Day 3

Even though working out is a good thing, It can be quite disorienting when I don't give it its proper time and place. I tend to do it in the mornings between 10am and 12 noon, but after that I want to do nothing else but read... and write. there is jewelry to make and emails to write, and people to talk to. So I guess I need to set a specific time every day like give it 5am in the morning, aw that hurts, why should I be waking up at that time? Anyway I will try it and see how it goes, so starting tomorrow am going off at 5am and beginning my day save for when I have pilates classes.Metaphorically am not buried beneath frozen tundra but I practically live in the Tundra. Right now I am much more hopeful about life, Spring for sure has come and new life is in view. Emotionally frozen?? nah, not now, not in the near future inshallah!

Day 2

My biggest regret if my life were ending in a few weeks, would be being away from My parents and siblings, it would be not being in the home I grew up in because for me the roots go well deep. Am not sure I suffer from the someday syndrome, I often end up doing what I want to do. I have not made jewelry in a couple of weeks which I have committed myself to doing. I also want to go to Italy live there for a year, Live in France for three to five years and live in Greece for a year. After this I would like to take my parents to Seychelles for a month's holiday and then return to Uganda and raise my feet up, live like a Queen and wait to pass on - this though would never be incorporated in a few weeks, yet this is not for someday that is for when I get money. I tend to travel whenever I get the money to, Am not sure I would spend a year saving for a trip, yet I like to save for a rainy day. If I was fully engaged my life would look like the building in the picture; and since I do not know how much time I have left I am going to start building strong foundations for every aspect in life, relationships and career...

I know

This morning I decided to go find a short gym skirt after seeing a lady at the gym with one last evening-so much for coveting. So before heading off to the gym, I popped into JC Penny's but there was naught. Then I went to Sears where I found a great number of them gym suits, skirt and top going for about $57, I gaped. Decided to keep looking and found a set in the 40% off rack, tried three on, looked horrible. There was a time when I looked great in short skirts now my thighs are ridiculously large and put me off completely (a little exaggeration there) but I did not like the look anyway,am starting to think that I have been used to covering up so much especially with the intense caution about covering up in Cairo. it does not matter how long you live in Egypt, you get traumatized by the harassment that Egyptian men are known for on the street and start to cover every part of your skin that might just cause some attention. So the story goes I was determined to find myself a nice short gym skirt for working out and feeling good about myself. I finally found one that was going for $15, tried it on, felt good about it and went off to pay for it, with all the images of me on the treadmill looking like I know that I look good and I know where am going. Counter lady scans it, turns out it's $25, I explained to her about the rate on the rack and persuaded her to come with me so I could show her, she came, saw and went off to ask her manager who came and pulled the whole set of gym skirts and took them away, muttering something about a mistake. Face fell, told counter lady I was not taking it and went off to work out in my usual tights. Now I would have bought it but why does the Army just take so long to pay our soldiers who give their lives to service? Some may ask why don't you just have a job that pays? I have been at the application process for ages, done interviews and have come out with a volunteer job which I am enjoying and depending on the hubby to provide, but is that not what life was meant to be? Then why did I pursue all that schooling and more is coming? I know that I need it, I know I will look good in a tiny short skirt again, I know that I will get a job soon, I know that one day I will have more money than I do now, I also know that I will go to school again, even so am content with my tights for now.

Faith like Potatoes

Everybody I talked to said, everyone fails the first road test in either Minnesota or the US. I practiced my parallel parking to the point of obsession, started dreaming that I was parallel parking and prayed over it with Tracy a good friend of mine whose Husband has been tireless at helping me with all that I needed to do to pass my road test. afternoon I had my test and parallel parked perfectly according to the instructor,I passed my test and the boost that I have to participate on the road is indescribable now as am bubbling with joy. Drove back in traffic and had fun doing it, changing lanes as though I have been at it for years, a luxury we don't have that much in Uganda considering the size of our roads. I feel more in control now, with much more on my hands. I am extremely thankful to my friends who took time to help me out, with rides to places when I could not dare risk a long ride on the road without a license. Yet one thing is certain, I believed that I would pass my test first time I did it, despite the discouragement I got, and trust me this discouragement was not intended for me as an individual but it has become the norm that the first test is often failed. I decided to put my faith in God and told Him to help me when I had to do parallel parking and indeed He did. When I did my test in Uganda I practically failed parallel parking, did not pay a bribe but got my license anyway. My brother who went with me insists that the Police Instructors only favored me. Spent time at the YMCA today, I have postponed all my yoga classes as I still have to conclude a conversation on Yoga with a friend who thinks there is more to it than fitness, she is concerned about the whole meditation orientation. So I have resorted to maintaining my time at the gym walking miles and increasing my steps daily.Today was great as I spent 65 minutes without any interruption. Watched 'Faith like Potatoes' amazing true story, faith is a real attribute that can only manifest greatly when placed in God. I am always perplexed that it is often the people who lead us, who question our faith in times of crisis. But faith is one of those attributes that is essential for any relationship. Faith like potatoes is one interesting phrase yet I realize that potatoes(Irish ones as Ugandans say) can not be seen when ready, so even the planting process can be a faith move but even greater when there is drought. As the book "One month to live' says that the life of faith that everyone calls ridiculous is the only way to live. Hoping that my faith will be as that of Angus Buchan in 'Faith like potatoes'

You are God alone

You are not a god Created by human hands You are not a god Dependant on any mortal man You are not a god In need of anything we can give By Your plan, that’s just the way it is [chorus] You are God alone From before time began You were on Your throne Your are God alone And right now In the good times and bad You are on Your throne You are God alone You’re the only God Whose power none can contend You’re the only God Whose name and praise will never end You’re the only God Who’s worthy of everything we can give You are God And that’s just the way it is [chorus] [bridge] Unchangeable Unshakable Unstoppable That’s what You are By Philips, Craig & Dean

Jesus take the wheel

Songwriters: James, Brett; Lindsey, Hillary; Sampson, Gordie; She was driving last Friday on her way to Cincinnati On a snow white Christmas Eve Going home to see her Mama and her Daddy With the baby in the backseat Fifty miles to go and she was running low On faith and gasoline It'd been a long hard year She had a lot on her mind and she didn't pay attention She was going way too fast Before she knew it she was spinning On a thin black sheet of glass She saw both their lives flash before her eyes She didn't even have time to cry She was so scared She threw her hands up in the air Jesus, take the wheel Take it from my hands ?Cause I can't do this on my own I'm letting go So give me one more chance To save me from this road I'm on Jesus, take the wheel It was still getting colder when she made it to the shoulder And the car came to a stop She cried when she saw that baby in the backseat Sleeping like a rock And for the first time in a long time She bowed her head to pray She said I'm sorry for the way I've been living my life I know I've got to change So from now on tonight Jesus, take the wheel Take it from my hands Cause I can't do this on my own I'm letting go So give me one more chance To save me from this road I'm on Oh Jesus, take the wheel Oh, I'm letting go So give me one more chance Save me from this road I'm on From this road I'm on Jesus, take the wheel Oh, take it, take it from me Oh, why, ooh

At tee tude

Like a constantly turning prism reflecting a multitude of colours, so my focus, my mindset, is manifested on the paths and walls of my life in splintered and fractured hues. My attitude about others and myself reveals my focus; my priorities, pursuits and contentment reflect this same focus. Our focus is demonstrated by contentment or lack of it- in who we are and what we are doing. And every day I realize that our focus is shown in casual conversation. Our thinking, our mindset is disclosed nearly in everything we do and say. Having an open mind helps me focus on learning more about God and being sensitive to the needs of those around me.

Searching, learning, finding

It's been raining, for some reason I woke up this morning with a disturbing notion that I should not drive to the Bank where I had to pay for the car, I tried making all kinds of calls to find out whether I could pay online and it just was not possible, so I had to dread the rain and vamoose. I got there safe and returned in just one piece. Maybe again it's that time of the month when I never quite understand myself, you know the emotions change. I had to do an oil change as well and the guy said there is this problem with my cooler that may affect the engine...I have always dreaded car talk...now am here listening to it with no choice, hoping when Milton returns he can somehow sort it out but then the car may not wait that long, so? No idea really. Am home now; Transcribing all over again, more work came in last week and I have been pushing it all in the name of the Army wives dinner.Now the dinner is done and past I have had to pull myself together and listen to more refugee stories. My life is filled with Muslim friends and I sense that I need to know more about Islam, huh? Yes I do. So I used Vuze- which by the way is the most exciting program for downloading movies, documentaries and audio book- to get some stuff on Islam I found so much on Islam and even though while in England I had done a course on Islam I just found out that the Islamic faith is based on Galatians 3:26, as longs as you believe in God every one is one- Unity is the focus. But what happened to believing through Christ? Why is the concept of God manifesting himself through the Son and Holy Spirit despicable? Is it us humans who should determine how He should manifest himself or Is He not God almighty who can choose how He manifests? Those questions am pondering on. My friend Steve and tend to have discussions on Islam and Christianity every other week as he is thinking about converting to the Islamic faith because to him the concept of One God makes more sense and if he ever got broke would decide to be an evangelical preacher.Interestingly am enjoying the Islamic documentary, it confounds my Faith in Christ even more.

No future in the past

It has been one of those weeks where am not interested in writing down anything, my loss. Am reading what If you only had one month to live? I would most definitely get onto the first plane to Uganda and spend time with my family. We never have control of the date we are born or the date we die but we sure do have control over the in between and what we do with that is what counts for life. Am learning that its not slefish for me to invest in myself seeing as am not my own but was bought with a price therefore honouring God with my body is what counts for me. While at the gym this morning, this lady jumped on the trademill next to mine and she fell flat on her face, the trademill was moving while she got onto it and for about 10 or so seconds before I stopped mine and yelled for help the her face was on this moving mill. I had a rush of cold blood. She said she felt fine, quite traumatic I would say. later she said to me, " you can see how in no time we are done, I have been working out for three years and this has never happened to me." while we may never know what happens tomorrow we have control of the right nowm am learning that there is no future in the past and so the best I can do for myself is move on. Though the waves have been strong He gives inner peace. I walk as graceful as a duck yet underneath I puddle. God knows what its like. Jesus felt it, lonely and forsaken, that's how I felt days ago. No meaning to life, strange fears, confusions- He says to be still. In my pressures - to seek peace. In my complexities to seek simplicity. In His presence to find true purpose. And now I know that God always answers the deep questions of my soul.

Yearnings

Everyday I desire to be Holy. I come short, my heart bleeds when I cant get there I realise am trying too hard. my heart is prideful. My knees drop, my heart weeps, am weary. I stretch, reaching out for His hand, His grasp and then He holds, not letting go. Am secure held in the Father's grip, I sigh wanting, craving for more of Him, His embrace. Secure in Him I laugh because that is where I should have and always should be... In the Father's embrace. Where am totally me, unlovely yet loved, tamed yet wild, sought and soothed. That's where I want to be always.

Made to submit

It does not seem to matter where we come from, no matter where people live or end up there is often a great longing and desire for a higher power, the Arabs had their Kaaba before Islam, the Africans had their ancestors while others evoked spirits from of old, while others used Voodoo, both Latin and Native Americans had their own spiritual worship, the Chinese have their own gods while the Caucasians had some kind of witchcraft, as the Romans had Caesar and Kings and the Jews had God. Why do we all long for a higher power. For something greater? Is it that we all have that innate instinct to pursue what we were made from and for? For all people whatever we do for our spirits is an expression that there is something greater we are aware of even in the subconscious. One God, one people? hmmm!? Poets are known to speak through a voice of desire, desire for a better life, better politics, does that sound like a contradiction? Better Politics!? In a cosmic way power and tenderness come together in poetry. In Poetry water and paradise are symbolically tied to one another. Yet for the imagery in poetry, desire remains on paper, orally told. what is it about life that restricts us from living the desire expressed in poetry,David and Solomon did... live out truth, express who we are and be unashamed to pursue what we know is true. Living in deceit is much more distressing than living in truth. Just watched Angel heart and even though he tried to cry out that he knew who he was, he had nothing to fall back on, when Lu Ci fer insisted he owned him. The love of money, not too much though,was enough to keep him doing what he did not know and because of the fact that he thought he knew who he was,he had not submitted to anyone greater than Lu Ci Fer. Roosevelt once said, "Men can never escape being governed, if from lawlessness or fickleness from folly or self indulgence, they refuse to govern themselves, then in the end they will be governed by others.' I believe that God through Christ lives in me and because of that my Life is governed by him and in him I live my Life.

Another day, more thanks

Am extremely energetic at this midnight hour, funny how this is when am active and ready to go, just when the world is retiring,no wonder I miss Cairo the city that never sleeps, I miss the nights I stayed up till 6am studying with breaks on my balcony watching men smoke shisha and parents taking 2am walks with children. People often say there is no freedom in the Arab world, but what is freedom? I have just finished tidying up my house and creating room for my five guests tomorrow, army talk will top the dinner table and women may just break down because they cannot cope with the impending deployment of out men with the Presidential increase in troops to the Middle East, not to fight for freedom noted...but to destroy Alkaeda a theme constantly stressed by the present American President. I hope I can be a great support to my friends during this time. My husband and I have barely been together since courtship and marriage, in some ways I don't feel the pinch of this as those with children. I can not even start to imagine the effects, yet am hoping that we can all cope and be a great support to each other. My sister called today from a faraway land and as usual we talked for two hours, laughing and feeling unconsciously refreshed. Family has a way of making me immensely grateful for Life.

Yesterday I decided to trim the nails on my two big toes, the moment I had clipped one atrocious looking nail a burst of clear gel like fluid spilled out. Did I mention that the toes had been hurting for a week and all I was doing was massaging them, somehow am sure the nail grew into the flesh and the fluid was supposed to be one of those that circulate in the body and was clogged in the toe. I have also been doing alot of yoga and the dog pause puts quite a big of pressure on the toes. Now my toes feel so much better, my brother who I have been chatting with thinks I have jiggers???? If anyone has gotten jiggers, trust me they are not something to even want to experience. I got jiggers once on a family holiday in my Mother's countryside home where pigs were in abundance. The itch is as irritating as a hair growing on the chin...now you know I have experienced both. Life am learning is a game you can not win if you do not play, so am playing. Today I laughed and enjoyed my own laugh. I went for my first Pilates class with one the army wives and then went out for lunch at Boston something...cant remember what it was but am glad that there was out door sitting and the sun was all out. It seemed to me that the universe had decided to join forces to make my day happy and bright. We sat out seeping Ice tea and eating wraps with chicken and tuna. what more could army wives ask for? I am not particularly keen on the army, because am not sure I believe in wars, then the army is quite fast at calling people to active duty but very slow at paying them. I wonder how housewives with children are making it everytime our cheques delay?

Chances

I just came back from watching Last Chance Harvey, raw honesty truly does give strength. Sometimes it is all that can save us from the continuous stiff upper lip that we have made a part of us. Whoever told us that truth was not worth it, that keeping one's feelings and emotions were better off than being plain and simple, destroyed who we are. The constant need to be something or someone else burns the soul, scalding it to the point of a look alike acidic burn. There are truly last chances in life and I know this too well. I am quite tolerant of people especially when I love them, but it gets harder as they tread on my heart, and it hurts me to know that during this season I know for sure that we are heading towards the end of my rope, when I will say fare thee well. It actually twists my heart because for me it is a total giving up.There are doors and there are windows and there are roads that lead to many places, many of those roads may meet again or maybe just go further away and life just has to go on. For each one is but a lesson for us to make us better and to make us learn to love, give and serve. This week for the first time in my life I have had to pump air into flat tires on my car, jump start the car when the battery died and today went in to have it changed because it had aged so...I went to my third Yoga class and realized how un-proportional and I lack a sense of body balance. Does this mean the earth is not in alignment for me? If so then I can understand why for a while I struggled keeping to my lane while on the highway. Anyway, My body used to be proportional but for some reason I stopped looking after it, now am determined to work at making my life the best life ever. Three of my siblings are engaged in the same year and they live countries apart, they are not in their mid twenties but in their mid thirties and knowing them I know it is not some kind of excitement but a determined purpose to love and live, I pray for them and happy for them, am looking forward to weddings this year. With the new adjustments am making, the realization that my body needs looking after, the lessons am learning from movies and cars and my new growing family, for that I am thankful. I have a chance to meet new family, to love them and to travel even more. I have a chance at life and am hoping that each day I can smile because I am part of a great people and life.

A Father who makes God tangible

How can you love someone so dangerous? someone who could kill you in a span of a moment not because they want to but because they are made to? How could someone like this love another? Just watched Twilight, the intensity and depth of loving someone so deeply and finding that for all the time you thought you were in love they were reckless with your heart. Said they were faithful and true and one day it is all lies. How could you love someone who said the same things to you to four other people? It is better to love someone who tells you they have had one hundred partners than someone who says they have never had one and find out later that all they said were lies. Lies eat the heart out, they create huge holes of distrust and resentment, it is no wonder that Solomon said he who lies hates those he lies to.A friend has forgiven her husband for all that he did, the lies and the cheating but the pain stays on, it comes in flashes triggered by small things. Mail came in today to another,it angered her, she was disgusted as she looked at it and pondered on tearing it apart.what seemed like a kind gesture from a lover miles away triggered off thoughts of how many more postcards he may have sent to others. she called a friend, the friend said that she would have to cast off those thoughts and try to be positive, live her own life and take care of herself. But how could she live her own life when her life was so intertwined with this dangerous and unsafe man? love is simply the way we treat other people, we make it complex, think it is the way someone makes you feel and shiver with passion; but that anyone attractive to the eye can make happen. Love is a commitment to keep my word to you no matter what and when I am not able to keep it that I can come to you and say am sorry but am willing to make amends. Love does not go on hurting you even when you know how much it pains and tears me apart. No that is not love. he said, 'when I hurt you don't just close up.' What? he does it all the time, what does he expect me to do? to hug him everytime he hurts me and say 'oh please do it again, I love you.' I know why you do it. How can someone be so cruel. In Twilight Edward Collins is dangerous but safe, because he learned to master himself, to develop some kind of self control. In The Chronicles of Narnia, Aslan was dangerous but safe because He knew he had an agenda to make things dangerous. When I watched Twilight I longed for a man like Edward, a man who would be honest with me yet want me to be safe, a man who would do his best to keep me away from danger, away from people he knew so well were just like him and knew what they would do. King Arthur and the Knights are the kind of men that every woman would want to have, men who know the value of lives, men who know that to protect is to love, men who would give their very lives for something. No one wants a man who cant control himself, a man who is selfish and lives life to satisfy his own needs. Sad to say those are the kind of men that are abundant today -Saxon men re modified. A man honest about his weakness is a strong man, a man working at his weakness is even stronger. This may sound bitter, yet this is what is all around me, a number of my friends today are going through men problems after giving all they had and being treated like trash. I have read about and seen some wonderful men who have given all for the sake of their families, I applaud my father, for he is the one man I know that keeps me hoping that there are still good men out there. My father is nothing special, it is not as if he was cut from some special tree and made to live, but he has purposed to make his life worth while for the sake of the lives that he brought to this world. My father will eat after we have eaten or made sure there is enough for us first, in a world where men usually have their meal before anyone else does. My father went with one pair shoes for years while we were going to school to make sure we had shoes and clothing, he had no new shirts or trousers for years yet we were clothed. My mother tells a story of how she had saved up some money and she could not stand seeing my father a government official going to work with tears on his collar all because we had to be dressed and schooled, so she took him to the town and bought some new clothes. My father is my hero, people say I blow for him a lot yet it is I and my siblings who know too well that a good man is one that puts his family first and keeps his commitments no matter what the temptations.Now that am writing again, this is all for my father who keeps me going even though he is miles away, a man who cares to text me and call me to check on me, a man who prays for me when we talk on phone ,a man am so proud to carry his blood in my veins. I am confident that I have good blood because my father has made my life worth the living, for me he makes God tangible. Is that not why God created families that we would experience heaven on earth.