voices of truth?

there’s sometimes in life when something just shakes your foundations…  when you hear or see something takes you by surprise and all of a sudden you find yourself standing in a place of insecurity and uncertainity.  when you’re unsure of whether the person you see in the mirror is the true you, or if the reflection which the people around you see is the true you.  when you try to make people happy and make yourself miserable.  when your just trying hard and it’s just not good enough.  when simple things become complicated.  when things you say are taken the wrong way.  when you realise people think the worst of you, even when all you want to do is make them proud.  sometimes i get confused as to what people see when they look at me.  and it makes me wonder – is the person i see myself as actually who i am?  or am i looking at myself through rose-coloured glasses and is what others say about me the truth?

 

i don’t know sometimes…

i was planning to write a blog just before i go to sleep and i was planning on it being a positive take on life as it is now in this week, even though i could complain. but, i’m not now. cuz now i just want to complain, so i’m not going to…too much. just ever had one of those days were life just sucks…when you think your doing what’s right and trying to retrieve something out of a crap situation, when in fact, what you’ve done now is wronger than before…and you upset people on both side…even though every bit of it was all out of your control. sums up my tues 4 march…which just got even better 5mins ago! or not.

but, on the other hand…today is tuesday. which means tomorrow is wednesday, and i like wednesdays.

wednesdays are the nights i get to chill out with Rick. i really appreciate him. a lot of times i take him for granted, but when i need a hug he’s there.

so i’m going to sleep and let another crappy tuesday end, and hope for a brighter wednesday. xx

 

life

life’s a funny thing. i just realised tonight how life can just alter completely due to one day…like the birth of a baby. it totally changes everything. wedding. job interview. moving away to uni. death. and just how much these things have impact on people around you too.

i was talking to my someone last week on the phone who i genuinely haven’t verbally talked to in about a year…or more! the odd text…but that’s been it. and i realised, i miss her voice in my life. and she isn’t the only voice i miss. people who i think back on who had a voice and had a say in my life, just barely don’t anymore. even people who i would have called a close friend.

i’m not sure i like this whole drifting thing. just drifting from being close to one person, and then another…wherever life drags you to be and the people around you in that. i was once told a friendship was for a time and season. i get times and seasons as it is biblical, but for people who have had a real impact, or been a support, or just carried a special place in your heart, is this a good enough answer to the apparent “drifting apart”? i guess i’m trying to figure if an ended or drifted friendship is something which glorifies God and makes Him smile. if it’s an unhealthy friendship, then i can see that it’s something God has. but if it’s a friendship which has been sharpening, like Proverbs 27:17 “As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend”, then, are we just taking a half-assed approach to friendships?

but then…life does get really busy, working full-time definitely limits things.  so how are friendships maintained over time?

hmmm. what does it really mean to be journeying with people? what does it mean to live in community with those around you? and how do these work with the changing pace and rhythm of life? i guess loneliness has it’s time, and as a friend of mine said a while ago, “it might be that we go through those lonely times so we appreciate the company better”.

“even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall” Isaiah 40:30

 

blown away

i’ve heard this story over and over…but never has it truly hit me until i watched this…

this is an incredible story…

“Greater love has no one than this,

that he lay down his life for his friends.”

- John 15:13

 

in small ways but with big love

so i haven’t blogged in quite a while. with the lack of a working internet, i was just about getting on long enough to check my emails before it stopped working. but as of today, we have a working broadband…which is amazing.

i guess over the past few months i’ve been finding things quite tough. i’ve been struggling with some specific stuff but, i suppose just generally been finding life hard. i’ve been trying to take life less seriously in the regard of just chilling out about stuff more. but the more i sit in an office working, the more my mind continually wanders to others. i think about people whose lives are really tough – lack of food, no money, parents dead from aids or other illness or lack of care, homeless, orphans, alcoholics, drug addicts…how is what i’m doing day in and day out helping them? how is what i do making a difference? they need someone, they need God, and i just feel so helpless. i want my life to count. i want my life to share God’s love and hope with those who really find life so so hard. those little kids who just don’t know what being loved means. those teenagers whose initial reaction when they find life getting tough is drink, drugs or suicide. there is so many people in this world, even in this country, who need help. and i’m not sure where graphic design fits into this.

i know i love it. but i know i love people more. i know God’s given me it and wants to use it. but i know He wants to preach good news to the poor, bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives, release from darkness for the prisoners,to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion, to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. (isa 61)

something about these verses just grasp me. and since i bought Foy Vance’s album (which is awesome!!)…the two songs on that which have just made me think and i guess have really started to put growth on foundations lay through Worship Ireland are Gabriel and the Vagabond and Indiscriminate Acts of Kindness. both things talked about in both songs are so simple. speaking hope into one guy’s life, and giving a girl a room for the night even tho she couldn’t pay for it. around 100 people on our doorsteps will commit a misdemeanour just to get into prison for Christmas simply for a bed, heat, food and company. prison. why is this happening when church halls/churches/youth rooms/whatever else rooms lie empty?

i don’t know if i’m being unreasonable or thinking too much about this, i probably am, but something in me just aches for these people. for the Ali’s, Ra’s, Jerry and Kelly’s…i have no idea where they or anyone else i’ve met are or whether they are ok. but i’ve no idea how to help other than pray. but there’s still a big part of me while praying wonders if i can be the answer to my own prayers.

i know helping in masses is probably not reasonable, but within a classroom is, within a drop in centre is… “in small ways with big love”.

i don’t know, i guess i’ve just been spending a lot of time thinking about life and where i fit into it. i’m still searching and wondering. but it still rings true, i want earth to meet heaven through me.

 

lil miracles…

Just spent all night beside a girl I’ve known since I was 10…she’s now 25/6 and married for 3 years. And…she’s 5 months pregnant. And I just need to say…how the flip does it all work?!

If there is one thing in life which just baffles me beyond all believe, it is how the meeting of two tiny tiny things produce….well…a me and you! With all my thoughts, memories, abilities, talents, intellegence….how does that start with being inside a mother’s tummy! Just how does that happen?!

This just is phenomenal to me…my mind just can’t comprehend the true miracle that is pregnancy! In 9 months within a woman’s tummy a full human being is produced…how unbelieveable!!

And then, to add on all that….God is the one who designed this. He dreamed up this method. He decided the process second by second. And…He knows the development of every single baby everywhere in the world. He knows exactly what I looked like at 2days after conception….5 months….and just before I was born…and every day inbetween. He marvelled. He moulded. He shaped. He overlooked. He protected. He cared. And He still does….to this very day…He still does. If pregnancy and the capability of a human to carry another mini-human is just completely mind boggling…how much more is the whole concept of who God actually is.

And who am i to ever doubt…to ever wonder….to ever think i know better than the LORD…than YAHWEH, the Great I AM.

“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone?”

- Job 38:4-6

God, You are indescribable, uncontainable, unfathomable…

 

life…between the trees

Life has really settled down.  It’s wonderful!  Uni finished, all organisational commitments over, placement almost sorted, and God’s voice teaching me clearly.  Although, what’s the deal with the weather?!  Why is it always beautiful when you have to do loads of work, yet, when I’m completely free the rain pours?!

Trees have always been a fascination for me…As a kid I could tell you every single tree and loads of information about that tree from their leaves…I loved trees.  However, this fascination slowly died as I grew up and as other things took over in my life.  But, yesterday, I was taught about two trees: one found in Genesis, the other in Revelation.  One tree was grown in the middle of the garden of Eden.  The other in the middle of the new earth.  And somewhere, between these two trees, is where my life is.  Is the Christian life about hoping and waiting for Jesus to come back and for life in this new earth, beside the last tree and that’s it?

But, as Rob Bell says, I need a God who is now.  A God who teaches me how to live today.  A faith which is about today and how to understand the world that I live in today.  The here and the now.  I NEED to know how to live here and find meaning and purpose in this world.  And this is the centre of Jesus’ message – living in the reality of God now.

We live between the trees, in a world drenched with God.

This has just really gave me comfort and given me a fresh glimpse of what it means to be following Jesus.  xx

 

may my lifesong sing to You

i want to sign Your name to the end of this day……..may I bring a smile to You.

We were in Ballyclare High last night with the Strong Words guys. It was just so cool. These guys have each an incredible story of God written over their lives. Each different, but each so challenging. Check out: www.strongwordsni.co.uk! They are big gentle giants…with an amazing infectious joy and fullness in Christ!

For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.
- 2 Tim 1:7

 

 

i want to be ready

I was just watching through a few Shawn McDonald videos on YouTube and I can across this one and the words have hit me like never before.

“I want to be ready….to stand in His light….for His eyes to gaze upon me in His glory and might….”

I have such a desire to live Col chp 3…to set my heart on things above, to put to death those attitudes, to rid myself of the old self, to be clothed in those clothes, to live in those terms, to let the peace of Christ rule in my heart, to have an overflow of gratitude, and to let whatever I do, whether in word or deed, to do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.

Yet – Paul’s words just ring so so true…

“The trouble is with me, for I am all too human, a slave to sin. I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate.” – Rom 7:14-15

Living in the tension. Living in the twilight.

I want to be ready…

 

today…

I arise today
Through a mighty strength,
the invocation of the Trinity,
Through belief in the threeness,
Through confession of the oneness,
Of the Creator of Creation.

- St Patrick’s Prayer

This week has just been hectic – I’ve been in the computer labs in uni at 9:30 every morning and worked right through for as long as I can. I’m completely exhausted! Aw well…that’s what I get for doing no work over Easter! I’m fully paying for it now! Whoops.

I was at CU last night though, was so challenging – Steve Auld was speaking and it was just incredible! He has such an anointing of God on his life and I just drink everything he says when he is teaching the Bible. He so easily creates and spreads a picture of normal Christianity! And too often that picture is so far from reality for me. Normal Christianity is continually passionate, continually journeying with God, continually seeking God and continually in love. Normal Christianity is when I care more about my soul and about God than I do about my hair or whether my bum looks big in these trousers! Normal Christianity is when I wake up in the morning and feel glad to be alive, jump up and can’t wait to live another day for God’s glory. Then, that night, go to bed to rest and get ready for the next day for living for God – pray for that millimetre more of knowing God in my life for that next day, and pray that that little more of Heaven will be brought through me to earth and to those who surround me. This is normal.

Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise. Thou my inheritance, now and always. Thou and Thou only, first in my heart. High King of Heaven, my Treasure Thou art.

Knowing You Jesus, knowing You, there is no greater thing. You’re my all, You’re the best, You’re my joy, my righteousness, and I love You Lord.

*… So here goes for today…more work, another school concert this time in Rainey, and more work at night…may God be in it all…