Welcome my new Friend to Anchor & Heart and to our very first blog post! It so exciting to be able to finally release this and what an honour it is to have you here for the ride! Thank you for coming along! I once was given a journal with a Quote written in the front that said: 

 

"A Journey of a 1000 Miles begins

with a single step"

 

Today, that first step has been taken! I've had it on my heart for some time now to create a place that feels like HOME, where with those who would want to, we could share and do life, together! This place is somewhere to be inspired, encouraged, challenged and uplifted. A place we can leave from with a greater perspective, new found hope and an excitement for the things to come!

 

Let this be a place for you.

 

At this stage, every 2 weeks, a new post will be put up (either from myself or a legacy leaver) so we hope you enjoy reading, maybe with a good cuppa or friend and also be encouraged with what is happening in our community through Live It LOUD ©!  

 

But first, if you haven’t yet personally met me, let me introduce myself.

Hi, I am Madison!

Some call me Maddi, others, Mads. I currently work as an Outdoor Recreation Instructor at a Youth Camp; help to lead a Youth & Young Adults Ministry of a new church plant; adore green smoothies; love anything & everything outdoors and you will often find me adventuring up some mountain; talking about some new healthy recipe I have discovered or jamming on my guitar. I love people + love life and at the very top of my list is: Jesus. He has become my Best Friend and He is the very heartbeat behind Anchor & Heart.

 

In my 24yrs of life, my personal journey hasn’t always been the easiest. In fact, in all honesty, from a young age (at times) it has been very painful. I can relate some of my early years and adolescence to the first part of a fairytale where an enemy has tried to rob me of a childhood; many dreams and any hope of being anything worth someone’s love. As you would know, there are moments in all of our lives that can really impact + define, and one of those moments for me was as a 7 year old suddenly having to move interstate with my mum, and little brother, but the catch was... without my Dad. “We are separating”, are no 3 words any young person wants to hear, especially when it involves having to move to a foreign place with no advanced warning. Even though things weren’t great at home, by any means, it still hit me hard.

 

I became that child you see on a plane as an unaccompanied minor, with her little brother, trying to make sense of why she had to go in the school holidays to a place she didn’t call home anymore; why her mummy and daddy didn’t live together and why we couldn’t be a happy family. I found myself having to grow up fast, which led me to try and find love through different relationships that weren’t healthy in order to fill up my ‘love’ tank.

 

“Am I really loved?”

“Who am I?”

“Do I matter?”

 

I found myself searching in all different places to answer these and many more questions.  Some of the places I looked though were not good. I dated a lot in highschool hoping to gain acceptance and with each new boyfriend, I believed, ‘he’, (whoever ‘he’ was at the time), would somehow fix all of the problems. Boys would come and go and still I was empty and searching. Food, then too, became a place to go because I felt I had control over it. If I couldn’t control what happened to my family + the many other hard circumstances happening around me, then I could control what I ate, or often didn’t.  I would eat, and then not, and then hate myself for doing either of those, so it was impossible to accept myself and find peace.

 

All these choices were made in order to cope and find my true identity, value and worth, yet these things or people couldn’t satisfy.  With many other painful things that happened along the way I found myself totally desperate, looking for something real and to find a love that would last.

 

Thankfully, Jesus stepped into my story.

 

Though I had grown up in Church and had given Jesus my heart as a little girl, it wasn’t until around the age of 16 that I decided to let Him really step in and be the Hero in my story.

From the moment I allowed Him into all the hurt and brokenness, I saw that He was nothing but LOVE; True Love. This love was the kind that so many fairytales try to capture in the movies and storybooks and the kind I so desperately needed.

 

After having a few pretty profound personal experiences with God, I decided to stop the dating game and slowly begin properly eating, while making wiser choices of who I was hanging around and letting speak into my life. Through these different people at school and at my local Youth ministry, I started to see Jesus in a whole new light. Their lives were different and though they too went through things, they had hope. Thankfully, I also had my beautiful mother beside me on my journey. She has always been a constant in my life and how very grateful I am for her, her faith, and her example of Jesus even in the hardest of times.

 

In Jesus, I found no judgment about the choices I had made or what had happened but rather, total acceptance. I found a love that would actually choose to step into my mess and help me to make something beautiful from it: 

 

That Kind of Love is rare. 

 

My story is still continuing to be written and it’s not like I don’t go through hard times anymore, I still do!, but making the choice to let Jesus step in changed me. I am not the same girl who used to pine for the love of a guy, that didn’t end up satisfying, and I’m definitely not the girl who would try to starve herself in order to gain acceptance and hopefully find worth through her looks. I have changed and am continuing to change because of Jesus’ unrelenting and steadfast love for me.

 

This is just a small part of my story of how God has helped to heal me, and today, I pray it gives you hope. No matter where you sit in your view of Jesus, Church, love, life etc. I want you to know if I can make it through… You can too. You are NOT alone in your journey and any mess can be turned into something beautiful if you allow it to be. At times, we don’t always understand why we have to go through what we do, and in all honesty, there are still some unanswered questions I have, but until God reveals all, I trust Him to continue to make beauty from my pain and turn all things around for good.

He promises to. (Romans 8:28). 

 

 

Youth Speaker, Reggie Dabbs, is on point when he says:

 

“Your past does not determine your future”. 

 

That’s you and me friend! Our past is not our future and our mess can be turned into a beautiful

MESS-age of hope.

 

Will you allow yours to be?

 

You are loved and of great, GREAT worth. We are here for you and with you on the journey!

Thank You again for being a part of the Launch of Anchor & Heart. It is early days, but let's keep travelling together and change the world for better, through Him.

 

The very best is yet to come for you and for me!

 

     Until Next time,

                   Much love,

                       Mads.