Month: September 2025

Thanking God for …

This has been a difficult week but like all weeks, one in which God has given me much to be thankful for. The unexpected sunshine for a start! Something September does not guarantee to deliver so each additional day of it, is a treat to be savoured. For me this meant the joy and freedom of cycling to my health club instead of driving. And even eating meals outside – I love to be outside without being rained/snowed on, or frozen.

On Tuesday I took delivery of a stunning, red leather settee and chaise. Wow! I didn’t even know I needed these until I walked in to the charity shop that was selling them! I’ve been reclaiming my house throughout this year, when health has allowed. In addition to increasing comfort levels wherever and however possible, I am increasing colour levels!  Out with the beige and in with the bold, bright and beautiful colours!  I love these. And I had the privilege of praying the life and love of Jesus over the delivery driver.

On Wednesday night when I joined the local Menopause café, I got to see the beautiful, beaming smile of a good friend, have a hug and learn some new facts. A hattrick of things that I love.

Yesterday, while making the most of the sunshine, I took myself out in to the green open spaces that I am surrounded by. Here I bumped in to some members of my Christian family who I was able to pray with. Further along on my walk, I was greeted by the stunning sight of the last of the sunflowers. Beautiful!

Last night, I did a radio interview with a fabulous neighbour of almost thirty years ago and friend ever since! I asked Jesus to help us flow and … we flowed! I was able to share the learning from my 50thspeech as to how a strong faith in Jesus combined with a loving family, helps us to turn all crap in to fertiliser for growth! This week has offered a steep learning curve accompanied by some growing pains and powerful learning to carry forward.

I’ve been a member of my health club for four weeks now. Each week when I step on the body mass measuring machine, it tells me what my percentage of muscle mass and fat mass are. The muscle has been on a consistent upward trajectory, where the fat mass has been on a consistent downward trajectory. I have been hugely encouraged to see that my efforts have been paying off here.

However, today when I stepped on the machine, my muscle mass was back down to my original start point and my body fat has increased. I was disappointed by this but not entirely surprised given the volume of stress and subsequent struggle to stomach food that this week has involved.

Oh well, I consoled myself with the knowledge that what I have lost in physical muscle mass, I have gained in spiritual muscle!!

And the biggest gift of the week to thank God for is the huge, loving, wise, truthful family who have loved, supported, prayed for me and confirmed God’s directive to me throughout the whole week – that’s pure gold right there.

I am thanking God for the opportunity to consolidate the learning of the past three years/a lifetime, by applying it to the recent challenge. There is always a gift of growth in every stinking, steaming pile of crap!

You’re different

I’ve felt different all my life; like I’m on the outside looking in, wondering why I’m not like the majority around me. At least I did until I met my best friend Sammy G at primary school – we were the same kind of different, and we bonded instantly. Ours is a bond that is unbreakable irrespective of distance or time apart. Thank you, God, for the gift of Sammy G and her family!

I’ve always felt afraid that my difference meant there was something wrong with me – a message that my family regularly re-inforced. I was too sensitive, too dramatic, too moody, too much of a female when they wanted a boy and just too much, in short! And as an adult, too unwilling to leave the family secrets festering in the dark when they need the light to bring healing.

But today, I know my difference is down to neurodiversity. I’m now ready to own, embrace, enjoy, share and celebrate this 100%.

On the lead up to my fiftieth party on Saturday, people kept looking at me and exclaiming,

“Jo, you’re different”!

And I am. And in this respect, I am choosing to take this comment as a compliment, whether intended that way or not! A wise woman (my first counsellor) once told me some twenty years ago that if we intend offence, people can still choose not to take it. And that for others, no matter how well meaning our intent they will choose to be offended regardless! How very true. The person who is seeking to blame others for their pain by directing it outwards, is the person in need of our compassion, prayers and probably counselling!

The difference people are currently referring to in me, is the visible external one as I’ve cut my hair off. I’m letting go of all things old as well as coming out of hiding, whether the world is ready for me or not! I’ve always felt like I need to hide the full expression of myself because it doesn’t conform to societal conditioning or norms. Not anymore. F*** that. I choose freedom and I choose to express myself fully from here on in. Feel free to like, dislike or ignore me. That’s your choice. My choice is to continue to own and express all that God Almighty has made me to be.

No more living inside the box of other people’s cultural fears and limitations whether in or outside of my beloved Church family.

Lots more living outside of all boxes for me!!

When I checked with a leader in my fabulous church whether I was too much or whether she needed me to get back in my box, I was told,

“No Jo, we want you outside your box”!

I’m not sure this person fully understood how literally I would take this!!!

Anyway, hooray for being different; neuro spicy I call it; colourful, wonder-full and fun-full (mostly!). That’s me and that’s my people!

PS I’m still awaiting my formal diagnosis of neurospicyness. This may come in by my sixtieth judging by the waiting lists! But hey, when you know, you know …

Fam-i-lee

According to the online Encyclopaedia substitute that is Google, one of the definitions for the word Family is …

“ … all the descendants of a common ancestor…’

That means you, me and us. Somewhere along the line.

Family is the foundation upon which our relational templates are created. However, all too often the word family brings up associations of heartache/estrangements/bereavement/loss/misunderstandings/illness and all the other crap that relationships can bring.

Family is everything. It is nearly impossible to have a conversation that does not involve the subject of family. We are surrounded by signs that speak of family. Even house furnishings are full of slogans about family or even just couples. I don’t see house signs about how great it is to be single and not to have to fight over the sofa, the remote control, the menu, the washing up, the temperature or anything else. Or about how freeing it is to only have people you want to have in your house and to set your own time boundaries about when you want them to go!!  Perhaps I have identified a gap in the market!  If I didn’t already have about 8000 creative projects on the go, I may have followed this up!

Some of us have experienced abuse at the hands of our family. For us, the constant barrage of ‘what a blessing family are’, can feel like the slap around the chops that just keeps slapping. While no family is all good or all bad, but more a mix of somewhere in between, being constantly reminded that your family falls more into the unhealthy category is not always helpful.

Fortunately, at the age of fifty, I have been able to grow beyond my family experiences. I can now fully see and accept the incredible ‘family’ of people that God has surrounded me with over the past twenty years.

On Saturday, I celebrated my fiftieth party with many of the people who make up my present-day family. As I gave my speech, I looked out at this family of mine and I thought,

“Wow, what a beautiful, colourful, phenomenal family I have”.

And I thought of the quote that says it takes an entire village to raise a child. I realised that it has taken a huge and growing family of people who all started as strangers, to bring me through the worst three years of my adult life. In other words, it has taken a huge amount of people to love me through the lingering effects of the childhood abuse from my own family.

Within the context of family we can get hurt and we can get healed. If we are lucky, we experience both within the same family. But only when each party has the courage to own their part.

When we are unlucky in so far as we have family who cannot own their part, we may need to seek our healing within the context of family that exists way beyond the biological.

The way I see life is that God deals us all a set of cards; some we love and some we do not.

I did not enjoy the abusive atmosphere I grew up (it wasn’t all bad and there is much I am thankful for too), but God gave me a gift for going out into the world and connecting with people wherever I go.

Right from adolescence I met my best friend at junior school and spent as much time as possible at her home. It was full of people (she is one of seven siblings!), dogs, cockatiels and LIFE. I liked being there and I did not like being at my home. I am very grateful for her and for all the amazing family’s who followed, who have also embraced me.

It was the family in New Zealand who loved me so much, I wanted to find out about their Jesus, who subsequently became my Jesus! Living with them on their dairy farm in the middle of nowhere was like experiencing a personalised rehab program. I quit smoking, drinking and taking drugs and took up photographing flowers, baking cakes and singing for Jesus (and inhaling sugar so much I gained two stones!). Transformation!

I’ve since been part of four churches in the twenty years since I’ve known Jesus. I have lots of amazing memories and a few questionable ones! And they may say the same about me!

But now, at the age of fifty, I realise I have an incredible family made up of those who share my faith and those who don’t. I don’t need to surround myself with people who only look, sound and think like me (boring!). I love to meet and to learn from people who are different to me. Even within my incredible church family who have given me love and stability for the past sixteen years, we don’t necessarily share the same theology on all subjects. But in a healthy family, there is room for difference and disagreement.

I am very grateful for every member of my family – if their heart has touched mine, they are in my family.

I am also learning that not everyone belongs in my family. God is teaching me about boundaries – a key skill that you don’t learn in an abusive family. But my blossoming boundaries mean that if a person is behaving in a way I find questionable, I will put a different boundary in to guard my own heart and health! And if they don’t like that, that’s a ‘them problem’!

In this season, I am celebrating family … as the people who show up for me in my time of need as well as in my time of celebration.

I am so thankful for every member of my family and I will do all I can to support and celebrate each of them. I do have limitations and I am learning about boundaries as I need to be wise about protecting my energy, especially post burnout.

But, I have learned that the family we choose for ourselves and who choose us back are a two-way blessing. A win/lose is a lose for me. And my God is the God of the win/win. Wha-hey!

“Oh, you’re religious”

When I returned from adventuring in Asia/Australasia twenty years ago, no-one was more surprised than I was, that God had got a grip on me.

“Oh, you found God on your travels, did you?”,

Was the question asked by some of the cynics, with or without eyerolling!

“No, I wasn’t looking for God, but he definitely got my attention”, was my reply.

Having never set foot in a church pre-thirty, it hadn’t occurred to me that church was where I would find the wisdom I had longed for. Perhaps I was just sick enough of living out the lies that life is supposed to be crap, you’re supposed to hate your job and drink and drugs is how to get through it all.

I was desperately wanting to find and believe there could be a better, richer, healthier, more fulfilling way to live out my days. I just never saw it coming from inside a church! I was completely ignorant about the Christian faith. All I learned from my parents was that ‘they didn’t want any ruddy bible bashers knocking at their door, thanks!’ And so when I went to church and the words of wisdom spoke of a template for life that made sense to me, I was eager to sign up.

I can’t honestly say I’ve never looked back because I’ve learned from slow, hard, repeated experience that knowing God does not exempt any of us from challenges! But it does mean that between him and the amazing family he has surrounded me with, I am never alone in walking and working through these challenges. And I can say, hand on heart, that this is way better than doing life on my own.

During these past twenty years, I’ve known God and been grateful and surprised that he knows and loves me, despite my messy past. I’ve also lost count of the number of times people have commented,

“Oh, you’re religious are you?”

This is usually in response to me mentioning something about church or God or Jesus.

It is sometimes said in a surprised tone or disappointed or intrigued, depending on the experience of the one commenting.

It irritates me when people say this. I realise I’m being hypocritical as I too had a totally unfounded yet negative idea about what a Christian was. (I am human after all, at least on the good days!)

To be fair, the term, ‘religious’ means something different to each of us. My irritation is based on the associations it evokes in me. When I hear the word ‘religious’, it conjures up images of man-made rules, rigidly adhered to, to protect man-made ego’s and agendas.

For me, while we can all be found guilty of making God in our own image, God is a God of love and compassion, above all else. He does give us a set of rules to provide protective boundaries for how we engage with life. And he uses his relationship with us, which is founded on his unconditional, unearned, undeserved love, to convey these boundaries to us in a way that we can recognise, they are for our benefit. He is also gracious, forgiving and patient enough to bear with us and help us as we learn, fail and try again, to live within these boundaries.

He is not like us; naturally selfish, impatient and unforgiving! Phew.

And he longs for every one of us to see and know that he sees, knows and loves us; the good, bad, ugly and indifferent within us. He wants us to receive his love, as this helps us to grow, heal and practice living more in his ways and less in ours.

And there aint any better gift in life than that of God’s love, healing, comfort, compassion, 1:1 mentoring and more.

I don’t call that religion. I call it the gift of a lifetime. And one that is available to us all.