with Jesus and not to think about dying, but to live." Those words mean a lot to me. They speak deep into the fibres of my being. Why? Becuase the reality is that people believe the falicy that they are not worth it. People don't even know their value. In order to tell people that they are worth it, much time and patience are needed. People need to feel safe. Everyone longs to belong and to be heard.

Although it is not always easy to walk this journey, I'm glad we can share it together.

The picture of the quilt represents how our lives are woven together.

I am reminded of the following fruit of the Spirit:

love, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness.

~ You are worth it! ~ You are so loved! ~

What do we say to others?

Let's live with this in mind:

"Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier. Be the living expression of God's kindness: kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile." — Mother Teresa

This is life...

Be my Life-long Passion, Jesus!

* sorry for the blurry pictures. Maybe I will try to re-shoot them without the glare.

I thought I had written a blog entry with this title before, but I guess not. These are some of my favourite photographs. I bought them from Mr. Kiet in Vietnam (except the ones in the "Live" photo which are from Prague, CZ). I went a little overboard when buying the pictures. My room is only so big! But I feel in love them becuase of the people. Mr. Kiet told me about where he had taken the pictues and realized that God loves them. Sometimes I am brought to tears when I gaze upon these pictures becuase they are visual representations of God's heart and his love. I love that behind each person is a story. Each life shows the fingerprint of God. Now our part is to recognize the value in each life. People are worthy of honour, respect and dignity, therefore, let's treat others in ways that will uplift them and give them assurance that they are significant.

Live. Love. Laugh.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQ1YUqX5txg

Everybody, Everybody

www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIFCfkyuQMO (check it out!)

Everybody - Ingrid Michaelson

Everybody, Everybody wants to love

Everybody, Everybody wants to be loved

Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh

This song was sung at Tim and Grace's wedding and I loved it- way to go Stacey! Special thanks to Kendra for the surprise she dropped off at my door last week. A beautiful Orchid! I have been wanting an orchid for how long? 6 months? Finally, I got one. What a lovely friend I have.

Everybody, Everybody wants to love

Everybody, Everybody wants to be loved

Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh

Uncle Joe and Auntie Evelyn's Wedding

Updated Family Picture

Grandma ~ Me ~ Grandpa

Are Canadians really that polite?

We grow up thinking that Canadians are so very polite. We say please and thank you and wear our Maple Leaf patches on our backpacks and luggage when we travel because we hold a reputation around the world for being polite. I'm glad we hold this sort of title. It's great- Doesn't it feel good to be known as "Nice" people? I hope that we instill these values into "our" [collective] children. I think a sense of entitlement can easily creep into our fibres because of where we live in the world and how much access we have to the resources around us. When we feel this sense of entitlement, we aren't humble and we often take things for granted. But here comes the idea I've been thinking about over the last little while.

Although Canadians may be polite, I believe we are not a hospitable people. There have been a couple of instances over the past few weeks where I've realized that Canadians have bought into such an individualistic mindset that too often [we] don't make any special effort to welcome others and enjoy their company. Now that may sound a little extreme, I know, but it's my observations and experience. When we travel one of the most striking things is how generous other people are. You always hear people say, "Although they had very little, the people we met gave of themselves and wanted to give us all that they had." I wonder why we don't invite poeple over to our homes. A few weeks ago the Canucks were playing in the Stanley Cup play-offs. We made it to game seven of the Stanley Cup game (but didn't come out victorious this time). I make references to this becuase it really grabbed my attention how this event brought communities together. This game brought people together. Some pepole follow hockey and some jumped on board when we made it to the play-offs to rally behind Vancouver's team. I say all of this to build up to when I went downtown Vancouver for Game 7 with three friends to join in the excitement of the final game. We went to the big screens that were set up for people to come watch the game at; however, we left that place after the first period because we were getting trampled and you could sense that the crowd's disposition was not very friendly. So we left the square looking for a new place to observe the game. My suggestion was to just knock on someone's door and see if we could join them in watching the game. This idea was immediately shot down. Now, I understand that the area we were in consists mostly of apartment buildings, so it's not like my neighborhood; however, I couldn't understand why it would be so outrageous to to join other Canuck fans in watching the game. Truth be told, probably 95% of British Columbians were watching the game anyways! It's like everything was at a stand-still while game seven was happening. I thought to myself, if this is the most unifying events (comparable to the gold medal hockey games in the 2010 Winter Olympics), why can't we join with other proud and excited Vancouver-ites to commemorate this occasion? Why would it be so strange to see if we could join others and watch the game with them? Why would it be so crazy to "visit" with a stranger? Honestly, I can't understand it. I feel like that would have been the most opportune time to join with strangers and rally together for a common goal, but, I guess I am the weird one. It isn't normal to knock on a stranger's door and invite oneself in. It is normal to go to a restaurant with your exclusive group and watch the game in a public place.

Am I truly Canadian or not? Lately I've been feeling this strange tension within my being that can not easily accept what our culture is like.

Can I give you example number two? I don't want this entry to sound like I'm complaining, I'm really not; it's just that everyone longs for community and somehow too often Canadians settle for less-than that. I was delivering these flyers around town to get some extra money (secret's out! yup! I'm kind of like a paper girl again). Anyways, I was in a beautiful neighbourhood that I had never even really explored before. It was pretty quiet and the houses looked nice from the outside. I had to stop on someone's front step because my cell phone rang and so I answered it. After finishing my quick conversation, I sat down on the front steps because it started to rain. The weather has been really capricious lately. I thought to myself that the rain would let up in a minute, so I figured I would wait on the front steps of this nice looking house. The owners opened the door to see who was sitting at their entrance. ME! (I don't look scary!) I explained the situation that I was delivering these flyers and it started to rain so I was just going to wait it out for a minute. The couple seemed fine with that (sort of) however after a few seconds the man came outside and sat on a chair right behind me. Feeling a little awkward I turned around and thought I'd see what he was doing. He gave me the most unfriendly look and said in a very rude voice, "Can I help you???" Once again I gave him the same explaination that I had just given about 1 minute prior. He continued to give me a very unwelcoming look and so I felt obliged to put my hood on, pick up my flyers and continue on my "merry" way.

I guess that all I have to say in response to what I've noticed in these instances is that we have adopted an individualistic mentality that has actually come to believe it is outrageous for the paper girl to sit on the front step to wait for the rain to let up.

What I'm taking from all of this is that I want to be a hospitable person. I want my neighbors to feel safe and comfortable with me. I want to offer my home to people and I pray that my future home will be a place of refuge and refreshment and that I would let others know that I have an open door policy. Three of my friends recently moved in together and they have named their home "the nest." The name is quite fitting and I have already found myself there sharing my heart with these precious women! Is it always convenient to attend to the needs of others? Probably not. But how much richer is a life when others are invited in to share the rooms with laughter, tears, stories and memories? Let's be the kind of people who embrace community.

"Lord, I want to see others the way you see them. May I walk in humility and share all that I have- because all that I have has been supplied by you."

The World is A'Glow

Like I've mentioned before, we can learn something new everyday

if we posture ourselves to be teachable.

May I maintain a posture of learning and take the time to learn new things everyday.

Before pic:

This project still remains unfinished; however, I wanted to tell you all about it. If you know me, you know that I'm not really a painter/ visual artist. I can definitely appreciate artwork, but my thoughts are that since I wasn't exposed to art that much as a child, I am sort of lacking in the artistic domain. I would consider myself an artist though. I love creating! I love seeing others create! I love Colour! I love music! And I'm okay with sharing my emotions! (As a side note, I worked at a photo lab for about 5 months and got the job by telling the lady that "I appreciate art and love music." What the heck did that have to do with working at a photolab? So for 5 months I got to view everyone's photos. Don't worry, none of them scarred me). Okay, back to the story. When my parents were away on vacation my brother decided to update the front yard. It was his project. I think it looks really sharp. He did a fantastic job. So this time while my parents were away, I decided I would paint the front door. I thought it would be an easy task- just paint. It was more involved than I had originally thought. It involved choosing the paint (going to Benjamin Moore twice), sanding, taping, priming, and then painting. The colour we decided to go with is called "Black Beauty." I had a little creative-conference with Jeanette to discuss the project and then, set off to do it. Props go out to Jeanette for all of her suggestions and her natural "eye" to envision what will look good. The thing I learned is that it's great to try new things. Trying something new doesn't guarantee that you will be a professional- however I'm learning that that's okay. It's good to try something that you have never done before. It's so rewarding and I also enjoy collaborating with those know what they are talking about because they have so much to offer. It's actually really neat to get someone talking about what they enjoy. I actually get joy from listening/ watching someone talk about something they are passionate about. I must say that I was a little impatient when it came to the painting. I tore the tape off too early and ended up taking some of the paint off with it, so I need to go back and touch up the edges. I need to give a shout-out to my brother because he woke up at 7am with me to do this project and while I was doing some of the painting he was working hard on the yard. We are a good team (amazing race, Brayden?).

The after pic is still to come.

Next I've been in need of some work because although I've been on the TOC list for Abby Christian I've only been called once. Praise God! Isn't it amazing how the body can work together? I had a need and J needed someone to do some work. Perfect for both of us! So I ended up landscaping, aka pulling weeds and edging, for 3 days. I have never even mowed the lawn before, so this was sort of a big deal. I ended up enjoying it a lot. I found it to be so soothing. It was a totally different job than I'm used to, but there was something so peaceful and beautiful about getting dirty, enjoying creation and blasting my music (thanks Tamara and Vicky) in Pete's garden. There is also something to be said about doing something that you don't typically find yourself doing. This was a whole new experience for me. I also felt a sense of accomplishment when the job was all done and I could actually see what I had done. May we be the kind of family that cares for one another and meets each other's needs. May I be inclined to meet someone's needs if I am capable of doing so. May we act as members of one family.

On Friday I found myself (of all places!) at the Pacific Construction Equipment Show in Chilliwack. Again, not my typical gig, but I from it I added another thing to my
"life experience list." I operated a Volvo 160 Excavator. Here's a picture.

J wanted to operate the biggest machine they had. I was happy to just let him have his fun and enjoy being in the excavator; however, the sales guy from Volvo also invited me to get on one for myself and take the controls. So this picture is of me doing exactly that. J was right when he said that I probably didn't wake up that morning thinking, "hmm... I think I'm going to operate an excavator today." So thanks Cupressa for the experience!

Finally, here are some words from *SARK*- be an artist!

Plant impossible gardens ~ Look forward to dreams ~ Cry during movies ~ Swing as high as you can on a swingset, by moonlight ~ Cultivate moods ~ Do it for love ~ Take lots of naps ~ Take moonbaths ~ Giggle with children ~ Listen to old pepole ~ Drive away fear ~

Play with everything ~ Entertain your inner child ~

Build a fort with blankets ~ Get wet ~ Hug trees ~ Write love letters ~