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Bite-sized Inspiritment Day 21: Start
I am so good at putting off starting something until some future time, when all the conditions are right. This has been true of developing regular connection and community with my close friends. I was waiting until I had “time”, the garden weeded and tidy, the house sorted out, the weather to be good or a hundred other things. Instead I need to just start. This is true for so many things in my life. Maybe for you too. What is it that you are dreaming about or wishing for? What have you been waiting for someone else to do? What have you been putting off? Today, make a start.…
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Bite-sized Inspiritment Day 20: Audience
We are surrounded by an audience always. Whether that audience is social media, passers by, our family, friends or neighbours or the audience of God whom I believe is there. This follows on from yesterday’s post on “who” and still has me thinking about what audience I am tuning in to for a response, for affirmation and for direction. Do the random thoughts of a passer by matter? Do the judgements of people out there in internet land who don’t know me matter? What audience are you listening to and watching for? For me, the audiences I want to count are God, my family and my friends. This isn’t to…
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Bite-sized Inspiritment Day 19: Who
Who is it that I am doing this for? This question has been pricking my mind often in the past few weeks. When something hasn’t gone as I’d hoped and disappointment creeps in, I ask myself why. When the urge to frantically clean my house if someone is coming over threatens to overwhelm, that question returns. I don’t always like the answer when honesty pushes through the excuses and well-crafted responses. The “who” tends to be the insecure little person inside me, desperate to get approval, to be told that she is enough and to be recognised. Or the “who” might be the nefarious “others” and what they might think,…
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Bite-sized Inspiritment Day 18: Search
What is it that you are searching for? That longing deep inside that doesn’t seem to shift. I know that feeling. I think all human beings do in one way or another. It can be frustrating and yet, I think this desire to look for the next thing or something else is built into us for a reason. I don’t ever want to be complacent. Content, but not complacent. I want to search for truth. I want to search for love and connection. I want to search for those things in my everyday that bring joy and hope- not only to me but also to others. There is a kind…
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Bite-sized Inspiritment Day 17: Pause
This is your invitation to pause- really pause. Take a breath. Let it out slowly. How often do we allow ourselves to do that? I have times of doing well with this and then I forget. I fill up those little moments that could be pauses with social media, noise or little busy odd jobs. It takes so much intention and focus to build pause into our days. Our souls are crying out for it. They are loaded down with everything that we absorb from around us. Let’s make a plan to stop, pause and breathe. What prompts can we use to remind us? Is there a particular cue that…
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Bite-sized Inspiritment Day 16: Pray
Have you ever explored a topic or been on a journey with something and the more you learn and experience, the more you realise it is deeper and more complex than you know while still being completely simple? Prayer has been like that in my life. It seems to have infinite facets and nuances and yet is still incredibly simple. I am far from having all of the answers to all of the questions around prayer. What I do know is that it is essential to my closeness with God, to recalibrating my focus and to my peace of mind. I know that it is more about the attitude I…
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Bite-sized Inspiritment Day 15: When
I will be happy when……. I will be successful when…… Life will be better when…. Life will be more settled when…. What fills in those blanks for you? I catch myself thinking these things and pinning my hopes on some intangible and not guaranteed future event. Inevitably, even if we get those things it doesn’t look quite like we expected or have the result we wanted. I don’t want to pin my hopes on these changeable and elusive “whens”. I want to ground my everyday in faith, contentment and savouring the present. There are things to celebrate and things to change in every day life. We can find peace and…
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Bite-sized Inspiritment Day 14: Ask
I can rationalise with the best of them. Maybe you are like me and rush to justify your actions, your thoughts and emotions. Sometimes we have to stop and ask ourselves the tough questions that we avoid. Being a parent has brought this to the forefront of my mind more than anything else. When you are trying to teach another little human how to act, how to do things even when you don’t feel like it and how to regulate emotions, it is a big mirror reflecting yourself. How can I ask and expect her to respond and act in certain ways if I, as an adult, can’t do the…
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Bite-sized Inspiritment Day 13: Talk
So many dreams and ideas remain as something talked about (to yourself in your own mind or even verbalised to others) but don’t eventuate. At least, it’s true in my life. Talk can be the easy part. How do we move past the talk to the doing? Now, I am the first to admit that not all of the ideas and dreams I have had should be acted on! I am certainly not advocating jumping in to action on a whim. Each idea can be filtered through some questions. Does it fit with your “why” and your priorities in this season? Do you have the resources- time, emotions, support etc-…
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Bite-sized Inspiritment Day 12: Praise
Praise can be a really loaded word. We think of praising good behaviour, worshipping God and receiving accolades. I think that it is an important one to think on. I was thinking of my daughter and how much she craves encouragement but is also quick to give it. I think of how she spontaneously sings songs that she has made up to praise God. I think of the battle I wage in my mind about when to praise her and what for so that I don’t raise her to be an entitled, spoiled kid with no concept of dealing with reality. My thoughts then led on to the praise that…
Encouragement for women in leadership
