What is interesting to read in the newspaper?

• a threat in your area which eventually hurts no-one;
• something that causes a few deaths just down the road from you; or
• hearing of 100s and 1000s being killed somewhere else in the world?

This article:  Not very interesting talks of the people killed in Haiti’s recent hurricances and the lack of media interest. (Please click on links and read)

What about Christian Indians being killed in the east India state of Orissa. What motivates us to care (a bit)? Check out: Worse than ever. More background and comment here: Terror in Orissa. 

Or have we been anaesthetised by seeing endless hours of violence and death on television?

I hope and pray that love and compassion will well up in our collective inner beings - and be moved to more than read and pray but to do what it takes to make a change and bring mercy and justice to the “poor, widows, and orphans”.

Shalom

A new theme - with changing colours

Rearranged the recipes - categorised too

http://www.juicyfreedom.co.uk/resources/articles/thenextlevel/ - full article

I’ve taken snippets from this article that considers change.

What will really make a difference to your performance?

…

Change.

1. Change is risky. What if the changes harm our performance instead of improving it? Why fix it if it isn’t broken? … This is the classic bind. We can know no significant improvement in performance unless we risk damaging our performance.
2. Change feels unnatural - I’m happy doing things this way, I don’t want to change, change means becoming a different person, someone who isn’t me. … But it [can leave] me feeling rather uncomfortable.
3. Change can be painful. It involves letting go of things that may be dear to us and are actually a part of us. “That’s me, that’s what I do”. It’s akin to mourning. … A friend of mine tells me about his friend who is totally blown apart by retirement. Retirement involved a loss of something that had become essential to him. For him, ending his life of work seems no different to ending his life.

Change is the only realistic and renewable strategy for moving on to the next level. However, because commitment to change requires a willingness to live with fear and discomfort we tend to resist change.

…more…

Our behaviour is determined by our beliefs. Unless we change our beliefs we won’t make lasting changes to our behaviour.

… Old beliefs have to be diligently discarded just as the new ones are taken on.

… There’s a word for this. Unfortunately it has become mystified and reserved for religious use: Repentance. Thinking again, changing the way we think. This is what will really make a difference to our performance. This is what will get us to the next level.

1. Believe there is such a thing as truth
2. Be hungry for truth
3. Be open to hear what people have to say to us
4. Have the courage to be willing to admit we are wrong
5. Test what they say
6. Reject it if it isn’t true
7. Accept it if it is true
8. Identify our old, unhelpful belief
9. Deliberately, repeatedly discard it
10. Choose new belief
11. Deliberately, repeatedly accept it
12. Enjoy the freedom our belief brings as it changes our behaviour

As with many things the way to minimise the damage of a harmful change is the trial. Try out a new belief based on something you think is probably true and then reject it later if it proves to be otherwise.

Here are the various parts of my life:

www.lapbooking.wordpress.com - Lapbooking - presentation folders for school projects or unit studies. Also www.lapbooking.tumblr.com resources and webquests.

www.nzhomeed.wordpress.com - general homeschooling info for NZ

http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/MigraineHealth/ - forum for women who have migraines

My Husband’s site:

www.2restore.wordpress.com

My children’s (neglected) blogsite:

www.kiwikids.tumblr.com

I’m president of MOPS NZ:

www.mops.org.nz
mother organisation’s huge website: www.mops.org

MUM-e-Mail - free twice-a-month encouragement for mothers of under 6s and their supporters: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MUM-e-Mail/

–

This is gathered with some other interesting sites I like
at Crayon “Banquet Times”  - click items down the LHS

Create your own newspaper : http://www.crayon.net/scripts/login.cgi?mode=create

–

Keeping occupied!

Suggestions for new parents

Before Baby is Born

1.     Don’t rush out and buy baby clothes or equipment before baby is born, especially if it’s your first child.

2.     Essential baby clothing items are envelope necked singlets [un/-domed, long- / short-sleeved], disposable nappies [even if using cloth nappies], soft wash cloths, and 2-3 [brushed] cotton wrap.

3.     Have a car seat [maybe hired] organised about 3-4 weeks before due date. Practice getting it in before baby is born! Who wants half an hour fiddling by the kerbside on release from hospital?

4.     Essential baby’s room items are drawer set, spare bed or table, changing pad, cot, rubbish tin.

5.     Be familiar before baby is born with the cost of essential items and put money aside in a “Child’s Capital Account” for any purchases needed after the gifts have come in.

(c) Johanna Whittaker, May 1998, six months after my first child was born. …more on mothers…

Suggestions from new parents

Clothes

1.     The best type of booties are woollen, square-topped ones with a good length up the leg.

Comments

2.     Our baby is an unique individual with her own emerging personality – please don’t tell the parents who the baby looks like.

3.     Consider how the mother feels when she hears “Oh, baby’s like her father” all day every day.

Visits

4.     The best kind of visitors in the first 6-8 weeks are ones that appear with muffins or meals and visit for less than half an hour, unless helping to fold or iron the washing or clean the bathroom.

5.     Don’t jiggle my baby or pat her on the back. An occasional gentle rub on the back [careful of her developing spine] or pats on the bottom are ok.

6.     Please ask permission to pick up my baby before you pick her up. I might want her to rest or sleep without being handled.

(c) Johanna Whittaker, May 1998, six months after my first child was born

…more on mothers…

Suggestions from new parents

Gifts

1.     Please don’t give my baby girl all pink things – if for no other reason than we [the parents] get bored dressing her in pink all the time. [Nor boy blue things]

2.     Really useful gifts are bibs, socks [not booties], and facecloths.

3.     A good idea for a gift is to give six month or one year old clothing for the next season. Besides one of my babies had a long back and needed bigger than newborn clothing.

4.     Other baby gift ideas could be books for all stages – cloth, plastic, thick cardboard, big clear pictures, storybooks, colours, shapes, letters or words.5.     One of my favourite gifts for baby was a generous-sized pair of multi-coloured knitted ‘boots’ that stayed on my baby’s active 3-6+ month old feet.

1.

Newsletter Templates

http://www.mops.org/leaders/publicity - in pdf and doc - from MOPS International

2.

Download MOPS invitations

http://www.mops.org/page.php?pageid=1832&srctype=linklist&src=1832

This is the better of the two cos you can fill in your local group’s information:

http://www.mops.org/forms/Mom-e-invite_fall_08.pdf  (550 kb)

- then ‘print’/save as pdf (eg. through www.pdf995.com, 2 part free download).

The other: http://www.mops.org/forms/Mom-E-Invite_Jan_08.pdf (341 kb)

3.

Send a MUM-e-invite

http://www.mops.org/momeinvite/ - for an invitation for a mother to come to your MOPS group …
or just go straight to: http://www.mops.org/momeinvite/invite.php?GroupID=75612

–

And that’s my Top Three pages for now !

It is common to be parenting from a place of inadequacy - all because of our frailty as humans.

Because of our undealt-with rejection from days gone by, we become a ‘wallflower’, hide behind the newspaper, or studiously watch TV in order to protect ourselves from more rejection. We isolate ourselves from others. Withdraw. Try to minimise our hurt that is likely in relationships.

Gladly because of God through his son Jesus Christ, we don’t have to keep living like that.  We can live lives of freedom. Free from hurts and bondage.

Dr Grant Mullen : Overcoming Rejection

Everyone has had a rejection experience. Rejection is so painful because God made us social beings – in His image. We are meant to be interdependent and interconnected. When that is not happening, we ache.

It was God’s plan that we would all have perfect families, that every child would be a wanted child, and that children would all receive unconditional love in all circumstances, that failure would never be a threat, they would never have to be afraid to be themselves in a perfect home.

Originally God’s plans were that parents would be like a mirror to reflect God’s image to the children. But in the fall of man, the mirror cracked and we have never been able to see the true nature of God in our parents.

So we have all had areas of hurt, wounding, and dysfunction, because we didn’t have these healthy, emotional models to follow and imitate.    
…
You get married because you think they will meet all your emotional needs. Continuous conflict of unmet expectations develops. Rejection creeps into marriages. The problem in marriage is we all bring emotional baggage into marriage. It is the clash of baggage from your own past and your family of origin that causes most marriage problems, not so much your spouse.

Most of us live on volcanoes of unhealed emotions from our childhood and we just live on the big bump. We live in a community of people all doing the same thing. But there’s an eruption button which will release your pile of unhealed childish emotions.

Satan wants to shame, humiliate, and embarrass you. The key to not having your button hit is to have your volcano removed by healing all of the emotional wounds and injuries from your childhood that your bring into marriage. So get your baggage removed first, before you get married [and have children].
… 
When we are in pain, we withdraw and live behind fortresses. When you have been greatly wounded by any emotional trauma (we are talking about rejection this time) people choose the pain of loneliness and the pain of isolation rather than take the risk of social interaction.

God is calling us today to unload the baggage, receive healing for the wounds, get rid of the lies, and then you can stand up straight and live the abundant life of freedom that God is calling us to.

Realise that God created us different and unique. To not accept ourselves implies that God made a mistake. Jesus totally accepts us the way we are. He rescued us when we were at our worst and brought us into the Kingdom, so he is certainly not going to abandon you now that you are his child. God accepts you because of who you are, not what you do, or what you look like.
…
Jesus knows about rejection and was not exempt from emotional pain. He’s been there. Isaiah 53:2-5 – Jesus was the only man ever born to be wounded. We were not. It was never God’s intention that we would be born and wounded. But we were, because we live in a fallen world. Jesus came perfect, to take all of our wounds from us. He came so that we would be set free. Jesus wants you saved and transformed. This is a good deal! Change your life forever.

–

Videos and Articles are available from : www.drgrantmullen.com

Overcoming Rejection
Available in CD, DVD & DIRECT DOWNLOAD

Have you ever felt rejected?
Why is rejection so painful?
What does rejection do to our personalities?
Is there anything we can do about it?

Join Dr. Mullen as he explains how to recognise
and recover from the wounds of rejection

–

More on Overcoming Rejection

A counsellor who can work with you on these issues - in Hamilton , NZ : www.2Restore.wordpress.com