Holiday musings

Once again, I am on holiday - if you read this blog, it always seems to be holiday time for me! It is definitely one of the perks of being a teacher - people complain we're not paid enough (and that may be true), and that the job's really stressful (again, not really arguing!), but one thing we CAN'T complain about is the holidays (although having said that, it is annoying that you can never get a cheap deal because you have to take your holidays with everyone else!!!). Holidays are perfect times to just sit back, relax and re-charge your batteries! And what better place to do that then Mum and Dad's!!!

I came back yesterday (stopping along the way to see GORGEOUS Josh - and Hannah and Tez - toddling about - SO CUTE!), and I am REALLY enjoying being here! I think I forgot how much Mum looks after me - tea, biscuits, cake, neck massages, washing.......fantastic! I like being independent but it's definitely worthwhile regressing back to living with Mum and Dad every now and then - I think because I'm the youngest and not all grown up like Hannah with a hubby and a child I fall back into the routine of being looked after very quickly!! :) And what's great is that I've been promised another neck massage tonight!! Woohoo!!!
(Just in case you're reading this thinking 'how self-involved is she?' I just want to point out that it's not all take, take, take on my part, I did actually put my own washing in the machine, and hang it out yesterday, and I helped with the washing up, and I drove Mum to work this morning, and I'm taking her to the airport tomorrow morning when she and Dad go to Sweden.......!!)

You are not an accident

I am 'doing' The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren at the moment - 40 days of bible study about the purpose of our lives. Here's what I wrote in my prayer journal for today.

One thing that's really blown me away about today is that God has created the whole world to fit his purpose. Not just that, but he has created it with us in mind. See, THAT makes sense, but when I say that he's created it with ME in mind, I get blown away. Is it really true that millions of years ago GOD knew that I had a place in his world?
Did he create certain things a certain way because he knew that in 2006 I would be around? According to the Bible, that's how it is: "For he chose us in him before the creation of the world...." (Ephesians 1v4)
It's a wonderful thought - God's plan for me - he's been thinking about it for ages!!! It must be a good one!! He's had time to perfect it!
How exciting to be able to see it unnfolding in front of me.

What next? In some ways I can't wait to find out.......in some ways I'm terrified I'll get it wrong.

At the end of the day, I can know this: I am alive because God WANTED me alive! I am no accident!!!

Vanity at a mission conference!

Last weekend I was at the Interserve Conference in Swanick (waaaaaaaay up north), and towards the end of the weekend I was packing in my room with Jen and realised that my camera had sat in my bag the entire weekend, so I sat on the floor and proceeded to take photos of myself in the mirror for the next 20 minutes or so. Very vain I know, but how fun!!!!! Quite chuffed with this one - wanted to place it on my profile so it would be by my name, but unfortunatley I am technologically challenged!!!!

Anticlimaxes.....

Isn't it horrible when you've been waiting for ages for something to happen and you think that it's going to be amazing, but then it happens and you feel a little bit let down by the event? I had that this week and I left feeling incredibly deflated - and it wasn't like the thing was really THAT amazing! I'm not going to say what it is just in case one day the people involved read this and get incredibly hurt! I think that I had big expectations about the people that were going to be at the event, and they didn't really deliver........

I don't know if this is all related, but I am feeling incredibly BLAH at the moment - reality of life setting in maybe? I don't know - I just feel like curling up in a small ball under a duvet and crying! Life just feels incredibly............I dont' know what the word is - boring? - maybe like it's not leading anywhere for me right now. I don't know.


I can't decide whether to publish this or not - I've written it when I'm feeling quite low and it's 7.55am (ish), after a very late night, so I don't think my brains' quite switched on.........hmmmm, do I dare leave something this personal??????

Oh stuff it, I'll publish!

Student ramblings

I have once again woken up much earlier than I meant to this morning - it's a bank holiday (again - woohoo!), and I woke up at 7 - what's that about?!
Last night I had such a fun time with my student group - we usually go to the other student worker - Luke's house after the evening service, but for one reason or another it hadn't really happened since they all got back from the Easter holidays, so this was the first in a while.

It was such a nice evening, just sitting around and chatting really - no particular structure (again, woohoo!). But one of the students was in quite a philisophical (sp?) mood and as a result we ended up talking about such random stuff (well, not random, deep maybe!).
We were talking about things like what heaven would be like - would we have jobs there? did you need to repent in order to be forgiven? what language did Adam speak? who decided blue would be blue? would you rather be a girl or a boy? what would we look like in heaven......? There was more but they were the things that stood out! But it was actually really cool to hear this guy in particular and Luke give their opinions - us girls (there were 3 of us), were quite tired and spent most of the time just listening - don't know about you but I like to do that sometimes, mainly because once they get started I start to think, do you know, I'm actually not that well informed about these things, I wouldn't sound very intelligent if I started to join in the discussion!


...............so which would YOU rather be - a girl or a boy......?!!!!? (I'm sticking with being a girl, quite happy about thanks God!!!)