My foot hurts

Somehow, yesterday, I managed to get a sewing needle stuck in the side of my foot. Not the bottom, as you would expect given the needle was on the floor.. but in the side! It went in about a centimetre and now it hurts. I pullsed it out, it didn't bleed. Today it started to huert as I got up and down, putting pressure on it.
Nice moan, all done now. :-)

Now we are getting the damp coursing in our house done. Everything is all over the place. What a mess. 3 more bags for the tip and five for the charity shop.

11 bin bags

11 bin bags and counting.. thats how much rubbish I have cleared from my house in the past three days (not a normal amount). I am being (fairly) ruthless in what we are thrwoing away. There are four bin bags of clothes that don't fit any of us too. That's a total of 15. 15! I haven't finished yet, I am still tackling the cupboard under the stairs. And then there are the boxes in our room... the list is still endless.

I hope we can get through it all before we go back, there is still so much left to do.

The task begins

We are faced with the enormous task of sorting out our house in the UK. Thankfully, Paula and Craig have offered their help to sort out some of the structural problems and fit doors, finish ceilings etc (Craig is a joiner). We still have so much stuff to work out how to get back to Cape Town, or find homes for..

The enormity of the task amazes me. I hope we can get it done!

I'm tired

It's about to turn into christmas day (it's 11.26 pm here) and I'm tired. David has just stopped crying and has hopefully gone to sleep but I need to leave it a few mins before going up so I don't wake him. It's foggy outside, I could hardly see the traffic lights down the street as I drove home for my in-laws. I took some criticism (fairly light hearted) for not letting David have sweets or ice cream. After all, it's christmas. What he doesn't know about can't hurt him.

I think I'm doing the right thing. The health professionals and nutrition people I know all think I am, but as a new parent I can only guess at what seems like a good idea to me. It almost seems wrong to fly in the face of the conventional wisdom that my parents generation (and older) applied to us kids. After all, we never died and turned out ok ! And my mum was right about feeding David a little bit of water, it would have made life easier later on. I suppose I have to be true to myself, whatever that fasionable buzz-word expression means.

Talking of true to myself, maybe you've heard but it's christmas. We celebrate God being born with my limitations on this day every year. Well at least I like to think I do, most people celebrate over-eating, over drinking and over spending.. I am more than a little irritated with Santa Claus. There won't be any Father Christmas in my house, no cookies left for him and no carrot for rudolph. No dreaming of a white christmas (do you know how many extra road traffic accidents there are in the snow? and there's no time on christmas day to even build a snowman.. no give me snow a couple of days later if at all..) Because of the rush I haven't even erected a tree. Poor show. I have bought a few gifts for people though, but probably not all the people I ought to buy for.

But God was born. He had common peasants as his guardians, with a rough accent that distinguished them as being from a poor little town were nothing good ever happened. He lived as a carpenter, an honest living but rough on the hands. His earthly father is suspected of dying young, and God would have grieved for him. God lived a life like mine, suffered pain, only it wasn't like mine because he lived his perfectly and I never do. He suffered more pain than I ever have or will, even if my life is a wretched tunnel of torturous drudgery and pain from now on. Thats pretty miserable really, you wonder why we would celebrate that.

How bad does a stable smell? God would know, it was his first smell out of the womb.

I celebrate christmas because God being born meant he also died and he then rose again t life. And because of his love and sacrifice I too can have a life that is more than drudging an existence, running from one christmas decoration and No 1 to the next without ever really being alive in my spirit, feeling my heart on fire with God. And I know that one day I will be with God in heaven and have a great party.

Happy christmas. Mine is sadder this year, probably why I'm so thoughtful. My mum is not here this year and I miss her. So does dad, I see it. Busyness can be great distraction, but in the middle of the night it's not much comfort when the void is felt. God's presence comforts me, and the knowledge that she is safe in heaven helps a bit too. I still wish she were here.

Good night

Christmas Eve

I am officially fed up of Christmas. Bah Humbug!

There is so much of 'it' on the TV, radio, shops, cards, parties at work etc etc etc. I have seen one christmas card with an actual christmas nativity scene. Every other has robins, santas, snowmen, reindeer, penguins, holly, etc on the front. Not that mine are any better - I had a snowman on mine because I couldn't SEE any proper cards in the shop. I have written 10 so far. I need to get four more. :-(

We all waste tonnes of money on gifts for each other that NOBODY wants. Sometimes we strike it lucky and buy something that someone wants, or at least pretends to want... but more often we have to ASK them and buy what they tell us. Where's the surprise in that? And who's birthday is it supposed to be anyway?

It's too predictable to go on about how commercialised christmas is, so I'll stop. But it IS!!!

And now I might even have 5 minutes to think about what's really going on and what it should all be about. I hope God won't mind, it's the first five minutes I appear to have had.

What do you have in your pockets?

I have:

7.80 GBP in change
a mobile phone ( a new nokia with a camera)
a bunch of keys
a ticket from the cinema (went to see Narnia last night, wasn't all that brilliant)
2 shop receipts
a wallet containing a ten pund note and two bank cards
a flashdisk/memory stick: 512 Mb

I hope yours are more interesting

I forgot my logbook

I have travelled to the UK without my logbook to record my thoughts in as I read the bible so I have decided to put them online.

Today I read Isaiah 51.
v.1 "The Lord says, Listen to me, those of you who try to live right and follow the Lord"

OK: thats me (I am trying) so I should listen up to the next bit..

v.1b "Look at the rock from which you were cut; look at the stone from which you were dug"

This is on about looking at where you came from, your roots and past. This was talking to the Jews, and verse 2 goes on about Abraham and Sarah and blessings God gave to them. He fulfilled impossible promises for them. These people listening to this prophesy were in desparate times and would have needed a miracle to be saved and even survive! Here they are told to look at Gods work in the past and believe that he can act to save them, and that he will.

v.3 "he will show mercy to those who live in her ruins" (talking about the capital city of the Jes, which was wrecked..
These people had suffered devastation and needed God to restore them. Here God is promising to restore them and show them mercy. He also does this to us.

I have been through some personal devastation. Devastated when my mum died, when my son was very ill. The whole world is devastated in one way or another, through our personal tragedies, wasted lives, disappointments, broken relationships, illness, disaster, death. And our spiritual wasteland called our heart is a barren place.
God restores. He promises to restore us - and he does that through a relationship with him. My heart has in many ways been restored. I have a completeness I didn't have before, I have a light in dark times that I didn't have before. The darkness is still black like the night but there is a flicker in me that keeps me spurring on, hoping (not in the idle fashion) assured that a day of complete restoration will come - that I will see God return and restore his world and people.

Part of me fears the future, I think about the gloomy times of the past couple of years and wonder if things will get any better for my family. In my heart springs a hope and a peace that even if the days ahead are darker than I would like that the light in my heart will continue to shine. And it's when that light is dimmed that I truly feel devastated and lonely even when surrounded by people.

Thos reading my blog regularly will know that I have my battles with God and I wrestle with my faith sometimes. Even in those times I am utterly convinced by the reality and power of God, even if I struggle to understand what he does sometimes or why he allows certain things to happen.

v.5
"I will soon show you that I do what is right. I will soon save you."

That's his promise to me. I am already saved and he continues to save me from myself.

Square peg, round hole

It's weird to come back to your old life, most things feel like they've been on hold for months, but you have changed and they are the same. Except there have been some changes, and few are for the better and they make you sad. This was a bad year for me and I can't change that. Coming back, although I love my family and friends, helps me see that I don't belong here any more. I am not sure if I am a visitor or a regular or even a scouser.

Maybe I will settle in after a while but I suspect not. And I am getting a cold. So is David

I bought some clothes today

I bought some clothes today. I DISLIKE shopping but I am not in the UK for too long and David and I needed some clothes. I managed to buy three pairs of jeans - I have been able to buy TWO dress sizes down :-)
I remember that first time I fitted into this size - I was increasing in sixe though not decreaseing and I was truly GUTTED. This time around I am very pleased, since I am decrasing in size. My goal might just be attainable...I have to get thru christmas first...

Quick News

I am now back in the UK for 4 weeks

I have lost a whole dress size on my diet so far. I am quite pleased with myself for sticking with it. For those who are oblivious to dress sizes, that is two inches (50 mm) around the waist/hip/etc..

:-)

Looking Up

By looking out/up to God it takes the focus off me.
I can't see the shadows when I look at the light
I have re-entrusted the future, the past and the present to God

It is indeed a wise person who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.
It is not fair. It is grace - God's gift that is not about merit but relationship.

I have been battling inside myself with a picture of me and one of God.
I am the worker in the vineyard who felt that I deserved more than the late workers, because somehow that was justice. However that identification revealed the state of my heart and my underlying presumption.

When I do something wrong and need forgiveness I want it, somehow I know I must confess and that forgiveness should be mine. Like some higher moral law within that understands something of Jesus death for me. I expect other people to do the same.

However, when I have to forgive, or God has to forgive others, I resort back to my native belief system, whereby merit counts, because I want them to look bad so I look better. I don't do this consciously but it is within my heart. There is always a scale and we want to be graded. We tend to accept there will always be someone better than we are, but as long as there are worse people (the more the better, and all based on our judgement where we justify our own "sins") thats OKAY with us.
I am like Lisa Simpson who went to her teachers (who were on strike) with a desparate plea "grade me, grade me". She needed approval, a grade to feel worth something. What's your grade? Are you A-okay, everything is fine, no problems, relatively successful (and how do you judge that)... Are you a C-minus, just scraping by with a passing score, not too good or bad... Are you and E or F, failing miserably but hoping somehow that will be overlooked because there's a G-grade persn in the queue behind you and you mightn't look so bad.

And who decides your grade anyway? You? Me?

Nah, forget there is no grading system. We all got one grade - FAIL. Nothing we can do about it, God set the test and we all fail. Even if we never did anything wrong again, we still fail because by nature we grade each other, ignore God, do our own thing, thing badly about others to make ourselves feel better, and want our own way and not Gods.
We don't even know what's good for us. Our lives of self indulgent behaviour (from hedonism to depression and back again) our statements of self-worship that leave us feeling hollow and needing something more, someone more perhaps? We want to change our appearance, be more desirable so that we become better people. Whether its a new haircut, a nose ring, plastic surgery, botox, a diet... we all want to feel better about ourselves.
It's a universal problem. One that only God is able to beat for us, because despite our failing grade he gives us a way to graduate from life. Not a grade, or exam cheat but a relationship with his son that will change your life. He changed mine and continues to change mine. It is expensive- you have to give everything to him and that gets hard especially when he's given you a lot. But it's not yours anyway, when you die you can't take it with you, even before that point you could lose it in a hurricane, fire, accident or divorce. It takes one moment to be diagnosed with inurable cancer, or slip and fall and break your spine... and then what's your lifw worth?

Wow thats a lot of heavy ranting for a Monday morning! Chill out hey? I can't it's all on my heart... try and look up beyond the water you're drowning in, God can save you if only you let him.

Doh!

Doh doh doh doh doh!!

And more Doh!

Sorry just needed to say it

Doh!

Better now ;-)

Shy or outgoing?

Recent email went round my friends and this was a question asked of them. They were divided in their response (as they were to the question rebel or rule follower). I know why too. It depends on the situation:

1. On the stage. Outgoing
2. before/after church sevice. SHY
3. in small groups. Outgoing
4. Sunday school. outgoing
5. Family (immediate). Outgoing
6. In-laws (immediate) Outgoing
7. In laws, extended. Shy
8. Family, extended. Shy
9. Parties. Shy
10. 1 to 1. Outgoing
11. in the staff room at work usually shy
12. restaurant. Small number - outgoing. Large number - shy
13. Weddings. SHY

Almost 50/50 split. No wonder you guys are confused. So am I

All quiet on the blogger front

Last week was a hectic week at work, and a new one begins today. A new week that is. There is a lot to do but it shouldn't be too hectic for once. Famous last words!

I am in a turbulent time with God. It seems my first love has waned and I want it to wax. I am not sure that I can cope with the pain that may come my way through that process. God has been showing me some of the darker internal workings of my heart and I feel like I am mourning for them at the moment. That sounds weird doesn't it? It is I suppose. This is a weird time for me. I seem to be two people. I am crying for my sinful heart in church, then running away and not talking to anyone because I feel an overwhelming shyness at the end of the service. Then when I do read (which is not as often as I should) or pray (which is also rarer than it should be) I feel challenged - reading stuff on the parables at the moment. I feel challenged by the rich young ruler and the workers in the vineyard and the prodigal son (and brother) but not exactly sure what God is saying. I know he's saying something but it's like I'm slightly out of focus and it's driving me crazy. And I can't seem to talk about this with anyone without clamming up.

Maybe thats why I've really been quiet on the blogger front.

Oh, God did tell me a couple of weeks ago not to worry about money. I wasn't worried about it before. I am now. It's like I'm flying in the face of what he says at an inner level I am struggling in a battle with. God help me cos I can't help myself.