Putting time to good use

I’m going to have spent a thousand hours alone in my bedroom doing nothing but read books before long, so I’ve decided to spice things up and learn the guitar. It’s a great way of spending a break; something worthwhile to switch my crammed little mind to every so often.

I already knew 4 or 5 chords, but now I’ve got about 12 chords and my strumming patterns down. Go me.

Pain is gain, as they say… and my finger tips are killing me.

Now for a bit of honesty…

I’m typically one of those people that when I don’t like something, I hide from it. And that includes hiding from myself. I’m well aware of my many flaws, just as everyone else is, but have always been reluctant to dig around in them and address them for fear of, well, causing myself discomfort I guess. We all know that uncomfortable feeling that comes along with realising that you’re wrong, or with criticism, and I have generally tried to avoid it. Until now.

I have been learning that God loves me too much to just leave me as I am in my selfish, unloving, lost little state, He wants to change me and I have to let him. Notice I said ‘let him’… there is effort to be made on my part just as much as I am to rely on God’s grace and power through the Holy Spirit to change me. There is no use in saying ‘God, change me’ when I am unwilling to show self-control or to say no (or yes!) to things, for example.

So, I’m having a clear out. 2 Timothy 2:20-21 style.

I am re-examining myself, identifying the ‘wood and clay’ so that I can, with God’s help and my prayerful struggling, start to get rid of them. I’ve even written a list. It was quite a painful read, as I am sure you can imagine.

But thank the Lord that following Jesus doesn’t mean it’s only about things that I should stop doing! I’ve been studying Colossians a lot recently and have realised that as far as I am concerned there is almost no use in ‘putting off’ certain things if I am not also being drawn in the other direction. Paul instructed ‘clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.’ (Col 3:12) so that’s what I intend to do. I have been really challenged this week about my own self-centredness while reading ‘The Discipline of Grace’ by Jerry Bridges. I don’t love others as Christ does, and have started thinking of practical ways in which I can love others more.

That, then, is the challenge I have set myself for the year: learn to love. Sounds simple, doesn’t it?

Grace

Despite having grown up in a Christian family and having gone to church my entire life, it’s only recently that I’ve actually started to understand what God’s grace is.

And what a delightful discovery it has been!

Anyone investigating Christianity who is finding that it seems like it’s a list of do’s and don’ts…. please don’t stop searching until you’ve added God’s grace into the equation, because it’s utterly liberating.

 

Run, John, run. The law commands

But gives neither feet nor hands.

Better news the gospel brings;

It bids me fly and gives me wings.

John Bunyan

So the Relay race begins…

UCCF : The Christian Unions

This year I am doing Relay, a training and discipleship year run by UCCF, where I’ll be not only studying various aspects of the Christian faith but also working alongside Sheffield Hallam University Christian Union.

It’s going to be a tough race, with plenty of challenges and opportunities to grow, and I’m looking forward to it. I’ve just got back from the first training conference and Forum (CU leaders training) and am still marvelling in the amazing story of God’s grace and love that I have been learning about and experiencing there.

It never ceases to amaze me how a group of people who have never met before can show such love towards one another in such a short space of time. There are about 60 Relay workers this year and I honestly feel like I have gained a massive group of new brothers and sisters after only 1 week together and am privileged to be travelling the same road with them. I have no doubt that they will be a great encouragement to me in the hard times this year and already I cannot wait to spend the rest of eternity with them (oh Lord, PLEASE provide a table tennis table, we’d really appreciate it)!

Nearing Desperation

No amount of words can adequately express how much I want one of these. Really. It’s so cute it almost brings a tear to my eye.

My little Westie Puppy isn’t even born yet… but I WILL have him, and I shall name him Alfie. So there.

The life of a nomad

Posts have been scarce over the last, hmm well, lets just say for quite a long time. My life has changed almost completely since I was a regular blogger and I suppose it’s fair to say that I’ve had more important things to do such as my degree, which is now finished! Hurrah!

Maybe now I’ll have more time to write it.  Although saying that, blogging is essentially the same as talking to yourself so I sometimes question the point in doing it. Fair enough, if you have thousands of readers keep at it but quite frankly I’ll never come close to that.

Is there any point??

Hmm.

We’ll see.

I am starting a new chapter in life, so perhaps putting my thoughts down in a blog would be a good thing to do. It is a strange time in life really. As I said, my life has changed a lot over the last couple of years and now, even though I know what ‘work’ I’ll be doing for the next year, I know it’s only temporary. I have little idea of where I’ll be heading after that.

Throughout my entire life, even when I was to-ing and fro-ing from boarding school, I always had ‘home’ to go to in Germany. But that no longer exists. Actually, in a way, it’s like I left a little bit of me behind there. I haven’t left England since last September and that’s the longest time I’ve ever stayed here in one go. The strange thing is that I really feel like I’m on an island and I can’t wait to escape.

I don’t even know what that means. I mean, I don’t know why it’s like that.

England has never felt permanent to me in all my life. Over the last year I’ve been constantly reminded of that fact. It’s like wherever I go there’s a little voice calling to me from over the sea in Europe somewhere. France?

I don’t know what the voice is, but at the same time as being ever so discreet and in the distant corners of my mind it is still there and determined to make me notice it nonetheless.

I can see, I’m destined to feel like a nomad for some time yet… Who knows where I’ll end up?

I know this isn’t Facebook but I’m putting it on because I like it

This is a great way of wasting time when you’re supposed to be working.

 

The rules for making your album cover:

1. Click on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random The first article that comes up is the name of your group

2. Then click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3 The last few words of the last quote on the page is the title of the album

3. Click on http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days Take the 3rd image, whatever it might be, for the cover picture.

4. Put them together

5. Post it all!

Voici les règles de la pochette d’album aléatoire:

1 – Clique sur http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random  Le premier article qui sort est le nom de ton groupe.

2 – Clique sur http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php

3 Les derniers mots de la dernière citation de la page sont le titre de votre premier album.

3 – Clique sur http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days

La 3e image, quelle qu’elle soit, sera la pochette de ton album.

4 – Associe ces 3 éléments.

5 – Poste le tout sur Facebook (dans un album intitulé “Cover Game”) avec cette règle du jeu dans la description de l’image ou dans un commentaire, et Taggue les amis que souhaites voir participer à ce jeu.

Here are mine…

If only real life was like a musical…

I freely confess it. I am a fan of musicals. The Sound of Music is the all time winner in my book, but Le Roi Soleil is my current favourite. In one sentence, it’s all about the life and loves of French King Louis XIV and it is briiiilllliant.

Apologies to those of you that don’t speak french because you won’t understand the words, you’ve just have to believe me that it’s great. (Hang on. What?! I’m not going to apologise to you for not being able to speak what is possibly the best language on the planet, that’s your own fault).

This is the most popular song from the musical and is called ‘Je fais de toi mon essentiel’.  There is a translation into english on the youtube page for the video, but I promise you now, they SUCK. You still get the idea of it at least I suppose.

Long time no posts…

It has been absolutely ages since I wrote on my blog (understatement of the century…)

I think I got bored of it when I was in Paris because even though I did loads of fun stuff in the evenings and weekends, while I was in the office I was slowly losing the will to live a little more as each day passed by and typing even more at the computer on my blog was the last thing on my mind.

Also, I guess I knew that my blog, being one of millions of other pointless ones, wouldn’t be missed anyway. So I didn’t bother. In all honesty I’d forgotten that it even existed until just now!

I have an insane number of assignments to do for uni at the moment, but I’m going to try to pick up on my blogging again anyway. Keeping a diary, however public it may be (!), helps you put things into perspective in life, and besides, I used to enjoy it, so why wouldn’t I now?

I don’t really know what I’ll have to tell you about seeing as 90% of my life over the last few months has been spent in the library, but we shall see what strange things my mins conjures up to rattle on about. Hmmm.

Sunny days and time machines

Ok, so I didn’t really have a time machine this weekend, but the days were sunny and it did still feel like I had been thrown back in time.

Finally, the French weather man has decided to tick ‘non-stop, annoying, horrible rain’ off his list and has started shining some sun on us all. There is nothing that can revive me like a warm sunny day and yesterday was no exception. Not only that, but I spent a long while discovering the library in the building where I live. Most of the books haven’t been touched for the last 45 years and they are all so old and, well… like something out of a book! I know I wasn’t really in a grand old mansion discovering long hidden treasures, but it sure felt like it. Half of them were falling apart, and I managed to find some real gems! (Like some smashing books about Britain and our way of life, allbeit 50 years ago, and ’The Book of the Scots’ – I could hardly understand most of it, even Wee Willy Winkie, so I’m not sure how it came to be living in a little Parisian library…)

Wee Willie Winkie rins through the toun,
Up stairs and doon stairs in his nicht-goun,
Tirlin’ at the window, cryin’ at the lock,
‘Are the weans in their bed, for it’s noo ten o’clock?’

‘Hey, Willie Winkie, are ye comin’ ben?
The cat’s singin’ grey thrums to the sleepin’ hen,
The dog’s spelder’d on the floor, and disna gi’e a cheep,
But here’s a waukrife laddie that winna fa’ asleep!’

Onything but sleep, you rogue! glow’ring like the mune,
Rattlin’ in an airn jug wi’ an airn spune,
Rumblin’, tumblin’ round about, crawin’ like a cock,
Skirlin’ like a kenna-what, wauk’nin’ sleepin’ fock.

…

Not only are there loads of French books, but a good stash of English, as well as Arabic, Greek, Italian, German, Spanish, Chinese…… all old and all amaaaazing to look at! There was also an old illustrated Bible so huge that you need both hands to pick it up and….. to my surprise and pleasure I found a ‘Teach Yourself Italian’ book. Perfect! Just what I wanted! It is such a cute little hardback in blue, printed in the 1940s, pages already slightly brown and in English, which is a little strange for a French library to say the least…. Along with that I found a vocabulary book with French and Italian (two birds with one stone, bingo!) that is even older, more brown and more amazing.

The library is all wooden and has that glorious smell of old books. It was great. And naturally, when I left I just had to pick up the little copy of Pride & Prejudice… it would have been wrong of me to leave Miss Austen behind…

There’s nothing quite like spending a sunny day travelling in a time machine with little Miss Jane.