Ah-ha Moments

Do you know what it’s like to have one of those Ah-ha moments? When you have been struggling with something or trying to sort something out. Maybe it’s not even something you are aware of but suddenly something comes to light and you think “Ah-ha, that’s what it is!”

Well I had one of those the other day.

I didn’t really know I had been living in a state of mild depression for the last 18 months. We had had some things go on in our marriage that had knocked me sideways and I thought we had come through it.

But now I realise, I hadn’t.

Over that time I was trying to live up to someone or something I didn’t even know, but desperately wanted to be someone different. Someone who would measure up to what I thought I was supposed to be. I am not really sure what the changes were but one in particular was losing some weight and for this I have greatly benefited but everything else seemed to actually make things worse. I was asked what were the changes and the problem was I didn’t really know, I just felt I had to be this someone else. One of my daughters made a comment the other day about how I don’t clean anymore and it hit a sad note, but I did realise she was right. Its funny now that I look at it as it was said at the right time, just a few days before my ‘Ah-ha’ moment. At a ladies home group the other day we were watching step 9 “How can I have great relationships” in a ten step DVD by Dr Grant Mullen, “10 Steps to the New You”. This program is designed for personal or group study. Different groups within our church have been watching it.

At the end of each step Dr Grant leads the viewer in a time of prayer and this one he was asking us to recall a time when we had been hurt by something someone had said.

For me I recalled the words of being “second best” and how that had really hurt me and I wanted to do whatever it took to be the best – not second.

Dr Grant took us through a time of forgiveness to the person who had said it and ourselves for allowing it to hurt us as well as being healed form the hurt. Part of me struggled as I wanted to forgive but felt I needed to hear that I wasn’t second best, that I was the best.

But God spoke in the midst and said that I am the best and that not letting go of holding on to what was said, was not actually going to let the forgiveness and healing take place.

I shared with the group of friends and was encouraged to take hold of what God had done to me then.

I feel like a burden has been taken away. Dr Grant talks of us carrying around baggage – stuff that interferes with us being able to function – and I know that some of that baggage has now been taken away from me.

John 10:9-10

9 I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

All scripture is from  New International Version 1984

The North Wind Doth Blow

Actually the wind is coming from the South as we live in the Southern Hemisphere and its cold and wet with snow falling in the lower parts of the South Island. Our weather here in New Zealand is the opposite to those in the Northern Hemisphere. 

However at winter time when I watch the weather and hear of the cold southerlies approaching this rhyme always comes to mind.

The North wind doth blow and we shall have snow,
And what will poor robin do then, poor thing?
He'll sit in a barn and keep himself warm
and hide his head under his wing, poor thing.

This nursery rhyme is referred to as either the North Wind doth blow or The Robin.  'The North Wind doth blow' is British in its origins and believed to have originated in the 16th century history. The purpose of the words to this poem is to ensure that a child associates security with home whilst empathising with the plight of the robin.

A child will be thinking of the ‘telling’ signs that when it’s cold and wet with the wind coming from the North, it may well bring snow. But a secure child would know they would be safe and warm in their home as the wood supply will have been bought in over summer for the cold winter. They would also know that there are 'winter' and 'summer' cloths but does a bird change its feathers? 

The poor Robin, who may well have flitted around in their garden would appear to have nowhere to go, especially as a lot of birds will have already migrated south for the winter. Because the Robin appears to be quite tame and having made almost a friend in the Robin, a child would be perplexed at its plight. This therefore accounts for the confusion as to whether the poem should be called 'The North Wind doth blow' or the Robin.

Well known to British and Irish gardeners, the Robin is relatively unafraid of people and likes to come close when anyone is digging the soil, in order to look out for earthworms and other food freshly turned up. Indeed, the robin is considered to be a gardener's friend and for various folklore reasons the robin would never be harmed. 

Most birds use the old "wing tuck" method. Actually, birds don't tuck their heads under their wing. Instead they rest their heads on their backs while they nuzzle their beaks into their back feathers. Sleeping with their head tucked on their back allows birds to rest their neck muscles and also makes for better heat conservation.

Outback Heart

This was an interesting book and one that I hadn't known of the story. Written as a sort of autobiography it is also about the Authors first husband and life in outback Australia.

Outback Heart

by Joanne van Os

Joanne Van Os was 19 when she first met the handsome and charismatic Rod Ansell, later known as 'the original Crocodile Dundee' (Rod was the idea behind the character ‘Crocodile Dundee’). At twenty-three Rod was already a legend in Australia and around the world, having survived alone for two months without supplies in one of the harshest and most remote parts of northern Australia.

To Joanne, Rod was a god, a genuine hero who could do anything, could make anything out of nothing, told the funniest yarns, had a philosophy on everything. She married him, and they had two beautiful sons who idolised their father. Together they lived the tough life of outback mustering wild cattle and buffalo and living a 19th century lifestyle in remote parts of the Northern Territory,

But as time went on Joanne came to realise that Rod was both a complicated and deeply troubled man. Ultimately, however, their marriage broke down, and it was then that Rod's life started to go off the rails. For the sake of her sons she never gave up on Rod, even after their divorce, but just how far he'd gone only became apparent when his life was tragically cut short when: out of his mind on drugs, Rod became involved in a shootout in which a young police office was killed. 'How does someone, whose extraordinary story of survival in the wild inspired so many Australians, become a psychotic, drug-crazed gunman?' Joanne asks.

Containing wonderful colour photographs, OUTBACK HEART captures the Territory outback life on paper: the dust, the heat, the struggle and the larger-than-life characters that will keep you reading till the last page. Joanne captures the outback life but she also tells a deeply personal and powerful story of a love affair and a marriage, and the pain when it all falls apart. It's the story of Rod Ansell, but even more it is Joanne's story, of how a young, naive woman grows up the hard way, and has the most exhilarating and the most heartbreaking times doing it.

 

Joanne van Os was born in 1955, and grew up in Melbourne. She moved to the Northern Territory when she was 20 and has never looked back. Her first book, OUTBACK HEART, is a best-selling memoir about life with her first husband, the 'Real Crocodile Dundee' Rod Ansell, and his tragic end in 1999. She followed this book with three children's novels, all set in the far north of Australia and written for the 10 - 14 age group. A keen photographer and illustrator she lives with her husband Lex Silvester and daughter on a yacht in Darwin, NT, and continues to write. Her most recent novel, THE SECRET OF THE LONELY ISLES, was published in February 2011. She has two adult sons, Callum and Sean.

Soup and Jacob

I have finally had a few days off so I went and spent a day with my daughter Jennifer and her beautiful son Jacob. 

It was so much fun interacting with him and building more Nana memories. 
For lunch Jennifer defrosted some pumpkin soup, which I love, and after Jacob decided that the sandwiches weren’t quite so great he joined us with a bowl of soup. At 18 months I was quite impressed with his ability to feed himself soup.

Not only did he mange to get spoonfuls to his mouth he actually enjoyed it. 

When he noticed he had spilt some down his bib he was quite determined to scrap up the mess and eat that too.

However after a while he decided drinking it straight from the bowl was the easiest way to get big mouthfuls. 

I so need to catch up with them more often.