OK Go are amazing!

Hello, hello! If anyone is in need of mindless entertainment that is more than mildly amusing, please watch Ok Go's videos for A Million Ways and Here It Goes Again. Hee hee hee! :-)

Trust and Rest

What great encouragement!

"Trust also in him" (Ps. 37:3).

The word trust is the heart word of faith. It is the Old Testament word, the word given to the early and infant stage of faith. The word faith expresses more the act of the will, the word belief the act of the mind or intellect, but trust is the language of the heart. The other has reference more to a truth believed or a thing expected.

Trust implies more than this, it sees and feels, and leans upon a person, a great, true, living heart of love. So let us "trust also in him," through all the delays, in spite of all the difficulties, in the face of all the denials, notwithstanding all the seemings, even when we cannot understand the way, and know not the issue; still "trust also in him, and he will bring it to pass." The way will open, the right issue will come, the end will be peace, the cloud will be lifted, and the light of an eternal noonday shall shine at last.

"Trust and rest when all around thee
Puts thy faith to sorest test;
Let no fear or foe confound thee,
Wait for God and trust and rest.

"Trust and rest with heart abiding,
Like a birdling in its nest,
Underneath His feathers hiding,
Fold thy wings and trust and rest."
- Mrs C E Cowman

When We're in the Dark

Here's some encouragement for you:

"I will give thee the treasures of darkness" (Isa. 45:3).

In the famous lace shops of Brussels, there are certain rooms devoted to the spinning of the finest and most delicate patterns. These rooms are altogether darkened, save for a light from one very small window, which falls directly upon the pattern. There is only one spinner in the room, and he sits where the narrow stream of light falls upon the threads of his weaving. "Thus," we are told by the guide, "do we secure our choicest products. Lace is always more delicately and beautifully woven when the worker himself is in the dark and only his pattern is in the light."

May it not be the same with us in our weaving? Sometimes it is very dark. We cannot understand what we are doing. We do not see the web we are weaving. We are not able to discover any beauty, any possible good in our experience. Yet if we are faithful and fail not and faint not, we shall some day know that the most exquisite work of all our life was done in those days when it was so dark.

If you are in the deep shadows because of some strange, mysterious providence, do not be afraid. Simply go on in faith and love, never doubting. God is watching, and He will bring good and beauty out of all your pain and tears. --J. R. Miller

Hello! Here's another good devotion. In suffering we are made into what we're supposed to be in His kingdom. Praise God!

"Perfect through suffering" (Heb. 2:10).

Steel is iron plus fire. Soil is rock, plus heat, or glacier crushing. Linen is flax plus the bath that cleans, the comb that separates, and the flail that pounds, and the shuttle that weaves. Human character must have a plus attached to it. The world does not forget great characters. But great characters are not made of luxuries, they are made by suffering.

I heard of a mother who brought into her home as a companion to her own son, a crippled boy who was also a hunchback. She had warned her boy to be very careful in his relations to him, and not to touch the sensitive part of his life but go right on playing with him as if he were an ordinary boy. She listened to her son as they were playing; and after a few minutes he said to his companion: "Do you know what you have got on your back?" The little hunchback was embarrassed, and he hesitated a moment. The boy said: "It is the box in which your wings are; and some day God is going to cut it open, and then you will fly away and be an angel."

Some day, God is going to reveal the fact to every Christian, that the very principles they now rebel against, have been the instruments which He used in perfecting their characters and moulding them into perfection, polished stones for His great building yonder. --Cortland Myers

Suffering is a wonderful fertilizer to the roots of character. The great object of this life is character. This is the only thing we can carry with us into eternity. . . . To gain the most of it and the best of it is the object of probation. --Austin Phelps

God's Best

Hello! On to more encouraging devotions. Isn't it amazingly horrible that we can actually limit God by our lack of faith?

"Take the arrows. . . . Smite upon the ground. And he smote twice and stayed. And the man of God was wroth with him, and said, Thou shouldest have smitten five or six times"

(2 Kings 13:18, 19).

How striking and eloquent the message of these words! Jehoash thought he had done very well when he duplicated and triplicated what to him was certainly an extraordinary act of faith. But the Lord and the prophet were bitterly disappointed because he had stopped half way.

He got something. He got much. He got exactly what he believed for in the final test, but he did not get all that the prophet meant and the Lord wanted to bestow. He missed much of the meaning of the promise and the fullness of the blessing. He got something better than the human, but he did not get God's best.

Beloved, how solemn is the application! How heartsearching the message of God to us! How important that we should learn to pray through! Shall we claim all the fullness of the promise and all the possibilities of believing prayer? --A. B. Simpson

"Unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think" (Eph. 3:20).

There is no other such piling up of words in Paul's writings as these, "exceeding abundantly above all," and each word is packed with infinite love and power to "do" for His praying saints. There is one limitation, "according to the power that worketh in us." He will do just as much for us as we let Him do in us. The power that saved us, washed us with His own blood, filled us with might by His Spirit, kept us in manifold temptations, will work for us, meeting every emergency, every crisis, every circumstance, and every adversary. --The Alliance

Rock Flowers

Hey! Thought it would be a good time to start sharing my devotions again. Here's a good one:

"Thou hast shewed thy people hard things" (Ps. 60:3).

I have always been glad that the Psalmist said to God that some things were hard. There is no mistake about it; there are hard things in life. Some beautiful pink flowers were given me this summer, and as I took them I said, "What are they?" And the answer came, "They are rock flowers; they grow and bloom only on rocks where you can see no soil." Then I thought of God's flowers growing in hard places; and I feel, somehow, that He may have a peculiar tenderness for His "rock flowers" that He may not have for His lilies and roses. --Margaret Bottome

The tests of life are to make, not break us. Trouble may demolish a man's business but build up his character. The blow at the outward man may be the greatest blessing to the inner man. If God, then, puts or permits anything hard in our lives, be sure that the real peril, the real trouble, is what we shall lose if we flinch or rebel. --Maltbie D. Babcock

"Heroes are forged on anvils hot with pain,
And splendid courage comes but with the test.
Some natures ripen and some natures bloom
Only on blood-wet soil, some souls prove great
Only in moments dark with death or doom."

I lost my mobile

Well, if you've already seen me since I got back from Malaysia, then this isn't news to you... I lost my UK mobile while out in Malaysia. If you got texts from me from out there it's because I was using my uncle's old handset with a Malaysian SIM. So... If you don't mind, please could you send me your mobile number? My number is still the same.

Thank you! :-)

I'm home

Hello! I'm back in Glasgow. I got back on Sunday. My mum is still in Malaysia so it's just my brother and I, which is already testing my patience, but that's nothing out of the ordinary. I lost my phone in in Malaysia and just got a new one, so my brother is slagging me off because I didn't go for a cooler phone like a N91 or N73. Well, I'm happy with it.

Rant over...

Woohoo! I'm going to see Casino Royale tonight! I'm still jet lagged, so I wonder if I'll fall asleep during the film... It might just be too action packed for me to do so... We'll see. :-)

Hair update

Hello! For anyone who's wondering, my hair has grown quite a bit since being in Malaysia. I think it's due to the humidity here... Anyway, it's still quite short - obviously - but I had my first haircut on Monday. It was the shortest haircut I remember, but I used to have short hair when I was younger - though it was longer than it is now - so I'm sure I've had plenty of short haircuts before...

Well, that's really it. Just a wee superficial, non-serious post since the last one was so sad. I'll be back in just over a week. See you then!

My gran

I'm sad to tell you that my gran passed away on Tuesday night. Her time of death was 11pm Malaysian time, so it would have between 4pm UK time. She died of a heart attack.

My gran had her first heart attack on Saturday around 12.30pm, as she was getting things ready for my birthday dinner. We didn’t know what was happening and we thought she had had an asthma attack as she was breathless, so we took her to the clinic (she has asthma and has had attacks before). The clinic was terrible. While I was there I kept thinking of how my medic friends would just be horrified with the staff, service, hygiene (lack of) and how they kept equipment. The receptionists had not conveyed the right symptoms to the doctor and so she couldn’t see him for another hour, even though she kept telling them she was in a lot of pain. They thought she was over-exaggerating and kept her waiting. Eventually, the doctor did and ECG and saw that she had had a heart attack and had to be taken to the hospital immediately.

It was her wish that my birthday was to be celebrated, so we did the best that we could and actually had a good time. The food was great and all my cousins provided our entertainment – they were all so cute. After the party, I got to go see my gran for the first time since she went into hospital. (The visiting hours are not as strict as in the UK.) She looked weak, fragile and very tired. She had had another minor heart attack since being in the hospital. Over the next three days, she began to improve very gradually each day so on Tuesday, the day she left us, she looked the best of all. She had stopped coughing and they had removed her oxygen mask. She was smiling and laughing and giving us orders, so when we left the hospital that evening, we were convinced that she would be out in the next couple of days.

At 10.30pm, my uncle received a call from the hospital saying that my gran was in a critical state and asked us to come to the hospital. By the time we got there, they were already trying to resuscitate her and ten minutes later, the doctor told us she had had another heart attack and could not be resuscitated. It was a shock to us all, as we’d only seen her 4 hours earlier and she was looking better than she had for the last four days. She was smiling and laughing. Appropriately, the last thing she said to me was goodbye, after I’d kissed her goodnight.

The funeral was on Friday. It was a Hindu ceremony and my mum and I had no opportunity to say that we didn’t want to participate because of our belief as Christians. A lot of the ceremony was just rituals that have been passed down from generation to generation. There was no time given to talk about how lovely and wonderful she was. No time for thanksgiving. And the crematorium was awful. It was very basic and nothing at all like the crematoriums in the UK. She was put into a giant, metal incinerator. None of the disappearing into the wall or the floor business you get in the UK.

My family are devastated. It was so shocking and unexpected. They keep looking at the negatives of it all. Yes, it is sad she died, but even at 64 she had lived a full life. She had traveled to India, China, Australia, the UK and France. She had seen her grandchildren grow up. She had touched so many lives and so many loved her. She was blessed and she didn’t suffer. It is especially sad that her birthday is on Sunday and she will not to celebrate. Neither can we because Hindu ritual says we are not to celebrate anything for a year. How sad. My gran would’ve wanted us to celebrate. My consolation is that she had said the sinner’s prayer twice – once on Sunday and once with me there on Monday. I know I’ll see her again one day.

If you’d like to pray for us, pray that my non-Christian family will be consoled. My mum’s Christian friends have shared with my family about Jesus and have been such a great help to my uncle and granddad. Pray also some, if not all, of what they’ve said has sunk in and will make sense one day. Pray also for all the decisions that have to be made about my gran’s things and what to do with my granddad and the house, as my gran and granddad lived there by themselves. Pray also that my mum will be comforted, as she is being brought down by all the negativity around us.

Thanks to all those who already knew and kept us in prayer. It was God’s time for her to go and there was nothing that we could do to stop it. Please continue to pray for us, especially my uncle, aunt, granddad and brother – they keep going over the ‘what ifs’ and we all know that that isn’t helpful. The next few weeks are going to be hard, but I’m glad that my last memory of her was of her smiling and laughing.

MONSTER post

Sorry I haven’t blogged in ages. I thought I would have been able to do it far more than I’ve been able to. It’s been so frustrating not having regular access to email and not being able to blog. I’m sorry I haven’t even let you know how my holiday with my dad went.

Well… First of all we went to Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia. My dad took me to an old colonial restaurant for a steak dinner on the first night. The food was nice and it was the first restaurant I’d been in where the staff were old men above 35. I’m sure you wouldn’t find that in the UK. The next day, my dad and I went to Bukit Tinggi where there was a Japanese garden and spa. The Botanic Garden was beautiful. I took quite a few pictures. Unfortunately, the rest of it of pretty disappointing. There was also a rabbit farm, but we were a little fed up, so we decided to go back to the apartment. On the way back, we stopped at Batu Caves where there is a Hindu temple in a cave. Beside the huge temple stands the tallest idol of Murugan in the world. Murugan is the head of all the Hindu idols. The temple in Batu Caves is special to Malaysian Hindus because all wishes or requests made to the idols there apparently come true. If that’s true, I find that very disturbing… That night we had dinner at my dad’s aunt’s place.

The next day, we headed up to Cameron Highlands. It is quite far north and was about a four drive from KL. On the way up, we passed through Ipoh where there were tons and tons of pamelos in every shop. Pamelos are like a giant grapefruits, but the fruit is sweet and not bitter. It’s got a very citrusy smell. I like it. Anyway… Cameron Highlands was lovely because all the scenery was beautiful and the weather was so much cooler. There were loads of strawberry farms, fruit orchards, vegetable farms and tea plantations. We got to pick some strawberries, but unfortunately couldn’t visit any of the plantations because one was closed because the CEO had passed away and the other because a machine a broken down. It was a little disappointing, but I still got to see what a tea plantation looked like, so I didn’t mind. Unfortunately for mw, we missed out on the honey farm and the butterfly farm because my dad didn’t know where they were. But if there’s a next time, I’ll know. :-)

The last place we visited was Langkawi Island. It is pretty much at the north most point on Malysia, just before the border with Thailand. There is a legend behind it, but my dad only gave me the vaguest version. If I can find it on the net, I’ll tell you about it. The island itself is beautiful! I didn’t get to do much because the historic sights were a very steep climb and my dad and only brought flip flops… Oops! I didn’t know I’d need proper shoes… I did get to go on the cable car. I had to go by myself because my dad and gran didn’t want to. It wasn’t scary until the cable car jolted a little and I realized just how far above the ground I was. :-) It was totally worth it though because I got to see pretty much the whole island. The sea is such a beautiful mix of blue and green. I also got to go to a lagoon on the north of the island, from which you can sea Thailand. I did a little paddling in the sea, but it was sooooo hot. If I got to go back, I’d like to go on the boat trips and visit the caves and surrounding islands. We were just there for a day, so we couldn’t go.

On the way back to JB (Johor Baru), we stayed at my aunt’s house just outside of KL. I haven’t seen her for 13 years! It was nice to see her again and see my cousins. They were just little kids when I left. We also visited my uncle. I was happiest to see him. I guess he must’ve been my favourite when I was little, I don’t know. I haven’t seen him for 13 years either. And his children have all grown up too. I have yet to see my aunt who lives in Bangkok, but unfortunately, I won’t have the opportuinity to go to Thailand after all. That’s ok. I have had such a hectic schedule already. I can always go there when I’m in Japan – at least, I hope so…

So there you have it – a MONSTER post! I’m sorry I haven’t been able to post any pictures. I probably won’t be able to until I get home. Sorry! I tried to post them on flicker the other day, but it just took so long! Well, see you in a couple of weeks. :-)

Grow in His Strength

I've just come back from holiday with my dad and his mum. The placest we went were lovely and I hope to post pictures of them on flicker by the end of the week. This devotion is good encouragement for me to remember that the difficulty I had with my dad was all part of Gods refining process. I hope it encourages you:

"As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings: so the Lord alone did lead him, and there was no strange God with him" (Deut. 32:11, 12).

Our Almighty Parent delights to conduct the tender nestlings of His care to the very edge of the precipice, and even to thrust them off into the steeps of air, that they may learn their possession of unrealized power of flight, to be forever a luxury; and if, in the attempt, they be exposed to unwonted peril, He is prepared to swoop beneath them, and to bear them upward on His mighty pinions. When God brings any of His children into a position of unparalleled difficulty, they may always count upon Him to deliver them. --The Song of Victory

"When God puts a burden upon you He puts His own arm underneath."

There is a little plant, small and stunted, growing under the shade of a broad-spreading oak; and this little plant values the shade which covers it, and greatly does it esteem the quiet rest which its noble friend affords. But a blessing is designed for this little plant.

Once upon a time there comes along the woodman, and with his sharp axe he fells the oak. The plant weeps and cries, "My shelter is departed; every rough wind will blow upon me, and every storm will seek to uproot me!""No, no," saith the angel of that flower; "now will the sun get at thee; now will the shower fall on thee in more copious abundance than before; now thy stunted form shall spring up into loveliness, and thy flower, which could never have expanded itself to perfection shall now laugh in the sunshine, and men shall say, 'How greatly hath that plant increased! How glorious hath become its beauty, through the removal of that which was its shade and its delight!'

"See you not, then, that God may take away your comforts and your privileges, to make you the better Christians? Why, the Lord always trains His soldiers, not by letting them lie on feather-beds, but by turning them out, and using them to forced marches and hard service. He makes them ford through streams, and swim through rivers, and climb mountains, and walk many a long march with heavy knapsacks of sorrow on their backs. This is the way in which He makes them soldiers--not by dressing them up in fine uniforms, to swagger at the barrack gates, and to be fine gentlemen in the eyes of the loungers in the park. God knows that soldiers are only to be made in battle; they are not to be grown in peaceful times. We may grow the stuff of which soldiers are made; but warriors are really educated by the smell of powder, in the midst of whizzing bullets and roaring cannonades, not in soft and peaceful times. Well, Christian, may not this account for it all? Is not thy Lord bringing out thy graces and making them grow? Is He not developing in you the qualities of the soldier by throwing you into the heat of battle, and should you not use every appliance to come off conqueror? --Spurgeon.

Malaysia

I really should have done this before I did my little food guide and I really should’ve included some pictures, but my dad’s internet connection hasn’t been working properly so it’ll have to wait till Thursday when I’m back here. The internet people said that it’ll be back to normal after tomorrow.

Anyway… Friday was the first time I went into town. It was really bizarre because some of it was familiar, but a lot of it was totally different. Even the post office (there’s only one general post office) has changed. A lot of the city center reminded me of Hungary and looked a lot like some Eastern European city stuck in the 70s. It was really bizarre. So many things here are completely different from the way they were when I was last here 3 years ago, which is only to be expected, but it’s even less like the JB (Johor Baru) I remember. I guess, that’s good in a way because I don’t feel so bad about it not being like home anymore. It isn’t the home I remember as a child.

On Friday night, my dad took me shopping and bought me some sushi, but it gave me really bad food poisoning, so I spent most of time yesterday on the toilet and threw up 3 times. When we went to the 24-hour clinic, the doctor diagnosed it straight away, which was nice. I guess food poisoning is pretty standard, but after all the hoo-hah over the last year, it’s nice to go to a doctor the first time and have it diagnosed and sorted straight away. It’s also nice to have something wrong with me that has nothing to do with cancer. I can feel like an average person now. So after I threw up one last time and went to the toilet a couple more times, my stomach felt settled enough to take my medicine again (I threw up the medicine the first time I took it), and now I feel fine. Phew!

Oh, you know, I forgot to say a couple of weeks ago that I had a CT scan and a check-up before I left and everything was fine. They can see my ovary, which is good because it means it wasn’t destroyed by the chemotherapy and that it may work again one day – Dr Davis said maybe in a few more months. We’ll see. It’ll work when God wants it to. :-)

Food!

So, I decided I would do a little Malaysian food guide. I’ve picked 3 things for this week: Nasi Lemak, Pisang Goreng and Moon Cake.

Nasi Lemak (na-see luh-mak)
Nasi means rice and lemak means cream. It’s not rice pudding though. It’s usually served for breakfast, though you can have it at anytime of the day. It’s rice cooked in coconut milk, with a herb called pandan, served with sambal, cucumbers, fried peanuts and an egg. It’s very strange sounding, which is why I chose to talk about it. You have to mix it all together, except the cucumbers, with the rice before you eat it. The cucumbers are there to cool your mouth after eating the sambal, which is pretty much a sauce made primarily out of chilies in which you can add prawns, anchovies, cockles, cuttlefish, etc.. You can also have beef or mutton rendang (ren (like the end of ‘children’)-dung), which is meat cooked in a curry like sauce with coconut, but it doesn’t have much gravy. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you much about rendang and sambal because I don’t know what the other ingredients are. It isn’t one of my favourite meals, but it is an authentic Malaysian dish that looks a lot more appetizing than it sounds, but only if you like spicy food.

Pisang Goreng (pee-sung go-reng)
Pisang means banana and goreng means fried. It’s basically banana fritters, which are yummy. Here they’re served with soy sauce that has been mixed with chilli. Yup, Malaysians love chilli. Again, this is a lot nicer than it sounds. It’s yummy. We usually have it for afternoon tea. Well, not all the time as the fritters are deep-fried, but that’s the time we usually have it. They also have jack fruit and tapioca fritters, but I think those are best left to the Malaysians because if you’re not used to the taste, you really won’t like them. I like them though, but I am Malaysian…

Moon Cake
This is Chinese. It’s a cake made from lotus seed paste. There are three different colors of paste: red, white and green, each with different level of flavour. The red one is the most common. The Chinese like to have ones with egg yolk in them (as in the yolk of a boiled egg), but I like them plain. The texture of the paste is not one many people from the West would like as there’s really nothing like it there. I love it though and it’s my favourite Chinese sweet/dessert. The paste is covered with a very thin layer of Chinese pastry, which is quite dense. This is yummy and I love it!

That’s it for now!

When We Are Ready

Now here's a big challenge for those of us waiting for the fulfilment of a promise from God:

"Blessed are all they that wait for him" (Isa 30:18).

We hear a great deal about waiting on God. There is, however, another side. When we wait on God, He is waiting till we are ready; when we wait for God, we are waiting till He is ready.

There are some people who say, and many more who believe, that as soon as we meet all the conditions, God will answer our prayers. They say that God lives in an eternal now; with Him there is no past nor future; and that if we could fulfill all that He requires in the way of obedience to His will, immediately our needs would be supplied, our desires fulfilled, our prayers answered.

There is much truth in this belief, and yet it expresses only one side of the truth. While God lives in an eternal now, yet He works out His purposes in time. A petition presented before God is like a seed dropped in the ground. Forces above and beyond our control must work upon it, till the true fruition of the answer is given.--The Still Small Voice

I longed to walk along an easy road,
And leave behind the dull routine of home,
Thinking in other fields to serve my God;
But Jesus said, "My time has not yet come."

I longed to sow the seed in other soil,
To be unfettered in the work, and free,
To join with other laborers in their toil;
But Jesus said, "'Tis not My choice for thee."

I longed to leave the desert, and be led
To work where souls were sunk in sin and shame,
That I might win them; but the Master said,
"I have not called thee, publish here My name."

I longed to fight the battles of my King,
Lift high His standards in the thickest strife;
But my great Captain bade me wait and sing
Songs of His conquests in my quiet life.

I longed to leave the uncongenial sphere,
Where all alone I seemed to stand and wait,
To feel I had some human helper near,
But Jesus bade me guard one lonely gate.

I longed to leave the round of daily toil,
Where no one seemed to understand or care;
But Jesus said, "I choose for thee this soil,
That thou might'st raise for Me some blossoms rare."

And now I have no longing but to do
At home, or else afar, His blessed will,
To work amid the many or the few;
Thus, "choosing not to choose," my heart is still.
--Selected

"And Patience was willing to wait."--Pilgrim's Progress

Walk Without Strain

A little piece of encouragement for you this morning:

"And he saw them toiling in rowing" (Mark 6:48).

Straining, driving effort does not accomplish the work God gives man to do. Only God Himself, who always works without strain, and who never overworks, can do the work that He assigns to His children. When they restfully trust Him to do it, it will be well done and completely done. The way to let Him do His work through us is to partake of Christ so fully, by faith, that He more than fills our life.

A man who had learned this secret once said: "I came to Jesus and I drank, and I do not think that I shall ever be thirsty again. I have taken for my motto, 'Not overwork, but overflow'; and already it has made all the difference in my life."

There is no effort in overflow. It is quietly irresistible. It is the normal life of omnipotent and ceaseless accomplishment into which Christ invites us today and always.--Sunday School Times

Be all at rest, my soul, O blessed secret,
Of the true life that glorifies thy Lord:
Not always doth the busiest soul best serve Him,
But he that resteth on His faithful Word.
Be all at rest, let not your heart be rippled,
For tiny wavelets mar the image fair,
Which the still pool reflects of heaven's glory--
And thus the image He would have thee bear.

Be all at rest, my soul, for rest is service,
To the still heart God doth His secrets tell;
Thus shalt thou learn to wait, and watch, and labor,
Strengthened to bear, since Christ in thee doth dwell.
For what is service but the life of Jesus,
Lived through a vessel of earth's fragile clay,
Loving and giving and poured forth for others,
A living sacrifice from day to day.

Be all at rest, so shalt thou be an answer
To those who question, "Who is God and where?"
For God is rest, and where He dwells is stillness,
And they who dwell in Him, His rest shalt share.
And what shall meet the deep unrest around thee,
But the calm peace of God that filled His breast?
For still a living Voice calls to the weary,
From Him who said, "Come unto Me and rest."
--Freda Hanbury Allen

"In resurrection stillness there is resurrection power."

My new favourite song

So, I was just flicking through the music channels this afternoon and stopped on MTV2 cos there was this video about a whole load of people with headphones on. I stopped and listened and it was the LOVELIEST song I have ever heard!! So, if you want to have 3 minutes of loveliness, please watch this video of Bright Eyes, First Day of My Life. It totally reminded me of Joel and Heather. Lovely, lovely, loveliness!

On another note, if you're not into lovey-dovey songs, and want a little bit of randomness and share in some Steph-giggliness, watch Ok Go's A Million Ways. Hee hee!

The End of our Strength

How much am I looking for proof, when all I should do is look to God and see that He who has promised is faithful. These old devotions are the best!

"Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed" (John 20:29).

How strong is the snare of the things that are seen, and how necessary for God to keep us in the things that axe unseen! If Peter is to walk on the water he must walk; if he is going to swim, he must swim, but he cannot do both. If the bird is going to fly it must keep away from fences and the trees, and trust to its buoyant wings. But if it tries to keep within easy reach of the ground, it will make poor work of flying.

God had to bring Abraham to the end of his own strength, and to let him see that in his own body he could do nothing. He had to consider his own body as good as dead, and then take God for the whole work; and when he looked away from himself, and trusted God alone, then he became fully persuaded that what He had promised, He was able to perform. That is what God is teaching us, and He has to keep away encouraging results until we learn to trust without them, and then He loves to make His Word real in fact as well as faith.--A. B. Simpson

I do not ask that He must prove
His Word is true to me,
And that before I can believe
He first must let me see.
It is enough for me to know
'Tis true because He says 'tis so;
On His unchanging Word I'll stand
And trust till I can understand.
--E. M. Winter

Time heals

You know, I've often wondered why I have been given all this time. I realised this week that only that my body needs to heal, but my heart needs to too. Yes, having had cancer is a traumatic and an emotionally draining experience, but I've had a lot of time to think about past hurts. No, I haven't been dwelling in them, but I have realised that no matter how far away these things are in regard to time, they are still very much close at hand. A lot of these things have remained hidden because, quite frankly, I haven't had the time to deal with them. This stuff happened, then it was my finals, then I had a summer job, then I had a job and Japanese lessons, then I had my course, then, well, I had cancer. And it was a good thing. I don't think I can deal with the hurt I faced during cancer quite yet. It's still too close and I really feel like, "Woah, that happened to me?!" If it weren't for the scars, I don't think I'd believe it.

You know, I've hidden so much of this stuff and God really wants them uncovered. I'm glad. I think going to Japan or anywhere else with these things still holding me down would have hindered my walk with God and my work for God. I was saying to Kirsty that I felt stupid for letting things that happened over a year ago still bug me, and yeah, maybe some of you are thinking, "Get over it!" Well, that's the point God's making too. I have to get over it, but the only way I can do it is to deal with these things I've been suppressing. I prayed about them ages ago, but I never dealt with them. I never really even thought I should, but He's made it very clear that it really is the time for me to forgive, forget and leave these things in the past. They didn't kill me, they just made me stronger.

I really don't know why I hide the truth from God. I even try to find things that are too difficult for God. I fail, of course. :-) Nothing's too hard for Him, except maybe evil. I'm sure He must look at me fondly and say, "You know I made you slow, but not THAT slow". Yup, He knows and it's time I deal with it. Time I just let go and see the truth. I think it's going to be a bumpy road, but man, it is so time to get over it and move on, move forward and leave it at God's feet. I really feel so privileged that God has given me this time to deal with the past. Really blessed. Best put it to use then, eh?

No Solution in Sight

This devotion is a big challenge to me. I know that God's plan and timing are perfect. I know that God always fulfils His promises, but if I can't see how He'll do it, I just assume that I heard wrong. I forget that when God says He'll do something it is as good as done. God says, "Is anything too hard for the Lord?" (Gen 18:14).

"He went out, not knowing whither he went" (Heb. 11:9).

It is faith without sight. When we can see, it is not faith, but reasoning. In crossing the Atlantic we observed this very principle of faith. We saw no path upon the sea, nor sign of the shore. And yet day by day we were marking our path upon the chart as exactly as if there had followed us a great chalk line upon the sea. And when we came within twenty miles of land, we knew where we were as exactly as if we had seen it all three thousand miles ahead.

How had we measured and marked our course? Day by day our captain had taken his instruments and, looking up to the sky, had fixed his course by the sun. He was sailing by the heavenly, not the earthly lights.

So faith looks up and sails on, by God's great Sun, not seeing one shore line or earthly lighthouse or path upon the way. Often its steps seem to lead into utter uncertainty, and even darkness and disaster; but He opens the way, and often makes such midnight hours the very gates of day. Let us go forth this day, not knowing, but trusting.--Days of Heaven upon Earth

"Too many of us want to see our way through before starting new enterprises. If we could and did, from whence would come the development of our Christian graces? Faith, hope and love cannot be plucked from trees, like ripe apples. After the words 'In the beginning' comes the word 'God'! The first step turns the key into God's power-house, and it is not only true that God helps those who help themselves, but He also helps those who cannot help themselves. You can depend upon Him every time."

"Waiting on God brings us to our journey's end quicker than our feet."

The opportunity is often lost by deliberation.