you can't swim with your feet on the bottom...

"When I was learning to swim, the swimming instructor

used to shout, "For goodness' sake take your feet off

the bottom!' Sometimes it's like that in our Christian life...

we're scared of getting out of our depth, but it's impossible

to learn to swim that way. Our feelings let us down, telling

us that this is not us - we're never going to be good swimmers,

never going to do much for God. but God... takes the ordinary and

makes it extrodinary, and that is exactly what happens to us when we

give our lives into his hands..."

(Clare Blake: Diary of an [extra] ordinary woman)

I'm sure you all know where I'm headed with this I'm rather obvious really! I went into Upminster Christian bookshop on Wednesday not because I wanted anything but coz I was walking past and decided to stop (or God nudged me.....) this book caught my eye just from the quote above I love that anaolgy. We can't learn to swim with our feet walking along the bottom of the pool. We can't learn to drive without lessons and reading books to help us we can't pass our test without practice. We're humans we're not perfect we can try and fail, try again then fail as long as we keep trying and don't give up we will learn to be what God wants us to be. Funnily enough God knows what He's doing... He created us... He can see more than we can... we just need to get on with trusting His plans and yes tht means lifting up your feet even if it means you feel like your drowning for a bit. If we're doing what He wants we wont fail....

A quick note!

"If you wanna be somebody, if you wanna go somewhere, you better wake up & pay attention"


I is sitting watching Sister Act 2 & just wanted to write the above. Isn't it true that we can do whatever we want as long as we have the effort to get up and get on with it...

YAY

YAY! I had to blog just to say YAY!
My housemate txt me on Friday night when I was coming home to say she couldn't afford to live in our house next yr (bear in mind that uni has finished everyone has moved out of halls & there's no one around to ask 'would you like to live in our house next yr?!) Anyway, a while ago when we were advertising our free rooms for next yr my mate Piglet said she had a mate who needed somewhere but unfortunatly by then the rooms had bin taken. Sooooo I txt Piglet (should point out now that's not her real name!) and ask if her mate stills needs a room, she said she'll pass my name onto Liz & gave me her email address. Sooooo I get home run up a quick email asking if she still needs a roof over her head, no reply, Saturday - no reply, Sunday - no reply meanwhile Rena is getting stressed about having no money & needing someone to move in. Sooooo on Monday I sent another email (u know how all emails go into your junk mail if u dont have the persons contact details) incase she hadn't got the first one.
Sooooo Monday afternoon I get two emails about half an hr apart.
1st one: no I've got a house sorted with the postgrad's hope you find someone though
2nd one: our house isn't set in stone can I have more details please????

Sooooo I send back details about the house, where we are & rent stuff

Email reply: can I live in ur house please?!

So in less than a week we've got a 4th hosemate all sorted & she's a Christian so I don't even have to explain to the newbie my random music etc!
Isn't God great always sorts everything out even when it starts off being a big mess Amazing!

I'll take a break! or will I??!

phreewww I've finished my 2nd yr for the time being. I'll just have to wait for my results to do the dreaded resubmissions but there we go I always do better the 2nd time round so it's a good job I can resubmit lol!
Anyway that's not really why I started this new post.

You may or may not recall a while ago I wrote a post about wanting a pause button on my remote control of life. well over the coming week I'm going to be looking for times to just pause & be free to sit and be still. (I know that may seem like a chance to be lazy but honestly that's not my plan!)

Just incase some of you don't know fun camp (aka Kids Alive Outside) will be in full flow by this time next week. Please be thinking of Liz and all the other 'staff' like people but above all remember all the fantasitastic kids that are gonna be coming along!

Watch this space we'll see if I've managed to pause in my busy life!

(hello Rebecca I hope u've moved in the last couple of hrs....?!)

a breather!

Dear Lord,

so far today I am doing well

I have not gossiped, lost my temper, been greedy, grumpy, nasty, selfish or self-indulgent. I have not whined, complained, cursed or eaten any chocolate. I have charged nothing on my credit card.

But I will be getting out of bed in a minute, and I think that I will really need Your help then!



What you are is God's gift to you. What you become is your gift to God.

- I've just stolen these two 'things' from our Christian Union Facebook page thought they'd make a different to my grrr-ness recent posts!

Jude's analogy of the week...

Sorry Becca if I miss quote you here but tonight you said something like "how come builders stand around just looking at the building drinking tea talking about what needs to be done instead of doing it?" (or something along those lines!) well i didn't think you'd want me to start a rant tonight so I've stored it up for this blog so tighten your seat belts I may go into a mad waffle trying to get down all I want to say!

How many times do we stand around and say "if i was prime minister I would do...." I know I do loads but I do realise I'm never gonna rule the country so I also find myself saying "we need to do.... at church" my biggest ... is PRAY as in "we need to pray together at church" it doesn't matter how long I sit and chat to people about how we need to do a, b and c to make our church the best it can be it's not gonna make a blind bit of difference until we get out of our comfortable boxes & just grab change by the horns and go with it.
We as a corps are about to go through an amazing (albeit scary and uncertain) time when we're building-less (we'll not in 1 we can call ours) we need to support each other yes in friendship as we do but absolutely lift up our church (as a people not as a building) in prayer. I know I find it so much easier to pray alongside other Christians and yet when do we get the chance to just sit and pray? why do we not have morning prayer meetings anymore? I know the salvation army is changing with society and culture etc but since when should we stop praying???? Is it just me or does that make no sense what so ever we are living in completely shaken times and yet we dont pray together our strongest weapon against the devil is the fact that God will listen to us when we bother to talk to Him! I'm not suggesting you guys reading this don't pray and we cant pray alone but we all know how amazing it was at Roots when we all came together and felt the power of God. We can get that every week just by coming together in our united grrrrr-ness of wanting God in our lives, community and church.
We don't know exactly what God wants to do in Romford but we know it's something BIG surely we need to be BIG in asking God what we need to do. Sunday's are always a busy day for us but we need to take time out and just talk to the big guy who is the ONLY person who knows what we're gonna go through in the next yr/18mnths, yes God, He is the ONLY person with the answers so let's talk to Him!

I do apologise if this blog only makes sense to one person who feels the same as me but I can't just stand back and say "we should so be praying together no" anymore we need to DO something to see the 'building work' get completed. (sorry my analogy wording isn't my strong point but hopefully you get the idea?!)

I'll shush for now but God is knocking at my head/ heart & i wont just stand back and churn thoughts over to myself! (sorry that means more grrrrr-ness coming your way my fellow bloggers!)