That's all folks....

...for now at least! My head's swimming but my dissertation draft is about to be emailed off to my tutor. Hope he takes note of the time and gives me extra marks for dedication!

Its not finished but it will do for now.

Ah....now I have to prep for tomorrow, Linguistic Assessment Clinic at 9am. Errrrgggghhhh.

But hey, God is good. I've been immensely awake all day considering I only had 4 hours sleep! And I shouldn't have had that much sleep but I slept right through my alarm which i VERY rarely do...so I'm counting my extra two hours as a gift from God! (despite the fact I missed a lecture...oops).

He's brought me this far, He'll keep taking me...

Wooh.

Night!

The Bush Monster

Sounds scary dunnit?!

That's coz I'm scared! Someone just knocked on my window! At 5am!! And there's a massive bush in front of my window, how'd they get through it?! And before you say it, I didn't imagine it, they did it twice!

In other news, I think - I THINK (emphasis on that word!!) - I'm starting to get my head round these stats. Bout time really as there's just 30.5 hours till the draft of my dissertation has to be handed in. I'm not gonna tell you how much I have left to write...

But what I AM gonna tell you is that God is GOOD!

I can hear the birdies chirping...it's time for my 40 winks!

Say hello...

...to Lou!

Bibles and smiles - good times

Well tonight Tim and I gave Issy a Bible and a couple of other bits and pieces. After her initial protestations and adamant statement that she couldn't accept it, she gave in (you don't fight two Celts and win that easily ;-) )

And wow, to see the BEAMING smile on her face as she flicked through the Bible - "It's got an Old Testament dude!" - and flicked through the Bible study notes, and read the bookmark and the poem to go with the 'Cross in my pocket'....well, I nearly cried! (Tim was closer to tears than me, mind!)

I cannot put into words the joy it gives me to see her walking with Jesus now, to see how God has answered my prayers for her, to see how God is using her in the lives of her friends and especially the way He is using her to encourage and challenge me in my walk...

What a blessing. God is amaaaaaaaaaaaain. Praise His name!!

Roundmills

The more I delve into this dissertation, the more I'm reminded of how great kids are....and of how great God is!

(Show child a picture of a windmill)
Ceryn: What's this?
Child: A...umm....a round round mill (waves arms around in a circle depicting the motion of a windmill)

Isn't our ability to communicate amazing, even when we don't have the words....

God-given.

This kid deserves a round of applause for a) making me laugh while I was collecting my data, b) being able to come up with a suitable alternative when he couldn't tell me the word he knew I wanted, c) making me laugh whilst writing up my results...

God deserves a stupendous amount of praise for the gifts He's given us, so many of which we take for granted - not least of all communication (and I don't just mean speech/language).

Woohoo! God rocks! How amazing is it that I can find Him in my dissertation?!

AND it's a beautiful day and I just wanna be outside in His creation...but He's here with me now in the masses of paper. Yeah! Amaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaazin'!!!

What's God doing?

LOTS! Is the answer...


Talk about it here!

haha

Hehe, just realised that in my little list of blogs on the left hand side of this page, I had Nathan listed as 'bother Nathan' instead of 'brother Nathan'.....oops! Sorry little bro! xx

Jack's back!!!!!!!!!

24.

Possibly the greatest show EVER.

Despite nearly giving me a heart attack and/or nervous breakdown on various occasions.

Last night's double bill was AMAAAAAAZIN! Just about managed to hear it over the noise of the JCR. And I think the JCR heard my screams/shouts when...(not gonna say in case you still haven't seen it - although shame on you!)

Bring on the rest of the series! Which, Nathan, you WILL record for me coz i'm bound to not make it to see all of them! Grrrrrr.

Bro's blog

So, Nathan has joined the blogging frenzy! Nice one bro! See if you can keep it up to date more than dad...;-)

Colossians 3:17

"And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him."

God's grace

So...

Grace.

Kinda overwhelming innit?! No, I mean, really. Like if you REALLY just sit and think of all the ways God's grace has been evident in your life in just ONE day...

And then think about the week, the month, the year....

Grace which means I'm welcomed into the courts of the King (yes, I'm listening to Matt Redman's Facedown album!)

I'm overwhelmed by grace at the moment, so much so that I'm wandering round in a kind of daze (more so than usual!). Here's just a few reasons why...

I made it through placement on Monday after very little sleep all weekend!

ISSY BECAME A CHRISTIAN ON MONDAY!!!

I made it through placement on Tuesday after VERY little sleep for a few nights...!

God is working in the lives of my friends- Christian and not - and I can SEE it, and what's more, I have the privilege of being part of it!!

I got this text from Issy yesterday - "Dude life is amazing. God is amazing. Wow dude. I'm feelin the love lol. wooohooo. just wanna shout, Jesus loves me!"

I had an exam yesterday which I haven't worked hard enough for. Nowhere near hard enough. Partly due to not much time (!) and partly tiredness and partly low motivation for it. But TOTALLY by God's grace I passed! There were eight questions and I only knew the answer to one of them! So it IS totally by God's grace! Praise His name!!!

And on the subject of work...I had 9 hours sleep last night! That's too much! Clearly I may have needed it but it's set me back for the day! (So why am I writing this blog?! - To shout about grace!) It's set me back but is there any point letting that worry or stress me? I have MUCH to accomplish today.

But I can, with grace. Totally and utterly with God's grace can I get through my dissertation and everything else I have to do today. This day belongs to Him: "This is the day the Lord has made, we will rejoice and be glad in it" (Psalm 118:24)

And, if all else was rubbish in my life, God's grace would still be evident in my life, in that I am one of His children. HOW amazing is that?! Praise His name today for His grace. Wonderful, amazing grace.

Let's keep running - in grace alone!

Homer comes to Wales

That's Homer Simpson...

Here's the photo I promised of him dining with us at Christmas...

And of him waiting by the Christmas tree for his presents....

And he even visited my aunty and uncle's house on Boxing Day...

And finally, here's him with his new buddy Nathan, who happens to be one of my brothers. Great pals, I'm told. Nathan did, after all, used to model himself on Bart. Billy (Nathan), your royalty cheque for this photo is in the post...

Praise the Lord!

My friend and hallmate Issy gave her life to God tonight!!!

Praise Him, He's SO worthy!

Hallelujah!

Thoughts Fixated

Follpwing on from all that was going round in my head as a result of God speaking to me through Hebrews 3 (see previous post), I wrote this...

My thanks to Tim for the penultimate verse, and for sharing an idea which partly inspired the poem in the first place!

Thoughts Fixated

A rising sun, vivid,
In a clear blue spring sky.
A scene so crisp, so beautiful,
It takes my breath away.

Trails across that sun
Criss-crossing form a net
Of glorious colours, textures,
On which my eyes are set.

North, South, West and East,
The trails divert my gaze
From the beauty of the rising sun
Hidden behind this maze.

The rising Son, so glorious,
Defeats death on that day;
Puts me at peace with God-
THAT takes my breath away.

Trails across the Son
Criss-crossing form a net
Of ‘wonderful’ temptation
On which my eyes are set.

Sin, lies, the devil’s schemes
These trails divert my gaze
From the real beauty, Jesus Christ,
And walking in His ways.

No more these trails deceive me
Or cause my eyes to stray.
My thoughts are fixed on Jesus Christ,
The author of my faith.

God, give me strength to do this,
By your grace and power,
Captivate my every thought
Every single hour.

30/1/2006

Challenged

I'm back! For those of you who didn't know I'd been away, I've been on the RUCU Cell Leader's Training Weekend 2006!! YAY!!! My third one....wow.

And it was amaaaaaaaaaazin'! But more on that later. I've been hugely challenged. I need to digest it all, I need to let the many, MANY things learned over the last two days (such a short space of time, so many things) sink into my heart.

And so to something I promised a while ago to post, on another challenge God's given me recently. Wanted to wait till I had the appropriate photo. Thanks to Deborah very kindly lending me her USB lead I've been able to upload my photos. And thus, ladies and gentlemen, I can present you with this...

Went home last weekend, and at church we looked at Hebrews 3. Read it! There's SO much contained in that chapter. But what really struck me was verse 1:-

"Therefore, holy brothers, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, the apostle and high priest whom we confess."

There's so much just in that one verse, never mind the whole chapter! And what struck me more was just five words in that verse - "...fix your thoughts on Jesus..."

The word 'thoughts' really impacted me. I mean, really. So often I say to people, to myself, 'keep your eyes on God.' Well, that's fair enough, there's nothing wrong with that, but it has to go so much deeper than that doesn't it? Coz we can be looking at something, but thinking about something totally different.

And that thought reminded me of sumamt Tim said in prayer brekkie last week, the morning the above photo was taken. We were all tlaking about the amazing sunrise that had greeted us as we walked to prayer brekkie. And Tim shared how, as he looked at it, at all the plane trails criss crossing in front of the sun and diverting his gaze, he thought of how often we're like that. Of how we should be focused on Jesus but we let things get in the way.

So often we can be looking at Jesus but things criss cross in front of Him, and those things are often our thoughts. They represent the most inner parts of ourselves. Our deepest feelings, needs, wants, fears...

I was struck by how much time I waste thinking! Seriously! Thinking things that I shouldn't, daydreaming, thinking/worrying about things that I should just give to God instead of trying to find the solution myself.

My thoughts need to be God-glorifying. They need to be fixed on Jesus. That's hard. But with His grace and power at work in us we can achieve it. And oh, imagine what our lives would look like then...

How....?!

HOW did it get to February already....?!