A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step....

Friends,
You may wonder why I have not written of the wonders of Canberra and my life there. Well the main reason for the lack of this kind of post is that due to work, I remain in Sydney.
Yes, mere days after I moved all of my stuff to Canberra and shut down the townhouse in Wollongong, work told me that I would be in Sydney 3 months instead of 1.
To be honest, originally I thought that this would be horrible, but due to the kindness of Leigh (my step bro) and Maya (his lady friend :)), I am able to house sit for them and look after their totally cool cat Henry.
So, I type this to you, a mere 10 minutes drive from work in North Sydney, overlooking the harbour, on the 14th floor. Totally awesome.

To be honest, life at the moment is kind of surreal.

To put it in context, as a boy growing up, I was subject to a broken home from the age of 10. My two brothers and I moved with my mum to Ulladulla. Mum worked hard but initially supported us 3 boys on a part time wage by herself. Obviously we were very poor. In moving to the new school I greatly struggled to make friendships. This was probably due to my eczema and athsma. I could easily say that during the 5 years that we lived in Ulladulla I had pretty much no friends. Due to this, and the situation I had found myself in, I suffered greatly from a lack of self confidence and low self esteem, which eventually ended up becoming depression over time.

Thanks to God's great blessings, he has enabled me to work through the depression (I still take anti-depression mediaction). I have been able to get a degree in Civil Engineering. Although I took 2 years longer than standard to finish the degree, failed subjects along the way, and general difficulty working 3 casual jobs in Sydney and trying to pass uni in Wollongong at the same time, I was able to finish uni.

Out of uni, I still struggled quite alot with depression. My first job out of uni lasted 3 painful months (due to the company being dumb and eventually me being offered a position with JN).
JN was a great place to work, however the depression still plagued me as I tried to work hard in a new job finding things difficult and having to learn most stuff from square one.

As you probably know, recently I began working for Leighton Contractors. To be honest, it has been great. They think that I am doing a great job, value my opinion and input, and expect me to be a project manager within 5 years. It feels odd, that someone who has struggled behind the 8 ball for so long would become a project manager for the largest contractor in Australia.
So, as I write to you from a unit in Pyrmont, with my lovely new car downstairs and diary full of important meetings that will use my skills to save the company thousands of dollars, I remember where I have come from, and how, basically it has been my consistent hard work and effort, not much else, that has got me here.
I could have, like many people seem to feel, that the first 25 years of my life would dictate the remainder, however it is not how it works.

Finally, in regards to all that, I consider it rubbish but for the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ.
Although the things I have been given are great gifts of God and I greatly appreciate being a confident person with what I have been given, it all pales into insignificance when compared to knowing Christ.
I would prefer to be a mentally retarded, pennyless nobody that is going to heaven than anything else this world has to offer.

With that in mind though, since God has chosen to bless me the way He has, I thank him for the short term goodness and pray that I would always seek first His kingdom and righteousness using the 'tools' He has given me to enable more people to come and know the salvation that can only be found in Christ.