Touching Base

I am still alive. I am not going to write anything particularly insightful, inciteful, witty or interesting and I am tired. I just feel out of touch with BGB and like I should say hello. You are the most meaningful relationship in my life!

In current news: Cleo has been living with me since last Friday (2 weeks) and has been lovely though a bit gross at times. I drafted a post on that so will leave you in suspense...; I have been really busy but found time to do nothing which was great! More of the same soon please...; I spent 4 hours this afternoon colouring in whilst I helped woman a stall for Voix Libres and they tried to raise money. It felt a bit strange bringing people in to get stuff from them - doing children's work is supposed to be a sneaky way to give them something I thought. Still, have a really pretty picture now and have touched base with my "altruistic" side; carrot eating is not gonig so well - I am averaging 7 on a good day but today I only had three :-( I will probably drink a litre of juice before bed to make up for this; praying is going not much better - I was on a role but then I went and got all despondent and deflated. Will try and bulk up on that before bed too...; Going to my first wedding as a Christian this Saturday. In England. In Snodland moreover. Exciting. Felt like God thinks it's a good idea as the invite was *quite* last minute but it all feel "right" y'know. Am going in fancy dress; I have forgotten how to use punctuation and have no intention of proofreading this for signs of intelligence; things I have been struggling with include feeling like maybe I was overdoing it on the whole God is in charge thing as a way to avoid dealing with life - I realised I can't without Him. But I am slowly working out that while, yes, we are supposed to learn independence over time we are still, overall, subject totally to His will (or if not then by default unfortunately subject to whatever passing danger can find us) and can rest in the fact that He sets us up to survive with things like common sense, freewill (used wisely) and all sorts of stuff like that. I feel like I am being let go of a bit, like a toddler taking first steps, and am not enjoying it and questioning whether the hand is there but when I do fall He props me back up and slowly I think I am catching on that the love has not changed, I have just stepped up a notch.

Hmmm, that was profound wasn't it? I'm even starting a new paragraph to acknowledge that, right now, I am in a place of being let go and finding it scary but now I have worked it out through venting I think I will be ok. I am struggling with the balance between being too scared to go alone and not ignoring God's input and the need to ask for help. I think it is a matter of knowing that He chose my time and place (tried to find the verse, not going to happen) and that I don't need to pray over every date I put in my diary. That said, I am pretty hopeful the wedding counts as significant enough to attribute to God, it is a pretty big upheaval otherwise.

In other news, I am approaching the issue of chucking useless stuff away. The fear I can't combines with the fear I have not changed really, just going through a phase. Screw fear, today I let Caro do my washing up. All things are possible! Allelujah.

I want to stop writing now. I will do some more soon. Oh. I had a thought today. For those Christians out there, I want to start a new man hunt campaign and this time someone that won't find out and knows me. So, I propose that we all start praying for Russell Brand. American's, looking him up it is worth it. Seriously, would that not be the BEST conversion EVER and talk about an interesting follow up biography: "My Conversion Wersion". Or quelque chose comme ça. Seriously, get praying.

Night.

P.S. Just heard that the kickboxing class at my old gym has finished. One of the few good things I was looking forward to going back to in Bristol (as opposed to all the bad things I was looking forward too!). Sad, but also feels like it is cutting ties to past life and now I will find something new. Hmmmm... think think think, one less consistent thing to tide me over but one more freedom too.

Carrots vs Confusion

When it comes to carrots things are pretty easy. You can eat them whole or in sticks, boiled steamed or stir fried, long or round, grated in a salad, dipped in a dip, curried or mashed, as soup or even juiced. I have tried quite a few of these already (I would estimate my carrot intake today to be 6 but I am persevering for more) and intend to make my way through them all.

But there are so many ways to be a Christian, and not all of them are compatible at all. Recently my biggest issue is to do with things of a "spiritual" nature. I use speech marks not 'cause I am being patronising but 'cause lots of things are of a spiritual nature and I am trying to differentiate about issues of demons and angels and all that jazz.

This I think can be demonstrated by the following example, taken from a conversation I was having this afternoon. Satan. Now, fortunately I started the sentence with the name which meant I didn't have to face the question of whether or not it ought to be capitalised. I read a post on Stuff Christian's Like (which is a pretty cool blog when I get round to reading it. You know how some people are more listeners and some more talkers, well I am a blog writer rather than reader... make your mind up what that says about having a conversation with me!) ages ago about this once but I couldn't find it again to give you the link. It doesn't really matter 'cause my feelings on it are much less formed and I am more confused than amused.

The question is, does it give more recognition to the devil (that is not a proper noun so I can rest easy) to capitalise the 'S' or to forsake accuracy for the sake of reducing the value of the word?

And that is where I am at. I am a pretty open minded lady and I have no problem believing in a spiritual realm that overlaps with the physical. We are physical beings and as such there is an effect from the unseen on the seen. I also think there is an effect from the seen on the unseen that my frustration a few days ago is testimony to (see 10 Things I Hate About [insert just about anything here right now]), where my tiredness and unbalanced body left me verging on a depressive episode and I really had to slow down and recoup whilst at the same time praying God's rule over my life (seeing as I had inadvertently let this slip when I was physically under par (isn't that a good thing is golf? What a funny expression.)).

But then I wonder, can we give too much space to worrying about what Satan can do? I mean, call him satan and you are recognising that you are not comfortable to the point of compromising grammar, leaving space for a fear of attack - and we all know that God in the only one to fear.

Words are powerful. But then, so is God. I think He is more powerful so I have nothing to fear... right...?

There exist so many different ideas and, unlike ways to serve carrots, some of them have to be wrong. Like, can we say or do things that bring down 'badness' on our lives? Do generational curses still exist? Or is it all covered by the blood of Jesus without any further issue except perhaps in the most extreme cases? And what is a most extreme case anyway...?

It makes me, as a scientist, very uncomfortable. I want evidence and as I may have mentioned before it took a huge step of faith to accept, well faith. My only axiom is the bible/The Bible and I don't even know the grammatically-spiritually correct way to write that. Do I next have to start accepting/rejecting all sorts of other theologies that I can't see explicitly answered therein? For now at least I just can't do it, so I'm gonna stick with God's love and The Word and hope/trust that by giving my days to Him I am covering all my bases.

I wish it was all about carrots.

P.S. Input welcome at this point by the way...

Experiment

You know when you hear something crazy and you just want to know for yourself if it is true? Like Jesus for example. Or the guy who only ate McD's for a month. (Or the guy who only ate McSalads... I could go on). Anyway, I am a sucker for trying things out for myself. First with Jesus and now carrots.

This is not a new mindset for me. Once I read in the metro about detoxing on a liquids only diet. It was the day before lent and the day after a heavy night out so when a few friends said it would be impossible to survive properly not eating for 5 weeks I took them up on the challenge. Only fruit and veg based liquids but I don't mean smoothies or soup - no pulp allowed. It was actually totally manageable. I did obviously lose a lot of weight, but I put most of it back on the week after! That said, I did go on holiday...

This time it is the turning orange story. I want to know if it is true and if so, how much carrots and how quickly does it happen? So, I bought a kilo and I am going to be introducing them into my diet pretty intensely from now on. I may even go almost totally carrot once all the food in my fridge is gone.

Almost similarly, I am starting to test more and more what it is people say about God and what He can do. If turning orange is interesting how much more so is healing, miracles, reconciliation for others, prophecy et all...?! So, I am pretty sure that if I am eating great quantities of carrots in expectation, how much more so should I be praying fasting and awaiting for God to do amazing things... (I may have to put carrots on hold when I choose to fast, there are such things as priorities.)

2 carrots so far today (with humous, I was so happy when I found it in COOP!). 1 burden of prayer. I think it shall be a race between turning orange and seeing an answer... I'll keep you posted but remember, I am the only one that can eat carrots (well you can eat them but it won't turn me orange); we can all pray!