Can’t earn it

I want to give you an update on my health, and some really deep thoughts that I’ve had about it. I’ll start with a potted history and bring you up to date with where I am now. Then will come the deep thoughts 🙂

In 2016 I decided that I was really sick of feeling tired all the time and I was going to look into my health in a big way and get things going well. I checked for intolerances (and found salicylates) and allergies (sulphites), I went to a specialist about my sinuses and dealt with them so that they are generally clear. And I still wasn’t feeling that much better.

My wonderful and awesome GP decided to give me a whole slew of blood tests and we found that my thyroid was overactive. That put a whole new machine into operation. A run of specialist appointments and a medication that brought it under control. And I went from dragging myself through each day, hardly able to move, feeling stressed and burnt out and fatigued and awful to feeling pretty much normal.

I was excited to be feeling well again. I was told that the thyroid usually settles itself down after a couple of months and then I’d be OK. But my thyroid didn’t settle. It remained slightly overactive even after eighteen months. It was time to do something definitive.

The definitive option we decided on was radioactive iodine therapy. There was a chance with this therapy that we could kill off the thyroid gland just enough but not too much. No more overactivity but it wouldn’t be under active either. And I could have the correct amount of thyroid hormone in my blood stream without any medications.

So we did that back in June of this year. When I went to the specialist afterwards she was confident that we’d done what we needed to do. Everything would be good. A couple more blood tests to check levels and then only one test needed each year to keep a check on things.

All good, right? Turns out, not so much.

Over the last few months, very gradually, I’ve been feeling worse and worse. My energy has gone down. My weight has gone up. And it’s all been very gradual. I’ve been a bit like that frog in the pot of slowly boiling water.

I tried to do something about how I felt. I kept exercising. Hoping that exercise would speed up my metabolism, and build my fitness, and help me out. I listened to uplifting music and read uplifting books to help with the dullness and the depression I was feeling. I prayed and I made sure I rested once a week and I paced myself to keep within my energy levels. I found jobs that I could do to keep the businesses moving forward even though I wasn’t feeling energetic, and I put systems in place so that I wouldn’t forget the important things that I needed to do. But I kept feeling worse.

My biggest fear was that I’d have the last blood test, go to the doctor and be told, ‘your thyroid levels are low, but not low enough for medication, you just need to try harder.’ So instead of getting a blood test, I just tried harder and harder.

Finally the blood test day turned up. I joked with the pathologist that I’d be finished with this one. That this would be my last test for a year. I was all good.

I was seriously in denial. I don’t know how I could have even thought I was good. But I did. I thought that this low energy level was how life was going to be. And that I should be grateful for it.

The next day my specialist rang in a panic. She told me that I had almost no thyroid hormone left in my body. That she was seriously worried about my brain function. That I shouldn’t drive a car. That she didn’t know how I was standing upright. And she faxed a prescription through to the pharmacy closest to me so I could start taking medication straight away. I was to come and see her the next morning so she could get me on some faster acting stuff as well.

If you want detail, I had no measurable T3 and very, very little T4. And my TSH which should be lower than 4 was at 98. I was quite literally slowing to a stop.

When I took my first fast acting T3 tablet it was like giving a drooping plant water. My body lapped it up. Within half an hour I felt human again. The headache I didn’t really know I had, left. My brain cleared. My eyes could see better. My muscles worked again. My sore throat was no longer sore. I could walk, I could dance, I felt like singing. I suddenly knew how sick I had been.

And how foolish I had been to think I could fix this problem by myself.

My body needed T3. No amount of exercise, diet, or rest would have been able to fix that. My thyroid gland is dead, it is not making what I need. And without T3 I was also dying.

Once I was given what I needed, I immediately came back to life.

Now, you all know I’m a Christian, and this situation is the best illustration I have for what I believe about salvation.

We might think that we can work our way into being good people. That we can somehow build up to being good enough for God. So we do good things, we go the extra mile, we treat people as we’d like to be treated. And all of these things are good things.

But if we keep doing that we will wear ourselves out, and believe me, we will die. Because good works are not what our souls need. “Spirituality” is not what our souls need. We can’t do it for ourselves. We do not have the capacity to bridge this gap, to solve this problem. And it doesn’t matter how hard we try, we will die trying.

We need Jesus. He has paid the price for us to get us to God. He is the righteousness we can’t get for ourselves. He is our spiritual T3.

With Jesus we will live.

Without Jesus we will die.

It’s as simple, and as difficult as that.

It’s not that our good works are bad. They are good. But they are not what we need. And they will never be enough.

If you are a Christian like me, then praise God with me that Jesus has bridged the gap and given us what we need.

If you are not, let me tell you, God loves you. He wants you to know him. And he’s given his all to give you all that you need to get to him. You will die without him, you won’t die if you depend on him. Feel free to ask me about it. I’d love to tell you.

Or get yourself along to a church this Christmas. You will give any Christian the best Christmas present in the world by asking them about Jesus.

So where am I now? I’m at the beginning of another long process. My thyroid levels will stabilise over the next couple of years. I will be taking thyroid hormone for the rest of my life and right now I’m very happy with that outcome. It will mean that my levels stay just right – not too high, and not too low. I’ve tried both, I don’t like either. I want some stability now and this is the way to get it.

And I look forward to what I’ll be able to do fitness-wise, business-wise, life-wise with a body that’s working like it should. I’m excited. It’s lovely to have energy again.

A blessed and happy Christmas to you all.

Are you missing some of my blog posts? They come out every Monday. Sign up to follow the A Quiet Life blog on WordPress, or you can sign up to my newsletter on www.ruthamos.com.au  and you will receive every post straight to your email inbox. You will also find my podcast, my book ‘My Year of Saying No’, and any short stories or other books will be up there as they come along.

If you would like to support this blog and the podcast then you can head over to Patreon.com/quietlife and help me out for as little as a dollar a month. Thank you so much!

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A good and Godly man

My Dad is pretty wise. One of the things he’s wise about is this thing of saying nice things about people. Before they die.

We often wait until after people pass away to say what we think about them. We stand up at the funeral and we say how great the person was, and what a huge impact they had on our lives. And that’s great, a good way to remember them.

But what if we said these lovely things to them? Before they died. So that they could be encouraged too.

This Saturday we had the chance to do that for my Dad. It was his 70^th birthday party so we all got together and said nice things about him, and I want to share my nice things with you.

My Dad has shown me what a real man, a good man, a Godly man is.

I’ve been thinking back through my memories.

I think my earliest is Dad cooking dinner for my brother Anthony and myself while Mum was in hospital with my younger sister. Scrambled eggs on toast with tomato sauce has a special place in my memory, as does sausages and toast. (His cooking skills have improved over time and I’d like to say that his roast dinner with apple pie for dessert was a highlight when my sister Catherine was visiting this year.)

I remember driving with Dad and listening to *gasp* rock music on 7HO FM, or more commonly AM or PM the ABC talk radio shows.

I remember making bricks out of wet newspaper in a special brick making machine. They were dried afterwards in the sun and were burned in our wood heater.

I remember going on a family biking holiday around Brunie Island and how Dad convinced Catherine that there was a bunyip in the dam over the fence. And another trip to Brunie where we fished off the pier and caught a squid.

I remember the laundry being turned into a photography dark room, black plastic on the windows, the smell of the photography chemicals, the wonder that was the enlarging machine.

I remember microphones being set up all around our lounge room as Dad prepared to record Mum’s music. And I remember being soundly told off for eating popping candy at a concert that Dad was recording. (Sorry Dad).

One of my greatest childhood memories is Dad reading to us. All kinds of books. He read the whole of The Lord of the Rings to us as a family. I tried that with my kids, it didn’t work, there was no chance they’d sit through it. But for me, Dad reading to our family, all of us sat up in their double bed, or maybe around a picnic in the park, these are some of my fondest memories.

Dad’s career path wasn’t straightforward. But when people tell me that I am so brave to quit uni and try something new, I know I’m just doing what was modelled for me by this brave man who quit his job as a telecom technician to work with addicts, then moved on to be the administrator of a children’s home, then joined Youth With A Mission, worked in a radio station, moved to the USA with Christian Performing Arts Fellowship, and came home to get ordained and work as a minister in a church. Sometimes the reason for the change was because Dad needed something new, sometimes it was to give Mum the chance to live her dreams. Each of them in the partnership was valued equally, each putting the others interests before their own. Dad and Mum have modelled a Godly marriage.

Recently Dad has battled with physical injuries from his fall when he was renovating, and with mental illness – years of deep depression. He is uncomplaining, he perseveres, he gets up every morning and gets on with it. And at the same time he is vulnerable, letting people in, telling them where he is at. Dad has shown me that you can be vulnerable and strong at the same time.

Dad’s love and care for those around him has sometimes been a detriment to his own health or energy but he doesn’t stop putting others first. He is a true servant leader. He has great skill in taking a mess of an organisation and sorting it out, looking after people first along the way. He is a diplomat and a pastor.

I am so very proud of my father. And so very grateful to God for putting me in this wonderful family. I hope that I can live up to his example, in my own way.

Thanks Dad for being you.

I hope you don’t mind this very personal blog post. Next week’s will be personal too 🙂 

Are you missing some of my blog posts? They come out every Monday. Sign up to follow the A Quiet Life blog on WordPress, or you can sign up to my newsletter on www.ruthamos.com.au  and you will receive every post straight to your email inbox. You will also find my podcast, my book ‘My Year of Saying No’, and any short stories or other books will be up there as they come along.

If you would like to support this blog and the podcast then you can head over to Patreon.com/quietlife and help me out for as little as a dollar a month. Thank you so much!

What’s your sincere desire?

Happy New Year! No, I’m not losing track, not that badly anyway. It’s Advent. The start of the new year in the church calendar. The preparation period. Active waiting. All that stuff.

And just by coincidence I have been thinking New Years thoughts. And I thought you might like to hear them, because if you think them too, you might be prepared to make New Years resolutions, or intentions, or ‘word for the year’, or whatever you do to mark that arbitrary date of January 1 in the calendar when it rolls around.

You, and I, might be prepared to start 2019 in an intentional fashion, knowing what direction we would like to push out our boat.

My mother recently gave me a book to read on prayer. It’s called I Will Lift Up Mine Eyes by Glenn Clark. It was first published in 1953, though Mum’s edition was published in 1978. And would you believe, a quick search has found it on Amazon? I’m pretty blown away by that. So you can buy it and read it too if you wish.

I’m only a quarter of the way through the book so far, it’s one of those that you read slowly, and at this point Clark is talking about something he calls ‘your soul’s sincere desire’. He says that God wants us to pray for our sincere desire. And that he will answer our prayer.

But this is where it gets interesting whether you are a praying person or not, because how do you know what you really want? Deep down, what you want in the depths of your soul. Not what you want to keep up with the Joneses, not what you want because someone else thinks it’s good for you, not what you want because you’ve been going that way all your life and to stop now is unthinkable because of all the time spent building up to this one thing.

What do you really want?

Clark suggests writing a list, brainstorming, writing out everything you want. People, things, activities, jobs, everything. Just write it all out. And be specific.

Take time to write the list. I took two or three days.

And then test everything on the list.

The first test is: Are the things on your list true to your nature?

‘A robin could not possibly desire to swim, and a herring could not possibly desire to fly.’ he says. But we, us humans, we can think we desire something that we actually don’t want. Check with yourself. Will you be happy doing or having the things on your list? Is that thing truly right for your nature?

Here’s an example. I spent a lot of my life wanting big parties for my birthday. Then when the birthday came around I wanted to run away and hide. A big party is not something true to my introverted nature. It is not a sincere desire of my soul. Now I realise that what I really want for my birthday is a birthday card from as many people as possible (a Facebook wish works just as well) and maybe a few good friends over for a piece of cake and a glass of something. That is a sincere desire.

At the same time Clark says that it is good to ask for things that are true to your nature. He says that ‘the apple tree that refuses to bear apples because the poor elm tree cannot have them, is not helping others, but obviously robbing mankind.’

I have truly desired to write books. If I stopped myself from writing because other people do not have the time and space that I’ve been granted at this moment, then I really would be doing a disservice to others. It is good to fulfil your soul’s sincere desire.

So look at your list and cross off things that aren’t true to your nature. I took a day or two to do this too.

Next test: Are these things just? Will you be ripping someone else off if you get what you desire? Are you asking for that job, or house, or whatever, just because you selfishly want it? Or will you use it to help others?

Next test: Are you willing to work towards these things? I love this one.

He says let’s say your desire is a trip abroad. Have you prepared for that? Have you studied the country, its history, its culture, its language, its famous sights? If you haven’t then even if you got given the chance to travel, you wouldn’t get much out of the trip. You need to put the work in first.

Or if you want to be a famous speaker, have you practiced? Studied?

If you want to be thin and fit, have you exercised? Looked at your diet? Or are you just praying in the hope that thin and fit will magically happen?

If you are praying for new friends are you willing to be friendly to others?

Are you willing to work towards the thing you desire? It’s an interesting thought.

That’s as far as I’ve got in the book. I might share more thoughts as I keep working through it. I am spending a fair bit of time at the moment looking at my businesses and thinking about where I want to take them in the new year. I’m thinking about what success looks like for each of the businesses, what I’m heading towards. I’m finding these thoughts, these tests, very useful as I contemplate the businesses. Is this honestly what I want? Or am I building an idea on what someone else found was good for them?

I hope that by January I will have found my soul’s sincere desires and will be willing to work towards them in a way that is congruent with who I am, and that will bless the most people possible.

Oh, and I want to finish with a word of non-condemnation. I am not judging anyone here. I know that circumstances out of our control – chronic illness, poor mental health, difficult financial or family issues – can take our dreams and make them seem completely unachievable. I’m not trying to tell you to work harder or just figure it out correctly and that if you do you’ll be sitting on a bed of roses by the end of next year.

I guess all I’m saying is that I’m finding it helpful to have a bit of structure around figuring out where I want to go, and by the end of the process I hope I have a prize to keep my eyes on while I navigate the difficulties that 2019 throws at me.

I hope that these thoughts are helpful for you too.

As we look towards the new year you might find that a little book I wrote called ‘My Year of Saying No‘ might also be helpful to you or maybe to someone you know. It might make a good Christmas present for someone who needs some peace and space in their lives. Just a thought 🙂

As always you can sign up to follow the A Quiet Life blog on WordPress, or you can sign up to my newsletter on www.ruthamos.com.au  and you will receive every post straight to your email inbox. And you can help me with the expenses of this blog and my podcast by heading over to Patreon.com/quietlife and supporting me there. Thanks!

Endings and New Beginnings

The new bass. I have no idea what I’m doing 🙂

Moz has been working on a very exciting project lately.

He has been making a bass guitar.

This guitar is a thing of beauty.  It is made to match my little green mini and it even has racing stripes.

But the bass didn’t start out that beautiful.

The kit form guitar.

It came in a kit. It needed to be shaped and sanded. The sanding process seemed endless but all of the imperfections had to be removed before one coat of paint was added.

We had to try various colours of green to find the one we liked the best. Then each coat had to dry for a bit, before more sanding and another coat. And then more sanding and a clear coat. And then the polishing process started to bring up that beautiful shine.

The racing stripes had to be designed, the laminate chosen, and the Moz logo developed and added. The neck was oiled to bring out the beauty in the wood, filling the house with all sorts of strange odours.

And after all that, that’s when things started to get technical!

The neck had to be at the right angle. The frets ground down to be the right height, the little black bit at the top of the fret board had to be filed half a millimetre or so, so that the strings rested in just the right way to make it easy to play. Everything had to be the right height and strength and tension.

The paint is finished and the strings are on, but we’re not finished yet!

But that wasn’t enough. The electronics needed to be completed too. Copper shielding was placed in the hole on the side. Wires were soldered. Sound was checked.

Finally the bass was declared finished. A thing of beauty. And of fun. And something that we’re all going to enjoy playing and messing around on over the next months and years.

In one way, this project is over, and there’s a little sadness there. It’s been a fun project for Moz to play with and he’ll need to find another one now.

But in another way, the project is just beginning.

Moz has been working on another project too.

For the last six years he has been Head of Year to a year group at the school where he works. The kids started out as little grade sevens, and now they have finished grade twelve. They are adults. They have their leavers dinner tonight.

It’s another bitter-sweet moment, an ending and a beginning. I pray that their lives are instruments that bring great joy to others, and to God, in the music that they play wherever they find their lives heading.

Are you missing some of my blog posts? They come out every Monday. Sign up to follow the A Quiet Life blog on WordPress, or you can sign up to my newsletter on www.ruthamos.com.au  and you will receive every post straight to your email inbox. You will also find my podcast, my book ‘My Year of Saying No’, and any short stories or other books will be up there as they come along.

If you would like to support this blog and the podcast then you can head over to Patreon.com/quietlife and help me out for as little as a dollar a month. Thank you so much!

Are you a guest?

I am writing this on Friday afternoon because Monday is going to be my Sabbath. Why Monday? I hear you ask. I’m glad you asked that!

The weekend is full. 

We have guests staying. Our guests are part of the band for the wedding we are attending on Saturday afternoon and evening.

Saturday morning my friend is launching a book.

Sunday I am leading at church.

And that is enough peopling for me. Monday will need to be a rest day.

But it’s got me thinking about community.

Because as much as I am an introvert, I am also a fully paid up member of the ideology that community is important. Very important. Even for us introverts.

We all know that loneliness is the new smoking. That we need to find a community to be involved in for our own physical and mental health.

But community isn’t always a lovely, joyous, barrel of gooey good feelings and warm fuzzies. True community is sticking together through good and bad. Hanging out with the beautiful shiny people, and the successful. And looking after our elderly, our young mums with screaming babies, our loud teenagers, and our disabled.

It’s the sharing of the dinner and the washing up.

It’s dancing at the wedding reception, and helping to pack all the tables and chairs away afterwards so that the church service can be held the next day.

It’s the coffee together at the beach, and the going to visit in the nursing home.

If you truly want to feel part of a community, you’re going to have to do some uncomfortable things. If you’re not doing the uncomfortable things, then you may just be a guest.

Now I’m not saying you have to do all the uncomfortable things. And beware that you’re not becoming a martyr, because no one wants that. But I think to truly experience community you need to be prepared to serve the community, whether that community is church or Rotary or an online club that you’re a part of. 

I hope you can find a community you can serve, stick with, and love through the good and the bad. A place that you belong.

Are you missing some of my blog posts? They come out every Monday. Sign up to follow the A Quiet Life blog on WordPress, or you can sign up to my newsletter on www.ruthamos.com.au  and you will receive every post straight to your email inbox. You will also find my podcast, my book ‘My Year of Saying No’, and any short stories or other books will be up there as they come along.

If you would like to support this blog and the podcast then you can head over to Patreon.com/quietlife and help me out for as little as a dollar a month. Thank you so much!

And speaking of book launches, the next book in the Deadly Miss series by yours truly (aka RJ Amos) will be launching on Friday, this Friday the 23rd November. It’s called Deadly Misdirection and I think it’s pretty good. You will find e-books on Amazon, Apple Books, and Kobo, and the paperback should be up on Amazon shortly too. I’d love you to pick up a copy, or three, and give one to someone for Christmas. 🙂 

What is the pace of your life?

This morning, I confess, I’m feeling a little ‘meh’. Please don’t worry about me or feel sorry for me, I’m sure it will pass, and I don’t think we can all feel on top of our game all the time.

But the day is beautiful today, the weather is gorgeous, so I decided to go for a little walk before I wrote this blog, before I started my work. I headed to the beach and walked along the sand, and listened to the waves.

I’d love to tell you that I had an amazing revelation while I was there. That the earth shook or that I started to sing for joy, or that I saw a pod of dolphins, or even a whale. But none of that happened. I just walked on the sand and listened to the waves and felt the sun on my back (and in my eyes walking the other way of course), and it was good.

I smiled at people walking the other way. They smiled back at me. I had a lovely short catch up with some good friends who were enjoying a coffee to start their morning.

Then after half an hour I headed back home, back to the washing and the cleaning, the writing and the marketing.

The thing I am so very grateful for this morning is that my life is now being lived at a walking pace. I am no longer running from appointment to appointment. I am not living at a sprint. I have the space to take the opportunity that the perfect weather afforded and to have a morning walk on the beach. I’m grateful that I don’t need to wait for this kind of weather to occur on the weekend – that’s a bit chancy in Tasmania.

I know I am supremely privileged and blessed. But today I don’t want to feel guilty about that. Today I just want to feel grateful for a bit more space in my life and for the chance to walk.

And I encourage you, if you’re able, to remove just a few things from your schedule this week to allow your life to slow to a walking pace too.

Are you missing some of my blog posts? They come out every Monday. Sign up to follow the A Quiet Life blog on WordPress, or you can sign up to my newsletter on www.ruthamos.com.au  and you will receive every post straight to your email inbox. You will also find my podcast, my book ‘My Year of Saying No’, and any short stories or other books will be up there as they come along.

If you would like to support this blog and the podcast then you can head over to Patreon.com/quietlife and help me out for as little as a dollar a month. Thank you so much!

And a Gold Star to You!

On Thursday night and Friday of last week I attended something called the Global Leadership Summit. It was a great time of hearing teaching from excellent speakers, my favourites being Carla Harris and David Livermore (I’m sure you can find them on YouTube). Each of the speakers spoke from their wheelhouse, the things they were interested in, the things they are passionate about. Most of it was amazing and I’ve been left with many things to chew over and apply to my life.

But there was one thing that got my goat, that went against what I believe in, and because that thing is my thing, I’m going to talk with you about it here.

One of the speakers was a pastor of a church with a large congregation that meets in many different places at the same time. It’s a church that uses technology well. Again, I want to say that I agreed with much of what this guy said, I loved a lot of what he said, but he told one story that made me worried for him and for the workers at his church.

He told us that Friday was his day off, but that often he would find himself heading to the office for some reason at around 430 or 5pm on a Friday. Now, as soon as he said that, alarms started going off for me.

I much prefer Eugene Peterson’s approach. Peterson set aside Monday as his day off, his sabbath. He wrote a letter to his congregation informing them of this and asking them to respect that day off. He stated that if there was a crisis then they could contact him, but for anything short of imminent death could they please wait until Tuesday? He would send that letter out annually just to remind his congregation of the importance of a day of rest.

Pastors have one of the most emotionally draining jobs on the planet. People can feel like the pastor is their property and should be available at all times. But no one can live that way, and even God took a day off after creation. So if a pastor feels that he has to ‘drift back’ to the office on his day off as a regular thing, I think there is something wrong.

Now, the other part of setting up this story is that the pastor (talking at the GLS) told us that the church workers were allowed to go home early each Friday. That gave them time to pick up their kids from school, go to the doctors, all the stuff that you can do with a couple of extra week day hours. That is great! I think it’s wonderful that they built that into the workplace.

However, when this pastor would drop into the office on a Friday afternoon he would find some people there still working. They were working unpaid overtime.

Now this pastor is a great guy, he really cares for the people that work at his church, he’s a good leader. So he started to show the workers his appreciation. He would go around and give them a fist bump and say ‘Gold star!’

This meant a lot to the workers and their spouses would send him notes to say how much they appreciated the fact that he showed his appreciation. This made him more inclined to say thank you to all the people who were working when they could have been at home.

This situation continued and built up. And now when he heads in on a Friday afternoon he takes a bag full of little gold star toys and hands them out, yelling, ‘Gold star to you! Awesome job! Gold star!’ He showed us a video. The staff were so happy to get these toys. It means a lot to be appreciated.

And it’s lovely that he appreciates his staff. That’s great.

But wouldn’t it be even better if he told them all to get out of the office and go home? Wouldn’t it be great if he enforced the rule of rest, rather than encouraged overwork and overtime?

Insane busyness is a sickness of our age. I feel the church is called to be counter-cultural in this area as in many others. We need to be careful not to add to the busyness of our congregations by adding too many ‘good religious activities’ to their already overcrowded schedules. We need to remind people that it is God that provides our needs, not our work, nor our boss, however that looks from the outside, and that God has directed us to take a day of rest each week.

I have tested this and found that God will help me with my work in the rest of the week if I dedicate a day to resting. No-one has yet died because I took a Sabbath.

Even if you are not a believer, studies have shown that taking a rest will lead to better and more creative work later. And that not resting will lead to less effective and poorer quality work. The universe works on this rule of resting one day in seven.

I’m not sure how you’d do it, but wouldn’t it be wonderful if this man, this pastor, could give the same encouragement that he gives to his overworking staff to his staff when they left the office, went home, built relationships with their families and reached out to their friends and neighbours on a Friday afternoon?

Gold star to you – you played in the park with your kids!

Gold star to you – you read a novel (and therefore increased your empathy for mankind)!

Gold star to you – you stacked the dishwasher and filled the washing machine and gave your wife the couch, the remote, and a glass of wine!

Gold star to you – you invited your neighbour to go watch a movie with you!

A big gold star – you took a nap!

I encourage you to make time to take a rest this week. And if it helps, give yourself a big gold star when you do it.

For more on Eugene Peterson’s ideas on the sabbath, listen to this. 

Are you missing some of my blog posts? They come out every Monday. Sign up to follow the A Quiet Life blog on WordPress, or you can sign up to my newsletter on www.ruthamos.com.au  and you will receive every post straight to your email inbox. You will also find my podcast, my book ‘My Year of Saying No’, and any short stories or other books will be up there as they come along.

If you would like to support this blog and the podcast then you can head over to Patreon.com/quietlife and help me out for as little as a dollar a month. Thank you so much!

Come to life

 

It’s spring. In Tasmania this means the weather flips between summer and winter. And on Saturday I think we got winter. In our house we were cold enough to light the fire, though we hope it’s the last time we do that for the year. We’re running out of wood.

We have some gum tree logs from a tree we cut down on our property last year. Moz bravely rescued them out of the rain and did the hard work to get the fire going. The eucalyptus logs are harder to get burning, but they last a long time. At the end of the night he pulled the fire apart, separating the two remaining logs to either side of the fireplace and we went to bed.

Sunday was much warmer and we didn’t need the fire anymore. I was sitting on the couch and reading in the afternoon when I looked up in shock. Apropos of nothing, the single eucalyptus log had burst into flame again. Full on red flames were coming out of it. It had smouldered all night and for some reason had relit itself.

I had two thoughts from this amazing occurrence.

One: Australian bushfires, and the fires in the gums of California and so on, are so scary just exactly because of this – there was no reason for the fire to start again, it just did. In a single log. That’s really frightening when you’re trying to fight a fire.

The second thought is a little more detailed. And hopefully a little more cheerful.

It made me wonder if some of us have a dream, or a desire, or even a word of encouragement that we have tucked away inside of us. Something that smoulders away, giving those around us no inkling that anything is going on. Something that just keeps you warm inside.

Then one day, for no reason, it bursts back into flame. It comes to life.

It may be a surprise or a shock to those around you. They haven’t noticed the warmth, the smoulder. But you have known. Or you might have known. It might have been buried too deep for you to even realise.

When the log in our fireplace burst into flame, I did nothing about it. I let it burn, and after a while it burned out. I’m pretty sure that the fire is dead now.

I could have kept it going. I could have placed a second log on the fire, or added some kindling.

If you want your dream to stay you’re going to have to nurture it. Now that it’s shown itself, now that it’s burning on the surface, find some other like-minded people and nurture your flame. Make an effort to do the writing, or the practice, or the exercise, or the training, or whatever makes your dream a reality. Take the next step. Don’t waste this moment.

You never know what may come of it.

 

Are you missing some of my blog posts? They come out every Monday. Sign up to follow the A Quiet Life blog on WordPress, or you can sign up to my newsletter on www.ruthamos.com.au  and you will receive every post straight to your email inbox. You will also find my podcast, my book ‘My Year of Saying No’, and any short stories or other books will be up there as they come along.

If you would like to support this blog and the podcast then you can head over to Patreon.com/quietlife and help me out for as little as a dollar a month. Thank you so much!

A Quiet Life

I think the time has come to introduce you to my new podcast. It’s called A Quiet Life. I know, it’s the same as the blog. I guess the blog is about my own life but in the podcast I interview other people and ask them about their quiet lives.

I’ve interviewed ten people so far in preparation for launch and their stories have been incredible, inspirational. But the thing is, you wouldn’t expect these people to be the inspirational ones. They are not the ‘served for fifteen years as a missionary in Africa’ types or the ‘started a non-profit and made it an international success’ types. Though I won’t say no to interviewing people like that, as they come along. But so far, the people I’ve chatted to are people I rub shoulders with at church, people who I’ve known since the year dot, people who work in local schools or hospitals just doing their jobs, living their lives.

But every one of them has a story.

Every one is inspirational.

This is the idea of my podcast. I want you to be inspired. I want to let you know that your story is important. That your life can be used by God for good. And maybe by listening to these amazing people chatting to me, you can find some tips or wisdom that can help you to live your own quiet life.

It’s a Christian podcast, unapologetically. Not preachy (I hope) but definitely Christian, and I understand if some of my audience here doesn’t want to listen. No pressure at all.

I remember talking with my Mum in the car about two years ago as we drove along the causeway between the airport and Midway Point and telling her that this is what I want to do. There was no way I had the time back then to do it but now I can. So I am very excited to have finally got this dream project off the ground.

I am hoping that the podcast will be company. Friendship. A connection if you’re feeling alone. So I have a little chat at the beginning of each episode just saying where I’m at this week. And I’d love for listeners to reply, using comments, or email, or Facebook, or Twitter, and let me know where they are at too.

You can have a listen at www.ruthamos.com.au/podcast or you can search A Quiet Life on iTunes or Stitcher and you should find it there too. Episodes 1 (Anastasia) and 2 (Sarah) are up so far. I would love to hear what you think of it. New episodes will be coming out every Wednesday. And this blog will come out as usual on Mondays.

If you do listen and enjoy it, can I ask you to please leave a review or even just a star rating on iTunes? That will help other people to find it and hopefully be helped by it as well. Thank you.

Are you missing some of my blog posts? They come out every Monday. Sign up to follow the A Quiet Life blog on WordPress, or you can sign up to my newsletter on www.ruthamos.com.au  and you will receive every post straight to your email inbox. You will also find my book ‘My Year of Saying No’, and any short stories or other books will be up there as they come along.

If you would like to support my writing and my podcast then you can head over to Patreon.com/quietlife and support me for as little as a dollar a month. Thank you so much!

The many benefits of creativity

This is Charlene’s beautiful work in progress. Isn’t it delightful?

My friend Charlene wrote something on Facebook on Friday that really made me think about creativity.

She wrote, ‘I love finding little bits of time to paint. I put my headphones on and listen to a book, while I add some more colour to my painting. I have found it is extremely beneficial to me when I am anxious’. 

I feel exactly the same way about my writing. It is easy to forget and to get hung up on doing other ‘more worthwhile things’ but maybe there is nothing more worthwhile than being creative.

Time is very precious to me right now. I have so many projects that I want to make happen, and I also have editing work that I need to do to get some money in my pocket. I have found that over the last few weeks the admin and the editing and the other little jobs have taken priority most of the time, and writing, my creative side, hasn’t had much of a look in.

But on Thursdays I take two hours to head to the café and write. And that time is set aside, it does not get taken up by anything except the writing of the novel, no matter how stressed I am about anything else. I have committed to others to be there and writing, and they are keeping me accountable. Those two hours are purely writing time.

It is amazing how great I feel after spending that time writing, it grounds me, it slows down my rushing anxiety, it helps me back into my own skin again. It reminds me of what I have made all these changes in my life for. And it reminds me that once this busy time is over (and it should be over by next week) I must set aside more time for writing once again.

The act of creating is so beneficial for us. Therapeutic, even.

I think we remember this when we are doing our own art, creating our own thing, writing our own book, practicing our own musical instrument. But when we see art in a gallery, or read a good book, or attend a concert, do we think about how many ways that art has benefitted society?

Originally, and I hope this is generally true, the creative work has benefitted the creator. We are meant to create and I think in most cases the act of creation has brought joy to the person creating.

Then by being in the world it brings joy and peace, or enthusiasm, or a cathartic experience to us who are viewing or listening or dancing to it.

And finally, by being sold or licensed or borrowed it brings good to our economy.

Creativity is a cornerstone of who we are as human beings. I encourage you to find your own creative outlet and make time for it. You may do it just for yourself, just to bring yourself that peace and joy. You might share what you create with friends and family and bring them joy too. Or you might find that what you create can be shared with an even wider audience. I think that whatever you do, the benefits are totally worth the time invested.

I’d love you to share with me what you do creatively. Tell me in the comments, or write to ruth@ruthamos.com.au and send me a picture or a soundbite or a paragraph. I’d love to see how creative we can get about creativity and have a long list of creative endeavours for next week’s blog.

And if you want to know what I’ve been so busy doing you can head to www.ruthamos.com.au/podcast and have a listen to the very first episode of my new podcast A Quiet Life. I’ll be launching on iTunes and Stitcher very soon, God willing, and you will be able to subscribe and hear an episode each week.

Are you missing some of my blog posts? Sign up to follow the A Quiet Life blog on WordPress, or you can sign up to my newsletter on www.ruthamos.com.au  and you will receive every post straight to your email inbox. You will also find my book ‘My Year of Saying No’, and any short stories or other books will be up there as they come along.

If you would like to support my writing and the creation of my podcast then you can head over to Patreon.com/quietlife and support me for as little as a dollar a month. Thank you so much!