It’s now Lent. I would have liked to have given up eating out or something – however, we’re now beginning our ‘camping out’ stage of the building. Tonight I’m camped out in the living room as our dining room wall is mostly a big sheet – soon to become totally non-existent tomorrow morning. You need to go through the dining room to get to the attic conversion part of the house, and at the moment the dining room is sealed off with masking tape. To add to our ‘camp out’ fun, just after the builders left there was a power cut in our area, so we had no electricity for over 3 hours. So thankful my friends were kind enough to let me come over early as it began to get dark!

In a week or so we will be without a kitchen. You may see why giving up eating out is not really the best idea this Lent. However, I do plan to do Lent Sunday ‘Causes’ to give money and give a shout out to charities I’m a fan of, like I did last year.

Are you doing anything for Lent this year? (I’m curious!)

Yep. it’s those pesky builders again!

Apparently in the coming week they are going to be knocking down walls, and since there is no door at the bottom of the stairs to the attic (my bit of the house) they are going to seal it off. We’re also going to be without a kitchen for at least 3 weeks soon.  This means I either have to

1) start climbing out the window and scaling the house to get out/get food

2) Set up camp in our living room (and face the horrors of Coronation Street, Eastenders, Emmerdale and things like X Factor every evening because that’s what my Mum does there every.single.night. of the week)

3) Move out the house for a while

Bearing in mind that I do a lot of work from home, work is really busy and I have a lot on over the coming months this is going to be a challenge.

Please pray for my sanity.

“It seems to me that if you or I must choose between two courses of thought or action, we should remember our dying and try so to live that our death brings no pleasure on the world”

-John Steinbeck

2 years ago, I quoted those words reflecting on the death of Eva Markvoort, a blogger who had a huge impact on me and thousands of others across the world. I found myself deeply affected by her death, which came as a shock to me for two reasons. Firstly, even the people who I’m very close to that have died, I’ve rarely broken down in tears as a reaction to their death. Secondly, I had never met or even spoken to Eva.

I think Eva epitomised those words from Steinbeck. Eva knew her life would likely be shorter than most of her peers. She could have chosen a very different path of bitterness, anger, resentment. Instead, she chose to live a life of love. She chose to battle her CF and chronic rejection with everything she had. She chose to take risks. She chose to be vulnerable allowing a film crew into her and her family’s life at one of the toughest times of her life so that others might understand what life is like for someone waiting for a transplant and how it affects those around them. She found ways of living life and making a difference to those around her in very creative ways. When life said ‘no’ she’d fight for a ‘yes’.

Her death brought no pleasure on the world.

I was watching an episode of The Mentalist, where a guy was the intended target for a car bomb and everyone thinks he’s dead. The CBI decide to let people think this is the case in the hope it will help them find the murderer. During the investigation the guy gets to hear what people say and think about him. Let’s just say a lot of it wasn’t positive.

Quite the wake up call.

I really wouldn’t want people being relieved or glad that I’m dead – apart from the ‘LA is kicking it with Jesus now‘ factor wearing her heavenly pretty shoes that don’t give her blisters* singing songs to God that sound nothing like music made by Coldplay with lots of freaky creatures with wings and tons of eyes** doing the same thing.

The main thing is – we’re not going live here forever and at some point we’re going to die. So we have two possible courses – live to bring pain in the world or live to bring pleasure in the world.

I would like to choose the latter course.

*this is not mentioned in the bible, but I’m hoping in the new heaven & earth that there will be gorgeous shoes that don’t bring you pain to wear like the ones here on earth.

** Confused? See Revelation 4&5 for more details. Apparently heaven is not a peace and quiet kind of place. It sounds like it be quite the musical gig and the reserved religious types might be a little uncomfortable with the worship there.

Tee hee.

Well, first of all. The builders. A few people have been asking why we have builders (having read some tweets or facebook statuses which have occurred – like when one of them came and started banging, I assume to demolish something at 7.15 a.m. when it was still pitch dark; or the day off I had where they were drilling all day long and I wished I’d been at work instead!). Actually our builders are pretty decent blokes, and we get on fine with them. They also think it’s funny that I teach sex ed classes in high schools and when they found that out would point to some of the younger guys and say ‘You need to tell him about all that stuff, aye, he needs those lessons. He needs some of your pregnancy counselling too!‘

They also tried to wind me up (after I pulled them up about the 7.15 a.m. start!) saying they were coming on a Saturday morning to get a delivery of cement at 5 a.m.

They just laughed when I raised my eyebrows and said ‘Aye right!‘ (which is a Scots sarcastic version of ‘Oh no you won’t!’ or ‘I don’t believe you’). Anyway, we’re almost a month in and this is the view from my old bedroom:

I’m now in the other attic bedroom (which used to be for my brothers). The room my brothers now stay in has our freezer, tumble dryer, and a shower door, sink and toilet waiting to be installed at some point during the build. The contents of our dining room and hall are in my old room, and our fridges are in the hall.

Confused? Me too.

I got a fringe. Already it’s doing strange things. I have a ‘cow’s lick’ which means my hair does part very well and curls on one side.

Work is crazy busy at the moment. At the beginning of the week I was feeling more stressed than I have done for a very long time. I wasn’t sleeping, I was waking up feeling panicked and I felt completely on edge 100% of the time. Despite having loads to do, I took the whole of yesterday off (having done my hours for the week) and feel much better for it. I’m also considering creating some kind of ‘Don’t drink and have sex‘ campaign for next Christmas. Seriously, alcohol really does up the chances of contraception failure.

Powerpoint was awesome. My new earphones worked a treat. I kept having to push my right ear back in so it wouldn’t fall out and get tangled in my hair though. I was most amused when I got tagged in this photo from the event…caught in the act! I also got asked to join the worship team at my new church this past weekend. It was very different from I was used to, and knew hardly any of the songs so it made it a bit challenging, but the folks in the band were really friendly. I’m finally getting to know people a bit better now, and it’s a lot more like my church in Aberdeen apart from Sunday services are very different from what I’m used to.

With Valentine’s Day having been this week, we’d been working on a fundraising project with the Guides called ‘Bake A Little Love‘ to raise funds for Scottish Love in Action. Our Guides have spent the last month making Valentine’s Cards, making yoghurt pots into baskets filled with chocolates and decorating jars to fill with sweets, decorating biscuits and us leaders made some Valentine cupcakes. We had a few stalls after the morning service at our local church (where we meet) and raised £100 in an hour. Amazing! We pretty much sold out all our stalls!

I can’t remember if I mentioned before but on 16th January, I received my application form to join the GirlGuiding Association as an official member so I can start my leadership training to become a qualified Guider. Thought that was quite funny given what the blog post I had written on that day.

I had a few social things planned this week and one by one they seemed to go to pot as people got sick. However, I’m glad that one social event was able to happen as my lovely friend Ruth was up in the beautiful burgh and so we had a wee tweet up with our friend Lynn. After a meal, we went to the Dome (a very posh venue in Edinburgh) for a drink, I tried to take a pic of us all on Lynn’s phone and this was the result:

Not showing the best of my photography skills there, but oh well. We had a lovely night catching up. The only sad thing was that we didn’t spot any celebrities this time. It is hard to top meeting Alf though.

And so there we have it. Attempt number 3 at going to see The Descendants shall be made next week. I also really want to see the Muppets Movie. I think sadly I’ve missed my chance to see J.Edgar.

I’m also happy that NCIS has FINALLY made a return to Channel 5, wondering where The Mentalist has gone (it was on for 4 weeks, and then disappeared) and while waiting for those bought the first season of White Collar on DVD after a recommendation by my friend Anthony. I’m now waiting for season 2 to make it on to DVD here (sigh).

So that my bloggy friends is what has been going on in the life of the brunette koala.

What has been going on in your life?

1. to have a home that is welcoming (I hope had this from 2004-07 & wish to again)

2. to get a good education and a good degree at university (Class of 2006!)

3. to have lots of good friends (but more are welcome)

4. to visit South Africa, to work in South Africa (visited Durban in 2009)

5. to visit Ghana

6. to road trip across the USA & visit Wilmington, NC.

7. to visit Australia, to live in Australia (visited in 2007)

8. to hug a koala (Anzac Day 2007)

9. to learn to surf (2007 – though I’m sure I’ve already forgotten how to now!)

10. to get a tattoo

11. to get my navel pierced (done at New Year 2001, taken out the day of my abortion, and it’s not getting redone!)

12. to get a good job that helps other people & I enjoy doing (I’ve been lucky enough to have more than one!)

13. to dance en pointe (sponsored by animal wool & Boots Plaster strips)

14. to be able to do the splits

15. to find a 4-leaf clover

16. to see the artistic gymnastics competition live at an Olympic games

17. to visit Munich, Berlin & the Black Forest in Germany (visited Summer 2001)

18. to visit Paris, Verseilles & Lyon in France (visted Paris & Lyon in Summer 2001)

19. to visit Athens and other parts of Greece

20. to tour around Italy

21. to write a book

22. to visit New Zealand

23. to learn to ski & snowboard

24. to learn how to rock climb

25. to do something sporty for charity

26. to go to Barcelona, Madrid, Seville in Spain (visited Barcelona in April 2005)

27.to backpack around Europe (Summer 2001)

28. To camp out & drive a VW Camper van

29. To be on Top Gear (or better yet drive Top Gear test track!)

30. to learn how to play guitar or piano (or was learning until I damaged the tendons in my left wrist!)

31. to foster babies until they can be restored to their mothers.

32. to be on the set of Home & Away

33. to meet Ray Meagher (met November 2011)

34. To have a big party with bouncy castle, jelly and ice cream with all my friends young and older. Online friends included.

35. To give an inspirational talk at an event of some sort.

36. To cartwheel on as many beaches as possible.

37. To go on a spa day

38. To be in the Edinburgh Festival

39. To do a postgraduate qualification.

40. To make the world a better and more fun place to be in.

What’s on your bucket list? Is there anything you think I should add to mine?

Of all the books in the bible, the two near the middle are my favourites. The Book of Proverbs for it’s straight up wisdom and common sense, and the Book of Psalms for it’s rawness, comfort and honesty.

Most of the time in the Psalms, it starts off positive, laments in the middle and ends with a resolve to remember the bigger picture.

I’m sure for some of my readers, you might think those verses are a little bit nutty. But over the last 4 years they’ve meant a great deal to me, and they went on my wall with another excerpt from Psalms…which is also on my wall but apparently I forgot to include it in my picture taking. Anyway, it says:

O Lord, hear me as I pray
Pay attention to my groaning
Listen to my cry for help, my King and my God, for I pray to no one but you.
Listen to my voice in the morning, Lord.
Each morning I bring my requests to you and wait expectantly

Psalm 5:1-3

What I love about the Psalms, is that there is no pretending. Sometimes I think Christians make out to other Christians that we should be joyfully taking all that is put against us. The Psalms tell me different. The Psalms say ‘be honest with how you feel’.

Let those emotions out.

It’s ok to feel whatever you’re feeling.

It’s what you do with what you’re feeling that counts.

 I’ve learned over the years that there are a lot of things that could happen in my life that would make fears realised. Bad things happen. People get sick. People die. People get taken away from us in other ways. Sometimes we struggle, we fear, we are desperate, it can seem like there is no hope. This thing we call life can lose it’s purpose and all seem totally pointless. Why bother trying to do good when it seems like there is so much evil, so much disaster that we can’t explain ‘why’.

In all of it, I’ve had to put my faith in God. I know that’s not going to stop the bad stuff.

It’s going to help me get through the bad stuff.

Sometimes I’m crawling through to the other side, rather than walking with my head high. It’s having peace to stay calm to get through the scary and tough times.

It’s getting through to the other side that counts.

That takes grit and courage and strength and encouragement.

Filed under: Life as a Christian Tagged: Christianity, fear, God, Life, psalms ]]> http://learningfromsophie.com/2012/02/14/the-wall-crying-out-to-god/feed/ 4 Laura Anne IMGP2482 http://learningfromsophie.com/2012/02/13/the-worst-on-screen-sex-talk-since-now-and-then/ http://learningfromsophie.com/2012/02/13/the-worst-on-screen-sex-talk-since-now-and-then/#comments Mon, 13 Feb 2012 22:41:50 +0000 Laura Anne http://learningfromsophie.com/?p=5012 ]]> Oh people.

I avoided Cougar Town because I thought it would be a show I would hate. I caught an interview with Busy Philipps (who I loved in Dawson’s Creek and in ER) and went online to check out the show purely because I was intrigued to see her in it. Anyway. I discovered this clip from it where Jules (Courtney Cox) tries to give her son and his new girlfriend a ‘safe sex’ talk.

It kinda reminded me of my days of a youth advice worker where kids nicked condoms off the sexual health clinic stall and had a water ballon fight outside in the car park.

Oh dear. This actually beats the ‘All woman have a garden…’ speech from Now and Then!

But points for creative thinking. The intentions were good… Tee hee.

The only downside – my jeans got literally ‘caked’ with Thomas. And I didn’t notice until I went to put my jeans on to go to church on Sunday morning. Ha ha!

However, last night was one of those nights that I had one of those potentially corrupting children moments. Several of them in fact, complete with a classic BK style malteser moment. It all began as me & Miss Sweetroot were watching a DVD of her dance show from a couple of years ago. We’re talking about the dances, and the dance teachers we’ve had. Then out of the blue she just asks:

“Do you have a job?”

I of course answer “Yes“

This is of course followed up by the key question: ”What do you do for your job?”

Panic sets in. This is my friend’s only just turned 7 year old daughter. I’m pretty sure they have not had ‘the talk’ with her at this point in her life. I’m definitely sure the subject of people getting pregnant when they don’t want to be pregnant has never been talked about because she has only known pregnancy as something to be celebrated and excited about. I’m now wishing I’d become a teacher. Teacher would be an acceptable self explanatory answer to this question that my friend’s daughter would already know about. Pregnancy counsellor and teacher of sex education? Even amongst adults in the pub this answer can be quite the conversation shocker.

I think my answer was quite honest (and hopefully not going to get me killed by her parents!)

“Well, I help people who are pregnant, and some Mummies whose babies went to heaven while they were still in their Mummy’s tummy before they got to be born“.

At this point I’m praying that this will be acceptable answer for her.

It seems to be.

She tells me of someone she knows whose baby went to heaven while it was in their tummy. But then she asks me the toughest question of all:

“Why does God let the babies go to heaven before they get to be born?“

Thankfully my truthful answer of “I don’t know” is acceptable. (Phew. Because I really don’t know.)

Later I take her up to bed and I read her a bible story (Jonah and the big fish), and she reads me a story (Chip & Wilf’s Arctic Adventure). We’ll skip the part where I had to climb up to her bunk bed and in the process caught my scarf with my leg, almost knocked myself out and fell in ungracefully into a pile of stuffed toys. We chat to God together for friends we know on holiday (prompting a question about whether they have sharks in Morocco in case our friend gets his arm bitten off while surfing like Bethany Hamilton).

I’ve no sooner gone downstairs, when I hear little creaks and footsteps outside the living room. I’m reading ‘Father Fiction‘ by Donald Miller.

“What is that book about?“

“It’s about people who grew up without having Daddies” I say.

“How does that happen?” she asks.

And let’s just say that for the next 20 minutes we have lots of chats about half-siblings, step siblings, step parents, how some people’s Daddys might go away by choice and others don’t, and whether the Mummy of mine she’s met before is my ‘real Mummy’ and how I have lots of brothers and a sister but we don’t have the same parents.

Thankfully, when my friends came home and I told them these stories, they did laugh. And they told me that when she starts asking how babies are made, they are going to tell her to ask me instead.

I really hope my friends are joking. (You are kidding, right?!)

Anyway. All this to say that I’m back in the business of corrupting children. Or trying not to corrupt them. These conversations are definitely up there with the time when Miss S asked me about why I had two earrings in each of my ears.

And I now realise I’m officially getting too old to try and climb onto bunk beds.

“Father you saved me and showed me that life was much more than being some foolish man’s wife, showed me that love was respect and devotion, greater than planets, deeper than oceans.”

from I used to love him -Lauryn Hill

When I was in high school, I loved Lauryn Hill. I listened to her album ‘The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill‘ many times. I didn’t really pay much attention to the lyrics of her songs though until the summer when I was stuck in bed with post-viral fatigue syndrome. It was then I discovered how much of her own story was in her songs – as I guess is the case with the majority of songwriters.

I do not have a good history with guys, and when I became a Christian I felt a huge pressure and expectation that to be a successful person I needed to be married. Preferably soon after graduating from university. I met several girls in the Christian Union who told me that the main reason they were at university was to meet their future husband. I remember a conversation with one friend about what we hoped to do after graduating and she said ‘Well, I plan to be married’. As if that was a definite and that was her full identity.

I began to wonder if maybe my independent ways were wrong. I never really sought out relationships, but they seemed to find me. I remember going out with a guy soon after I became a Christian just because he was interested in me and I thought ‘oh well, this must be God bringing my husband to be into my life’.

Yes. I was nuts.

I soon realised that it was indeed crazy.

But as I entered my last couple of years of uni, I let guys treat me really poorly.

I still remember going to a retreat with my church and our pastor’s wife praying for me. She told me that God was saying that I had been disobeying Him and I needed to do what God was saying I should do. I knew exactly what she meant – I knew God had been telling me to walk away from a relationship I was in. My faith and self-esteem were taking a beating and I think the only one who noticed was one of my friends (and I think she’ll know who she is). I went back and this person said it was like I had life back in my eyes again. I felt after that weekend that I had been brought back to life. We needed to talk I said. He said to me ‘God told you to break up with me, didn’t He? I was really scared you’d come back from that weekend and break up with me‘

It made me feel guilty. And so I didn’t do it.

I was a fool.

Eventually things escalated and he told me he didn’t want to be with me.

I felt such peace.

Did I bawl my eyes out later that day? Yes. As soon as I was at work alone I locked myself in an office and burst into tears calling several people. I got home that night and called my friend who came round with a box of tissues and let me sob into her shoulder for the longest time. I came down with flu that night and was off for a week. It was a horrible time.

But there was still peace deep down underneath the fear of being alone, the anxiety of the next phase of life.

I feel like I was saved though, I realised how much I had not been with someone who knew what love, respect or devotion really was.

And now I know.

Life is so much more than being a foolish man’s wife.

It’s not that I’m against being married, if a wise man came along who loved me and who I loved, who I believed shared my core beliefs and values, who I could see a compatible future with…then yes. I would be happy to become his wife.

But life does not depend on that.

And I’m not alone, because I have friends and people around me who know that love is respect and devotion, greater than planets and deeper than oceans. 

Those are the wise people I choose to have be a big part in my life.

The foolish ones are no longer allowed into my inner circle.

I didn’t realise until I was writing the date numerous times in our call log book at work that today is the 8th February.

8th February is special to me, because it’s the day that I got ‘born again’ as they say.

It’s the day I realised that

1. I did believe in God

and

2. I could be a Christian even though I’d had an abortion (due to religious pro life campaigners, I believed that you weren’t allowed to be a Christian if you’d had an abortion).

and

3. Asked God to take all the crap in my life and turn it into something good.

Someone asked me today how I could remember that date.

Well, all I can say is – if you can remember the date you started going out with your partner, I can certainly the remember the date I started ‘going out’ with God.

The last 10 years since I made that decision have not been easy. I’ve faced friends pushing me out their lives. I’ve been teased and ridiculed. I’ve had people mistrust me because they’ve made assumptions on what my values and beliefs are about other things because they know I believe in God and go to church.

But I know how much I’ve been saved. I know what I’ve been saved from. I know how much my faith and my God has helped me. I know that though not easy, it’s also been so fulfilling to live life for God instead of for me.

It freed me from my past, and it freed me from an addiction to cutting myself. It made me a calmer person.

I’ll never forget that night.

And I’m glad that I have this picture (above) as a memento from that evening – this was taken at crazy o’clock in the morning after I’d got back from a night of rocking out to metal music in the student union, when I told my friend (pictured) that I’d decided I did believe in God. She’d been praying that I’d become a Christian for quite a number of months by this point so she was pretty excited. Tee hee.

8th February 2002 was the day I made the best decision of my life.

Happy Jesus-versary to me! (as Stacey wished me earlier!)

and Happy birthday to my lovely friend Rebecca! (please head over to her blog to wish her Happy birthday. She’s 23 today, and I realised she’ll be 23 when she goes to Australia just like I was. 23 was my favourite age!)