Time to stop

I can be my own worst enemy. I try so hard sometimes to do the right thing for the wrong reason, so it turns out wrong, or I try to do the wrong thing for the right reason so it works out wrong or I try to do the right thing for the right reason and it turns out wrong, or i try to do the wrong thing for the wrong reason and it turns out wrong or I try to do the right thing and end up doing the wrong thing. I try so bloody hard sometimes and no matter why, what, when, where and how, it just goes wrong. Basically I'm saying I try too hard and I really don't need to try at all because what I'm built for I'm built for and what comes can be dealt with so long as I'm putting my dependance in the right place. If I get this through my head and into my heart anytime soon, I'll let you know, but I may just be off to contradict myself again by trying too hard. I'll find out in 5 minutes when my lunch break ends.

Shifting

Life is changing so rapidly around me lately that I find it hard to keep up sometimes. I feel like everythings settled and relaxed and then every now and then one thing happens that makes me realise things are different to how I thought they were. It's not anything big or bad, just little comfy things that I'd gotten used to have changed. I guess I haven't really settled into the flat or neighbourhood properly yet (though decorating, church and work are helping with that), but Geoff and me haven't fully set up all our little routines yet. We're still trying things out.

I've started my new job and am in training, but I haven't gone into my team yet and going downstairs and actually doing the job I'm finding unsettling. I'm finding the changes we're making around the home a bit unsettling as although in a right necesary, I'd gotten used to the flat in it's decrepit state while being here all day for 10 weeks solid. I'm really glad that we are doing it up, and it does feel more like ours for doing it, which is comforting, but the same time, unsettling.

I'm finding it frustrating that even though a full 3 months after my operation I'm still not near full fitness.

I'm trying to diet, and although I'm pleased my bodys changing it's just another thing thats changing.

There are so many other things going on too some of which are far more serious and I just don't know where it's all going.

It's just dawned on me that I'm feeling unsettled because I'm placing my faith in the wrong place again. I'm a banana.

Prayer request

Hi everyone,

Would really appreciate anybody who reads this, could they pray for my 15 year old cousin Stephanie. From what I can make of her, she's a girl who's scared, lost, doesn't know who she is and has so much crap that has gone on in her life she doesn't know what's what anymore (if she ever knew in the first place). She really needs a lot of loving into a different place in her life, because I know she can have better.

Thanks,

Jenna
xxx

Connecting

Hi,

Geoff and me have started going to a new church near where we're living in Ipswich and I think after the break we've had from church and everything that's happened inbetween, I'm just enjoying the niceness of being in fellowship with some other Christians again. It's going to take a while to get to know everyone and find our place in the church and find out what the church is about, but I'm just enjoying being part of that family again.

I've been thinking about fellowship and how it is an important part of Christian life. I mean we're all supposed to be part of one body and how can we really be that if we're completely disconnected from the rest of the body? In this, I also recognise that it's important for each individual church unit to be in fellowship with other churches so that we are all really connected.

At the same time as being in fellowship with each other, we need to be connecting with Jesus the head of our church. The brain sends signals to the rest of the body to tell it what to do and if we're not connected to Jesus, we're not going to know what it is He has for us to do.

It feels really good to be in church again, to meet with other people to worship, pray, receive teaching, to be strenghtened and encouraged. I'm looking forward to getting more involved.

Promises

I was flicking through my notebook today. I have two pictures in there, one of some peaches on a peach tree and the other of some flowers on a magnolia tree. I looked at the one of the peach tree and it's silly really because what hit me about the picture was how real the tree looked.

I think lately and probably mainly because of fear i've been failing to grasp hold of just how real the promises that God has made to me are. It's not that i didn't believe they were real but I guess I just didn't real grasp hold of what those promises really meant (I still don't really know if I do fully, but wow did it hit me).

It's funny sometimes how things just don't seem real. I guess I've been going through a lot and have been a bit scared of getting hurt. But I don't want to live a life lived in fear. It's time for me to start trusting, believing and taking risks again.

Seasons and Hope

There are definately life seasons, and I've been praying about it a lot lately, because everytime I have spoken to someone about how they are doing this year I hear troubles, trials, heartache, heartbreak, depression and struggle.

Thankfully I do believe the season is changing and it's evident in the changes that are happening not just in my own life but in the lives of my friends too. There are lots of people moving home, some more positive things that people having been praying or wishing for happening, and people making big life changes, taking big steps and decisions about their lives. For the most part this seems very positive to me. There are bound to be things that go wrong, or should I say don't go to plan in this season, but I think miraculously despite all the horrible things that have happened, people seem to have found something new to hope for.

Hope's been a big topic with me lately and it's been something I've been praying for for people, as there seems to have been a lot of hopelessness going around.

Something I've definately been learning about hope though, the difference between false hope and true hope. Sometimes I think we can get so bogged down with false hope, that is hope for things that aren't going to come to fruition, we can miss the real hope that will and I think is at least for the most part, be so much better. It's quite scary when I think if I hadn't let myself be stripped of some of my false hopes, I might not be engaged to be married. So be careful where you place your hope.

I think a lot of people have lost some of the hopes they had this year, but it's quite exciting when I think about the new hopes they might now be able to recognise or be able to find. I'm so looking forward to this fresh season.

War

I've been challenged a lot lately on my perception of war. Normally, when I think about war I think about killing, I then think killing is wrong, then think I can't commit murder and go from that to I will never fight in a war.

But that's been changing lately.

I supposed it started with a question. One of the Christians I know told me that if he was called to fight for his country, he'd do it because he'd think not to do his duty would be wrong in the eyes of God. This was from someone I have great respect for and it troubled me when I've always maintained that killing is always wrong. So I asked God what would be the right thing to do.

I've looked in the bible at King David. He was a man with a great heart and passion for God. He made his mistakes, but he sought God on so many things and was blessed and favoured greatly by God. He was also a man that went to war and fought and killed in battle. He killed and I quote "thousands" of other men. He even killed a giant. Unmistakeably he was a man that went into battle with God at his side.

I look at the service men and women of this country and I have been taught to honour them for their sacrifice and it's always been a sacrifice that has pierced me. That so many people have given up there lives fighting for our country. And I have thought of the freedom I have now that I owe to each of them. A freedom that some people of this world don't know. I am and have always felt immense respect and gratitude for what they have done and for what the service men and woman serving today do for our freedom. This has also made me struggle with the idea that killing is always wrong.

I was asked at work this week by one of my colleagues if I thought war was wrong. I told him that i don't think so but still didn't think i could kill someone.

What really did the turn around for me funnily wnough was watching Saving Private Ryan. I've seen the film before but it didn't challenge me this way before. It's set in the 2nd world war and there's a scene where a soldier who joined as a Communications Officer thinking he'd never have to face combat is sitting on the stairs while he listens to one of the men who have fought and killed to keep him and the rest of the unit alive be killed by an enemy soldier. Moreover, he's sitting on the stairs with a gun in his hand and two strings of ammo round his neck. I think this character was half paralysed by fear and half battling over his own conviction that killing was wrong. When I watched this I felt angry and I questioned myself. If I was in his position could I sit there and do nothing? Or would I sit there paralysed by shock and fear? I no longer questioned what the I belive right thing to do was.

I've been told by some non-believers that they believe that the Bible contradicts itself. Whilst I don't agree, I think confusion comes because there are so many areas in life that just aren't as black and white as we'd like them to be. Just aren't as simple. And I think that's expressed in the Bible, because I know that God gets the grey areas.

So today I'd be happy to call myself a soldier and fight for the freedom we've been given today. And I'd pray that God would go ahead of me and I pray that he goes ahead of each of the soldiers fighting for our country today.