Knock Knock Knockin on Heaven's Door...

I love the verse in the bible that talks about asking, seeking and knocking =) It's just like my mum, along with a lot of yours, used to say... "If you don't ask you don't receive."

Luke 11:9 So I say to you, Ask and keep on asking and it shall be given you; seek and keep on seeking and you shall find; knock and keep on knocking and the door shall be opened to you.

I think this is such a simple truth, and it makes so much difference... To ask or not to ask that is the question! I was thinking how some people are not comfortable asking simple questions of others. I sure can understand it, and I never liked having to do it much myself when I was younger but as I have grown up I have learnt some valuable lessons about this.

I think that a lot of the time people don't like to ask because they have fear, and not necessarily fear of asking! It can be any number of fears... What will they think of me? What will happen if I ask? What if they say no? etc

I think if you ask anything the right way, with the right tone and motivation then it can't be THAT wrong. Of course the vital ingredient to everything in our life is WISDOM! Wisdom will keep you on the straight and narrow! It doesn't prevent the answer from being no, and that is reality, but often a no; can simply turn into a yes without any duress or badgering if you are going about things the right way!

Take the scenario where someone asks someone else something and they come up against a brick wall. The initial reaction can quite often be like that, but I have found that if you do this all the right way that quite often what seems to be a solid brick wall is often just a facade and really the wall is made of cardboard and the desired outcome will be met. I just think that quite often things will work out and get sorted if it is done the right way! No harm in asking is what I am saying!

I am also saying that there is so much we don't need to miss out on in life. So much of it is right there for the taking but people are restricted and so they just watch opportunity constantly walking by! Please hear me if you are caught in this cycle and you feel like you are missing out all the time... Don't put off asking for things because you are scared... Ask and you will most probably be pleasantly surprised! And you will be blessed too and you will have more to give out to others too!

So my tips are:

• Have integrity
• Ask politely, use your words!
• Check your motivations.
• Listen to the tone of your voice!
• Dont pressure people!
• Use wisdom!

~\Cam/~

If you would like to read more please go and visit my Facebook pages:

Light for Life: https://www.facebook.com/lightforlifepage

Love Without Expectations: https://www.facebook.com/lovewithoutexpectationspage

The Answer I've Found: https://www.facebook.com/theanswerIvefound

Quality or Quantity....

Been talking to a few different people over the last few days about friends, and friendship groups.  I used to be someone who had a lot of friends that I caught up with on a regular basis. I loved it but it also took a lot of time and work and even though it was mostly very pleasant, it's not sustainable on a long-term basis.

Over the last 8 years a LOT has changed in my life and in my circles... they changed completely actually... Learnt some long painful lessons but these were very valuable. You see I was under the delusion that people care more than  they actually do... I know it's not always the case but its the truth. And it takes something painful to realise and acknowledge that this is a fact.

I was involved with a large group of people and I always loved connection, encouraging others, helping people find their place etc and so I THOUGHT that I had a lot of friends. In actuality I had a LOT of acquaintanceship's! In fact when the rubber hit the road, and it came to the crunch, the people who I thought were my friends were not there for me in anywhere near the capacity that I thought they would be. I was completely shocked, let down and disappointed.

Its ok! I look back now and I get it, and its part of being involved in large groups, it's just part of the way they function. it was me just naively hoping and expecting for more because that is how I operate... I want to be genuine, that's how I do life... in a genuine way. I don't like superficiality, I am not just talking about conversations I am talking about depth of friendship, quality of friendship. If I am your friend then that means more to me than hearing from you every blue moon. You don't have to live in anyone's pockets but the contact is very regular and its special, its sincere and meaningful... otherwise I wouldn't call you friend.

In the last 12 months though the amount of people in my life increased dramatically! Of course through Facebook and my FB pages Light for Life, Loving Without Expectations and The Answer I've Found... I don't make friends with all my fans or it would become not meaningful for the people who really are in my life but from time to time, I interact with someone on my page to the point that I think we must be meant to be friends, I usually find out there is a reason that we needed to become friends... either for my sake or theirs, and then its even more special and rewarding.

I am thankful for the circle of friends in my life that has DECREASED! Decreased to a manageable number that I can love and share with properly. I know I cant be there for each of the way that I would like for all of them but at least now I know what I need to do for most of them. Whether it's a phone call, a gift, a quick email, if they are local then a catch up but its good when you can learn the boundaries, expectations and protocol for each relationship, and they are different for all...

Finding what works for you in your life is the first thing and then finding the people who slot comfortably within that is the way to go... There are good dynamics and they are there for a reason... When our lives, thoughts, beliefs and morale's resonate with other human beings then we have the makings of a successful partnership for the common good of all! Sometimes difficult people are also meant to be in your life, after all it's not all going to be easy or maybe we would be in heaven but if something really is a LOT of hard work then in the end you have to begin to question its purpose and future!

Surely its better to have one amazing friend then 10 average ones! Think about this and put your life and circles into perspective!

~\Cam/~

If you would like to read more please go and visit my Facebook pages:

Light for Life: https://www.facebook.com/lightforlifepage

Love Without Expectations: https://www.facebook.com/lovewithoutexpectationspage

The Answer I've Found: https://www.facebook.com/theanswerIvefound

Options...

I have a strong sense at the moment that I am chasing myself around in circles. I am on holidays and I had planned on working  on streamlining things in my life but at the moment because I have been researching lots of different things that I havent had time to do before; I have actually created more OPTIONS for myself!

In seeking to minimize I wonder how it is that the time I would need to do all these things got multiplied so easily? I mean after all there are only so many hours in the day and even then there are things we must do as a priority and also there are clearly limits to our physical bodies which exist in time and space!

I think options are a great thing, I always want options. Ask my friends and family. Whenever its possible to have an option rather than one choice I will always look for it and then mull over it... Options means you have choice, you can work out what is best for you but sometimes when you have too many options it means  you could end up wasting a lot of time trying to figure things out.

So as you may know I had been away on holidays for a week in the country. Of course I over packed because I liked to have plenty of options. I took my own Doona so that I could even have the option of my bedding and more warmth. I took a whole bag full of books with me 'just in case', and my beautiful friend joked with me... 'one book is enough!'.  Of course the God's honest truth is that I just couldn't fit in all my options, I barely read any book and perhaps even less than normal! I took all my painting gear so that I might get some time to put paint to canvas but when it got down to it I wouldnt have time to do that properly either.

I wonder if I will learn a lesson eventually and hone what it is that I want to do? What is the most valuable and work on that and do some quality time on it rather than flitting from one thing to another like a honey bee that has too many flowers to choose from!

You have to work out if you are helping or hindering yourself! Are your options enhancing your life or are they spreading you way to thin so make any time or any option count for the most good!

Maybe its time to chop the list down an 'option' or two! =)

Love

~\Cam/~

If you would like to read more please go and visit my Facebook pages:

Light for Life: https://www.facebook.com/lightforlifepage

Love Without Expectations: https://www.facebook.com/lovewithoutexpectationspage

The Answer I've Found: https://www.facebook.com/theanswerIvefound

Oh my goodness ‘JAMIE OLIVER’!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ahhhhhh... Jamie Oliver!!!! Of course I think Jamie Oliver is wonderful. I am not a devout follower as some are but I can appreciate his brilliance, his generosity, his care for people in so many ways, his charity work and his welfare work! All making such a big difference all around the world!

I admit I was just as excited this morning when I was watching last weeks episode of Masterchef Australia that I missed while I was away on holidays. I mean out of all the guest chefs that have appeared on the show from around the world, I have never seen the contestants respond like that before. It was an emotional experience for sure when they started to realise that it was probably going to be him. I was even feeling emotional with them!!! And of course it was him and the episode was fabulous!

Jamie Oliver is a hero in his field and he has extended the boundaries of his field of expertise to incorporate avenues into communities and countries to change things for the better, to inspire good health, to be a part of welfare and helping people become more than what they were being. He is an inspiration for so many reasons and I love the possibilities that people like him have to make a mark and positive change on so many people's lives.

I was just thinking about all the quiet heroes and inspirations in our lives the people who have inspired us. Do you have people like this in your life? How have they inspired you? How do they continue to inspire you? Another big question is are you a quiet hero?

We can all be quiet heroes in different ways! It really doesn't take that much to do heroic things! Helping someone out, go that extra mile, be a little more generous than normal. make a cake for a neighbour, better still visit a lonely family member. I believe these are all heroic acts. They are the little things that we can do that can make the biggest differences! 

And then if we are able to do something, in a small way or even in a big way that we may already be doing, I have to ask are there ways to extend the boundaries of your field of expertise to help others in our communities more?

It certainly something to think about... How can I help others? How can I help others more, in new ways? Lets make the most of who we are and who we are meant to be!

Love

~\Cam/~

If you would like to read more please go and visit my Facebook pages:

Light for Life: https://www.facebook.com/lightforlifepage

Love Without Expectations: https://www.facebook.com/lovewithoutexpectationspage

The Answer I've Found: https://www.facebook.com/theanswerIvefound

Advance, Retreat, Advance...

So I have been on a little retreat, it doesn't always turn our exactly has you have planned but I love how it did turn out. I planned to write a lot but instead took a lot of photos. It was so nice to just be away from all the normal things you have to do and today this little retreat come to an end...

So in a few hours I will venture back into suburbia from the little piece of heaven in which I have been into the life race that I am in. I haven't come up with too many ideas of how I could transform my life to resemble even slightly what life is like up here in the country. It would involved not doing a lot of things in which I have no choice but to do...

So I need to find the places of solace in amongst the hustle and bustle of what it is. Looking through the eye of this camera lens has given me a new perspective on life too... I was taking photos which I could use on my Facebook pages and in my blog posts and what I discovered again is that the ordinary can be so magnificent if we change our glasses!

An old jewelry box which indeed was so special, and probably once prized has been relegated to a shelf on the window in the spare room. When I looked at it closely, it was SO intricate, the colours of the mother of pearl effect on it were so spell binding... and yet one such as this had possibly become more ordinary.

I wondered how many special things in my house, indeed my family and friends had been accepted as ordinary. When I look at them again afresh may I see with new eyes, open to the simplicity's and intricacies of the things right under my nose, at my fingertips and under my feet!

So as I transition from retreat to advance.... Lord please help me to stop and smell the roses and look at them again for the specialty that they are. Just subtly tucked away from the conscious gaze of the people that pass by, particularly me... busy as I may be!

Love 

~\Cam/~

If you would like to read more please go and visit my Facebook pages:

Light for Life: https://www.facebook.com/lightforlifepage

Love Without Expectations: https://www.facebook.com/lovewithoutexpectationspage

The Answer I've Found: https://www.facebook.com/theanswerIvefound

Time keeps on slippin, slippin, into the future...

We are building our future today... I don't think we realise that it is going on right under our noses. Every thought, every word, every deed and consideration takes something of today and places it in the future.

Its something that I don't think we fully understand, but we are shaping what the future will look like. We may think that each day is a 'stand alone' day but really it is a building block.

So when we say to ourselves it doesn't matter... One more day can't hurt, it may not seem to right now but every day counts. It counts for what we desire in coming days, our plans, our dreams and hopes and whether they will come to pass... One day, one day, one day... and the thing is we don't any of us know how many days we have left.

I don't to leave words unspoken or have promises unkept... I know there are things I also keep putting off but I pray that it won't be the most important things. The things that will cause me to leave a good mark on my family, the people I love, my friends, the community in which I reside, which may not be where I live in the suburbs. It might be the place I live in front of all of you that I communicate with each day.

We are each a future builder, in so many ways we would be shocked if we were only aware the things that actually counted that we do each day, and the things that we may leave undone also count for something.

I pray I will fulfill the call on my life, I pray I will be the best person I can be, the best wife, the best mother, the best friend, the best human I can be.

Time indeed keeps on slippin into the  future. I hope I do it honor and that I can keep up with it, and when my days are done may the least amount of things be left undone!

I hope you like these quotes on the future as they will definitely make you think...

~\Cam/~

The future is called "perhaps," which is the only possible thing to call the future.  And the only important thing is not to allow that to scare you.                                                                         ~Tennessee Williams, Orpheus Descending, 1957

We should all be concerned about the future because we will have to spend the rest of our lives there.                                                                                                   ~Charles F. Kettering

The past can't see you, but the future is listening.                                                   ~Terri Guillemets

And in today already walks tomorrow.                                                                  ~Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Tomorrow is fresh, with no mistakes in it.                                                                ~L.M. Montgomery

How sure I feel, how warm and strong and happy For the future!  How sure the future is within me; I am like a seed with a perfect flower enclosed....                                    ~D.H. Lawrence, "Wedlock"

I know not what the future holds, but I know who holds the future.                     ~Author Unknown

It is said that the present is pregnant with the future.                                       ~Voltaire

The course of life is unpredictable... no one can write his autobiography in advance.  ~Abraham Joshua Heschel

If you would like to read more please go and visit my Facebook pages:

Light for Life: https://www.facebook.com/lightforlifepage

Love Without Expectations: https://www.facebook.com/lovewithoutexpectationspage

The Answer I've Found: https://www.facebook.com/theanswerIvefound

Over thinking again...

I was just thinking! Funny thought LOL! I was thinking how over thinking stops us in our tracks from doing so many things.

So I want to blog again... I revived my page and then started again, knowing that my blogging was going to be like a daily life update, whatever is happening on the minute. I'm not going to plan it out, just write what comes.... and then my brain went into over drive and I started OVERTHINKING about it and I heard myself immediately telling myself 'Mmm maybe write that, no hang on, not about that? This will be boring' etc I decided to do this post about over thinking right at that point.

Do you realise how much damage over thinking does in your life? You may be completely unawares you even do it since it can go on so quietly in our sub conscious mind, but often we prematurely put the brakes on things or even speed them up because of what our mind is going.

There is thinking and then there is over thinking! We need to think; but when we dwell over and over on things it can stir up a hornets nest of all kinds of trouble.

I can remember times where I got myself in such an emotional mess after allowing thoughts of what someone might be thinking, why they did what they did, etc. After awhile it all seems to make sense and add up when in fact we have created a scenario all by ourself. If we listen to the scenarios for long enough and then allow them to play out in our life, if we were to accuse, to reject, to offend or to convey these thoughts to others we spread  a problem that doesn't even exist in the first place.

So its worth thinking about it... but don't think about it for too long!

~\Cam/~

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If you would like to read more please visit my Facebook pages

Light for Life: https://www.facebook.com/lightforlifepage

Love Without Expectations: https://www.facebook.com/lovewithoutexpectationspage

The Answer I've Found: https://www.facebook.com/theanswerIvefound

A slice of heaven on earth...

I'm away at my friend's place in the country this week. It's honestly a little slice of heaven on earth. I came by myself to spend some quiet time reading, writing, perhaps painting, and just getting some alone 'me' time.

Even though I spent the first several days here on my own I still feel as if time keeps on slipping into the future (sounds like a song title doesn't it?) and I am missing using it the way I want even though its me using my time. Always so much to do and so little you know what!

Part of my plan of coming away was to write, to read, to rethink my current life schedule. You do realise we all have a 'life schedule' that keeps us ticking along. It is a good thing but when it gets a  bit lop sided its time to straighten it out again.

I wish I could bend time and squish more into it. I also wish I could just use my time at a pleasant pace and mozy along with it like the flow of a river, no such luck in this day and age! There is always something or someone to push you along like men that lead the dogs that drive snow sleds. What do they say to those doggies?  I think its 'Mush Mush'. My life gets so busy it seems like mush!

So far in trying to streamline my life 'procedures' I think I have somehow successfully added more into my day and taken nothing away from it. This is not what I want. Its like the movie title 'Something's Gotta Give' in the end it does, and if we don't do it for ourselves then somehow it gets done for us, and that is not the desired way to go about this.

Perhaps tomorrow when I wake up is a good time to really go over all of this and see what could give! I am sure there is some way to do it!

~\Cam/~

Blog On...

Well how often do people post that as a post title? I am betting its a fair bit. So I'm thinking I am picking up blogging again... Yes its been awhile but I have been a tad busy! Even trying to post this first post after my long absence has taken me 2 days to write. So many interruptions in life!  It feels quite difficult to get the time to get things done.

I am huge on Facebook, people say I live there! So this is a very different platform for me but actually quite refreshing cos its just a matter of spilling out what is going on and hitting PUBLISH! So that is my reintroduction of myself  back into the blogging world! If I am not here you can always find me on Facebook on my 3 pages:

Light for Life - where I share the things that I learn, often simple but usually profound. I love what we learn through our days!

Love Without Expectations - this is a page I only recently started, January 1, 2012. It's all about focusing on loving people in our lives better. It's not about romantic love, it's about the love we all need. I have a belief that if we love each other more specifically we will slowly but SURELY change our worlds!

The Answer I've Found - this is my foundation, the core of my belief. It's about my walk of faith and the things I learn from my journey along the way.

Hoping I really get into this. It could be quite refreshing to just blab on... BLAH BLAH BLAH maybe no one will read or even see this!

~\Cam/~