Tuesday 27 September 2011

Stuff that is inspiring me at the moment

I am feeling happy tonight, so I am going to share the things that are making me feel happy. Because, shucks, let's make the most of it aye?
Firstly some lovely magazines. Arriving in the mail today was my issue of Mollie Makes and it was as good as I'd hoped! It's nice when high expectations are deserved.
There are so many pages of inspiring crafty yumminess, that I can't believe they manage to do this every month.
And I am so making my own grassy green lawn for my desk:
And I bought Jamie magazine at the supermarket yesterday too. The frozen yoghurt layer cake on the front looks amazing and I am definitely going to try it for summer barbeques with friends.
There is a fun article on picnic food with some very cool kids costumes made from cardboard:
I'm still totally obsessed and addicted to PInterest too. For anyone who hasn't discovered its joy yet, it is an online pinboard or scrapbook of sorts. You create categories, and organise all the inspiring images you find in life and on the net. You can take pictures from the app on your phone while you're out and about, you can use it's "pin" tool when you're surfing the net, and you can just look at everyone elses boards and repin their pins too. Here are some of my favourites from my boards:
Plus some beautiful garden ideas and interior design inspiration:
And cute stuff for the kids!
I've been following Elizabeth Esther on twitter, but only just finally got around to reading her blog and have had such a good giggle this afternoon. She kept mentioning her personality type (ENFP) and I got extremely curious, so took an online test. Surprise, surprise, I am an ENFP too. No wonder I identified so much with her posts, in particular "How an ENFP cleans house" and "I'm a slacker for Jesus".
And I'm loving watching Nigella Bites on TV on tuesday nights. I love her style. And I'm loving how young she is! Which isn't some kind of ageist comment, I love her most recent stuff too, but still - it's entertaining.

And to end on a more serious note, in the weekend I went to a seminar here in Wanganui with guest speaker Letitia Shelton. Letitia is the CEO of City Women in Toowoomba, Australia, an organisation that is having an incredible impact on their city. She describes part of her job as "lighting fires underneath Christians" and that is what she did. For those of us who attended it was a radical wake-up call. She was blunt yet hilarious, depressing yet incredibly uplifting at the same time. Some of the points that have hit home for me the most are:
  • The girls in your city are your daughters, and you need to think of them as such - fight for them, believe in them, love them, risk everything for them.
  • The sex slave trade doesn't just exist overseas in countries like Cambodia and Africa, it exists here in our countries with magazines like Cosmopolitan that are ensuring our girls grow up believing they are only valuable for what they can do for men, what they look like, how sexy they are, and how thin they are. People of faith need to stand up and fight this rubbish.
  • We need to stop trying to get people into our churches and instead we need to take church out to the people.
  • You can be a pastor of your city not just a pastor of a church.
  • We need each other. Different denominations must come together, different ages must work together. A city in trouble needs a city wide ministry, one church cannot do it alone. We have so much to offer each other. 
  • Courage. Do it afraid. The church has been breeding nice women - we've become like robots, like the Stepford wives! There needs to be more dangerous women in the church - women like Rahab, Esther, Deborah. Take risks, speak up, FIGHT. And hooray, she found the quote I mentioned in my post about sisterhood, which is from Matthew Arnold:
"If ever there comes a time when the women of the world come together purely and simply for the benefit of mankind, it will be a force such as the world has never known."

Don't I believe it. I feel overwhelmed and burdened by what I've heard this weekend. There is so much need. I have so many ideas, and I have no idea where to start. I feel in my heart encouraged and strengthened by the group of women that were there. I know that they feel exactly as I do, and in that knowledge I will sleep soundly (well, as soundly as it is as possible to sleep when there's a wriggly 1 year old next to you).
xx Sarah









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