The Awkward Friend

Some people are brilliant conversationalists.  They know exactly what to say when they meet new people, and always know how to keep a conversation flowing, even with people they already know (and have conceivably exhausted the get-to-know-you topics). 

I am not one of these people.  I don’t often enjoy meeting new people because I can never think of what to talk to them about.  When it comes to a lull in the conversation with friends I feel awkward and unsure about what happens next.  (Of course, there are some friends with whom you can easily sit in silence with and it’s not awkward at all, but that’s a special kind of friendship.) 

I found myself wondering if other people have picked up on my awkwardness and therefore find it harder to be friends with me or to talk to me.  Am I missing out on social opportunities because of my awkwardness?  Am I lowered on friends’ preference lists?  But I was reminded of something that I learnt in a college Ministry and Mission class.  If you want a friend, be a friend. 

And as I chatted with J about this topic I remembered a conversations with a friend where she expressed similar feelings of awkwardness in conversations, but I don’t remember ever thinking that she was an awkward person, or feeling uncomfortable talking to her.  So maybe my awkwardness is just something I feel and not something others see.  Or maybe we’re all a little bit awkward in conversational lulls and blame ourselves, without realising that the other person may be feeling the same way.  

But even so, I would like to work on my conversation skills, to not feel awkward or make others feel awkward.  And I think this will mean taking more opportunities to talk to people.  If you want a friend, be a friend.  I hope I can make some more friends in the process. 

When life is hard

Generally I like my life.  Sure, more storage space in my house would be nice, but I can’t really complain about my life. 

But when life is hard (read: I have any sort of deadline coming up) I sometimes wish that I didn’t exist.  Or, more like I wish that I was a bird or a tree and didn’t have to do things like exams.  I just want to escape. 

Last night I had a panic/depressed/pessimistic moment about my upcoming exams and the study that I’ve done.  I don’t feel I know my material like I should, there’s not enough time to learn it properly, and I feel like I don’t know enough to do my exams. 

But when the thought of being a bird came into my head last night it fizzled out.  I realised that the escape–my–life–and–its–problems feeling wasn’t there.  It’s not just my life that I’m in charge of at the moment.  I’m supporting another little life inside of me.  I couldn’t wish to not exist because a little life relies on me to exist. 

Of course, I know that it is God who sustains our baby but my involvement in this has changed my outlook on when life is hard.  I am humbled.  I am maturing.  I’m not so focused on myself.  Life is more than just these upcoming exams. 

I’m glad that this exam period is my last.  I’m sick of study–stress.  But I have to get through four exams before it’s over.  Please pray for me as I study, and for my memory during exams.  I don’t know if I have baby–brain (yet?), but it’s a convenient excuse if I don’t do well in my exams.  But I don’t want to have to use it.  I want to finish college well and be satisfied with my exam efforts. 

I am reminded by a friend who also posted about exam study today that while exam results are correlated with my effort, life results are not.  It’s incredibly freeing that none of my effort counts when it comes to God.  I don’t have to worry about if I’ve worked hard enough, or performed well enough.  I don’t have to wish for an escape when I feel like I’m failing.  Jesus has done all that is necessary for my salvation and my everlasting with God.  Hallelujah!

Friendship when you’re far away

A couple of weeks ago in an Ethics lecture we talked about friendship.  What friendship is, why it’s important.  Our lecturer told us that friendship is usually characterised by three things: attraction, reciprocity, and proximity. 

As we talked about what friendship is I thought about my friends, old and new, and I was so thankful.  I remember when we moved interstate for college I was afraid that I would find it really hard to make new friends and be away from old ones.  But somehow I did make new friends and have kept in touch with some old ones. 

But I’ve really felt the impact that proximity has on friendships.  I’m sure we’ve all experienced it in some way.  We’re no longer friends with all our friends from high school.  And a big reason for this is proximity.  We no longer see each other five days a week.  In many ways this is okay.  Friendships do end, that’s natural.

But I rebelled against the proximity factor as well.  I don’t want my friendships with some people to end.  Whether it be new friends that I’ve made here or old friends back home.  Lack of proximity will become a factor again, as it already is now.  

When you’re living far away from your friends, and you don’t see them regularly you have to put in more effort.  And I’ve often found that since I’m the one who has moved away then I am often the one who has to put in the effort of maintaining contact, or at the least organising to catch up when I’m back home.  Things got better once I realised this!  I think it will be different again when college finishes because everyone is moving away from college and the responsibility of making contact is more equally shared. 

The reciprocity part of friendship also poked at me.  I’ve seen how loving and generous people at college are.  And sometimes I wonder if I’m being like that.  Nobody wants to be a bad friend, me included.  So I’ve been thinking about what it means to be a friend and how I can be better. 

So I have a question and you can comment in the box below (hint: if you don’t have a Google/Wordpress/etc. profile then you can choose the “Name/URL” option next to “Comment as:” and just type your name there and leave URL blank). 
What do you think makes someone a good friend?

What drama brings to life

On Wednesday and Thursday last week a bunch of first year students performed in the Mark drama at college, directed by my husband and another third year friend.  I went to see it on Wednesday night. 

I saw it last year when J performed in it (not at college but at a church) so I didn’t expect it to be too different.  Last year I was sick when I saw it so my head was a bit fuzzy.  I was at least looking forward to having a clear head while watching. 

I was blown away. 

I spent the first half of the performance not being able to keep the grin off my face.  Look what Jesus is doing!  He heals people, he loves people, he tells the truth, he’s gentle, he drives out demons, he explains things and leaves you to think about other things.  This is the guy I follow, and he is amazing. 

Then it got uncomfortable. 

Peter denied knowing Jesus once Jesus was arrested.  This friend he had followed for three years and declared himself committed to was cast quickly aside out for fear for himself.  And he cried in anguish long enough to make me uncomfortable. 

“I’m sorry Jesus!”

But it also gave me time to realise how horrible it really was.  Peter broke a promise.  Peter betrayed Jesus.

I have betrayed Jesus.

Then Jesus was crucified and he spent agonising hours on the cross.  We heard Jesus’ ragged breaths and spluttering coughs as he slowly suffocated.  And I felt tears in my eyes.

I’m sorry Jesus.  I did this to you.  I put you here.  I’m part of your pain. 

I’ve been praying that God would help me to hate my sin.  The horrible death that Jesus went through to pay for my sin shows me how horrible my sin is.  I saw and felt this as I listened to Jesus die. 

But he didn’t stay dead.  The Mark drama ends with the women leaving the empty tomb, asking themselves “is it true?  Has he risen?”  I can say with confidence that night, on Resurrection Sunday and always that it is true.  Jesus has risen. 

I pray that this Easter was not just a nice long weekend for you.  Of course we can fill it with nice things like chocolate, family and friends.  But it’s not a nice long weekend.  Friday is Good, but have you stopped to wonder why we call the death-day of the greatest person in history a good day?  Easter Sunday is a celebration of Jesus’ victory.  This long weekend is the time we remember and celebrate the greatest event in history.  Take a look at Jesus, read about him and find out why.

When I didn’t want to pray

Last week at college we had week of prayer to pray for the mission teams that we would all participate in the following week.  This meant that we prayed more than usual in our morning chapel times and chaplaincy groups, usually in small groups rather than being lead from the front.  

At some point in the week I suddenly felt exhausted from praying.  I didn't want to pray anymore, I was tired of praying and it had tired me out.  

I was shy of admitting this here.  After all, I'm a Bible college student, I've chosen to study my faith full time, shouldn't I love praying?  Shouldn't I be good at it by now?  I shouldn't be feeling like I don't want to do it.  

But in case there is even just one other person out there who feels the same way as me sometimes, I thought I should share this.  And I want to be honest here not just about the good things, but the struggles too.  

I know I can come up with a number of reasons to explain away why I was tired of praying.  I'm an introvert and praying in groups for 20-30 minutes each day with people I don't necessarily know well, if at all, is emotionally taxing.  I'm also shy about talking in groups so often praying out loud is a push out of my comfort zone.  Then there's the fact that you have to reword and add-lib on the fly because simply reading out the prayer point doesn't quite feel like I'm praying sincerely (even though that's a totally legitimate way to pray, particularly with the detailed points).  

But honestly, I don't want to let myself get away with excuses for my attitude to prayer.  Prayer has often been hard for me, in groups and alone.  I know that I'm not alone in this.  Pray is hard, that's the truth.  It's hard to keep at it, to keep trying, because it feels so weird.  There's nothing else that we do like it.  And often we wonder what's wrong when we pray because we don't feel any different, as if feelings are the gauge of God hearing us.  

But my thought that day last week shocked me.  Because while I don't expect that I will always love praying, and I certainly don't expect to be good at it without a lot of hard work, I shouldn't let that stop me from persisting.  And I shouldn't want to opt out from doing it.  Prayer is our lifeline to God.  It is our expression of our utter dependence on him for everything, and a product of our relationship with him.  How can we have a relationship with God if we never speak to him (prayer) and if we never listen to him (reading the Bible)?  

It was my sinfulness that said I was tired of prayer.  And I know I'm not disgusted enough with my sin, but the shock at my sin was good.  I was glad it shocked me because it showed me that God is changing me, little by little, working in my heart to make it like his and to despise my sin and love his righteousness. 

We visited a mosque today as part of our mission, to learn more about Islam and what Muslim's believe.  I've often been impressed with the amount of praying that pious Muslims do (at least five times a day according to the rules of their faith).  But I shouldn't need rules about when to pray to get me to pray.  Paul says to pray continuously! (1 Thess 5:17).  I know that God has made it possible for me to approach him in prayer without any need for special words or special actions.  Jesus has interceded for me before the Father and made me clean.  Praise be to God.  I need to remember this and keep trusting in God for everything, knowing how much of a privilege it is to come to him in prayer.

O what peace we often forfeit,
O what needless pain we bear.
All because we do not carry
everything to God in prayer.

(“What a Friend we have in Jesus”, lyrics Joseph Scriven)

A wedding, nostalgia and seven years

I’m recounting my weekend in the wrong order, now I want to write about what I did on Saturday.

This weekend I flew back home to be at the wedding of a dear friend from school.  We became friends in year eight when we discovered a mutual love for the Lord of the Rings.  Throughout high school our social groups changed but we always remained friends.  Even when we hadn't seen each other for two and a half years (because it took me almost that long to work out how to catch up with people when you live so far away) when we caught up these last summer holidays we seemed to pick up where we left off.  

But this post isn't an ode to our friendship.  

The wedding was at our high school chapel.  Oh the nostalgia!  It was weird being back at school and seeing the places that I sat, where I made friends, where I learned.  Some things had changed about the place, but it was mostly the same.  But it wasn't just the view that tugged on my heart memory.  The school is Roman Catholic so as we went through the wedding mass I remembered particular phrases that I once heard every week.  And though I'm not Catholic and I don't agree with everything in the Catholic liturgy I enjoyed my remembrance of the phrases and the places I could confidently add my amen.  

There were some other school friends at the wedding too.  I found myself a bit shy to begin with.  Some of them I haven't seen in seven years!  I don't think I'm a very good conversationalist so I wondered how things would go at the reception.  Thankfully the conversations were pretty free-flowing.  It was really lovely catching up with some of the people I used to hang out with every day.  We didn't exactly catch up on the last seven years, but definitely the last few.  Many of us expressed surprise at how much time had passed.  We'd finished degrees, some of us have moved interstate, someone has bought a house, someone is in the navy, I've been married for two and a half years!  

And yet, I was also surprised at how most of us basically hadn't changed.  Yes we're older (and maybe wiser?) but our basic personalities have stayed the same.  I started nodding to myself: yes, I remember your sense of humour, and I remember your interest in that.  And I'm not sure how much this is a comfort or a concern, because it means that I basically haven't changed.  I wondered if my friends thought that?  

Because I feel like I have changed.  I've learned so much in the last seven years.  I like to think that I've become less shy, nervous and reserved.  That’s because now I'm more confident in God's love for me and my worth as a person.  I hope I've become more compassionate and caring, because I've understood better the compassion that Jesus showed.  

But maybe change is a slower process than I think.  Maybe learning these things doesn't change my personality but the way that I express it.  I pray that in the last seven years I've become more of the person that God wants me to be, but I know that seven years isn't really a long time and there will always be more ways I can be like Jesus.  And I pray that next time I meet my friends they will see Jesus a little bit more.

Sharing is caring. Or is it?

This week after Bible study we started sharing about our families and how we met our husbands and things like that.  It was fun to hear a bit about other people’s stories.  Sometimes I felt like exclaiming, “Oh, me too!  That happened to me!”  But I didn’t.  I’ll tell you why in a moment. 

We get excited when we have experienced what someone else has experienced.  In part I think it’s because it validates our own experiences.  But I sense that it’s more than that.  I know that I get excited about a shared experience because it’s a way of connecting with the other person.  It says I understand what that was like, I understand you, and hopefully then, you understand me too.  Because we all have this fundamental desire to be known. 

And this reminds me that birds of a feather really do flock together.  It’s much rarer that opposites attract.  Even with friends who seem like opposites you’ll probably find that there’s a number of major similarities between them that attracted them to each other in the first place.

I wanted to exclaim that I shared that experience.  But I didn’t say anything.  Because I’ve been trying to listen.  That might sound odd from someone who you know stands pretty often on the listener side of the line in group situations.  What I mean is that I’ve been trying to listen to the other person without speaking to make the conversation about me. 

I went looking for a picture for this post and found these two guinea pigs who illustrate my point quite nicely.  While they are sharing the leaf, it certainly looks like one is trying to take it away from the other. 

Instead of pointing out a shared experience and bringing attention in the conversation to me, I want to stay focused on the other person as I listen to them speak.  I want to care by giving them my attention and not thinking about myself. 

“Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less.”  - C. S. Lewis

Of course there are times when it’s great to share that you understand someone’s experience, especially if they ask!  Often it can be greatly comforting in a hard situation to know that you’re not alone or someone else has been through it before.  But perhaps especially in these times I think we need to be careful about showing the other person that we are listening to them, to their particular situation and feelings.  We can’t assume that they feel the same way as we did just because we’ve experienced the same situation. 

But maybe I’m wrong.  Maybe exclaiming “me too!” is caring and I’m just being overly sensitive thinking that I’m being attention-seeking when I say that.  I don’t think that I have all the answers and I’d love to hear from you if you have some further thoughts.  What do you think?

What makes work enjoyable

Hello everyone.  I’m sorry it has been so long since I’ve posted anything.  College is finished and we’re on holidays but I still haven’t written anything.  I guess I felt that there wasn’t much to say. 

I’ve got a little bit more of an excuse for the past two weeks.  I’ve been working for two weeks and Monday was my last day.  I was working in a warehouse of toy company, dealing with the online orders they receive.  I helped fill orders by picking stock off the shelves and pack orders, sometimes with Christmas gift wrapping, ready for posting.  Someone called me a Christmas elf. 

I heard about the job from a friend at college and half the people working there for the past two weeks are people I know from college.  It has been fun working with people I already know.

I wasn’t sure how much I would enjoy the work.  It’s fairly repetitive and far more physical than mental (not that there was much heavy lifting at all, just a lot of standing or walking around all day).  But I realised during this job that I don’t mind that at all.  I don’t mind doing jobs that are repetitive, physical and probably classed as ‘menial’.  I have told J more than once that I’d happily stack chairs and vacuum at church as my way of serving there. 

Perhaps admitting this is selling myself short intellectually, I don’t know.  Perhaps I’m just exhausted from all the thinking that I’ve done this year.  Maybe I would get bored of this kind of work if I did it all year.  My feet certainly would protest! 

Perhaps much of the enjoyment came from doing the job with friends.  Not even very close friends, but people I call my brothers and sisters in Christ.  People I trust.  There’s a sense of camaraderie in the warehouse, and I love that.  I’m glad for the opportunity this job gave me to get to know some of my fellow students better. 

People talk about doing a job that you find fulfilling so that work doesn’t really feel like work.  But perhaps sometimes the work is enjoyable not because personality and interests match well with the job, but because of the people you do it with. 

Throw away decisions

I’ve never been very good at making decisions.  Big decisions, small decisions.  Often with small decisions I simply don’t have an opinion.  “Where do you want to go out to dinner tonight?”  I’ve never been good at answering that question. 

But I’m not good with big decisions either, life decisions.  I’ve been reading some of my old prayer journals and I was struck by one that I wrote during year 12.  I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life.  I didn’t know what to choose to study at uni.  I just wanted God to tell me what to do.  I wanted someone to be able to look into the future, tell me what I was doing, just so I didn’t have to make the choice.  I remembered that desire.  I still have it sometimes.

I think this was and is because I don’t trust myself.  I didn’t trust myself to make the ‘right decision’.  I didn’t feel that I knew myself well enough to choose something that would be good for me, or would be what God wanted me to do. 

It also shows that I thought there was a right and a wrong decision for my life’s direction.  I thought that God had a plan for my life, and what if I got it WRONG?  Somewhere along the line I was taught, or picked up the idea, that God had a plan for my life.  If he knows the future, and he  knows my every decision then he must have a plan for my life, right? 

Of course these things are true, but not in the way that I thought they were.  God does know what will happen and he does have a plan for my life.  His plan is for me to live a life that loves and obeys him, the rest is just details that he has given me the freedom to choose.* 

God does not have a SPECIFIC plan for my life that I have to discover. 

I’ve had to fight with this idea a lot.  It has paralysed my decision making.  It has stunted my trust in myself.  I’m still fighting this idea.

Sometimes I still wish that God would make decisions for me.  But I’ve realised that making my own decisions is part of growing up, maturing into a well-functioning adult and a well-functioning Christian.  I pray that God would give me wisdom to help me in making decisions and I’m learning not to throw away my decisions.

 

* Discussion about free will obviously fits in here but it’s too much for me to address properly here.  Perhaps in another post. 

One week down

We’ve finished our first week back at college and are quickly onto the next.  I admit that I was having some doubts about going back to college.  Was this really the right decision?  But as soon as I arrived I felt much better.  There were a number of things that affirmed this for me during the week. 

New things to study
I’m really looking forward to some of the things that we’re going to study this year.  We get to go into a lot more depth in doctrine and Old Testament this year.  I’m looking forward to studying John in New Testament (because he’s just so confusing sometimes!), and we start philosophy this year as well.  We also look in detail at the Reformation and I’m really looking forward to learning about what happened then and the detail in the differences between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism. 

A focus on prayer
This year in women’s chapel we’re having a focus on prayer.  I’m not really sure what that looks like in practice, but I’m excited to be doing this.  I’ve been wanting for a few years now to look at prayer more closely and to improve my prayer habits.  I hope that this focus will help me to do that. 

The need for musicians
Due to some shuffling of people, Wednesday’s women’s chapel has been left with fewer musicians than normal so I volunteered to not only song lead (which I did last year) but also play the piano in chapel (as long as they’re happy for me to just play chords!). 

Filling out my committee
At college everyone is involved in a committee, be it prayer, tutoring, orientation, library.  My committee leader was pleased when he found out that I was continuing at college because it meant we had exactly enough (the minimum number of) people on the committee.  I loved helping out with my committee last year, I’ll write more about it soon. 

Keeping up in class
We heard last year that second year is a bit of a step up from first year in terms of workload and expectations.  I’ve been please that I’ve been able to mentally keep up in class (at least for now!), particularly in Greek, which is much more complicated and fast-paced than last year.  Additionally, though I wouldn’t be surprised if I drop behind in the set readings (as almost everyone inevitably does), it feels good to have started reading for a number of subjects. 

I’m excited to see what God will be teaching me this year and I hope you enjoy reading about it. 

If I were a millionaire…

Every time I think about writing this post I get the song “Billionaire” by Travie McCoy stuck in my head (actually until now when I looked up who sang this song, I thought it was “Millionaire”).  I don’t like this song, so I’ve shied away from writing this post.  But a grumpy off-hand comment from J the other day made me decided to write it. 

“Shelly, why aren’t we millionaires?”  I knew the question was rhetorical. 

“Why? What do you want to buy?”

“A new bike.  And new shorts!” 

J had been fixing his bike (again) and his shorts got dirty (again, and a different pair this time too).  The easiest solution would be to get a fancy new bike that wouldn’t break, but of course that would cost a lot of money.

I’ve had thoughts like this too.  If I were a millionaire I would buy a new wardrobe of clothes that suited me fantastically.  I’d pay a personal trainer/dietician to make all my meals and healthy snacks so I could still eat yummy things and not feel bad about it.  I’d buy a new car, with five doors instead of three (apparently the boot is counted as a ‘door’) so that our college neighbours could get in easily for the car pool to college.  I wouldn’t feel guilty about the expensive new running shoes I just bought. 

But we’re not millionaires obviously.  We don’t even have jobs!  We’re both students and we’re living off our savings (from when we did have jobs), and donations from friends and family (church and biological) who value supporting us in this way.  We’re also highly unlikely to become millionaires considering what we’re studying for. 

Sometimes I think having more money would make life better, easier, more secure.  But wishing for more means that I’m not grateful for what already I have.  We have a house to live in, money for groceries, dirt cheap clothes to buy at the college op-shop.  We also have friends and family and support.  Maybe life would be at little easier if we had more money than we knew what to do with, but we don’t, and I don’t think wishing helps in any way. 

Whenever I have those wishful thoughts about being a millionaire I will use them to remind myself of how grateful I am for what I do have, and I will thank God for all of it. 

Questioning “self-improvement”

Sometimes I think to myself, “you shouldn’t do this so much”, or “you should do this more”. Ways of ‘improving’ myself I suppose.  “You shouldn't laugh so loud”, “you should eat slower in company”. 

 

 

While some of the things I tell myself probably are good changes to make, not all of them are.  Some of them are simply things that I think would make me more agreeable to others.  They’re not good or bad changes to make, they’re just neutral. 

Then I wonder, shouldn’t I just accept myself how I am?  This is how I was made, why should I try to change that?  What’s so bad about having a loud laugh? 

But it is true that I should be working to better myself.  At least, I do want to be a better person!  Just as long as it’s in the right areas.  The areas that make me a better person, not the things that will make other people like me more.  “You should offer to help”, “you shouldn’t join in with the sledging”.

But even more than making myself a better person in the eyes of other people, I should be making myself a better person in God’s eyes.  Not all of ‘how I was made’ is good.  I, like all of us, was born into sin; it is in my nature.  And God hates sin. 

 

I should be getting rid of my sin, because I love God.  But actually, I know that’s not something I can do on my own.  It is God, not me, who makes me a better person. 

I know that my effort doesn’t count for anything with God, he has done it all and the only way to be saved is faith. 

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. (Eph 2:8-9)

It’s not being a better person that saves me, it is my faith and trust in Jesus, the only perfect person, who died in my place so that I could be free.  Thank you God for that. 

Do what you love

Many have been asking, and rightly so, whether I've heard from any of the applications I sent in to study post-graduate psychology next year.  I thought I would have heard earlier than this if I had gained an interview.  Now I have heard from them all.  I didn't get in.  No interviews. 

When I told J he made to comfort me.  But I wasn't actually very upset (except perhaps my pride, but not too much).  I was just glad I finally knew actually.  I knew that entry into these courses was competitive, and I knew that my application wouldn't be very near the top.  And the fact that I realised my desire to pastorally care for people means that I don't have to limit myself to a career in psychology.  This has been a comfort.  It has been freeing actually. 

But even before this I don't think I ever had my heart totally set on psychology.  It was an idea based on my enjoyment of the things I learnt in class.  I was never certain that I could work as a psychologist. 

The truth is that I've never been a particularly "driven" person, if I can put it that way, at least in terms of a career.  I never had this one pathway, one specific career that I wanted to pursue.  I didn't know what I wanted to be like some people seemed to.  I didn't know in high school, I didn't really know when I was at uni, though I started forming the idea of pursuing psychology while in second year. 

I wanted to do something that I enjoyed, so I followed that path.  I've heard people say, do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life.  I enjoyed science at high school, so I decided to to a Bachelor of Science at uni.  I enjoyed psychology at uni so I majored in it in my degree.  I've wanted to study theology for a while (I even thought during high school I might pursue it when I finished school) and so I studied it this past year with J. 

I've realised that I want to pastorally care for people.  This could be as a psychologist, or a counsellor, or even a theologically-trained worker in a church. 

I've loved studying the Bible this year at college.  You can read about it here.  Maybe I can combine my love of theology and my desire to pastorally care for people.

I've been thinking about this for a little while, at least since I realised my desire to pastorally care for people and since God had closed at least two of the doors on my psychology applications.  I'm never going to get a better opportunity than this to study what I love, and study it with my husband.  Other study, particularly counselling, is much more flexible. 

I don't know what I will do next year, but I want to do what I love. 

When you're not a mother but there are a lot of babies

I had a few nervous days last year when I hoped and prayed that I wasn't pregnant.  Now, just a year on, I find myself thinking sometimes that it wouldn't be so bad if God gave us a little unplanned miracle.  What has changed?

We live in a community of 20 college students with their wives, five of whom don't have children.  The children in this community range in age from newborn to nine years old.  There were ten babies born this year alone.  It's easy when surrounded by all these young children, particularly the babies, to start wishing that I was a mother too.  The support that I've seen this community show to families with newborns is beautiful and admittedly very tempting to be on the receiving end of, particularly for a first child.

But I don't want to be influenced into starting a family just because I'm jealous of the mothers around me.  I do want to be a mother one day, but I don't think we should try to become parents just yet.  Just because most of the people living around me in our community have children doesn't mean that I should have children now too.  In fact that's a pretty selfish motivation to create a new life.

I recognise that my wistful desire to have children now is selfish.  Sometimes I think it would be a great way of getting out of the hard things to come next year and beyond.  If I had a child now I wouldn't have to have a career, and that's okay with me.

J and I have been married for nearly a year and a half now.  I know people who have had children earlier than that in their marriage, but I want more time as just the two of us.  I don't want to add to our family just yet.  Because babies change things.  Once you're a parent you can't ever go back to the life you had before children.  And it would be unfair to J to have a child now for the wrong reasons because it absolutely would affect his study.  This isn't something that would affect only myself.  

Without the right motivation (or God's influence), having a child now is selfish.  For now I know I will enjoy living in this community of many children, playing with them, baby-sitting them, and learning about parenting from their parents.  As a non-parent I know that I don't see all the sides of parenting.  I don't have to clean up vomit, change dirty nappies or discipline a stubborn child.  I am glad that when the baby start crying I can hand him back to his mother!  

Update on next year

This year of studying at Bible college is almost over.  We have finished classes and are now in a week of study before exams start.  I plan to write soon about why I enjoyed studying at Bible college, but I thought this would be a good time to update you on what my plans are for next year since lots of people have been asking me. 

I’ve applied for four  post-graduate psychology courses, two masters and two graduate diplomas in Professional Psychology, at three different institutions.  Unfortunately none of them are at the uni closest to Bible college because they didn’t offer either of these courses.  The applications closed at the end of October.

In late November or early December I will find out if I’ve scored an interview, which is based on my grades.  At the interview (assuming I get one) grades don’t play a part in whether or not I am offered a place.  I won’t find out about this until January next year. 

I plan on applying for a masters or graduate diploma of counselling to study next year in case I don’t get into any of the psychology courses.  I’m currently tossing up between two different institutions, one offering a masters and one offering a graduate diploma (both two years in duration). 

I hope that answers any questions you might have about what I’m doing next year.  J will start second year at Bible college and we’ll stay in the same house and same church.  J is actually starting a student minister internship there for two years.  Even though I don’t know what I’m doing, where I’ll be travelling to each day and what my timetable will look like, I trust that God has plans for me and that is enough right now.

Reasons to Exercise

I'm not very good at exercising, I just can't often seem to motivate myself to do it.  I'm much better if I'm with other people.  So doing ballet with other students at college is great, and I also exercise with a neighbour on Sunday mornings.  But I'm hopeless when it comes to doing something by myself.  But I goaded myself and actually did something this afternoon.  So I thought I'd write down a list of some of the things I can motivate myself with.

Here they are, my reasons to exercise:

     1. Have more energy

     2. Concentrate better in class

     3. Feel better about your body

     4. Boost your metabolism and immune system

     5. Tone your muscles and increase your strength

     6. Muscles burn more energy than fat

     7. You'll be less tempted to eat sweet things because you don't want to undo the work you've done

     8. You won't feel as guilty if you do eat something sweet

     9. Have clearer skin

     10. Be less stressed, anxious or down

     11. Life is just better when you exercise regularly

I'm going to put this list up somewhere that I'll see it often and use it as motivation.  What are your reasons to exercise?

Where's your career plan?

Sometimes I feel like I've mucked up my life.*  Well to be honest that's a bit dramatic.  If I think about it for more than a second I realise that what I really mean is that I feel like I've mucked up my career path.  I love everything else about my life.  I do not regret at all getting married to J at the time we did, or coming to college with him to study the Bible for a year.  

I feel like I haven't planned for my career or future study very well at all.  I've found myself thinking that I should have done something more productive with my year after honours and I berate myself that I didn't.  Then I remember that I did try to.  I tried to find work that was related to psychology and would give me some exposure or experience to help me on my way to studying masters.  But I was never hired for those jobs that I applied for.  Instead I got a job somewhere else.  Perhaps God used that job to teach me something, or develop my character or godliness.  But even if he didn't do any of this and my job last year was of no benefit to me whatsoever (which I don't think is true), it's not about me anyway!

I've realised that ultimately my career or job doesn't really matter at all.  What's more important, what God is concerned about, is that I glorify him.  There is no instruction in the Bible about what career I should have.  God knows what I will do, but he hasn't got one specific door for me to walk through and if I don't I fail at life.  I don't believe that there is one thing that God wants me to do and I have to ask him to reveal it to me. 

Maybe I haven't organised my life well enough to get into a psychology master program next year and follow the plans I had made for my life.  But what if this has given me the opportunity to reassess those plans?  What do you do when your dream changes?

I planned to continue study to become a psychologist some time during my second year of uni when I decided that I enjoyed learning about these theories of human behaviour and I didn't want to become a scientist (the other subjects I was studying at uni).  I was attracted to psychology because I found the subject fascinating and I want to be able to help people by talking through problems and listening to them.  

I feel like I can't change my dream of becoming a psychologist, like I'm betraying myself and the plans that I've tried to make.  Changing things now makes me feel like I'm drowning in the unknown next year.  But I shouldn't let the fact that I've been heading in this direction stop me from changing my mind or taking a detour.  Maybe I'll discover that the detour was the better way to go after all. 

I don't know if I'll get into a psychology course or not.  I don't know if I'm suited to the job anyway.  Maybe I'll try counselling first, or instead.  I just want to know how to listen well and have the skills to be able to help people with emotional problems.  But above all of this, I want to be glorifying God and serving him wherever I am.  That's what I want to focus my life on. 

*Note: I'm taking a leaf out of a college friend's book: because this post is a bit depressive it was not written on the day that I was feeling like this. 

Joy in the Lord

I was reading Habakkuk this morning and was struck by a few verses at the end of the book. 

Though the fig tree does not bud
    and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
    and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
    and no cattle in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
    I will be joyful in God my Saviour.               (Habakkuk 3:17-18 NIV)

Despite so many things seeming to go wrong, Habakkuk can say that he finds joy in the Lord. 

 

 

This passage comes at the end of Habakkuk’s prayer. God has been telling Habakkuk that the Babylonians will oppress the nation of Judah, just after they’ve already been oppressed by the Assyrians.  Habakkuk doesn’t think this is very fair.  But God says that the Babylonians will be judged just like the Assyrians and Judah must be patient.

 

Habakkuk says that he will rejoice in God, even though God doesn’t appear to be blessing his people.  This got me thinking about how I react when things don’t seem to be going well, when my plans don’t work out, when things don’t go my way.  The times when life piles up like loads of washing, when nothing on my list gets done and I break my resolutions.  The moments when I want to give up and just sleep my life away. 

 

I don’t often feel like rejoicing in God at these times.  I want to ignore him, tell him that loving him is too hard and I don’t know how to talk to him anymore. 

 

But Habakkuk has reminded me that even in these times I can find joy in God.  It is because he is my saviour.  God has rescued me, and this is the greatest reason to rejoice. 

When I fail

I've been learning to drive J's manual car now that we have only one.  I was taught in an automatic.  In fact J's car is the only manual I've ever driven. 

He first started teaching me while we were dating.  I wanted to learn so that if I ever had to drive a manual in an emergency I wouldn't freak out and start crying because I couldn't get the car moving.  I got to a competent level so that I could drive the car from his house to the friend's house we had Bible study at and back again.  But then we stopped and I didn't start learning again until the end of last year when we were planning to sell one car (my automatic) in preparation for moving interstate. 

It was almost speed learning then.  I had to learn so that I could share the driving on the way across the country.  Since we've been here I've hardly driven.  This city is full of hills and I hadn't learnt to do a hill start in a manual so I wasn't very keen to do any driving.  We decided that Sunday mornings would probably be pretty safe so I've been driving to or from church. 

But while we were back in our home city during our mid-year holidays I wanted to do a lot more driving to get my confidence and skills up.  This suggestion found me attempting a hill start on the steep slope of the cul-de-sac where my parents live.

"Okay, hand brake on.  Now find the friction point... good.  Accelerate a little... now bring the clutch out a little more and accelerate a little again.  (You'll probably have to do this two or three times).  Good!  Now take the hand brake off and accelerate."

Stall.

"It's okay, try again."

Hand brake, clutch, accelerate... clutch, accelerate... hand brake...

Stall again.  

When I fail I just want to give up.  I didn't want to keep trying, I just wanted to give up and get J to drive.  It made me wonder if this is how I always react to failure.  Actually I think this is how many of us react to failure.  We don't want to put ourselves through continual negative feedback.  Failure is a blow to our confidence and sometimes also our self-esteem. 

Often we're told to keep trying, to not give up, to not let failure beat us.  But I'm not saying that.  I realised from this experience that I need to be realistic about what I can and can't achieve; when to give up on something that I can't do and when to keep trying. 

I knew which category driving fit into.  I had only failed at the hill start a few times.  It certainly wasn't something that was impossible for me to do.  So I tried again, and off we went. 

 

This got me thinking.  Where else does this tendency appear in my life?  Should I have more confidence in my abilities?  How should I react when I fail?  These are some questions I'll be asking myself. 

How do you react when you fail?

Meet a stranger

One of my subjects at college this semester is called 'Understanding Buddhism and Islam'.  As part of this subject we have to have two conversations with a Muslim or a Buddhist to talk about their beliefs.

I do not want to do this.  Meeting new people is nerve-wracking enough for me even when they're Christian.  It's not so bad when you're put in a situation together and you're forced to meet, like get-to-know-you time at church or group discussions in class.  You know that the people around you are expecting to have a conversation.  Or even when you're only semi-forced, like sitting next to someone in a lecture.  You're both already in the situation, they're right there, you just have to start talking.

But when you have to find someone to talk to; approach them when they're not looking for or asking for a conversation, that's when it's scary.

Starting this kind of conversation terrifies me.