Truth/Beliefs

So what IS the truth? Lots of people have different beliefs but they all believe they believe the truth so whether your an atheist or Christian or something else why is that YOUR beliefs are true and everyone elses are not? Agnostics confuse me a little because they believe in 'something' but they don't know what and if I was like that I would be trying to work out what the truth was rather than accepting that 'something' was out there.

Personally I think that for you to discover the truth, it has to be tested and examined and if it is the truth then you will come out of the tests with no room for doubts. It does say in the Bible that you shouldn't test God but it encourages us to seek out the truth and to ask God questions and see the answers to our questions. Seeking the truth is not testing God. Knowing what God is telling you and running away from it all the time is testing him. So, I would like to know, whatever you believe have you ever tested it?

Most people reckon that science and religion don't mix but I find there are many overlaps and so this may seem like too much of a scientific way of thinking afterall how do you test something which can't be proven in the conventional sence. I can tell you that it can be done. I am sure that what I believe IS the truth. Whether you agree or disagree with me is up to you but I can tell you that I believe it is the truth because I HAVE tested it (I've tested God too). Not necessarily intentionally. But I have. I was brought up going to church and some may feel that I have been brainwashed my beliefs from an early age and therefore of course I follow the same beliefs as I was brought up with. I feel that unfortunately this IS the case for many people. Afterall it is very hard for some people to grow up being told something is one way to then question it with any depth. In order to question something like that you may even need to go as far as to reject what you've always been taught for you to then possibly come back later agreeing with your upbringing.

It has always saddened me when I have spoken to people who hold such a strong belief in something and yet when you say to them WHY do you believe that? They don't really have an answer. Some might flounder a bit and come up with "Cos the Bible says so?" but for me the Bible is more than a book and if the Bible is more than just a book with lots of rules in it then you should be able to find a whole list of reasons why you believe something is true without it just being because the Bible said so or the pastor said so or my parents said so. So why is your beliefs true? Why do YOU believe what you believe? I think it's a very important question to ask yourself because if what you believe turns out to NOT be the truth and you had never questioned it then you've left it too late.

If your beliefs/faith are true then I believe that it will be reflected in how you behave. That doesn't mean that good people go to heaven and it doesn't mean that all Christians have a true faith. Many people say they are Christian but they don't have a true relationship with God and so they haven't really grasped what it means to be a Christian. If you truely are then it will be evident in how you behave. The fruits of the spirit: Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness and Self-Control are the ways in which our faith becomes evident to those around us. Everybody struggles with their faith but I fond that it is always helpful to question to yourself WHY you believe something. Afterall we are not puppets, we have free-will and so the consequences of what we choose to believe, for whatever reason lies with no-one but ourselves.

So what's in a name?

I have always believed that there is great importance to the meaning of a person's name. I don't believe that our parents choose our names but that God gives the name he wants to our parents, even if they don't realise it. My name, Rachel means Ewe as in female sheep and this has always been a source of annoyance to me as it prompts people into lots of jokes. Especially when I was with my ex who being a welshman also was the butt of many sheep jokes himself. Most of the time we both went along with the jokes even to the point of me suggesting we name our son Owen which means little lamb but that was where he drew the line.

To be honest I'm glad we didn't decide to go that way as it wouldn't have suited our son at all and like I said it has always irritated me that my name also holds this meaning. I know that Rachel was someone in the Bible who looked after the sheep and so this is why it has the link but the name does not mean shepherdess it means ewe. I have always had the image of sheep as being quite stupid animals. Stupid and boring. This is probably best illustrated in the film, Babe. Once again, sheep being used as an illustration of humour.

Since living in Wales, and yes therefore seeing a lot more sheep than I would normally, I have been thinking about this again and I see another side to it. Sheep are also a symbol of endurance and quiet strength. They are left in fields all winter getting on with their life of eating grass despite the freezing temperatures and biting wind. THAT has to be something which is to be admired and it is this image which I feel is quite appropriate.

My son's name means firery warrior and I can see an endless strength in him which would make him a good leader in the future and my daughter's name mean's heather which also is a symbol of endurance as well as beauty. I feel that these are both appropriate to their personalities and I look forward to seeing them grow into their names as they get older. I had another child too who's name means dark messenger from God and losing her has definitely resulted in me learning some tough lessons from God. I feel that her name was also given to her by God. After all, the Bible does say that God knows each of us by name and that he knows us from inside our mother's womb. Therefore it would make sence that he know's our name before our parents have chosen it. So what does your name mean and what does that mean to you?

New Year

I've never really understood New Year. I get the idea of reflecting the previous year and making plans for the future but in my experience this is not what happens. For most it seems to be a great excuse for a party and therefore in an attempt to forget everything about the previous year, yet another great excuse to get extremely drunk. It is sad that this is the case as we brits seem to react like that at every possible opportunity.

In one place where I previously worked this is exactly what everyone did everytime someone had a birthday, or started working there, was leaving, or had a baby. It had it's place because it had the positive impact that it felt like friends from work truely were friends as opposed to people you just got on with because you worked together but because of the high turn-over, mainly due to most employees being students, everyone had an excuse to have a party almost every week. When there was no excuse everyone arranged 24 hour drinking sessions starting at 11:00am and finishing the following day. Unfortunately this meant there were a few occasions when people turned up to work still drunk, many people got to know each other a bit too well and all the bickering that most friendships based on drink feature, spilled into the work place and at times made working almost impossible. You'd have thought that someone would have put their foot down but most of the people within management were also involved in this aspect of work life and so was unanable to enforce any sence of authority that they should have had. It was certainly a fun place to work and speaking as someone who has never had an interest in drinking myself into amnesia it also provided regular entertaining stories to discuss and yet never feature in.

My point in this little divulge is this: What makes New Year any different?? Surely the sober point is to reflect on how things went in the previous year and set yourself targets for the following year for you to develop into a better person and hopefully have a good time doing it. However, as I have been noticing in many of the comments my friends have made about New Year, people seem to be writing the previous year off as being awful and then hoping in some vague way that the next year is going to be better. How is the next year going to be better if you do nothing that is different?

Of course New Year tradition states that you should set yourself New Year resolutions but in my experience this is done very half heartedly and the most common resolutions seem to be things like:Do more exercise or Eat less chocolate, both resolutions which everyone knows few people maintain longer than a month, two weeks with proper effort.

So how about taking this seriously and ask yourself this: What is it that your friends like about you? and perhaps more importantly What is it that your friends DON'T like about you? Of course your friends will love you as you are now, after all they've put up with you over the last year but is it possible that they can love you more? Perhaps now is the time to look at the things people don't like about you and work out why you are like that and whether you can change that and make yourself happier. It is certainly a bigger challenge than not having too much chocolate or my favourite one I heard recently, not having anymore children.

For me, self-assessment is something I try to do regularly throughout the year and it means that I can see how things fit together and lead to the following things. So whereas some people who had been through similar things to me last year would just want to throw their year away as being awful, I can look at the tough times and see how they have prepared me for the great things ahead. Personally I am really looking forward to this year as being a year to remember. Not because last year was awful, there were may things about last year that were great, but because this year will be different. A new chapter to add to my life, as is every year.

Sibling Rivalry 2

As I said previously, I felt there was always a rivalry between my sister and I and now that I have two children of my own I am aware of the possiblilty of it developing in my children.

My son is a lot like I was. He is headstrong and full of life. He makes sure everyone knows when he shows up somewhere. He is adorable but energetic and far more grown up than his age would indicate. He is also caring and gentle and he does his best to look after his little sister. I can see that he loves her dearly.

My daughter reminds me more of my sister. She laps up the attention when she gets it but she loves watching life (mainly her brother) rushing around her. She is a thinker. and she resists change. She is driven to achieve but she's also cautious of the unknown and it has made some things with her more of a challenge than they were for her brother.

I can see that my son charges about in his own little world, occasionally pausing to check his sister is alright. Whereas my daughter can be overwhelmed by new experiences. I have never had worries about my son settling into being away from me when he starts school but I can already see that my daughter will find it harder. However I suspect that once they get there, my daughter will thrive whereas his impulsivness and energy could either be his making at school or his road to downfall. I hope it will be the former.

They are so different in these ways that I can see the chances for rivalry to develop are quite likely. I just hope they are able to work together, helping each other with their strengths and their weaknessess. There is no need for them to be a rival and so far they aren't but it is something I will be watching for.

Blogging and sibling rivalry

I was inspired to start up this blog. Not because I haven't tried to before, I have a number of times over the years to varying degrees of success. Never really sure why anybody would be interested in my ramblings but here I go again and perhaps people will read it, perhaps they won't. At the moment that is neither here nor there.

Anyway as I was saying, I was inspired to write this blog. My sister inspired me. Years ago she would probably have said that I was only starting it because she had and perhaps that would have had an element of truth to it as we were always brought up to do the same things. We were dressed the same, had the same friends and did the same things. We even went shopping without each other and bought the same things in the same shops on the same day in the same town. Sad? Not sure, maybe. We're not twins but people always likened us to twins. It did at times make it hard to do things without each other and it made us both very competitive. For me, I could never achieve anything without it being compared to how my sister had done in the same situation. For her, she always seemed to believe I was jealous of what she achieved. Either way it has resulted in us growing apart since we left home about eight years ago.

My sister has just started a blog and it struck me when I read it exactly how different we have become. My sister always knew what she wanted to become and in many ways she has achieved every one of her goals that I knew she had when we were young. She wanted to go to uni and she has, she wanted to work in the media and she is and she wanted to get married, and she has. She has always known the direction she wanted to take and has gone all out to get it.

I was never like that. I went with the flow of life, experiencing the different opportunities that came my way. I lived in Germany for a while and I spent a number of years working voluntarily in various areas of youthwork. I had the same upbringing as my sister but whereas she knew where she wanted to go from the age of 12, I finished school at 18 with no idea of what I wanted to do and feeling disappointed with what I hadn't already managed to achieve but had wanted to. I felt like a drifter and so I drifted and waited. I gave up with trying to compete with my sister because I could see that I couldn't win.

Since then, things haven't necessarily been easy. I have two children who keep me on my toes and since my son was born in 2006, everything I have done has been with him and his little sister in mind. I do not apologise for the decisions I have made and I don't regret any of them. In October I broke up with their father, the person I'd been with for four years and I feel the reasons I had for that were also for their benefit. Being with him taught me a lot about having confidence in my own decisions and having faith in my own abilities. Unless the reasons for ending a relationship change, I won't go back to one and whether we get back together or not is neither here nor there but I will say this. I will be forever grateful to him for reinstating my self-esteem and self-confidence and I hope we will always remain good friends. It is only since being with him that I have had the confidence to reassess what my dreams were and what they are now and to determine whether or not they are achievable. My children have given me the determination and motivation to try my best to get there and he has given me the self-confidence and self-esteem to even try.

I read my sister's blog and see that she has achieved a lot but she is still disappointed with some areas of her life. She struggles with things I have never struggled with and it is helpful for me to see this because it is now that I understand that we are two different individuals and I am not in competition with her. I don't need to be and I don't want to be.

She may see my life as being a failure. I don't care if she does because I know it's not. I know where my life is going now and I know I will get there and maybe if she achieves all the goals she has set herself, maybe in 10 years time we will both be in a similar place again.

I would like that.