being grateful

The last few days have been pretty wet and dreary here in Glasgow (though perhaps a good op to capture some good rain photos - see previous blog post) and I have been racked with tiredness, but my days have been pretty full and I'm lifting my eyes up and remembering the beauty and the goodness I have experienced over the last wee while.

I got one of those once in a lifetime chances to play in the band in a minority languages competition described rather favourably here. It's a long time since I've seen such incredible views on a flight and every single one of our four flights had them, one breath-taking sunrise, plains-worth of clouds from a top-down view, two lots of spectacular mountains! Udine itself was a medium-sized, quirky, Italian town nearer to Slovenia than Venice, friendly (sometimes too friendly) locals, delicious hams and wines, some pretty architecture - and we had a lot of fun there!

In Udine and in other places there has been much good music, both getting to play, getting to listen to and getting to dance to enjoyed. Genres to dance to have included some crazy drums at a jungle-stylee worship night, and Austrian Croat reggaerockrap.

After about 6 weeks without it, thanks to a belated visit to the doctor's, I have finally regained my sense of smell. I am soooo appreciating this right now. I had been drinking mostly hot ribena because tea smelt of nothing and tasted bland (heart-breaking when you have a large and eclectic tea collection) I hadn't realised how much the lack of smell was affecting my taste-buds (there's a thought in that!), I've been bowled over by just about everything I've been eating - and I'd like to keep that level of appreciation up!

I also am very grateful for the variety of good times spent with good friends. I love every moment I get to spend my with my Chinese mums esol class:- I always come out of there with a massive smile on my face! I am feeling very appreciative of my roomie right now having spent most of the last 2 weeks without him.

I am also especially grateful to have a God who doesn't give up on me and who is always always always faithful and loving - flipping amaaaazing!

beautiful things

Ever seen the first sequence in the film Amelie? I think it's one of my favourite parts of the film. I love the way they describe the characters by their little quirks and favourite past-times. Recently (by doing them) I've remembered how good doing some of my favourite things are incredibly refreshing. I was quite good at incorporating them into life as a student: it involved a lot of spontaneity and creativity and having people round as often as possible and appreciating beautiful things and going to the park a lot!
This working thing and trying to balance a timetable with an uber-busy husband makes it a bit more difficult. But I think it's just a mentality thing, I think I'd just forgotten that life wasn't all about being busy. I made myself a list of things (mostly creative) that I want to do on a regular basis/over the next few months. It includes going to a gig (not just one I'm playing at) at least once a month, perfecting a beautiful piece of classical music on both cello and piano as well as having fun with the band, having people round a lot, painting, learning to sew better, taking pictures on the theme of "rain" (thought it might be help me to appreciate Glasgow rain better, finish putting together our wedding photo albums (yes a year and a half later and we still haven't finished it!) So far I've managed to sew a book cover (a big achievement for me!) and take some rain photos.
Making beautiful things helps me to better appreciate the God-made beauty around me, in the things that he made directly like the rain, but also the beauty that flows out of the creativity he put in people.  (plus it will help me to watch less iplayer). I want to live life fully with wide-open eyes and an open heart.

On the subject of "Beautiful Things", here's a beautiful version of a song with that very name.

highway code

I had a few moments of pure panic yesterday, as Mark and I compared notes on the next few months and all the stuff that we knew was coming up/commitments and stuff we both did, and realised that the next 4 months are going to be more than a little bit hectic for both of us! I've said this before: I have no issues with the present, but do sometimes struggle to look the future full in the face without a squirmy "ahhowamIgoingtohandlethis" feeling in my stomach. So I wrote this:

See that distance,

That hypothetical, distant, not so distant

horizon of days, months, seconds, hours.

Minutes merge into one colossal cloud,

Potential struggles, breaks, ups, downs, probable mistakes;

looming over, crawling skin, twisting heart strings…

Stop.

Catch your breath.

Cast fear aside. That’s it.

Breathe.

And take another look.

See the hands that hold, adventure ahead.

Listen to love.

Walk today.

I didn't know whether to cheer really loudly or cry (ok admittedly I burst into tears) when I watched a tutsi woman at 46:33 during this documentary - http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b012lttt/Roger_Genocide_Baby/ - say that God helped her to forgive the people who murdered all 12 members of her family, and see how her and the perpetrators live side by side, even look after each others' children! Sounds like a weird thing to celebrate, but I was so moved by it - forgiveness is so powerful, so free-ing, full reconciliation even more so. And it was Jesus' sacrifice that made it so! Yesss for forgiveness! Hooooooray for God!!

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!

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!!

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!

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..

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.

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!

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!

shed the blinkers

It’s easy to walk around with blinkers on,
with shutters down,
Tunnelling through life.
Seeing no more, no less, than what’s in direct line-sight.
But the human visual field spans 180 degrees!

It’s as though I can’t open my eyes
It’s as though I were totally blind

But the price was paid a long time ago.
My blindness exchanged for brilliant light.
I should see the etch-marks about in bold type.
The sorrow and the beauty
At least in theory...

I forget how to open my eyes.
I forget that I’m no longer blind.

It doesn’t really take much to render things clear
A chat with a friend about something that’s real,
words from the Word awakening, fresh.
A pocket of quiet, a myriad-shade sky...
It doesn’t take much

But it always takes something.

I’m beginning to realise
that with every new morning as I wake up
I need to open my eyes.

Appreciating small things...

I've been re-inspired to appreciate the small
things in life...
Being able to communicate and be understood and be myself because the majority of people around me speak my language (courtesy of Michie, home for the Christmas hols after her first few months in Paris). A well heated house (courtesy of my parents). Snow (with the help of my sister). The wonders of technology (courtesy of a marvelling grandmother and mother post-first ever Skype conversation entre Colombo and South Queensferry). Jesus coming to earth at all let alone everything else he said/did/gave up (courtesy of Christmas).
I suppose some small things are in actual fact pretty huge things... I guess they just seem small because they are part of everyday, or aren't announced, or are just forgotten.

On being a sheep

A couple of weeks ago I got into a long chat with a Chinese girl I'd just met who had recently become a Christian. She started asking me about how I'd become a Christian and I briefly mentioned the fact that I'd gone to Sunday School and she jumped on that instantly as to her it was a wildly foreign concept.
"Wow! What's that like? Did you really think you were a sheep?!"
Turned out that she was referring to that bit of the Bible with Jesus the good Shepherd and us the sheep. "After 26 years" she said to me "I find it hard to get used to the idea that I am just a sheep". The image really struck her in a way that it never had me before. I explained to her that I'd grown up with it, made sheep out of cotton wool and pritt stick so often that it was just normal, it was just stories that I'd been told as a child, absorbed and never questioned. I suddenly realised that it's hardly flattering being compared to a sheep. They just seem to mindlessly follow. I do not know much about it but I did google "sheep behaviour" and this is what it came up with.



And yes this photo is of adorable Jersey cows not sheep, I couldn't resist putting this photos up. But you get the general idea. Herd instinct yada yada...

But it was the more the concept behind it that she found difficult. And I realised that in practice I found the being a sheep thing and being shepherded by Jesus probably as hard as she did - il s'agit de letting someone else lead you and take control of your life.

The other night I started thinking about that bit in the Bible again and I wasn't struck so much by the image of being a sheep as the idea of Jesus as our Shepherd.
Becoming one of his flock doesn't mean becoming a stupid, mindless, blind follower (poor sheep!) It doesn't reduce us to something less than human. We are what we are, human beings with intelligence and free-will and creativity and personality. I think that bit about the sheep says more about who Jesus is than about who we are. If we're sheep, that makes the Shepherd - Jesus - so much more intelligent, so much more knowledgable, so much better able to fend for us than we are. And then there's that aspect of tender care.
When I think of it like that. This strikes me all the more. If you were a farmer, or a shepherd, orif you have or have had pets, would you die for an animal under your care?! And then there's the fact that he did that by becoming one of us too! Mental!

Oh dear, I hope I'm not offending too many sheep by this post!

On transitions and sacrements

I really don't like being between things... Unfortunately at the moment I am between occupations, between churches, between flatmates (though I am loving living with my temporary lovely German flatmate who is both relaxing to be with and an endless source of interesting conversation!). To add to that is my strong dislike to not being busy.
It makes it hard for me to see the point. I feel aimless. A drifter.

The only concrete thing in my life at the moment, other than my fiancé currently swamped with heaps of studying, is Jesus. But even He seems like an idea sometimes, abstract and airy and with no bearing on my real life a lot of the time.

At the weekend I remembered again why I love communion. I know lots of people who think communion is dull and lifeless and boring... but my experience of it has always been nothing short of powerful, moving and alive! Every time something different in that many-layered profound symbolism strikes me - whether on a basic level e.g. his body was broken for us or on another level e.g. the fact that we are all a part of the body of Jesus, sharing in this one piece of bread. But what it is that makes it so real, is that it's physical - bread and wine are physical, I interact with them physically (by eating and drinking them). I'm overwhelmed when I see bread broken because I realise that Jesus' body was a real physical human body broken but the symbolism only works because the bread is physical and not some idea. And I don't just observe it from afar, I share in it. I touch it, munch it, taste it.

This is what I hold on to when nothing else is fixed - the physical reality of Jesus, who lived and died and rose again, the Father who is utterly just and to the uttermost forgives, the Spirit that transforms - my God.

growing

I'm recently went down to Worcester and stayed with Mark's family for a few days, getting tremendously well fed and enjoying english sunshine (which seemed to be a little bit warmer than the scottish variety! One learns interesting things about one's future other half when talking to one's future in-laws: anecdotes about their childhood, silly habits they used to have, games they used to play etc. Mark and one of his brothers used to have "thinkaboutthings" which apparently consisted of, surprise surprise, thinking about things - imagining themselves in situations, which apparently they would think about just before bedtime and report to one another in the morning. One of Mark's favourite thinkaboutthings involved running a nature reserve which even had a nettle patch for butterflies and where he employed his brother and his 12 (!!) children. Needless to say none of this seems to be in the pipeline or even in his dreams anymore...

Funny how our dreams change drastically. We dream a lot as children about the huge ways that we're going to leave our impression on the world. I was going to be a scientist, a detective, a forensic psychologist, a barrister, but my favourite and most persistent dream was that I was going to be a published novelist who single-handedly transformed the thinking of millions of people around the world. Now I'm happy enough if a handful people read my blog once in a while! Most of us have fairly big childhood dreams, but somewhere along the line, most of us slip into ordinary contented existences, or we realise that our dreams weren't quite a realistic as we'd originally thought or it'd take us being more brilliant or self-disciplined then we are in fact as adults. We don't quite become the people we wanted to be and so we can't quite achieve the dreams we'd wanted to achieve.

Actually for me it wasn't so much that as the more I experienced, the more the shape of my dreams changed. I stopped writing stories after I went to uni because I stopped enjoying pretending to be someone else and now I struggle to write about anything other than my own experiences. I still want to change peoples' lives but I'd be extremely happy if I have an effect on the people I meet on a day to day basis in small ways. I think the shape of my dreams changed because the bigger I grew, the smaller I realised I was. And yet at the same time, the bigger I grow, the bigger I realise God is, the greater is love, mercy, compassion, the more I realise he cares about the vulnerable, the downtrodden, the outcasts in society... Reminds me of that bit in Prince Caspian when Lucy encounters Aslan again in person for the first time since "The Lion, the Witch and The Wardrobe".

"Aslan," said Lucy, "you're bigger."
"That is because you are older, little one," answered he.
"Not because you are?"
"I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger."

I think I'm even less sure of what I "want to do when I grow up" now that I have actually "grown up" than I did even when I was at uni! But I'd like to try and see things more through "God perspective" lenses and do what I can to live like Jesus and further His kingdom where broken lives get fixed.

On accent imprinting

Lately Mark has started to pick up a wee Scottish twang which I can take at least some credit for, mostly consisting of him rolling his "r"s herrre therrre and everrrywhere. Words like "tomorrra" and "allrrright" sound slightly out of place in amongst his Midlands vowels but I'm hoping those will soon get Scottishified too!

Accents are contagious! Until the age of 4 I had this kind of well-spoken non/almost Sri Lankan accent. As soon as I hit nursery this became a broad Queensferry accent which I can still turn on like a tap, and since uni my accent has got somewhat corrupted by northern-irishness amongst other things. Bizarrely enough my mum thinks I start to say "like" more often between words when I've spent a bit of time speaking french! Ben c'est comme ca quoi!And then there's all those little habits and turns of phrases we pick up from people. I've picked up all sorts, from adding the suffix "-ness" to the end of all of my adjectives and talking endlessly about "the ban'er" in my school days to adding "so I do" at the end of my sentences and saying everything is "actually ridiculous!" - that would be your fault Michie! Sometimes I pick them up accidently like when I start imitating someone's accent or mannerisms out of appreciation or just to tease them and somewhere down the line it becomes part of my own repetoire.I have a friend who picks up mannerisms from international students and keeps them for at least the year after they leave. It's as though they've left their imprint on him or that it's some kind of prolonged emotional connection.

I think there must be some kind of emotional connection or subconscious choice involved. I never picked up speech habits from people I didn't like or feel some kind of affinity with. Needless to say Mark likes Scotland. And I picked up the Scottish accent with such force when I was little because I was adamant that I was Scottish through and through, nothing more, nothing less. But there's more than just choice involved. I only pick up speech habits when I've spent a lot of time with someone. I do know the odd person who picks up an accent as soon as they start speaking to someone, even if it's one that's reasonably unfamiliar to them, but I am definitely not like that! I quite often forget that it's something similar with us and God. I long to be more like Jesus in character. But in order to make it happen, I need to spend time with him, to really get to know him. And I need to make some kind of conscious or subconscious choice to imitate him. The veil has been taken away and that's a huge deal! ...so why do we so often forget, take this for granted... why don't we just look to Him.

On belief (or rather lack thereof)

I've been feeling pretty short on faith in general lately... There are two main reasons for this (though I could probably find more if I tried hard enough). First there's my limited mind capacity - the inclination to expect things to happen in a certain away and for God to act in a particular away. Putting God in a box. It takes stretching in order for my mind to expand and stretching tends to require stepping out of my comfort zone... hmmm... therein lies the problem.
Then there's my capacity to mess up, again and again and again - it leaves me feeling fed up and empty and despondent and utterly useless. This results in a lack of belief on my part in God ever changing me.
This lack of belief isn't something I've just noticed. I've been encumbered with it for as long as I've been a Christian, though only started realising and wrestling with it over the past year. See I've realised that, in theory, having belief would result in me praying more, would result in me trusting God more, would result in me stepping out of my comfort zone more, would result in me behaving and doing in a completely different way, would result in God acting in massive ways in and around me. But this shortage of belief, though it doesn't stop me, it stunts me, stunts all of these things... Ridiculous is the only way I can describe it! Actually Ridiculous!

But God... - I don't think I've ever fully understood this - grace. There are times when I think I've got it and then I forget it again. But it's not from me... That whole section in Ephesians 2 reminds me that I am rubbish, but God... He's what I need, He can give me what I need. He wants me to come and ask him to give me what I need. Because He freely gives.

Come, all you who are thirsty,
come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without cost.
Why spend money on what is not bread,
and your labor on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.

Isaiah 55:1-2

That food and drink - that could be wisdom and righteousness and hope and love and belief... all we need do is ask!