Frustrated!

Yesterday I broke down at my fortnightly Oasis prayer meeting. The whole evening, tears had been welling up in my eyes, and I’d been chiding myself with a phrase my mother uses often

“Everyone has problems. No one wants to hear about your problems. So brace yourself and just get on with your life”

When it came to my turn to share my prayer requests, I couldn’t speak, and sat there sobbing.
I just feel overwhelmed with life. I am the author of my own misery because I keep putting off doing things that I need to do and now life feels like a huge tray marked “Urgent, pending”. The pile keeps growing and growing!

There are all these things that need doing around the house. My car has started making this strange sound in the engine whenever I turn the wheel. My friend has assured me that a vital element in the engine has worn away, and replacing it will cost more than the value of the car. I need to get some spare parts from scrap yard, but too scared to go there on my own. My flat needs a lot of essential repair work – replacing extractor fans, cooker and storage heaters. I don’t feel confident enough to deal with tradesmen, especially after I was ripped off by the guy who tiled my bathroom floor last year (he was recommended by a friend!!!) There are some accessories that need putting up in the bathroom, and I don’t have a drill that can do the work. Even if I did, I wouldn’t know how to do it because it involves drilling through the tiled wall.

In Uganda, there were always the guys from church or my mom would find and deal with the tradesmen for me. In England, it isn’t as easy to ask for help. I’m not comfortable asking the guys in my home group- we jsut don't have that kind of relationship. My brother isn’t particularly helpful and has a busy life. I’d have to nag him to do anything, and don’t really feel comfortable nagging, especially as beggars can’t be choosers.

So I feel overwhelmed, frustrated, and alone!

Sexy Mama's!!!

Towards the end of last year, Yati and I impulsively signed up for burlesque dance classes.

A few days later, I was horrified when I overheard Yati trying to explain what burlesque was to a few members of my Barnabas Home Group. I deliberately had not told them about it (for obvious reasons). Martin didn’t even know what ‘burlesque’ meant (Probably pretending?) and wanted a demonstration.
Yati…“It’s kind of like ball room dancing, Latin style, that kind of thing…”
“Ohhhh!”
Hmm!
When I tell other people about my interest in burlesque (you know the ones who aren’t so holy), their first question is,
“Like Dita Von Teese?” (one of the most famous Modern Burlesque dancers)
“Urm… nooo… I was thinking more like PussyCat Dolls”
Okay PCD aren’t strictly burlesque, but they used to be- before they became world famous. And they look so sexy. I can just see myself doing that.
I just love the costumes, the confidence, femininity ( did I spell that right?)

Anyway went along to our first class last Monday. There were about 20 of us there so didn’t feel too daunting. Sharon, our instructor, had sent us an email beforehand telling us what to wear - any top and shorts . Or you could wear hot pants with a skirt, high heels… Yati wore hot pants, shorts AND a skirt. I just got some shorts.
In the class we practiced the sexy walk with Attitude, hip thrusts, shimmying, working the boa (lovingly through your fingers...) dancing with large ostrich feather fans (strippers use these to tease and open up to reveal), sitting sexily on a chair, steamy facial expressions. I felt a bit silly but damn I looked sexy!
Next week we will be learning how to take our stockings off in 4 different ways. And Sharon has asked us to wear opera gloves – don’t know what we’ll be doing with those. And in the last 10 minutes of the class, we’ll be learning how to swing tassels from our boobs.
“Some of you are shy and may not want to get all your kit off, so you can stick them over your bra”
Yati and I looked at each other. That would be us then.

I am really excited about the Pole dancing which commences in week 4.

Soon we’ll be ‘strutting our stuff’ like the PussyCat Dolls!
Doncha!!!

Weaknesses

To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Cor 12:7 - 10 NIV)

Yesterday the negative side of my melancholic personality took over. I occasionally have dark spells, and this time, rather than inflict it on my work colleagues; I thought I’d take the day off as Annual Leave, stay at home and feel sorry for myself.
I cried…read my bible, played my guitar...had breakfast… cried…prayed to God…cried… listened to Joyce Meyer’s ‘Confidence, Freedom To Be Yourself’ teaching series on CD…laughed…and then cried! In a frenzy, I de-junked, cleaned, vacuumed and polished my flat. Went out to the library and borrowed ‘Miss Potter’…watched it and…you guessed it… CRIED! At this point, the English would say in their typically dry fashion

“So a lot of crying then?”

A friend called and this really lifted my spirits. I felt loved again.

The day really brought me a revelation… or rather it highlighted one of my major weaknesses.

I am an extremely NEEDY person- constantly in need of reassurance, or for a sense of belonging. One of my Love languages according to Dr Gary Chapmans’ Five Love Languages is Quality time which means that I feel loved when people choose to spend time with me, invite me to events, call or email, include me in their lives…
When I don’t get this, my initial reaction is to interprete it as rejection. To protect myself, I withdraw from relationship with those who I think do not love me anymore.

I know… totally irrational!

Of course I recognise that people can’t always be there for me in the way that I want them to. The 'weight of expectation' can be overly demanding and will drive (and has driven) close friends away. People have different ways of expressing love and I acknowledge that… in my head.

I think it's important to recognise and accept your weaknesses, not live in secret frustration and self deception. We should be like participants of Alcoholics Anonymous who at their meetings introduce themselves as "Alcoholics". The first step in dealing with a problem is to acknowledge that you have it.

Whenever I feel rejected, I go into a kind of mourning period and say before God that, "Right now I am hurt, I feel unloved. I know this is not true, but this is how I feel"
I allow His Holy Spirit to reason with me, until what I know in my head translates into my heart. I'd like to say that this all happens in a short space of time. Sometimes it can take days, months, years...

I used to pray for God to take away my weaknesses , and would sing along with that Hillsong song

"Lord I've come to know, the weaknesses I see in me will be stripped away by the Power of Your Love"

But will He strip them away in this lifetime? That would be GREAT! Marvelous, Fantastic even! But I don't think God will take away our weaknesses while we are here on earth. So we need to stop beating ourselves up about them. These flaws are in-built and are a reminder of our human fallibility. Everytime we come face to face with our weaknesses, let it be our cue to draw closer to God

Praise be to God for His wonderful grace and whose strength is made perfect in our weakness.

New Years Eve!

Excitement at the beginning of the evening!! In my Arabian Nights (Princess Jasmine) costume and Cher wig

This was taken after cocktail number 2 and again!

Yati beginning to nod off after Cocktail number 3

What is this? What is this? It's not even midnight!!!

So here's the person I saw in the New Year with! Asleep at a quarter to 12!!!

Happy New Year Everybody!

Reviewing 2007

One of my 2007 resolutions was to make my relationship with God a priority

I signed up for an intense counselling/prayer 12 week programme at my church called Oasis which, according to the label, helps identify and deal with areas that are preventing me from having a close relationship with God. It is a very emotional process, characterised by a lot of tears, painful memories and repentance. I realised that I had a distorted image of God as Father, based on my relationship with my earthly father, and did not really trust Him. Being a person who sees everything in ‘black and white’ it is difficult for me to have a balanced perspective of God. He loves me profoundly, but this means that He loves me too much to leave me unchanged and in bondage to sin. This ‘tough love’ aspect terrified me and resulted in me spending less time in personal prayer or even reading the Bible, lest He highlighted yet another thing I had to change or do. I just thought I was never good enough, so full of sin and bad habits, and if I listened to God I would receive endless criticism of the “why-can’t-you-be-like-so-and-so” variety. So I dealt with it by avoiding Him. Even as I type this, I get emotional, a sure indicator that I haven’t been fully set free in this area
Another issue was my physical appearance. All my female relatives are feminine and beautiful and for a long time I felt plain and ugly in comparison. Through the Oasis programme, I’ve changed the way I view myself.

I am beautiful.

Oh some times I revert and feel intimidated by beautiful women, but I’ve learnt how to recognise that they just have a different kind of beauty to mine. After all, a rose looks different from a tulip or a dahlia, but they are all beautiful flowers! I never thought I’d say that about myself. And this confidence has translated into the way I carry myself, dress or exercise and interact with people.

This was going to be a post about my New Years resolutions, but it’s become too long, so I’ll save that for the next