let the poor man jump!

hey hey :)

well, i have a had a whirlwind of a week! i don't know about you, but the combination of the initial excitement of holidays and christmas combine to create the craziest time of year, and i find my mind constantly blown at the amount of time i spend being busy when i have absolutely nothing that i actually have to do. just before christmas, i had been spending so much time with my friends, the same group every time, and i learnt very quickly that time virtually evaporates without you noticing when you have an amazing bunch of people and some good coffee.

this is all fine and dandy, living a comfortable life where the only people you see are the same you saw yesterday and the same you'll be seeing tomorrow, but it's not very... dare i say... godly. eek. whilst reading the scriptures, i was shown how jesus lived. he had his base support group, his disciples, but far out did he meet some new people, (and not all of them were people i'm sure he'd like to be hanging around). this challenged me. it wasn't at all that i was sick of my friends. in fact, it was quite the opposite. i told them i couldn't hang out with them for a few days and did something different.
in one week i got back into contact with five people that i don't see very often, two i hadn't seen in four years, and decided that i was going to dedicate some serious quality time with them. one ended up coming to youth group, loving it, and deciding to come every week from now on. one decided, completely out of the blue, to come on church camp. one, i soon discovered, was going to europe to pursue her dreams of being a ballerina and i was going to be the last friend she'd see before she took off for good. i have been used so powerfully over these last few days, not because of my strength or power or courage or anything, but because i simply did what i saw my father doing. when i am standing there as a vessel for god and asking him to use me for his glory, he does! i have had a really rewarding week.
i have no doubt that god is a bit like a professional diver, standing on the end of a diving board above a deep, blue pool. he desperately wants to jump. we wants to show off what he can do and make the crowd gasp, but then there's us, swimming in the water right where he wants to jump. he can't jump if we're blocking him. we have to swim to the edge if we want to let god do his thing. so where are you swimming? is there room for god to jump or are you blocking him off? hmm...

*prayer for the week* - that god will open your eyes to what he is doing around you and that he might use you at grow his kingdom.

i hope this week treats you well and you experience much growth and spiritual maturing.
god bless :)
oliveanddaisyxxx

spilled milk.

morning sunshine!

long time, no blog! i know i know, jordan you slacker! you have a blog and you have been forgetting to write! well, maybe i have saved you, because if i had something really good to blog about, then i would have done it. but i must not have, so i saved you four minutes of your life reading something that wasn't even my gold! well, that's my excuse anyway.

but this is my gold. recently i have been thinking about our circumstances and what goes on in our everyday lives that make us who we are. like, when we spill milk down our tops, so we have to walk the dog five minutes later, so we catch a man who is also walking his dog who is just passing us, so we can have a full length discussion about what it means to be a christian and to be strong in your faith. 

i always think about people who get hit by cars or who have car accidents; if susan had picked up her phone in the evening, she wouldn't have missed a call from her boyfriend and had to call him back, so she would have left for coffee 40 seconds earlier, which means she wouldn't have been crossing the road at that exact time those drunk teenagers were hooning around the corner and she wouldn't have died. ah. 

and now we see how complex god's plan is. if fred's grandmother hadn't been invited dancing on friday night by the man she met briefly in the supermarket, she would have come to visit fred, and fred couldn't have asked emily out because his grandmother would have been there. if fred hadn't asked emily out on friday night, she would have gone to that party on saturday night where she would have jumped into the car with that drunk p-plater and she had a car crash. confused?

so now we see that we are being used constantly in god's plan. like that time when i was in egypt and if the traffic hadn't have been horrible because, well, it's cairo, my family and i would have been home 20 minutes earlier and caught in crossfire between the military and the civilians. we might have died. or that time when my parents sent me to mackellar against my will and i then ended up inheriting eternal salvation thanks to my circumstances there. i could have gone to stella. my life would be veeeery different.

i always question why i have so many friends and such a stable christian family inside my school and why others don't. why do i have encouragement in my faith all day everyday when others have to battle being teased or put down because of their faith. or persecuted christians in places like iraq. why do i live so easily? what about those people who are the only christians in their year at school, and so fall away because they aren't receiving the community dosage they need? why not me? all i can say is that wherever you are is the best place for you, and it's where god is using you most. if you are no longer needed in a place, god will open up new opportunities and move you somewhere else to be used in another place. this is happening to my friend hannah, who is leaving mackellar to start life at newtown performing arts high. after seriosuly wrestling with this, why would god move her and take her away from me etc etc, i have realised that maybe i don't need her as much as i use to. maybe someone else needs her more now, and maybe i should let her go and be a blessing to the newtown community rather than keeping her for myself. although it's hard, god is in the small stuff. and it all matters.

check out this film clip. it's seriously sad, but i do want you to be thinking about where you are being used, and try to find out from god what it is that he is doing around you and what he wants to use you for. there's no use crying over spilled milk, because that milk was always going to be spilled, so that you were late to coffee, so that you forgot to let your rabbit out of it's cage, so that it didn't hop onto your driveway and get squashed under your mum's car. hm.

jason derulo - what if.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qQCx9mxV9g&ob=av2e

*prayer for the week*- that god will be using you at all times and that whatever he is needing you for, you will serve joyfully and be able to minister to those around you.

god of the weather. god of our lives?

good afternoon my lovelies!

i am adoring this weather, rain in the morning and sun in the afternoon. i love nature's unpredictable personality and how it constantly surprises us with it's power to manipulate our lives. i realised this when we had made plans for a picnic on the weekend which couldn't happen because it was MEANT to be rainy, however the sun popped out from the clouds and it turned out to be a lovely day. who can know the way of the weather? not me, that's for sure. not even the weather man! it is a constant reminder of god's power and almighty reign over all of us, that he decides when the sun shines and when it doesn't and that we will never be able to. we just have to trust that god can handle the weather.
so, while we're handing the weather over to god because we trust that he can deal with the running of our planet, why can't we had over the tiny, minute details of our lives and trust that he can deal with them too? why do we fuss over boys (or girls), exams, money, friends, grades at school, what people think of you... the list goes on. why do we do it to ourselves? the god of the universe asks for us personally to bring our problems to him and he promises to give us peace. why don't we trust him?
i don"t know about you guys, but when i read about people like moses, david and jesus who have such a comfortable, personal relationship with god, i get jealous. i figure that god must like them more than he likes me, that they were just some outstanding people who were blessed with some extra godliness that i haven't got and probably never will have. even though i know i am wrong, it is way easier to say, 'it's completely out of my hands.' than it is to realise that it is me who is actively choosing not to have that same personal, comfortable relationship with god. hmmph.
but i'm busy. i cannot talk to my father in heaven, read his words, be about his business because i, little olive here on earth, i am busy. busy on facebook. watching the brady bunch. going to yoga. eating. i am too busy to be about my father's business. right?
if you agree with the lines above, i am sorry to say that you do not have your priorities straight. if we are not in constant relationship with god, walking like jesus' did, bringing our troubles to him so that we don't have to fuss on them and we can commit to throwing ourselves into his word and in prayer, we are not living the way we were designed to.
he's the god of the weather, powerful, almighty and strong. he deserves to be a priority. so, is he? i have to do a little reshuffle because i know that i am not living with god as number one. are you?

refresher.

hello there, my beloved readers!

i know, you are missing my blogging, my wise words of encouragement, my stories, yes yes yes. i'm joking, but i am sorry for not blogging for so long. as most of you know, i have spent the land month in 3 foreign countries, italy, greece and egypt, travelling, learning, exploring, sightseeing and people watching. what is people watching? watching people. it's my new hobby. i spent so much time just watching how different people behaved and soaking up their culture. in rome, i people watched the roman women and willed myself to transform into some gorgeous, dark, long legged, skinny girls. it didn't happen, but it was fun to watch them. they even wear stilettos on the beach! funny..

so, over he next few weeks, i will be telling you stories from my trip. i will pass on stories i've been told and information i've learnt and hopefully you can soak up as much of it as you can. i hope i tell it all right! something that really struck me was that god isn't just MY god. he's not a god for today, yesterday or tomorrow. he's not king over manly, sydney, nsw or even australia. he doesn't only speak to me and my friends but he speaks to nonna's in pompeii, teenagers in greece and toddlers in egypt too. he is active in all parts of the world and i can't comprehend it because my peanut brain is a bit too small to understand, although this trip has broadened my mind and my knowledge to all sorts of aspects of my god that i didn't know before.

i climbed mt vesuvius, got to the top (puffing and panting) and realised that god made this massive mound. i saw the how he had instilled humans with knowledge and power and determination and that the ancient egyptians knew that they could do anything they set their minds too. i saw so many weird and wonderful things and saw how diverse the earth was, and that my god had made it all! i saw heiroglyphics and paintings on the walls of tombs and read the ancient egyptians creation stories and saw that god was working in them and speaking to them! but i will tell you all that in good time!

mr smith, your postcard is in the mail and you should be receiving it shortly!

wel, i am jetlagged and too tired to type right now, but please do look forward to some... interesting... stories that i have learned during my time overseas and be glad that my trip really was a refresher, and now i'm back feeling better that ever! or at least i will be when i'm not so jet lagged!!

hope you are all well!
god bless,

oliveanddaisy xx

super god!

heey guys!

these last few weeks i have been really busy. like, really super uber majorly busy. i can't even remember what i've been doing, i've just been...well, busy.
i have an awful disease. a dilapidating, painful, stressful disease. it's called the 'ican'tsaynotoanything' disease. it can be defined as the inability to say no to anything and just adding more and more things to your plate. if you're like me, you will also try to do everything with a massive smile on your face and pretend like everything is super fine and that you have no problems or cares in the world. everything is just damn easy.
you might also suffer from this terrible affliction. besides wearing me out and draining me of energy, it also means that my head is constantly filled with buzzing thoughts that get louder and louder until i yell at them to be quiet. not literally. i get more and more busy and more and more stressed until i break in two. i grow further and further away from god because i can't be silent and listen to him because i can't hear him. i talk myself into being too busy to spend time with him and read the bible and pray that i just almost cut off from him.
last week was a tough one, actually. i was doing various presentations to various groups of people, whilst trying to do my homework, whilst trying to keep my sanity, whilst trying to do it all alone. note to self: this is not a successful combination. it got to the point where i yelled at my bin for overflowing and collapsed on a heap on my bedroom floor, sobbing violently. at this point, i screamed out JESUS! HELP ME!, and weirded out the non-christian members of my family (aka all of them). i asked god for peace. i asked god for rest. i asked god to save me from the mess i felt like. and guess what, he did.
i've heard people say before, 'i cried out to god and he came to my rescue.' 'he gave me a bible verse,' or 'a comforting word' or 'i just felt this overwhelming sense of peace and i knew that god was with me.' and to tell you the truth, i'd never felt it. god just never rescued me like he did other people.
but on that night, on my bedroom floor, i felt all of them. he hugged me. he gave me a comforting word from his scripture. he gave me an overwhelming sense of peace. i felt calm again, i was no longer sobbing violently or stressed and nervous about the presentation i had to make.
 'come to me all you who are weary and burdened and i will give you rest.' matthew 11:28.
he does give us rest when we come to him. when we cry out to him in a fluff of tears he is there and he answers. he. gives. us. rest.
i encourage you now, all those who have my disease, when times get busy, make time for god. we know that it is us that is drawing away from god and that he is still there, but we forget that he can actually save us. draw close, call out, find peace.

*prayer for the week*: that even though you are busy with exams or boys/girls or formal or saving the world, that you might constantly remember that god's yoke is easy and his burden is light. you can find rest in him. let god know that you want to remember that.

god bless you all, i hope you have a peaceful and rewarding week!
next time i blog i will probably be overseas!
have a safe and happy holiday!

love oliveanddaisy xx

everything

You're a falling star, You're the get away car.
You're the line in the sand when I go too far.
You're the swimming pool, on an August day.
And you're the perfect thing to say.

And you play it coy, but it's kinda cute.
Ah, When you smile at me you know exactly what you do.
Baby don't pretend, that you don't know it's true.
Cause you can see it when I look at you.

And in this crazy life, and through these crazy times
It's you, it's you, You make me sing.
You're every line, you're every word, you're everything.

You're a carousel, you're a wishing well,
And you light me up, when you ring my bell.
You're a mystery, you're from outer space,
You're every minute of my everyday.
[ Lyrics from: http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/m/michael_buble/everything.html ]
And I can't believe, uh that I'm your man,
And I get to kiss you baby just because I can.
Whatever comes our way, ah we'll see it through,
And you know that's what our love can do.

And in this crazy life, and through these crazy times
It's you, it's you, You make me sing
You're every line, you're every word, you're everything.

And in this crazy life, and through these crazy times
It's you, it's you, You make me sing.
You're every line, you're every word, you're everything.
You're every song, and I sing along.
'Cause you're my everything.
Yeah, yeah

by mr michael buble. the genius.

god's quirks?

heey everyone :)

i was having a conversation with a friend over coffee and i briefly mentioned how odd i was. let's face it, i am a quirky person. i collect owls, i hate people to touch my ears, i watched bride wars 4 times in two days (today and yesterday, yes, that recent), i have wonky teeth and i like to brush my tongue, the list goes on.
although i call this weird, he called it character. it's funny, i had put them down to 'defects'. like there was something wrong with me. something odd and quirky that only i had because i was weird.
note: the negative connotations associated with being quirky. he made me think about something that hadn't previously occurred to me. maybe it's been given to me by god, because it really is part of my character. maybe god is obsessed with owls, and so passed that on to me. maybe he also likes to have a clean tongue, and i inherited that. maybe god too is completely obsessed with the whole idea of marriage and a wedding and so wanted me to share in that delight!
cool, huh. maybe they're not 'defects', but they're given to me specifically because god wanted me to share in his delight too! what are you're odd quirks? a friend i know sticks out his tongue when he concentrates. another friend doesn't like things around her neck. another friend acts like a cat. another keeps socks or shoes on all the time, for fear she may get dirty feet. i want to suggest to you that these are not bad things, and in fact, they are probably quite good things! think about what your quirks are, and get a better idea of the character that god made you to be.

god bless,

oliveanddaisy xx

god's plans, nooooooo!!

heey!
last night at youth group we were talking about who we are becoming and god's plans for our lives. this is a topic that i had been avoiding. truthfully, i have almost been avoiding talking to god about my future because i was scared he'd tell me to do something that i didn't want to do. let's face it, i don't want to be sent to a far off country like egypt by myself, trying to teach christianity to muslims and having my life put at risk. it doesn't really tickle my pickle. i also don't really fancy being a nurse. i hate blood and disease and that doesn't really sail my whale either. essentially, i was scared that god would choose the thing that i least wanted to do and make me do it. no wonder i was scared.
last night was a fabulous night. god showed me that i had certain passions and talents for a reason, because he gave them to me. and he did have plans for me, but it was going to be better than anything i could have planned for myself, because he was going to utilize my loves and passions and gifts. he wants me to be doing what he designed me to be doing, which also happens to be what i love.
this way, we can be sure that the things we are doing because we love them are also probably what god wants us to be doing, unless you feel guilt doing them. god has instilled us each with some of his own passions and gifts, they have literally come from god. so now, like me, you can relax, knowing that wherever your future leads you, god will meet you there and fill you with life. what you love, you love for a reason. so keep doing it!
*prayer for this week*- that god might give you clarity as to where your gifts and talents lie, and that you won't be nervous or anxious about your future but instead you will rest easy, trusting that god knows what h's doing.

hope you are all well!
god bless,
love oliveanddaisy xx

on sunday, the fool was forgiven,

hello lovelies,

it feels like it's been a while! i hope you are all well :)
i had an amazing experience yesterday, i didn't expect it and i totally didn't think that it would turn out like it did.
see, for almost a year i have been a very silly girl. and stubborn, don't forget stubborn. foolish, you might like to call it.
i suppose you want to know what i'd done? sorry, classified information. but i will tell you that i had pretty much let go of one of the best things i'd ever had and tried to convince myself that i hadn't and that i knew what i was doing. but i didn't. and on wednesday, i realised that i was a silly silly girl. it's almost like when you'd been spelling the same word wrong for ages without realising that it was spelled wrong.

this foolish behaviour caused me to come crawling back to a friend with my tail between my legs, in fact, i'm pretty sure i was shaking, and say 'i'm sorry, you were right, i am a foolish little girl.' i honestly thought that they would play it a bit and have a little bit of a laugh, maybe tease me, because they knew they were right all along. but no, none of that. they took me in and loved me, even though i was possibly the biggest goose in the world.
this has been one of the best illustrations of god's love for me that i have experienced in a long time. even though he knew he was right, he still showed me more love than i would have ever hoped for. i didn't expect him to, but he showed me an overwhelming amount of grace and forgiveness. no judgement, just pure, raw love.
it's so comforting to know that as soon as we ask god for forgiveness, everything we've done is forgiven. this experience has truly helped me to understand god's love and mercy for us, and how much we need god's forgiveness. we are blessed to have a god that forgives us so freely, just like my friend did yesterday.

let's all be good examples of god's forgiveness this week, just like my amazing friend. let's shine a little bit of god's light, and show others the pure, raw love that god can give them.

*prayer for the week*- let's pray this week that god will help us to know what real forgiveness and pure love looks like, and that we might be able to put it into practice in our own lives.

i hope you have a lovely week :)
god bless,

oliveanddaisy xx

unlovely?

good evening!
i'm sure many of you have the same trouble as me. sometimes there's just those people that are hard to love. they are annoying. they do things to hurt you. they gossip. they have weird habits. they get too close to your face. we have issues trying to love them, because they are just so, unlovely.
we spend our lives trying to convince ourselves that we should be loving them, but at the same time not loving them because it will damage our reputation or we know we will just get hurt by them. god tells us to love them, but we don't. why? because ultimately we see them as having the issue. its not me, it's her. it's not me, it's his attitude or her bad breath. ouch.
and it's true. they are unlovely. but not in the way we think of them as being unlovely. guess what? it's not them, it's us. by us not loving them as the person god made them, we are not loving god. the bible even tells us that if we are not loving everyone around us, we are not loving god. that hurts. by us not loving others, we are being unlovely. that's not what we want to hear.
whether we like it or not, we are someone else's unlovely person. someone else finds you hard to love because of the way you talk or the spinach in your teeth or your weird morals. this is why we are called to love everyone around us. why? not because we want to, but because we love god and we love his creation. we love because he first loved us.
so next time you see that person that you find tricky to love, think about the fact that it could be you that has the problem. not everybody feels the same way about that person as you do, so cut them some slack and love them as god's creation.
good luck :D

god bless,
oliveanddaisy xx

thunder and lightning

hello all,


i just wanted to share with you a poem that almost made me cry. what do you think?

'Flashes of lightening in darkness freeze the moment A freight train of thunder rumbles across the night sky I love to sleep with the girl whose love spans the miles Your sleepy voice hello makes my heart beat faster Distant Vienna ballet memories and Loos bar champagne I love to wake with the girl whose cuddles chase the cold Lost alone in this big bed your comforting arms are absent Together in dreams but our bodies chill with the distance I love to be loved by the girl with the beautiful smile.' it's sad that sometimes god does take away things that we love, but it's so important to realise that they have been given to us for a reason and taken away for a reason. instead of dwelling in sadness, we are called to focus on the joy that it brought to us while it was there.  sorry to depress you all. i just love this poem :) hope your week is lovely :D oliveanddaisy xx

in love with love

helloooo,

okay. i have something to admit. i am a truly hopeless romantic. hopeless. everything about love, i adore. it's like my secret obsession. the whole concept of someone falling in love with someone else is just the most beautiful thing. yesterday i saw a man give his girlfriend a bunch of sunflowers, and i almost cried it was so cute. it made me completely weak at the knees and all i could say to my friend was 'ahh, ahh,' and point stupidly at the girl who was now holding a bunch of sunflowers and smiling as if she had just won the lottery. why? for no other reason than flowers are cute and romantic and she is probably just as hopeless as me.
my worst is proposal stories. if you ever want to shut me up, tell me a story about a proposal. the whole idea that someone would love another person so much that they would want to spend the rest of their life with them is so lovely.

and i know its embarrassing, but i also know that i am not alone.
i think inside us all is a love for sappy love stories, a longing for a loving, committed relationship, for someone to tell everything to and for them to love you just as you are. and i think it goes deeper than loving rom-coms.
here's my theory, tell me if you agree.
we are wired to find someone who will love us just as we want. perfect love. unconditional love. a love that doesn't change and doesn't fade. eternal love. why? because we were made for a relationship with god. he instilled us with this longing so that we might search for him like a man with his head on fire searches for water.  we need it because we are wired that way, because when god created us he added a part in our mind that longs for him.
it can be filled with stories, flowers, kisses, hugs, late night phone calls, walk on the beach (and all that stuff is good, don't get me wrong), but when all that passes away, what we need is the love of god to fill us up and satisfy our hunger for love.

what do you think?

god bless :)
oliveanddaisy xx

embracing the pain

hi guys,
today i came out of the dark dance room at school and walked out into the light sunshine and i got that annoying feeling where your eyes hurt because they've been in the dark. i just wanted to go back into the dance room or shut my eyes, but i knew that i'd have to get used to the light somehow so i kept my eyes open and smiled through the stinging pain. (im just a drama queen, it wasn't that bad, but you totally know what i mean.)
this got me thinking, light hurts sometimes. when we've been in the dark for a long time and suddenly a light is shone in our faces, it hurts. we reject it. we'd prefer the dark. but strangely, sometimes when we're in the light, we don't even notice the dark creeping up on us. it seems kind of natural. we let the dark in. our eyes accustom quicker to the dark than they do the light. stay with me.
in the same way, sin creeps up on us so super duper quickly, and temptation comes in so many forms that we don't even notice it happening. before we know it, we are in the darkness and we haven't even realised. but then god shines light on us and convicts us of our sin, and we deny it because we are much more comforatble in the dark. we are rebuked and we hate it because it hurts.
i had this experience the other day. i was pulled up for something that i knew inside was wrong but i didn't want to accept as sin. my first reaction was to deny it. i wanted to crawl back into the dark, but i knew it was good for me. so many times we don't though, and so starts a downwards spiral of darkness where you bag out that person and nit-pick the things that are wrong with them.
next time you are rebuked, think of this. i know it hurts initially, but in the end it's so much better to be living in god's light. have a check with yourself now. is there an area of your life where you are living in darkness? are you feeling convicted of anything? remember, the devil is out there for your destruction, but god is there to give you life.

*prayer for the week* - ask god to show you any hidden area of your life where sin might be creeping up on you and repent. say sorry to god for all the times you've rejected conviction and make it a priority to grow from conviction rather than spiraling down into sin.

i hope this week is fulfilling for you.
all my love

oliveanddaisy xx

dancing with the father

 '...and the women came out of all cities of Israel, singing and dancing, to meet king Saul, with tabrets, with joy, and with instruments of music.' 
1 Samuel 18:6


i love to dance, and when i nail a movement i get excited and tend to get butterflies in my tummy. i want to keep doing it over and over again because i love moving my body in the correct way. why do i love dancing though? walking is moving as well, and i don't love that so much. doing sit-ups is moving, and i don't get tingling excitement after i finish them. i realised, mid lesson, why i love dancing. it's because there's something about moving your body, combined with music, may just be one of the things that we were created for. 
now, i know that not everyone can dance. i remember a friend telling me a few weeks ago that he knew that dancing was definitely not what he was good at. i had a giggle, but he's an amazing musician and his talent made me very jealous. but, whether you're good at it or not, everyone can dance before the lord. 
there's something exciting about having music turned up so loud until you are just so completely enveloped by it that you move unconsciously without even thinking about what you are doing, in front of nobody but god. there's those moments when you find yourself looking like a complete idiot while dancing in the middle of a deserted park with music booming so loudly in your ears that you couldn't even hear a bomb drop and having no-one see you but god. i have found myself in this situation numerous times, and its times like this that i feel so close to god. like i could almost touch him. it is so exciting.
but i am not the only one who has figured this out. david, a psalmist and possibly one of the most creative people that ever walked this earth, also discovered that meeting god through music and dancing is perhaps one of the most real ways to meet him. much to his wife's dismay, he spent hours of his time meeting god through movement without caring what anybody else thought of him. (although, i suspect, in his old age he began to care less what people think of him.) but get this, god said it 'pleased' him! it pleases god when we dance with him! i know we feel like fools, but god delights in it! 
i encourage you, if you feel like you can connect with god through dancing or movement, do it. spend some time dancing with your father in heaven.


love oliveanddaisy xx

girl time

hey there!
you know what i've been loving recently? being a girl. its fabulous. i've decided that spending quality time with your gal pals may just be one of the most important things in a girls life. i go to an all girls school, so i am always seeing my friends, but if you think about it, how much do you actually talk? often it's only the old, 'hello, talk to you soon' thing, but how often do we take a lot of time out to just be girls and relish in each other's presence?
i know that this is something that i don't do a lot. this past few weeks, especially having school holidays, i have really focused on trying to spend quality time with as many people as i could. i am an extrovert by nature, so i had some practice listening to people rather than just talk talk talking. my best friends and i have become so much closer to each other and i have reconnected with people that i don't see as often as i probably would like to. i'm sure this is the same for guys as well. we all need deep connections with each other. so, let's try it! this week, try talking to someone for a whole hour. set aside some time to go deep into each others lives. often it will come back to god, which is awesome. we all have things to encourage, share and inspire each other with, so let's give it a go!
the bible tells us about how important it is to do life with one another. one of the first things god ever mentions is, 'it's not good for man to be alone.' we are made as relational beings, in the image of our relational god. all through his life, jesus was surrounded by twelve people with whom he 'did life with'.  i think it's about time we turned off facebook and caught up for a coffee, so that we can delve deeper into our relationships with each other and release our relational side.
*prayer for this week* - that we would form deeper and stronger relationships with each other so that we are fulfilling our purpose as relational beings, and that we might be quick to listen and slow to speak when communicating with others.

i hope you find this a rewarding week!
love oliveanddaisy xx

good afternoon!

hi there everybody and welcome to my blog. i haven't yet decided exactly what it will be about, nor do i have a distinct writing style. i do, however, intend on sharing my thoughts with you about life, love, music and god. if you know me well, you will know that i am an avid journalist. i literally don't stop journaling. at the moment i have about six journals in use, all are just about overflowing with ideas, quotes, thoughts and stories that inspire me and fill my head. my friend suggested i write a book, but i knew that i am nowhere committed enough to write a book, so instead i'm writing a...blog :).
so who am i? i'm a fifteen year old northern beaches girl. i am completely obsessed with colour. i love rain, red lipstick and flowers. god in the centre of my life, well, at least i try to keep him there. i have the best friends anyone could wish for. my family is awesome, including my little brother luke. i love to write, anything. i think all the time, it's an addiction. i never use capital letters. i love sunflowers and the colour yellow. i love yoga and ballet, up until recently i was doing fifteen hours of dance a week, but i burnt out. it's not my passion anymore, but i still love it. my favourite show is the brady bunch, five thirty on channel 'go' everyday. watch it. i am addicted to chocolate. my secret indulgence is home beautiful magazine. i never leave home without a ribbon in my hair and a smile on my face. i wish technology didn't exist, i repel it, and seem to have broken every bit of technology i have ever known. my greatest dream is to visit two hundred countries before i die. i love christmas. i like cats and dogs equally. my textas are my prized possession. i love photography. i hate people touching my ears.

i think that's about me. this blog is written for no-one in particular and i don't even mind if no-one ever reads it. it's a creative outlet for me and i would hope that anybody who stumbles across it would find inspiration and encouragement in my words. i hope you are having a lovely day :)

god bless
 love oliveanddaisy xx