rainbow!

clearly need a proper photo merger or wider lens for panorama view but here's the (disjointed!) rainbow out my window today :)

where'd the sunshine go?

Just went for a walk... (yes, I know I wrote a serious post about procrastination, but still have to get out of the house sometimes or I’ll go crazy!) Seriously though, what happened to the sunshine and the possibility of summer? It’s cold! I’m not sure why I’m surprised anymore...

Found an old, battered and forgotten football on my travels on the beach (aka stones & seaweed) which made my day... To be fair it probably wasn’t forgotten, just its owner probably thought it had had its day... But it was one of those ones that are just flat enough to make you feel like a genius with keep-ups. Must have kept me entertained for a good half hour... Thankful for simple pleasures on a cold, gloomy day.

But still wanting the sunny days to come back!

games and glimpses

I like these quotes from Gavin Peacock this week...

“When you score a goal you never feel more alive,” he says. “But that’s just a momentary high, it’s not reality. It’s not the truth, it’s just a glimpse of something. In the big picture my reality is my walk with God and it’s eternal and everlasting.”

“Fans join together and experience it just for a moment with the player who’s scored or with the team’s victory. We want to partake in something of beauty, of glory, to take us out and up. Our souls were made for the majesty of Christ.”

ah, champions league time again... maybe its purpose is to give us glimpses of true glory :)

come on...

light of glory

"Men have a great deal of pleasure in human knowledge, in studies of natural things; but this is nothing to that joy which arises from this divine light shining into the soul. This light gives a view of those things that are immensely the most exquisitely beautiful, and capable of delighting the eye of the understanding. This spiritual light is the dawning of the light of glory in the heart. There is nothing so powerful as this to support persons in affliction, and to give the mind peace and brightness in this stormy and dark world." Jonathan Edwards

soli deo gloria

David Brainerd on his twenty-fifth.... April 1718
"Set apart this day for fasting and prayer, to bow my soul before God for the bestowment of divine grace; especially that all my sprirtual afflictions and inward distresses might be sanctified to my soul. And endeavoured also to remember the goodness of God to me the year past, this day being my birthday. Having obtained help of God, I have hitherto lived and am now arriving at the age of twenty-five years. My soul was pained to think of my barrenness and deadness; that I have lived so little to the glory of the eternal God. I spent the day in the woods alone, and there poured out my complaint to God. Oh, that God would enable me to live to His glory for the future!"

Ok, so I haven't spent the day fasting alone in the woods... but I want to echo that last sentence on my twenty-fifth :)

season of grace

I had a constructive day today :) - back into my last (ever!?) 2 weeks of classes and the start of exam revision season - just in time for the sunshine (four days in a row!). Had a fascinating lecture today on hand injuries... accompanied by lovely pictures. One before/after case study was of a guy who had his hand completely cut off just above the wrist with a chain saw... and then a video of him taken yesterday with the hand reattached - after months of therapy he had regained amazing movement! Great stuff. (I'll spare you the photos...)

I'm determined to finish strong. I have a tendency (!) to procrastinate so really trying not to as much this time.... makes me think of a few spurgeon quotes...

"It is by little procrastinations that (wo)men ruin their souls. They have no intention to delay for years - a few months will bring the more convenient season - tomorrow if you will, they will attend to serious things; but the present hour is so occupied and altogether so unsuitable, that they beg to be excused. Like sands from an hour-glass, time passes, life is wasted by driblets, and seasons of grace lost by little slumbers...."
"The way to do a great deal is to keep on doing a little. The way to do nothing at all is to be continually resolving that you will do everything."

Don't want to lose this season of grace.

1984

I was gardening in the lovely sunshine with my granny today... or I should say pretending to garden... she is starting to need a bit of help but to be honest, I don't really have a clue so I was just following orders! She grows amazing rhubarb which she makes into jam but I stole some of it this week :)Anyway, she found loads of her old diaries and specifically this entry (23rd) when she was sorting through some things this week, so she gave it to me today!

For some reason, the fact that I was born on an easter monday feels more significant for me this year, although it's probably just because I’ve just thought about it more. Maybe it’s because I see easter monday as the day that celebrating the significance of Jesus’ death and resurrection is lived out – where what I believe seeps into the ordinary - giving purpose and hope in the mundane of a monday...

Or maybe not. But even so, i thought the diary was kinda cool... (and my brother looks like he was totally trying to steal my thunder on the 24th...)

blood river

Just started another book last night... (why do I always read more when I’m putting off doing my actual work?!). But I got sucked in! It’s called Blood River – about a journalist who decided to follow the Congo River in the same way that explorer Stanley did decades before. It’s fascinating reading. Definitely brushing up my African history which should be better than it is...

He captures the sense of adventure, the risk, the hassles and the people he meets along the way while trying to understand the complexity of the region’s painful history and current conflicts. Anyway, I haven’t finished it yet. It’s kind of depressing in many ways, for obvious reasons. It’s places like DRC that I think the world forgets about, like we’ve heard it all before. 1200 people die every day?! The author does a good job of trying to explain the link between colonialism and the present day conflicts/economics which I’m finding helpful and his descriptions definitely draw you in.

I wonder, though, if people from DRC read the book would they agree with his thoughts on it? As someone who grew up in Africa (albeit a much calmer part) I still get annoyed when people make sweeping generalisations about how things are and why unless they’ve actually lived there for a while... Even though I know the situation in DRC is pretty grim, does this kind of book just perpetuate the myth of Africa as the heart of darkness?

make a plan

loving this song today... in the midst of future dreams and the ferris wheel that is my life, the reminder to be intentional with my love...

easter sunrise

that explosive morning

"What God did for Jesus that explosive morning is what He intends to do for the whole creation. We who live in the interval between Jesus's Resurrection and the final rescue and transformation of the whole world are called to be new-creation people here and now...."
Tom Wright today in The Times

"The purpose of God in sending his son to die and rise and live and be at the right hand of God the Father was that he might restore to us the missing jewel, the jewel of worship; that we might come back and learn to do again that which we were created to do in the first place - worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness, to spend our time in awesome wonder and adoration of God, feeling it and expressing it, and letting it get into our labours and doing nothing except as an act of worship to Almighty God through his son Jesus Christ." AW Tozer

When greeting someone on Easter Sunday in Nigeria we say "Christ is risen" and the other person replies "He is risen indeed!"

we call this friday good

view towards Cave Hill above and Belfast harbour below...

the blob of white on the left nearest the water is where i live :) these are taken today from Knockagh Monument... about 10 mins drive from my house

I'm thankful for the cross

and quiet places of beauty on this day of remembrance...

we call this friday good

risk

So, this was the biggest adrenaline rush of my year from last summer in South Africa - the highest in the world. It was so much fun... Definitely a few risks involved - For one, it was in Africa! Second, I really couldn't understand the guys who were putting the straps on etc so it was a major step in just trusting random people with your life... and I did it with 10 physio students, who let's face it probably would not be recommending such things to their patients... but hey, it's something i've always wanted to do... and it was amazing. It was interesting how they moved me so my toes were over the end and then let me stand there for a while and said 'we're just going to confirm if you're 100% safe" and I'm thinking... hmm... shouldn't you have done that before you move me to the edge?! I've been thinking about risk. Not bungee jump/stupid kind or this kind:

but risk for God...

"On the far side of every risk... the love of God triumphs. This is the faith that frees us to risk for the cause of God. It is not heroism, or lust for adventure, or courageous self-reliance, or efforts to earn God's favour. It is childlike faith in the triumph of God's love - that on the other side of all our risks for the sake of righteousness, God will still be holding us..." John Piper

"...the cross is not the terrible end to an otherwise God-fearing and happy life, but it meets us at the beginning of our communion with Christ. When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die." -Dietrich Bonhoeffer

mystery of grace

"grace...the force that infuses our lives and keeps letting us off the hook. It is unearned love - the love that goes before, that greets us on the way. It's the help you receive when you have no bright ideas left, when you are empty and desperate and have discovered that your best thinking and most charming charm have failed you. Grace is the light or electricity or juice or breeze that takes you from that isolated place and puts you with others who are as startled and embarrassed and eventually grateful as you are to be there." p139

"I do not at all understand the mystery of grace--only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us." p143

Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies

climb with me

One of the main pastimes of my childhood was climbing trees. We knew the best ones to climb and the best technique; the best fruit at the best time of year - especially mangos and guavas... although we ate them even if they weren't ripe! I have so many memories of just hanging out in trees! Probably sounds random to most people, but for us it was just so normal. One of my fellow tree-climbing friends from those days has just written a poem that sums it up... all I can say reading this is a sense of lingering nostalgia; she captures it perfectly.

--
canopy

climb
with me to the top
of the mango tree where
the fruit is
ripe and the air
smells green we seem
to hover
over earth almost in the sky
no longer bound
by gravity or sanity just
playfilled delight and bubbling glee
pretend with me as
we scramble
from branch.

to branch.
bruising knees skinning
shins chins sweet
with juice proof we’ve found
eden’s fruit eternal youth within
our grasp sap covered
hands feet bathed
in dirt revert
to ageless days
unafraid

by Jesse Kaminski

gaze of love

2 songs stuck in my head at the start of this easter week...

Oh gaze of love so melt my pride
That I may in Your house but kneel
And in my brokenness to cry
Spring worship unto Thee
(from jars of clay's Hymn... especially that first line...)
--
What Thou, my Lord, hast suffered, was all for sinners’ gain;
Mine, mine was the transgression, but Thine the deadly pain.
Lo, here I fall, my Saviour! ’Tis I deserve Thy place;
Look on me with Thy favor, vouchsafe to me Thy grace.
(from O sacred head, now wounded)
--
Both of these songs hold memories for me. One is of a friend and I bashing out this song in high school on a rickety old piano... and being fascinated by the words 'bludgeoned' and 'pirouette'. And the second, I can still visualise my brother, sister and I trying to sing 3 part harmony to this hymn on a random lazy sunday afternoon at home when I was about 12 or 13 (again on a rickety piano... they seem to be a feature...)

nothing but blue skies

It's the end of a crazy week... full of randomness, stress, banter and spring!
Random? Bowling (check out my team below)
Stress? My dissertation presentation is done and dusted. Wahey!Banter? We had our physio formal last night! (i'm getting old... i'm paying for 2am today)

Spring? Loving the sunshine and daffodils this afternoon (about time!!).... i was a little optimistic with shorts and tshirt... but nearly! Even the thought of flipflops makes me happy. Let's hope it's not fluke weather...

Still can’t believe it’s April already!