What's in a cup?

I was a time-keeper at a school’s gala today. The girl whose time I was keeping was a fast swimmer. What slowed her down was her constant comparing. She kept looking next to her to see how she was faring. She was competing against the others, but checking out her components is what slowed her down. In the end she didn’t win. She asked me her time. I told her. She was disappointed. I said to her, don’t worry about everyone else. Just think about yourself. Then I realized what I had said. In life this is bad advice. You should worry about everyone else and not think about yourself. Or else you are egocentric. However, as I said it, I realized that what counts most in life is to reach the end goal. We do this most successfully by giving our best and not comparing ourselves to our neighbors. This does not make us selfish. We might not even come first in the race, but we will have done it with our utmost effort, the best we could have done it, without looking left or right...

Okay, so Joel Osteen says you should not compare yourself to anyone else because you are uniquely you, which we all essentially know, but being his gifting, he manages to say it in such a convincing way, and takes up 30 minutes doing so, holding your attention the whole while, that I have come to believe this truth even more than I did before. And now to the crux of figuring out what that ONE talent is that he says every person has - just one, not 5 or more, but one very specific talent that God will use to glorify Him. He mentioned David as an example. He could sing and dance and lead, but what ultimately was his gifting, his core of strength, was his skill with a slingshot. Something apparently insignificant. So, what can I say is my big talent, my one talent? I would say spelling. Spelling is my gift. Will God use it? Will it one day bring Him glory? Joel believes to concentrate and work on your strengths. Your weaknesses, if rated 2/10, will only reach a meager 5/10 if...

"A soft tone is the foundation. If you don't have a soft tone, you can't sing," Jarmilla explained. Jarmilla is my new voice trainer. She lives in a big, wide-opened house in Kroondal, with an avenue of trees introducing her house. She leads me into a corner of the open-plan house where stands a grand piano, and she asks me about myself, and tells me about herself. Jarmilla is Czechoslovakian. Her husband and her now consider themselves South Africans because they have lived here over 40 years. And she wouldn't move from Kroondal. She is happy here. And so am I! I think I must have the best of luck to have this marvelous teacher just 10 minutes away from my workplace. She truly is marvelous - we start the lesson despite my 20 minute delay. I never saw the "Rex" sign so I kept driving another 8km when I should have turned right. Got there with 8 minutes to spare, but she still took me on. So grateful! You know when you are doing somethin...

During the day my time consists of articles, adjectives, nouns and verbs, of commas, full stops and inverted commas. I look at, read, write and dictate words, sometimes mere letters, and then the sentence, as though this were the be all and end all of life, theirs as well as mine. Every child learns to read and write, and every child grows up despite mistakes and unfairness and other crazy things that happen in their lives. I'll try my best but feel my best is not good enough, but I get the feeling every teacher feels that way because there is always more you could have done, if only you had the time, if only you had been wiser. Next time, you say, next time I'll do it better, and that next time is just the following day. I am positively challenged every day and thus growing all the more. I am learning so much, yes, from my weaknesses but also from my strengths, and I am finding on the days I try a little harder that I feel a little better and live a little ...

To those who are uncertain... about their standing in this world. I finally got The Message. I get it. It's all about God's path laid out before my very feet. It's all about seeing the light who is God at the end of the tunnel. It's all about the right way and not straying from the narrow road. I finally got The Message. It's not about getting the hint, though many have tried. It's about getting to know the characters of the Bible. It's about knowing your Bible. It's about visions, dreams, prayer and God's will for your life. Did I tell you, I finally got The Message? It's about desiring to know the truth. It's about studying the Word of God and interpreting it. It's about opening up about your life - your past, your present. It's about making decisions. I got it, I finally got it. This message wasn't one that hurt. It's about that emptiness inside you cannot fill with your heart's desire or wit...

I have started a daily chores list, which has been keeping me going for three weeks and counting. If only I'd thought of this before! It entails writing down 5 chores you need to accomplish on a daily basis each week. You tick off once you've done it, and at the end of the week, you get a sticker. Okay, I know what you're thinking - a sticker!? Is that it? It just goes to show we are all just still kids inside. Simple positive motivation, and I promise you, I have never had such happy plants in my life before. Truth be told, I was so determined to water my plants every day that they almost drowned til I noticed it also meant care if you let them soak up the water by themselves until there was none left. I even gave my delicious monster mayonnaise! (Heard it makes their leaves nice 'n shiny, and it's true, they've been shining ever since). It has been so effective that I have made a weekly and a monthly chore list, but as I was busy creating them, ...

I love it when I wake up on a Saturday morning and see there is still lots of time left before I actually need to get up, because that means I can read. I will prop up all my cushions behind me to get into a comfortable position, and then I will continue where I left off last night. Oftentimes I will get up briefly to make myself a nice, hot cup of tea with honey, and then slip back under the covers to revel in the warmth and continue the story. Only once this part of me that has this insatiable hunger to read a book of sorts is stilled, can I get up to attend to my laundry and other life maintenance chores. The accompaniment of music is almost a must. I have come to love the combination of the ESC, finish and command keys on my keyboard because they bring me to my selection of music according to genre, artist or song. I usually choose genre. My mood dictates what genre I want to listen to. If all is well with the world, I will go for the Praise & Worship, but when ...