After the rain comes the Sun

This morning my Dad was dropping me to the station and he said "It's amazing how things have worked out for you finally" I took a moment and reflected...

A few months ago I was broken and it knocked me, but then I was offered the amazing opportunity to go to Australia. Whilst in Australia I thought long and hard about what it was I wanted to do with my life and having always been interested in beauty and make-up I decided to go to Beauty School. I have been there for 4 months now and qualify in January, it's good; but it still wasn't what I wanted. I was job hunting at the same time and got offered an amazing job with the make up  company Clinique, which fitted in perfectly with my course. However I had to turn down this job for a few reasons and once again I felt like I was back to square one on the job hunting front. There were a few other things going on in life that caused me to be quite gloomy, and I had stopped singing. Singing is my release, its my way of getting through an emotion, its something I feel confident in and makes me feel happy... I missed it and was getting tense and sad that I had lost some of my singing abilities... But then I found a new singing teacher. I am now singing again and performing in Aladdin at Christmas and my heart started saying "yep I'm feeling a little more fulfilled now" Then, one night I applied for a job as a young persons worker working with children who have been abused or neglected, and children who have physical or learning disabilities. I applied in haste not really thinking I would get it, as usually jobs like this like people to have a degree in child education or social work. HOWEVER to cut a long story short, I got an interview and now have a job!
I am now doing 3 things I LOVE. I am SINGING. I am WORKING. I am making people BEAUTIFUL.

I don't want this blog to be boastful. I want it to show how God takes a situation and turns it around. He has plans. Amazing plans; plans that are bigger and better than any we could ever dream of for ourselves. It has taken TIME. And it has taken PATIENCE. And it has taken PESERVERANCE. And it has taken a lot of PRAYER and tears. And I am not where I want to be, but Thank God I am not where I used to be. You can't live in brokenness. You can't go through life and say "This has happened to me and this is always the way I am going to feel and be because life is just tough" God wants to take that brokenness and turn it into beauty.

I'm sorry this has been a very self orientated blog post. But I want it to bring hope to those in a dark place that that darkness will eventually turn into light. Sometimes pain is what wakes us up and makes us listen to God. And you will get to where you are meant to be all in the right time and not any moment sooner.

“We can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” C.S Lewis

Bethany xx

Never give up

We all have that one dream, that one goal that we want to achieve so badly. We may talk to a few people about this dream, tell everyone or keep it to ourselves... and then we give up on it because it seems it is taking to long to accomplish. Or we can look into the future and think "in 5 years time I still won't be where I want to be" and so change our dream because we want instant happiness and instant money and instant job satisfaction.

This is where Earl Nightingale comes in; "Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway"

If you really want something - Go for it! Who cares how long it takes - if you know what you need to do, and how you are going to do it then the time will fly by as you work towards it. You will have so much more of an interesting life story to tell if you have had to work hard for something, or if there have been lots of diversions on the way.

I have been feeling a bit defeated these past few weeks; my friends are all either going into their 1st/2nd or 3rd year of university, some are engaged, some are getting married and most have jobs. I don't regret taking a gap year, it was great and I have had experiences that I wouldn't have got if I had gone to university. It has however set me back a year and I feel everyone else seems to be moving on with their lives and I'm still in the same place. HOWEVER I can't dwell on that, I know what I want to do, it is just going to take me a few years to get there.

I think its really important that we (myself included) don't compare our struggles to anyone else's. That we don't get discouraged by someone else's success - we all have our own success in life, maybe by gaining a degree, or maybe by travelling to the other side of the world alone. Never compare your beginning to someone else's middle; you don't have to do what everyone else is doing.

God has an amazing plan for everybody's life.
Never give up.

Do the unexpected

I need to admit something. I'm not like everyone else. Not even close. I may occasionally dress myself up as "one of them" or watch the same mindless TV shows, but it seems the more I try and fit in, the more of an outsider I become; like I am watching all the normal people live their automatic existence. Everytime I say club passwords such as "Have a nice day" or "Isn't the weather awful" I yearn inside to say forbidden things like; "Tell me what makes you cry" or "What do you think de ja vu is for?" I even want to talk to all those people packed tightly in on my morning rush hour train. What if they are all thinking the same things I am thinking?

Who knows what you might learn from taking a chance on conversation.. with a friend or even a stranger?

 

Everyone carries a piece of a puzzle.. and nobody comes into your life by mere coincidence.

Trust your instinct. Do the unexpected.

 

 



You are worth pursuing

Today I am having one of those days where my hair is not going right (thanks english weather) my skin is looking awful and I'm just feeling gross. I was moping around feeling sorry for myself when I came across this beautiful quote...

 

Now I have never had a man actually say to me "You are not worth pursuing" (not in those exact words anyway) but I have had knockbacks, hurtful comments as we all have and I often put myself down. To see this quote and read "God became man, died and rose again JUST to pursue you" really touched my heart. This quote doesn't just apply to me. It applies to all of you reading this. Even if you are a male - never let a WOMAN tell you you're not worth pursuing. Because God thinks you are worth a whole lot.

I guess this quote can apply to a lot of things; You have been told you you aren't clever enough to get into that university, you didn't get that job promotion you wanted etc... but at the end of that day thats just a humans view of you, in some cases its a piece of paper in an exam view of you...
 What really matters in this life is God's opinion of you. He loves you and thinks you are beautiful (yes even on those bad hair days!)

Now I'm only human so when I am having these "I suck" days I tend to go shopping... but today I decided to do something a little different. I got my usual cheer me up product of new make up, but then I decided to go to the christian book shop and buy some new quiet time notes. After all, it's our heart that should be beautiful, it's our heart that God looks at, and it's our heart that men/women should fall for.

Keep going guys, it's nearly the weekend!
Bethany x

A little something

Just a little thought provoking poem for you all too read today... 

 

 

 

As children bring their broken toys, with tears for us to mend,

I bought my broken dreams to God, because he is my friend.

But then instead of leaving Him in peace to work alone,

I hung around and tried to help,

with ways that were my own.

At last I snatched them back again and cried,

"How can you be so slow?"

"My child" He said, "What could I do?

You never did let go."

 

Trust that God knows what he is doing. Trust he has perfect timing for your life. Remember you can make all the plans in the World for your life, but at the end of the day God's plans will win. We all go through things and wonder why at the time they are so painful, awkward or upsetting.

I promise you God has planned things for you that are bigger and better than you could ever imagine.

 

 

Enjoy the sunshine x

 



 

 

 

Australian Adventure; Closing Chapter

My last few days in Australia have been crammed packed with exciting sight seeing. I was taken up too some waterfalls called "Emerald Creek" in the Table Lands. The Table Lands are up in the mountains so I was 1000 meters high when I was walking along those pavements and swimming in the waterfalls! The nature I saw was so beautiful... and it made me feel happy. Everything that has gone on in the World the past week (the tornado in Oklahoma, the killing of the man in Woolwich, and my family loosing a good family friend) had kind of made me doubt the World. But, seeing nature in this way made me remember that God has created this beautiful world for us to enjoy and that he cares and loves for everything he has made. 

 After the walking around waterfalls and swimming underneath them we then sat in the sun, drinking beers and I asked a few questions about the Aborigines as the man who took me to the waterfalls used to do tours around Kimberly, Australia where the Aborigines mainly live. They are a very interesting people group... and I think we all need to find ways to reach out too them. As far as I am aware they are not being reached at all.





The things that they get up too sometimes are shocking and sick  and at some points I was stunned to silence because of the stories I was hearing. One story that is suitable for me to write on the internet is that when an aborigine dies, they aren't buried yet their bodies are put up high in the mountains so that the dingo's can't get them and a year later when they have turned into bone their bones are tied up in a bag and buried. Crazy how some people live.. but this is their traditions. They are also very big on spirits and voodoo and have been known to put a curse on someone too kill them even if that person is on the other side of the country. (Scary!) I think we all become so focused on helping those in Africa etc (not that that is a bad thing!) but we forget that there are other people out there who really need help, mentally, phsycially and spiritually.

Today (Saturday) and tomorrow I am off to Port Douglas as it is a carnival, so we shall see some fireworks, do some shopping and then eat at a popular restaurant called "Salsa" Then tomorrow we hope to do Cape Tribulation and Mossman Gorge. 

This may be my last post in Australia as I head home to London early Tuesday morning and the weekend is very busy and Monday I shall be packing.
 I have had the best experience ever coming out here. Every experience we go through, good or bad are depositing something on the inside of us. The challenges we all face are sharpening us into who we are going to be. I know people, and have been that person who feel they have wasted some of their life because of poor choices. We spend years in a toxic relationship, years with an addiction, years at a job were you are not fulfilled. But we need to realize nothing we go through is ever wasted. 

I have a funny feeling inside of me at the moment. A feeling I get when I'm about to leave a place. Like, I'm not only going to miss the people I have met and the weather and the sights I have seen. But I'm going too miss the person I am right now in this time and place. I hope I can carry on being who I am here when I arrive back in London, because I quite like who I am becoming - and that's not a vain, boastful thing. It's good to like who you are. And I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons, and maybe we will never know most of them. But even if we don't have the power too choose where we come from...we can still choose where we go from there. 

Whats next I wonder...?
Bethany x

Mumble Jumble

I feel like I need to write a post about the events that have gone on in the World the past few days. I feel sad. This blog will probably make no sense but I just need to put it out there.

To be honest my head is a bit all over the place and I'm afraid this blog may be a bit jumbled. And I feel like I could say some things a bit.. out there.

The past few days there has been the tornado in Oklahoma that killed many people including young children. Then yesterday in London there was the horrific attack of a man - an attack that I can't get my head around. An attack that has made me feel sick to my stomach. It has also been a week of personal sadness as my family lost a good family friend. I have no answers for it. I have no answers to justify any of the acts, whether caused by nature or by man.

The World is full of crazy, wicked, sick, sinful people. And you want to know why? Because the world is FALLEN. We are living by our rules, our ways and not God's. When people start to live by their own way, their own rules, and not God's then it all goes pear shaped. (I restrained myself from using a worse word there) Even if just one person stops following God's ways life can spiral out of control. So when a group of people stop following God's ways its just a mess. I know many people believe that religion caused the attack of the man in the streets of London. And I hate the word religion because I don't believe in it. Some of you may laugh at this and think "Bethany, you are the most religious person I know - you go to church every Sunday and you talk about God most of the time" Well that's a label you have given me yourself and have given to others who practice faith. And there's the key word FAITH. Faith and Religion are two very different things. Religion is all about following a set of rules and if you don't stick to them you are a bad person. Religion can brainwash people. It can cause them to believe that their God wants them to do certain things. No. They have no idea what God wants.

God is hurting right now too. He is looking at the event in London, the event in Oklahoma and he wants to do everything possible to heal everyone's pain and show them what true love is. Everyone needs someone to look after them at times like this. They need unconditional love. And that's what you find and receive when you come to God. Not what you get when you are brainwashed or absorbed in religion.

I expect we all have many questions we want answered about life and death. About the tornado, about the attack about long term illness. But I guess the point I am trying to get at is that I don't say I have a religion. I say I have a relationship with God. And isn't a key factor in a relationship to TRUST? I need to trust God that he will provide answers (if he needs too) and have faith that he knows what he is doing.

This event is certainly not making me want to return to London. I don't really feel like I can write anything positive about my trip whilst all this is going on in the World. I am currently in the state of "mourning with those who mourn" rather than "rejoicing with those who rejoice"
Maybe my trip up to the world's oldest rain forest tomorrow will cheer me up and remind me of God's amazing ways in the beauty of his nature. 

Hope you are all smiling x