The Five Finger Contract

I was at an Christian Adventure Camp recently-where I got to trek, walk upstream rivers, down the side of a rocky hill(abseiling), kayaking etc.

 The whole experience brought to light a new side of me and inside of me ,of God, the people around me and the world around me!

The View on reaching the top of an Uphill Trek

 Sometimes I wish I could go to this particular camp (which happens several times a year at ‘Avalanche’, a place near Ooty, Tamil Nadu, India) with some of the people I think I know well – because-at this particular setting I want to see if they’re the same people or are different.

This is because at the camp site there’re no mirrors (but I suppose you could carry one-but cameras are allowed), electronic crutches (phones rarely get a signal)or electricity available to us even.

It’s also quite cold, and the activities sometimes push you to the edge of your comfort zones- Generally a new side of a person- one I'm not used to-surfaces.

Does that make sense?

 People are forced into a situation unlike any other, so they’re usually different. Sometimes it’s a good different – for example somebody I once thought was a quiet and thoughtful person in the city– turned out to be the kind of person who grabbed my wrist as I slipped off the edge of a large slippery rock and became a sort of life saviour to me in the forest.

Sometimes it’s an ugly different – because some people hate it..I’m not quite sure why. I can't put a finger on what exactly happens here.

But do you get the drift?

Getting to the point of this blog post, there’s something I have to share- It's called " The fiver finger contract"

It's something the camp guides made us "sign" (by raising our right hands and bringing our fingers together- sort of like blinking for the hand)

(Ok, Honestly, I don’t remember if they called it the five finger contract, or something else – and I didn’t write it down when the Camp Instructors said it- so I’m relying on memory for this, so here goes.)

The CONTRACT:

 

1.       Respect yourself enough to never say “I can’t do it” without even trying.

 

2.       Respect others enough to never say “You can’t do it” without even encouraging them to try first. Let not a discouraging / negative comment escape your lips.

 

3.       Respect the environment. Take care of it.

 

4.       Respect the Instructor.

 

5.       Respect the equipment/ tools you use.

The impact this contract has (when followed to the T) is inexplicably cool.

One girl at camp suggested that we ought to apply it onto our lives as well, not just for camp.

 I know the word ‘Respect’ (repeated several times in the contract)sometimes makes us cringe – but I think it’s beautiful what it could result in- under certain circumstances.

I've challenged myself to follow this.

Would you sign this contract?

Love

Jeff

Blog Shout-outs! #1

Hello there visitor ! :)

It's crazy- the number of blogs that are out there. \It's a little overwhelming to see how many there are in a few blogging websites I've just been checking out.
    But that aside, this is something new that I wanted to try doing - and hopefully continue doing;
I am going to be doing small shout-outs of blogs(or vlogs of people) which I feel have inspired me deeply.
 This is completely random , and based purely on personal opinion-but hey! you might enjoy them too eh?

                     So the first blog I am going to feature here is "The Leading Follower"   

                                                  

                                              http://theleadingfollower.wordpress.com/

This Blog is written by a young girl named Julie and I love how she speaks the truth without inhibitions. A blog about exercising her Faith in God by following Him and inspiring others to do the same- hence the name "the Leading Follower".   

             I've got a couple more blogs lined up next:     
           http://www.zoella.co.uk/                                               http://sprinkleofglitter.blogspot.in

                                     
 
  

This is the video of them with their cool blogging tips :) which automatically led me to their blogs.

 

And the last person to be featured in this post is going to be the popular "beauty guru"- Bubzbeauty a.k.a. Lindy.

www.youtube.com/bubzbeauty

Although I'm not particularly into make-up, I started watching the videos she put up since about 4 years ago. She puts up videos that are not just related to make-up, like ones where she teaches us crafty things and talks about various topics like "True Beauty", "Finding Happiness" :)
I've learnt a lot from her.

 

So that's it for this post. If you find posts like this interesting, let me know :) I look forward to making more such posts and sharing more inspiring people.
Who or what have inspired you in your life?

My Life Story. A.

Good day reader ! :D

Yesterday I stumbled across a blog post Your Life Story which made me think about how easily we get judged and judge others.
      At the bottom of the blogger, Julie, left an open invitation for the readers to send in our life stories to her by e-mail. I started writing "My Life Story" and wrote, for quite some time. It turned out to be freakishly LONG and I wrote until about 2:38 AM in the morning. 
 And as uncomfortable as it may be - I'm going to be sharing it here - in four parts (because.) So this is the first part :).

There was once a time quite a while back - when
I didn't care much about myself, but based my opinion of myself, on what others said.
It's crazy, how I managed to survive that phase- but I guess it didn't completely rule my life, so thank God for that. When I sit down to write this random sketch of my "life" so far, one thing that stands out - besides the kind of child I was ( which was the type who had a lot of ideas and thought a notebook +pen = happiness.) - is the passing of my mother.
My mom sacrificed a lot for me (as most mothers tend to do) , like - she gave up a career in my early stages to take care of me and my sister. She loved me, and told me to talk to Jesus whenever I thought I was alone and in the dark.            

She had cancer - was on treatment for a while, but soon got better. This was when I was very young, about 4 or 5 years of age(I don't remember exactly..).
I didn't know what cancer was, except that it made my mother have to go to the hospital quite a lot and also lose her hair(not as a result of cancer, but because of the treatment). She had mastectomy of one of her breasts(as part of her treatment). Chemotherapy and Radiation were words I heard quite a lot. Others might have looked at her differently - but to me she was my mom. 

That was my normal.        In spite of all this, and once the cancer had been "controlled" - things sort of took a different turn, and I had quite a blessed childhood. As a kid, I was protected, taken care of, Loved, listened to - and I'm grateful for aaaallll of that. :D
I made good friends in school, and did pretty OK with the scoring marks part in.

In High School, for some reason I started to drift apart from my friends. But I got to make new friends right after that and sort of sailed along somehow.
This was when I began to care about everybody else's opinions - which is good in some small ways, but can also become your poison. By this time, however, my mother was starting to have to go to the hospital a lot again. 

As a child, my mother tried to explain to me as best as she could - one afternoon- that she wanted to be there for me and asked me if I wanted her too?
We had a few mother-daughter fights, and I wasn't the best child - because by this time I had begun to hate myself ( for what ever reason ?) but when she asked me that - I sort of broke down and we both cried.
I didn't know she had little chances of recovery (nobody ever told me that) I guess I sort of thought , she'd get better like the last time.
About a week after my 13th birthday I came home from school and walked into the room where my mother rested, like every other day, to just talk- but she wasn't feeling well(with a cold, too) and started coughing and sort of pushed me away. I got mad at her, and left - my grandmother was in the room still, with her.
Soon, it became apparent that something was wrong - 'cause she didn't seem to be breathing right ( I'm not quite sure, exactly what was wrong) And we started to try to find out why she looked so uncomfortable. I got on the bed and propped her up, so that she was leaning on me. Nothing seemed to work or get her comfortable, again. I got off, and suddenly my sister was there with her friend and her mother ( my sister is about 6 years older than me)- they lived close by.. and an ambulance was called. In minutes however, my mother stopped breathing and I remember touching her hands and they'd felt so cold. Somebody called my dad to give him the news, he was out of town for work.  

I remember thinking :" my life is never going to be the same again", and that proved to be true.
For some reason, I wandered off and wanted to be alone and I was fiddling through the Word of God, I came across the words "I will never leave thee or forsake thee"
God suddenly became real to me, and this is not the type of experience I can put effectively in words. I felt Him there.
The days that led to the funeral are sort of stored in flashes of memories in my mind.

 

Lalala :D You have successfully reached the end of the first part out of four! The next part should be up sometime next month.
Tell me what you think : jeffy.blogger@hotmail.com or comment :)

Thank you Julie, for I'm doing this a little bit because of you. Now it's your turn! I want to know your life story! E-mail it to me ;)

Love

-Jeff

 

Things I've learnt at the end of the 2nd year in college :

Hello  : )
I really enjoyed writing the Things I've learnt at the end of the 1st year post and so here's the next part:

1.       Very little things are actually under my control: things like what other people think about me, what the weather is going to be in 6 months’ time,  how far away the earth is from the sun--I'll never have control over- I’ve learnt that I need to remember to not worry about these things- ‘cause, well, I’m not meant to.

2.       There are a whole LOT of things that ARE under my control, which I SHOULD be aware of: like what I think about myself, how I spend my time, the things I think about, the people I spend time with, how I look at different  situations, whether I am grateful or not, the things I speak (whether I think before I say something or not), to listen to what someone is saying, whether I can either Love or Hate a person (and so on and so forth). These things, I’ve learnt are LITERALLY blessings from God, and I am accountable for how I choose to do life.

3.       Nevertheless, even if I do forget 1 and 2, andmake a mess of situations- I’m learning to look to God to forgive me and heal my mess. To get back up and remember that sooner or later I’m probably going to laugh about the whole deal.

4.       I’m learning not to dwell in the past and to focus on right now. ‘Cause only now is real. The future is out of my hands, but that doesn’t mean I loaf off now.

5.       That God is Faithful. By that; I mean that God is Truth. Nobody else can say “I love you and I will never leave you nor forsake you” and completely mean it too-and that’s not their fault either.  I have done some pretty nasty stuff against Him, but He still loves me. So, yea. No matter who leaves me, and what happens – He’ll always be there. :D

6.       That I shouldn’t underestimate anything or anybody. Everybody is capable of surprising you.

7.       I’m learning the art of forgiveness. This is a slowwww process for me  - I wish it wasn’t, but it is.

8.       To Love Myself- this requires constant reminding, because over the years- it’s like I’ve forgotten what it’s like to Love myself.
But here’s the thing: I will always be me, and not somebody else. I will always have to live “with myself”. So inclusive of the Good, the Bad and the Ugly parts of me- I’ve got to love myself.

9.       To not love somebody else more than I love myself. This sounds weird, but I have been this love starved person- and a lot of us are…and until Love found me, I have been constantly trying to find love in others. This is just too stressful for a mere person to handle.
I know people might have trouble not to love themselves more than they love others- I occasionally have that problem as well.

10.   That staying true to myself is one of the most important things EVER. That I shouldn’t go out of my way to impress people.

 I'm doing a lot more things that I really want to do. So, Thank God for that :D

Once again, Here's to an amazing YEAR AHEAD!! :D

No shame

I want to SCREAM it to the world

But I want to do it quietly <3

I want to Celebrate Him And my Life Right now

'cause although it appears imperfect -

IT's EXACTLY WHAT I NEEd

exactly where I want in Life.

Everything is perfect in the Lord.

(no matter what others' say :D)


--

This was some spontaneous writing that I did earlier, and it remains unedited because I didn't want it to edited :D

- Love
Jeff

 

Submission

No, I don't mean the sort of thing a person does with a report to a teacher in school.

Here's what I mean:
"to submit" meaning,"to accept or yield to a superior force or to the authority or will of another person."

When we were all very young, I'm guessing that there we were mostly surrounded by some form of authority - to whom we had to submit to.
I never really had a choice there.
I was born to certain set of parents , I had an older sister and  when the time came-I got to go to school, with a certain set of teachers. At home, there were obviously other people around too, such as aunts and uncles, cousins, grandparents etc.
The point is- submitting to these people was something I was expected to be doing even before I learnt that I was a Human being. Whether I did actually submit to them or not - is a totally different matter.
18 years into my life and there are a new set of "people" (family aside) that I "ought" to be submitting to.
 This concept is something anybody with an ego (which is everybody) naturally, has a problem with. For one, I had come to realize that these people I'm supposed to be 'submitting' to, were all imperfect people who didn't have a clue, mostly, themselves.

We are all a bunch of 'Know-Nothings' ourselves- so why should I "submit to" or be a "superior force" to anybody else?

  However, there is a "Know-Everything" that I know of, and His Name is God.

With the help of the Holy Spirit, I've come to see that submission is not the UGLY RACOON MONSTER I'd made it out to be in my head.
 It was something much much more than that.
The vital thing I had forgotton is that we have a choice - the key word to me, in the definition above (in purple) is "to accept". It's crazy but this little thing , made all the difference to me.
   It meant that when someone wishes to propose to you something - you don't have to accept.
It's a choice.
When God - the maker of the whole wide Universe- said that He loved me...I didn't have to accept Him. It was a choice. That's the beautifully crazy and simple thing that makes 'submission-by-choice' different from 'being-controlled-by-somebody-through-guilt-and-force'.
 The matter of choice, sort of places importance on the "not-so-superior-force" (even when they don't deserve it, as in the case of God and man).

  However, a while back- when none of this occured to me,I was just downright angry with God.
 How could this possibly be His perfect plan for my life and for peoples' lives in general?
People are Know-Nothings, they don't 'get' (understand) me.

I was literally beating my fists on surfaces, thinking "Why? Lord, Why?"
"Why give me all these ideas and strength to do ...and want me to choose to submit to somebody else? Why give me all this Power? And wish for me to not use it in any way I can?"

And then this picture pops-up in my head.
Of Jesus, being taunted- by a bunch of Know Nothings - to show them His power as He was being taken away to be crucified.
If He was really King of Jews, if He really was God in the form of man, all He had to do was show them that it was true.
But there He was, quiet as a Lamb.  

Jesus.
He might've wanted to show them - really show them who He was. I mean He could've just snapped His fingers - made the world implode in itself and then escaped in a rocket ship.



"Peace Out, Suckers!!" - But, this is not what really happened- right? 

Jesus chose to let them taunt Him to the best of their abilities. Why?
Because it's what His Father in Heaven, wanted Him to do.

Simple ain't it?

Jesus died.
He CHOSE to let them crucify Him. For us. For me.

But wait, there's more. He rose again, and defeated Death in itself. And reigns as King. As God's own Boy.

This is Proof for me, that submitting to Know-Nothings is the right thing to do if - it's what the Know-Everything wants me to do. Because there's a bigger picture, that I can't see.

And by submitting to Know - Nothings, I'm actually submitting to my favourite Know- Everything in the whole wide Universe.

Love
Jeff.

 

 

Light Won't Go Out

Who is this girl I see?
(in the mirror)
she seems graceful and slight
beautiful from within
Her light shines upon all
others
She didn't do this alone.
She didn't choose to be this way, on her own.
Everything I see now comes because of Him,
who took her sin and suffering
and shame
and made it His.
He fought for her, to make her feel loved
Because she lost that feeling
even before she realised it...
If it weren't for Him
who pushed her out of
her personal darkness
would she stand so tall?
No, and would she be able
to stand so still and strong?-
without His strength inside
of her ?
Definitely not.
In a life where chaos prevails
and in a world where darkness
rules
It's hard to sometimes  see
the Light
But with the help of those
like her, the light won't
go out.