Thankful Thursday

This week is college holidays so it’s been different than recent weeks.  Here’s what I’m thankful for this week:

Safe flights
We flew to Brisbane and back this week to see some friends.  Both times when we landed I thanked God for the safe flight.  I don’t always do this, but I was recently reminded in one of my Doctrine lectures to be more aware of God’s providence in all things.  But I am also a bit of a worrier and in what other form of transportation are you as reminded of the things that could go wrong than on a plane flight?  I particularly get a little nervous when they go through the safety procedures.  On the way home we were sitting in front of the exit row and got to hear the special instructions the people seated there were given about pulling open the exit hatch for emergency evacuation.  That makes for extra nerves!  I’ve been in the exit row once, seated right next to the door, and I was travelling alone.  I prayed then that nothing would go wrong so I wouldn’t have to lift the 15kg door and throw it out of the aircraft.  But, as I said, everything was fine so I thanked God for keeping us all safe. 

The generosity of friends
We flew to Brisbane to spend some time with friends from home who live there now.  We stayed with them in their place in the city and really enjoyed spending time with them.  They picked us up from the airport, fed us, showed us around and shared their life with us.  More to come later about our holiday there.  Suffice to say, J and I are both thankful for our friendship with this couple, and their generosity towards us this week. 

A new look
As you can already see I’ve created a new look for my blog.  I’ve been wanting to do this for a while.  Though I don’t feel like this current look is particularly inspired it feels less kitschy than the old look so I’m happy with it for now.  What do you think of it?  I’m thankful for some time today to fiddle with these details.

What are you thankful for this week?

Who do I write for?

I recently read a blog post where the author questioned who she should be writing for.  Was it her readers?  Or herself?  She didn’t want to write things that her readers would find boring, so she found herself holding back a bit from things that she really did want to write about. 

Other bloggers encouraged her to write for herself.  It’s her blog after all, and if she doesn’t write what she wants to write about it becomes impassionate and not honest. 

What's in a name?

I spent a long time trying to think of a name for this blog.  In some ways I just wanted to get to it and start writing, but I didn't feel like it was worth writing anything until I had a name to make starting at all worthwhile. 

I wanted something that either described what I would be writing about, or described me (in a non-corny way).  I knew I wouldn't be in this stage of life, being a student, forever so I didn't want the name of the blog to lock me into that, though in some ways I will be a student my whole life, as a student of God's word. 

I ended up with "Reflections of a Lamb" because I've grown up knowing that my name means 'lamb of God'.  When I looked it up on the internet I was told that Rachelle (a French name) means 'lamb'.  Rachel (the Hebrew origin of my name) actually means 'ewe', but that's close enough to 'lamb' for me.

I also want to acknowledge that Jesus Christ is my shepherd, he calls himself the Good Shepherd in John chapter 10, and I am his sheep wanting to hear his voice and follow his commands. 

My reflections will be about what I've been doing, but most importantly to me, they will be about being a lamb of the Good Shepherd, Jesus.

The Beginning of Blogging

Here I am, I've started a blog!

I've been thinking about doing this for a while now, pretty much since we decided to move interstate for Bible college.  But I've been shy of doing it because I thought I'd be too busy or wouldn't have enough to say.  I want this blog to be a way of letting friends and family know what I am doing, learning and thinking.  I also thought it might become part of my study process to summarise what we've been learning at college.  I got some encouragement that friends and family would be interested in reading this sort of thing (or at least my mum will!) so I started to get a bit more excited about the idea. 

Now, in our mid-semester break I decided to bite the bullet and give it a go.  I'd love it if you'd read and come along side me in my journey.

Rachelle