Day 5 Needing a Bath

I have been trying to keep a positive refocusing kind of theme with these first 5 blog posts. I hope that I have acheived that so far, or at least made some of you think a little bit more about finding balance withing yourselves, making you look and evaluate yourseleves and what you're trying to reflect out to others. I bought a brand new pair of Converse Trainers last year, it was part of my new look, trying finally to break some deceptive decisions of others by my appearance. My sister in law at the time, being a slave to fashion herself, basically took me under her wing and said that I needed to change a little. The problem I had was being disabled I was brought up to dress comfortably, but within then believing if I am comfortable then it shouldn't nake much difference to my self esteem when people judged me on my health. I can see the logic there, but sadly, for a man in his 20's I started to dress like a man in his 40's, even possibly a bad dressed one. So, with that in mind i went with this new look. It was young, fashionable, and I for the first time felt that what I was wearing seemed more like me. Only problem with this, is that I dont usually buy nice expensive trainers, I often scuffed my trainers and ruined them quickly. So would never buy something fashionable or expensive for footwear. But once again I decided to try. So I was a owner of a pair of converse...ooooo. Within the first week, I was surprised how sturdy they seemed and how I was trying very hard to look after them. Then disaster struck. I wobbled with a cup of coffee and now they had a small coffee stain. I was determined this wouldn't be the end, so I bleached, vanished and cleaned them as much as possible. They were clean, the stain was barely visiable, i decided that I could deal with that. Wearing them out aagain, a guy dropped his pint of guiness next to me (who drops a pint honestly) and once again my new trainers were stained, covered, the stain looked far to gone. I was upset, so left them to one side. 4 months on, I decided that I needed to try cleaning them, they were still a good pair of trainers, after a week of bathing them, scrubbing them, and bleaching them, they were clean, as clean as they could be, with just the little look about them that they were old and "shadowed". This reminded me yeaterday of the topics I have been trying to cover with you all. When I was talking about our life songs, our lives are a way of amplifying are true nature, amplyifing Gods song that he sings over us. In life there are imperfections, even wrongs, wrong doings, imperfections physically and mentally and generally things that stain us. This reminded me of Esthers Story in the Bible. This young girl didnt realise that she was going to become Queen, she was a 14 year old girl, a girl that had become a refugee in the country that she was trying to call home, and as we know that she was probably living in poverty because of all that. At 14 years old, she was still young enough to make a difference change her potential (and as we find out that she does)she had a chance to take a look at herself and say I could be more, I am incomplete, but I could be more. (As we saw in my discussion on Day 3)We also know though that Esther was orphaned and had no parents, (we would assume that she lost these in the reason why she was now a refugee) Even at 14 years old, she would have been a far different 14 year old girl, to the types that we would see now in society. After everything she had been through, she would definitely be carrying some stains, having some guards up from past mistakes, and as discussed yesterday, probably guarding things that she really didn't remember the reason for. But she knew she had to. The King at the time, had basically sacked his Queen, she was no longer there for that position. He created a command and told the court to go forth and find young girls, young beautiful girls, that he could potentially be chosen for his next queen. We are all Esthers, and we can learn a lot about a few points in her story, small fine lines and verses to take note on. Many girls were chosen with Esther, many beautiful girls. Out of these girls the King chose his favourites and sought a beauty treatment for them all, assigning them all luxaries and service. (Sounds wonderful ladies) The first thing we need to see is that all the girls chosen would have been beatuiful, they wouldn't have chosen the ugly or disformed (judgemental) but when the King looked at all of these girls he was looking at the best and brightest on the beautiful list, so what made Esther stand out to be chosen? There must have been an inner beauty, that we all have the potential to have, reflecting out. (Even despite the problems she had before this point. Bad things happen, things can stain us, but instead of allowing this to shape her she had potential to have a better character.) The second point that I would like to make is that beauty reatment for the chosen lasted 12 months, 6 months of oils (murr) and 6 months of cosmetics. The preparation here would have been key here. Particularly the point of 6 months bathed in oil. Esther would have bathed in the oil, purfifying all aspects of things physically wrong with her body. 6 months, doesn't anyone else thing thats excesive? But think this way, it obviously worked or they wouldn't have done it, made her stronger and healthier. But she still had to compete with the other girls. These girls needed to have something amazing, again, it was what was inside her that mattered. 6 months in an oil bath, and 6 months in cosmetics (I spent a day shopping with my sister in law, that was hard enough, but 6 months of that and other cosmetic work doesnt sound ideal) A year in total, a year to stand infront of the king and be chosen. It seems such a long time. But sometimes in life the things of purest beauty come from the longest preperatation time. Take athletes, they train for fours years between olympics, to run a race under 9 seconds! We shouldn't be looking at the stains in our lives, and putting them aside for months and years before we clean them. Just accept that in time it will come out in the wash, it might be a wash that lasted a year or longer, purfiying the stain to be completely removed. (I have got issues and stains in my life that are still there, and have been there for at least 3 years) We are all like Esther, we all have the opportunity to become more, to become the voice for the voiceless, the strong standing person, to become royalty. We have bagage, we have things that stain us, sometimes they can be little stains, a drop even, and sometimes they can cover you. It can really be anything from rejection, identy issues, self esteem, being undermined, bullied or just some horrific life experiences that have abused your soul. But we shouldn't allow our past to dictate our future, Esther would not have been called a would be Queen at 14 but she had her potential. We can not control every aspect of what happens in our lives but be can control what happens next with this starting point, we can control our counter reaction. Try not to have a victim attitude, look at what could be rather than focusing on the problems and chips on our shoulders. We all can go from reject to roaylty. We all have that chance. For me I think I need to take a long soak in a bath.