Standing, going and just carrying on

Hello there,

So its the 1st of September tomorrow and those lucky enough to have received a letter, will be heading off to King's Cross to board the Hogwarts Express! As for me, I have another day at work lined up!

I came back from Momentum a week ago and I am full to the brim of all of my experiences from there! I'll start with the highlights to jog my own memory too;

O Meeting Charlotte and having a whale of a time. We got on very well together, spent a great few days in each other's company and it was amazing to find someone who has some different tastes and ideas but at the same time is so very similar to me.

O God speaking to me despite all of my doubts and sceptisisms and Him equipping me for the task He set before me there. To feel significant, the feel as if you are important is crucial to human nature. One lesson I took from Momentum is that God is bringing about His kingdom all by Himself, but just like a parent who allows their children to help in order that they learn, God gets us in on His gameplan!

O Receiving words from Him for all of my work colleagues, the revelation that we will all spend time in desert places in our lives (and that He uses them for our good) and that my office is my desert place right now. Amazingly though He has placed me there for a reason! :-)

O Spending hours at a time relaxing in the paddock with God, worshipping Him and lifting up praise to the Lord unreservedly and without anything to distract from it.

O Seminars from really wise speakers about getting in to actually reading the bible, to relationships, to being a "Full-time Christian Worker" and just the awesomeness of God in general!

O Camping and the weather and just chill and being-away-from-home-and-work time! It was a joy to read my books, my bible, to chill out with a hot choccy, to lie in the sun and get weirdo tan lines, to get burnt and then have rain the next day, to trek through the mud in flip flops, to meet new people and see a few few familiar faces too!

I really want to go again next year too and am really hoping that Tom will be able to join me too, that'll be fun if he can. I did have a lil taste of what its lie to be alone at Momentumand I can do it, but it is NOWHERE near as fun!

Now I'm back at work - that place I felt God say I am called to - and back in to the thick of things. My poor manager Wendy has been off sick and some others have not been 100% either. We've also been flat to the boards with work and I've been battling feelings of uselessness etc. The guys are always so busy and there's always one more job that I'm asking them to do, the sales team bring in the money and I just do little bits and pieces all over the place.
But I try to be salt and light. God never said I had to succeed or to measure that success by human standards, just to stand firm in my faith, to go where He has told me to and to carry on when it all seems to be going pear-shaped!
I do love my job a lot though, so it has that going for it and there are a millionand one little things that I enjoy and relish and take pleasure in - not to mention the people I work with who are just a joy.

All the camping stuff went back up in the loft today. Next time we go up there will probs be to get the Christmas decs down! Gosh, first day of autumn tomorrow! Got flyers from Disneyland Paris about Halloween and Christmas and our entertainments posters at work now have New Year's Eve Party on them!

All my life is consumed by work right now, so its all :-) on the bank balance front, but all :-/ on the having a life and sorting my life out front! Today was triple payday, so that is a nice bright light on the horizon for me. I've got it in to my head that I want to go to Eastbourne for a day's shopping. Personally I blame Charlotte, she planted the idea of doing a big winter shop in one fell swoop in Primark in my mind.
Soul Survivor are starting their Bible in A Year again tomorrow and I really want to get on board, but the worst thing is trying to find the time in the day to do it!! I have to weigh it against my wanting and really feeling I ought to get in to God's Word A LOT more.


So there you have it, a brief summary of what's been occurring in my life in the last few days. Charlotte and I shall keep in touch, so that's all good. Ruth is just getting settled in her new house in Soton. Tom is considering his options for next year and Sarah is approaching her birthday in just over a week's time! We did want to go visit, but boring old me has to go to boring old work!!

Still, Ruth and I have had an idea to go away together next year and Sarah, Tom & I are always on the look out for holiday opportunities for the three muskateers! Need to spend my hard earned pennies on something don't I??

So that's it for this blog. Do comment if and when you read, so I know there is life out there! I'll be back again when interesting life breaks in to my workiverse! :-p

Oh the wonders of the provision of the King in Control!!!

Hello my friends,

Well I just had another one of those a-bit-like Eureka moments where I was reminded of an amazing truth. That truth is that no matter how much you ignore, forget, deny or act as if your life is perfectly fine without Jesus in it; He never lets go of us. Never forgets, ignores or falls out with us.


I love the book of Romans right? I just do. Tonight I want to go back to one of the most significant parts of the book for me: chapter 8. It talks about the tension that pervades all of creation, the tension between the now and the not-yet of the new heavens and the new earth - within which there will be no more suffering, no pain, no mourning.
By verse 25 it has likened this to pregnancy. When a lady is pregnant she is waiting for a long time and there is joy in that waiting as expectancy about the new life grows. But occasionally that waiting drags at you, it tires you out.

 ^26-28Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God's Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don't know how or what to pray, it doesn't matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That's why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.
 ^29-30God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him. After God made that decision of what his children should be like, he followed it up by calling people by name. After he called them by name, he set them on a solid basis with himself. And then, after getting them established, he stayed with them to the end, gloriously completing what he had begun.

Happy days!

Whatever and wherever, whenever and however; in each and every detail of our lives: Jesus is King in Control.
In our non-Christian work friends, in those dreams we just can't let go of, in a TV programme we watch by chance, in experiences we never want to go through again, because of a seemingly innocent conversation or meeting: in all of our everyday lives He is working them for good.

 Hebrews chapter 11 reminds us of the amazing past. The past faithfulness of Christians to God and He to them.
¹ Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.

To quote a very wise man: "The story from Genesis to Revelation is that we cannot do it - but we know a God who can" and that is so true. The thing that is crucial is that we remember; even in the darkest of times, when our hearts are far away, when our minds are clouded by sin and shame that His love, His mercy, His grace, His death on the cross goes further still.

I went from the possibility of losing my job, to the possibility of my job becoming permanent all in the course of one day today and through all of that I'm very grateful that God was in control. I'm excited about what plans He has for my life - despite all of the peaks and troughs, I'm sure that ALL things will go together for good in the lives of those who love and fear the Lord.

Right now I'm grateful to have a job, to have money in the bank, to have plans and dreams in my mind, to have people around me who encourage and support me and to know the one who is Lord and Saviour.

Travel is one of the main dreams in my head right now - of course, it has to come second to working - I really wan tto get out and see more of the world before I pass my mid-twenties altogether! There are so many places and experiences, many of which I'm sure I've already blogged about previously, that I'd like to do. Just the thrill of packing a bag and boarding a plane would be good enough fo rme!
Still in the meantime, I have Momentum in wonderful Shepton Mallet!

I have the lovely Charlotte to meet and have fun with for 5 days! Between then and now however, I have Argos tomorrow and then Beauport right up until I go!!

I'll leave this there for now then and bid you goodnight. I've been watching "I Am Legend" whilst blogging here. I do like that film, despite the stupendously scary bits in it. The next film I have to see is the Smurfs, man that should be amazing!

London's Burning

Thus, I still don't know what to say!! All that's been in the news for the past 4 days are riots...

These started in London, in Tottenham, and have spread to other London boroughs and also throughout the country to other big towns. So riots have been the headlines of all the news: nearly 600 people have been arrested, over 100 police officers have been injured - people up and down the country are outraged, urging the powers that be to man up and use proper force to stop these thugs before it gets any worse.

Yet its not just rioting. Its looting and arson; assault and theft - on a huge scale. I saw this quote on Going Underground's Blog - one person's reaction: "destruction is easy, but what have you created?" All over the news are the stories that other cities are starting to experience this kind of senseless violence.
The other thing that astounds me is this minority's actions - the looting just beggars belief. Youth and children smashing store fronts in and then blithely walking out with goods.
Supermarkets, shops, small businesses, people's homes have been burnt to the ground.

The worst riots for a generation, the news says.

It was my day off today and Mum and I went into town. The first thing we noticed was that H Samuels was closed, its shutters drawn. As the afternoon wore on we saw that many shops in the town centre closed way before 5pm and took extra precautions such as barricading when they did.
Morrisons is closed and barred, my own Argos store closed before 5.30pm and added extra security.
Violence has spread as close to us as Chatham and Gillingham, so maybe its expected to spread???

Rumours are rife. When I checked Facebook back at home, people's statuses seemed to suggest they believed that M&S was on fire and that mobs were gathering in the centre of town. None of this was true of course, as I could personally testify, but the paranoia is extreme. Disturbingly so.

These people seem to be mainly young and male and I've long felt that the disenchantment of this group within society is a huge tragedy. We need to address the underlying issues that caused this unrest and that allow people to feel that blatant theft is acceptable. First however, we need to win back control of the streets and I really pray for the strength and wisdom of the police, our emergency services and the government.
Of course news of this violence has spread throughout the world and the England v Holland friendly scheduled for this week has been cancelled and there are concerns over security for London 2012.

On that note, it is one week until tickets go on sale for the Paralympics and I intend to apply for those tickets too!

One of the most encouraging things is that hundreds of ordinary people took to the streets of areas of London today to clear up their local high streets and communities. They were young and old, black and white, the famous and the ordinary; all coming together to restore some order where chaos had reigned. They are the true face of London, its true and I thank them for the picture of community and peaceful coexistence that they are portraying.

Meanwhile, life goes on. I'm back to work tomorrow, it should be a reasonably boring day, its meant to rain for the next 4 days and I'm continuing to pretend that I'm making adequate preparations for Momentum in 10 days time. I treated myself to some Phish Food ice cream that was half price - so that made me doubly happy!!

So yeeeees..... Stay safe people and don't believe all that you hear! Let's all pray that peace and order are restored swiftly across the nation.

I just don't know what to say...

Hi to you all.

Thank you once again for coming here to read my blog and listen to my incessant and nonsensical ramblings. I have to record my thoughts somewhere:

So I've been home for just over 48 hours. I've just spent 12 of those 48 hours at work. I can't believe all of the different types of carnage that I've had to respond to today. My mind is all over the place trying to pull all of the helter-skelter thoughts in my head back in to some order. Gah.

The best bit is that I get to go back and do it all again tomorrow morning at 9am. At which point some very angry guests are coming in to continue the tyrade I've just had to listen to for the past 2 hours.
There's also various other things I need to do to catch up over the week. Dearie me!

It's wonderful that I can walk in to work and see the people I work with and pick up where we left off 2 weeks ago - they are a fantastic bunch of people. I really looked forward to hearing all that I'd missed and getting stuck back in to the middle of things. I also got a free ice cream!

How do you measure happiness? That is my major question. Is happiness total escape - like I had in Wk2 of Keswick? Is happiness when you are totally fulfilled, kept busy and investing in the lives of young people (with eternal consequences)? Is happiness the smooth running of an office and therefore a holiday park under your control, working with really great people? Is happiness finding there is a guy who likes you, who you have lots in common with, who you can talk to and be real with?

Is happiness when you find out that this same guy - who is not a Christian - is now going around with someone else, therefore saving you the problem of explaining it could never work? Is happiness when you spend time with a friend that you haven't seen for months, as if you'd never been apart? Is happiness solving problems or preventing them? Is happiness when 2 friends get together...finally?

There are 2 sides to every story; when your friends getting together reminds you that that is one less single man is the world. When you realise that escape cannot go on forever and you come back down to Earth with a crash. When you see distant friends and realise that while you'll always have that golden past, your futures are going in totally different directions. When you realise that however much you love your job, you just don't get paid enough for all the cr*p that heads your way.

What is happiness? What is love? What is joy? I just don't know what to say!

Well that was quite a lot of heavy philosophy, but its what was on my heart. Some current events, some old history. Right now, I'm torn between wanting my job to continue and wanting to do lots of other things with my free time. I think I'd be happy with either, but I wish I knew. I wish I knew so much more than what I do. I wish I knew so much more about the world and the people around me.

Right I'm shattered and I need to save the world again tomorrow, so I'll bid you all goodnight and I do solemnly swear that I will blog about Keswick when I'm not in quite such a morbid tone of mind.
By the way: happy August! Enjoy the last of the Brish sunshine!