It's Not Easy Being Green

Envy.  What do you think about envy?  Until recently I thought it sounded like a less offensive term than jealousy.  I felt better saying that I was 'envious' of someone or something, rather than saying I was 'jealous'.  I thought that they were a pretty much synonymous. Then I went on our third year college weekend away.

Did you know that envy is more than just jealousy?  Envy adds a whole new level of maliciousness.  According to my ancient and pre-political correctness Chambers's Dictionary, envy is "grief at the sight of another's success: to hate on account of prosperity".  Now that sounds pretty darn serious, but as Bill Salier pointed out, it can be seen on all kinds of levels in our society.  At a seeminlgy harmless level, you see it in the gossip magazine's "Celebrities without makeup" photo shoots.  We get that little surge of pleasure at seeing seemingly flawless beauties with bad hair and pimples.  You also get a sense of it on Funniest Home Videos.  At an extreme, you see it when parents hurt their children so that their estranged partners "can't have them".  Societally, you see it played out in our 'tall poppy syndrome'.  We Aussies love to cut those who rise above us back down to size.  Envy is rife.

I don't like to admit it, but envy is resident in my heart too.  Honestly, sometimes when I hear about good things being given to other people there is a little part of me that wishes that I could have it instead of them.  The little voice that whispers, "Why them?  I work so much harder. I am so much more deserving!"  Or that thought that if only Jane had a little bit of a taste of how hard things are for me, then she'd really know what this job/parenting/running a household is all about.

How quickly I forget everything that God has given me that I have not, can not and will never deserve.  I have forgiveness and every spiritual blessing (Ephesians 1:3), and yet I stew over and begrudge these tiny fleeting things that appear so very big at the time.  Envy is evidently something that we are seriously warned to put off (1 Corinthians 13:4, Galatians 5:21, Galatians 5:26,  Titus 3:3, 1 Peter 2:1), but how do we do this?  To scratch the surface, Galatians 5 implores us to keep in step with the Spirit and it's desires, and to put off the desires of our sinful natures.  I think regular Bible reading can be a big help here, reminding ourselves of God's big plan and everything he's done for us and keeping our priorities in line with his.  Prayer is another huge one - asking for God's help to overcome envy and praying for those that we feel envious of, perhaps even thanking God for the way that he was blessed them.  Steering clear of people or situations that provoke us to envy might also be helpful.  Be encouraged that in imploring us to put off envy, with the Spirit's help, it is possible.

How wonderful that it is not only our actions, but also our thoughts that are important to God.  He loves us in our entirety and changes us entirely through his Spirit. Thank you Lord for a new hearts. Please help us not to return to our old ones.

Image is by lamazone of flickr

Sugar-Free Since 18/03 ... and then not..

As a follow-up to my No Added Sugar post, I thought I should probably tell you how that actually went.  My goal was to go for one week without eating anything with added sugar.

It all started fairly well - will power was high, to the point of even turning down freshly baked blueberry crumble muffins that everybody was raving about in Bible study.  The first couple of days weren't too bad, although getting used to tea and coffee sans sugar was interesting (it added a tinge of sadness to my morning tea coffee ).  About two days in I started feeling quite awful.  I'm still not 100% convinced it was the lack of sugar, but perhaps it was.  After a day or two, I was feeling better again, but nothing significantly better than normal.

It was all going so well, I was six days in with one more to go, when we went out for our Friday night take away.  There we were, sitting in McDonalds (we're very classy) watching Hannah drinking water from her little happy meal bottle.  I raised my cup and took a long draught through my straw, and thought to myselfm "Hmm, Hannah's drinking water.  My water tastes quite sweet ... Hang on a minute!"  It was lemonade.  I was 24 hours from reaching my goal when I found myself accidentally quaffing down a medium sized cup of sprite.  Oh well, close enough.  It turns out that I would have had to break it the next day anyway, because the only morning tea that was served at the Equip conference were little 'sweetie treaties', as we have come to call them in our house.

So, at the end of all that I have nothing particularly remarkable to report.  I went without sugar for a while. Now I'm eating it again.  I have noticed though, I do tend to feel a mild sense of rising panic when I watch my child each chocolate or lollies, while I'm happy enough to eat them myself.  I'm not quite sure what is with that.

Photograph by Uwe Hermann on Flickr

Fun Around the House

I realised a few weeks ago that I'd stopped taking photos of the kids for a while.  This is something that I've tried to rectify, especially as I feel like they're growing up at warp speed.  I'd like to learn how to use our camera better.  Here are some recent photos from our place.  And yes, this is David's most common facial expression.

Our small life at home.

Here's a happy Davey - sometimes I call him Mr Funshine

Hannah's choice of pose - Hmmm...

Here we go, cooking in the kitchen! Small people call for interesting measures.

Yes, we like our food!

We really like our food!  It's a whole sensory experience.

Of Hearth and Home - Natural Mould Killer Spray

I was excited to feel a bit of a nip of cold in the air last night and again today. Ah, hopefully Autumn is finally beginning and we can return to tights with skirts and boots, long sleeves and the skin colour that God originally blessed us with (which for me is just about glow in the dark white).  I wanted to share this most excellent mould killer spray recipe with you, although hopefully with the turn in the weather, it won't be quite so necessary.  Although, having said that there was one share house I lived in that had such bad bathroom ventilation that your towel would never fully dry during the winter months...

This great concoction is brought to you by the wonderful people at the Western Australia Office of Public Health and I found it particularly good when I was pregnant and didn't want to be sucking great wafts of bleachy nastiness.  It's even better in regard to bleach because the WA Public Health people say that bleach doesn't actually kill mould due to its high pH, it just bleaches it.  So much for my bottle of Exit Mould's claims!

Anyway, here it is:

Tea Tree Oil Mould Killer

Put 2 teaspoons of tea tree oil and 2 cups of water in a spray bottle, shake and use.

That's it!  So simple and it's great for getting rid of relatively new mould.  The best tip for getting rid of mould in the long term, however, is to reduce the humidity, so maybe think of installing an exhaust fan in your bathroom, or hitting your real estate agent up for one, if necessary.  May your bathrooms look like the one below (in terms of cleanliness)!

Image by NickNguyen of flikr.com

Comparisons and Why They Just Don't Measure Up

What do you think about comparisons?  Do you think it's good or bad to compare ourselves with others?  Do you do it?  Does it bother you, or make you feel better?  I think comparisons do have a good and appropriate place in our society, in health care for example.  How else would I have know that my son David is (a little ironically) gargantuan for his age, or that my Dad should cut salt out of his diet because his blood pressure was out of normal limits?  Yes, comparisons can save lives.  But in the wrong context they can also cripple us.

Let me be the first to step forward and be honest.  My name is Bek and I compare myself a lot with other people.  Sometimes it makes me feel better, to the detriment of other people in my thinking, and sometimes it makes me feel horribly inadequate.  I've been challenged in my comparing tendencies on two different fronts lately.  The first was at the recent Equip Ministry Wives conference.

This year's conference was called 'The Fear Factor' and was all about the fears that we face when we're involved in ministry.  This issue of comparing ourselves to other people was a recurring theme of the day.  Phillip Jensen mentioned in one of his talks, that in Australia and I suspect most of the western world, our very society  is built on comparisons. In removing the concept of absolute truth from our frame of reference, all we have left is comparisons.  We are encouraged to judge everything on a bell curve; so long as I'm better than someone else, I'm okay.  This is definitely not a biblical perspective.  God most definitely does not encourage us to seek the world's approval, or even their measuring system.  We are to look to please God only - to play to an audience of one.  In the context of the conference, if there are other women that you find intimidating because of how capable and gifted they seem in ministry, then praise God! We're on the same team after all!

All of this was a great reminder and encouragement not to compare myself with others, but I still found myself leaving with the nagging question of just how do I do that practically.  Enter college Bible study.

Last week I was leading our college Bible study on Galatians 6.  It was the first time that I've led this year, and is so obviously providential in both the timing of the study and also the content.  I sat down on Monday night to prepare and found myself reading,

"¹ Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted.² Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. ³ If anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. ⁴ Each one should test his own actions. Then he can take pride in himself, without comparing himself to somebody else, ⁵for each one should carry his own load."


How should I stop comparing myself with others?  I should look to God and see how I appear before him.  There is no bell curve.  In the words of Isaiah, "⁶ All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away."  There is no point in looking around and comparing to those around us, because we all fall equally short, if not for the amazing saving work of Christ.  Safe in his arms we can find a true and lasting comfort.

In Addition: 
This seems to be a really big lesson that God is teaching me currently.  This morning I went to Community Chapel at Moore and the sermon was on 1 Corinthians 4:1-5 and not judging others, not worrying about what they say or think about us, or making judgements on them.  Now to put it all into action, internally and externally!

Photograph by bionicteaching from Flickr.