My other home

The beaches of Byron, Ballina and Lennox are calling me back to them this week. Tomorrow morning I hop on a plane to be reunited with friends and gorgeous sunsets enjoyed from Byron beach hotel.

Not to forget of course beautiful sunrises at the lighthouse after jogging up this track (yes I did say jogging and no it's not really this short, add a couple more km's- it's time to get a work out!) followed by a scrumptious breakie at Twisted Sister or Siroccos... home sweet home...

Jealous?

So I've kind of been sick since last Wednesday. Some sort of bug thing (duh, there's a reason why I never looked into medicine). All this meant that I turned into a hermit over the weekend and only left my place to go to Cathy's kitchen tea and church. Apart from being sick, Saturday was just one of my perfect hermit days:


Sleep in - check
Breakie in front of sat morning telly - check
Lying by the pool reading - check
Hour and a half long nap in my hammock - check
Dinner on my couch in my pj's - check

During the course of my lovely hermit time I read a lot. Something I read, from the pen of another Jodi, stayed with me:

"Memories aren't stored in the heart or the head or even the soul, if you ask me, but in the spaces between any two given people."

(Disclaimer - I'm not going nuts, 'hermit time' doesn't happen very often. I still like people).

A fishy faith

So here's a little lesson in not giving up for you, a little lesson in faith.

Saturday night I came home expecting to find two dead fish stuck to my filter (cos I'd found two other ones in that state during the week). I had a look at the tank, and while they were still alive(ish) they looked like they were about to float off to fishy heaven. I'm no fish expect, but I don't think that they're supposed to have their noses to the gravel and be sort of floating vertically - right? I had the bag and the scoopy net thingy ready to throw them out... as far as I was concerned they were already dead.

But considering I didn't want to feel like a killer that night, I scooped them up and put them into a measuring jug instead - I figured I'd toss them in the morning. And blow me down if, when I looked the next morning, they were swimming around as happy as Larry.
Turns out, the babies (Alpha and Omega) had been getting freaked out by Vadar (the black one) because he was bullying them. So they're now in a separate little area - oh, and I bought Einstein (the white one that looks like he has a brain on the outside) to keep vadar in line (might be a problem that I just checked on them and Vadar is now biting him).

Blimey - who knew fish could be so psychotic and so demanding...

Do you think I'm going to Hell?

Because she's coming on Katoomba women's convention this weekend I suggested to mum this morning that she maybe read a bit of one of the gospels so that she could get come background knowledge before we got there. Apparently she did some reading today (much to my excitement when I got home) and so we started chatting - mostly her asking questions and me answering some of them.

The end result? My mum realised for the first that I think she's going to hell. It was awful to see the pain of that realisation go over her face. At almost every moment I wanted to back down and say "it'll be ok - you're a good person", but I just couldn't, the bible wont let me. As I tried (gently) to say to her, the argument has to be against what Jesus says/claims, not what I think.

I went to bible study tonight with a heavy heart. We were looking at 1 Corinthians 2 - "We do however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age who are coming to nothing. No, we speak of God's secrete wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God has destined for our glory before the time began". (vs 6-7)

No wonder it's so hard...

I'm His daughter

This has to be in my top five favorite photos from my childhood...


It was taken on Christmas Eve, when I was about 6. I like the image that it portrays. A little girl, wide eyed and innocently protected under the arms of her father. It's a nice image but the reality didn't always match up. I was never a 'daddy's little girl' so to speak, and for a lot of my childhood, my relationship with my earthly father wasn't exactly always the best. But by the grace of my Heavenly Father alone we have a really good one now. I love my parents and the 'Fathers day' just gone was a nice time spent together with them and my sister and brother in law down on the boat, chilling out and enjoying each others company over a champagne brunch.

But since Sunday night, I have been thinking about what Robin said during his sermon on John 1 - in particular vs 12: "Yet all who receive Him (Jesus), to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God".

What does that mean to you? Every now and then I am struck again by the reality that, because I do call on the name of Jesus as my Lord and Saviour, I can call the creator of the universe my Father. It is so intimate a term isn't it? The one who gave you life, sustains, protects, guides, cherishes, corrects, rebukes... The one who places you on His knee only to raise His palm to cup your face, extend His thumb, and wipe away the tear that lingers on the edge of your lashes.

Bring it on!