*taps feet at you :P*
start your job so you can take off so you can see meeeee [uhm i mean my uni :P]
“The good things don’t always soften the bad, but vice-versa, the bad things don’t necessarily spoil the good things and make them unimportant.”
“Nobody important? Blimey, that’s amazing. Do you know, in nine hundred years of time and space I’ve never met anyone who wasn’t important before.”
“If it’s time to go, remember what you’re leaving. Remember the best. My friends have always been the best of me.”
Then wear the gold hat, if that will move her;
If you can bounce high, bounce for her too,
Till she cry "Lover, gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover,
I must have you!"
Thomas Parke D’Invilliers
heatherrrr. <3 you are not supposed to be encouraging my workaholism, you know. lol.
as for the rest of you...
May God bless you with a restless discomfort
about easy answers, half-truths and superficial relationships,
so that you may seek truth boldly and love deep within your heart.
May God bless you with holy anger at injustice, oppression,
and exploitation of people, so that you may tirelessly work for
justice, freedom, and peace among all people.
May God bless you with the gift of tears to shed with those who suffer
from pain, rejection, starvation, or the loss of all that they cherish, so that you may
reach out your hand to comfort them and transform their pain into joy.
May God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that
you really CAN make a difference in this world, so that you are able,
with God's grace, to do what others claim cannot be done.
And the blessing of God the Supreme Majesty and our Creator,
Jesus Christ the Incarnate Word who is our brother and Saviour,
and the Holy Spirit, our Advocate and Guide, be with you
and remain with you, this day and forevermore.
Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on disputable matters. One man's faith allows him to eat everything, but another man, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. The man who eats everything must not look down on him who does not, and the man who does not eat everything must not condemn the man who does, for God has accepted him. Who are you to judge someone else's servant? To his own master he stands or falls. And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand.
I really love the end of that verse: And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand. It's comforting, and a reminder that some things are just beyond our control. Heh. First step, and all that. :vaguely amused at small non-coincidences:
I have been self injuring for over a year and depressed for much longer. At times, I've seriously considered suicide. About a month and 2 weeks ago, I decided I would try to stop self-injuring. By doing that, I took away my only way to cope with everything. Soon it seemed like everything was going in circles. I would feel so bad it caused me physical pain, but I had no way of stopping it. I didn't want to sleep because I knew I would just wake up with the same pain. I cried out to God so many times, but it seemed that no matter what I did, He wouldn't save me. I realize now it was because part of me didn't want to let go of the depression and self injury because it made me feel secure and it had been who I was for years! If it went away then what would I be left with, who would I be? But a week ago there was a Christian camp called Grapevine and it became my last lifeline. I had been there many times before and felt God like I never had before, so I thought that if something didn't change there, then there was surely no hope and I would be stuck living the rest of my life going around in circles until one day I would finally give up. So, I went to Grapevine willing to be changed, and God changed me!
On the Sunday evening the youth were supposed to be in the meeting with the adults, but God had other plans. Instead an American spoke about how Jesus died to save us from hell, sins, the power of sin (guilt) and self. I realized that it was the power of sin that was holding me down. I felt so guilty about the scars I had and how I had rejected God. There was a huge response to his talk and loads of people got prayer for freedom from various addictions, self-injury, depression and suicide. I went up and was prayed for, but when it finished, I didn't feel completely free, there was still a part of me that was afraid of going back to its old ways. The next morning there was a response about not feeling guilty anymore. I stood up again, but again I didn't feel free. And then there was Roy Todd. He was doing a sermon about the miraculous and the Holy Spirit and I went on an impulse really. My dad was going and I felt so nervous, like I was going to miss something, that I knew God was up to something. I went and the thing that stuck in my mind that Roy Todd was talking about was trusting God when everything seemed like a mess. So, when he asked people to come to the front to receive the Holy Spirit, I was scared but I decided to trust God. I have never been so afraid in my life, quite literally! People were going down in the Spirit left, right and centre. I was prayed for and I went down. It was like I was lying in an ocean and all the tears I was crying were rolling into it and disappearing. I lay there for a while and then I heard a voice say to me, “Get up now, my child and be free. Leave it all behind.” So I did and I felt amazing. I was the happiest I had been in years! Then on Tuesday morning Jeff Lucas spoke and he said that you are forgiven, even if your feelings are saying otherwise, it is the truth, you ARE forgiven. He asked people to stand up to be free from the guilt of things they had done, so I stood up as a final declaration that I was free, no matter what. And now, I'm me again. I haven't been this happy and this at peace in such a long time and I'm loving it. I can actually look in the mirror and like what I see because I am God's creation, I am His child. Now I can go back to doing whatever it is that God has planned for me. Also, I can be a living testament to the fact that, with God, you can be completely free from self injury because all the time I was doing it, all people ever told me was that you were never truly free from it. Every day would be a struggle to not give in to temptation. But now I can say that actually, I'm completely free from it now. I don't need or want it anymore. Since the end of Grapevine I haven't once had an urge and I am so happy! All my friends are saying that they can see the difference in me, that the change is subtle, but it's there. So yeah, I just wanted to encourage everyone in their struggles with self-injury, whether you don't want to stop, you're trying to stop for the first or millionth time, that there is hope. If you had said that to me a few weeks ago, I would have laughed, but now I know for myself it's true.
"Rarely do we draw a connection between the words that we say about ourselves and the fact that we are speaking about God's temple. We would never consider vandalizing our local place of worship, but we don't think twice about damaging ourselves with self depreciating thoughts and words... the effect is the same."
oy... quote from book i've been reading. was just like >< cuz i was thinking just from yesterday how many self depreciating things i've said either to myself or about myself to others... mehh
“The good things don’t always soften the bad, but vice-versa, the bad things don’t necessarily spoil the good things and make them unimportant.”
“Nobody important? Blimey, that’s amazing. Do you know, in nine hundred years of time and space I’ve never met anyone who wasn’t important before.”
“If it’s time to go, remember what you’re leaving. Remember the best. My friends have always been the best of me.”
“The good things don’t always soften the bad, but vice-versa, the bad things don’t necessarily spoil the good things and make them unimportant.”
“Nobody important? Blimey, that’s amazing. Do you know, in nine hundred years of time and space I’ve never met anyone who wasn’t important before.”
“If it’s time to go, remember what you’re leaving. Remember the best. My friends have always been the best of me.”
SEPTEMBER 11
REFLECTION FOR TODAY
Learning to love ourselves is possibly our greatest task. For most of us to really care for ourselves and to become vulnerable takes a very long time. We struggle so often with the knowledge of our inadequacies, fear, guilt and shame. We tell ourselves, “I will never be accepted if I tell her this…,” “I will accept myself when ….” We cannot put off acceptance until we meet our criteria for ourselves. Likely, that time will never come. We need to accept ourselves, right now, with our weaknesses. Our weaknesses, when faced, will lead us to untapped strength. And we never will truly gain someone’s acceptance unless we risk being vulnerable.
MEDITATION FOR TODAY
With Your help, I will accept myself today, just as I am.
TODAY I WILL REMEMBER
Acceptance and love go hand in hand. Because I am lovable, I can love someone and I can accept love.
Then wear the gold hat, if that will move her;
If you can bounce high, bounce for her too,
Till she cry "Lover, gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover,
I must have you!"
Thomas Parke D’Invilliers
For anyone near London.... Hillsong 10 year celebration service is tomorrow at 5pm at the O2 arena! Delerious will be there. Theres stuff for kids throughout. Should be fab! I personally can't wait!
Love to all, I'm still here and praying for you all x x x
“The good things don’t always soften the bad, but vice-versa, the bad things don’t necessarily spoil the good things and make them unimportant.”
“Nobody important? Blimey, that’s amazing. Do you know, in nine hundred years of time and space I’ve never met anyone who wasn’t important before.”
“If it’s time to go, remember what you’re leaving. Remember the best. My friends have always been the best of me.”
Then wear the gold hat, if that will move her;
If you can bounce high, bounce for her too,
Till she cry "Lover, gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover,
I must have you!"
Thomas Parke D’Invilliers
:P
as soon as we got there, we laid out our bedding in the tent, and went over to where dinner was being grilled, then as soon as we got our food, it started raining, so we sat under a tiny pavillion...
it continued to rain, so finally we had worship, acapella, with 40 of us squished together, then they told us to go check our tents to see if they were sleepable, ours was flooded, so even if there was room in another tent for us, our bedding was soaked, so we would have been miserable, so some of us came back.
Oh yeah, and it's STILL raining, and it's not supposed to stop before thursday...
I like rain, but this is a bit much...
I now have a great deal of sympathy for Noah
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