Playing tourist.

The other day I caught the bus into the city, to go do some shopping. While I was on the bus I started thinking about the other people on the bus. I pulled out my notebook and started writing some questions about the people on the bus. Questions that I'll never ask them, because they'll think I'm a bit strange.

The list of questions began to make me feel quite overwhelmed, because although I have no chance of ever answering them, God knows every individual inside and out and would be able to answer them all. I was like WOAH.

Here is my list of questions:

Where are they going?
Where are they coming from?
Do they make this trip often?
Do they want to be leaving where they've come from?
Do they want to be arriving where they're going?
What kind of music is coming from their headphones?
Is that music just background noise to them?
Are they in any physical discomfort right now?
What thoughts are going through their head right now?
(e.g. Why is that girl obsessively writing in her notebook? hehe)
Do they have children?
Step-children?
Grandchildren?
Wife/husband?
Girlfriend/boyfriend?
Do any of these passengers know each other?
Perhaps some awkward tension is going on right now?
What are their beliefs?
Where are they spiritually?
Are they comfortable with themselves?
Have I seen these people before, and don't remember them?
Will I see them again some time in the future?
Will I remember them then?
What are their dreams/aspirations?
What are they passionate about?
What are their eyes watching?
Are they taking in what they see?
Are they stressed?
Why are they stressed?
Glasses- are they long or short-sighted?
Choice of clothes- dependent on age, prefer styles?
What things are common between passengers?

Another one of my questions was 'Does that woman realise that the holes in her beanie make a smiley face?' But when 'she' got off of the bus I realised it was a man. OOPS! Which I suppose was me stereotyping long hair to women and short hair to men, but I can't really talk seeing as my hair is abut 2cm long :P

Uhoh. Do these people think I am just a strange boy dressed up like a girl?
(Why is that strange boy obsessively writing in a pink notebook?)

:P

Peppercorns

In life bad things happen. Christian or not, sometimes the world seems to be unfair. Physical, emotional, psychological, social, finacial. Sometimes it just all falls down.

I believe that God says what goes. I believe that, whatever His reasons may be, everything (good and bad) happens according to his plan. Our task is to stay strong in our faith in God and His plans for us, and when neccessary, to draw lessons from the situations and predicaments we find ourselves in and upset by.

Like when in scripture, Daniel questioned God's plans when his life started to 'fall apart', as we might say. God showed us that we do not know how or why things happen the way they do. We do not know why the sparrows fly the way do and we do not know why God puts us in the scenarios that He does. (Sorry... I could not find it in my bible. It is hiding! :P) We must just have faith that God is just and right and loves us, even when we get caught in not-so-nice things.

God also has his many ways of stimualting our minds. The thoughts of this blog came to me through eating a pie. I was at the cafe and was rather hungry, so I bought the last pie. I knew it was Steak and Green Peppercorn, but I assumed it would be like a normal pie. Boy, was I wrong. From the first bite my mouth felt like it was on fire and I could barely breathe. It was so bad I was crying. Through this I thought, 'God. Why did you let me buy this?' and then I realised. It was just a very simple lesson.

Johanna, your tongue does not like peppercorns. Do not eat them from now on. :]

Lust from the heart.

"Lust from the heart. Love from the mind."

A quote from a friend.

Lately, cute boys seems to be on the front of my mind. I don't know if I like my mind being that way :S I trust that I will know when the time is right and God will tell/show me who I am meant to spent my life with. It isn't bad to be really curious then is it? "Hmm. Might be him. Or him. Maybe that guy?"

Sad thing is, I always seem to pick the gay ones. Yesterday I concluded that I have an allergy to liking straight guys. Oh well. One day it will all work out ok.

I WANNA KNOW NOW!!! Please excuse my whiny teenage outburts :) but knowing seems so much simpler. Then again, I suppose not knowing is fun too... >.>

Scars fade, as do the feelings.

On a slightly proud note, on Monday 16th March 2009 (two days ago) it was a year since I last self-harmed.

It feels good to be able to say, even though I only told Leah in reality. :)

The old man with $20

There is an elderly gentleman in my local community.
I don't know his name.
I don't know his story.
All I know is what he does everyday.

Every morning this man has a $20 note. Over the period of the day he goes from shop to shop in our local shopping complex changing this note for $10 notes then $5 notes and so on, until he has pockets full of silver coins.

You may have as many questions in your head as I do. Why does he do it? What happens to the silver coins? Where do the $20 notes come from? Does anyone else care? Why do I care?

The only one I can answer is the last. If you could see the smile on this man's face in the afternoon, as he is shuffling back up the road to the nursing home, you would know why. It's the kind of smile that just brightens your day. It's also the fact that this man does not seem to be at all interested in all the fancy things in the stores. He is absolutely over-the-moon to have changed his $20 note into silver coins.

I find it wonderful, to witness someone feel a real joy, not the kind of joy we all seem to buy with our little plastic cards.

(Nobody needs to know it's only gold paint)

You know the days that start great but then end with your mind crashing into a wall, sliding down it, leaving a slimy brain-goo trail behind?

For me, today was one of them.

What upset me the most is that I got sulky. I suppose some might say I had the right to be, but the way I see it is that other people don't deserve my bad attitude that I start giving out when I'm sulky. Kara got alot of my 'tude during Biology, but she would back me up when I say that at the end of the lesson I tried to be perky and asked her a little too many questions about her day.

And to be completely honest, those 15 minutes spent trying to perk myself up, were probably the best minutes of my whole day. Even better than before (that). It was just too fun being annoying and asking silly questions about Kara's day, and the fact that she is so sweet that she just keeps answering them, because she knows I'm trying to be positive.
Thank you!!!!

My lesson for the day= Fake it 'til you make it. With marshmallow qualities, at least. Fake smiling leads to real smiling and you can cheer yourself up.

Mad

I do not like being mad.
I do not like it. Han I am.

But we don't always get what we want, and I am currently mad.
Much too long and too many intricate details to explain fully, but basically a friend of mine today very clearly expressed to me that he doesn't appreciate in the slightest what my family and I do for him. And by 'my family' I don't just mean my parents and I, because my grandparents help him out too.

I shouldn't be mad. I don't like the way it feels inside me and besides, anger gives me a headache. But sometimes, don't you want to just grab somebody by the shoulders and shake some sense into them? I shouldn't judge. I should get over this anger right now. But I won't.

[Slash sigh.] I suppose the only way to get over it is to consider that although I don't purposefully go around trying to irritate people, I must annoy someone out there. It puts into a different light when you think about it that way. Whoever it is that I annoy, if I ever found out who it was I would want to go and apologise to them. So I suppose that instead of listening to the words from my friend's mouth, I should listen to God. Because He and I both know that deep down somewhere in my friend, he cares about me a lot, and would apologise if I told him I was fuming.

*more relaxed now* My lesson for the day= Anger gets us nowhere, and when we get frustrated we can rely on God to take away the anger and fill us up with marshmallows instead.
[Marshmallows are my sillybilly metaphor for happiness/enthusiasm/love/strength (whatever it is we need)]

The worst days of my life.

Continuing on from last night's piece.

Deciding to become a Christian was easy for me. Very simple indeed. However, for a long time God was never my top priority and rarely even made it into the top 5. I believed but I didn't care all that much. Two events, one while I was 15 and one while I was 16, changed this.

On May 7th 2007, I came home from school and went about my usual afternoon routine of raiding the refrigerator. But when Dad came home my parents called my sisters and I to the dining room for a 'family meeting.' Because this does not happen very often in my home, I was immediately frightened.

Mum and Dad sat us down and told us that Mum had gone to the hospital week before, for some tests, and the doctors had confirmed a tumour in her brain. My parents calmly explained to us that it wasn't a cancerous tumour, but still a nasty one as its location meant that there was no way to remove it without killing her.

Because, in my family, we never discuss our feelings very openly I don't know how my sisters are coping with this. I assume that they are coping well. For me, it simply added to my already mountainous pile of 'burdens'.

At the beginning of last year a self-leadership program came to our school and I was involved in it. While it was fun to have an excuse to eat fast food and wear casual one day a week, by the end of the program I was thouroughly confused. I was beginning to hear from others around me that God should be my top priority, and this seemed sensible enough to me. However, the program I had been involved in taught that we were the most important things in our lives, in our universes.

So in my state of confusion and because I was becoming overwhelmed by my 'burdens', I broke down. I pushed those I cared about most far away from me in an attempt to cling to God with my all. This 'not-so-ingenious' plan didn't work though. I caused myself alot of hurt.

I am still patching some of the things I broke, but overall it was an important event in my life. It was during that period that I went to church for the first time (all alone and I rocked up an hour early, :P) and God did become my top priority, and now an hour doesn't pass without my thoughts falling into prayer, amazement or just general wondering. I am learning more and more about God/Christ (the same, but different, :S) as time goes on and it always makes me fall that bit more in love.

With Jesus Christ as my lifeboat, I am not a victim, but a survivor.

Becoming a Christian

Hi. If you are reading this, thank you for letting me share my stories with you.
Honesty is usually my policy but right here and now anomity seems to over rule it. So each person and place in my heart and in my life has their name changed (myself inclusive), while their stories, and mine, remain the same.

My name is Johanna (or Hannie). I am 17 years old. I like to think that I am a peaceful and cheery kind of girl. My favourite colour is green. My favourite food is a tie between my dad's Spaghetti Bolganese and BananaBerry milkshakes from the cafe.

To me, my story does not seem an inspirational one, but to those around me it seems it is. So for that reason, I will share it with you and hopefully lift your heart as well. People tell me I am strong. I tell them they mustn't have seen me try to open the Vegemite jar.

Growing up, I was never in a poor home. I had two parents who loved and cared for me. My two sisters and myself were always clothed, washed and fed. As a child I was always very cheerful, but ashamedly I, even as a child, judged others. If I had a classmate who lived with a single parent, between divorced parents or with step-parents, I secretly thought to myself that they were not as good as me, because I lived with both my mother and father. In all honesty, I have never shared that secret with another person before. Usually I try to hide it from even myself.

This secret never hurt anyone. I was always equally kind to all my classmates as a child. I only judged them in my head. However, when I was twelve years old, my world was turned on it's head. My mother used to deliver catalogues of local companies to houses in our neighbourhood, and I often walked about with her. One day, we had to deliver in a nearby neighbourhood, to help the lady who usually did this area. As we walked past a rather nice looking house, my mother commented that her boyfriend lived in that house when she was 18. Being particularly good at maths, I calculated in my head that my mother was 18 when she had given birth to me.

For a picosecond I brushed the idea away, but then reality flooded and drowned my mind. I was and am a bastard. At that point I stopped walking and refused to move. I stood, mouth hanging open, glaring at my mum. First she looked puzzled, but then as something clicked inside her brain she turned the palest white. She had never realised that I never knew.

That night and for weeks after that, I played a charade. I pretended to have forgotten. I also pretended to be eating. It was only for a month that I ate little, and thankfully it did not impact my health the way it might have if I continued. Regardless, I despised myself. I found myself battling between wanting to know whoever was my biological father and equally being repulsed by the idea. I still pretend that I have forgotten. The only time the matter was ever discussed was between my angry eyes and my mother's frightened pair.

Although this did turn my mind on itself, my 'daddy' never stopped being just that. 5 years later I still say 'Good night. I love you Daddy' and irritate him until he gives me a lift to where I need to go, the way most daughters treat their fathers. This is perhaps the reason why, although at the time I despised myself and was very upset, I pulled through in mere months.

As I was emotionally recovering, I had no idea that my dad's health was falling. He was diagnosed with Chrone's disease, which is an inflammation of the bowels. It is rarely terminal but does put the sufferer through agony. Although, at almost 13 I could understand that he wasn't going to die, it still crushed me; the idea that the dad who I loved and loved me in return, could be taken away. I fell again.

This was around the time I was starting high school. I became good friends with two boys and we would often wag school together. Always being a 'perfect' and well-behaved kid before, my parents were absolutely shocked when they found out that I had turned so rotten. I went through 'boyfriends' (nothing serious, nothing longer than a month) and fell into drugs a few times. 'Only' marijuana. Only is a stupid word. My parents still don't know anything about my drug use but they soon caught onto my new found interest in wearing so many bracelets that I couldn't lift my arms. I was self harming.

One of my closest friends, Cass (I've known her since we were kids and we did gymnastics together), would often tell me that I was being a complete idiot, and while I knew that she was right, I just didn't care.

A new chaplain moved to our school during my rebellion. I'm not sure why I did it. I suppose it might have been how much I enjoyed the 'Kid's Club' at my local church that I usually attended on a Thursday night. Whatever the reason, I joined the new 'Christian Group'. I wasn't really sure about it but my (now) best friend, Leah, kept me still going. After a few weeks of 'Christian Group' I fell out of drug use. My self harming became dramatically less often. The only drawback, was that Cass had an issue with Leah. Perhaps she was jealous that Leah was seeming to help me where she couldn't. Cass stopped talking to me for two months. After around two weeks of induring the cold shoulder, I decided to give prayer a go. I figured it was worth a shot.

Every night for over a month I would pray for Cass. I prayed she stop ignoring me, that she was going okay (because I couldn't tell how she was). One night I prayed for my sister, rather than praying for Cass. In my mind I could hear the words 'Don't worry about her.' I knew it was God and I knew it referred to Cass. The next day Cass said hello to me. The next day she asked me a question about an assignment. At this point I decided to become a Christian.