Emotional nothing-in-particular-ness

Had a manic weekend of various celebrations mostly involving food (!) for Mum's 50th! Brunch, dinner, dinner, lunch; busyness! Good though.

Feeling a bit overwhelmed with emotional nothing-in-particular-ness!! Dad and I made this DVD for Mum's birthday of photos through her life. It brought back a lot of memories coz we had to look through a LOT of photos. So many memories were brought back; times as a kid, times when I had an Auntie, times when my Uncle was fit and healthy etc. And a bunch of emotions were stirred up -when I was a kid life was simple, I was thinner than I am now (altho I was quite a chubby kid!), life had a purpose (altho what it was I'm not so sure!) and it was all good (well, mostly).

Now things seemed to have taken a different route and life's not quite so mapped out and hunky dory all the time. Wouldn't it be grand to feel great and loved and be doing amazing things all the time?! I wish I could just click my fingers and everything would change!! Wishful thinking though me thinks.

Today someone came up to me at church and said "God's told me you're gonna be a vicar. So when you gonna start training?" I was quite taken back by this, but amazingly unalarmed and it did kinda sit with me. Hmmmm...

Bowled over by God!

It never ceases to amaze me how it often takes other people to point out to me how God is working in my life and which doors he may be opening. Again with this friend this morning I had quite a conversation.

We talked about my love for pre-school and how I'm not gonna have much work there for a wee while. And we talked about my degree and how that fitted into my work at pre-school. I'm not sure it does entirely, but who knows! I guess it is loosely connected seeing as it's childhood and youth studies and at pre-school I work with 2-4 year olds!

She asked me if working at a pre-school/nursery/playgroup (whatever you wanna call it!) is something I could see myself doing more long-term. And I guess it is (so I said it was!). So we talked about the possibilty of me finding more permanent work. I think in order to do that I'd need to have an NVQ level 2 in child something or other!! So we talked about the possibility of me doing this NVQ. I've tried to research it a bit online, but not had much joy. I'm hoping Croydon College can send me some more info about it. But I can definately ask my colleagues at pre-school and one of my Brownies' Mum's is doing it too.

Ironically this friend said pretty much what Becky's comment said on a previous entry of mine; how Magdalene pre-school has given me a taste of working in that kind of environment and how my eyes have been opened to it and I've loved it. So maybe it's God opening a door and showing me the way to go.

So hopefully I'll hear back from Croydon College and then I can see whether I'd be able to do an NVQ and whether I can do it alongside my degree. It may be possible, but I'll have to wait and see. I'm still in awe of how God's changed me... When I was in 6th form I hated studying, I had no self-discipline, I was not motivated and studying was a joke. I really feared this would happen with my OU degree, but God has amazed me again. I've been so disciplined and motivated. Ok, I've had a few bad days, but ultimately it's been all good! And I've been succeding, I've had good marks and it's going amazingly. Thank you God! So that gives me comfort and it makes it seem slightly realistic that I could do module 2 whilst doing an NVQ.

My eyes had been shut to this though. Before my friend made these suggestions about church and pre-school this morning, someone else had actually mentioned the church thing and Becky mentioned pre-school. But on both occassions I didn't follow it up, I stayed away from it coz it felt uncomfortable. The fact that these things have been suggested to me by a few people who don't even know each other, suggests that maybe God is actually in this and maybe this is his way of unfolding his will to me.

Ultimately it's not about the comfortable life is it? As I said earlier if the friendships are so important at church, they will remain. The same stands for work, if the friendships with my colleagues are so important, they'll remain. Coz that's what my gut reaction with pre-school was; I love the kids, but more than that, I know and love the staff, it's comfortable, it's good. I guess it may be time for me to take a risk, to leave my comfort zone. But I can't do it alone. I need God and I need him to mark my steps out so clearly.

*****

Aside from that, last night it snowed, so it looked all pretty when I woke up this morning :-) But it did mean the traffic went a bit crazy! And it also meant the car needed scrapping and my fingers got cold!!!

Tonight I have to go to church - Stanley Tech have their founders day service and Richard has asked me if I'll open up, supervise and lock up. Groan! Well it is money at least, but it's gonna be flippin' freezin'!!

10 principles

I read this devo online just now. It made me take a step back. In principle it's an amazing bunch of principles, but so hard to actually do. Or is that just me?!

10 Principles
'...AND IT WAS VERY GOOD...' GENESIS 1:31
God knew the 'you-shaped' purpose you were born to fulfil, so He provided all the gifts you'd need. Having designed you, God stands back and with a satisfied grin says 'Very good.' Can you say that about yourself? It's important that you can. Why? Because others will treat you according to how you treat yourself! This is not pride, it's just healthy self-esteem based on God's opinion of you. When you have it, it affects every area of your life. Truth be told, it determines how far you'll go in life. Stop and ask yourself today, 'How do I really feel about myself?' Be honest! Then read these 10 principles: 1) Never think or speak negatively about yourself, GOD DOESN'T! 2) Spend time thinking about your God-given strengths and learn to encourage yourself, for much of the time nobody else will 3) Don't compare yourself to anybody else. You're unique, one of a kind, an original. So don't settle for being a copy 4) Focus on your potential, not your limitations. Remember, God lives in you! 5) Find what you like to do, do well, and strive to do it with excellence 6) Have the courage to be different. Be a God pleaser, not a people pleaser 7) Learn to handle criticism. Let it develop you instead of discourage you 8) Determine your own worth instead of letting others do it for you. They'll shortchange you! 9) Keep your shortcomings in perspective - you're still a work in progress. 10) Focus daily on your greatest source of confidence - the God Who lives in you!

Moving on?

So I had a bit of a rant about St Mary's last night - whoopsy!!
Anywho, I met with a friend this morning and we had quite an uncomfortable discussion. I tried to tell her how I'm feeling about St Mary's, although I had a lot of trouble articulating it properly. We came to the decision that I feel trapped by it. After all, it is my home church, I've been there for almost 21 years. That's a long time to be in the same place!!

So she suggested I leave (or say I'm taking a sabbatical) and go to a new church. We talked over a few possibilities, but nowhere really struck a chord with me. But that doesn't mean to say it's not right.

We both recognised this would be a really hard thing for me to do. Especially coz I've been and still am involved in so much at St Mary's. It would be quite an uprooting. What would make it even harder is that my family would still go there and I'm still gonna be living in the same place.

After the initial shock of this suggestion I thought back to yesterdays entry. What is it actually keeping me there? And I guess there are only 3 things; there's a handful of friends, there's the fact that I do so much there and there's the fact that I have wonderful opportunities to develop my gifts (preaching, leading services etc).

I guess if the friendships are so important to me, even if I left St Mary's we'd still keep in touch coz it's not as if Addiscombe is far from where I live. Come the summer I can take myself off every rota, I can step down from all I do and I would no longer be tied to St Mary's. And if it is really my calling to go into ministry, God will give me other opportunities to develop my gifts in other places.

So what's my conclusion? I guess I feel God is opening some doors. I think it may be right to move on, and I need to pray my socks off for God to reveal his will in this situation. If I'm gonna move churches I really need God to show me exactly the right place to be. So if you wanna join me in prayer, please do! And if God says anything to you about it, let me know!!!

Flat

Feeling kinda flat tonight. I'm slowly realising there's not a lot to my life at the moment - I study in my bedroom, I go to the gym, occassionally I go to work and I've practically sold my soul to St Mary's!!

Studying is ok. It's long, but it's enjoyable and at least when it's over I'll have a degree to my name - always good!!

The gym is cool. It keeps me fit, helps me burn off unnecessary calories and now I have my ipod shuffle (thank you guys) I can even listen to worship music whilst working out :-) So it's mostly good - anything to keep losing weight ey?!

Work, as I said yesterday, is amazing. But as I also said yesterday, there's not that much of it coming my way at the moment.

And St Mary's. Well if I could get out now, I would. I used to love my church, it used to inspire me, it used to feed me, it used to help me grow and I used to enjoy going. But now, I'm rarely inspired, I don't feel like I've grown at all and I don't enjoy going. A few years back I remember a particular incident where a woman had rubbed me up the wrong way and I'd gotten really angry with her. I had to be reminded quite harshly at that time that church isn't about the people who go there, it's about Jesus. Someone asked me "Who is it that you're following is it that woman or is it Jesus?" Wow, what a whip back into reality! But I go along, I do Junior Church, I play the piano, I lead services, I preach, I do this, I do that and why? Well it's good to serve God right, but I'm pretty sure my heart's not in the right place! I don't want this entry to turn into a rant about my church, so I won't let it. But now I go to church because there are a handful of people there who I love and who encourage and inspire me on a more personal level. How wrong is that? It's as if I'm following the people again and not Jesus. What's up with my backward heart?! *mental note to self - gone off on a complete tangent, this post really wasn't meant to be about that!*

So that's my life; study, gym, work, church. And it ain't good!!

I saw Kaylee today and we were talking about my social life, or lack of it. And it got me thinking 'why?' I guess it's partly coz I don't actually have all that much money, so can't really afford to go out much. But it digs deeper than that, it's about friends and my social network. I know a lot of people and I guess I do have a lot of friends, but why don't we go out/do stuff? Is it coz they work? Is it coz we don't try to organise stuff? Is it coz our relationships are superficial? Why is it?! A bunch of who I'd consider to be close friends are infact a lot older than me and have families and jobs etc, so sitting in a pub or going to somewhere like reflex isn't necessarily their scene or am I just making that up? Have I actually asked them? I dunno!!

But I do think my social network is lacking. And that is becoz I spend so much time in isolation. Most of my friends are connected to St Mary's. Other than that, there are work colleagues, but I'd only actually ever meet one of them outside work coz I don't really know the others that well. Then there's band folk, but as I'm like the oldest one there I've only got a few friends in it now and I'd only go out with Beckie. But where else do I go?! Nowhere!!

So this has become a bit of a rant, but hey ho! It's helped me to articulate what's in my head and begin to work out why I'm feeling flat! If you've made it this far, thanks for reading!!

A quiet season

So today was a sad day - I was told I'm not gonna get asked to work as much coz pre-school are a bit short of cash at the moment. Lorraine said they'll ask me when they really need someone (like when Katy's has hospital appointments etc) but not just random times (like the afternoons I've been doing this month). So that made me sad.

I know it's no reflection on me, I know it's not personal, but it still hurts.

I love pre-school. It's weird coz when I first thought about working there I had so many questions about whether I'd enjoy it. I mean lets face it - how is playing with 2-4year olds for days on end fun? But it is. It is amazing. I never knew it could be so great. I've been given the privilege of helping these small children develop. I can do activities with them, we can discuss what they're doing, I can develop their understanding of things. It is such an amazing privilege and it brings me so much joy.

Being a part-time student doing a degree that lasts for 6 years isn't the most inspiring thing in life. Ok, so I'm genuinely interested in the degree and I am enjoying it, but that's not enough to make me see it through. My degree is no reason to get up each day. But pre-school is a reason to get up in the mornings. If I'm working I get up no problem, I'm eager to get there and get on with the session ahead coz I love it, I guess you could say I thrive on it. But when there are days I'm not working, getting up is hard, I have almost no reason to, unless I'm doing something or seeing someone special.

And despite knowing it really is no reflection on me, I still wonder why? Why is God letting this happen to me? Finally I find a reason to live, a purpose in life and its pretty much snatched up from under my feet. If I didn't need the money and I didn't need the fulfilment and I didn't enjoy it then it wouldn't be so bad. But I love pre-school and I do need the money and I do need the fulfilment, so why God? What's going on?

Praying for a miracle....

A blustery Mary Poppins kinda day!

What a day and it's not even 5:30pm yet! Went into work this afternoon where Anne told me what an awful morning they'd had with kids screaming, kicking, peeing and pooing themselves and how they all just really wanted to go home. We hoped the afternoon would get better, but it turned into quite an interesting one.

The kids come in at 12:30 and by 12:45 they were so noisy and horrible that Anne had shouted at them loads and we had to put the climbing frame away coz they couldn't cooperate. Anne and I took them to do register during which we heard Ivy and Asia screaming from the kitchen - the shed had started blowing away!!

Quick interlude to explain the shed situation... over the summer we got a new shed coz the other one had mice. It's made of corrugated iron and a bunch of Dad's put it up. They didn't do a great job, so Anne and Frances' husbands came and had another go. The shed leaked and we've been on at Argos coz it's faulty and generally crap.

So when it detached itself from its base and started taking off it was kinda scary. So we've got loads of excitable screaming kids (24 to be precise) and a shed thats about to take off!! so there's 2 of us with the kids and the rest of the staff are holding down this shed. It was our manager's day off, but we had to phone her and she insisted she came in. We tried to call out someone to take it down for us, but that was gonna cost £200. We rang for the fire brigade, but were told there were 200 people in front of us!! So Lorraine (our manager) got a mallet out and started bashing the shed, trying to flatten it, so we could hold it down until the fire brigade could come. Then Frances remembered her husband was at home, so she called him and he and their son came to try and help.

So the kids are finally being picked up and there's me, Lorraine, Anne, Frances and Katy clinging onto this shed, while Mick and Paul are unscrewing it bit by bit. We had to empty it and take all the bits into the hall. It was kinda scary yet amusing all at the same time. And all the while its still blowing up a gale and the rains pouring down. What a day!!

So by 4:30 the shed was dismantled and in pieces in the hall, the contents were in the hall and we're sitting having a cuppa. And along came the firemen!! We had called to tell them not to bother, but apparently they just come anyway. But they were glad we'd managed to sort it coz they had loads more calls to go on.

So the kids aren't coming in tomorrow. Lorraine's given me the day off coz I stayed late and coz there's no kids. Everyone else will just be cleaning wet, dirty toys and taking the shed to the dump!

What a joy!

Dirty Trousers

So I worked at pre-school this morning. As ever, it was fun. I spent about 45mins on the playdough table and have ended up with yellow playdough stuck to various parts of my trousers! All the kids seemed 'depressed' today (well that's how Ivy put it!). They seemed quite flat. We had 3 new kids, 2 of whom cried and screamed for the majority of the morning. We had our usual 3 tearway, crying children and then a bunch of miserable looking kids! I know it was raining, but honestly. Talk about Seasonal Affective Disorder. I've never seen a bunch of 3&4 year olds look so miserable.

I then ended up doing the activity again. I did it on Monday and it was the same thing, so at least I knew what we were doing! We did printing to make dolls houses. We had a square stamp with funky stripes on it and a sponge so we had red windows and a blue door. It was cool and I was able to talk to the kids about shapes and colours and dolls houses :-) So to join the playdough I also have red paint on my trousers!!

Tonight my cell group are doing the catering for Alpha. I'm not entirely sure what we're making, but no doubt I'll end up with some of that on my trousers too!!

Life story work

So lately I've been thinking a lot more about blogging and how it's a really good thing to do. I think if I blogged properly, I could type what's on my heart and it could be quite theraputic.

This morning I've done some studying and I've been reading and hearing about 'life story work'. It's a process carried out usually between a child and an adult. The child has normally been placed in care and is about to go into foster care, but this isn't always the case. Basically it's normally carried out with a child who has been separated from their birth parents for some reason. The work can take the form of a book, a photo album, a video etc etc. The child and adult work together piece-ing together parts of the child's life. Together they talk about what happened, try and gather information, revisit old places. Generally it conjures up a lot of emotion and helps the child to come to terms with what's happened in their life. And because it normally ends up as a book, the child has something concrete, something physical to look back on and it can also be helpful for foster parents to understand their foster child.

So there was a case study of a boy Jamie who with his social worker, Sophie made this life story book. He hasn't seen his mother since he was 5. He was placed in residential care by his father for stealing 36p and then placed in foster care. Jamie and Sophie visited Southend, where Jamie had lived in a flat with his dad and his new girlfriend and her children for a short while. They were able to go to the social services department and re-live the memories there. His foster mum gave him loads of photos of him and his foster brothers and sisters. Jamie and Sophie were able to piece together his life through photos, meeting people, visiting places etc. It was a difficult process, but has enabled Jamie to come to terms with what happened when he was separated from his birth family. Through this he has been able to re-establish contact with his sister too. A made-up case study I know, but this work really does go on; people really do make life story books and social workers often use this as a form of therapy.

Now I know I'm still with my birth parents and that I've not had to experience care or any trauma like that. But I was thinking how amazing it would be if I made a life story book. There's not any huge issues for me to untangle and piece together, but how amazing would it be for me to have a life story book? Take for example when I die (which at some point I will) family and friends around me won't necessarily know my whole life story, but how cool would it be for them to be able to find it out through a book I'd made. One thing picked up on in my reading this morning was that the process of a life story book never ends - even after Jamie and Sophie had made the book up to the present day, Jamie moved on from there and found a girlfriend and they had a baby - he has more he can record in his life story book.

So I might make a life story book. I was thinking about doing it on my blog, but actually I think I might make it in a ringbinder. Watch this space...

It reminds me of the devo book I've been reading - The Ransomed Heart. It's by John Eldredge (great man) and so far it's talked about how our life is a story and how God is part of that story and how we are part of bigger picture. Neat ey?

Thinking about my life story reminds me of a song called Lifesong by Casting Crowns:

Empty hands held high
Such small sacrifice
If not joined with my life
I sing in vain tonight

May the words I say
And the things I do
Make my lifesong sing
Bring a smile to You

Let my lifesong sing to You
Let my lifesong sing to You
I want to sign your name to the end of this day
Knowing that my heart was true
Let my lifesong sing to You

Lord, I give my life
A living sacrafice
To reach a world in need
To be Your hands and feet

So may the words I say
And the things I do make my lifesong sing
Bring a smile to you

Let my lifesong sing to You
Let my lifesong sing to You
I want to sign your name to the end of this day
Knowing that my heart was true
Let my lifesong sing to You

Hallelujah, hallelujah
Let my lifesong sing to You

When I re-affirmed my baptism vows in 2004 I had to give a testimony. A guy was filming it and then edited it later on and made a baptism film. The line he picked out to quote me on was "I wanna make God no. 1 in my life". That has kinda become my moto for life since then. Ok so it's fallen by the wayside sometimes, but ultimately it's still there and that's what I wanna do. So, lifesong is my prayer for today...

Lord, may my life be a beautiful song to you today and always.

Happy New Year!!!

So I'm so bad at this blogging lark. One day I'll post regularly!! But until then, hello to all who read and a belated HAPPY NEW YEAR!!