With a Grain of Salt

No Judgment

I too am human.
Imperfect.
Inclined to sin.
And I cannot judge you for being the same.

There are ten commandments in the Old Testament. And Jesus gave one new commandment in the New Testament that folds every rule, every law, and every expectation into a single, piercing line of truth:

Love God with all your heart, and love your neighbour as you love yourself.

My questions:
How do we follow that commandment in a world where God is forgotten in the noise, and where so few people genuinely love themselves?
How do we love others when we barely understand our own hearts – our wounds, our shadows, our contradictions?

I think this is where humanity becomes both simple and complicated.

The Empty Boat

From as far back as I can remember, I’ve been an empath. When people said or did hurtful things, my instinct wasn’t to judge – it was to understand. I cried at times. I dwelled on their words. I obsessed over the meaning. But even in the hurt, I “saw” them. I “heard” them. Not their behaviour alone, but the unspoken language underneath it – the language of their past: trauma, fear, old wounds, defence mechanisms, and survival instincts formed long before I ever appeared in their story.

Much of that language was one I didn’t fully understand, but I recognised the tone. And so, in my mind, their boat was always empty.

The “Empty Boat Mindset” teaches this:

When someone bumps into you – with their words, their anger, their carelessness, or their silence – it often has nothing to do with you. Their boat is empty. They are navigating stress, memories, triggers, fears, insecurities, and emotional blind spots you may never know about. They aren’t strategising how to hurt you. They aren’t plotting emotional warfare. They are simply doing what they’ve always done to survive whatever moment they’re in.

When you learn to see the empty boat, you realise not everything is personal. You stop reacting to every slight. You stop assuming intention. And more importantly, you begin assuming humanity. You don’t do this to excuse bad behaviour. You do this to protect your peace.

Respect and Imperfection

Imperfect people strut around expecting respect from other imperfect people. Some say, “You must earn respect.” Others insist, “You don’t earn respect – you are respect. Behave accordingly.”

And while everyone argues about respect, the word “decency” bounces around the room unnoticed.

Here’s my imperfect viewpoint:
The one demanding respect is often just as indecent, flawed, reactive, or unreasonable as the one refusing to give it. Respect becomes a badge people want to wear without doing the work that makes it real. We shout for respect, but live in ways that contradict the very thing we’re insisting on.

So let’s pause and ask a very simple, very uncomfortable question: What does respect even mean to you?

Is it tone?
Is it obedience?
Is it being agreed with?
Is it silence when you’re wrong?
Is it people tiptoeing around your sensitivities?
Is it validation – even when you don’t deserve it?
Or is respect something deeper?
A basic human decency?
A way of speaking?
A way of treating people?
A willingness to pause before harming?
A consciousness of your own flaws before pointing at someone else’s?

Because decency – not ego, not entitlement – is the real foundation of respect. Without decency, “respect” becomes nothing more than a performance. A demand. A one-way street built by someone who thinks their imperfection is holier, tidier, or more justified than yours.

So again...

What does respect truly mean to you?

Always Offended

Why are we so quick to feel offended? Why do the smallest words, glances, pauses, or comments ignite something in us?

Because being offended is almost never about the present moment. It’s about history. It’s about the old bruise the new comment touched. It’s about the trigger we didn’t know was still alive in us.

We get offended easily because
- we carry unhealed wounds, 
- we expect others to fix what we haven’t faced,
- we personalise everything,
- we assume intention,
- we fear being seen for who we really are,
- we crave validation,
- we want to be right,
- we’ve normalised outrage,
and, most of all,
- we forget that other people are just as imperfect and fragile as we are.

To be offended is human. But to stay offended is a choice.

Most offence is nothing more than our ego screaming for protection. Or our insecurity begging for reassurance. Or our past mistaking the present for danger. And when we finally understand this, something shifts:
Instead of reacting, we reflect.
Instead of attacking, we breathe.
Instead of assuming intention, we assume humanity.

Offence loses its grip when we realise people don’t exist to emotionally stabilise us. They are living their own stories – messy, confused, traumatised, distracted – and sometimes their rough edges scrape against ours. Not out of malice. Out of being human.

So the question isn’t, “Why did they offend me?”
The question is, “Why did it land so deeply?”
And that’s where the real work – the healing work – begins.

The Lie

We all lie. Let’s just start there, because the foundation needs to be honest before we go any further. Some lies are big. Some are small. But at the end of the day, a lie doesn’t become holy because it’s tiny. This is the big-sin / small-sin game we love to play, as if softening the edges changes the shape. It doesn’t. A lie is still a lie. Sin is still sin. An excuse is still an excuse – based most often on a lie.

But lying is not a simple “good people don’t do this” and “bad people do.” No. It lives in the grey. It sits in the in-between where human psychology complicates everything. People lie out of fear, embarrassment, shame, habit, survival instinct, conflict avoidance, people-pleasing, ego protection – the list goes on. 

Someone tells part of the truth. Someone avoids a detail. Someone sugar-coats because they think you’ll crumble if they serve it straight. Someone lies because the truth costs too much. And sometimes you lie because confronting reality is harder than rearranging it.

And this brings us to the uncomfortable part – the moment we ask:
When someone lies to me… what role do I play in that interaction?
Not “What about me caused the lie?” but “What about my reactions makes truth feel unsafe?” 

It takes two to tango, not because I force someone to lie, but because I am part of the emotional ecosystem where the lie happens. If I explode at honesty, people will hide from me. If I punish vulnerability, people will choose comfort over truth. If I treat mistakes like mortal crimes, people will protect themselves from me. These are not excuses for dishonesty – they are insights. Reflections. A willing look in the mirror instead of pointing at everyone else’s cracks while pretending mine don’t exist.

And when someone lies to me, I can’t just ask, “Why did they do that?”
I also have to ask, “How do I respond to truth? How do I respond to discomfort? Have I really never bent the truth myself?”

We judge loudly the things we’ve done quietly.

And yes, there is a difference between a human who lies once and a person who habitually lies. One is a stumble. The other is a pattern. And patterns require boundaries, not just forgiveness. Knowing which is which saves a lot of heartache.

But let’s not pretend we’re above the little lies – the socially acceptable ones.

Someone asks, “Am I fat?”
You respond, “No, you’re beautiful, just the way you are!”
But the truth might be:
“Well… you aren’t thin.”
Or even more honestly:
“Yes, you’ve gained weight.”
But we don’t say that. We’re terrified of hurting people. Terrified of consequences. Terrified of being the villain in someone else’s story for speaking plainly. So we sugar-coat – and then convince ourselves that sugar isn’t just another form of deception.

Another example:
“Hi, how are you?”
“I’m fine, and you?”

We say it automatically. A script. A reflex. A polite social handshake. But let’s be honest: no one is “fine.” Not really. Not fully. Not every day. And we don’t say what’s actually going on because… we don’t want to overwhelm someone; we don’t want to seem weak; we don’t trust them with our truth; we worry they’ll judge us; we fear becoming “too much”; we sense they don’t actually want the real answer; or we simply don’t have the emotional energy to unpack our own chaos in the middle of a grocery aisle or WhatsApp chat.

So we lie. A tiny lie. A socially acceptable lie. A lie wrapped in a smile. Not because we’re deceitful, but because vulnerability feels dangerous. We say “fine” because it is the safest answer. The least complicated. The most protective. It’s a shield, not a deception. A way of keeping the world out until we decide who is safe enough to let in.

But it still proves the point:

We all lie – sometimes to others, sometimes to ourselves – not out of malice, but out of fear, exhaustion, caution, or habit.

Even the smallest conversation reveals how complex truth really is.

Take a look at the rants on Facebook. Someone posts about how exhausted they are, how awful their week has been, and how life has drained every last drop of patience from them. And then the story shifts: They describe the “bitch-face” woman standing in the coffee aisle – taking up too much space with her fully loaded trolley and her “humongous body.” And because this woman existed in the wrong place at the wrong time, BAM – slamming a trolley into her becomes justified. Worth it. Almost heroic. How dare she block an aisle! How dare she not read the emotional radar of someone having a terrible week! How dare she simply… be there.

And how do the fans, followers, friends, and family respond?
“Yes! Well done!”
“They deserved it!”
“You showed them!”
Really? Is that the truth? Is that wisdom? Is that kindness? Is that decency?
Or – and this is far more likely – are we just applauding bad behaviour because it’s easier than being honest?

Honesty takes courage. And courage is not something everyone uses daily. It is far simpler to validate someone’s rage than to gently say, “Hey… maybe that wasn’t okay,” or, “Maybe your bad week doesn’t justify harming someone else,” or, “Maybe the aisle-blocker wasn’t your enemy – maybe she was just a tired human too.”

But calling someone out requires bravery.
It requires maturity.
It requires risking their anger – risking the relationship – in order to speak truth instead of feeding ego.

Our Debt has been Paid

And now we reach the heart of the matter – the thread that holds all of this together:

Jesus died for our sins. 

Every one. Big, small, polite, messy, intentional, accidental – all of them.

Living a Christ-like life doesn’t mean perfection. It doesn’t mean parading our righteousness like a trophy. It doesn’t mean stoning ourselves to pulp every time we fall short. It means aiming for the bullseye every single day. Trying. Reaching. Turning our faces toward the character of Christ even when our feet stumble.

And when we miss – and we will miss – we don’t sit in the dust and punish ourselves. We pray. We ask for forgiveness. We breathe. And tomorrow, we try again.

There is no need to weaponize Scripture. No need to force-feed verses while pointing fingers at everyone else’s failures. No need for the “holier than thou” act that fools no one – not even ourselves. The truth is simple and humbling:

I am a sinner. And so is he. And she. And them. And everyone around me.

We will offend. We will lose it. We will say the wrong thing. We will bend the truth. We will hide. We will fail. But we will also rise. We will find our centre again. We will apologise, adjust, grow.

We will get up – or get over it – and we will go on.

Yes! Indeed! I, too, am human.

Fragile. Flawed. Learning.

Trying every day to be better than yesterday, but never pretending I don’t fall short. And some days, I might even be too tired or depressed or anxious to bother being better! There may be many of these days. And so be it! 

Because?

God reads the heart. 

And that’s the truth – the hard truth, the soft truth, the human truth, and the truth that sets us free.

Teach Me

Take all of this with a grain of salt. Leave a comment. Teach me how you see it.

I’ve always believed that life is a school, and I’m a lifelong learner – able and willing to learn from others.

Every perspective, every story, every truth and lie, every stumble and rise teaches me something. And if I can keep learning, growing, and reflecting, then maybe that’s enough.

Refined to Shine

 “The more a diamond is cut, the more it sparkles.” – F.B. Meyer

Diamonds are another amazing example of God’s creative power. Black carbon is plain, ordinary, and mostly overlooked. Then comes the transformation: pressure and heat. Not just a little pressure – fifty thousand times what we feel on the surface. And the heat? More than a thousand degrees Celsius.

It all happens deep within the earth, about 145 kilometres down. That’s where the hidden miracle begins. Unseen. Under strain and fire.

Then the rough stone is pushed to the surface by the eruptive force of a volcano. When discovered, it glimmers faintly – just enough to hint at what’s possible. But even then, it isn’t finished. It needs the lapidary’s hand. Each cut, each tiny slice, releases more light. Fifty-eight facets. Weeks of patient work. And every cut matters.

Why am I writing this? It’s something most of us already know.

Well, today I thought about the pressure I face every day, and it made me think of potential. We are all black carbon – ordinary to the eye. A little proud. A little rough around the edges.

We think the pressure we’re under – the heat of our problems and suffering, the things we didn’t want or ask for, the losses, the waiting, the chiselling moments that test us to the brink of insanity – surely must be too much.

We often say, I’ve had enough.

Yet, it isn’t over until our last breath escapes us.

And even then, since we don’t know what lies beyond life on earth, perhaps the refining continues.

God keeps shaping. Cutting. Refining. Because He knows us. Every edge He smooths, every flaw He removes, every sharp place He reshapes, making us shine brighter.

So yes, we suffer. But it’s not wasted.

The same God who makes diamonds from carbon is shaping character out of struggle – out of a life of imperfection and sin.

Job 5:9 – He performs wonders that cannot be fathomed, miracles that cannot be counted.

Allow faith and patience to finish their work. Because when the process is done, you won’t just survive it. You’ll sparkle.

Letting Go

I’ve always believed in finding new ways to think – in the power of the mind to reshape and renew itself.
In my own life, I’ve seen how reprogramming my thoughts brings healing. When something troubles me, I word it.
People often say, “Don’t say it aloud. The devil will hear.”
But hello – God hears too.
Keeping silent or being afraid to face what hurts, to me, shows a lack of faith.
I’m not challenging the darkness by naming it. I’m releasing it. Speaking it aloud is my way of setting it free, of letting it go.
Why am I saying this? Because of the birthday month – a time that was always about newness, the beginning of another year of life.
But since 2021, as the freshness of life arrives, I also carry my brother’s death with me.
Even this year, my birthday felt heavy.
There’s still a brokenness and restlessness inside me that weighs me down – not because I don’t want to move on, but because I can’t let him go.
And yet, October cannot remain a month of wounds. It must become a month of wonder again.
The day before my birthday, it hit home hard. I said it aloud. October needs to be the birth month again. Not the month of death.
Something shifted. A new awareness was born.
I became aware that the only reason I was clinging to Johan’s death was because, from the day he was born, I had always kept my hand over him – watching, protecting, trying to soften his path against the world.
That quiet obligation should have ended when he died… and yet, it lives on in me.
It’s as if my hand is still there – stretched out over nothing, and yet, over everything.
Now I understand.
It’s not the loss that keeps me from moving forward – it’s the holding on.
I carry so many memories, and though they sometimes shimmer at the edge of forgetfulness, they still live quietly within me.
I cannot keep carrying the guilt of his death.
I cannot keep playing the ‘What if’ game:
What if I had done this.
What if I had said that.
What if I had listened better.
What if I had gone with him to see Dr. Els.
What if… What if... What if…
Love was never meant to be chained to guilt.
It’s time to remember him with peace, not punishment.
So, I prepare myself to let go.
And, hopefully, by next October, maybe my mind will rest differently.

Ready to fly

The world is at the edge, 
and so am I.

The air is filled with foreboding
as delusion swarms the skies –
thought-flocks shimmer,
then vanish in static.

Every headline reads disaster,
every chat thread runs with dread,
every honest facade
cracks beneath the weight
of finality.

People mirror it –
a dying constellation of minds,
signals collapsing into silence 
as their universes flicker offline.

They laugh when they shouldn’t,
cry when no one is watching,
scroll through the corridors
of their own undoing,
curious about the darkness.

They falter when stepping back, holding fast
to the small certainties that remain –
coffee in the morning,
a friend’s familiar voice,
the sun setting even when the day
breaks apart.

And even in their clinging,
their yearning, their endless chase for meaning,
they lean forward, peer over the edge –
drawn by the mystery
of the fall.

Perhaps that’s the truth of it –
generations have teetered on the brink,
thinking the world will break,
but the verge has always held.

While the world teeters at the edge,
I do not look down, nor wait
for the fall – my heels touch the brink
but my eyes seek the horizon
as I gather wind and turn toward the light.

I am at the edge,
ready to fly.

You are what you survived

I’ve never been someone who enjoys gossip. Many people do, and in the past I’ve sometimes listened and given my opinion. Sad fact: I’m brutally honest. 

Take Example 1: If someone asks me what I think about a colleague, I stick to the facts. If that colleague is outside the classroom smoking while the kids are left idle, I’ll say they weren’t present. What usually gets repeated back is that I called them lazy. Big difference. Do I correct it? No. If they choose to dislike me for it, that’s on them. 

Example 2: I don’t just notice people’s personalities – I’m drawn to their psychology and even their neurology. My mother had an uncanny ability to “read” a room, and I seem to have inherited that. A twitch of the mouth, a glance, a hand gesture, or the way someone responds tells me more than their words ever could. We all have habits. We all repeat patterns. If you ask me to analyse you, I can usually do so with a fair degree of accuracy. 

I say usually because analysis has limits. If someone lies to impress me or hides something, I can spot the change in their pattern – but it produces a false picture. 

Here’s the belief I’ve held for years: we are what we have experienced. Every single person has a backstory, and that story has shaped them into the human being standing in front of us today. All of us – yes, every one of us – carry imprints from childhood, whether we call them trauma, lessons, or survival strategies. 

Neuroscientists have found that the nervous system doesn’t just remember events – it remembers how those events felt. 

This is called implicit memory. Unlike ordinary memory, which lets you recall facts and moments, implicit memory stores body states. If you grew up anxious, your body learned to live on high alert. If you grew up secure, your body learned to rest and trust. These patterns get wired into your autonomic nervous system – the fight, flight, freeze, or rest-and-digest settings that keep us alive. 

The fascinating part? These imprints can last for decades. You might think you’re reacting to the present moment, but often your nervous system is pulling up an old “file” from childhood and replaying it. 

In other words, our bodies are libraries of our lived experiences. Every gesture, every reaction, every gut feeling carries echoes of what we’ve been through. That’s why I try not to judge too quickly. Behind every behaviour is a story. And behind every story is a nervous system that has been doing its best – often since childhood – to keep that person safe.

When you see someone fighting tooth and nail just to stay afloat, it’s worth remembering: that’s not weakness. That’s survival. It’s the nervous system’s deepest instinct to keep going, even when life feels unbearable. 

That’s why I believe no one really wants to die. Most people who seem “self-destructive” aren’t longing for death. They’re longing for relief, for safety, for a way out of pain. Their fight to stay afloat is evidence of the part of them that still wants to live. 

And if we can understand that – if we can see the story behind the struggle – maybe we can meet each other with a little more compassion.

Eternity in Our Hearts

Quite often, since the loss of my brother and mother, I find myself thinking about eternity. Not as something far away or vague. No. Eternity is something deep and real. It’s almost like a seed that was planted inside us long before we took our first breath. 

It’s not strange that we struggle to understand life and death. When God first created people, there was no death, no end at all. We were meant to live forever with Him. “He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” — Ecclesiastes 3:11 (NIV) 

I believe that’s why, even when everything feels heavy or sad, there is still a small part of us that refuses to give up. Something deep inside makes us believe that life is worth living, that there must be more to life than pain and suffering, and more to simply existing. 

Time is relative. It bends and stretches. One hour can feel like forever, and a whole year can pass in the blink of an eye. The psalmist reminds us of life’s brevity: “Our days may come to seventy years, or eighty, if our strength endures; yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away.” — Psalm 90:10 (NIV) 

At first, it may feel heavy, even discouraging, to think our time is so short. But maybe it’s not meant to bring despair. It’s the paradox: we weren’t created for seventy or eighty years alone. We were made for eternity. And that’s why all the things we collect — money, possessions, even success — never fill the emptiness we sometimes feel. They only make us chase after more of the same. 

What we really long for is not “more things.” It’s something sacred. We were not made to be filled by the world, but by the One who made the world. 

Death always feels wrong because it is wrong. It was never part of God’s first plan. But through Jesus, the way back to life has been opened. Not just life here, but life forever with Him. 

Now, our bodies are fragile and often tired, but our hearts keep longing for wellness. The groaning is real — it’s the part of us that longs for hope, for light, for eternity. 

In my case, my body is done with the struggle! Living with peripheral neuropathy is a physical obstacle, but also hard on the mind. Many mornings are so overwhelming. The weight of knowing I must face another day with pain can press heavily. But, I remind myself: pain is not my master. It’s my teacher. It doesn’t govern me; it guides me forward, reshaping how I think and how I face the day. 

Still! The struggle to move is there. So, whenever I feel depleted, I remind myself: eternity is within me. I wasn’t made to live in pain, but to live in hope. To shine even a small light in the darkness. To be kind, to be truthful, to stay humble before God. 

And also, I remind myself that I’m not alone. Many people are suffering the burden of this imperfect life. Even today, with all its struggles, we can still live with a thankful heart, do good where we can, and hold on to the thought of forever. “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.” — 2 Corinthians 4:16–17 

Perhaps the question isn’t how short life is, or how heavy time feels, but where our focus rests. If we fix our eyes only on what is fragile and temporary, the weight of it all will crush us. But if we lift our eyes to the eternal — to the One who placed eternity in our hearts — then even seventy or eighty years become filled with meaning.

This is the real paradigm shift: Where is your focus? Not on what fades, but on what lasts. Not on fear, but on hope. Not on time running out, but on eternity already begun.

Be Still. Make Room.

There are people who move through a day as though through a storm, their eyes lowered, their hearts closed.
They say they are busy.
The hours are too short, the burden of life too heavy, the path forward too steep.

And so they focus on everything and nothing.

Small tasks are dropped by the wayside, like stones unnoticed on the road.
They focus on negativity.  

They say, people are careless, people are lazy, people do not think.
Systems are broken. The world is evil.
The end has come.

Some ignore the negativity and drift like clouds in their own realms of stupor. 
Some sink into the muck and mire of the world.

People are in conflict, mostly with each other.

When the ear is closed, the river of love between people dries to a trickle.
When the heart is distracted, the field of care lies barren.
And a voice unheeded is like a seed cast upon rock. It cannot take root. It cannot grow.

What does this tell us of the state of man?

That he builds his houses high, but neglects the foundation.
That his hands are full of harvest, yet his soul goes hungry.
That he moves with the swiftness of the wind, yet passes by the spring that could quench his thirst.

The world grows louder, but man grows blind and deaf.
The days shorten, like the shadows of evening, yet his attention grows thinner.
And though he sows much, he often sows without depth, and reaps little that endures.

Goodness is not absent.
We need only to turn our eyes upon the small and hidden things, upon that which is often passed by in haste.

Goodness is here, waiting to be seen.

It requires no effort from us to see it.
We do not need to fix anything to find it.
We only need to stand without judgment.
Open our eyes.
Open our ears.

Open our hearts.

Be still.
Make space in our hearts.

When we pay attention, when we look and listen with gentleness and reverence, then what is good will grow, as a seed grows when the earth gives it room.

The seed of goodness waits – not in the world out there, but in the quiet you make within yourself.