just who are the Jones's anyway???

Have you ever heard the expression "keeping up with the Joneses", well I'm wondering who these Joneses are that we are tyring to keep up with? Lately I have been doing a lot of pondering about money and contentment. I find myself quite content in my comfortable little suburban life, and then I get a case of the green eyed monster and I don't like it... it especially happens around my sister in law, who lives on acreage in a house that would fit my whole home into the living room, with a pool, tennis court etc, who holidays in places I will never be able to go, and who bought her 3 year old a quad bike for his birthday. Then I sometimes find myself on the other side of that fence with other people who have been envious of things we have or places we have been able to go and I don't like that feeling either. So why do we care so much about what other people have or can afford?

We have been going to Hillsong church for a few months now and the stereotype we come across a lot is of course about money, we mention where we go and the first thing people say is "oh they just want your money." Now to be fair it could seem that way to a visitor because they do make more of a deal about the offering than other churches I've been in, but for a very good reason, they view all our money as God's and that His provision is not just so we can fill up our own table but so that we can share and put food on other tables and they put that into practice in HEAPS of ways!!!!! I have been really challenged at Hillsong about my attitude to not just my money, but also my time and my talents, if all I have is God's then how can I say I will only give Him a little bit and keep the rest for what I want to do. If God is blessing me then how can I hoard that when there are so many others who He wants to bless through me??

When I look at life from that perspective not only do I not care what the Joneses have, whoever they may be, but I delight in sharing what God has given me. Not just a 10% tithe but whatever He asks of me! Whether it be to buy a new mixmaster for my mother in law because hers that is more than 30 years old is falling apart (even though it's WAY over our usual gift budget), or to pay for dinner for a friend, or to sponsor more children, or even to step out in faith and offer to get something for some people that needed it that was several hundred dollars, they ended up saying no but that was certainly a step of faith with God and i'm sure a sign of further and bigger things to come!

It's a new way of living that feels more alive, i'm not sure that explains it well but it's a life when I ask God what His plans are with His money instead of offering Him some of what I considered mine, and being generous doesn't mean that we go without at all. In listening to God's voice and wisdom in this area we are making better choices and have actually saved more money toward our house deposit in the past few months than we managed to achieve in the past 4 years. It's a wonderful thing to learn contentment and obedience, now to get on that track with food is a whole other story and one for another post........

Journeys

I am on a journey, it may look very different to the journeys some of my friends are on, but this is where God and I are walking at the moment and I love it here! I am learning to "be" instead of "do", to walk in His grace and love and not have to aim for order and perfection!

I am enjoying my children and have relaxed into the fact that in this busy season my house will never be the way I want it and that's quite ok, I will be tired during this season, but that's ok, I just take time out when I can and go to bed early most nights!

I am loving my new church!! It is a place of passion, where people are in love with God and it overflows in every area of their lives, a place where people know their purpose on Earth is to share God's love!! I feel like parts of me are coming alive that have been dormant for a long time, like things are blossoming and unfurling inside me and will shine forth in God's timing. I am bathing in God's love and presence and enjoying meeting new friends, I am peaceful and content!! :-)

I feel like I am starting to live these words from Bobbie Houston's book "I'll have what she's having"....
"Rise up woman of God. Rise up, fall in love with your Creator, get over what contains you, discover your purpose, and start colouring your world with the love of God. "Oh taste and see that the Lord is good (Psa 34:8)

Let Jesus Christ consume you. Let him be in your life, your mouth, your dance, your step. Let Him shine forth. Allow His countenance to be your countenance, and may all who taste your life and observe your sweet face look and say, "I want what she has. I want to know this person who brings light and love and laughter and depth to this girl. I'll have what she's having."

Fairies live here :-)

This is our fab new fairy garden!! :-)

complete with a little table and chairs for tea parties

some toadstools that Jaden painted (the red and green are glitter paint and sparkle in the sun)

friendly critters

a lantern to light the way for the fairies to find their home

one of the fairies :-)

their letterbox (I can just imagine the girls posting things when they get older!)

I love it, it turned out even better than I imagined and I can see many fun times ahead with my girls in our backyard!!!! :-) Next weekend we'll hopefully get the veggie and herb gardens finished! (oh and Jaden has a little cactus garden cause he wanted his own section, but I just realised I didn't upload the pic of that, oops)

yay for spring!!

I love spring, the flowers (like the lavender I adore in my front yard), the weather, there's something so invigorating about it!! We had a great family day gardening today.

Elora even joined us and was very hapy to be outside for a while.

This is Brett getting started on our new raised garden bed for veggies. After the limited success last year we realised our back yard is just too shady, so we're gonna have a try out the front.

This is the veggie bed and Brett's gonna make a smaller one for my herbs as well.

This was the state of our back garden this morning. I haven't had time to get to it since last years veggies died off, was too busy being pregnant and having a young baby and it was looking very neglected!

It is now being transformed into a fairy garden. This is just the first step, a pathway leading to a doorway into the tree where garden fairies live :-)

Stay tuned for the finished product!!

The joy of exploring!

Bethany Joy having a lovely time exploring the grass, flowers, bugs etc in nan and pop's backyard. I love that she's just off in her own world and didn't even know we were watching her, she's so beautiful :-)

oops!!!

What happens on a rainy day, when you've been out all day at medical appointments for 2 different children, stuck in traffic, have a screaming baby in the back, have a headache and then have 2 sets of lights only metres apart and the first one goes green but you're too distracted to notice the second one??? The answer is cars go bang! This happened last Friday. Thankfully no-one was hurt and the damage isn't major, but the man I hit was in his work car and has to go through insurance so it cost us a few hundred dollars in excess, but I guess that's why we have insurance, and we're allowed one at fault claim before losing our safe driver bonus which is good.

I'm His girl :-)

I wanted to use this photo of Mine and Elora's hands in this post because it reminds me in such a visual way of how my big God is holding my hand, cause I am his little girl!

Over the last week I have been on such a roller coaster. After I finally opened up in my last post about how much I was struggling so many people reached out to me and I felt incredibly supported. Several people from church brought meals to help make my days easier and I had lots of people checking up on me!

I am doing much better, no thanks to the medical profession. I had 3 trips to the doctor that achieved nothing. The first time he gave me a referral to a psychiatrist and when I asked about a mental health care plan so that it would be able to be bulk billed he said they already bulk bill, but when I called to make an appointment they said they only bulk bill with a health care plan. So I went back to the same medical centre at night when I could leave the kids with Brett, but a different doctor was on and he said I would have to come back and see the other doctor since he was the one I first spoke to, I left so frustrated and upset that I came home and cried and cried. I had made the effort to go and get some help and no-one knew what to do!!! I then went with my mum to her doctor and he wanted to put me on tablets but couldn't cause I was breastfeeding, so he gave me what he thought was a mental health plan to go see someone, but it turned out to be the wrong paperwork and at that point I was ready to just give up!

I decided that if I wasn't going to be able to get any real help to sort through any underlying issues that I would have to at least go on tablets before I totally lost the plot and so I made a heart wrenching decision to stop breastfeeding. The final straw was a night of constant feeds with hardly any sleep, followed by a day of almost non-stop crying (from me not the children) when I rang my mother to come over cause I just wanted to run out the door and get away from here and just leave all the kids behind. She bought formula that day but it was still a couple of feeds later before I could bring myself to use it, then after 2 bottle feeds Elora slept the longest she's ever gone at night and I got 6 hours sleep in a row. I woke up with hope that this was the right decision for my sanity, so I didn't take my motilium tablet that day and started weaning Elora. She wasn't really impressed at first and I had to buy expensive bottles that are like the breast for it to work well. I was still breastfeeding every 3rd feed or so for the first couple of days until the motilium wore off from my system and my supply dropped and after 4 days it was all bottles.

As it turned out this is exactly what I needed to do. After a couple of days without the motilium I started feeling different, it wasn't just that I was getting a little more sleep or that the prospect of bottle feeding made me feel less 'trapped' to be able to do things child free if I needed to, something was different in my head. I wondered if it might be the tablets so I did some research on the hormone prolactin which is what motilium increases to increase milk supply, and I discovered that too much of it can produce mood swings, depression and anxiety. I have had bad reactions to medications in the past that messed with my hormones, such as the pill and also clomid when we were struggling to get pregnant, but I was so desperate to be able to successfully breastfeed for the first time that I never stopped to think about how messing with my hormones would affect me.

So after a few days drug free the world starting to seem less overwhelming to me and the dark cloud in my head wasn't as bad. I then had some prayer ministry which brought up some other things going on inside me and God did some great healing there. That was 4 nights ago and guess what... I haven't cried since, that is a huge achievement!!! I've had busy, stressful, exhausting days that would've made me meltdown before and I've been ok. I feel like I found the sunshine after the rain and it's amazing how awesome and exciting and wonderful the world looks when a dark cloud has been lifted from the view. Now I am able to hold onto the pictures God showed me of him holding me and just resting in Him when I feel overwhelmed, I know I don't have to achieve anything for him to love me, He just loves me because I'm His girl, just like I love my little girls just because they're mine. I knew that in my head before, but there was another constant voice telling me what a failure I was and it was paralysing and now it's gone.

I feel alive on the inside for the first time in months and it's great!! I am so thankful for amazing love and support from family and friends and I am so thankful that I have a Heavenly Father who loves me and knows exactly what I need!!!!! :-)