Arrh it has come around yet another year and this means for me to write my year story. The ups and downs of my year. This year has been different to any other year I have ever had.
At the beginning of 2008 I told myself that I was going to make it one of the best years of my life. I’m not quite sure if I made that happen, but I can say it has been a year of new experiences, and as January hit, it was a year of new beginnings, and a year with plenty ahead.
At the beginning of 2008 I told myself that I was going to make it one of the best years of my life. I’m not quite sure if I made that happen, but I can say it has been a year of new experiences, and as January hit, it was a year of new beginnings, and a year with plenty ahead.
I spent most of January on holiday at the beach and just hanging out before I started my first full time Job. I am soooo blessed and so grateful to God for the job he has given me. Working at a magazine. We to parachute and I got some good input listening to some amazing speakers and listening to some neat music. Felt a wee bit lonely at times but it was all good. The day after parachute, I started my job and whoa, I don’t think I was prepared for it at all! First day in, it was cool. Everybody was sooo mega nice and I learnt lots. End of the first week, mental swearing (I don’t think I have EVER heard a bunch of people swear so badly in my life. It was pretty intense and was really bringing me down and what not. The guys were always angry and going off at others and wow, I wasn’t expecting it to be like that at all, but I was still learning a heaps every day and loved it. Coming home after the 8 hour day was quite hard as I was used to the easy peasy school hours and all the holidays that came along with school. I was always tired and was in bed early as, and the swearing going on and the crude as talk made me feel so mega unclean. It was quite hard.
The two magazine titles:
Having a job = having money. So having money = saving it OR spending it. For the first while, boy did I love having the money. I bought clothes and clothes and clothes and junk that I didn’t need. After a while, I decided NO! I’m going to save (I was meant to be saving for Capernwray anyway) and so I knuckled down and began to save .. For a car. I needed one and mum was getting sick of me using hers all the time. So eventually I had $3000 saved and Dad and I went car shopping. It was quite an adventure to say the least. Note to self: Always take a guy who knows cars inside out when looking for a car. Hahaha Dad was quite funny looking under everything and checking that everything was in working condition, and looking at stuff I didn’t even know existed haha. But yeah Dad eventually found one another day and said that I should get it. I wasn’t there at the time he saw this one, but I trusted in my dad’s judgement, so I bought it anyway and went and picked it up the following weekend. And yaayeee, I LOVED the car! Haha. It was perfect for a first car, so I handed the dollars over and away I drove, soon to discover that my brother’s words of wisdom were indeed correct. “Cars are expensive, Warrant, rego, petrol” And indeed he was right! My rego and warrant fell due only a few months after I got it, and that in itself was enough dollars without the warrant people telling me I needed four new tyres! Sheeeeesh! But yeah, it was all quite a mystery to me. The petrol wasn’t such a big deal to me as my bosses gave me a $50 petrol voucher every month. YUSS! Ahhh and then my crash, well should I say I was the crashee. 2 weeks after having my car, this lady from church decides to back into it, while I was in it, and farrrr, it gave me the biggest fright, left a huge ding, and a very upset and frightened Melanie. The damage was going to cost $400 to fix but there was no way I was going to pay for it, and the lady that crashed into me didn’t even say sorry, let alone offer to pay for it, so the lovely ding is still gracing itself on the side of my car. Ooooh, oooh and I got my licence this year, FINALLY.. so here’s a picture of my car which I quite love.
By the time April rolled over, stuff was actually going pretty smoothly, I got my 3 month report from work, and after thinking I was going to lose my job, they gave me the best report ever and told me how efficient I was and all this lovely stuff that just made my week! And so I again, thanked the Lord once again, for my wonderful Job. I guess it was around this time when I was thinking about my future and what I would love to do. I was chatting to Dad and BOOOM; I decided I wanted to be a magazine editor. Gosh, I wanted to do something to inspire youth, and the youth pastor was what I previously wanted to do (And I would still love to, but not till I'm married), and I needed something in the meantime. So a Christian magazine for teen girls sparked something inside of me and I began to make a mock magazine, designing pages, writing articles etc, which was a huge lot of fun. I'm still working on it now, and boy I love it!
Heres a pic of the editorial page still in progress.
In about May, I began to get so tired, over tired in fact. It was hard. I always had so much stuff to do at home, but couldn’t cope because I was so tired. This was hard, and kept getting tireder and tireder, and it lasted all year and kept getting worse. Hopefully my summer break will fix that. Hehe.Anyway, I began to struggle a lot with my parents and the decisions they made for me, and not let me learn myself. It really drove me up the wall, and always stopped me from doing things I wanted. It was hard, but I guess I learnt from that. The biggest lesson I've ever learnt was the whole dating relationship I was in last year and I found out a bunch of stuff. I wanted to learn the lesson myself, not for my parents just to say No, Yes, blah blah. So yeah.
June rolled around the corner pretty quickly. The year was going wizzzzz quick smack fast. I think it was about this time where I wrote my first two songs. After a few years of wanting to, I finally got there. It was great fun, and this one time I was on the piano, singing along, and my Dad quite liked the song, and yeah. So he found out I wrote it, and he decided we should play it at church. Haha so after much encouragement, I actually did play it at church, and it was quite a different experience.
Vadavalasa Revathi. Those are 2 words that set off a tingling sensation inside of me. My sponsor child I took up on sponsorship through tear fund. I decided I should be making a difference, and now earning money, I was able to do that. I received many letters from her throughout the year, some just melting me inside. I want to meet her one day. It shall be great. I took her up in sponsorship at an Alabaster Box concert where the guitarist shared his story and it hit me inside so I chose a child and haven’t looked back.
Throughout the whole year there was something that I really struggled with. That being the tight friendship between my best friend and ex boyfriend. It really hurt, and sometimes left me feeling angry, bitter and many other feelings that were wrong. I didn’t know what to do. Since me and my ex had broken up, their friendship became different, and as time went by they became tighter and that was evident as. I sometimes doubted whether they were dating or whatnot because it really did look like it. It was so hard, and again, there were many nights I just cried myself to sleep. Unforgiveness I know was one thing that was causing this on my part. I tried just pushing it aside, and I told myself time and time again that I was sweet with it. I wasn’t. It turned out that it just made it all worse, and made me become angrier and have bitter feelings. I began to snap at people quite frequently due to my pain, unforgiveness and the burden I was carrying. It wasn’t fair on them at all. There came a time where the anger was just so huge, it was on my mind every minute of every day. I didn’t want to go on like that anymore. “Do not become angry easily, because anger will not help you live the right kind of life God wants” James 1:19-20. I wrote into magazines, forums, online services and many other things hoping to find some answers, I didn’t. It was still a struggle, but I found hope somewhere. I'm still trying to work myself through the pain at the moment, but I will get there, in Gods time.But flip it's hard! “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength” Philippians 4:13I think my first Capernwray confirmation was in July or like August or September, hek I don’t even remember... But boy it was great! Asking for a letter the following day if it was God’s will for me to go, and then receiving a large package. It was awesome. Then my second confirmation. Asking for something directly from Capernwray the next day, and then receiving an email. Tear dropping situation. I so felt God. And I am so mega hugely excited to go to Capernwray.
I discovered a band this year that fully hit me. Casting Crowns. Their lyrics and all actually feel like they’ve been written for me. I love their music so much and can’t wait to catch them LIVE at parachute 09. They've also helped me so much this year in my walk with God and connecting with God and Who I am. Love them man.
But 2008 was again sad for me. One of my best friends left New Zealand and crossed the ditch once again to her home town in Japan. Far, Natsumi .. I miss you so much!! Come back, so yeah, having a friend leave was kind of hard on me, especially when you become so close over a year. I will never ever forget my precious skater chicky and all the good times that we shared.
Work mentioned once again. Towards the end of the year, I struggled with being the only girl in the office a lot of the time. There are 2 other chicks in there, but they're rarely there. And it got so hard being in an environment full of guys. Some days I just wanted to come home and ring up Davy or somebody and just talk girl talk. It became quite hard I must admit, although I loved my job, and can’t wait for the opportunities 2009 will bring. *Excited Expression*A huge growing experience in 2008 for me was teaching Sunday school. I didn’t actually want to do it, and actually kind of got forced into doing it. I hated it to begin with, having to organise all the lessons and stuff. (I was already busy enough as it was) I always ended up leaving it till the last minute and then got mega stressed out. Even though it was only for one term. I hated it, but funnily enough God twisted the situation around. I grew such a love for the few kids that I had to teach. I enjoyed playing games, teaching them bible stories and just plain mucking around with them. It was such fun man! God grew me in the experience. He taught me time management. Towards the end of the term, I became more efficient with organising the lessons and all. I even learnt some things myself, funnily enough. He taught me patience, and how to relate to kids on a much deeper level. Hopefully it will help me, in a weird sort of way to relate to youth for when I want to be a youth pastor.
Again, we have this friend. A friend that sticks out to me above any of my other friends. A friend that I can tell anything to. A friend I can laugh with. A friend who is like a sister, a mother, a Christ follower and a best friend all in one. She’s actually the most amazingist ever. I trust her with all my stuffs, and everything. I don’t even know what to say, but I love Davidda. So thankful I've had her by my side this year. Things would be quite different if they were otherwise. I'm looking forward to the fun times we have planned for 2009. Shall be great.
HM Rage was the man!
While we’re on the topic of friends, I will share a wee prayer I prayed earlier in the year. I had become quite lonely and with the friends that I had having heaps of friends, it got quite hard. So I prayed for another friend. A week after I prayed this, we had a team from Capernwray come down. I was upset one night, and one of the chicks just offered to talk to me. She was the friend that I needed that night. Then Jacinta came in, a friend I've had forever, but our closeness just changed. It was neat. Then Beka on Soul Purpose. Just people to talk to about stuff was what I really needed. And that’s what I got! God knows my heart.There came a time in my 2008 year where I wanted to give up on a bunch of things, and I even began to doubt my Christianity, like whether or not it was real, whether or not living for God was the right thing to do, whether having Christ would really make a difference in my life. MY life. Why me? I wondered why Jesus would want to die for me. I didn’t get it. It didn’t make sense. It all sounded stupid. But through a lot of prayer and stuff, I came through my doubts. I still don’t understand why Christ died for me, but then again there’s a bunch of stuff I don’t understand about the Bible. I learnt to accept it, and grow in it, and let God shape me, mould me, and make me. I am again excited about what Christ has in store for me for 2009.
*Sigh* The holiday of my life. What can I say. Amazing. Fiji for a week. Time to relax a little. Hanging with family. A break from work. And enjoying the sun. What else could I ask for? It was just perfect.
Me and my sister enjoying the pool.
This cute little dessert which I thought was definetely worthy of a photo.
My mummy darling walking down the island
A bug. (Obviously). Isn't it like the prettiest?
There were so many of these neato buses around, but most of them were packed and overflowing with people. 
Straight after me and my sister went parasailing. Man, what an experience!
Band this year was a wee different. No more Nesi, and I missed her extremely much. Although Kristian came onto the scene to help out, he did things differently but I think we became tighter as a band and in December we went to Hamilton and just hung as a band and enjoyed each other’s company. Of course there was still that wee struggle of my ex boyfriend being in the band and not wanting anything to do with me. It was hard, but I grew through it. I guess it moulded me and shaped me. Hard, but it’s through the trials that we grow.My regrets. There have been some things in my life that I wish I didn’t do, wish I could have done things differently, and wish that I should have done. It began to hit me this year and I struggled with my past. I was texting Davidda one time and she told me that I wouldn’t be the person I am today if it wasn’t for those mistakes. It’s so true as well. So I’m trying to put the past behind me and focus on my future, a future all for God and not for myself, a growing experience and learning from the dumb things I did in the past.
Work gets another mention. At school, I had Christians all over the show. But work was a different scenario. Being surrounded by non-Christians, atheists and people who just didn’t believe was hard. I desperately wanted another Christian to be at work. So after praying about it, God actually sent one, and somebody that I've known like all my life. It was quite cool. But then having another Christian wasn’t what I really wanted. The swearing, cursing and crude talk of the others didn’t stop, and I realised that that’s what I wanted. They know I believe in Christ, and that I don’t swear, but it doesn’t stop them from doing it, so I have had to learn to leave that part in God’s hands.
And then there was youth group. I have always loved youth group and the time and effort that my parents and Mr Tissingh put into both the studies and the activities. It was good fun and I learnt so much from youth times. But this year was hard. After having left school and what not, and having a few more young ones come in, I felt old, and like I know longer fitted in. I wasn’t smack bang in the middle where I used to be. I was an old one, well above the ages of the others. And I really had to motivate myself to go and “hang out” with these young “kids.” I guess I took on a more of a leadership role as well, which was fun and has helped me to develop skills for when I want to be a youth pastor. I still love youth group especially the discussions we got into on Wednesday nights. I learnt so much from it. Good times.
Last but not least, work once again. One thing that I hated was how I didn’t have much work to do, or I always finished it really early and then had nothing to do. I resorted to going online and just mucking around on forums or social networking sites or something. I knew it was wrong, but I got bored and I hated asking what I should do next because I was always continually running out of stuff to do. Around Christmas time, I was fine because of the Christmas season, I was packed with stuff to do, which was great! But yeah, hopefully in the New Year I will be taught some more stuff to do which will keep me busy.
So there's my 2008 story summed up in like 3000 words haha. I've grown a lot through this year and look forward to what 2009 has to offer. New Years = New Beginnings. Bring it on!
So God said to Noah, "The rainbow is a sign of the agreement that I made will all living things on earth"
I saw you today
