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