A moment to breathe

After the past few weeks of work, I have a moment to look back and appreciate many of the gains I have made in my work. It's nice to look back and enjoy the fruit of ones work!

It's the darkside

It's not the eastside nor the westside.
No it's not.
It's not the northside nor the southside.
No it's not.
It's the darkside.
Yes it is.
It's the darkside.

Over the past few days I have been thinking about the number of my friends who have turned to the darkside. Now you have to understand what I call the darkside: it is that place where people seemingly revel in the idea of taking advantage of others; that place where the centre of the universe is you; that place that places fear ahead of love with sensibility. Yes, it's the darkside.

The darkside sucks. You struggle to have an honest conversation with somebody, because (it seems) like they like the idea of feeling superior over you. The road to the darkside is easy to follow, though there are some who choose not to walk along it. Some venture to the darkside through cultism; others through sheer ignorance.

The cultic route essentially is like, using the popular analogy, putting a frog in a pot of cool water on the stove. When you heat the pot to boil, the frog does not jump up even to the point of death. It is a dulling of your senses, refusing to acknowledge that you have dreams and visions that are worth the support of others.

The ignorant route is one which essentially results from a failure to enquire and engage with the process of getting knowledge and understanding the difference between good knowledge, bad knowledge, and things in between. It's a different form of cultism which essentially involves "going with the flow." The bottom line is that people on this route fail to make choices since they don't know that they can.

The cultist believes certain choices should NOT be made. The ignoramus does not know that there are choices that can be made.

I'm sure there are other ways to the darkside. Naturally, one such way is the purposeful route-some actually crave the darkness over the light. For me that is weird. Things are clear by light, but in the darkness, you can trip over an not know why. Your next trip could be the fatal one, or not.

I am not saying that the light is perfect-it's just better than the light. In the light you can see danger and avoid it-in the darkside both good and bad alike are dangerous. The bad takes you down just as much as it would in the light, or even more. But when good smacks you in the face in the dark you will treat it as bad cos you can't see what it is.

I like the light.

Ling's Proverbs I

1) Never believe a lie.

2) Sometimes it is not what is said that is important but that it is said.

3) The purpose of eloquence is not so that the hearer may be edified, but the listener and truly so.

4) This is an abomination: promising to give someone a coat, only to take away his shoes.

5) Never call good bad and bad good. Good is good and bad is bad.

6) Just because you don't believe it's true doesn't mean it isn't true.

7) There are four types of people in this world: those who see faith as a means of assuring their own salvation; those who see faith as a means of assuring the salvation of others; those who deny that faith assures salvation; and those who do not even know that faith assures salvation!

A litle bit of encouragement

You know, when you beat something hard and long enough, it only becomes a matter of time before it begins to fall apart. I've grown up thinking that most people just need a little bit of encouragement to get thru the day. Very often that affirmation is absent for a long time. To compound that so much negative energy is often directed in the stead of encouragement.

This is a sad post. A few years ago I resolved myself to be even more encouraging than ever. The backlash was severe. In a space of a few weeks the benevolence of the people I fellowshipped with dwindled and eventually became outright hatred. I was constantly told that I was not good enough or did not serve any useful purpose.

The situation was a bitter pill to swallow. But I had 3 friends who begged me not to give into that "violence". You should hear us speak on the phone. We are constantly affirming one another, not to the point of flattery, but always speaking well of and to eachother. We are constantly blessing eachother.

In the past few weeks I have found myself in unusual situations. For starters, I decided to surround myself with people who had a positive outlook on things and who are problem-solvers rather than criticising dreamers. At first it seemed that it was going well but then through my incredible powers of perception ;-) I clicked that many of my new associates had a morbid view of life. That's what prompted my fortified choices entry.

I have 3 friends to whom I can say "Support me in this" and they do. We constantly call eachother, and remind ourselves the value of loving.

K always says, "Lunda, you can do it" & stuff "will be done when its done." M always tells me that I can make it. C keeps on reaffirming that I can make it and that God has amazing things still prepared for me.

Well, I will keep up with my reassurance of others, hoping that there are practical things that I will put in place and that will happen that will help me out now.

You know, there is a group of people I used to associate with whose idea of help was to leave me alone and ignore me. Their idea of help was to tell me how crap they thought I was and how little I could do for or be to them. But I am valuable. I stopped a long time ago trying to prove that to them.

I believe loving is worth it. I'm going to make it. I guess its time to pick yourself up again, hey, Ling? Just one step at a time now... The Lord is with you.

I have learnt to stand up more for myself. Thank you. I can do it. Previously I didn’t know how. But I’ve learnt so much.