Update

Hello people who read my blog! Most days it continues to surprise me that you exist, so thank you for reading.

You may have noticed a recent spurt of poetry has appeared. I've been enjoying experimenting with poems, and stuck them up here because I decided it's better to put them out there than to hug them to myself secretly and hope they're mildly decent. Plus, they don't take half as much effort as a coherent full-length post.

At the moment, I'm in the middle of writing a blog post which I'm very excited about. I said writing, I meant planning. Haven't quite gotten to the writing bit yet. 

However, I probably won't finish it for another few days due to my life being the manic whirl of college, sleep, homework, tea, bible, French films, nights out and book reading that it is.

In the meantime, here is a brilliant quote from Galileo:

 "The Bible tells us how to go to Heaven, not how the heavens go."

Bis Bald!

Hope

Squatting in a squalid place,
He spends his days in dreaming,
Of dawns and dusks all spent aloft
-through streaky sunsets soaring.

Which Tyrant beat this fragile form?
Who clipped such splendid wings?
He may not fly, yet he defies,
As night by night he sings.

Nameless

For a gust of wind I would give
that which was never mine.
I promise to you the endless stars,
the boundless sea for a soft sweet breeze.
Life is not Life behind the glass,
with nose pressed up flat,
with desire burning inwards,
and outwards,
and upwards,
longing to breathe.

Christmas.

This month, I've been following a Christmas bible plan. It's been awesome. I've been directed to Isaiah (which I still find really difficult to spell) quite a bit, and have discovered all these incredible Old Testament prophecies that point straight to Jesus. My mind has been well and truly BLOWN.

Today, I was told to dive back into the gospels, with a passage from Luke. For anyone who doesn't know the story of John the Baptist's birth, go look it up now! It's found in Luke 1, and is another one of those mind-blowers. The Bible is well and truly packed with them. The passage I read today tells of the priest Zechariah (again, tricky spelling) prophesying over his newborn son John. 

"And you, my little son,
      will be called the prophet of the Most High,
      because you will prepare the way for the Lord.
    You will tell his people how to find salvation
      through forgiveness of their sins.
    Because of God’s tender mercy,
      the morning light from heaven is about to break upon us,
    to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
      and to guide us to the path of peace.”    - Luke 1:76-79

Now I've read this passage before, quite a few times I think, but I'm not sure how I just skipped over it. "Because of God's tender mercy" <- How amazing is that? Because of God's tender mercy, he sent us Jesus. Not just his mercy, but his tender mercy. He is loving, he is kind, he is our Father. 

For me this was a reminder, that Christmas is about God having tender mercy on us, sending us Jesus. He freed us from sin, from judgement, he gave us an escape to something glorious. God was so lovingly merciful that he intervened, he came down to Earth in his own creation (again, MIND BLOWN) so that he could be reconciled to us. That's our cause for celebration, the reason for the season. The morning light from heaven has broken upon us!

And that's so stupidly exciting, I had to write about it, end of. I've also been watching The Nativity on the BBC, it's still on iPlayer, and if you haven't seen it you need to! I've cried twice already and I still have the final episode left. But then, after all, it is the greatest, most important, most beautiful story ever told.

I hope you have an amazing Christmas.

p.s. Jesus really loves you

An Update, and Some Project 125 Stuff..

So once again I must start a blog post with an apology. I'm just not very consistent with posts. Some people update every other day, and I can only admire and be absolutely baffled by them. But hey, ho!

In case y'all hadn't noticed, IT'S CHRISTMAS! A very good time of the year. Yet, with my first AS exams looming in January, I get a feeling that this Christmas isn't going to be quite as care-free as previous years.
Nonetheless, I am determined to enjoy my holiday amidst revision. Two of my favourite people will be returning from uni, the tree is going up this afternoon, it's my second Christmas with Christ, family are coming to stay with us, the next few weeks of church, lots of giving and receiving of presents and, of course, the Dr. Who Christmas special to look forward to. I'm so excited that I may even try my hand at cooking again, having found a yummy recipe for 'Christmas Bread' by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, whose name is positively spectacular.

Also, come the new year, Beth Rutland and myself will be raising money for Project 125 in a Doctor Who related way. We will be competing to see which sucker lucky person will be able to eat the most fish fingers and custard. Yep, I wrote that right, fish fingers and custard.

For those of you, who aren't Doctor Who fans (although why you wouldn't be is beyond me), you will need to watch this clip for full understanding:



The idea is that hopefully kind people such as yourself will sponsor us, and we'll make a beautiful video as proof that we did indeed eat the fish custard. This is all for the girls dormitory in Serenje, so please sponsor us! If you want to, just leave a comment on this post, or donate on the JustGiving page leaving a comment of 'Fish Custard' so we know that's what it's for.

If I don't get a chance to blog again, although fingers crossed I will, HAPPY CHRISTMAS :)

p.s. You know you want to sponsor us

Seventeen

Okay, who was I kidding? I can't write a two part blog, my mind's already moved on.

Today is my 17th Birthday. I felt that deserved a blog post. Enjoy..


Seventeen things I've learnt in the past year:

1. Igloos are difficult to build.

2. Dubstep are not a band.

3. Doctor Who without David Tennant is possible.

4. My hair will not curl. After years of extra strength hairspray, trying to find the best curling irons, giving up on having ringlets and just using mousse and scrunching to get some sort of wave, I have accepted it. My hair is dead straight, and unless I do like prom, and spend two hours under one of those hair driers old ladies use, it's just not going to happen.

5. The time for panic is when you find yourself thinking in a foreign language- German Exchange of 2010.

6. I may not be able to cook, but I can bake. My kids are going to be fat.

7. No matter how far away he moves, you're never truly rid of Dave Hulme.

8. That people will bully you for having a butter tray, when you weren't even aware it was a weird thing.

9. Never leave a mobile phone in your pocket when you go on a roller coaster.

10. But don't worry so much if it's a Sony Ericsson W810i, in that case it will be still be working when the maintenance guys find it and return it to you.

11. That aeroplanes can't reverse (took me a while to get my head around this one).

12. The existence of Banter.

13. The existence of Church Banter.

14. Julius Caesar was kidnapped by pirates. They wanted to ransom him for 20 silver talents. Caesar laughed and demanded they ransom him for 50. His captors obeyed. Conclusion: Caesar was badman.

15. Microwave Popcorn- harder than it looks.

16. How to apply for a provisional driving licence and then stare at it wistfully for two and a half months until you're allowed to actually use it.

17. Things don't happen the way you planned them to, but it's more fun that way.


Year Number Seventeen - BRING IT ON.

What is Today's Subject?

Today's Subject is:

It's a good subject, don't you agree? Optimism (or blessing counting) is most definitely the best outlook for life. I can manage to be negative for perhaps a few days at most. On that rare occasion the sadness continues, I am blessed with great friends who will gatecrash my pity-party, eat all the cake, and burst all the metaphorical balloons. I don't know where I'd be without them.

Naturally, my friends are some of the most brilliant blessings in my life. But there are many more.
My college is a huge blessing. That I can study and learn and be educated is amazing. I love learning about new things, gathering up the knowledge, using it. And I get to do that every day. I'm also very aware of how fortunate I am. It is safe for me to go to school. Some teenage girls don't have that luxury.

In Serenje, Zambia, girls of my age leave their homes in the countryside to go to school in the main town. The only accommodation their parents can afford for them is in the slums. They are vulnerable and unprotected and taken advantage of by men. Only 2% finish schooling, the rest return home, often pregnant or infected with HIV/AIDS. That's a horrific statistic, what if only 2% of girls at my college completed their A-levels? And the only difference between us and the girls in Serenje, is that of birth. We are blessed, blessed, blessed and should never take it for granted, but help others to have the same blessing. Donate to Project 125, so we can build a girls dormitory and these girls can be safe. Do it now!

So now that you've donated to Project 125, as I'm sure you have, I can go to bed. I'm ridiculously tired and need to sleep now.I'll most likely do a part 2 to this "Count Your Blessings" thing, because I wasn't actually going to talk about Project 125, it just wriggled its way in. I'm surprised by how much I want to see it happen, and indeed by how much it's gone and planted itself in my heart. I never particularly wanted it, but God just went and stuck it in there. He's brilliant like that.

Count Your Blessings, Not Your Worries.



To be continued.. (or just written properly without any strange side-tracks about Zambia)