Marji's goofy foot

So, since Marji and I were bored tonight and she's going snowboarding at Braehead with Michaela, I spent about 5 or 10 minutes pushing her in the kitchen just so she could figure out whether she was 'regular' or 'goofy footed'. I didn;t know left was 'regular'. She doesn't like being goofy. Ah well...

Also, I think it's about time that Marji and I make a public declaration: we are indeed a couple. After 5 and a half years of denial, the last 2 weeks of living together has made it a little too difficult to hide the feelings we have had for each other. Unfortunately, I don't think it comes as big surprise to you since you probably saw it coming. So to prospective suitors for us both: we're taken. Just thought you should know.

Music and the Rest

A good reminder when things aren't going according to 'the plan'. God's in charge of it all.

"Into a desert place apart" (Matt. 14:13).

"There is no music in a rest, but there is the making of music in it." In our whole life-melody the music is broken off here and there by "rests," and we foolishly think we have come to the end of the tune. God sends a time of forced leisure, sickness, disappointed plans, frustrated efforts, and makes a sudden pause in the choral hymn of our lives; and we lament that our voices must be silent, and our part missing in the music which ever goes up to the ear of the Creator. How does the musician read the "rest"? See him beat the time with unvarying count, and catch up the next note true and steady, as if no breaking place had come between.

Not without design does God write the music of our lives. Be it ours to learn the tune, and not be dismayed at the "rests." They are not to be slurred over, not to be omitted, not to destroy the melody, not to change the keynote. If we look up, God Himself will beat the time for us. With the eye on Him, we shall strike the next note full and clear. If we sadly say to ourselves, "There is no music in a 'rest,'" let us not forget "there is the making of music in it." The making of music is often a slow and painful process in this life. How patiently God works to teach us! How long He waits for us to learn the lesson! --Ruskin

Faith

Hello! Once again you'll be getting a real post as opposed to just devotions. I've been thinking a lot about faith recently and how it encompasses every aspect of life. I always thought it had to do only with God, but I've realised that I need it to even believe that my mum loves me, that when I go to bed I'll wake up, that my friends are indeed who I think they are, and so on, and so on. It is quite worrying to realise that once you stop believing in one thing, it's not long before to stop believing anything. I guess that's why it's so unsettling for people with mental illnesses. I don't know though, just thinking as I type.

I've also been annoyed and frustrated at myself because I haven't given up a very trivial part of my life over to God. You'd think that after what happened over the last year, it'd be easier to give my life up to Him and just trust Him with the minutest detail. Here again I see how similar I am to the nation of old testament Israel. The cancer being caught early and not having to have a hystrectomy was my parting of the Red Sea and the strength through chemo was my manna from heaven. Yet after all these miracles, I still doubt that God really cares for me. How can that be so?

I love God and I love the Bible, but I can't discipline myself to spend time with God or studying the Bible. Why is that? I love a lot of my friends and I have no problem spending time with them at all. Why is it so hard with God? Is it because I take Him for granted? Marji's been staying with me at my minister's flat while they're away, but it seems that we don't always make an effort to see each other because we assume we will at some point. Is that the same with God and I?

I was speaking to Paul the other day and he showed me the example of how Christianity is like a wheel; Christ is the centre, with the four spokes being studying the Bible, prayer, fellowship and witnessing, all surrounded by obedience, which is the tyre. Not one part can be removed if the wheel is to be used effectively. How much time do I spend witnessing? I can honestly say next to none. I've been so caught up with worrying that I haven't spent time with God and in the Bible. And my fellowship sucks because Christ isn't the centre.

I don't know why I'm typing this. I just feel that this state of being can't continue anymore because I am starting to feel like I'm suffocating. Maybe that's what 'quenching the Spirit' feels like? I don't know. I guess now that I've realised where I'm at, I have to do something about it. This is just my way of starting to deal with it. Ah well.

Hardship Makes Character

Sorry, not been all that great at blogging... Here's a good devotion for you:

"In all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us" (Romans 8:37).

This is more than victory. This is a triumph so complete that we have not only escaped defeat and destruction, but we have destroyed our enemies and won a spoil so rich and valuable that we can thank God that the battle ever came. How can we be "more than conquerors"? We can get out of the conflict a spiritual discipline that will greatly strengthen our faith and establish our spiritual character. Temptation is necessary to settle and confirm us in the spiritual life. It is like the fire which burns in the colors of mineral painting, or like winds that cause the mighty cedars of the mountain to strike more deeply into the soil. Our spiritual conflicts are among our choicest blessings, and our great adversary is used to train us for his ultimate defeat. The ancient Phrygians had a legend that every time they conquered an enemy the victor absorbed the physical strength of his victim and added so much more to his own strength and valor. So temptation victoriously met doubles our spiritual strength and equipment. It is possible thus not only to defeat our enemy, but to capture him and make him fight in our ranks. The prophet Isaiah speaks of flying on the shoulders of the Philistines (Isa. 11:14). These Philistines were their deadly foes, but the figure suggested that they would be enabled not only to conquer the Philistines, but to use them to carry the victors on their shoulders for further triumphs. Just as the wise sailor can use a head wind to carry him forward by tacking and taking advantage of its impelling force; so it is possible for us in our spiritual life through the victorious grace of God to turn to account the things that seem most unfriendly and unfavorable, and to be able to say continually, "The things that were against me have happened to the furtherance of the Gospel." --Life More Abundantly

A noted scientist observing that "early voyagers fancied that the coral-building animals instinctively built up the great circles of the Atoll Islands to afford themselves protection in the inner parts," has disproved this fancy by showing that the insect builders can only live and thrive fronting the open ocean, and in the highly aerated foam of its resistless billows. So it has been commonly thought that protected ease is the most favorable condition of life, whereas all the noblest and strongest lives prove on the contrary that the endurance of hardship is the making of the men, and the factor that distinguishes between existence and vigorous vitality. Hardship makes character. --Selected

"Now thanks be unto God Who always leads us forth to triumph with the Anointed One, and Who diffuses by us the fragrance of the knowledge of Him in every place" (2 Cor. 2:14, literal translation).

Merry Christmas

Hello! Merry Christmas! As much as I wish as the card the card states, I hope you entrust your hopes, dreams, ambitions, desires and future in general to God's care. I hope you will be blessed as I have been this year, though in a much nicer way than what happened to me of course...

I did something strange today - strange for the 'me' I've become anyway... I wanted to clear my inbox for my hotmail account, but while doing it, I stumbled upon quite a number of amazing emails, a lot of them from this year and about cancer and my gran's death, but a couple from a few years ago that I must have kept when I deleted my emails before. Ok, my point? I finally understood 'natsukashisa' [na-tsu-ka-she-sa], the Japanese term for nostalgia or a 'pleasant-sad feeling' (apparently a very valued emotion to have for a Japanese person). Hmmm... This is going to be hard for me to say quickly...

I don't know who reads my blog anymore, so I'm sorry for being too personal. I think, in fact, my blogs have not been very personal at all for a while so in a way I'm making up for it. Also, when my gran died, my granddad and uncle were left with regret because they never got to say the things they'd always wanted to say to my gran before she died. On that note, I wrote a few Christmas cards to the people I love most - or could honestly say I actually loved - and told them why they mean so much to me and thanked them for all they've done. (Am challenged by the fact I am to love EVERYONE and not the select few I've chosen...) Pfff!

Goodness! I'm just really overwhelmed! I have been so loved this year and I know that that isn't just because of the uniqueness of this year. It's been great to have care and affection demonstrated over the year in a way that couldn't have been possible without all the difficulty that I had to go through. And then to look back over the uni years and see that certain people have just ALWAYS been there! I have been continually blessed by these people in particular and all the people that God has put into my life. I owe a lot of where I am today spiritually and my knowledge of God and the Bible - both intellectually and emotionally - and who I've become to these people. As you already know, I love you and I'm more grateful than I could ever really tell you.

The other side to it is how much I've grown and the woman I have been becoming - since third year especially. Some of those emails had the email I'd sent attached and I was amazed at some of the things I'd said in them - in a good way, I mean. It turns out I wasn't quite as silly as I thought and that humbled me, because obviously it was God in me and not me in myself. I guess now I know why people have such a high opinion of me, though I still can't believe it. :-S

Ok, last of all and most importantly, God is good. There's no better day than today - except maybe Easter - to figure that out! I never knew it more certainly till this year, which is odd you might think since I had cancer and my grandmother died of a heart attack three days after my birthday. You want to know how? Here:
- the cancer was caught early
- I had THE best surgeon possible to operate on me
- he was the loveliest surgeon ever and actually CARED
- I didn't have to have a hysterectomy
- the cancer was completely removed during surgery
- chemo was precautionary
- I lost all my hair, but I actually suited being bald, I had a great wig and now I have an afro! (AMAZING!)
- my friends still bless me even with the memory of all their care over this year
- my gran became a Christian 3 hours before she died - quite possibly God kept her alive just long enough to come to Him
- my one ovary is working perfectly
- I learned so much about God in all the extra time I had this year and saw Him in a completely new way
- I was vulnerable and allowed myself to be so, which does mean I cry a lot more than I used to, but that's good because I'm more feminine and womanly, which I was struggling to let happen
- I love Him more than I did before and I know Him better

Those are the major ones that continue to overwhelm me. I'm so glad to have seen this today because I can thank God genuinely. All this good wouldn't have and couldn't have happened without Jesus coming and I'm glad I can thank Him wholeheartedly and attribute all the blessing I received to Him as He deserves. Praise God for His goodness!

One last thing - sorry for such a long post - I hope you get to know God as I have done over this year. I hope that it doesn;t have to be a critical illness or a death of a very special loved one for that to happen. May God bless you with a deeper knowledge of Him and His will for you! Praise Him for His goodness, mercy and love! AMEN.

God's Refreshment

This is LOVELY! So revealing of God's parental love toward us - toward me! Hoep it encourages you as it did me:

"The journey is too great for thee" (1 King 19:7).

And what did God do with His tired servant? Gave him something good to eat, and put him to sleep. Elijah had done splendid work, and had run alongside of the chariot in his excitement, and it had been too much for his physical strength, and the reaction had come on, and he was depressed. The physical needed to be cared for. What many people want is sleep, and the physical ailment attended to. There are grand men and women who get where Elijah was--under the juniper tree! and it comes very soothingly to such to hear the words of the Master: "The journey is too great for thee, and I am going to refresh you." Let us not confound physical weariness with spiritual weakness.

"I'm too tired to trust and too tired to pray,
Said one, as the over-taxed strength gave way.
The one conscious thought by my mind possessed,
Is, oh, could I just drop it all and rest.

"Will God forgive me, do you suppose,
If I go right to sleep as a baby goes,
Without an asking if I may,
Without ever trying to trust and pray?

"Will God forgive you? why think, dear heart,
When language to you was an unknown art,
Did a mother deny you needed rest,
Or refuse to pillow your head on her breast?

"Did she let you want when you could not ask?
Did she set her child an unequal task?
Or did she cradle you in her arms,
And then guard your slumber against alarms?

"Ah, how quick was her mother love to see,
The unconscious yearnings of infancy.
When you've grown too tired to trust and pray,
When over-wrought nature has quite given way:

"Then just drop it all, and give up to rest,
As you used to do on a mother's breast,
He knows all about it--the dear Lord knows,
So just go to sleep as a baby goes;

"Without even asking if you may,
God knows when His child is too tired to pray.
He judges not solely by uttered prayer,
He knows when the yearnings of love are there.

"He knows you do pray, He knows you do trust,
And He knows, too, the limits' of poor weak dust.
Oh, the wonderful sympathy of Christ,
For His chosen ones in that midnight tryst,

"When He bade them sleep and take their rest,
While on Him the guilt of the whole world pressed--
You've given your life up to Him to keep,
Then don't be afraid to go right to sleep."
- Mrs C E Cowman

Dare to Be Alone

Hmmm... I've never thought about this concept before. What do you think?

"Yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me" (John 16:32).

It need not be said that to carry out conviction into action is a costly sacrifice. It may make necessary renunciations and separations which leave one to feel a strange sense both of deprivation and loneliness. But he who will fly, as an eagle does, into the higher levels where cloudless day abides, and live in the sunshine of God, must be content to live a comparatively lonely life.

No bird is so solitary as the eagle. Eagles never fly in flocks; one, or at most two, ever being seen at once. But the life that is lived unto God, however it forfeits human companionships, knows Divine fellowship.

God seeks eagle-men. No man ever comes into a realization of the best things of God, who does not, upon the Godward side of his life, learn to walk alone with God. We find Abraham alone in Horeb upon the heights, but Lot, dwelling in Sodom. Moses, skilled in all the wisdom of Egypt must go forty years into the desert alone with God. Paul, who was filled with Greek learning and had also sat at the feet of Gamaliel, must go into Arabia and learn the desert life with God. Let God isolate us. I do not mean the isolation of a monastery. In this isolating experience He develops an independence of faith and life so that the soul needs no longer the constant help, prayer, faith or attention of his neighbor. Such assistance and inspiration from the other members are necessary and have their place in the Christian's development, but there comes a time when they act as a direct hindrance to the individual's faith and welfare. God knows how to change the circumstances in order to give us an isolating experience. We yield to God and He takes us through something, and when it is over, those about us, who are no less loved than before, are no longer depended upon. We realize that He has wrought some things in us, and that the wings of our souls have learned to beat the upper air.

We must dare to be alone. Jacob must be left alone if the Angel of God is to whisper in his ear the mystic name of Shiloh; Daniel must be left alone if he is to see celestial visions; John must be banished to Patmos if he is deeply to take and firmly to keep "the print of heaven." - Mrs C E Cowman

Call Back

How true it is that we can encourage each other with our testimonies!

"It shall turn to you for a testimony'' (Luke 21:13).

Life is a steep climb, and it does the heart good to have somebody "call back" and cheerily beckon us on up the high hill. We are all climbers together, and we must help one another. This mountain climbing is serious business, but glorious. It takes strength and steady step to find the summits. The outlook widens with the altitude. If anyone among us has found anything worth while, we ought to "call back."

If you have gone a little way ahead of me, call back--
'Twill cheer my heart and help my feet along the stony track;
And if, perchance, Faith's light is dim, because the oil is low,
Your call will guide my lagging course as wearily I go.

Call back, and tell me that He went with you into the storm;
Call back, and say He kept you when the forest's roots were torn;
That, when the heavens thunder and the earthquake shook the hill,
He bore you up and held you where the very air was still.

Oh, friend, call back, and tell me for I cannot see your face,
They say it glows with triumph, and your feet bound in the race;
But there are mists between us and my spirit eyes are dim,
And I cannot see the glory, though I long for word of Him.

But if you'll say He heard you when your prayer was but a cry,
And if you'll say He saw you through the night's sin-darkened sky
If you have gone a little way ahead, oh, friend, call back--
'Twill cheer my heart and help my feet along the stony track.
--Selected

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.