A Day to Remember

A decade ago was the first time I was ever close to loosing a loved one. It was my grandfather. He was the kind of grandfather that everyone would love to have. A knowledgeable, patient, loving person who could always make me laugh with his stories and jokes. I loved him for who he was and could have endless hours of fun when am by his side talking. He was selfless in his love and I think that was because he had God inside of him. His last few months where difficult has Parkinson's took away his motor capabilities.

We knew he was soon to pass and be with God but I dreaded the moment. To me he was one of the most beautiful people I know and I wanted him to watch me grow older and make him proud. The day finally came and I was shocked. But strangely I could not feel sadness, but instead felt joy. As we drove to his home I could sense him all around me and so much of joy in him. I could see him play tennis like he loved to, I could hear him say he was free and able to do all he wanted to do and could not do for years, I could feel him slowly bid me farewell and say he would be waiting for me on the other side.

When I walked into the home and saw his body in the coffin to me the reality was he was not there. He was happy, smiling, looking at us and glad that we had come together to bid him farewell. I did not cry that day, in fact I only cried when I missed him and not because he died. I remember the day in some ways as one of the most beautiful days in my life since the joy I sensed in him overshadowed my worries and fears for myself in loosing him.

His life personified love and on his grave we inscribed 'Love never Ends' because the truth is it does not.

Today, 10 years later and 1 day earlier my grandmother went to be with the Lord. She is a person of prayer whose prayers have touched and changed our lives and many others. The power of her life was not just in shaping this generation but I believe her prayers will remain like incense before God and answers will keep coming and changing things in his time. My mom called to tell me and and as I sit here sobbing thinking of the best of times I am again reminded of the beauty of death in Christ. We had the best of times with her and yes, we will miss her terribly, everyday. But knowing she is in a better place and grandpa finally has company makes me want to smile.

Dear Mister God this is @ina... Thank you for teaching me Love never ends, in You.

Everyday Angels

The last few months have been a lot of fun for me. I had moved in with a few friends I barely knew at that time and we have grown into a merry family. When a bunch of girls get together there are two possibilities - you either have the best of times or well the worst of times! :)

Well, I had the best of times - We loved talking, teasing, cooking, shopping, watching movies or just lazing around doing nothing!

'M' the tiniest (literally) in the house has a strong character and a confident smile that makes her not only charming but also the one we all loved to tease. 'J' on the other hand is a bubbly person who is always caring, always sharing and always ready for a good laugh. 'I' the smallest is actually a mature young lady yet her sparkling eyes and the child in her makes her absolutely adorable and B our last and final addition to the family is our responsible, dependable, honest and helpful one who goes the extra mile for all of us.

These everyday angels have done and said so many things, big and small, to make my life so easy, full of fun and simply unforgettable. Its time for me to move on and I just want to engrave on this page a note to always remind me of their love and care.

Dear Mister God this is @ina... I wish i could do something wonderful for them but I know the best thing I can do is pray and so I ask dear God that your love surround them and that they learn to bask in your deep love.

Pressure and Patience

Pressure can come in many ways at work - sometimes its deadlines, or deliverables; sometimes its dealing with a messy project; sometimes its about working with people where someone can be difficult or just unreasonable; sometimes its when the customer is difficult to please; sometimes its just a combination of factors that can throw you off gear!

Pressure can make me panic - Loud voices, unhappy people make me nervous. I like to be peace loving and try to do all I can to make people work in harmony and when that is not happening I panic!

Well God had the placed me in the perfect place to learn a few things about handling pressure. Over the last few weeks I have been working in a circumstance that challenges the most mature of leadership skills and yet I have on my team a young lady who constantly amazes me.

She is honest, confident, clear headed and most of all patient. She deals with pressure calmly, reassuringly and with a solution oriented approach. Ensuring she makes everyone feel they are understood while battling the immediate pressing problem and working towards a calm resolution.

Gosh! I am so grateful to have walked through this path though i must admit its given me a number of sleepless nights! I may have not mastered all but looking back I definitely feel more confident now to handle pressure.

Dear Mister God this is @ina... Thank you for walking with me through this path and helping me grow in ways only you can teach me! :)

Our New Home

My friend and I moved into a new House today. It was in a great location with a beautiful view from the rooms and the living space. It was perfect in every way. Cosy, quiet, warm and just gave us a feeling of home!

We did all our basic shopping to move in, took some cake and a drink and moved some of our things. It was exciting as we unpacked and talked no end about how wonderful our new home is.

As we set up our house my silent prayer was that this place we now call our home would be a place of much joy, laughter, sharing and caring.

I must admit the move was exciting but what made it most joyous was the friend who I was moving with who I had come to like very much. Doing things together just felt so good and I could not help but see my dear Lord's hand in just about everything.

Dear Mister God this is @ina... May this new house become a beautiful home filled with your goodness.

On Relationships

From a recent conversation with a friend:

The best thing about relationships are,
Relationships make you a better person,
Nobody wants to be a better person,
And its easier to opt not to be in a relationship,
And not be a better person.

I just know thats worth recording! :)

Dear mister God this is @ina... No wonder you created us for relationships! :)

Lost in the Hills

I spent three weeks of this month with a wonderful family and an amazing friend. Though our time together was short I will always cherish the memories. The house I stayed in was a 15 minute walk from the hills where you get lost trekking - The air was fresh, the grass green, the sun shining and just the perfect amount of wind to keep me happy! I loved it!

The family I stayed with had two little girls who were so loving. Kids are really the ones from whom we ought to learn to love from. Their instant acceptance, hugs and joys meant so much to me. And then there was my friend, N. She and I instantly became friends and shared so many cares and joys through the time we spent together. I would never forget this day when we learnt our jobs were at stake and there were so many impending personal decisions because of that - we just took a walk together and laughed so much!

Dear Mister God this is @ina... Thank you for beautiful people who come in all shapes and sizes and touch our lives.

Simple Things

When was the last time you sipped a cup of tea and let the smell refresh you, the flavour tingle on your tongue, the warmth seap down you throat ... Oh well that may all sound a little over exagerated but honestly when was the last time you really enjoyed a cup of tea?

My mother has been observing this simple family who lives in a hut nearby working on a construction of a huge house. They seem to enjoy a simple thing like a cup of coffee so much!

And as we watch them cherish every small luxury (more like every simple pleasure) with such joy it reminds us how much we take for granted in each day.

Dear Mister God this is @ina... May I always enjoy the simplest of pleasures.

In the Middle

Have you ever noticed that in life we seldom seem to be in the middle? The week before last I had absolutely nothing to do and worked barely 8 hours and then this last week has been so hectic i have hardly been able to breathe. When work is idle I complained to myself about reaching a plateau and when work is hectic i feel like a crazy person with no time for myself. Either way I find myself complaining to God about the way things are. Is there no middle God? i asked aloud.

"Well, my daughter he whispered its up to you to stay in the middle regardless of the way life should treat you!" I sighed. Its true, I hold the keys to living a balanced life yet I always seem to be juggling so many balls that I miss the middle.

(Secret: This is where I had saved this post more than a month ago because I dint feel I had learnt what i needed to finish it! I decided to attempt to complete it today...)

So lately, I have been learning a thing or two about balance and most of these lessons have been inspired by this person at work that God has brought into my life who is the exact opposite of me! I am a workaholic while he is a restaholic (if there can be one), i can be hyper while he is layed back, i can be edgy while he is cool.... am sure you get the picture! When asked to work together I had my apprehensions.

But you know what? This relationship has taught me so much about balance. We just need each others qualities in moderation and we could make sure we both have a more balanced work life! Well, i wish we could trade and barter qualities but its not so easy and I have had to work on becoming more easy going while hoping I teach him to be more responsible and now we work together as a simply great team though we did get off to a bit of a rough start. Now thats what I call God's surpirses! :)

Dear Mister God this is @ina . . . Got to love you for the lessons you teach me so gently and faithfully!

Life

My dad and mom were dropping me at the airport at about 3.00 AM in the morning. I got into the car and said, do you both really have to come to drop me so early in the morning? Dad had a simple answer, "What is life da, but being together as long as we can".

To him, those 30 minutes of being together in the car on the way to the airport where special. To him, every moment of being together as a family counts and life is about making the most of those moments.

Dad's words kept ringing in my heart. I think thats a beautiful way of defining life.

Dear Mister God, this is @ina . . . May we always have the joy of togetherness.

Love should make it Possible

I sat on the beach having a hearty chat with this friend of mine. We talked about work, about the challenges we faced each day, about our weaknesses and our desire to be better people... The conversation was centered around God and how with Him in our lives everything is so different.

She brought out an interesting point - If we love God, she said it must be so easy to do the right things because our motivation would be love. Yet we seem to keep failing. People do the right thing when driven by the fear of consequences than for love!

Isn't that so true? Love should make it possible for us to be gentle, kind, gracious, non-judgemental, accepting, forgiving... and all those nice things! We would probably practice all these qualities at work where peoples opinions matter but not with the people we love.

Why? we asked ourselves. I have been thinking about it, and it seems to me that the reason could be that Love is not easy - Love involves giving ourselves freely to another. Love demands us to put our focus on another instead of ourselves. Love insists that we forgive even when we know we will be hurt again... It draws me to the conclusion that Love is only possible with God. And the more we know God the more we can Love.

Btw - This is my 200th post! :) Thank you to those of you who read and keep me writing!

Dear Mister God, this is @ina . . . Your love makes me sing!

Guilty as Charged

Hmmm.... I messed up. I made a mistake. This is not the first time I messed up. I have made the same mistake before and yet always found reasons to justify myself. Even now my mind can think of a hundred reasons why I did what I did but my heart knows that I was wrong. I let the battle rage in my mind, defending my actions and refusing to accept the simple fact that I was guilty! At the end of it all it was time to Surrender. I had to accept that I did not want to do what I did. I had to make up for the mistake that hurt a friend. I had to say I was sorry. I had to think of the *real* reason I did what I did. I had to get to the root of my problem and ask God to help me deal with it.

Peace is mine again and this post is a gentle reminder to me, to keep my promise to be gracious in speech.

Dear Mister God, this is @ina . . . Guilty as charged I come to you humbly and ask for forgiveness and the grace to change.

Positive Whispers

I have always found that I find the greatest joy when I can quietly make a difference in a person's life. It may be one conversation, a word of encouragement or a discussion that resulted in some positive outcome. I consciously made an effort this week to find means and ways in which I could be positive and its funny but when you put your head to it there really is so much that can be done!

I found myself actually striking up various conversations, trying to be helpful when I felt tired, listen when my mind was full of thoughts of my own and the result was cool! I had made the time to whisper positive things to more than two lives and could see tangible differences in them. Exciting Stuff, Try it! :)

Dear Mister God, this is @ina . . . You designed us to love and there is nothing more exciting than being your instrument in all situations.

Just Cannot Out-give

This season I have learnt some lessons on giving from the most humble of folks. A beautiful new house is being built next to us and we have a family of construction labourers who are temporarily living in a small hut near us to complete the work. The family has two small children a girl and a boy barely 2 and 1 year old.

The kids have the brightest most beautiful eyes and smile and we play with them when we get a chance. Mum has taken an interest in the family and helps them every now and then with practical things they need. She loves to give the kids small gifts like toys, balloons, ribbons, shoes or little snacks to eat.

However they surprise us by giving us a portion of their lintels or vegetables they buy, and even gave us some money on the local harvest day saying it was tradition. They give with love and we just cannot say No.

Whatever we give and do is out of our plentiful. What they give, they give out of their nothing. I am constantly challenged to see them give so generously when they have nothing and yet do it so happily while I am content giving out of the surplus. And through the months of this relationship, I have learnt we just cannot out-give this poor family

Dear Mister God, this is @ina talking... May my heart be always willing to give even when I have nothing to give.

Finding my Sparkle

I have not been writing very regularly lately and am making an effort to catch up on a few posts ahead of the new year. Year end posts are usually a celebration but here is one thats a little different.

Each of us have within us a sparkle - Something that makes our eyes glow, our face shine and our hearts rejoice. Let's stop for a second there. Thought of what makes you sparkle?

Well, I have seen that sparkle in my eyes on occasions when the kindness of a person overwhelms me, or the love I feel in my heart consumes me, or the joy of the moment captivates me. Lately that sparkle in me is missing. I wake up, go to work, work hard, enjoy work and the interaction at work, relax when at home, catch up with friends and so on.... The norm I should think but then there is definitely something missing. There was a point and time when no matter what i did I was excited, when hope was always louder than despair and Faith was stronger than Fear. When grey clouds where but a passing rain and sunshine never seemed too far away.

What has changed I ask myself and the answer seems simple - I have changed.

I have let go of childhood dreams and hit reality head on, I have grown tired of innocent hopes and accepted life’s twists, I have silenced the music in my spirit to listen to the voices of the world - I have settled for what is rather than expect what can be.

Am I right? I don’t think so.

So this New Year I have made a vow to myself to change what I can to put the spark back into my life. To sift through my baggage and find what makes me sparkle and pursue it.

If you are reading and can identify with me, Join me and lets raise our glasses to a new year of finding what makes us sparkle and pursuing it rather than settling for what is! :)

Dear Mister God, this is @ina talking... Help me to always remember You created me and put in my spirit a sparkle for a purpose.