This side of sanity...
Well so I am back on the right side of sanity. I spent the week putting back together what the meeting had torn apart.
With hindsight, I can see now that, no matter what I would have said, it would have been wrong. He was determined to pull me down a peg or two. Never mind though, because since then, I had a lot of time to think and pray. I just spent two days at a friend's flat, who has gone away for the weekend, really seeking God in all this. During the course of the weekend, I picked up a book that was lying around the flat "Twentysomething" by Margaret Feinberg. Here is what I found:
“Life isn’t about the big break. It is about a series of little breaks, or opportunities, that God entrusts to us. They come at odd times, usually unexpected, and rarely without increased responsibilities. You have to pay your dues. You have to pay a lot of them. And in the end, the difference between those who make it and those who don’t, is simple: You have to decide to never give up.”
Well that one shouted to me loud and clear.
The other thing I found is the following, from the same book:
“I can do things on my own. I can defend myself, I can accomplish things. Or I can choose to place myself before God in humble dependence, knowing that I need him. I am learning to lean against his breast as the disciple did at the last supper"
Now this one isn't as straightforward as the last, but it was speaking to me about the need to not defend myself. To let the Lord defend me because that's his job. My job is to stay faithful and pursue the calling he put on my life. His job is to make the road straight and to defend me when others accuse me.
So all in all I feel a lot more together than I did on Monday - sorry about some of the words in Monday's post. I thought about changing them/cutting them, but then I thought no, this is meant to be a "true" record of my journey into the CofE. So true you'll get - with all the ugly bits thrown in too.
Update
This is a brief update for all of you who prayed (thank you for praying by the way!). The meeting went exceedingly crap, nothing I could say was right, he acted like a self rightous prig, patronised me unbelievably and basically reduced me to jelly (not that I let him see that - didn't give him the satisfaction). I drove back, went into the church and for an hour did what Jesus tells us to do - prayed for my enemies. Then I went to see my vicar, dissolved on him for about 45 minutes and went on to some friends' house, dissolved on them.
Off to bed now.
Love you all!
Prayer Request
Ok - I have a prayer request. On Monday, at 2 PM (British time) I am going to see the Diocesan Director of Ordinands, for my second meeting. This is an important meeting, as basically I will find out if there is any point in trying to get in to training this academic year, or if I will have to resign myself to the fact that it will be another year before God will allow me to move into that part of my life.
To tell the truth, I am frightened. If it's a "nay" then that means that there will be another year of "in betweens" and accepting charity (good for my pride ;-) ). And I'm not sure how well I will cope with another year of in-betweens (never mind the charity).
If it's a "yay" then the pressure point is going to be the selection conference (two day conference with 3 interviews, team work excercises, aptitude tests, etc) and what if I get rejected? LOL so in a way I can't win. I'll be nervous whichever way it goes.
So I would appreciate prayers for peace of mind and for God's will to be done. Even though that sounds like a very "holy" request, I have come to the point where I don't really want to do anything that isn't God's will. So if it's God's will that I hang around here for another year, then so be it.
Would you also pray for wisdom and insight for the guy - his name is Peter. Thank you all so much!!
Valentine's Day
By God's grace, I forgot that it *was* Valentine's day - so I survived without feeling lonely. And yesterday I had a great date, the most fantastic date I had in a long time - - - with Jesus!!
I found the following on a website, which accurately describes how I feel when I'm madly in love:
I ran up the door
opened the stairs
said my pajamas
and put on my prayers
turned off my bed
tumbled into my light
and all because he kissed me good-night!
(Author Unknown)
Another reason not to trust Microsoft...
Trust me guys, this really is worth doing!
1. Go to http://mappoint.msn.com/DirectionsFind.aspx
2. In the Start section, select "Norway" from the listbox and
enter "Haugesund" into the "City" field
3. In the End section, select "Norway" from the listbox and
enter "Trondheim" into the "City" field
4. Click on "Get Directions"
5. Sit back and enjoy the journey ...
Courtesy of my mate Paul. It made my day, thanks Paul. :-)
Firefox or A Post for Lee
I like
Firefox because it's supported by my online bank (Safari isn't). I also like Firefox because you can have more than one website open in one Firefox window (using tabs - that's quite cool).
Other than that, I like it because it resembles Internet Explorer in its toolbar etc (I know I know, old habits die hard).
And, with Safari (as well as IE for Mac) I had a lot of trouble with online ordering - secure sites seem to have trouble with the mac protocol every now and then. I haven't come across that (yet) with Firefox.
If anyone else has anything to contribute to the above, do so using the comments link (Paul?).
Uh-Oh...
So we bought a new cable that would mean our foldback didn't have to be connected by four extension leads. Which is a good idea in itself.
Only we discovered that whoever assembled that cable, cabled it up wrongly (live was where earth should be and earth where live should be for all you geeks out there. So we sent 240V through somewhere where there should never be 240V...into one of the foldback channels) and therefore, when we plugged it in, there was this loud noise, and a very strong burning smell from the mixing desk. Bye bye mixing desk. :-(
Monetary donations to my manager, please.
Oh and my Mac was plugged in too, as we were going to record the service - thankfully the audio in didn't suffer. (Thank you Lord!!)
Testing Testing
I just downloaded
Firefox for Mac, and it lets me edit this text (as well as insert hyperlinks). So now I can
bold text or write in
italics whereas before I couldn't - Safari wouldn't let me. Or maybe it was just me and I couldn't figure it out. But whatever it was, the icons for text editing are there now, whereas with Safari (and "even" Internet Explorer for Mac) they weren't.
So whey hey - now I can play.
I can change text colour or
- bullet
- point
- all
- kinds
- of
- trivia
I can type reeeeally biiiiiig or
really small
I can change my font to all kinds of different ones - well a few anyway
and I can align text right as well as left.
or centre it - great huh?
Panic Stations
Yesterday I went to a funeral. The circumstances were very tragic, it was the son of one of our church members, who died in a car crash at the age of 23. The crem was packed out - people standing outside.
But what really hit me right between the eyes was the fact that, in a few years, I will have to stand up front there and do the funeral service bit. I never even considered that before (call me ignorant if you like). I mean, I was aware that funerals would be part of the "job" but being confronted with it like that was a totally different matter. Frightening, but also - how do you put it? - encouraging. If I can be of a bit of comfort to people in impossible situations like that, then the whole thing would already be worth it.
What really frightens me is baptisms - what if I drop the baby??? ;-)
