We all know the saying “charity begins at home.” This is one of the most truthful sayings I have ever heard. It is not just applicable to taking care of our family and looking after their needs but it is also applicable to us. How can we look after others if we do not take care of ourselves? This does not imply that we must be selfish. Not at all, but how can we expect our children to eat healthy if we don’t or how can we expect world peace if we do not have that peace within ourselves? How can we expect God to answer our prayers if we don’t have time to give to Him? Have you ever wondered why you work your butt off but never get that increase you are so hoping for? It is all about the energy you are reflecting upon the world. And yes the way you feel does affect other people. This is easy to explain. Maybe you do not get that increase, even though your work is always done and is always on time, because you lack enthusiasm. Maybe your boss does not see the effort you put in because the energy you send out does not reflect it.

Have you ever noticed that when you are in a bad mood your kids are doing everything in their power to upset you more especially babies and toddlers? The reason is because they can feel that mommy is in a bad mood. When I wake up in the morning and I did not have a good night’s sleep I find that that will be the morning that my son does want to get dressed or eat when I want him too. This has been proven to me over and over again. When I wake up with a smile even if I did not have a good sleep things are a lot better. It is all because of that energy that they pick up.
Once you realise that all the negativity you experience is the result of the energy that you reflect upon the world, things will change for you. It does not take a lot of time to change these things. All we need to do is to decide what is important in life.

I also never had time for myself or the people I love, until we packed up and left the busy city for a simple life in a small town. This is when I learned what it is to have inner peace. To accept things the way they are and allow my mind to help me change the thing I don’t like. I have realised the almightiness of God and how small we really are when I cycle in the forest and I am surrounded by trees and the beauty of nature. When I opened my soul then I suddenly realised that God is busy with me every second of the day. I can feel his presence in the quietness of my soul. My husband and children mean more to me than a big house and a nice car. A smile from my daughter is worth more than millions in my bank account. Giving is now a pleasure.

The secret to inner peace and positive energy lies within ourselves, we must decide if we would like the time to spend to look for it. Is it one of those things we are willing to let go?

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How often do we wish we could be like the Joneses? Drive the brand new car and live in a mansion. How often do we pretend to be someone we are not? We get ourselves into financial debt to keep up with the latest and the greatest trends going around. We hang out at parties to be cool. Some go as far as to use drugs because their friends are doing it.

I remember when I was in my teens I went through exactly the same situations. I was amongst the popular group because I played hockey for the first team and my friends were cool. So I was regarded as being cool, but deep down I knew that this was not who I really was. I was unhappy with myself and the person I turned out to be, but I lived the life because I thought people liked me and I was popular.

Deep down inside I was lonely and miserable. I used to always fight with my family and the people I loved the most. All because they really knew me and they were not happy with the person I wanted to be. It was only when I started teaching and I was away from those “friends” of mine that I started realising there is more to life. The final breakthrough came when my Deputy Headmaster called me to his office one day to have a chat. His words made a lot of sense “Mad’s don’t try and be like the other teachers, be the teacher you are inside, be yourself and no one else, be the teacher I see locked inside”. I left his office that day with a new perception. Why do I want people to like me, more than I like myself, and I changed? I started to live my own life, and suddenly things started making a lot more sense and for the first time I was happy. I did not fight with my family anymore. People seem to talk to me a lot more and the kids I was teaching just started to listen so much better. I met the perfect man and all because I started to be who I really am.

God created each of us as unique in our own right. I know not all of us are models or handsome. But in each of us is a person like no one else. That makes it so great. People often remember the things you do, not the way you look. I know in Hollywood it is extremely important to look your best and be who you are not, and you get paid a lot for it, but honestly do you really want that type of life. Where you have no privacy, where every time you make a mistake they open it up to the world to see. Are you happy with the person you see once you take all the makeup off. A very famous and wealthy man once said. ” I don’t care that people don’t like me, business is business” and if you think about it, it is very true if he had to worry about what other people think he probably would not have been where he is today. When you look into a mirror are you happy with the person looking back at you?

To be who God created you to be is the best gift you can give yourself today. Be honest with yourself.

“I am what i am. I am my own special creation. It’s my world that I want to have a little pride in.”

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I cannot help but to ask myself if we as human beings of the 21st century have become so used to what we have in this day and age that we miss recognising the miracles around us every day. Take our children for example. They are little miracles in their own right. Just think of it for a moment, they grow from nothing more than a little egg into a human being and over nine month they are formed and you can see them getting shape. Their little hands and legs, the little heart beat that they have. Then they get born and they suddenly can breathe on their own. For nine months they depend on you for oxygen and food and within minutes this changes and they can do it on their own.

That way they grow, develop and discover new things every day. Isn’t that just a miracle on its own? We have become so selfobsorbed that we neglect the small thing in life that we take for granted every day. Each and every single day there are miracles that take place amongst us. We just need to start looking for them again.

Our modern times have placed so much stress on us. We live for getting rich and making a lot of money, that most of us forget the small things in life. These small things are the things that really matter and that make life worth living for. How many of us still tell our children that we love them. How many of us still sit down over a weekend and just play with them. Do we still read them bedtime stories and listen to all the imaginary stories they tell us.

Once we start appreciating the small things in life it will get easier to see the bigger miracles that are around us every day.

Life is full of miracles; all we have to do is to start looking for them.

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When they grow up however it is their decision whether they are going to use the blueprint or not, and then if they are going to listen to advice or not. There are so many of us who are blaming our parents for the way we were brought up. It is their fault that we made the wrong choices, but if you sit back and look at your life for a moment one sometimes realises that they gave us the blueprint and we were the ones who changed it. We also like to please our parents and sometimes choose the careers they selected for us just to find out that we are not happy and that a big pay check is not always great if we are miserable in the work that we do.

My parents were both teachers, but my dad hated his job and he always told me that if I go into teaching he will disinherit me. So what did I do I went to study law and soon realised that, that was not quite what I had in mind. I was struggling with the whole concept but getting a big pay check when I became a big shot lawyer kept me going. There was just one little problem my goody consciousness kept on telling me that I was making a mistake. One day I went to see a lady from church and we started having a conversation. I was studying part time at that stage and was looking out for a job closer to home. She them told me that they required an Afrikaans teacher at school. She knew my parent and that both of them were in the same profession. I told her that I cannot teach and then she looked me in the eyes and told me it is in my blood. I was born with it. My mother had a great reputation in the teaching profession. I took up the challenge and the courage and went to see the headmaster. He interviewed me and a few days later I received a phone call that he is happy and will give me an opportunity to teach at the school.

I found the career I was good at and I loved it. Because I loved my job I did not mind giving working long and hard hours. I could not wait to get to school in the mornings, and the fact that I disappointed my dad did not matter that much. My dad was not disappointed in me at all when I eventually got the courage together to tell him that I was teaching, because he could see a twinkle in my eye and a change I my life.

If I had no blue print in my life and I did not build my life on the morals and standards that I received from my parents I probably would not have succeeded in life, and I am not saying that I agree with everything they do, we cross swords very often about certain things, but what I do is also use the thing that I fail in to teach me something. And because I am willing to take life as a learning experience I gain a lot of value and my foundation are getting stronger and stronger every day. I get so upset with my brother when he blames my parent for the position he is in. They just gave him the blueprint and he had to lay and build the foundation, and although we as parents have a great influence on the lives of our children and we are responsible for them and their up bridging we must also allow them to work for what they want instead of just always taking responsibility for their mistakes. One can lead a horse to water but you cannot make the horse drink.

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I know so many couples who after 13 or 15 years of being together just suddenly give up on their marriage or relationship. We so often get hurt or hurt our partners and the sad thing is that most of us are not willing to carry on and give it another shot. When things get tough we see a lawyer and get a divorce and that is when I ask myself the question, “Is it true love” or were we just head over heels in love when we stepped into the relationship for the first time and everything was moonshine and roses? 

Is there truly a difference between the two and I think there is. You know that butterfly over the top feeling you get when you look at a guy; that is being in love. True love is a more and deeper feeling that starts in the heart and no matter what goes wrong never gives up on the person you love. That is true love.  

True love never gives up on a relationship. No matter how bad it has become. People always told me that a relationship is a 50/50 partnership and I so have to disagree about that. A relationship is either you give everything or you don’t give anything at all. Once you learn in your relationship to give everything without always expecting anything back you will soon realise that your partner is doing the same. Love grows continuously every day. The love for my husband and children never stops growing and even in the times it feels that they don’t love me back I know deep down that they do. 

My grandfather told me that the people who love you the most are the people who hurt you the most. I know we do not like to be criticised by our partners but maybe they are doing it because they love us. Another thing I learnt is that if you truly love someone you accept that person the way they are.  At lot of men always complain that their wives were fine when they dated but once they get married they try to change them and vice versa. Men also try to change their wives.  True love accepts each other the way we are. Once we learn to accept one another for what we are, the respect will follow and we will not do the things that drive each other nuts. I know a lot of woman are very sensitive about the toilet seat and it will drive them insane if it is not the way they like it, and there will be endless fights about it. These are unnecessary things. If he forget it up, just put it down girl - it is in their nature. The same with leaving towels on the bathroom floor - just pick it up, and gentlemen if you know that these things drive your woman mad just try and remember to just pick up the wet towel and put the seat down, we call that consideration. Just think of each other when you do something and think of how that person will respond to you action once you learn this you will never have those ridiculous fights in your relationship. 

In true love we consider one another as being the most important person.

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In times when thing are tough we complain and forget about the current things that we have. We so often focus on the lack in our lives, and that total feeling of emptiness we experience that we do not see the good around us, and the things we can be grateful for. And in times when things go well we so often are grateful and ecstatic about those things. It is then when we go on our knees and praise God for all the good things in our lives, but when it goes bad we forget about the ecstatic moment we experienced and we find ourselves back at square one complaining about the things we don’t have.

True gratitude is when we have a sincere balance between these two emotions. That is when we are grateful for the good and the bad times. If you have to look back at the bad things that happened in your life, right at that very moment you do not understand why things happened the way they did, but if you look back you will realise that you learned and gained from that experience more than you lost. Bad things sometimes happen just to bring us back into perspective and to teach us something.

Most of the times we bring the bad things upon ourselves. For example I work hard. My work is perfect and my boss praises me for my good work and my dedication. This makes me feel good and at some stage it goes to my head and I think that I cannot do anything wrong. Then comes that day that I lose focus because what can go wrong? I am perfect and so is my work and I miss a minor detail that has disastrous effects and everything suddenly goes wrong. The boss is upset and I look like a total idiot. This is all my own fault. The bad things in life are there to just bring us back to mother earth and help us to get a bit of perspective again.

True gratitude is there to maintain a balance between being grateful for the good that we receive , but also to be grateful for the lessons we learn when things are not always going our way even if we cannot see the good at that very moment. True gratitude is also saying thank you to the things I already have and so often take for granted.  It is saying thank you even if you don’t have the perfect life you so badly want. In everyday there is something to be grateful for even if it is just the fact that you are alive today.

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I know someone who is very wealthy and yet when you speak to him he always tells you just how tight things are at the moment. He never has enough money, and if you ask him why things are tight with him he will tell you that he just bought new property or a new home or that he just sold his Porsche and bought a better one. And when you look at this it is not because he does not have money it is because it is going well and he is getting money, that he can do all these things.

We so often complain about things so much so that we do not see the blessing hidden behind them. This man is having the live of his dreams and yet he is complaining about it. 

Complaining has become such a part of our lives that we cannot go without it. I know a young lady who is a single mother of two. She works for a very small salary and yet whenever you ask her how she is doing she never complains and it is always going well. She always refers to the beautiful day and the bright sunshine. She even sees the sunshine on the coldest day of winter.

Instead of being grateful for the things we receive in our lives we complain about it. We are never happy with what we have no wonder we don’t get anything better in our lives. No wonder our dreams do not come true. All because we don’t have appreciation for the things we have at the moment. My brother is always complaining about his house and his job instead of saying thank you that he has a job. He always wants to know from me why I have the life of my dreams and I always give him the same answer. I have learned to be grateful for the little things I have and that is why I can appreciate the big things in my life.

If we are grateful for the things we have and do and we see it as a blessing rather than a burden more great things will come our way. You cannot expect to drive a Porsche if you are not grateful for the Ford you have at the moment. The point is that you have a car to get from point A to point B. It might not be your dream car but it is there and we need to be grateful for having it. The more gratitude we have in our lives the more we will receive.

By displaying gratitude you also show that you are ready to receive bigger and better things in your life. We must learn to give and be grateful before we can be grateful for receiving.

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In today’s lives we are so focused on getting rich and successful that we forget the important people around us. The sad part is that when we leave this life we cannot take any of our richness with us, the only thing we can take with is the love for God and the love of our family and friends, and their love for us.

Let me tell you a little story. I know of a woman that truly loved her husband. Whenever he needed her to do things for him, she left what she was doing and she got it done. She was a good wife and a good mother. They relocated to a new town and because of circumstances she had to be there a week before him. He had to stay behind to finalise a few minor things. The day before he was suppose to drive down to be with them she sent him some messages that he just ignored. According to her knowledge he was with family and he could just as well have given her the five minutes of his time. She later received a very nasty message back from him, where he called her deep and true love “neediness”. He threw the love she had for him back in her face. According to her he was too busy getting things ready to leave to just give her a few minutes.

This is what I mean when I say that we are so consumed with the world and its things that we sometimes miss the more important things in life. We often try to compensate for the lack of love and time with money. We give our kids money and send them off so that we do not need to spend time with them. We buy the people we love expensive gifts hoping that they will not demand a little of our time. 

How often have we not done the same thing to God. He reaches out to us in love and all we do is call it neediness and throw it right back into His face. Yet God does not give up on us. He carries on time after time and continues to show us His love. Maybe it is time that we give some of it back. Like the lady I mentioned above who didn’t ask for an entire day from her husband but only a few minutes of his time. God also just ask that we must spend a few minutes of our day with Him. He does not ask for hours only a few minutes.

Maybe we must go back and look at the things that are more important to us than having fame and fortune and start appreciating what’s in our lives a bit more, before it is to late.

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The scene that moves me the most is where Rafiki the monkey hits Simba the lion over the head with a stick. Simba wants to know why he is doing that and Rafiki replies that it does not matter because it is in the past. Simba then says that it still hurts, and this made me wonder; how many of us are allowing our past and the things that happened in our past to keep us from the future.

I don’t want to get married again because my previous husband was such a bad man, or I cannot have a successful career because my parents never sent me to university. I won’t be a good mother because I had an abortion when I was younger. We allow our past to haunt us and keep us from the things that rightfully belong to us.

It is in mans nature to sin and do things that we regret but why do we allow these things to dominate our lives. How many great opportunities have passed us by because we are not willing to let go of the past. People always say that history repeats itself, but isn’t the reason for this because we fear our past and use it to live our lives. Many people based their future on the past. How many people are living exactly the same lives as their parents. They work for a boss, or they run their fathers business even-though they hate it. How many of us are doing exactly the same jobs our parents did? I am one of those people, because my parents were teachers and I grew up in that environment I became a teacher.

We cannot change the past. Those are the things that happened whether it is good or bad. It is behind us. We came out the other side sometimes broken and in pieces and other times alive and we feel great about ourselves. I was one of the people that allowed the past to rule my life for a very long time. I was to afraid to try things and do things because I allowed the things of the past to govern me. It was only when I met my husband that he taught me that life is about living now and today and not in the past. If I did not take that step and went on that “blind date” I would not have met the perfect man and I would not have received the gift that God was about to give me. We so often ask God to change our circumstances, and He does he give us the key to unlock the chain that is holding us back. We must just see the key as a key and unlock the lock to free us from our baggage.

We are almost at the end of the second month for 2008, maybe it is time for us to live in the present and forget the past. The past is behind us and we cannot change that. The future is in front of us and we cannot live it yet. The important moment is here and now - let’s live it.

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This lady had a special book that she kept called her possibilities book. In this book she had pictures of things that she wanted to achieve in life and since she only had three week to live she decided to follow some of the dreams in her book. She went to the bank withdrew all her savings and went off on a great adventure. It took the possibility of dying that made her realise that there is more to life. 

This made me think. If it wasn’t for the fact that she was dying she would have never followed her dream. How many of us have dreams that we paste in a book? Once in a while we look at these things but never actually go out there and do the things we so badly want. Why must we be threatened by death before we start to live our lives.

We so often save up money for when we go on pension or work ourselves into a coma to achieve great things like living in a mansion or driving a nice car, that we forget to live our lives. What if there is no old age, can you honestly say you lived your life fully if you had to die today?

We often measure our achievements and our success to the standard of other people and then once we start comparing ourselves with others we see ourselves as under achievers in comparison to them. But what is the measure of success? I heard the tale of a man telling this story. He said he was standing at a railway station waiting for a train. As he looked up towards the escalator a very large lady was coming down. He gathered that she did not travel a lot because her luggage was old. Next to him on the platform was another couple that made some rude remarks about the lady. She heard them and he could see in her eyes that she was hurt by these.

Why do we compare ourselves to others? God created each and every person in his or her own unique way. We are all perfect, but by comparing us to others we seem to miss our perfection. God’s soul lives in each and every person. By judging and comparing we set our-self human standards and we are losing sight of the greatness that God created within us.

We all live our lives chasing and comparing ourselves to the standards of others instead of living our lives to the standards and capabilities that God has given each of us individually. 

We are all unique in our own special ways. Uniqueness that is beyond comparison. We each received various talents all to fulfill a special place on this earth and to live our lives to its fullest.

At the end of the movie the lady realised that she was the only one that could make her possibilities reality. She was misdiagnosed but instead of going back to her old life she change her possibilities into realities.

What is it going to take for you to change your dreams into realities

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