Mona Lisa Smile

Mona Lisa Smile was running on TV again. I always catch the middle or end of the movie and have always wanted to watch it from the beginning. I still haven’t. As I watched it though, I realised, like so much of cinema of this kind, it weaves in and out of truth. The thought that came through for me was that there is nothing inherently wrong with a woman’s role being a wife and/or a mother. In fact it is what God ordained. However I think the problem arises when women confuse identity with role. Sure I’m a wife and a mother, but that’s not who I am. Just as writing and reading are things I do, but it’s still not who I am. Who I am is the me on the inside, the me that currently resides in a body on earth for a brief span of time. As long as my identity is tied into either the roles I play or the things I do, I will keep pursuing them for fulfilling my soul. But when I realise who I really am on the inside, I realise all I need is God and then I find Him smiling and waiting for me to have realised that. There He stands with His arms opened wide and says, “Jump into Daddy’s arms!”

Encouragement

“I have always looked on child rearing not only as a work of love and duty, but as a profession that was fully interesting and challenging as any honorable profession in the world, and one that demanded the best that I could bring to it.”

Rose Kennedy

Love is a many splendored thing

There is nothing more lovely in life than the union of two people whose love for one another has grown through the years from the small acorn of passion to a great rooted tree. Surviving all vicissitudes, and rich with its manifold branches, every leaf holding its own significance.

VITA SACKVILLE-WEST

(1892-1962)

Ramble…

Today I want to ramble. I don’t have a neat heading. All I have is a head full of thoughts and anxieties and a heart trying to seek God in all of it. I want God’s will for my life. I want to follow his leading but I want him to be more clear, at each step, confirming that I am heading in the right direction. It’s different when you seek God for daily decisions, but significant life-changing decisions – shouldn’t there be a greater leading – more dreams, more songs? More leeway, more grace…more of you, LORD?

Are you cool?

The Times of India Sunday supplement a couple of weeks back had an interesting theme: “The who, what, why of cool” (Sunday, June 10, 2012) It was a special edition dedicated to featuring cool things – ideas, projects, people and products that are not populist but cool. The thing I found most interesting was that they had defined what “cool” means as opposed to “hot.”

I quote:

The difference between hot and cool

Besides the obvious reference to temperature, the Urban Dictionary defines cool as the best way to say “something is awesome. (The description) is convenient for people who don’t care about what’s ‘in’.”

Cool carries with it a host of implications, primarily centered around not caring enough about what others think; popular, but not populist. 

Hot, by contrast, would be populist, lacking the edge of cool, but desirable, nonetheless.

I read it and kind of forgot about it, till yesterday. I was thinking about Christianity, Jesus and the perception of it all in this day and age. I would think Jesus was cool rather than hot. Anyone who has read the gospels would definitely know that Jesus was certainly not out to please man. His life, his teachings, his parables…everything was always different and truthful and shocking to his audience.

What about Jesus’ followers – us? The Bible is full of verses about not pleasing but man but God. In Galations 1:10 Paul says if he were still pleasing man he would not be a bondservant of Christ. Jesus Himself spoke about the pharisees and warned us to be more concerned about what God thinks of us than what man thinks of us.

Am I really “cool” today? I ask myself and think about my choice of words, clothes, career, entertainment, music, thoughts, friends…am I really cool? How much of my life is ordered by what I think will please others!

Lord, make me cool like you! Amen.

Thank you

Dear friends: urbanwallart, Laurenc129, Prayson Daniel, photobotos, weddington adventures, lesleycarter, stephanie, mythineats, joe quatrone, oneanna65, cristian mihai

Thank you for liking the posts. I am going through each of your blogs and enjoying them – love the photographs especially! It’s nice to meet you 🙂

Dreams and songs

God speaks to me through dreams and songs. I think both mediums leave my brain out of the loop and that helps. Often I overthink so much that I can’t even remember if I heard God right in the first place. But with dreams, they happen when I’m asleep of course, and then when I wake up I have this memory that I can’t really argue with. And songs…well, let’s say I’m in a difficult situation, I’m panicking or very anxious, full of thoughts…suddenly out of the blue, a song arises in my heart and is on my lips. I often sing it a couple of times before I even realise that I’m singing…and then lo and behold the lyrics turn out to be just what I need to hear!

And what am I singing right now? The butterfly song from Sunday School. And yes, all I needed to know today is that I’m still God’s child. In all my confusion of the future, my anxiety of falling away from His will, all my worries of what will be…I just needed  to know my Daddy’s looking out for me.

THE BUTTERFLY SONG

Words and Music by Brian Howard

If I were a butterfly, I’d thank you Lord for giving me wings
If I were a robin in a tree, I’d thank you Lord that I could sing
If I were a fish in the sea, I’d wiggle my tail and I’d giggle with glee
But I just thank you father for making me, me

For you gave me a heart and you gave me a smile
You gave me Jesus and you made me your child
And I just thank you Father for making me, me

If I were an elephant, I’d thank you Lord by raising my trunk
If I were a kangaroo, You know I’d hop right up to you
If I were an octopus, I’d thank you Lord for my fine looks
But I just thank you Father for making me, me

For you gave me a heart and you gave me a smile
You gave me Jesus and you made me your child
And I just thank you Father for making me, me

If I were a wiggly worm, I’d thank you Lord that I could squirm
If I were a fuzzy wuzzy bear, I’d thank you Lord for my fuzzy, wuzzy hair
If I were a crocodile, I’d thank you Lord for my great smile
But I just thank you Father for making me, me

For you gave me a heart and you gave me a smile
You gave me Jesus and you made me your child
And I just thank you Father for making me, me

I want to believe this…help my unbelief

 

This was posted on a friend’s FB page along with this caption: “God has written every page of your life in His book (Psalm 139:16). God knows your future. He has already planned it out. The good news is your book ends in victory.”

I know it’s true and I can recount many times in my life when exactly this has happened. But everytime I come to crossroads and I realise God is asking me to let go of the controls, it’s just so hard! I know He knows best, I know it all in my head, but when it comes to letting go…I find myself clutching harder!

Lord, today I want to submit the future to you. Every day I try to take the future into my hands and try to see what I can make of it. Every day I realise I really can’t make anything of anything without You. Lord, please help me let go and know I’m in safe hands. Please help me TRUST your will.

I pray for all the other women like me who are struggling right now with the life you are leading them towards or that they find themselves in. I thank You that You love us. Help all these women TRUST your will.

I love you, Jesus. Amen

Potato Salad…one of my favorites

By Preethi Bunyan

Bobby Flay’s Green Onion Potato Salad

2 lbs. red potatoes
1 Tbsp. PLUS 2 tsp. Kosher salt, divided
1-1/4 cups Hellmann’s® or Best Foods® Real Mayonnaise (or any other mayo)
2 Tbsp. white wine vinegar
1 to 2 jalapeno peppers, chopped
2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. ground black pepper
6 green onions (green and pale green part), thinly sliced
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro or flat leaf parsley

Instructions:

1. Cover potatoes with water in 4-quart sauce pot. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Add 1 tablespoon salt. Reduce heat to low and simmer 10 minutes or until potatoes are tender; drain and cool slightly. Slice into 1/4-inch-thick slices.
2. Combine Hellmann’s® or Best Foods® Real Mayonnaise, vinegar, jalapeno peppers, salt and black pepper in large bowl. Stir in remaining ingredients and toss gently. Season, if desired, with additional salt and pepper. Serve chilled or at room temperature.

Contentment

by Preethi Bunyan

Contentment is something I learn. (Phil.4:11)  Not a gift that  God chose to give me. I need to learn to trust God’s gifts to be sufficient and His assignments to be appropriate.

Sometimes this kind of acceptance can lead to stagnation and the “Canaan” syndrome of complaining. God’s people we’re not allowed to enter the promised land because of their murmuring (Josh5:6) I can take that dissatisfaction to the Lord and see what He would challenge me to do, being willing in the mean time to be content as I work toward ultimate goals. This is the balance between “I have learned to be content,” and “I can do all things through Christ” (Phil 4:11, 13)

As I learn to depend on my Jesus, I will learn to be content as I pursue His goals for my life.

Thoughts from a Women’s Study Bible.