Nina - over & out

Well my friends, it is with great anticipation that I announce that the Kiwifruit season has begun!


Which means that:

if I don't write a blog for about 8 weeks

if you walk past me and I don't recognize you

if I seem to be drinking copious amounts of coffee

if I laugh at jokes that aren't funny

if I nod my head and say 'yes' or 'no' to a question that doesn't require a yes or no answer

if I stare into space like a zombie

if I bite my fingernails more than usual


IT'S PROBABLY BECAUSE ALL I'VE BEEN DOING IS BREATHING, EATING, SLEEPING AND SEEING KIWI FRUIT ALL DAY

EVERY DAY

Unless it rains....

Pray for rain...


So this is Nina - over and out.

Eye spy...

So the other day I accompanied a friend to the hospital. We have become 'hospital buddies' and now go with eachother in support. Well out of the two of us, I do the fainting and she loves pain, so we're a great mix.

It was her turn to go, and she said that she may need a driver as they were taking a look at her eyes and might be putting some drops in.

So off we went. She was excited. I was praying that even though it wasn't my turn that I wouldn't pass out.

Her name was called and we walked into the eye doctors office. We met the eye doctor who reminded me of a potato with attitude. No offense to this guy at all but he had no personality whatsoever! Each time he asked my friend to sit down or move her chin or lean back, he did so in robotic fashion. (Maybe that's what you get for operating those flash eye machines on a regular basis, I dunno...)

But seriously I had to bite my lip to stop myself from laughing. I then had a look around at his office and it all began to make sense to me. A very cold, plain office. The only pictures on the walls were that of the inside workings of the human eyeball. The most interesting thing in that room was the giant plastic eyeball sitting on his desk (I really wanted to touch it, but feared that Mr Personality might scold me or at the worst squirt me with eyedrops!).

And I thought to myself no wonder. This guys has no sunlight, no colour, no aquarium or pot plants to make him smile. That office was just plain old boring, and it had taken it's toll on this poor eye doctor.

You can tell alot about a person by seeing their bedroom, or favourite place of the house. And I guess a little spiritual lesson I get out of this, is what you surround yourself does effect your life. Whether it is music, people or any other outside influence, it will show up somewhere in your life.

Warm and toasty...

So I've been away at a conference this week, and while some amazing things happened for me and some of my family, once again I managed to embarrass us.

As some of my friends know, I seem to have a thing with fire alarms. I thought it was just restricted to Whangarei, but now I know for sure that I carry an anointing in this area.

On the first night of the conference we came back to our motel and started warming up some soup and making some toast. I popped two slices of bread in the toaster and didn't think anything of it. It wasn't long before I could smell burning toast and when I popped the toast up, sure enough, black charcoal was there to meet my gaze.

I noticed the dial on the toaster was set to it's maximum heat - I was not impressed! Then the familiar beeping of the room's smoke detector began. "Oh no!" I did my usual routine of running around like a mad woman and began opening doors and windows. Kate was already fanning the alarm with a tea-towel, my mum soon joined suit and I jumped up on a chair to join the fanning parade.

I'm sure God was having a little chuckle to Himself...

"Turn it off!" my mum said, so like a good step-daughter, that's exactly what I did. I reached up and twisted the alarm and (sigh) the beeping stopped. 3 seconds passed and then the worst thing EVER happened!

We were greeted with the deafening sound of the building's main fire alarm going off!!!

"Quick, switch it back on!" my mum said, but alas, my efforts to restore all sanity to the motel was in vain. And so we joined the whole building and evacuated to the carpark (keep in mind that this all happened around the hour of 11pm, so there were certain individuals standing outside in their pj's! Some pj's being scarier than others).

Kate owned up on behalf of us to the motel's manager who was running around trying to find the cause of the fire, and we all went back to our rooms. I must say that all the residents were quite forgiving - most of them being delegates from the same conference. God bless forgiving Christians.

My spiritual lesson which I think is quite fitting (and I'm sure Symon will agree with me on this) is that you have no idea how much you can influence others round you. Just like burnt toast can cause 30 people to leave a building, so can one life on fire cause those around you to leave their place of comfort.

"The Kingdom of God in you, is greater than the kingdom around you" ~ Bill Johnson

What NOT to wear...

So some of you have seen my fashion fo-par (spelling?) on Paisley Jade's sight. Bright pink socks with orange flowers, underneath a black and white paisley wrap dress (Kristy wanted to cut it up and make some bear or something out of it...MY dress!), and 'oh yuck' the bowling shoes - which by the way must have been designed by a man cos they are NASTY! Don't they realise that green and brown don't go with everyones outfits? Now black would be a cool colour for bowling shoes. Maybe I'll design some cos come on, they are EEEEEERRRGGGGGLLLLY!

Anway as we do with our blogs I've noticed, alot of our practical life experiences usually turn into some amazing spiritual insights. So here is mine which include my socks. Yes socks can bring revelation to your life. Just open up your hearts here people.

My socks which I probably would never show in public were (for the record) worn under my boots (which double as a weapon by the way, and no, I do not own a motorbike). So no harm done. No one can see my bright pink froggy socks because I was wearing boots thank you very much!

So we go to 10-pin bowling to bond, as we do. And the boots come off, and the socks stand out like a sore thumb. Blend it with those 'make me gag' bowling shoes and WALA! Fashion disaster from Na'am. "No ones supposed to see these!" I'm thinking, but what can you do? The game continues.

So my thought for the day is, when our situation changes, our true colours show. Sometimes when things get tough or hard, what is REALLY in our heart comes out whether we like it or not! The outer layer comes off, and we show who we really are. And sometimes it's good. And sometimes (like these socks) it's bad.

Thankfully God wants us to come to Him just as we are. With our issues, with our heartaches, with our attitudes - just us. Isn't His love just amazing? I know I was judged for wearing those socks (sniff sniff). And I'm beginning to realise more and more just how conditional our love is towards eachother. Someone stuffs up, or hurts you and your attitude and 'love meter' drops towards them.

But God's love is unconditional. "While we were yet sinners, Christ died on the cross for us!" Wow. It blows me away to think that even while our backs were turned towards Jesus and all that He offered, His love has never changed towards us.

He loved us first. Socks and all.