LET YOUR HAIR DOWN

Well done SOUTH AFRICA!!! (Running down the road singing Shosholoza) Hahaha. I am really proud of South Africa for beating Japan today in the Rugby World Cup. 

Yes, so this might seem shocking to some of you who actually take out the time to read my blogs and my thoughts I choose to share. For you who know me know that I am not really bothered by sport, or let me rather say 'was' not bothered by sport. Any sport of that matter. But today, a few friends and I sat in a bar at Rondebosch and we enjoyed watching the Bokke take out Japan. The atmosphere was charged, we were shouting and commentating, while I was getting some lessons on Rugby from the friends at my table.

What has this to do with the focus of this blog you might ask? Well, I wanted to speak about letting your hair down and enjoying the everyday moments in life. I think for the longest time ever I have observed people and even myself in some measures, living life like prunes. The cares of this world just taking its best shot at us hitting us in the balls. Some of us have been through so much that the blows are somewhat 'normal' and we grow accustomed to the pain and the sorrow. Like others, I find myself sometimes living in the past. The moments we regret, how to say I am sorry to those we have hurt and the wishful hope of changing the hand of time. I also find myself living in the future. The unknown, the financial planning and the planning of what life will look like for me. And this produces anxiety right?

But how often do we take out intentional time to pause and embrace the moments we are living in the present? Those moments are different for many of us. Some of those moments are our children trying to grasp our attention to show us they found a little insect that is their favourite colour or singing along to Adele's 'When we were young' as you drive through town with your little sister. Other moments look like us chilling with our friends watching a movie, with some coffee or tea and maybe some malva pudding waiting for us on the side. We miss these moments of living just because we are so tensed up about life.

It's been a tough season lately. Some things just literally just drive you up the wall, but I am so thankful for community. In the week at our Young Adults life group, we posed the question during worship, "What is one thing that you are thankful for?". My answer to my friends was, "I am grateful for embracing the moments". As these words came out of my mouth, I just felt happy, happy to be honest with myself and where I am at in life right now. There are seasons in life that are really great, and other seasons where you literally want to throw in the towel and die. But as powerful as the emotions we feel in these seasons, these are seasons in life's journey.

The journeys we walk in life all look differently and hold different dynamics of pain and beauty, and as much as I think we should be vulnerable to those who journey with us, we need to be vulnerable with ourselves. We need to work through the pain. Honesty is a great deal when it comes to ourselves. We measure the magnitude of honesty we display to other people, but how much longer can we measure the honesty we choose to show to ourselves? For we know what sorrow we carry deep inside and we cannot run from this all our lives. 

Letting your hair down is not just about letting go and having a good time, but it is also about working through the hard times to fully embrace the good times.

A good friend of mine asked me a question that bothers me until this day. He asked me, "What do you do for fun?". This seems like a really simple question to answer right? Well, this was hard for me and it made me feel sad. I went through the list. I responded by saying, "I sing, write music, hang out with friends" and that was about it. That question triggered a lot of other questions in my head. I had been so sad and so held back by the pain in my heart that I missed out on life. I became busy with activities and motions where people were in need of my giftings but never was I enjoying the things that made me happy.

When Jesus said we should become like little children to enter the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 18), it was more about the freedom becoming childlike held. A child holds freedom from the cares of this life and they hold no regret or anxiety in their hearts.

I will end this part of the blog with a question. What does letting your hair down mean for you today? Does it mean you need to put your phone down? Does it mean you need to start a journey of seeing professional help? I have attended a praise party hosted by Firefly about over a week ago. I was dancing so lekker. One guy came up to me and spoke about how it looked so fun to be dancing. I immediately told him, "Christ set us free". I almost felt so strong about this to give him all my thoughts but I decided not to. But some of us need to get up from our seats and start dancing to the music of our hearts. We will be better people for ourselves and for other people.

Before I go, I have an...

I actually have two announcements.

1. A friend and I are starting a bloggers group movement on social media soon, so please stay tuned for that. 

2. In a matter of weeks, I will be releasing a song I have been working on. I am super amped for that. You can stay tuned for that too.

Love you guys!

Ro.