What do you expect from me? What do I expect of me? Back when I would fight for days to write 500 words and then write 5000 in a day, what was it I lived for except that next line, that next word? Back when every day was a war, and it was raging. The silent battle rages still, it always will, we were born into a war, this is not peace time. We trick ourselves, we pretend that this is peacetime, yet we have NO idea.

There is a war raging, the darkest war of all ages. A war where money, promiscuity, drugs, alcohol, eating disorders, depression are fighting to draw us into the darkness, the darkness of solitude where there is nothing we know, no where safe, where we fear every moment and live in masks, yet the light fights back the darkness, sweet truth that declares God's love like a rushing wind. Declaring that we are free from the chains that bind us down. We need not the material world, Faustus searched for something, a completion to life, and found only death and hell, he forsook the light to embrace the darkness, yet what did the darkness hold? Momentary gain, the face that brought Troy to it's knees, knowledge that broke a man like a dried twig. Yes within the light is the greatest mystery, but that is a mystery that draws us to love, to fellowship, to embrace those around us, to show love how we are shown love, yet here.

Here we sit and do nothing, we fight those we love, we forsake what we need and pretend the world needs us. The world needs us, yes, but the world needs us to shine like the moon, reflecting the glory of the Son. We remember how the light came into the darkness at Christmas, the date doesn't matter, but in the darkest months we remember the coming of the light, it brightens our souls, it takes us and brings us into the indwelling of God. The day becomes a season, and suddenly the dark nights and short days are a little brighter, full or shining lights and good food. We keep the Christmas feast like we used to and yet how luck we are? Those wandering the streets don't have this, we dream back to Christmas long ago, yet a time when the majority lived in poverty, and we forsake those who still do.

Back on the Mac!

There was something beautiful about starting this computer up again. It's been over five weeks since I shut it down, and it really felt like part of my life had been taken away. I don't think materialism is a good thing, I don't agree with it, I feel like we should be as detached as possible from our possessions, but this computer means more me, maybe than it should. It's my contact with the world, it's the music that inspires me to write, it's the keys that I can type 100wpm on because I'm so used to them. It's access to my blogs - both those I read and write, and often it's the ones I read that I miss more! It's what I use when I'm feel like I'm falling down and out, in the dark moments there are articles and music that just remind me of my identity, the truth of Christ in me. My computer is what allows me to express who I am entirely harmlessly, without consequence to anyone else, without limit, I can sit and write what I will, I can sit here and scream words onto a page and delete it straight away. It's my computer that allows me to have journals at the touch of a fingertip whilst I'm writing that ever vital essay, that allows me to format everything the way I like without question. Where I turn spaces on and off at will, where my dashboard has the times from Anchorage to Sydney, where I can tweet prayers and be praying, where I can know the weather, sunset and sunrise every day. It is on this computer that every key does exactly what I tell it to do. Where I can type in Greek or English, where the key commands are whatever I set them to.

So without that for five weeks I had to reassess... everything. I had to remember how to adapt to other computers rather than making computers adapt to me. I had to live my life in a way where I couldn't just get up and know what I need to know, I had to go and find the information. Where I had to fight through the migraines that came after time spent with those harsh computer screens. Maybe I was spoilt growing up with an SE/30 in the house. Maybe I take for granted that I live in the 'iPod generation' - at which point I'd like to note that I had an iPod before they were safe to carry around, October 2003, which had to be ordered from the US, my 15th birthday present, where I squealed at the sight of the Apple Logo as I opened it, back when OSX was new, something I'd not expected in my wildest dreams, and now... now the world has them.

There is a lot to do now, much to be done, and I must get on with some reading!!

Love

It is in the moment of stillness and silence that the voice of God speaks so clearly.

It is in that silence, in the moment where Jesus writes in the dust. The stunned crowd are silences, are brought to their knees because before them is the true law of God, embodied in His very incarnate being. A law that declares love primary.

Love because love is the very being of God, God IS love, and therefore to love is to reflect God and to love God is to live in relation with Him, in a unity that mirrors the Trinity itself. We can never really reflect the love of God in it's entirety, because regardless of the honour we are given by being made in the image of God, we are not God, therefore in every moment we must be striven to find that true love, to be that true love, because it is the least we can do.

If we really do love God, then that is overflowed to love every person on this earth, because as we are honoured, so they are also. How can we hold back? How can be not live in that place that is love? God's loved stretched so far that He was incarnate, He died and suffered a mortal death, and decended into the deepths of Hell - that place that holds are, that binds us, that place that he broke, broke through and conquered, for us... those who fall so short of His presence, so short of His promise - and He did it for love, for love of us.

So we are, by that awesomeness, we are charged to live in that place of love. What does that mean? It means that when we walk down the street and walk past the beggar sat there without thinking, without stopping to share a conversation, by judging them, we are ignoring that call to love. When we return home and complain of the rain or the cold, complain that we don't have enough sugar to put in our tea (I don't drink sugar in tea, but you get my drift), that we don't have enough food and are still hungry after eating a meal, that there isn't pudding or some such. We are throwing in God's face the love, the provision, the saving act of the resurrection, we are throwing that all in God's face and saying that it doesn't matter, that it doesn't matter that we are loved.

How dare we?

So the hecticness of life is something temporal, something changing. Though the busy time that surrounded my birthday weekend has shifted into reading and studying and finding time for devotion.

On Saturday I was walking into the city to go and sit in Starbucks and do some reading - old habits die hard! The healing on the streets team was out, and I stopped to chat to them, I'm studying Spirituality, Health and Healing and it's interesting to see some of the principles we're discussing put into action. So after a bit of a chat with one of the guys there a woman came over, she asked me if I wanted prayer/healing for anything, and after rebuffing the enitial suggestion, I kind of just went - yes, why not. People have been praying for me to be healed for a year with regard to my allergies, and I've been trusting God to do something, expecting that at some point He will let me live in freedom and without fear of being in a room with things that have almost killed me. Well as they were praying I felt this release, I breathed in the cold air and just felt this freedom.

So that I night, not knowing what God had done in that moment, but knowing He'd done something I was at my friend birthday party, in a room surrounded by pizza and still breathing, and well, and so, I just felt like seeing how far this had gone. I looked over at this slice of pizza and just kind of went... I want to try this, after a while and grabbing my med bag I did, I ate a bite of pizza and... I was fine... I waited an hour or so and I was still fine... I didn't react, my two strongest allergies, things that have landed me in hospital on numerous occasions and... I was fine. So I ate more... and discovered that that day, God had healed my allergies.

God HEALED my allergies... a bit like the moment my depression left I just felt so free. Like singing and shouting and glorifying God. Which I have been doing, because really... how can I hold back my praise from a God who is SO merciful, so gracious as to give me this freedom, to heal me, to give me back food, food which I love, which I know the true value of!

I'm going to write up everything at some point, write up how amazing things have been, but right now I must return to my reading, return to learning more about God, about disability, about pastoral care and the theological response.

All I can really say, God is SO good! I love Him with all of my being, and that... that will never end.

I need a plan, a serious P-L-A-N.

Madonna, madonna, madonna... give me leave to prove thee a fool.

Did you worry about your health when you were 13 and collapsing every day? When the heart palpitations started to scare you? Not really

When your doctor told you she could hear a murmur, when your potassium levels were off the charts then you worried... but to no avail - you were fine.

You have nothing yet, nothing to worry about. So you need to stop!

I'm scared - why am I scared? Because my imagination runs at fifty miles an hour? Because I want to know what's going on? Because I started getting used to my allergies, my asthma and my wrist problem being just there and there was nothing else wrong, then suddenly it feels like there is...

Part of me is also expecting to be plunged head first into grief again, this is the longest period since I was 16 where someone hasn't passed away, but within that I got into the mentality of waiting by the phone expecting the next phone call. That was a hangover from before Grandma died, from when Nanny first got really sick, before she recovered from death's door five times... when I was as used to the Hertfordshire hospitals as I was the corridors of Stantonbury - I was 13 when this started, for 7 years it's been something that... is just a kind of constant, fear, worry, grief, preparing for death, not knowing what to do - waiting for the next phone call. Between October 05 and December 08 there were 6 deaths among friends and families. So when I wrote that phrase "Grief's home my heart!" last summer it spoke more than I knew, and two people have died since then.

I want to remember the first two of that number though - they were men who held something remarkable in their character. I wish I'd known both of them better, but I was young and didn't consider the constraints of time and opportunity. I considered Maurice something special, I saw in him the eccentricity and passion that I felt in myself, he was the living image of my Grandfather and I still savour the last memory, though a silly one - my jacket fell from my shoulders, I hadn't noticed, he picked it up and handed it to me, I hadn't said hello yet, I didn't even realise it was him, I was startled, its a strange half memory from years ago, but I had a love for Maurice that earned myself the nickname of his 'girlfriend' (from his wife I might add) though it was admiration for someone who's character I recognised in myself and gave me a confidence to live to that and not care for the world's condemnation of it.

Then there was Jon Jon, now there was a man who lived for the Kingdom of God, who could captivate a room and the first person in the world who had more words than I ever did, I'd wish that his stories would go on forever and they could! I remember sitting cross legged on his sitting room floor eating rice crackers and hearing the most amazing stories of Japan. He lived to share his life, to show the world a love that it had forgotten, very beautiful - living an almost mendicant life it seemed, one day to the next. I remember the last day I saw him as well, he was concerned and had come to see Papa.

I can't live in this memories. Part of me was thinking of deleting this, but I need to let it stand. Before my heart breaks again for the things I cannot help, before my heart breaks for the grave.

This made my day.

"omg ur like the nice hippy sister i want"

I'm honestly confused.

I let a song play out earlier, I stopped it as soon as I realised that I was listening to it - which was after I had started to sing it. It took me straight back to the summer of '04 and... that was so long ago! It's been five years and I suppose it shocks me. It shocks me how my life looked and how it now looks, it was around then, about that time (whether physically or emotional I'm not too sure) that I spent several weeks eating and only eating Thornton's chocolate ice cream.

Oh heavens I know what sparked this. I shouldn't ask questions that I fear I don't need the answers to. In that question I took something up, something that I shouldn't take up - the fear that, the memory that - the way that... I can't tell the difference between memory and imagination sometimes. I recognised this years ago, in my head I can imagine a conversation with someone to a point where it's just as clear as the last conversation I had, often far clearer as I rarely remember what I've said or what has been said to me - unless there is reason and I think on it soon after. I knew this years ago and so took precautions to make sure that my mind didn't make up stories about my life that weren't true where I couldn't remember what was true and what wasn't - it scared me, a lot, but because I saw it for what it was, and how dangerous it was - I seem to have memories of things that I can't have from when I was incredibly young, but I doubt that they're real, rather the imagination of a small child. I know full well that I am capable and so I have to make sure that I don't let my imagination run wild, I'm glad that I keep it in check. I  keep it in check by one means and one means only, which means that when I'm not using this tool my head starts to get crowded and I can't think straight which has often lead to me retreating into a place of depression. To prevent this, to make sure the memories in my head have been actual memories for the last 14 (I think that's when I started this) years, I write. 

Mostly fiction, it began with a story about a girl who ate fruit from a tree by a pool and as she ate the fruit she became a mermaid and swam beneath the waves and went and met the king and queen of the mer people and had tea with them. Then there was my story based on Noggin the Nog which was all about Grolliffe the ice dragon - I remember that I even made an ice dragon from salt dough, it was pop-up story book that I made to go with that story. I discovered Greek mythology and reading Shakespeare about then, and Plato soon after, that developed into my love for by about 2000. I wrote some mad things back in those days, until I got so sick of my short stories and my love affairs with other people's characters that I decided it was time to write a book.

Yet today I was reminded not of that so much, but of those people who I could recognise who imagined stories in their heads and convinced themselves and tried to convince everyone around them that they were true. There were far too many people in our year like that, the effect that it caused on everyone was so horrid. I know people who are still dealing in the aftermath of that and it breaks my heart. I wish I could have saved them, like I saved myself from that, from the fiction to escape the truth, from the imagination that could never cease until it became life.

Only because I trained myself can I now dabble in that world without risking the lies becoming true in my mind, but it's not a good thing to do. The desire to have every conversation that I missed, to help people, to stand up for myself (though I do think that walking away was more powerful, I just wish that I hadn't broken down after and every time I felt the bruises on my back from the stones that hit me, I used to dwell in that - in what I'd say to them now, in what I'd do, but I can't live like that, that's NOT life and I know it deep in my heart - I lay it down and then every time something new happens I take it back up, I have to stop) and it's exactly from things like that which that comes and every single time I have to stop and say no. There is one way to control it, that is to write, I must write a story, work with people I love and know, work on stories that have been and stories that are not yet.

Now... I just did a mini CBT session, oh Tia would be proud! It's almost sunrise now... to bed or no?

A few days ago was brilliant, got a call from J ten minutes after I woke up, she came over and we had tea and prayer at about 9am, which was just God calling us to go out into the world as His. Suddenly I realise and see just how powerful it is to pray in fellowship at the beginning of the day - before we go out into the world, I want to do that once classes start up again, just have open-flat time in the morning, get people to come round for prayer/breakfast drop in before class in the mornings.

So first of all on Tuesday I went to starbucks to do revision, as I was finishing off a friend from CU walked past, and so he came in, and was telling me about the SU camp he'd just done, and just the way God was working so powerfully in that. We walked to the bus stop and I ran into a guy from TGC which was also really uplifting and powerful, just God speaking through these people, that I saw. 

After that I went home and had lunch and then just felt like I wanted to go and pray on Union Street, which was slightly crazy, I stopped and chatted to this homeless guy, and we were having a fairly simple conversation, then he asked me what I did and as soon as I explain what studying divinity meant he told me that he'd been considering going to this place to get help for alcohol and drug addiction, but they were Christian so it put him off. Then all of a sudden started to try to tear into me, but in a manic way, in a way that didn't make sense I just stood there, praying in my heart, and listened, he kept asking me questions and clearly wanted answers then wouldn't let me give them to him because of how manic-ly he was talking. That did scare me a little, but I knew God was in control so that it was fine, I was safe. Eventually I managed to calm it down, and somehow managed to leave him considering whether he should go to that place to get help, I'd stopped to talk to him because I felt as if I should, so I just pray that I've done some good in that situation.

I carried on walking, ran into a friend, had a coffee and a nice chat - a far more relaxed catholic/protestant doctrinal differences debate, saw another friend who I walked part of the way home with and just had to pray for as we were walking which was awesome, it really was a day when I was just called to pray again and again, and through that pray came action.

Then I got a call, from a friend who happened to be in the direction I was walking, and she called at the moment when I could have walked towards where she was or towards my flat, seemed obvious enough, so I decided to go and find her - she didn't ask me to, but I felt prompted, and there was good reason. She was in a bit of a bad way and so we just had a long chat and pray - and she got obviously a lot better, she changed and God really spoke. We walked to hers and I felt as if we had to not leave it there - there was something that was just saying "don't let this go, you have to carry on, you can't leave her tonight, there's something I need you to do", so i completely bullied her into coming over to mine for food and then a worship session. As it turned out, there was stuff she needed to deal with, which she hadn't realised, but was why she was in the state she was in when she called me. In this brilliant way, that only He can do God just came in dealt with it all, it wasn't easy, these things never are, but that clearly needed to happen, and happen then. 

We claim things we shouldn't claim, and refuse thing we should keep. We have to remember that even the most faithful person can chose to refuse the truth that God is speaking over them, and take up the lies that the devil uses to drag us away from that awesome relationship we have with God.

So here it is, I want every day to be as God focused as that one! Let my eyes be fixed constantly to heaven, that my feet are guided and my mind is clear.

Yesterday became quite a strange day.

I had felt amazing because I actually managed to speak some Mandarin to the girl in the supermarket. It was vaguely conversational, and a little broken, but it was nice, I understood what she was saying to me, so that made things fairly easy.

Then I cooked a lovely dinner for F, I made black bean sauce with vegetables and some chicken in sauce, and some egg fried rice. I really should update Chocolate and Venison with it, it's mostly things I came up with myself, so would be nice... 

Then went to the park with F, and had an amazing time, I'm going to miss that girl! She's AMAZING, and God uses her so much. It was a nice last day with F.

Then ended up going to the beach, awesome time with people I didn't know, who were camping there, we had a bonfire as it got dark and I tried to look at the stars through the clouds... Praying in the car on the way back was eventful, the words - not my words! Then we discovered that J's keys were inside her flat! So she slept at mine! Which was fantastic. Had some awesome chat and tea and then a good sleep and up nice and early-ish (no where close to early for me, but some people would see it as early) which was great, more tea and more prayer. I really have some great sisters out there.

So, I should probably work out what I have to do today... I was thinking I should measure something so I can make a dress... but I think revision is the primary objective today. After of course the priority of prayer and scripture and focusing and re-focusing on God... oh, ebay! (Yes... that is what I get from focusing on God, there is a reason why... hum... mendicare....)

 Yet again I think to myself, I started this blog as a tool to help me, yet... have completely abandoned it, which isn't necessarily a good sign. It means that God's working a lot and so I don't feel I need this outlet as much as I need, but there's the key phrase 'as much as I need' and it's also because I've not considered using it when I need to, so... lets do this. 

It may also be a sign that I've been using twitter fairly oft. Twitter is amazing, especially for prayer circles, it's brilliant. Oh, and of course that my computer is immobile! It's just a pain to have a laptop that can't be moved around. Then again I've had this computer several years and it was second hand, a couple of years ago it was one of the fastest computers around, now with regard to iPlayer and such things it's SO SLOW. I don't mind, it's just nice to have some TV occassionally, when without a television and my DVD player doesn't work. Though the some of the films do play... but they all happen to be ones that I either know by heart or have read the scripts of!

I have an exam in less than a week, and lots to sort out today. I think maybe it's time for the joys of a list.

Or lets scrape that... I did task one, and heck that was horrid!! Try talking to a guy in brum on the phone about overdrafts and.... banks asking for money that I don't have... conversations like that when it takes the tiniest thing for me to burst into tears because of the amount of pain and medication I'm on.... it's all sorted now, he's lovely, I just feel bad that I cried down the phone...  huh... why is RBS based in brum....????? 

Now everything else feels so much less important.

I think it was because that letter came with the letter from uni saying 'you have not yet done your resit, you are not yet accepted into third year' and... is completely fine, but is slightly depressing. I think I'm going to go and do some writing and agonising over exams papers and maybe just relax slightly by picking up Buffy Season 8, and getting some ginger for dinner.

So life, as always, got kind of crazy again. My most true and constant friend these last eight years in hospital and tbh I'm scared, if I lost him that would just be too much, so I call him as much as I can, see how he's doing, I'm supporting him by knowing that I'm there, but I'm paying a price. It's been a long time since a phone conversations made me cry too sleep... it's been 12 years since that, like then it's because my heart is breaking, but unlike then it's not for myself, it's for him. I stand back and try to take my own advice, remind myself of who I am, that ultimate identity I have that is beyond this - that I belong to God. I would sacrificing my life for him, but right now I'm sacrificing something far more precious, I'm sacrificing my focus on the Kingdom. I was living like that song "I say goodbye to my father and my mother, turn my back on every other love and press on" I'm not living like that anylonger, I need to fall back in love with the King, because if I don't have that I'm lost.

A year ago I sat hear wondering how to regain my life, how to take control, and not long after I discovered it was not control, but surrender, not regain by recommit. To take all the wanderings and know God again, but not in a half hearted way - where I tried to remain in control, to keep the pain, to let the ghosts haunt me, in an entire way. I have been a Christian for more than a few years, yet I am still learning and re-learning to run to Christ first and foremost. To take away the vices and lean on the only crutch that completes the broken person. As a human being in Imago Dei I desire so deeply and innately that relationship with the Trinity that is God, how do we also run so quickly from it? Hiding and manipulating true gifts from God?

I look out at the gardens, a reflection of both God and man - God's ultimate creation, our humble ways of caring for that creation. How unworthy and made worthy are we! How so very blessed! How dare we destroy such amazingness! In every step we should mimic Jesus and be guided by the Spirit, never falling away from this. 2 Peter 1:10 for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall!!!! Why don't we follow this list : faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness, charity. We need all of those, heaped one ontop of the other!

Thoughts on Worship

I spent a lot of time looking at and considering what 'worship' means and is over the summer, the forms it should take and the forms it appears in. As created beings the act of worship is normal, the first of God's commandments to Moses in Exodus is about worship - we are called not to be idolaters and worship anything other than God. Worship of God is integral, because if not worshipping God we're worshipping something else. That said, here are my initial thoughts.

In my mind the purpose of 'worship music' is or at least should be to inspire the worshiper. There can be no doubt that the creative arts are employed well in this endeavour (there is a reason my ballet shoes are put in my bag whenever I leave for church). 

Primarily worship is to glorify God, but I find the only way of truly doing this is through surrender. To fully worship God you must surrender and sacrifice everything to Him. My favourite prayer "take everything that I have, be everything that I am." If I'm in a place where I'm constantly praying that, every moment is worship without hesitation. 

An amazing form of worship is prayer, using words to open our hearts to God, and to praise Him, to bring ourselves and the world before Him. Though to me, worship is a love song, now that song doesn't need to be an actual song, but it's the easiest way of describing it. It's my heart that's singing. A year ago when I managed to have a fantastic accident at Soul Survivor Church in Watford and fractured my foot whilst dancing to the song... Undignified... with ribbons (which I will never touch again!). I was also suffering from prolonged writers block, and had a really bad chest and couldn't sing. I was suddenly in a place where everything I used physically to praise God was stripped away, within a few weeks I ended up with... nothing, and it really felt like that, I had no song, no poetry, and no dance. During that time I began to fully understand what it was to worship God, my life was falling apart and there was only one thing that could save it, to surrender my will, to surrender my control. Not an easy thing to do, and it took months before I got there, but I had relied on creativity to worship God, but that's not what He needed, or wanted. He wants each one of us, in a new way, to see and experience Him. As I said the creativity is important, but can't be seen as the only thing! I didn't realise this until my entire life was stripped down to nothing, sometimes it takes us a lot to learn these things.

Moving on, times of focused communal worship are stunning because God's people gather as a family to give Him praise and glory, now that can take many forms; written 'liturgy' (another misnomer), hymns, teaching, going out into the community together or just simply sitting down and eating a meal together. Currently the trends focus hugely on songs, surely because of the inspiration this provides, but unless everything else is seen as worship we are missing something vital. 

I want to get distracted for a moment by 'liturgy' I'm not sure why... the word itself just means worship, yet, 'the liturgy' probably more correctly, is power and amazing. I grew up in a place where this created the structure and was the entire communal worship for the week, with the exception of rare occasions. My favourite words have always been "therefore with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify thy glorious name evermore praising thee and saying: holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts, heaven and earth are full of thy glory." To gather every week and repeat the same words may seem monotonous and boring, but it's the opposite, to fill yourselves again with those truths of God, to know Him better, the excitement in that is amazing, through it there is so much. I worry that it becomes too much of a comfortable tradition for some, but the purpose is to take out those truths and that worship into every day, and every moment and let all of it become worship because it is with you.

As I hope I've communicated, worship is vital, but we cannot rely on one simple method of worshipping God, we must consider that every day is worship, and know Him better through it. We must employ the extraordinary and the mundane. We must completely surrender ourselves to God in every breath and each moment between every breath.

Here it is:

My life can be crazy, so full, so intense, as soon as that intensity stops I begin to crash. That crashing can be anything, from health to happiness.

I don't want that!

I don't want that anylonger... for so long it was all I was used to. I either run myself to burn out, or I stop and can't get up. I want to be happy, I want to find all my energy in God, I want to be so sure of who I am that nothing can shake me because my identity is ONLY found in Christ. I want to be strong enough to recognise the tricks of the devil so that I don't fall without realising what I'm doing. I know that there was the day over the summer when he tried to take me down, but everything was so clear. He keeps trying to take me down in the same way, but I'm so lost I don't stop it... I'm not fighting, I'm throwing one punch and giving up! I'm praying the armour of God for a day and then forgetting the next. I'm losing myself... I'm losing God. That's not who I am! That has never been who I am!

This is a fight that is already won, I cannot surrender when my victory has already been won! It's as if I'm trying to say to God I don't want you... I don't want salvation. I know that is such a lie! If God hadn't been present in my life the way He has, I would be dead, I would no one... I would have no identity, I could have no life. This is a fight for my life, a fight Christ won on the cross... a fight for my life... well you know what? I'm never going to die! Christian's can't die, none of us, we have salvation by the one who hold keys to death, we will NEVER die, we will fall asleep! We can only ever fall asleep! So trying to drag me away from that... could never succeed, I may have lost so much to death, yet at the funeral of the man who held the Kingdom in his heart was such a moment of peace. It was as if God was saying... live like that! Know me like that! He's not dead, he's just asleep, and he lives eternally. It was the most peaceful day of my life, how can I forget that? I look for those who hold the Kingdom in their heart, but I forget to strive for that...

The Kingdom of God is the deepest desire of my heart, it has been all my life. The song that was stuck in my head last year, the song that came back to me again and again until I stopped and thought about the words this summer. It plagued me, because God was telling me, He really was saying "seek ye first the Kingdom" I spent so long ignoring it, it took a year before I listened... I have to listen!

I feel like just writing a incredibly short entry like this:

Last night was awesome, God is amazing. That is all...

But I won't.

Last night I got to the end of my tether with this stuff, I couldn't stop crying, and got so sick of it. I said enough is enough. What ever this is I can face it, because God is here, and with me. So I took out my candles, incense, oil burner. In a dimly lit muggy room I started to pray. Pausing I felt inspired to re-write Ephesians 6:10ff, which is in Greek on my wall, and as I copied it out again, I prayed, I prayed each bit of it. I put on the Armour of God. I carried on praying. Sent some prayer request texts out, because I knew the dangers in what I was doing, and I started to ask God why.

Then it came, the answer, the words that I had heard earlier... Righteous Anger, I was angry, I was so angry. Yet somehow, that anger had been manipulated into hate, hate towards other people, towards God, and in an incredibly self-destructive way, towards myself. I began to think about Adam, about how he died, and knew that I was angry and that was okay. I gave up the hatred that had filled me, hatred towards those who had threatened my life, those that had entered my dreams. I let it go, I let God take it. I began to worship God, I let myself go, and joy began to fill me again!

Then came the ultimate test, I took out the list that I had made, a list of situations to deal with, to let go of, a list that I would have broken down reading a few hours previously. I read this list, and I felt nothing, no anger, no pain. There was too much joy in my heart.

So let me say it again. GOD IS AMAZING!

Indeed, it is time for a change my darling. Look around you, see how bright the day is, the day which you shut out like Haig... You are NOT Miss Haversham! He never meant that as a compliment, so do not for a second take THAT as a compliment. 

Dreams like last night... should not be in your mind. I crawled inside my wardrobe to hide from the world this morning, I needed to be completely surrounded. I read something that I shouldn't have last night. Part of me wants to face it, face what they did, what they said, but I can't, it's too painful. I suppose the contradictions just ring in my head, and its as if... he suggested that I change who I am to fit in, he didn't know that I'd done that, I'd done that over and again and again! And it made things worse so I gave up... because it was worse. It was worse to compromise, to change who I was, I miss who I used to be, I miss the original ME. The girl that spoke with a proper voice, who had surety, who had people around her who loved her like TJ. Then TJ left, and I suppose I gave up. Because I couldn't be strong without him, it didn't matter how the rest of them treated me, because he was there...

It does not matter anylonger, for the first time in my life, I'm surrounded by people who accept me for who I am. I had dreamt of this day, a far off dream, the imagining of a broken girl. Now I struggle, when the present is pain it is easier to get through in hope of the future, when the present is that hope, it seems easier to dwell in the past. Though regardless of this, I'm getting there, I'm making progress, and God is working in me. That is amazing. I just copied a list of bible verses from a website, I'm going to go through them, and remind myself of what God sees when he looks at me, because to Him, my clothes, my voice...none of it matters, He sees me.

It's been a year since Adam died. It's so weird, hard to believe. I'm listening to music that reminds me of him, I'm wearing gothic mourning clothes, I have to, he'd appreciate them. I don't care what the world thinks, what the world sees today. I loved him.

Just some rambling.

Things have been really hard, but I really do have hope. I've made the decision that I'm going no where near Facebook or Twitter for a bit, I open those pages like I go to the fridge when I can't think or am bored... (mostly fruitless journey's I might add!) This weekend if I decide to catch up on anything of that ilk then it will be Boundless.org articles. I got in from CU tonight and just started tidying, which is a great thing. It always helps me focus, whenever I have prayer vigils I always start by tidying and cleaning.

I've also got to do something different with music, even though Amanda Palmer's solo music isn't going to drive me crazy like Girl Anachronism did, and so I can enjoy it's beauty, I need to really focus on giving my heart back to God. So it will be a weekend of Brenton Brown, Tim Hughes, Matt Redman, Rebecca St James and Casting Crowns - with maybe some Superchick thrown in if I'm feeling really upbeat!

The pain in my right arm is really starting to annoy me, and I've realised that it's a bit of RSI from playing Circe, which means I'm going to have to give the 'cello a rest for a few days. Though I can't say that's a bad thing, playing melancholic music doesn't aid, especially when I do it so badly!

... I just started to get distracted by Boundless! That's good... but Office Hours (one of the best column's EVER) can and must wait until at least tomorrow.

Over the next two days I'm going to re-focus my mind, going to work out eating properly as well. Track down some chorizo and made bean stew in my new casserole, that will made me feel better! Hum, still got to work out what to do with the chicken, maybe just do it like I did the last one, put it in the oven in batches to make extra crispy... I haven't done that yet because I just haven't been hungry... I really need to sort that out - though the reintroduction of breakfast has been AMAZING! Which is one of the reasons why I don't want to go on the elimination diet the dietician suggested, because I won't be able to eat rye, and I'll have to eat rice... which I'm technically allergic to which doesn't make sense! Also Lamb does make me feel sick... so I really don't see how that will work. Heavens! If that's been at the back of my mind all this time, then...no wonder. Okay, I really do have to stop worrying about that! I will eat. (not now because I'll not sleep!) But tomorrow, I will eat rye flakes with dates, figs, apricots and cranberries and goats yoguart. Then chicken and chips, with maybe some spinach (if its still edible!) if not, then some of the brassicaceaes which are in the freezer. Hum, then I'll make me stew!

Need a list now... going to update my other blog, then sign off and find some make-up remover... which is the only reason why I don't do this everyday! I miss it, dressing up. Grabbing random layers and putting them together and not giving a damn what the world thinks, I don't get why I only do it when I'm depressed, and it's not... it's not hiding (I mean... probably partially, because I was less noticed like that!) it's reverting to self, to self expression in the way I connect most! I feel more comfortable in a corset and a flowing skirt than I ever could in a pair of trousers! It would be better if I had some decent Victorian lace-up boots like I used to, but I'll have to make do with my modern shoes! (though to have ballet shoes inside is amazing, because I can feel the laces tied against my legs and if I take the boots off then I can curl up and feel the satin against the floor or my hands, and that's beautiful. Like being barefoot on a lawn on a dewy summer morning, the cool wet grass against skin, the sun shinning down, onto tiptoes, pirouette, cool breeze, hair flowing, simple long, cotton gown made off modest rough fabric - unbleached, like the dress I had from Harriet when I was 13, simple, elegant, comfortable. Dancing across that lawn, like the lawn at Upton, lying sleeping, going to the window seat, like at Cotehele, watching the rain pour down, then going to the Library, layed out like the one at Coughton Court. Oh my, dreaming little doormouse! Sleep!

Resting in the Shadow of God

This must begin.

I have waited for the moment to begin this, but now seems quite apt. For it is when in the pit of despair that the soul cries out most for God, and in His very awesomeness, His presence in our lives He answers.

At the Christian Union meeting tonight there was a question posed, asking the three most important things in our lives. All that came into my mind: 1) Father, 2) Son, 3) Spirit. Because... without God, what is life? It's nothingness disappears into the abyss, completely lost, and pointless. Yet that relationship, that trinity that is visible in the Creator's creation, without relation to God, there is no purpose or design, without relation to others, God's design cannot be encouraged, and edified (though there are half a hundred words to describe this). The point is, we need, and desire primarily God, and secondly God's creation. Without the first, the second becomes distorted and destroyed, without the second - yes there is survival - but without the second the first has such little poignance.

This is all an aside. When we are hurt and weak, God moves, regardless of whether we see or not, He moves. My life recently has been a flurry of bad events, trying to see God through them has been hard. Recently I've come to the realisation (though my own reflection, and the insight of trusted friends) that I'm alright, even if things are bad, and upsetting, that's fine, because I KNOW God is there, I'm not going to try to not know that, I could never get back to that, I tried it for a time, almost destroyed me!

Yet with God through all of it, how ever dark it gets, there is such light, a light that can never be overshadowed or overcome. A light that has won victory over darkness, over death, over sin, all for me, and in my place. Deny that... and deny life.

At some point in this post I was also going to get the point that God made to me earlier. A little time ago, a friend of mine did a study that really spoke. He talked about resting the shadow of God. Now that sounds like quite a challenging phrase to understand, I currently forget his talk on it, but I felt like it was something I needed to know again. I was inspired to read Genesis 19 earlier... I got to verse eight "unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof." For Lot, these 'men' who had come under the shadow of his roof meant he had a right to protect them above all others, above his own family. This began me thinking, if Lot, a sinful man, would protect strangers above his daughters because they dwelt in his shadow, if we dwell in the shadow of God, how much protection and safety do we have? In the shadow of God, we are safer than than if we were anywhere else. Psalm 91 "He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust. Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence. he shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler." There, firmly secured within the Old Testament Psalms is that beautiful imagery we see in Ephesians 6, the belt of truth.

Above all, we must trust God. His protection is above the snares, against the arrows, beyond darkness and behind Him, in His shadow. Live in the shadow of the Almighty, dwell in God.