The Wonderful World of Becca

Monday, February 26, 2007

Exeter

I had the greatest weekend in Exeter. It was a totally different kinda great to my time in Stoke, but it was definately great :-)

The train journey on Friday was LONG; 3hr 41mins. But fortunately we had reserved seats and all was well. Although the refreshment trolley man took about 2 hours to get to us, by which point Nana was threatening to eat Dan and I!! Anywho we arrived at Exeter St Davids and was greated by the lovely Stuart aka Nodz/Moose. It was SO good to see him again.


He drove us to their house in Clyst Heath. Apparently where they live used to be a mental institute and was converted into housing about 10 or so years ago. This picture is of an old institute not too unlike Clyst Heath. It was interesting actually coz once he'd said it, I could totally tell it from all the pictures and stuff I've looked at of hospitals and institutes in my course. We got to his house and were greeted by the lovely Katy. They have a lovely house, all beautiful and matching and just generally lovely.
So Friday night we ate and chatted for a few hours. And had a reasonably early night.

Saturday we had a lazyish morning and then jumped in the car and headed off to Dartmouth. We went on the ferry tugboat thing across the Estuary. That lasted about 2 mins and then we were in Dartmouth. We pootled around a bit looking at the sea and some shops. We had lunch in Cache - a cute little cafe and then had some lovely Salcombe dairy ice cream. Stuart got really excited about it!! Then we got back in the car and drove down to Slapton Sands - the beach!

It was gorgeous to be by the sea with great friends. Dan and Stu tried to skim stones, but didn't do too well! Then they decided to play chicken with the waves and got caught out first time!! It was hilarious! We found some beautiful stones and shells. We wandered along by the sea, watching the tide come in. Dan found a fish, which was kinda gross, but really cool. He picked it up and everything!!

We stopped off in a cafe and had a cream tea. Mmmm, it was SO good! Then drove back to their house and lounged around a bit. We decided to go out for dinner, so we headed off to the Countess Wear Beefeater and had a mighty fine meal. Then back to the house for several games of Pictionary which proved to be very funny. Dan showed his incompetence at drawing a blue tit, well a tit to be precise!! And Stuart stuggled to guess what a black eye was by asking 'what are you doing to it?' when I was consistently circling this eye with black rings! Dan had no idea what a periscope was and it was generally very amusing.

Sunday morning we went to Trinity Church. It meets at the school in Clyst Heath. It is an Anglican church, planted from St Leonards in city centre. It's been going about 4 years I think. It was cool. Quite informal, yet with traditional Anglican stuff. We had communion, sang some cool songs and the vicar spoke on Joseph. It was good and nice to be at another church :-)

We went back and chilled for a bit while Stu made us fajitas for lunch. Mmmm, so tasty! Then we headed off to Topsham, had a look around the quay and went to Darts Farm. They had a huge farm market I guess which was full of food, gifts, home furniture (kitchen stuff really), agas, alcohol (home brewed) and generally very cool stuff!!

Then back to Exeter St David's to go home :-( Because Nana is working in Bristol today she stayed on last night. So just Dan and I on the way home. Mummy Smith had prepared a train picnic for us to prevent the hunger attack we'd had on the way up!! And it was time to say goodbye. It was really sad and I had to try hard not to cry. I love Stu and Katy so much and really miss them being around. It was so beautiful in Devon and great to be with such wonderful friends.

Anywho, the train journey was LONG (same as before) but Dan and I chatted and we read through Titus and got talking about Paul's letters. When we got to Clapham Junction this woman asked Dan for a cigarette and then for some money. He gave her a cigarette, but had no money. It was so funny coz she said "No I didn't think you'd have any. You look like you're the same as me, on social benefits and that". Oh it was SO funny!!

Ah, good times weekend.... Love you guys

Friday, February 23, 2007

Trust

Last night I was in the car with Mum and Matt coming back from Bluewater via Swanley. Mum was worried about getting from Bluewater to Swanley without getting lost, so I paid close attention and we did manage to get there ok. However because we've come home from Swanley so many times and we were so busy talking that somehow we got lost. We were on the M25, but heading in the wrong direction. So we came off at the next junction and I saw a sign towards Brands Hatch. I knew that if we got to Brands Hatch we could get back onto the M25 coz there's a turning off of it to Brands Hatch, so I told her to keep going to Brands Hatch.

We'd driven a few miles and came to a petrol station. I knew Mum would stop and guess what? She did. I told her she didn't need to coz if we just went on to Brands Hatch we could get back onto the M25, but she still insisted on asking the guy in the petrol station. I got a bit annoyed and told her she didn't trust me, but she said she did, but just wanted to double check. So after checking, she discovered I was right and we were indeed heading in the right direction.

This annoyed me and I said straight up that if Mum really trusted me she'd have kept driving the way I told her and wouldn't have asked in the petrol station. Anyway, we kinda agreed to disagree... I was determined that if she'd really trusted me, she'd have kept driving and Mum said she just wanted to double-check.

This got me thinking about my relationship with God.... He calls us to trust him 100%, but how many times do we think we know best and try to head off on our own way. How many times does he say "Go do this, but instead we fumble around, ask other people and try something else first". Yet God doesn't want us to to that, he just wants us to trust him. Fortunately I'm not God, so Mum didn't need to trust me 100% coz I'm only human and I could have been wrong. But God is God and he totally wants us to trust him.

Then today I flipped this over the other way.... God's trusting us with his world, like totally. Ok, so he's still in control and such like, but how much trust is he placing on us to look after his world and to do his will despite giving us free will?

How much am I trusting him?

******

Aside from that... I'm off to Exeter later to see Stu and Katy. Yay :-)

Monday, February 19, 2007

Stoke

I had THE most amazing weekend in Stoke. It went a bit like this...

Friday afternoon I got THE slowest Thameslink train from East Croydon to Kings Cross Thameslink. I then walked to Euston only to find all the virgin trains were delayed due to signal failure and a broken down train at Watford Junction. Eventually my delayed 18:35 train left Euston at 19:00, but oh my life, it was packed... there had been problems with electrics on the east coast, so GNER trains weren't really running which meant that people had to travel to places like York via Manchester or such like, so they were shunting people onto virign trains like no tomorrow. So I had to stand for the whole journey, which fortunately was only 1.5 hours :-) But I had to share a space of about 6m cubed with 4 other people. It got hot, it got smelly and wasn't very comfortable!!

Anywho I eventually got to Stoke and Zoe was there to meet me at the station and we took a brisk walk to her house. She cooked me pizza and we chatted and laughed. Then decided to go on the dance mat. Approx 4 hours and 400 calories later we stopped!! It was well fun though. We chatted lots more and went to sleep about 4am!

5 hours later my good old body clock woke up, so I crept out to have a shower. Being the lovely person that I am, I decided to leave Zoe to sleep and I washed up from the previous night, which also included her housemate's washing up from the previous 2 days breakfasts!! Went and woke Zoe up and within an hour or so we were walking into Stoke. It kinda reminded me of Croydon in it's scabiness (sp?), but it was cooler in terms of its indoor market and random fruit and veg stall and other assorted cool shops like ethel austin - oh yes £1:50 flip flops!!

Then jumped on a bus and headed into Hanley. Hanley is AMAZING! But quite dangerous... there are SO many shops! And it was cool coz there's your big high street chains, your random gifty shops, random market stalls, an indoor market, assorted local shops, alternative grunger type shops and probs loads more. It was grand and we spent a fortune!! I bought some cool new jumpers though, some star shoe laces for my converse :-), some funky shoes (they're red!) and lots of other bits and pieces. Our final stop was Tesco to pick up some chocolate for the chocolate fountain!! Then back on the bus to outside Staffordshire Uni and a quick walk back to Zoe's.

We were exhausted when we got back, so chilled out, chatted, cooked dinner (mmmm pasta with courgettes and leeks), Zoe combed Charlie (don't ask!) and she tried on everything she bought!! Decided to prepare for the chocolate fountain. So, we read the instructions and bashed up the chocolate as we couldn't get chips or nuggets in Tesco. So Zoe broke it into squares and chucked it in some sandwich bags and I took a hammer to it!! It was quite a laugh! We mooched around before deciding to go for a quick drink before doing the chocolate fountain. So we headed for the union only to find it was comedy club and you had to pay to get in - nooooo. So she took me to Terrace (I think) a cute little quiet pub. We had a quick drink and then went to buy some potatoes for Sunday's lunch.

Went back home and went for the chocolate fountain. The chocolate took quite a while to melt, so I left Zoe to that and I cut up and arranged the fruit and marshmallows so that it was asthetically pleasing!! Then to the chocolate fountain... it was a laugh, it was fun, it was yummy, but VERY filling. We spent ages eating various fruit and dipping it in the chocolate and we watched two pints of lager and a packet of crisps -classic!


Then the fun really began.... it took us 1.5 hours to clean the wretched thing!! We started by scooping out the leftover chocolate with wooden spoons, but it was hitting them, sticking and solidifying!! So I resorted to using my hands to scoop it out. It was quite amusing and it actually felt really nice. Needless to say my fingers and hands ended up completely brown!! Eventually it was clean, but that was quite a mission!! And we hit the sack at 2am.

The good old body clock struck again and I woke up shortly after 9am on Sunday. I went and washed and then kicked Zoe out of bed. We went to church. It was a New Frontiers church called Grace and met in one of the uni rooms. It was small, but friendly, welcoming and cool. It amazed me how we managed to spend 45mins singing only 2 worship songs!! During that time the congregation can contribute to the service by reading scripture or giving a word in between songs... this I found cool, but what was even greater was that 2 girls, probs no older than 12 or 13 out of their own accord and totally independently came up and shared some scripture. It was cool and that really encouraged me. I enjoyed church.

Back to the pad to cook lunch and continue the dance mat extravaganza!! So I made potato wedges and my classic veg in tomato sauce. It was good :-) Then to pack and get the train home. Fotunately the train was empty in comparison with Friday night! So I could sit and chill and enjoy the journey back to Euston.

I did have the greatest weekend. It was so amazing to be away from Croydon without the worries of study, church or any other commitments; I could be care free and have fun :-) I miss not having many people my age around at home who I can hang out with and be dead serious or behave like a 5 year old with. It was great to feel loved and have a laugh. It was great to have some d & m's and be honest. It was just great and I had a ball. Thanks chicken, you rocked my world :-)

Friday, February 16, 2007

Today's thoughts - and I've remembered to pinpoint the negatives between 2 positives!!

Not all that much to say, just a few things on my mind
  1. I'm really looking forward to going to Stoke later and spending the weekend with Zoe
  2. I'm scared that I might kill Jane's guinea pigs while she's in antigua!! Obviously not intentionally, but if I do something wrong whilst looking after them!!
  3. I'm SO excited that Rach got the job :-)
  4. How do you tell someone you love that something's not right? That you're hurting and help them to understand it's not their fault?
  5. I'm so happy my assignment is done and posted a whole week early!!

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

The God of hope

I woke up this morning and one of the first things I noticed was a verse of scripture printed on the bottom of a thank you card. It read "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace" Rom 15:13. And then a song popped into my head, I think it's a kids song and it basically quotes this scripture. I thought nothing more of it and went off to the gym.

On coming back from the gym I was met by the post and opened a prayer letter from an SU worker and at the beginning she quoted "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit" Romans 15:13. Wow, to be hit by that same verse twice in one morning from 2 completely different sources... so I've kinda been meditating on that today.

Other than that, I wasn't in such a great mood today... woke up feeling refreshed, but by the time I got to the gym (about 9:30) I felt exhausted already and kinda unmotivated. The morning plodded on and I studied a bit. Then I had a bassoon lesson this afternoon and that sure changed things. Boy do I love music. It fills me with such joy and my bassoon teacher is such a doll. It was great. Then I spoke to Jane on the phone, that was good too. And I chatted with Joe about my assignment and that was SO helpful :-)

Yesterday I had to teach 6 kids the oboe. That was kinda cool. 2 kids stood out to me - one was great and one didn't really have a clue. I found out today that the great kid has been on casualty and some advert on tv - cool beans, I taught a famous kid without even knowing it!! Ok, slight exaggeration, but hey hum!!

To bed...

Saturday, February 10, 2007

Dad's birthday celebrations

Today is Dad's birthday. We've spent most of the day in town as we went to see The Lion King. I saw it about 5 years ago for Jess' 16th, so it bought back memories of back then. But it was still fab second time round. I was so struck by the music and the beauty of the costumes and the thought and time and effort that must have gone into making that show what it is. I love music, it evokes so much emotion within me.

In the opening song Rafiki is singing and when she started singing this really cute asian kid infront of us jumped up and flung his arms wide open - he was declaring the show open!! It was cute, he was obviously excited and wanted to show everyone around him the effect the show was having on him!! I on the other hand just felt full of emotion and wanted to burst into tears!!! And that happened again in the last song! I don't know what it is, but music just wells me up with emotion like nothing else has ever done!

The show really spoke to me actually. The bit where Mufasa is telling Simba that he is always with him and will always be a part of him was like God speaking right to my heart.

It made my think about my life and what I'm doing with it. It reminded me of my passion for music and it made me wanna get myself into some decent orchestras, so watch this space!!!

After that we went to Smollenskys which was cool. Had a falafel burger which was gorgeous and lots of white wine!! A really lovely day and I feel really happy :-)

Friday, February 09, 2007

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free


Today at life group we talked about freedom. It was quite a heated discussion in that one lady in particular seemed to have a lot of issues with our government and how we can possibly live in freedom if we have all these silly laws to abide by. What she was particularly referring to is things like kids under a certain age and height have to have a special booster seat when travelling in the car, so neighbours can no longer help each other out by collecting each others' children in an emergency. We talked about the concept of needing to be set free from sin, but also the guilt that comes from having sinned or from feeling you should have done something that you've not actually done.

"It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery." Galatians 5:1

God wants us to be free from sin and the great thing is that we have been set free and all we need to do is grasp onto that promise of freedom that Jesus has for each of us.

Birds often symbolise freedom to me - they can just fly off anywhere, anytime and they don't have to be accountable to anyone for their whereabouts.

"Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." John 8:32

It is through God's mighty word that we can be saved and it is that truth we need to hold onto. We can try many other means to get freedom, we can get our tarrot cards read, we can seek new age spirituality, we can do many things, but it's only God and his word that can set us free. And once we're free, what an amazing freedom that is. A freedom that nothing or no-one else can give us. And it's mighty and it's wonderful and it's simply amazing.

Thursday, February 08, 2007

Holding hands


Unfortunately I've not had any amazing revelations from God recently. Maybe I'm just being ignorant.

I guess the one thing that keeps coming back to me is trusting him totally and taking his hand as he walks me through whatever lies ahead in life. I've probably said this before, but something I realised I'd learnt in my year with church is that God taught me how to hold his hand and in times I let go of his hand, he just kept on holding onto mine.

Often I want life to be all this extravagant (sp?) stuff and I think it's not alright to just be. Well actually all the time God is taking me on a journey and more often than not it seems that I don't know where he's taking me, but I just have to totally trust, totally surrender and never let go of his hand!

Monday, February 05, 2007

God really does care

Have had a good weekend over all...

Saturday we had a band morning at church. It was good. An opportunity to read the Word, to pray and to learn new songs together. It was fun, it was a laugh, it was great to worship together and I really enjoyed it. Then in the evening I baked cookies and watched Notting Hill (yes Rach, Kat; I've finally seen it!) And I really enjoyed that.

Yesterday I had both services off from St Mary's, so decided to make the most of it and head up to town. I went to HTB in the morning, that was good. The worship was amazing; the perfect balance of old, new and in between. And I was totally enabled to worship God for myself and not worrying about who was around me and what they were doing. The message was spot on and perfect for me - it was about perseverence. The context was about the early church and how Paul and Barnabus persevered with evangelism. But the principles can be applied across boundaries and I was just encouraged to persevere with life, but especially with my relationship with God.

After that I got the bus to Oxford Street. I managed to find a comfy seat in Starbucks and sat there for 2 hours prolonging the eating of the most amazing tropical fruit salad and the drinking of a might good mocha light frapp :-) And I managed to write to Rita and Chris and I did my 'purple page' study for Anna and wrote up the notes (from scrappy paper to my notebookk) from the message at HTB and I read a bit. And that was really good - relaxing, chilled and perfect. Then I took a meander down Oxford St, browsed a few shops and saw some cool tops and then wanted to satisfy my baguette craving!! So I went in every coffee shop and cafe trying to find a nice baguette and somewhere to sit, but didn't have much joy. Eventually I settled for a panini in a very overcrowded Starbucks at Tottenham Court Rd. Was good though!

Then to Hillsongs. It was a service of pure worship, no message. So I was a little annoyed at that as I really wanted to hear another inspiring, uplifting and encouraging message. But oh well! The worship was good and it was really smelly and sweaty in there, not so good! Towards the end of the night the Pastor did he appeal for new Christians. And he stood there saying "If you accept Jesus into your life he'll make your life new and he'll make everything amazing and fab and he'll do all this wonderful stuff for you and life will be fantastic". I recognised my attack straight away... My heads going "Yeah whatever, that's not true, Jesus hasn't made my life amazing, so why is he gonna make anyone else's life amazing?" And it went on like this in my head and I knew I was spiralling down into a bunch of negative thoughts about my relationship with God. I felt so ready to give up everything, yet I totally knew this was attack. And I couldn't pray much accept for "Jesus help me".

Came out of church feeling pretty negative, my whacked on my ipod and decided when I was on a mainline train I'd ring my friend and see if I could invite myself over for a quick cuppa. So I got on the train, got my phone out and my hands were shaking so much and my heart was beating real fast and inside I'm thinking don't ring her. I knew if I didn't ring her, the enemy would win and the rest of my evening would turn out badly. So I managed to ring and she was more than happy for me to pop in. So when I got back to Croydon I went in to see her. I was still really scared and felt I shouldn't go coz I was invading her time etc. But I knew this was just the enemy. I did go and I had a really good time. Stayed for about an hour and we just chatted and laughed and drank tea and it was good. My heart was at rest. I left her house and the first thing that came into my head was "And the enemy has been defeated, death couldn't hold you down, gonna lift my voice in victory, gonna make your praises loud". Jesus has won, I'd taken that step and he'd helped me all the way.

Today I went to give blood. Every other time I've given blood I've always felt really faint and dizzy afterwards. So I prayed so much that it wouldn't happen this time coz it just feels so horrible. I guess I even tried to bargain with God. I was like "come on, if you really care about me and if you really want me to believe that you care, please just let me be ok, please let me feel fine" and in my head I'm thinking, if these are physical symptoms of the fact I've just had a pint of blood taken out of me, then what's God gonna be able to do about it. And you know what? I was fine, I felt totally normal, not one little sign of light headed-ness. And I came out and was like "you know what God, you do care and I know you care, even about the smallest things".

Thank you Lord.

***

Aside from that, I was delighted to pick up an email from Becky this afternoon (yes, I had a computer free 42 hours and it's been lovely!) And she knows I've been talking about moving churches. So she's sent me a link to an article in the press over in the US. Oooh it made me laugh so much that I want to post it here...

Alison Matera of New Port Richey, Fla., should have done just that last Friday, but instead her ruse was exposed when she sat among mourners, listening to friends and family celebrate her life.

It all started, the St. Petersburg Times reported Friday, when the 27-year-old told members of her church choir that she was dying of cancer, and that she soon would start receiving treatments.

Matera then started giving her friends regular updates during her "treatments." Then, near the end of last year, she told them she was giving up her fight and entering a hospice so she could die, the newspaper reported.

She "left" the church, but choir members said they continued to receive calls from a "hospice nurse" with updates on Matera's health. The same "nurse" then called choir director Timothy Paquin on Jan. 18 to say Matera had died. Paquin said he then received a call from someone identifying themselves as Matera's sister, detailing the family's arrangements for the body.
The strange thing, according to a report filed with the Pasco County Sheriff's Office, is that all the choir members said the callers all sounded exactly like Matera.

Paquin said he called the hospice and local funeral homes, but none had ever heard of Matera.
Then, when the church family gathered to mourn Matera's death, a woman looking exactly like Matera showed up, claiming to be her sister, they said.

Choir members called the sheriff's office for help, and when deputies went to Matera's apartment she confessed the hoax, saying she needed to separate from the church community.

Oooh, that made me laugh! Don't worry Becky, I won't do that!!

Friday, February 02, 2007

A few thoughts

Last week I listened to a talk Joyce Meyer gave. It was quite thought provoking… she was saying that so often we rant, rave and shout about our problems, but what difference will that make? It won’t solve the problems, so instead we should just go with the flow. That’s all very well, but what if going with the flow is painful/uncomfortable?! I guess life isn’t all about being comfortable and yeah God calls us to take risks and come out of our comfort zones, but flip does that take courage!

I frequently wonder what the point in life is and why I’m here etc. I read something by John Eldredge the other week and he said that Jesus said the point of us being here is to love God and to love others. And I guess Jesus must be right!! I know in my heart that if I just focused on loving God and making my relationship with him better then life would generally be much better, but how much do I actually want that? Sure, I want my life to be all red and rosy, I want it to be fun and comfortable and exciting. I don’t want it to be full of discomfort and uncertainty. So why don’t I trust Jesus with it?

Beauty

Yesterday I went to see Miss Potter. I was totally in love with the beauty of the landscapes. I think it's filmed in the Lake District and my is that a beautiful place. I've not been there since I was 6, so I don't remember anything about it. But I was totally astounded by the beauty of it. This kinda beauty always points me back to God and it really excites me.
In May I'm going to Inverness and I'm really excited coz I know it's gonna be beautiful and will hopefully draw me closer to God in praise for his wonderful creation.