One of these was given to me in November and one I got just this week.
When you're tired, go to bed. When you're weary, go to God.
This lesson hasn't fully absorbed into my life but it's getting there. Sometimes I have trouble figuring which situation is which and sometimes it's actually both, which is hard. But it's been good and was very liberating when it first reached my ears.
Give thanks in all circumstances.
I remember the first time this verse (part verse?) was discussed with me and how that preposition was a key one. It's in all circumstances, not for all. That, in a way, means the circmstance is irrelevant, you know? No matter what _____. Toutefois mon coeur dira---
The reason this verse meant so much to me THIS time I heard it (it's not the second) was that the person who said it to me is (a) someone who I deeply respect, (b) someone whose every word I hang on when they're speaking (orating) and (c) someone who first started doing this after his second miscarriage.
I hung on each word of the tale and the rest of what he was saying and then he kinda stopped. I took a moment to process and figure out what I was going to (consent to) apply from what I'd just heard. The dominant thought was, "Well, if HE can do it then I certainly can." What worse things can happen to you? When would it be harder to give thanks? C'est great.
I actually started it this weekend and it has served me AMAZINGLY well. I'm very impressed. He said, "Take the time on STInt to make a habit of this and it will serve you well the rest of your life." I'm quite surprized by how quickly it came to me after the first instance -- intance of giving thanks in an unpleasant circumstance. Yeh. It's good.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Monday, November 17, 2008
the start of a new week
A month later, here I go again.
I wanted to say that today our whole team was on campus with a few of the Newcastle Agape Staff members who came down by train just for the day. They met with us for about the same reason we went to visit the London teams in the last week of October - to see how it's done when you're in later phases of movement building.
It was cool to have all seven of us on campus at the same time. I feel more effective when it's all of us at once (instead of just me or me and a partner). But, I wasn't excpecting for today to be so fruitful. It was fruitful for how we were able to talk with students, it was fruitful for the conversations and devotionals we had after sharing and it was fruitful for all of what God did in me, in my heart and my head throughout the whole day.
I have been half-heartedly asking for help with evangelism and with prayer.
I have wanted vision, wanted to connect with student and to connect properly with students. I want to REALLY get in there and to feel what it was that properly called me to student ministry. And today was good. I'm very happy with today. I have much to process.
My notebook was on fire today...Listening to Chip and Matt talk I was thinking constantly, "Wow, wow, wow," at the things that were being shared with me and impressed upon me by the H Spizzo.
This is good because I have been praying that I would feel effective. I have wanted to know that our labour is not in vain. Today I understand what's going on (at least for today).
Today I understood that it is better to give God your all in EACH situation rather than to be a clock narc. Yes, I become obsessed with using EVERY minute designated to a single task - like on-campus evangelism.
Today was a different day. I feel like I took a vacation or something. I felt really happy to be home at the end of th day. We left the house at about twenty minutes after 12 and returned around 7.30. That's not an extremely long day but it felt good to spend so many hours on campus, even though more hours were spent in meeting and praying than were in talking with students.
I wonder what tomorrow will be like.
I wanted to say that today our whole team was on campus with a few of the Newcastle Agape Staff members who came down by train just for the day. They met with us for about the same reason we went to visit the London teams in the last week of October - to see how it's done when you're in later phases of movement building.
It was cool to have all seven of us on campus at the same time. I feel more effective when it's all of us at once (instead of just me or me and a partner). But, I wasn't excpecting for today to be so fruitful. It was fruitful for how we were able to talk with students, it was fruitful for the conversations and devotionals we had after sharing and it was fruitful for all of what God did in me, in my heart and my head throughout the whole day.
I have been half-heartedly asking for help with evangelism and with prayer.
I have wanted vision, wanted to connect with student and to connect properly with students. I want to REALLY get in there and to feel what it was that properly called me to student ministry. And today was good. I'm very happy with today. I have much to process.
My notebook was on fire today...Listening to Chip and Matt talk I was thinking constantly, "Wow, wow, wow," at the things that were being shared with me and impressed upon me by the H Spizzo.
This is good because I have been praying that I would feel effective. I have wanted to know that our labour is not in vain. Today I understand what's going on (at least for today).
Today I understood that it is better to give God your all in EACH situation rather than to be a clock narc. Yes, I become obsessed with using EVERY minute designated to a single task - like on-campus evangelism.
Today was a different day. I feel like I took a vacation or something. I felt really happy to be home at the end of th day. We left the house at about twenty minutes after 12 and returned around 7.30. That's not an extremely long day but it felt good to spend so many hours on campus, even though more hours were spent in meeting and praying than were in talking with students.
I wonder what tomorrow will be like.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
well THAT'S different...
It was bound to happen.
My arrogant Western self wants to make a list of all the things that I can't seem to get used to (I know it's still early) over here in the UK.
Item #1 - the traffic lights
Most of the lights I've noticed have the same red-amber-green tower from top to bottom like ours. But where we would go from red directly to green so traffic can move forward, they throw the amber in the middle like on a race track. I notice this most, of course, when I'm in a bus and so I have an inward chuckle every time I think of city buses on a race track.
I dunno if this is a better way to control traffic. It sure doesn't make the roads feel safe (PEDESTRIANS BEWARE) but maybe it's better THIS way than it could have been...which is a scary thought.
My arrogant Western self wants to make a list of all the things that I can't seem to get used to (I know it's still early) over here in the UK.
Item #1 - the traffic lights
Most of the lights I've noticed have the same red-amber-green tower from top to bottom like ours. But where we would go from red directly to green so traffic can move forward, they throw the amber in the middle like on a race track. I notice this most, of course, when I'm in a bus and so I have an inward chuckle every time I think of city buses on a race track.
I dunno if this is a better way to control traffic. It sure doesn't make the roads feel safe (PEDESTRIANS BEWARE) but maybe it's better THIS way than it could have been...which is a scary thought.
Monday, October 6, 2008
language, heat and border lines
It is 3.51am and I'd like to sleep soon enough so I hope this post doesn't take too long. "Why didn't you just wait til morning," you ask. The answer is, I don't want to say no to creative output when it hits me. I give in because "later" takes the edge off. "Later" work is rarely as good.
Language
I'm very intimidated by what I hear. Anytime I walk up to a til or am getting off a bus or am put in some other non-negotiable human interaction situation, I consider how Canadian (but not Canadian - "American", "North American" or "not from here-ian") I sound and how much of a UK accent I can get away with. Not UK - English.
Last night I was thinking with an accent. : This reminds me of what it was like when I first moved to Montreal three years ago. Thinking in French is all fine and dandy but, given my limited fluency with the language, it make thinking EXTREMELY SLOW for me and that is not something I can stand for, no suh. So, at least I'm still thinking in English. Now it just belongs to the Queen.
Strangely enough, I do have the same language barrier in my head, however. I do think that when I talk to people they'll look down on me because I don't know how to speak the language.
que?
Heat
I discovered today that the radiators in this house are NOT a joke and NOT a tease and they DO actually work once you turn them on and you c'n feel it! Yes! I don't deal well with perpetual cold. Apparently my housemates do and they have turned off the heat but I feel better about the up-coming hiver.
Border Lines
Today, while watching some auditions for Britain's Got Talent (BGT) on YouTube, the idea of the United Kingdom - in the face of "STInt to Scotland" - was solidified for me.
Since I arrived I have been wondering, each time I hear an English accent, "Why not them?" (I haven't heard too many Irish, to be sure.) I have also been trying to read how these people of different nations feel about one another by the way they interact. Britain's Got Talent has contestants from four different countries (more from some than others, of course) but they act as though it's one nation and just different ...areas, or something. I know my understanding is shallow yet but I gotta start somewhere.
In the shops, I hear about 50% of the clerks being from England and the other half from Scotland. Most of the Scottish folk seem to be from the south end of the country and I don't think I've heard anyone yet who was unintelligible. Well, there was this one guy, who I actually met when I was here last year, who talks with such an intense dead pan (and he is actually funny, thankfully) and low tone and huge lack of interest in using his face muscles who I was a-struggling to understand but that's OK. At least knowing him meant I could say, What? and, Pardon? all I wanted.
What I wanted to get at, though, was that we're only here in THIS nation (we, the Canadian Power to Change interns) because they were the most understaffed from all the UK. Canada wanted to partner with the United Kingdom and asked them, "Where do you want us?" As it turns out, it's really not AS MUCH about the Scots as I thought. And this actually relieves me, to be frank. Let's be serious - on campus maybe 2/5 are Scottish, 3/10 English and 3/10 Irish. But you know what? That, again, is a shallow, year-old diagnosis so we'll give it time.
The point is that it's all of them and I'm glad. I listen to people and I watch them and I think THEM and US, very intensely. This will diminish as I stop being such a baby but what I mean is that I'm not distinguishing by nationality, not like I had to back home. "Back home"... some other Canuck really over-used that phrase tonight. I hope I don't end up that way.
4.08...not bad!
Language
I'm very intimidated by what I hear. Anytime I walk up to a til or am getting off a bus or am put in some other non-negotiable human interaction situation, I consider how Canadian (but not Canadian - "American", "North American" or "not from here-ian") I sound and how much of a UK accent I can get away with. Not UK - English.
Last night I was thinking with an accent. : This reminds me of what it was like when I first moved to Montreal three years ago. Thinking in French is all fine and dandy but, given my limited fluency with the language, it make thinking EXTREMELY SLOW for me and that is not something I can stand for, no suh. So, at least I'm still thinking in English. Now it just belongs to the Queen.
Strangely enough, I do have the same language barrier in my head, however. I do think that when I talk to people they'll look down on me because I don't know how to speak the language.
que?
Heat
I discovered today that the radiators in this house are NOT a joke and NOT a tease and they DO actually work once you turn them on and you c'n feel it! Yes! I don't deal well with perpetual cold. Apparently my housemates do and they have turned off the heat but I feel better about the up-coming hiver.
Border Lines
Today, while watching some auditions for Britain's Got Talent (BGT) on YouTube, the idea of the United Kingdom - in the face of "STInt to Scotland" - was solidified for me.
Since I arrived I have been wondering, each time I hear an English accent, "Why not them?" (I haven't heard too many Irish, to be sure.) I have also been trying to read how these people of different nations feel about one another by the way they interact. Britain's Got Talent has contestants from four different countries (more from some than others, of course) but they act as though it's one nation and just different ...areas, or something. I know my understanding is shallow yet but I gotta start somewhere.
In the shops, I hear about 50% of the clerks being from England and the other half from Scotland. Most of the Scottish folk seem to be from the south end of the country and I don't think I've heard anyone yet who was unintelligible. Well, there was this one guy, who I actually met when I was here last year, who talks with such an intense dead pan (and he is actually funny, thankfully) and low tone and huge lack of interest in using his face muscles who I was a-struggling to understand but that's OK. At least knowing him meant I could say, What? and, Pardon? all I wanted.
What I wanted to get at, though, was that we're only here in THIS nation (we, the Canadian Power to Change interns) because they were the most understaffed from all the UK. Canada wanted to partner with the United Kingdom and asked them, "Where do you want us?" As it turns out, it's really not AS MUCH about the Scots as I thought. And this actually relieves me, to be frank. Let's be serious - on campus maybe 2/5 are Scottish, 3/10 English and 3/10 Irish. But you know what? That, again, is a shallow, year-old diagnosis so we'll give it time.
The point is that it's all of them and I'm glad. I listen to people and I watch them and I think THEM and US, very intensely. This will diminish as I stop being such a baby but what I mean is that I'm not distinguishing by nationality, not like I had to back home. "Back home"... some other Canuck really over-used that phrase tonight. I hope I don't end up that way.
4.08...not bad!
Sunday, October 5, 2008
First of many...
I'm not quite sure how this thing is going to be formatted so I might change it as I go along but two things I'm keeping in mind: (1) I am keeping this blog for the benefit of people back home who are interested in what's what, and (2) I am keeping this blog for my own sake, that I might externally process and also have a way of consistently cataloguing/scrapbooking what's what.
On Air Canada Flight 858 the strangest thing happened. I couldn't fall asleep. I definitely had only three hours' sleep the night before and a three-hour nap and on top of this, I pride myself on being able to sleep on floors, tables, chairs (even once four stacks of middle school plastic chairs...but that was by accident)....so airplaners should have been a piece of cake. My body was just NOT cooperating. But that's OK. We made it.
And, I got to see Kung Fu Panda (2008) which was very funny/entertaining. I like Jack Black. He is cool. I honestly thought that movie was going to be crap...I avoided it for a long while. But I liked it! Film adverts these days are doing crappy jobs...they appeal to the weirdest (low-brow-innest) crowds out there... same I will say for The Bank Job which I watched earlier on Saturday and was completely suprized by.
bmi (I don't know what that stands for but it's an airline) lost one of my suitcases. The consensus is that they left it at Heathrow and the clerk with bmi told me this is not an uncommon occurrence. The case showed up today. I am inordinately pleased. ("inordinately" - can I use that word?)
It's hard to get used to being the foreigner...being so obviously the foreigner, lest I stay silent the whole time. At least in the aeroports I could show my RED passport instead of the blue one and fool some people. I hope the novelty wears off soon enough.
Best surprize yet - Hobbe, the guy who's been staying in my room while the boys' paperwork for their flat is processed - offered me the portion of the rent he would have paid for being in this place these last 17 days. This makes me happy. It was on the shuttle from the aeroport that I discovered he'd been there and I REALLY was not pleased with the idea that I had been paying rent for him when he be fully capable of paying, himself. "Fully capable" because he wasn't paying rent elsewhere so that portion of his budget was just sitting in his pocket.
I was trying to figure out HOW to ask for it or WHETHER I should ask for it...and then it was volunteered. I was pleased. Anyway, this post's been sitting as a draft for far to long so here's to publishing!
On Air Canada Flight 858 the strangest thing happened. I couldn't fall asleep. I definitely had only three hours' sleep the night before and a three-hour nap and on top of this, I pride myself on being able to sleep on floors, tables, chairs (even once four stacks of middle school plastic chairs...but that was by accident)....so airplaners should have been a piece of cake. My body was just NOT cooperating. But that's OK. We made it.
And, I got to see Kung Fu Panda (2008) which was very funny/entertaining. I like Jack Black. He is cool. I honestly thought that movie was going to be crap...I avoided it for a long while. But I liked it! Film adverts these days are doing crappy jobs...they appeal to the weirdest (low-brow-innest) crowds out there... same I will say for The Bank Job which I watched earlier on Saturday and was completely suprized by.
bmi (I don't know what that stands for but it's an airline) lost one of my suitcases. The consensus is that they left it at Heathrow and the clerk with bmi told me this is not an uncommon occurrence. The case showed up today. I am inordinately pleased. ("inordinately" - can I use that word?)
It's hard to get used to being the foreigner...being so obviously the foreigner, lest I stay silent the whole time. At least in the aeroports I could show my RED passport instead of the blue one and fool some people. I hope the novelty wears off soon enough.
Best surprize yet - Hobbe, the guy who's been staying in my room while the boys' paperwork for their flat is processed - offered me the portion of the rent he would have paid for being in this place these last 17 days. This makes me happy. It was on the shuttle from the aeroport that I discovered he'd been there and I REALLY was not pleased with the idea that I had been paying rent for him when he be fully capable of paying, himself. "Fully capable" because he wasn't paying rent elsewhere so that portion of his budget was just sitting in his pocket.
I was trying to figure out HOW to ask for it or WHETHER I should ask for it...and then it was volunteered. I was pleased. Anyway, this post's been sitting as a draft for far to long so here's to publishing!
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)