Your Mind; My Mind

Two years and a day ago, 07 April 2019, I got baptised. It’s crazy to think that so much time has passed since that incredible day, and to realise that so much has changed. I forget sometimes how much God has changed and made new in my life. Maybe it’s because I feel that I’m still walking out my salvation and that I’m still becoming new each day through His blood, but I think it’s so important to realise how significant your story is, no matter how small it feels to you. 

I’m not the perfect Christian, I don’t always get it right and I fall so short from God’s glory every single day. But salvation isn’t about being the perfect Christian, because no one can be Jesus but Jesus Himself. It’s just about recognizing who Jesus is, letting Him completely invade your life and allow Him to change you each and every single day. 

This makes me so emotional to write because I remember the girl before she got her hair wet that day in the water. I know how lost she felt, how lonely she was and how unloved she thought she was. I would have never believed that the girl I used to be was worthy of a clean slate, a new start. But because of Jesus, she did deserve it, just like every single person does. And she deserved it, and every other person deserves this, simply because the creator of the world loves us. 

The world is filled with so many opinions that change day to day, and it feels like we can never get it right. But what matters is that I know what my truth is based on, His Holy Word, and it doesn’t matter what anyone thinks about it, because it’s my truth, and no one can take that away from me. And I have no reason to be ashamed of my faith either. 

We often think that as Christians we need to stay quiet about our beliefs as to not offend anyone. But God calls us to share our testimony. And as a Christian I’m called to love every single one of God’s people, and I don’t see how that’s offensive. So I’m going to keep sharing my testimony, I’m going to keep loving people the best that I can, and my I’m going to keep doing this unashamedly. I pray today that lots of other people find that they can rejoice in their salvation too.

“But now, since you have been set free from sin and have become enslaved to God, you have your fruit, which results in sanctification — and the outcome is eternal life! For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Romans 6:22-23 CSB

Written by Mila Ottavini

Friendship is such a strange and fickle thing these days. Maybe I got it wrong somewhere, or maybe I just have bad luck, but friends are seeming to get more and more temporary. Loyalty should be firm and withstanding, but it seems so unsteady and loose these days. Yes, we shouldn’t be swearing on earth or on heaven to be best friends forever, but I still believe our ‘yes’ should mean ‘yes’ and our ‘no’ should mean ‘no’. Or am I just too sentimental for the times?

I’m not trying to throw myself a pity party – let’s get that straight. I have a family that loves me and I have a handful of friends that I feel like I can rely on. But, and I feel like I’m speaking not only for myself here, I’ve also had a lot of people that let me down whom I never thought would. I realise this is all a part of life, but it’s starting to seem like our generation is heading down a winding path of me-myself-and-I.

I’m sure there have been moments where my loyalty has wavered, and I want to believe a small part of that is humanly natural. But right now, I’m simply discussing patterns of behaviour I’m noticing around me, because I’m scared of where these patterns lead to. Growing up, I loved primary school. I loved the group of friends I had, and everyone was pretty civil with one another. Sure, there were bullies and silly fights – but nothing that killed my memory of the good friendships I made during that time of my life. Everyone was invited to pretty much every party and there weren’t many people that were excluded. Then there was high school, and the beginning stages of it was similar to my feeling during primary school. But something changed – and I think that change is a mixture of growing up, puberty, and what I like to call, the start of our Loveless Generation.

Maybe my problem in high school was that I observed too much. I’d sit with a group of people, and most of the conversation was centred around gossip. Gossip about people not there, people in different schools, and a lot of the time, about people sitting right in that circle. Although I longed to feel a part of something, I started leaving those kinds of groups because I didn’t want to be a part of something exactly like that. Then I started realising that the people I thought were loyal to me, were not actually loyal to me, and were only loyal to a painted picture of me. I wasn’t a part of this group anymore, so their loyalty towards me expired. Anyway, high school is a place filled with a bunch of teenagers trying to figure themselves out, so it’s really not fair to judge this time of our lives.

But now, here I am in university, and I think I’m starting to really see our generation as the Loveless Generation after all. People make plans and then cancel them last minute or don’t show up at all. Friends post on their Instagram Stories daily but forget to reply to you for weeks on end. Or even worse, friends love to put you on their Story for your birthday, but always have a reason not to actually hang out. People pretend that they want to be involved in your life, but really, everyone is only involved with themselves.

And it’s not all our own faults, we’re being brainwashed to think more about ourselves than others anyway. Am I going to be successful one day? Am I popular enough? Is being friends with them going to ruin my image? Am I hot enough? Is this event going to look good on my story? So we continue to follow each other on Instagram, love our friends’photos on Facebook, and scroll endlessly on TikTok. Look, I’m not here to be that person that hates on social media. Social media has great value in today’s age, and I would be a hypocrite to judge it when I use it just as often too. It’s just, I always thought that the point of social media was to connect us, but yet I feel our generation disconnecting more and more from one another each day.

I feel like I know that all of this is not a growing up thing but a generation thing. My mother has kept way more loyal friends from high school to date than I have. I can literally count the people I’ve kept from school on less than one hand, and it decreases quite often too. Maybe I’m the problem, I don’t know. But when someone in your family, let’s say your grandmother, passes away, I’m sure we all have a few people we’d expect at least a message from. My mother didn’t even tell anyone about the loss, and she received a million messages and phone calls. For me, this was another situation where I could count my friends on less than one hand. That expectation is there because you know if the roles were reversed, you would do anything to be there for that particular friend. And actually, that expectation is there because you have been there for that particular friend in a similar situation. Well, instances like this has just proved to me time and time again that our generation is rapidly losing love. People only love you when it suits them.

If there’s anything I’ve learnt about love and loyalty from my family, and from some people that have actually chosen to stick around, is that love stays even when the person doesn’t really feel like loving you. That means that if after 12 years of friendship, even if it feels like there is no point in staying, because you’re bored of the person or they no longer fit into your life, you stick around anyway. Because you love them. Love doesn’t get to decide when or when not to show up – because if it’s there, it’s there. Maybe I read the recipe for friendship wrong, but I’m pretty sure loyalty was an ingredient.

The problem is that we’re all (or a lot of us are anyway) trying to be influencers. Our generation is so focused on getting their name our there, being successful, popular, liked and noticed that we forget about our human responsibility to be human. Humans are made for social interaction. Real social interaction. Again, not putting social media down here, but instead of just mentioning a friend on your story or sending them a million memes a day – why don’t you actually call them? Or reply to their message they sent you two months ago? We should be trying to interact with one another and not just simply gaining engagements.

I know a lot of people will probably relate to this piece of writing. I think most of us currently feel that we don’t have many genuine friends, that people keep letting us down and that we feel isolated and lonely most of the time. But if so many people are feeling this way, are we not maybe doing it to ourselves? Here’s the thing – maybe we’re all victimising ourselves way too much to realise that we’re actually the persecutors. You need to be a good friend to have a good friend. And maybe you’ve tried and tried with some people, but it just never works. Listen, if you’re chasing after Anna to be your bestie but ignoring Kayla who’s been trying to be your friend for ages, you’re just as guilty. I once heard that we often don’t receive love back from the people we give it to, but we’ll always receive that love back from someone. So it’s our responsibility to love everyone in our lives, even if they don’t love us back. I know it’s hard – but we need to stop feeling sorry for ourselves when there’s a bunch of people feeling exactly the way you feel because you’re doing the same thing to them.

So this is my challenge to you – stop trying to search for the better, more popular, prettier or hotter friend – appreciate and love the people that are already there. Let people know you for your loyalty, not just your handle. And maybe, just maybe, a little bit of love spread around will turn our Loveless Generation into the Loved Generation.

Written by Mila Ottavini

it’s scary what our minds are capable of -
the darkness we allow ourselves to consume.
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sometimes we wonder
if our existence even matters
if our absence would even be felt
and sometimes our answer is no.
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but luckily, for some of us,
we push on
because we have found
some kind of glimmering hope.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
but I think what scares me more
is how so many
are still left in the darkness
and what’s even scarier
is the thought
of them never finding the light.
it breaks my heart,
it really does.
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because that’s the thing about darkness
it lies
and it hides
it hides the truth
that we are all enough.
that no one could ever be
not enough.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
the darkness can be all-consuming
the feeling of the end can be ever-nearing
but it’s all lies.
I need you to believe
that it’s all lies.
that darkness
has put a cup over your candle.
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but let me tell you something
your candle is so bright
and it smells like the colour yellow.
your candle is waiting
to light up all your best days
and brighten even the worst ones.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
you just need to allow
that candle to burn again.
and asking for a friend
to pick up your candle
is not a weakness,
it’s your greatest strength.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
this is why we love
because everyone
deserves to feel like enough.

By Mila Ottavini

what was that song
they used to sing
when we were kids?
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
the one
about the boy
and the girl
in the tree.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
I think
it was about
you and me.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
(at least we figured it out
eventually.)

By Mila Ottavini