To Live is Christ...

...to die is gain.

Paul meant that.

I often think, when I read this passage, if I were to say this out loud, would I actually mean it?

It says, in the next couple of verses (vs22-23): Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! I am torn between the two"

Paul genuinely tells us, that he can't decided what he would rather do - whether to live to proclaim the message of Christ and encourage fellow believers in 'The Way', or to die now and be with Jesus himself, no more pain, suffering, chains etc...

Paul is a dude.

I've said that before. And he absolutely is. He's an incredible role model.

His life and death are saturated with Christ.

One day, I want to be able to stand up and say, hand on heart;

To live is Christ, to die is gain.

Philippians 1:21

Stained.

I read an email from a friend today, and I'm sure she won't mind me sharing, but in it was written one of the most beautiful sentences I think I've ever read;

...and [some] days I am so full of His love and presence, it overflows and stains everything I do and think with his grace and holiness...

I don't get many days like that.

But I desire that so much.

So much.

That the love and presence of God would fill me so full, I would be unable to contain it!! It would overflow and soak everything around me.

That His love and presence might stain all that I do and say and think.

Stain.

Not stain as in to tarnish or soil or dirty. No, a stain from God is different.

To be stained by God is to be marked with an indelible marker. This mark is a seal, an imprint.

Oh how I wish my God would stain me. Ruin me for anything or anyone else but Him.

Put His mark all over me to show that I am His, and He is mine.

And then I remember, He has already done this. I have already been purchased. The ransom has already been paid.

A cross.

Three nails.

The spotless lamb, crowned with thorns and mocked as He sacrificed himself.

The King.

Christ's blood stains me. It stains me, and marks me as His.

This stain cleanses me.

And now I can stand before the King, one of His.

A child.

A friend.

A servant.

I am stained.

I am pure.

I am free.

Resolution #2: Give More

When telling a friend what my resolutions for this year were, I was met with the question: "Give more what, exactly?"

It didn't take me long to answer, but over the days that followed I realised that there was so much that I want to give 'more' of..

These include;

• Money. (More than just my 10% tithe.)
• Time. (Quality time.)
• Encouragement. (Enough said.)
• Blood. (Literally. http://www.blood.co.uk/)
• Sweat. (Physical effort that actually wears me out.)
• Tears. (Passion, Sympathy.)
• Gifts. (Because I want to and not just because I should.)

And I'll probably add more as I think of other things it would be good to give...

And I don't mean I just want to do these once and tick them off my list, I mean I actually want to try this year to give more of these things, and more than once.

Anyone can do anything once...

Answered Prayers

Titus 2:3-5

Older women likewise are to be reverent in behaviour, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.

Last week I saw God answer a prayer I've been praying since May last year..

Upon deciding to leave Canada and finish working with Pais, to return to England and start University I realised that I would be leaving the comfy Christian bubble I had become used to, and would be re-entering normal society!!

Whilst that thought excited me a huge amount, it also scared me too.

I remember sitting in a Petra's coffee shop with Rebecca and talking through my concerns of how my faith wouldn't be strong enough to survive University life... (how deceitful the enemy can be some times!) and I recall Rebecca saying that one of the most important things I need to do is find a network of godly women who can stand by me, pray for me, support and encourage me throughout my time at university - so start praying.

And pray I did.

Over pages of my notebooks, I have small scribbled prayers that God would provide these women for me to look up to and learn from and confide in.

And there have been times this week, in fact no, I need to correct that - not just this week, there have been times throughout the past six months where God has blatantly answered this prayer and put godly women directly in to my life for specific purposes.

My mom, Sue, Jo, Chez, Becci, Vicky, Claire, Allenia, Rebecca, Ruth, Fran, Lydia, Amy, Mim, Lea... the list goes on.

Some I've known since my birth (obviously my mom!), some since I was young, some I've met since being at uni and some I've only met once. Some are not too much older than me, and others are more than twice my age. But God has used them all in ways so beautifully, woven them in to my life for specific times and seasons and all have been an encouragement and support to me some how over the past few months.

Let me give you a more detailed example of this week.

Vicky, who has been an amazing support and encouragement to me whilst growing up, has kept in touch with me since I got back from Canada and I am now in her Lifegroup (when I'm not at Uni!). At the beginning of this week, she sent a short text with an invite to lifegroup on Tuesday and sent the address so I knew where to go. I know that seems really simple. It doesn't seem like a big deal. But that's just what I mean about someone looking out for me. She's done this since I was like 13, but since I got home this Summer, every so often she'll just shoot me a text and see how I'm getting on. I know she cares, and because I'm now part of her small group, I also get to hang out with a number of other people slightly older than me and do life with them too.

On Thursday morning, I went round Claire's. 2 year old Levi was at Nursery, and 4 month old Jasmine was happy to see me (yay!!!) but I was there to see Claire. She's almost 30 (she's not sure what she thinks about that!) and she's married with two kids, but when I'm back home, she doesn't mind me popping round for a couple of hours to chat and catch up, and talk about life and God and uni and whatever. I love hanging out with her. I love learning from her and doing life with her. I know that she cares about me and looks out for me, she makes time for me and cooks me lunch and listens to me talk on endlessly about whatever's going on in my life!! She's been there for me since my teen years when I would sit in her car after small group and tell her my doubts and fears and dreams and whatever else bothers a 17 year old... Claire has so much patience with me, and has seen me through some of my best and worst years!

On Thursday evening, I was invited round to Allenia's for tea. Her husband Matthew, and her 3 year old son, Judah were there too and we all talked for a while, but then Matthew went into the front room with Judah and Allenia and I stayed at the table and got lost in talk for the next two hours. I suppose it's what women do best... talk! Well we did it well. We don't know each other that well, but that wasn't a problem. It was the first time we've ever had a really hearty chat - and she jumped straight in with encouragement and challenge. She's committed to pray for me, and keep in touch to see how things are going as I lead the CU at Keele over the next few months. She has so much wisdom, and I'm thankful for her willingness to find the time to share it with me. I'm also super thankful for her creativity and the pillow-case she embroidered with my name and the words servant to all on. She prays I'll live a Christ-like life as I lead and serve my fellow students. I am thankful for women like Allenia. (oh and she's American! Love this!!!)

When I got home, I skyped with the lovely Rebecca. Even though she is no longer my boss, and we live in different countries separated by an 8-hour time difference, these are no hindrances. We still keep in touch and have plenty to talk about. She inspires me like no one else, and she is one of those people who I can honestly say, when I grow up (get just a little older...) I'd like to be like her. She is encouraging, passionate, organised, lovely, beautiful, strong and well.. just amazing. How blessed I am to have people like Rebecca in my life, who love and care for me and want the best for me in the LORD.

My mom has also been a star for me this week. A number of times in the past 7 days (including just last night!) she has sat on my bed next to me while I cried (for various reasons, you know girls just cry a lot sometimes!). But each time she was there. Letting me cry. Letting me talk. Or first getting me a hot water bottle and an extra blanket before curling up next to me... There's no one on earth like my mom. She's actually the best. I don't really tell her enough to be honest, but she is amazing. And she probably doesn't think she's doing a great job, but the life of prayer and service to God that she leads is inspiring and encouraging. She is kind, and she works at home, and she is a wonderful mother. I thank God for her!!

So it's taken me about three days to write this, as I did it in stages and when I had the time.

But I just wanted to share.

Answered prayers.

Amazing women.

Amazing God!

Hallelujah :)

January 9th 2010 (1 year)

I think it’s a shame my life isn't more like a movie.

You know, predictable storyline, but a happy ending.

The main character always gets hurt; the guy she’s in love with leaves, she gets fired, she’s betrayed by her best friend – real life stuff, whatever.
She gets hurt.

But some how, it always works out.

There was a greater reason for him leaving, because he knew it would be best for her, because he loves her and actually he still wants to be with her forever so they get back together.
Or her boss turns out to be a jerk anyway so he gets fired, and she gets her job back – better pay, better position, better in the end.
Or the friend realises the error of her ways (we all suck sometimes!), but she reaps what she sows and has to deal with the consequences of her mistake, but there’s the apology and their friendship is salvaged and they live happily ever after.

(Honestly? I don't really wish my life were like a movie. Or, if I did then, at least I don't now!
I can be so dramatic sometimes... Now it actually annoys me that movies are always so predictable. I really don't like that. I'm glad I have no clue what my life is gonna turn out like. At least that way I'm more inclined to let God take a hold and lead me wherever!)

Man's inhumanity to man

Man was made to mourn: A Dirge

Many and sharp the num'rous ills
Inwoven with our frame!
More pointed still we make ourselves
Regret, remorse, and shame!
And man, whose heav'n-erected face
The smiles of love adorn, -
Man's inhumanity to man
Makes countless thousands mourn!
- Robert Burns

I watched the film Sophie Scholl this evening.

I can't say I enjoyed it. It's not the sort of film you enjoy.

But I find WWII is so interesting, and like (perhaps "like" isn't the right word?) learning about the holocaust, and events which took place during the war.

I think it's important we remember. And it's even more important that we learn.

It's based on a true story, and seemingly stays as true to the facts as possible.

In 1942, Sophie, a 21 year old student from Ulm in Germany, her brother Hans, and a number of others around the country wrote, copied and distributed thousands of leaflets opposing Hitler's regime and the war. Sophie and Hans were caught, arrested by the gestapo, and eventually executed by guillotine, found guilty of sedition (incitement of rebellion against the government).

In the film, near the end, her parents visit her in prison to say goodbye. It's a short scene in which her father tells of how proud they are of her of what she did, and her mother simply urges her to remember Jesus.

She does. And she reassures her mother that she will see her again in eternity.

I hope this is how it was in real life.

I hope Sophie Scholl knew Jesus...

In court, when giving her speech, she is quoted to have said,

Somebody, after all, had to make a start. What we wrote and said is also believed by many others. They just don't dare express themselves as we did.

I'm inspired by her courage, to stand up and be the one who expressed what many believed.

There's so much in the world today, that so many of us know is wrong. I would start naming countries but I think every country would be on the list...

Who of us is willing to stand up and speak out against injustice?

I don't know if I am.

I'm just being honest.

I see war, persecution, poverty, racism, sexism..

I see indifference, apathy, fear, busyness, ignorance..

None of it's right.

I want to care, I want to stand up and speak out and make it all stop.

I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. What I can do, I ought to do and, by the grace of God I shall do.

- Edward Everett Hale

Everyone can do something.

I'll ask myself.

And, by the grace of God I shall try and do what I can.

But can I be bold in asking you as well, "what can you do?"

Thank you God for the courage you give, and thank you for the mercy you have shown to us all through your Son. LORD, will you show us what we can do, to show your love, to speak the truth, to meet needs. May we learn from those who have gone before us. Let us not stand by as injustice rages throughout the earth. And if we are those acting unjustly, then please forgive us. Change our hearts.

Start with me.

Dec 9th 2009 (1 year, 27 days)

I didn't write this post this time last year, but December is way too far away and I felt like re-posting this today. It's something I wrote at a time when myself, and a number of girls I knew were struggling with this:

I was talking with a friend last night. And God just got a hold of me and when I got home I started to write. I believe this is truth we all need to hear.

Amongst other things, I’m totally beginning to understand the importance of learning to love myself before I love others. Before I can love another.
My love for God, and desire to know Him more leads me to a place of knowing and finding out just how much He loves me and what that even looks like. I’m stunned by just how much he loves me. And even more so when I realise that He loved me first.
That any thing I do comes out of a response from the fact that He has loved me. He does love me. He will love me.

And it’s hard to love me. Seriously. I know me. I think I know me. And I find me hard to love.
My weight, my skin, my moods, my idiosyncrasies, my thoughts. There are things we all dislike about ourselves sometimes, right?

Sometimes I’m convinced that if other people knew the real me they wouldn’t love me.

But God knows the real me. Better than I do! He made me. Knit me together. Yes, knit me together – what a cliché. But when I think about what that looks like; it’s amazing. Imagine it. He weaved each thread of DNA together in such a way to form this functioning being, this human, this girl that never has been and never will be created ever again. He made me. And you.

And God is a perfectionist.
He’s God! He doesn’t make mistakes.
I have been carefully handcrafted by the most talented artist, sculpture, composer… I am His. He knows me and wants me to know Him. How could I doubt that He loves me?

Well, I’m flawed. Through human-error, not God-error.
And I forget that my worth comes from God – The Almighty, The Creator - and when I start to look for worth in what the world values (looks, nice clothes, guys, sex), that’s where Satan finds his way in and causes me to doubt God’s love for me.
I can hear the deceiver taunt me and begin to stir, as the beautiful girls walk past, when it doesn’t work out with the guy I like, when I crack a joke and no one laughs, when I’m disappointed with what I see in the mirror because I’m 20lbs heavier than I’d like to be…
If I’m not beautiful or funny or talented then I’m not loved. If I’m not making the standard, if the guys don’t like me, if I can’t lose weight - it’s my fault, I just need to try harder, right?

Wrong.

There could never be a more beautiful me. I find it hard to believe it even as I type it out. But I will keep speaking & singing it over myself because I know it’s true, I know I need to hear it. I know that for me, learning to love myself, means learning to accept that I’m already beautiful..

Say it out loud to yourself. Don’t feel stupid. I think you probably need to hear it too.
You are beautiful.

I know that when God made me, when He made you, He had a plan. He didn’t mess up.
And He’s not gonna make me lose weight, or make the guys fall for me, or make sex outside of marriage ‘ok’, just to show me how much he loves me. That’s not love. That’s conforming to the pattern of this world and being sucked in to the distortion that we think love is.
No. Love is wanting the best for me, doing all that can be done to secure a hope and a future for me, helping me to realise my beauty and value and potential.
God loves me. Period.
God loves you. Period.
He wants the best for you, He has secured you a hope and future.
He’s patient and waits with us, cries with us, talks with us, and will continue to do so until our perspective changes. Of ourselves. Of real beauty. Of love.

We are commanded firstly to love God and secondly, to love our neighbour as our self.
As our self. If I don’t love myself, how can I love my neighbour?

I do my best to love my friends and family. To be patient and kind, to not be jealous and proud or self-seeking or count up wrongs etc.
I want to love other people like Jesus has loved me.
I want to love my enemies.
And one day I want to get married and have kids and build my life on and centred around Christ, together with the man I will love.

But honestly, I don’t know how I can try to love any one else, in the way Christ has loved me – without first learning to accept and love myself. As Christ has loved me. I know I can’t properly view other people in the way God does, if I don’t first view myself in the way God does.

Loving myself doesn’t mean being selfish, or self-seeking, or vain or proud. It doesn’t even mean putting myself above others.
But it does mean looking out for and after myself. Accepting that I was made by a divine creator and treating myself with dignity and respect. The way God treats me. After all, I am His.
Loving myself means eating right, and exercising enough. Choosing to not constantly feed my mind the junk that’s on the radio and the fake images of ‘perfection’ in the magazines. Choosing to walk in the way God has for me, trusting that He knows best.

And it means looking for my beauty. My quiet and gentle Spirit that is precious in the sight of God. The me that was so delicately created for a purpose and to reflect God’s beauty and design.
And this requires me to search through all the crap that I’ve collected along the way and begun to call me. And then to let God refine me.
And carry on letting Him do this even though it freakin’ hurts and exposes wounds and hurtful words I’ve carried around as part of my identity.
Letting Him purify me, like gold. And wipe away the rubbish that doesn’t belong.
And letting Him keep doing this for the rest of my life.
Not making me more beautiful. But exposing my beauty. The beauty I already have.
When you find gold, it’s already there, it’s just hidden away. It needs to be purified. I’m not sure if that’s the right word, or if it’s scientifically correct or whatever - but you get me right? Upon extreme heating, it doesn’t become gold - the gold already exists, it’s just becomes pure!

Girl, I know sometimes it’s hard to love yourself. To even know what it means to love yourself. And to be satisfied and content with who you are.
I’m right there with you.

But I know, that if we could even just grasp a tiny part of the reality of what it means TO BE LOVED BY GOD, we wouldn’t be worried about all this stuff and we would know that He already created us beautiful, that He loves us. Oh how He loves us.

We sing that over and over and over again in the song, but we still don’t seem to get it.

If nothing else today, just tell yourself how beautiful you are and how much you are loved by the one who created you and cares for you. And then go from there.

I love you in the way I know how,
Take care beautiful girl x

If you get a chance today, listen to There could never be a more beautiful you by Jonny Diaz, 15 by Taylor Swift

Jan 4th 2010: (1 year)

Waiting is so difficult when you don't know what for...

MMXI

It's twenty-eleven.

Happy New Year, my friend!

This is my first post of the New Year and I'm quite excited about this coming year!!

I have four resolutions, which I suppose is to make up for me not making any resolutions over the past few years.

And if I don't succeed at all of them then I don't mind, I'll be happy I tried.

1. Pray often. Inspired by the character Hadassah in Francine Rivers' novel Echo in the Darkness. She prays all time. I want to do that. I want to know God more and I know that a sure way to grow a relationship is to talk to the other person. So I'm gonna try :)

2. Give more. I have been so incredibly blessed to be raised in a rich country, and to always have way more than is necessary. My family is comfortable. We have all we need to survive and way more. I am seldom in need of anything. And if ever I am in need, it is satisfied almost immediately. I want to bless others like I've been blessed, and give out of the plenty that I have. I want to trust God to provide, and be a vessel through which He provides for others.

3. Stop biting my nails. I try this all the time. Lets see how it goes this time...

4. Blog some of the stuff I wrote over the past couple of years. In November I blogged a reminder that I would do this:

Anyway, so I'm blogging this as an official reminder that in the New Year, I want to post some of (not all of!) my old pre-blog writings. Coz some are quite funny, and creative! Others are quite raw and deep.

But all of them are a testimony of how far I've come, how good my God is and how much He has done in me over the past 12 months.

So this is how I'm gonna do it.

E.g. Something I wrote on January 9th 2010, I shall post on January 9th 2011... exactly 365 days after writing.

So here's to a New Year of new things, of the continuation of old things, of a fresh season of life, and of the next chapter in the book of life that God is writing with me.

God Bless you all this year, in all you do. And may you bring glory to Him!