the new year

what do write on the very first day of the new year?
what to write when i haven't written in so long?
ill write this:
married, check
appartment, check
rome, check
christmas in s-vall, check
awesome new years party, check
and that's just december.
an eventful year behind, an exciting year to come.
if i could ask one thing of this year it is to feel peace.
the kind of peace that surpasses all understanding. that calms you in any circumstance. that gives you assurance when the roads are many and the time is little.
the peace that gives you strenght. the peace that is attractive and appealing.
yes, that kind.
thats all i ask.

ps. wedding pics are under the creative eye of retouch.

exciting times.

Dear [this is where you out your name in],

inspiration has not come easy these days.
moments of purifying sun colouring the brilliant leaves on the ground has occasionally tickled the gene from which my inspiration flows.
but only momentarily.
however i refuse to embrace this dullness.
therfore i will break free.

these are exciting times, for numerous reasons.
1. i will be joined in marriage with fred orville roberts IV withing only 7 weeks.
2. we are moving to sthlm.
3. church is amazing.
4. i have amazing global friends.
5. i came in second place last night at our family bowling night.

1:
the invitations are out.
if interested: www.freddyandrebecka.gettingmarried.se
this wedding will in every way take you on a journey of mine and freddy's lives.
the dress is bought. the food is decided. the decorations is midway through being collected and include glass cokebottles and LP records.
and first and foremost i will get to spend the rest of my life with this hilarious man of God.

2:
oh stockholm.
you smile upon me with much delight containing almost as many great coffee shops and definitely better clothing stores.
but most of all: church.
we are excited to again reconnect with our hillsong family across the world by calling hillsong home.

3:
not to forget church here in my hometown.
i thank God as i look at all the amazing things i get to be a part of here.
in three weeks time we'll be building a rail jam snow park on the townsquare, hiring a DJ and build an icebar where we'll be serving glorious hot chocolate. all in favour of the annual Kaj Rail Jam. five stars to matilda pilfalk who is key person in this along with all other volunteers.
i've been graced with the honor of lighting up this whole event. with lights.

4:
after celebrating my 22nd birthday on oct 14th i reconnected with some of my global friends.
mel, bek and jana. you have no idea how much you berich my life.
i've also over the last few weeks gotten my beloved sara back home.

5:
not really that much to say. i kicked freddy's and andreas' butts last night.
dad won. no surprise there.

now i must go and meet up my fiancé to taste some wedding cakes for the big day. i think we'll go with princesscake.

daycare?

söndag.
this week i have been working at a daycare for elementary school kids.
ive started to wonder about our society today.
how is it that people drop their kids off at 6.30 in the morning and pick them up at 5 in the afternoon?
paying for others to take care of your own kids. day after day.
working 40h/week so that you can buy everything you think you need, sending your kids to daycare in order to do so and then look forward to the five weeks of the summer when you can "actually" hang out with them and go on a vaccation.
i do realize that this is an extreme side of things. many people need daycare sometimes or for a particular season of their life. and it's not all bad.
but when it becomes the majority of where the kids spend their time (except for sleeping) then i think we should reconsider out priorities.
do we need to work 40h/week? really?
in order to have enough for clothes, food and a place to sleep?
or do we need to work 40h/week so that we can buy STUFF.
work gets the best and when we get home we are just tired.
again, it's not like this for everyone. but for a lot of people.
i guess its easy to think and reflect on this when im not in the situation myself.
but i dont want to work more than i need to. or pay for someone else to take care of my kids for the majority of the day.
maybe thats all i needed to say?

the weight of words

do we try to make ourselves bigger with our talk?
sometimes i feel like evry other word in a sentence is an adjective describing how big, bad, wonderful, horrible or fun something is. i love adjectives, but they should be the spice in a conversation, not the main point.
we try to make everything sound cool. we over exaggerate. or under exaggerate. anything for our benefit.
we promise, we swear and assure each other about stuff. and it's great. but what happened to just yes and no. i will or i won't.
what if you would use your words in a way so that when you use the words "Yes it was great" it carries the weight that great is supposed to carry and we wouldn't need ten other adjectives to prove the point. we wouldn't need to prove anything. we would just speak and mean what we say.
like i said, i love adjectives and by all means we should keep using them and keep inventing new ones. but we should mean what we say. and our words could carry more weight.
don't you have those people around you that just over exaggerates all the time? everything their doing is always awesome? but what does awesome mean to them? and what does awesome mean to you? you usually measure words on the same scale as those around you that you hang out with. and when you put another group of friends on the scale it says something completely different. maybe that's why there are so many missunderstandings in life? we speak the same language, but can the weight of the words be so different that the language is not the same anymore?

"It was said to the people long ago: "Do not break your oath but fulfill to the Lord the vows you have made:" But I tell you, do not swear an oath at all..... All you need to say is simply yes or no, anything beyond this comes from the evil one." - Matt 5:33-34, 37

the circles

Do you ever feel scattered? Wanting one thing but feeling differently? Feeling something that does not fit into your plan?
Our will/convictions, our emotions and our vision is one big mess in relation to each other sometimes.
I think of it as three different circles floating around.
One circle is everything that you are convicted about. Politics, faith or opinions.
Another circle represents all your emotions. This is (hopefully/normally) the one that changes and floats around the most.
The third one is your future. What you want in life and how you intend to get there. Your dreams and desires.
The three have different shades but the same colour, different moods but the same personality.
The circles always touch each other in at least one area. And this is where you are, the core you. The spot in the middle when they all aline and come together makes you into one person, you.
The closer these three circles are to each other the less scattered you'll feel. If they are so close together that they almost look like one circle you feel peace and harmony. You feel like you are in control. You know what you want, why you want it and your feeligns support and testify it.
But you can't ever lock the circles in one position when you feel like it's under control.
They are constantly flowing in the same speed that your life is passing by.
Your mood changes, your oppinions change and your plans change. And they are supposed too, because we are meant to be growing.
But the better you get at lining them up, the more at peace you will be.
The more room you get for the core you to relax and you don't feel pulled apart in different directions by the very base.
No wonder we have identidy crisis sometimes. Those are the times when the circles are pulling in different directions and there is only enough room for the core you in the middle to try and hold the three circles together.
Some people pick only one circle and tries to aline the other two to it. Most people nowdays pick their emotional circle. As soon as they feel a certain way their convistions and their future plans changes and tries to keep up. But why would you pick the circle that changes the most then?
I don't think we should choose one at all, however I believe we need to have one in majority over the other two. I believe the one in majority should be our convictions.
But like I said, we shouldn't pick unless we must. We should stay in the middle and try to listen to and bring them all together. Three combined into one is far better.

what is christianity?

söndag.
what is christianity?
i used to think it was easy to do but hard to explain.
but ive realized more and more that its the hardest thing to do but the easiest thing to explain.
i found a bible verse that just nailed it for me today.

The Message Bible says: (micah 6:8)
"It's quite simple: Do what is fair and just to your neighbor,
be compassionate and loyal in your love,
And don't take yourself too seriously—
take God seriously. "

other translations of the last sentence says "walk humbly with your God" or "faithful stand and hold fast to your God".

in my words:
1. follow your concience/the Holy Spirit/convictions in your everyday decisions/situations.
2. be generous/compassionate and not picky with your love.
3. never compromise God for anything but always put him first in love and life.
however I would put them in reverse order. start with number three, Jesus is what enables us to do this. and the other two will follow.

i believe that's it.
sometimes we make things complicated.
let the complicated things come when we are in control of the basics. cause it's not until then we are able to handle them.

decisions

söndag.
sometimes the aftermatch can be more difficult than the match because that's when you are left to deal with things yourself.
the match decides the aftermatch. but the aftermatch decides the ending. or at least how to best proceed.
it is the same with decisions.
you can make a decision pretty easily. but the hard part is to stick with the decision.
i used to think that the hard part was to make a decision. but l have come to realize that its the sticking to it part that is the hard part.
some decisions you make once, but then in order to stick with them you have to make new decisions everyday.
i choose once to give my life to christ. but i choose everyday to follow him and keep on walking. otherwise i would be standing still.
like accepting things. i choose once to want to accept it. but still everyday i have to make decisions in order to keep accepting it.
of course there are a few decisions you make once with the small decisions in mind. like marriage. you say I do once and that time you mean I do for all the coming days as well. so you include all the coming decisions into one decisions.
but with most things in life its not like that. you have to keep on choosing. and that is how you everyday choose who you want to be. you dont just make a few decisions. who you are is in your everyday decision.
making big decisions like i wanna be more humble and i want to be more loving and see people is fairly easy and inspiring to make decisions like that, but its in your everyday that you can actually see if those decisions are being followed through.