I almost backed out of writing this blog post. God is too big, too wonderful, that how can I describe Him and what He means to me in my little pink blog? A challenge indeed.
Easter was an excellent time for me to write it, but the busy-ness of life inevitably caught up with me, and I am close to neglecting my writing once again. Yesterday evening I received another prompt however. We went to an event held by our church, a sausage supper and viewing a DVD of the debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox about Dawkins' book, 'The God Delusion.' My fiance, himself a scientist, believes that science and faith are synonymous with one another, opposite to Dawkins who sees science and atheism that way. The debate was really interesting. Dawkins has always irritated me somewhat, but I found a new respect for him after seeing and hearing him speak. He may not hold my views, but he is passionate about his own, and I can't deny someone their right to feel that way, when I myself know what it is like to have ones fervent opinion suppressed by others. Lennox was also excellent. If I wasn't already a Christian I may have found my mind flipping round and round in circles, trying to decide who was right. Not being a scientist myself put me at a slight disadvantage when it came to understanding all components of their arguments, but at the same time being a historian helped me to instantly question the validity of some of their arguments, Dawkins in particular. Now, I am not going to go into detail of the different views of Dawkins and Lennox. That would be for a different time, and I think on a different platform to my blog, like in a discussion group or something.
What the debate last night does bring me to is God. Our God, maker and ruler of the universe - Father, Son and Spirit, three in one. Last night, in his closing remarks Lennox claimed the resurrection of Jesus Christ as the ultimate basis of his faith. Dawkins shunned this as being a poor and reasonless event to base any kind of beliefs on. Yet, that's just the thing. God, so amazing, so divine, sent His only Son into this world, to die for us, to save us from our sins, and to reconnect us with our Father in Heaven. The resurrection, if you believe in it, as I do, is of such eternal significance, such awesome power, so loaded with purpose, that it is a fallacy to suggest it is a poor and reasonless event on which to base one's faith. The death and resurrection of Christ is love. God is love.
Atheism and evolution cannot explain love. A bunch of atoms dancing together does not create love. This blog entry isn't about atheism vs Christianity, but it is about God, who is Love.
I first encountered God at the age of 5. A young and impressionable age, many would say, and I am inclined to agree. Only, I wasn't brainwashed. I was actually a pretty intelligent kid, but I knew Jesus Christ personally. There was no reason for me to question the existence of God when I knew Him, right there. The Holy Spirit residing in me, guiding my decisions, from as young an age as 5. It is true.
When I started secondary school and hit puberty, there were a lot of changes in my life. My family and I had been part of a Baptist church in our local town, services held on a Sunday morning in a school hall. However, some bad stuff happened, and my parents were very hurt by it, so we found a new church, almost a complete contrast, in the town next door - a High Church Anglican one. I still had a relationship with God, and I also had some incredible experiences at this new church, but, along with growing up, I began to absorb a load of ritualistic rule and regulations, which in some ways blighted my faith. I began to make irrational decisions e.g. if I didn't pray to God a certain way that was one of the reasons I didn't have a boyfriend. The God I know doesn't make bargains like that and has no expectations, but somehow I became caught up in a tangled web trying to do the right thing by ritualistic behaviour. My prayers changed too. I prayed unselfishly for the people I loved, but when it came to myself all I seemed to be able to ask was, "God, please give me a boyfriend. God, please make me more popular etc." I didn't, for one second, stop and think about my relationship with Him, and my growing as a Christian.
At Sixth Form I made a lot of new friends, as you will see from the below post. Some of them were also Christians, and I felt challenged and stretched by some of their ideas. I had also stopped asking for a boyfriend and popularity by this point! My family had also moved inland to the village where my dad grew up, and we started attending the local Anglican church, which was Low Church. This didn't necessarily help me much. The church had a much smaller congregation than our previous one, and the average age was at least 60. The move away from the Catholic rituals that had been part and parcel of our old church was strange, and perhaps a bit frightening.
Then, huzzah, I went to university! I joined the Christian Union, made up of all denominations, and I settled in a strong Anglican church in the town, with modern worship, excellent preachers, and wonderful, friendly people around. No demanding rituals (a format, yes, but no "you must do this, you must do that"), and no fluff either. During this time I reconnected with God big time. Once again, He was what my life was all about. Living for Him, living in His grace and love, and knowing I was unconditionally loved by Him, made for a purpose by Him, and knowing His eternal presence within me. God tore down the barriers I had imposed on Him during my teenage years. He pulled me out of the hole I was digging myself.
I realise, that this post does little to really explain God fully. I haven't justified His existence to non-believers. I haven't shown anything extraordinary about my life. I find writing about my God, my Father, my best friend, very difficult. I can talk about Him much better. Putting it all down into incoherent words like this...
I think the Bible puts it best, and here are a couple of excerpts:
God is love. This is how God showed His love among us. He sent His one and only Son into the world that we might live through Him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
1 John 4:8-10 (NIV)
O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your Name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
From the lips of children and infants You have ordained praise
because of Your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger.
When I consider Your heavens, the work of your fingers,
then moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?
You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honour.
You made him ruler over the works of Your hands; You put everything under his feet:
all the flocks and herds, and the beasts of the field,
the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas.
O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your Name in all the earth!
Psalm 8 (NIV)
Unplanned writing that just spills from my mind...
Saturday 24 April 2010
Wednesday 7 April 2010
Friends
I guess the challenge with this short series of blog entries is to write them without allowing them to become too cliched, cheesy, or schmaltzy. I will just write what I can and write it honestly, and we'll see what I can come up with.
The first topic is Friends, at present my most frequently used Label.
Friends is an interesting topic. I will tell you a story from my youth (which really isn't that long ago, even kind of ongoing). I had a lot of friends when I was a child. I was confident, related to other people with ease, and was generally kind, inviting and accommodating. Then I started secondary school and the era of puberty soon followed, and life changed a lot. Boys, often my closest friends, were to be seen as something different. The desire for popularity soon became fervently strong, and I failed miserably to achieve it.
Secondary school was an immensely tough environment. I made a tight-knit group of girlfriends in Year 7, but by Year 8 the growing pains were beginning to show, and by Year 9 full-blown bitchiness had taken centre stage, culminating in a huge row and split in the friendship group. As that summer term drew to a close, things settled down, we all made up, and the prospect of starting our GCSE classes and getting to know others in our school year group, presented a bright and rosy future before us, as we determined to pursue popularity together. Now, our little group had never been part of the 'cool' crowd - a crowd divided into two main groups, the Townies and the Crusties (in more modern terms the Chavs and the Skaters/Stoners), names and coolness bestowed upon them due to nothing more than the brands they wore - Adidas and Nike etc for the Townies, Quiksilver and Animal etc for the Crusties. So, we joined ranks with several other small friendship groups (male and female alike) that were not part of that crowd either, and we soon developed a third group, a force to be reckoned with, though never quite 'cool' enough. The problem with this new large group that I found myself in (and I'm sure this was probably true of the Townies and the Crusties), was that it was really a big clique, brimming with exclusivity, with a few of us hovering on the outside, desperate to be a part of the centre. I never got to be part of that centre. I was occasionally an object of cruel jokes, more frequently forgotten about, and fairly often stood at the receiving end of the bitchiness from the girls of the inner circle, one of whom had been part of my initial group of sweet, geeky and fun girls in Year 7.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing - whoo cliche! - but it is so true. I still look back on that period of my life with a twinge of pain for my depressed 15 year old self, but maturity and experience have also helped me see that the bitchy girls were very insecure, and created a mask of superiority to hide behind. That doesn't excuse their behaviour, but it's helpful to understand what drove them, and I am now in a position to forgive them, even though my inner teenager still aches.
Sixth Form was a revelation. Our secondary school group was split between three different colleges, which I believe was a healthy change for all of us. In my first year of Sixth Form I was still striving for popularity, hoping to break in with a different group of cool people. But by the second year I had made, and was still making, a few close, reliable, and wonderful friends, some of whom didn't know each other, so there was no formation of a large and terrifying clique. By the Summer of Love (that blissful long summer between A-Levels and starting university) I was enjoying real, meaningful friendships with a number of people, something I had only been able to dream about when secondary school ended. One of these friendships was with my fiance, and little did I know where that would eventually lead (another story for another time!)
University was quite similar in many ways. However, there were some who brought boarding school and thus their immature behaviour along with them. And frustratingly, and perhaps most hurtful of all, was my familiar hovering position in the outer circle of the student clique at the church I attended, the place where I had least expected exclusive friendship groups to develop. That is a whole other story in itself, and the point here is where I have got to now and what I have realised over these past few years about friendship.
Friendship blossoms not from shared interests (although that is usually a good starting point) but through a willingness to make sacrifices for each other. To give that extra bit of time when it's needed, to make the reason you do things together be about bringing them happiness, not gratifying yourself. It is about total acceptance of each other, whatever your circumstances. It is about laughing at random things that other people just don't find funny. It's about having deep and earnest conversations about the meaning of life, whether over tea and biscuits, or getting a little tipsy over a shared bottle of wine. It is about seeing something and smiling because it reminds you of them. And, it about the times when you haven't seen each other for ages, but when you start talking it's like one of you has just come back into the room after a quick toilet break.
Popularity is nothing. It is impossible to be liked by everyone, even more so to make people like you, and if you try then you will spread yourself too thin and you won't be any good to anyone.
My secondary school years were painful, yet throughout those times my family had a whole set of great friends, including my childhood best friend, that constantly reminded me that there were wonderful people who loved me just for being me. I have such a fantastic and eclectic bunch of friends now, all different ages, and from many walks of life. I made my closest friends at college, with a couple at university, I still have great family friends, a brilliant church family, and a stellar immediate family. And I am finally learning that I've made friends the best way all along - remaining away from the clique epicentre, as difficult as I found it at the time, has kept me down to earth and made me better for it :)
The first topic is Friends, at present my most frequently used Label.
Friends is an interesting topic. I will tell you a story from my youth (which really isn't that long ago, even kind of ongoing). I had a lot of friends when I was a child. I was confident, related to other people with ease, and was generally kind, inviting and accommodating. Then I started secondary school and the era of puberty soon followed, and life changed a lot. Boys, often my closest friends, were to be seen as something different. The desire for popularity soon became fervently strong, and I failed miserably to achieve it.
Secondary school was an immensely tough environment. I made a tight-knit group of girlfriends in Year 7, but by Year 8 the growing pains were beginning to show, and by Year 9 full-blown bitchiness had taken centre stage, culminating in a huge row and split in the friendship group. As that summer term drew to a close, things settled down, we all made up, and the prospect of starting our GCSE classes and getting to know others in our school year group, presented a bright and rosy future before us, as we determined to pursue popularity together. Now, our little group had never been part of the 'cool' crowd - a crowd divided into two main groups, the Townies and the Crusties (in more modern terms the Chavs and the Skaters/Stoners), names and coolness bestowed upon them due to nothing more than the brands they wore - Adidas and Nike etc for the Townies, Quiksilver and Animal etc for the Crusties. So, we joined ranks with several other small friendship groups (male and female alike) that were not part of that crowd either, and we soon developed a third group, a force to be reckoned with, though never quite 'cool' enough. The problem with this new large group that I found myself in (and I'm sure this was probably true of the Townies and the Crusties), was that it was really a big clique, brimming with exclusivity, with a few of us hovering on the outside, desperate to be a part of the centre. I never got to be part of that centre. I was occasionally an object of cruel jokes, more frequently forgotten about, and fairly often stood at the receiving end of the bitchiness from the girls of the inner circle, one of whom had been part of my initial group of sweet, geeky and fun girls in Year 7.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing - whoo cliche! - but it is so true. I still look back on that period of my life with a twinge of pain for my depressed 15 year old self, but maturity and experience have also helped me see that the bitchy girls were very insecure, and created a mask of superiority to hide behind. That doesn't excuse their behaviour, but it's helpful to understand what drove them, and I am now in a position to forgive them, even though my inner teenager still aches.
Sixth Form was a revelation. Our secondary school group was split between three different colleges, which I believe was a healthy change for all of us. In my first year of Sixth Form I was still striving for popularity, hoping to break in with a different group of cool people. But by the second year I had made, and was still making, a few close, reliable, and wonderful friends, some of whom didn't know each other, so there was no formation of a large and terrifying clique. By the Summer of Love (that blissful long summer between A-Levels and starting university) I was enjoying real, meaningful friendships with a number of people, something I had only been able to dream about when secondary school ended. One of these friendships was with my fiance, and little did I know where that would eventually lead (another story for another time!)
University was quite similar in many ways. However, there were some who brought boarding school and thus their immature behaviour along with them. And frustratingly, and perhaps most hurtful of all, was my familiar hovering position in the outer circle of the student clique at the church I attended, the place where I had least expected exclusive friendship groups to develop. That is a whole other story in itself, and the point here is where I have got to now and what I have realised over these past few years about friendship.
Friendship blossoms not from shared interests (although that is usually a good starting point) but through a willingness to make sacrifices for each other. To give that extra bit of time when it's needed, to make the reason you do things together be about bringing them happiness, not gratifying yourself. It is about total acceptance of each other, whatever your circumstances. It is about laughing at random things that other people just don't find funny. It's about having deep and earnest conversations about the meaning of life, whether over tea and biscuits, or getting a little tipsy over a shared bottle of wine. It is about seeing something and smiling because it reminds you of them. And, it about the times when you haven't seen each other for ages, but when you start talking it's like one of you has just come back into the room after a quick toilet break.
Popularity is nothing. It is impossible to be liked by everyone, even more so to make people like you, and if you try then you will spread yourself too thin and you won't be any good to anyone.
My secondary school years were painful, yet throughout those times my family had a whole set of great friends, including my childhood best friend, that constantly reminded me that there were wonderful people who loved me just for being me. I have such a fantastic and eclectic bunch of friends now, all different ages, and from many walks of life. I made my closest friends at college, with a couple at university, I still have great family friends, a brilliant church family, and a stellar immediate family. And I am finally learning that I've made friends the best way all along - remaining away from the clique epicentre, as difficult as I found it at the time, has kept me down to earth and made me better for it :)
Saturday 3 April 2010
Happy Birthday Daydreaming Out Loud!
Happy 1st Birthday to my blog!
I've now been blogging for a year, and in truth, I haven't written a great deal over the past 12 months.
To get me started in writing more, and more often, and in celebration of a year of blogging (however little), I am going to write 5 different entries over the coming week or so, on my top 5 tags. They are Friends, God, Family, Love and Weddings! (Although after this post, Blogging will also be up there too!)
May this signal more blogging from me in the near future, huzzah!
I've now been blogging for a year, and in truth, I haven't written a great deal over the past 12 months.
To get me started in writing more, and more often, and in celebration of a year of blogging (however little), I am going to write 5 different entries over the coming week or so, on my top 5 tags. They are Friends, God, Family, Love and Weddings! (Although after this post, Blogging will also be up there too!)
May this signal more blogging from me in the near future, huzzah!
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