Maths and Fighting!

Re: "Clarity Restored": I meant extensibility not extendability. Which I think are interchangeable and both different from extensionality.

This is really pants. I swear my tutor said one and wrote the other. Well, I suppose I am just going to have to roll with it and pray (and perhaps ask a human person just to make sure). I've had a good day in assorted coffee shops though, 2,000 words down!! (Which may actually be a bad thing as I don't know how close I am to half way :-S) Ho hum, we are content and pretty darn peaceful :o)

I also wonder if there is truly a difference between "real" and "apparent" paradoxes... bloody mathematicians and all their silly nuances.

Was doing kids work this morning, it was ace, we were talking about The Great Commission. I love this church... there are enough adults out there that don't talk about that (which is a bit silly since it is The Last Thing Jesus Ever Said and not quite "P.S. Please put the cat out") and I got to supervise the making of documentaries about miracles, dramas about the defeat of Satan and posters about how much Jesus can change your life and bring salvation! They then prayed for help when it gets hard and spent some time learning to hear God's voice - talk about raising up an army!

Now this is extensibility applied to something infinite and eternal.

Amazing Grace

I was thinking yesterday, in one of my motivational moments, some stuff which I was refusing to blog about 'cause I needed to just start applying it... but I am less motivated to work right now so maybe writing it out will rekindle the passion!

I've been getting myself all churned up about if I am messing up God's plan. Like, He has got a really cool escape route mapped out so that I can miraculously be alright in this situation, meet my deadline and get the grade... but I am being an idiot and sitting around waiting for it to happen instead of just writing.

Now, granted some people probably think I am right about that and actually I should just get on with my essay instead of blogging but, even though I doubt it will make a difference to their opinion, I want to state that I genuinely struggle with concentration A LOT. I'm in the middle of being diagnosed with ADHD but the referral is weeks away (I do love the NHS) with all methods other than medication taking far too long to effect change before Friday. A friend asked me if I thought I might be using it as an excuse but actually I really just see it more as an explanation for how my life has always been...

We can talk more about all that some other time. It's been a bit of a journey for me and something I haven't shared partly 'cause of the stigma and this being the internet, partly the not actually having an answer yet. It gives a girl a lot to think about, studying being the least important in comparison to things like social interaction, relationships, identity, healing(?). But I'll leave those stuffs for another time, today I just wanted to vindicate my struggles a little and lay it out on a plate.

So yeah. I don't really know what I can actually do, but I look at a page/screen and panic. I love to write and I have all these ideas and when it is a short piece I can eventually organise it and hone it and make it flow... I know exactly what I want to say and within limitations I can do that. But 5,000 words with a lot of technical details and referencing is a whole other ball game and my perfectionism doesn't know where to begin. Yet surely in this I am messing up every chance that God has to rescue me? I have to do *something*.

Yet again, duh, I am prompted to recall that GOD IS SOVEREIGN. He doesn't actually need me to do anything. In fact, HE LIKES IT WHEN I AM WEAK SO HE CAN SHOW ME HE'S STRONG. How am I supposed to remember my dependency if I am always capable? How am I supposed to get that He loves me if He never has the chance to show me?

Yet again I was being legalistic, thinking I have to reach some kind of threshold of effort before He meets me halfway. If anything of this world depended on what we humans did, well... we kinda see what that looks like don't we? Life is impossible for a reason. Failure imminent without intervention, that we may recognise intervention for what it is and receive it gladly in the shape of True Love.

It takes the flavour out of grace for me to think that what I do matters at all. God reached out to man and made a way (Jesus) and I tell myself that He can only see His plans come through if I work for it? Crazy fool.

So I'm in the library, giving what I can but not giving a damn if what I have isn't enough. It isn't. I read another person's blog this morning. Don't do that much but this guy seems good and I like the sound of his ideals (I say that vaguely 'cause I only know them vaguely!). The article linked above really spoke to me and in case you don't feel like reading someone else on your coffee break I'll sum up the relevant part.

It is looking at the story of David and Goliath and how so many people interpret it: little weak person overcomes some big, scary, technically impossible to beat, "Giant" in their life. Miraculous empowerment of man. He then (and this is the bit that made me go "Oh yeah, duh!") instead describes it thus:
We are little Israelites standing round shitting ourselves with the Philestines surrounding us, doomed. Then a seemingly insignificant and weak nobody steps out from the midst of us and saves us from an impossible Giant so that we can surge forward with a shout, enemy defeated! Miraculous empowerment for man. The analogy here is, of course, Jesus.

How naïve, nay arrogant, to think that we are David when really Jesus is? David didn't need the army of scared and foolish soldiers behind him, he did if for the army so that they would not die.


All that said, an essay is not eternal life and just 'cause I am guaranteed of the second does not mean that the first will come to pass. I cannot claim that in hope I know the full extent of the mind of God and I must remember that my certainty of grace is in the eternal sense and that here and now, finitely, we cannot comprehend the full applications of infinity. That is to say, grace acted out on earth doesn't always look like a gift as we know it (also coming in the shape of lessons, refinement, rebuke etc) and I must be wary that this coursework does not become a "what have you done for me lately" scenario with my idea of grace being pined onto something so subjective.

God likes blessing me and wants the best for me, I can hope assuredly for that... and just ask really nicely that academic success is the way He chooses to administer it!

P.S. I'm not very good at acknowledging grace, I didn't even have a tag for it (only for 'Grace Killers'). I've been too tied up receiving it and applying it to my life to stop and go "Wow" so I reckon this is a lesson that I am well in need of. It's pretty Amazing, isn't it?!

...but it doesn't mean He won't

Arggggh! Two people have commented to me today on something about my positive blogging blah blah etc etc... and it made me laugh 'cause they clearly hadn't read the last post I wrote.

I drive myself mad with the ups and downs of hope and faith.

Whilst what I said is technically true [EDIT: in that we can't know what God will do] I do realise that the way I said it didn't testify to God's love for me. That is, it implied quite strongly He don't care about the details of my life which I believe (albeit by faith and not necessarily feeling right now) He does. It sounds a lot like me being resigned to a meaningless existence in which what I do both doesn't matter and doesn't last.

Neither of which are true. Firstly, God just plain cares. Loving us to reach our potential and making it accessible to us when we struggle, because He likes to do so and likes us to be happy (granted sometimes growth takes priority). Blimey, if the University has an Access Unit then of course God does (there is probably a whole angelic division called Widening Participation).

Secondly, and this is something that makes for a full post at a later date if I get round to it, what we do now does last. That is why there is a finite bit then an infinite bit to life. If it was all about the infinite then we may as well just skip straight ahead... but it's not. Ergo - bothered.

Well, errrrr, there's some good theory for you. I will keep you posted on the practice since so far today the bulk of my achievements has been to write a song about snow. Isn't it lovely?

Late Night Delight

I HAVE to be quick.

The most amazing day. Not even going to go into details as I will just get caught up and it will stop being a "quickie" but WOW! Really feel like what God is saying to me is that of all the things that are crazy and big and huge and wonderful and inconceivable awesome that I am seeking, He has even better stuff. Like you think my imagination is wild, what about His?! I know that there is always the "caveat" of 'but His will be done' but seriously, all that capacity, who doesn't want His will to be done?!

Still. I am praying pretty hardcore about some specific issues in my life, not least "the essay" and seeing great results that are actually more promising that I ever conceived. (Duh! But still, cool that He said it then straight away did it!) E.g. My plan is Shit Hot and basically has HUGE potential to be a fantastic collaboration of ideas and creative thinking (also potential to flop majorly but doesn't everything big and exciting? Who wants to play it safe, especially with God on your side...?!). Shit Hot isn't verbatim but I could see it in my tutor's eyes...

Talked far too much today about life in general and, though I had a great meeting and further thinking and writing stemmed, my bulk of time was spent with people catching up etc. The promise (like in that poem I posted, brilliant much?) is still much in potentia with graft in the near, but so far avoided, future. That will have to stop. Not least because my voice (which really hates me right now) is in need of rehab.

BUT it is pretty neat that there is this verse that totally says what I feel God is saying. Always good to have it in the bible too:

"When I think of all this, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth. I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.

Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. Glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations forever and ever! Amen." Ephesians 3:14-21

I located it using biblegateway.com, or google for Christians as I now know it (I have my sis to thank for that one!), then reread it at Mich's tonight in her NLT. Which I had forgotten how amazing it was (what with losing my version really sadly near the start of last term :-( ). The wording just grabbed me. Particularly the bit about "infinite resources" (one of the things I mentioned a few posts back about humanity not really being finite and couldn't find a well phrased verse on resources) and then the "infinitely more that we might ask or think" 'cause it is the maths AND the message. [Aside: NIV mentions hope which is cool too. Boy, this whole versions thing is clearly going to start confusing me!] Plus 'tis just a wonderfully phrased passage, I think I need to get a new one of these. Also, aside from the end which is the premise I based my search on, is the whole bit above about being rooted in God's love which is just totally the ongoing message both in general and specifically to me right now.

Anywho. Bed is SO the main objective. I get really frustrated by how much is going on that I am thinking and learning and experiencing, yet at a point where there is no time to write about it. Always the way. I suppose it is partly procrastination temptation though - there are always things happening but there aren't always things to avoid!

Oooh ooooh! I also found out really suddenly, before I was even caring or searching at all, what I shall be doing next year. How good is that?! All I need to do is get there...!

N'night x