financial security pffft!

Friday last week was quite a momentous day in the life of the Spybeys. Mark got his exam results; the verdict of which would have had ramifications on his job, our financial security, our lives, (also its the last day of my current job-share partner. I've only ever shared the job with her so twill be really very different without her - but that's an aside).

The last couple of months, pretty much since Mark told me a couple of weeks before his resit that he thought he would probably pass it 3rd time round (this was just before his second attempt!) I decided that I could live without the old financial security. I think in theory I could always say that but faced with prospect of insecurity I realised it was true. It was quite free-ing really. I realise I had absolutely no worries about having enough money because God has provided for me time and time again.

Like when my dad lost his job of 24 years when I was 16, when I spent summers unemployed until I got to the last few pounds and then got a temp job just when I needed it the most, getting a job in the tearoom when Mark and I got married and the two of us surviving on his earnings was going to be a stretch. I wasn't desperately in need any of those times. (when are we ever in our comfortable western society?) But still God was gracious enough to provide for us nonetheless.

Is this what it means to know the secret of being content...?

As it happens he did pass (!! - that was a total miracle just so you know, since he thought that exam had gone worse than his first attempt), but I'm not going to let the secret of being content slip through my fingers. Knowing Jesus, being loved by him, living life with him and all the adventures that throws up:- that's good enough for me!

A pretty place to visit

If you'd like to visit the Isle of Mull, some advice for you:

- Mull is an island but it's still quite big. Booking one B&B on the south west of the island and another on the north when you're on bikes and not super-strong cyclists, is not a good idea. (thank goodness for googlemaps, it saved us just in time!)

- Mull is pretty but very hilly. Therefore, cycling long distances having not cycled for a while can be very painful especially when cycling against the wind.

- Don't trust the weather forecast. Fortunately we had it the right way round. Tis always nice when the weather forecast says nothing but "thundery showers" the day before you leave and you are pleasantly surprised whenever there's a patch of blue sky and even more delighted when there's nearly a whole day and a bit of sunshine (not to dissimilar to daily life in Glasgow really!)

- Try the cheese. It's yuuum!

I was tidying our room the other day and I found these (two of four, I don't know what happened to the other two) ...

In case you were wondering, yes both these cards are for me, and no I am neither a nephew nor a gran.

From some of my Chinese elt students of very low-level English. I love them :)

paranoia

Being married to a man who loves to talk about future plans, dreams and loves idea-ising, I have quickly discovered that I am very much a woman of the present. I can barely face thinking about tomorrow without feeling my stomach churning, let alone next year, let alone 5 years down the line. In one sense, this living in the present thing seems to work well for me. Not only can I justify it with bible verses pretty well but I certainly live a pretty full busy mostly happy life.

But you have to talk about the future sometimes. And my fear of this has at times bordered on the ridiculous. To the point of not wanting to talk about a coming year when Mark needed to book holidays in advance. I am getting better at this kind of thing.

But the deep-rooted fear is still there and it's fear of failure. I'm afraid of making "the wrong plans", afraid of messing up. My head can barely cope with the idea of me being older and doing "scarier" things that "older" people (and people my own age) do! Mainly because I'm convinced that the me I know now, wouldn't be able to cope in those situations.

Why am I bringing this up today of all days...? What has this got to do with Easter Sunday?

"Because He lives, I can face tomorrow.
Because He lives, all fear is gone.
Because I know he holds the future.
And life is worth the living.
Just because He lives."

I've had those old hymn lyrics in my head all day.

It's not just because "He lives", it's that he died and rose again - that's a big deal! But what does Jesus rising from the dead have to do with my future and life in this world? At least some people probably know that generally Christians say that they don't have to fear death because they know that by dying on the cross, Jesus simultaneously defeated death and took the punishment meant for us so that we can have eternal life - life beyond physical death (heaven and all that). But it's more than just that.

Jesus died and rose and because of this: I am completely set free from sin and guilty and shame - that doesn't mean past sin is forgiven. It includes present and future. And it means that he's gradually changing my default setting which had once been set to messing up to living a life of grace and hope and joy and love (I like this new life very much!).

And... I get to be in relationship with GOD. I can talk to him, hear him, know that He is always with me. This is BIG! He has enormous love and grace and patience for my weaknesses AND he knows and "holds the future" AND he helps me through it; leads me by the hand through thick and thin. (AND AND AND...)

I can trust him absolutely. I have trusted him thus far, and yes bad things have happened, tough things that at the time I haven't been able to understand, some of which I still don't understand. But even when I've felt I couldn't cope, I have got through because he's helped me. I look back now and think, min a few years ago I never would have imagined being capable of doing all the things I do day to day now.

Jesus died and rose again. YAAAAASSSSSSSS!!

experimenting with a new look

a spot of creative insanity

Did a lot of praying last week with our church. 24 hours for 7 days = 168 hours. The concept, championed by these people, involves a bunch of people who love Jesus and believe he hears and answers us, getting a room and filling it with lots of creative things to help pray, and fill up every hour of however many days of time speaking to and listening to God. "Why do it?!" you may ask, which is a reasonable question. It does sound rather insane, and it is a little insane, especially when you're getting up to go to the prayer room at 2am. But it's because we care and because (even more so) we believe that God cares. He cares enough to hear, he cares enough to answer, he cares enough to fix broken hearts and lives... The challenge then is not to stop crying out to him in hope and love and faith once the week is over.

And... I love it! I love the combination of the creative and crazy determination. I love the sense of togetherness it induces. Passing on the proverbial baton from person to person, filling up all the hours together as a church, seeing the hearts and passionate prayers painted and post-it-noted up all over the walls. It's about fighting a battle together. And it's beautiful!

An urban afternoon out

Trawling the old blog posts which I wrote and never posted I found this - written in draft back in October. Sadly Mark didn't pass that exam, so we will have to repeat the trip after he sits it again (in May)!

Picture the scene. It's the day after Mark has his last accountancy exam. He's off work. I'm off work. We have planned for a wee trip to a beautiful loch, or some nice hill somewhere for some fresh air, a good climb, purty scenery. Instead we unintentionally catch up on some much needed zzzzs, surfacing around midday. We still wanted to go somewhere new but didn't really have time to go far as I was meant to be playing a gig that night. So we hop on a train for 10 minutes and arrive at the other end of town - the East End (dumdumDUM)!

It's not somewhere either of us have spent a lot of time. Although at one point I was going through to Parkhead roughly once a week to visit, get fed by and tutor an asylum seeker friend in everything from languages to computer programming. But it turns out the East End is a pretty interesting place, completely different vibe to the west end for sure, but also the south side or in the north where I work. We didn't quite follow this walk but we were inspired by it. Although I have to say, labelling Belgrove (allegedly one of the most unpleasant hostels you could end up in, in Glasgow) as "fabulous" and "Art Deco" did in my mind take it a little too far.

So we wandered about, saw the interesting clock tower and some of the derelict factories, noticed hidden studios and other gems, passed Celtic Park, had a nice wee chat with a lady in a burger van, had a couple of rolls and sausage, Mark had some Irn Bru. Well, when I say "had" I mean, walked down the street swigging his can with great show and pride (I tell you, the boy is just desperate to be Scottish!) Talking of Irn Bru, I have never in my life seen so many deals on Irn Bru cans in shop windows. Even the local fruit and veg shop brandished a hand-written sign - "4 Irn Bru cans for £1.10"! Had a very cheap tea in a huge mug. There are few things that irritate me more than food made to look "exquisite" which leaves your stomach making noises like an aggravated elephant, this includes tiny teacups of tea. Wandered through the Forge Shopping Centre - big place, easy to get lost - and caught the bus home just before it started to chuck it down with rain.

So yes - East End of Glasgow - great place. Despite the rep, it's still well worth a visit!

patter at the concert halls

I don't like working evenings or weekends, it may be a hassle to work around my daily routine, I occasionally enjoy the music and sometimes have to deal with some lunatic drunks but I kept my concert halls job on for one good reason - I love the variety of people I meet and get to work with.

The other day (while Mark was away in Dumfries and I was missing him a lot) I was very humbled when I chatted to a girl whose cohabiting boyfriend had moved away for a job as he wasn't able to find work locally when he graduated. They'd had to move out of their flat which they had furnished themselves and had to put all their furniture into storage because she couldn't afford to pay the rent herself. And I thought I had it hard!

This evening I learnt that Polish hairdressers who work in the East End often end up changing their names so people will actually let them cut their hair otherwise they think they won't understand them. Fact. From an East End man who knows a lot of Polish hairdresser students.

Love the people and love their patter :)

Glasgow rain

We are a nation of moaners, of that I am absolutely certain. And whether I like it or not, if I'm completely honest I definitely succumb more often than not - either it's the weather, public transport being late, having the cold for the nth time, Mark's work sending him away on an occasional basis, or something a bit more serious - it's so easy to grumble. Opposite of moaning - being grateful I think. IT says in the bible - give thanks in all circumstances - now that's pretty hard! Easy when it's glowing sun and golden halo-ed trees all around me but when I'm walking down the street with ice cold rain and wind battering my face (like I will be in about 5 minutes time) it's another matter. Totally dampens my mood. But why does my mood have to be subject to the weather. And then the reverse can also the case, hard to be grateful when I'm uber comfortable, things are going easy and well... how do we get the balance?! I think give thanks in all circumstances means finding beauty in the ice cold rain, not ignoring the bad but seeing the good alongside it.

My decision for this afternoon - find beauty in the rain and insane wind on my way to college..

Lost and Found

I was so excited about this I had to blog about it!

This ring had been lost for over 3 months

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Thought it was lost in the flat, raked the place and couldn't find it. We'd almost given up hope that we'd ever find it, thinking it might have slipped through our big creaky old floorboards, which our landlady probably wouldn't let us pull apart to look underneath.

But last week, in Dumfries of all places, it has been FOUND!

It had been in Mark's work bag - he'd been unassumingly carting it about with him the whole time!

Made me want to have a "Found the ring party" which reminded me of this wee story. A person is definitely more exciting than a ring and God loves people a loooot more than I love my husband's wedding ring - woooft!

Also on the subject of lost and found:

The result of a three week long Christmas holiday beard growing experiment.

Where is yonder missing patch of beard?!

Narnia - a third post for a third film.

On special request from this lad : a post about the new Narnia film. Apparently since I blogged on all the other ones, I have to blog about this one too.

I have to say, I did enjoy it. Not aaas much as the other two. Unlike with some other book-films e.g. Harry Potter, I have been considerably more forgiving about the fact that they haven't exactly stuck to the book. Though... green mist!? To be fair, Voyage of the Dawn-Treader would be quite random if they hadn't tied it together with the green mist, get those swords on the stone table before it's too late thing.

And of bloggable material - I loved the way they portrayed the friendship between Reepicheep and Eustace. I loved how though Eustace dislikes Reepicheep from the start and Reep knows it, he's patient from the outset. And then when Eustace becomes a dragon, Reep's the only one that really gives Eustace time and makes much of an effort with him. I guess "grace" sums up the way he is with Eustace. I think that is what helps to transform Eustace's character. Apart from the fact that he's a dragon of course. Reepicheep is modelling (oh dear esol teacher speak!) what a real friendship is. It's probably the first Eustace ever has. Reep is with Eustace the way God is with us and the way I want to be with people I find difficult or who dislike me. Now that's loving your enemies. Now that's a slice of the beauty of life :)

Light not just for Christmas

The people walking in darkness have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of deep darkness, a light has dawned.

JESUS - "I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness."

empathy

I hate horror films, hate watching anything with gratuitous or comedy violence but always seem drawn to reading/watching the most depressing, traumatic, horrible real-life stuff. I had a good cry yesterday watching this documentary telling this incident from the perspective of the victim's friends while I sorted and folded clothes.

Sometimes I wonder why I crave knowing about all this stuff, know about all the hurt in the world, I avidly read books about/written in Afghanistan. I don't exactly enjoy it. But I want to know it, I want to be aware of it, I want my heart to break for it and for those people.

I was also thinking - what's the difference between sympathy and empathy? I've looked up a lot of dictionary definitions and these are the common ideas which surface: Sympathy seems to be about being understanding, supportive and feeling pity for a person's situation. Empathy is also that, but then there's also this other side to it that is about being able to relate or co-experience the emotions related to that situation. I want to sympathise yes. But I want to empathise even more, that's what real love is isn't it? Sharing burdens, getting alongside people and grieving with them. I always find it easy to empathise with people when I've been through a similar situation myself, like when I meet lonely foreigners because I have been a lonely foreigner myself.

I know empathy is a God thing - thinking of advent Jesus didn't only do sympathy. He was moved with compassion yes, but then he came and became human - now that's empathy in every sense of the word. He came and co-experienced our human-ness. He lived in poverty, weakness, shame. He experienced all wealth and depth of emotions - delight to despair.

But then he went and suffered and died and took our punishment - that was more than just empathy. What Jesus did on the cross - that was a sacrifice of great mercy, great love and great power. It made a way for us to be reunited with a perfect, just, enormous God - that's no small feat! It wasn't sharing our suffering, sharing our experiences or our emotions, it was going much further than that - taking the punishment on our behalf so we don't have to. There's not way I can empathise with what Jesus went through on the cross, my mind stumbles and falls flat when I try to grasp it even just a little bit.

I always come back to Him - Jesus. I didn't even intend to just there. An important tangent though I think.

Because sympathy, empathy - they are both good, important, wholesome, meaningful and sincere expressions of love but if they're just feelings, they become stagnant and pointless. They have to be lived out and about giving - but then that can be costly and hard, and how does that have any impact anyway? I don't want to just be "nice".

Hmmm... this is going to have to be a two part-er.

On the subject of food....

Humnomnom - my new over-used word.

Most memorable 5 foods/meals consumed in the last 5 months:

- In Portugal: bread made by housekeeper of the cottage we stayed in, and salad with avocado - mmmm with wine from the neighbouring vineyard - yummmm

- Tip top 4 course dinner with fantastic company: smmmashing crazy kebab with bread, rosemary, apricot jam, bacon, goats cheese starter, followed by full-on roast, followed by three desserts (trust Jamie to make 3 desserts including the infamous "gulrotkake" - look it up in a norwegian dictionary)

- Montellimar nougat - a gift from two lovely french lasses I met last week = impossible to stop munching.

- Flipping amazing "spicy canteloupe salad" - straight out of the recipe book made by these people which was a birthday gift from a lovely friend :)

- Hog roast at a yorkshire wedding, accompanied by the scrummiest salads, followed by a varied selection of yuuummm mini desserts, in a huge tent, on a beautiful summer's day, and there were open fires... need I say more.

Why do I feel so inspired to talk about food? Because I just took out a tray of brownies out of the oven and am trying very hard not to eat any :)

a few small discoveries

This week I learnt/re-learnt that

- With 4 weeks of training it seems my husband is able to jump from barely scraping half an hour runs without near exhaustion-induced collapse to being able to run a half marathon in an hour and 58 minutes (proud wife moment).

- Meeting and making new friends is amazingly fun!

- But really really good friends are hard to part with.

- Nougat from Montelimar is far too good to just eat a small chunk of, humnumnum

- To my surprise (though it shouldn't have been that much of a surprise) my old flatmate with almost non-existent French and new French friends with very little English have proven that with a little bit of effort and one or two common interests, language barriers don't stand up for long.

- And even more mysteriously, mediocre Scottish fiddle music can sooth the souls of pensioners inclined to bouts of grumpiness.

Grace - the beauty of love as it was made to be.

I love this song, especially the final building up bridge bit, everything about it, musically and lyrically strikes chords in my heart.

Love that will not betray you,

dismay or enslave you,

It will set you free

Be more like the man

you were made to be.

There is a design,

An alignment to cry,

At my heart you see,

The beauty of love

as it was made to be.

Sigh No More, Mumford & Sons

Been losing sight of that recently - "the beauty of love as it was made to be":- undeserved, always forgiving, forever persevering, bearing with me in all things *, not giving up on me, giving up all for me *, giving abundantly, nurturing and changing me *. And this in spite of the state of my heart. I can't earn it, I can't buy it, I can't strive for it, because I already have it. Absolutely Mental.

And true!

Hmmm... blogging is definitely good for my soul, I should do this more often!

Back when the weather was good...

There were barbecues....

Lots and lots of barbecues.

Bowls in the park. Outdoor busking.

Freeeeesbeeeee

We celebrated our recent nupitals with a couple of scrummy cupcakes (courtesy of the McCullochs) out in the sun.

We celebrated the graduations of me ol flatmates at the art school degree show party with some boogying in the warm night air...

Oh how I miss the sun!

On death, life and lifestyle changes

Life is moving too fast for me! A matter of days now and I have a great deal of moving and a little bit of wedding planning, a cello to get fixed, English lesson materials to photocopy, work shifts to do, relatives to see... And in amongst delighted excitement I've been feeling a little scared of the upcoming enormous lifestyle change - that's what they call it in Mark's work. He's allowed to change some his work benefits package this month because this counts as a "lifestyle change". I'm scared of being a rubbish wife, with all my stubborn silly tendencies. I want to be able to love selflessly, like Jesus does, to see others like he does. Easier said than done. That includes my husband-to-be (probably the toughest challenge of them all), people I know and love around me - my family, friends, students, work colleagues, acquaintances, strangers. It's a daunting task when I start to think about it.

Yet at the same, I'm feeling at peace. I've been trying to re-comprehend both in my head and my heart that I really am a new creation, born again, made again. That means I am able to do impossible things, I have Christ living in me! It's insane - and sometimes it blows me away. But it's been a hard thing to remember of late. I feel the old nature rearing up in me all too often. I know the key is dying to my old self - Sounds like quite an extreme thing to do I know! It's not as though I lose what was inherently "me" and because a strange do-gooding robot. If anything I have the opportunities to become more inherently "me" than I ever was before, when I was trapped by my nature and desire. More "me" as I was made to be.

Though dying can be a painful process. I guess on the one hand, Jesus died on the cross - once and for all, and now I am his. But dying to all that stuff i.e. those selfish desires and whims and pride that is contrary to my new nature which I have in Jesus, and yet has become so inherently part of me, habit almost - that's something I need to do everyday.

But following that death, there is always life!! His Spirit to fill the gaps those things leave behind. Easter always reminds me how amazing it is that Jesus rose from the dead. What would be the point in "dying to your old self" if there was no new birth, no new life, no hope. A life that is living in my true identity - a phoenix rising from the ashes. Now that's a lifestyle change!

One thing I have been feeling really grateful for of late, is for all our friends and family who have been so generous and kind in helping us out and being there for us! Really makes things so much easier and more enjoyable, so thankyou!

some documentaries

Am trying to stay off bbc iplayer right now. Cracked a couple of times though this week and watched 3 very interesting documentaries.

1. Syrian School - a series that the BBC have been doing following students and meeting their families, teachers etc. in a few different schools in different parts of the world. There was a similar series shown based in India and then China - both brilliant. This one is just as good. Very interesting insight on life in the Middle East, especially when it's from the point of view from teenage girls!

2. "The day the immigrants left" - a documentary experiment, swapping immigrant jobs which apparently they've been "stealing from us" with unemployed Brits with interesting results! Wasn't sure what I thought of the conclusion...

3. "Storyline - Letter to Zachary: Your Father's murderer" - an interesting watch, though very sad. Inspiring strength of character, saddening lack of forgiveness.

Hopefully that's the last bit of iplayer I'll be watching in quite a while!!

I click my heels

Aah such an amazing song, and the coolest piano riff at the end... siiiigh!