Friday, May 29, 2009
Dear God,
Thank-you for magnificent young grass and wayward dogs and shoes hanging from the sky. Amen :)
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
A change from usual!
Ok so I have decided to use this blog as something better than just an outlet for the occasional mopings of my miserable little life. I've been thinking about this - and I thought it would be a good idea to, rather than sharing only the bad things, share something awesomely excellent (or at least to me!) - where I can see God in my life. If I were to put everything it would be a friggin tome, so I'm just going to put some things which stand out to me once a week or so.
Some crap has been happening in my life recently - and I've come to realise that most of it is my fault. Not in the obvious way, but in that I was too cowardly to go ahead and do things when God was telling me to, because they were unpleasant for me and I was being a blind optomist. What has been overwhelming in the last few days for me is the enormity of His kindness and forgiveness. Although unknowingly, and not because of anything I did as such, but what I didn't do, I was taking one of His children away from Him, one who was clinging desperately to Jesus. In my ignorance, I blindly continued this until my friend finally brought it up, and had the bravery to do something about it. God had been telling me that this was happening, but I refused to believe it - I thought, I can make things better, we'll work it out by ourselves, it'll be fine. We just need some time. Clearly this was not the case.
However, that's not the real point of this - it's that, when I found out that I was getting in between my friend and God, I was mortified - even though I'm definitely not perfect, I never wanted to do something like that. I had done the most horrible thing to my friend without knowing. I was already hurting, but this hurt so much more. So I cried to God to forgive me, knowing that in no way do I deserve it, but instead of punishing me, He took away my pain. And I thought. How amazing. How illogical. Who, when having something good taken away from them, takes away something bad from the person who's committed the crime against them?? Repaying a bad deed with a good one. I don't think I really realised how vast God's love and forgiveness is. Then I read something in a book:
If there is something you think you can't possibly be forgiven for, think again, because you've already committed the greatest crime - and that is killing Jesus with your sin. You have already committed this sin, you have caused the only innocent to be charged with your own sin, and if God can forgive that, then how much easier it would be to forgive a lesser crime.
Hooray for Jesus!!!!
P.S. I also saw something today that made me giggle - two adolescent ducks were swimming one behind the other and dipping their heads in the water to eat or something, but then the one behind got all enthusiastic and rammed into the one in front's bum and the one in front was all BLUFAWENFAJA. :D
Some crap has been happening in my life recently - and I've come to realise that most of it is my fault. Not in the obvious way, but in that I was too cowardly to go ahead and do things when God was telling me to, because they were unpleasant for me and I was being a blind optomist. What has been overwhelming in the last few days for me is the enormity of His kindness and forgiveness. Although unknowingly, and not because of anything I did as such, but what I didn't do, I was taking one of His children away from Him, one who was clinging desperately to Jesus. In my ignorance, I blindly continued this until my friend finally brought it up, and had the bravery to do something about it. God had been telling me that this was happening, but I refused to believe it - I thought, I can make things better, we'll work it out by ourselves, it'll be fine. We just need some time. Clearly this was not the case.
However, that's not the real point of this - it's that, when I found out that I was getting in between my friend and God, I was mortified - even though I'm definitely not perfect, I never wanted to do something like that. I had done the most horrible thing to my friend without knowing. I was already hurting, but this hurt so much more. So I cried to God to forgive me, knowing that in no way do I deserve it, but instead of punishing me, He took away my pain. And I thought. How amazing. How illogical. Who, when having something good taken away from them, takes away something bad from the person who's committed the crime against them?? Repaying a bad deed with a good one. I don't think I really realised how vast God's love and forgiveness is. Then I read something in a book:
If there is something you think you can't possibly be forgiven for, think again, because you've already committed the greatest crime - and that is killing Jesus with your sin. You have already committed this sin, you have caused the only innocent to be charged with your own sin, and if God can forgive that, then how much easier it would be to forgive a lesser crime.
Hooray for Jesus!!!!
P.S. I also saw something today that made me giggle - two adolescent ducks were swimming one behind the other and dipping their heads in the water to eat or something, but then the one behind got all enthusiastic and rammed into the one in front's bum and the one in front was all BLUFAWENFAJA. :D
Friday, May 22, 2009
Saturday, May 16, 2009
So,
So, this blog is pretty much a rant place or something I go to when I want to whine about the world. I'm not sure why anyone reads it because it must be a pretty depressing thing to read - I don't update it regularly and so it's only the things I bottle up that come out here. I really am not such a miserable person as this makes me out to be, it's just that I am happy most of the time and I'm cool with telling people that I'm happy, but often I don't want to say why I'm sad but I need to get it out somehow. Therefore, this exists! So to continue a well-ingrained (engrained? whatever.) tradition, here goes.
Once again, I am stuck with people problems. I've come to realise that with any kind of relationship comes expectations - with my friends, I expect them to enjoy my company (or why would they be my friends otherwise?), I expect them to share things about themselves, I expect them to sometimes make a little time for me and talk with me. I expect them to expect these things of me as well. Of somebody who is perhaps more or different than/to a friend, I expect different things - but there are expectations nonetheless. If I didn't expect anything of anyone, then why bother forming or working on a relationship? It wouldn't mean much at all. Maybe this is just me trying to rationalise me being selfish and attention-seeking but it seems to make sense to me. However - these are with equals - with God, I can't expect anything because I have no idea how He works, and I am most certainly not His equal. I can only be grateful to Him, with as much of me as there is, whatever happens, because I cannot possibly fathom what things He has planned out.
But I have no qualms with God! This is about people. Sometimes people think they know themselves inside out, they've either been by themself or had the time or circumstance to think about themself and they're pretty sure they know everything there is to know. Much to my chagrin, that seems to me a little (little? lol.) selfish, or at least self-absorbed. What about your impact on other people? Rather than just analysing someone really hard for the first small amount of time you're getting to know someone and then pidgeonholing them, what about keeping your mind open and realising that people change, and that they don't deserve to be judged so strictly by you? What about not finding how you can have power over people and playing with that? It makes me really sad to see a friend do all of these things and not be sure what to say to them, because while I know that, to me, this is pretty much manipulating people (and we all do, to some extent - it can be completely benign or it can be more malicious), I also don't want to change people just because of my opinion. I want to try to get them to realise this of their own accord, through hints that might be spoken or not, but what if the person doesn't get it? I suppose I should tell them outright and say, what you're doing makes me sad, but why should they change themself on knowing that? It's not really a big deal, one person being sad because of something you do. Then there's the problem of timing and I don't want to say anything about it right now because it's such a busy time and having yet another thing to think about could destroy minds. But if I wait till the holidays it might be too late - not to change them, but for me. Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhh I don't know anymore. All I can hope is that God knows what He's doing and if I keep asking for help and relying on Him that it will all end up according to plan. It still makes me sad though.
Once again, I am stuck with people problems. I've come to realise that with any kind of relationship comes expectations - with my friends, I expect them to enjoy my company (or why would they be my friends otherwise?), I expect them to share things about themselves, I expect them to sometimes make a little time for me and talk with me. I expect them to expect these things of me as well. Of somebody who is perhaps more or different than/to a friend, I expect different things - but there are expectations nonetheless. If I didn't expect anything of anyone, then why bother forming or working on a relationship? It wouldn't mean much at all. Maybe this is just me trying to rationalise me being selfish and attention-seeking but it seems to make sense to me. However - these are with equals - with God, I can't expect anything because I have no idea how He works, and I am most certainly not His equal. I can only be grateful to Him, with as much of me as there is, whatever happens, because I cannot possibly fathom what things He has planned out.
But I have no qualms with God! This is about people. Sometimes people think they know themselves inside out, they've either been by themself or had the time or circumstance to think about themself and they're pretty sure they know everything there is to know. Much to my chagrin, that seems to me a little (little? lol.) selfish, or at least self-absorbed. What about your impact on other people? Rather than just analysing someone really hard for the first small amount of time you're getting to know someone and then pidgeonholing them, what about keeping your mind open and realising that people change, and that they don't deserve to be judged so strictly by you? What about not finding how you can have power over people and playing with that? It makes me really sad to see a friend do all of these things and not be sure what to say to them, because while I know that, to me, this is pretty much manipulating people (and we all do, to some extent - it can be completely benign or it can be more malicious), I also don't want to change people just because of my opinion. I want to try to get them to realise this of their own accord, through hints that might be spoken or not, but what if the person doesn't get it? I suppose I should tell them outright and say, what you're doing makes me sad, but why should they change themself on knowing that? It's not really a big deal, one person being sad because of something you do. Then there's the problem of timing and I don't want to say anything about it right now because it's such a busy time and having yet another thing to think about could destroy minds. But if I wait till the holidays it might be too late - not to change them, but for me. Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhh I don't know anymore. All I can hope is that God knows what He's doing and if I keep asking for help and relying on Him that it will all end up according to plan. It still makes me sad though.
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