I am so glad that the last 6 weeks have come to an end. it seems like it was a constant blur of things to do: applications for jobs to fill out, CVs to compile and send off, sermons to write for church meetings, weekends away with the leadership team and then with Form, working two jobs for a few weeks which meant 6 day weeks of total busyness and on top of all that trying desperately to fit in Christmas preparations. PHEW!
Tom and I are currently at my mum's house in Cambridge where it snowed last night leaving a wonderful blanket everywhere. I love how sound is muffled when it's snowed. It makes everything so much more serene and calm, something which automatically affects my mood in such positive ways.
Christmas was fun - spent with wonderful friends. New year should be fun too, and with a nice relaxing, doing nothing week in between I think I’ll feel prepared for some fun and frolicking!
I feel like I am still under scrutiny from the Lord, which I am also trying to run from with parts of me. I have succumbed to the temptation to hide myself in TV and food and books. So silly. The other day, in my quest to push on with the figuring out the healing issues, I picked up power healing by John Wimber - a book which has sat on my shelf for a couple of years unread. It's a good one, worth reading, but still didn't answer my questions totally. I then picked up 'the problem of pain' by cs lewis and turned to the chapter on human suffering. I read it and didn't really like it too much. I find him quite a struggle to get through sometimes - it's very intellectual and very modern in its approach. Later on whilst spending more time ranting at the Lord about it all, I felt a prompting to stop being so impatient. I turned back to the book and began reading from the start. I turned to the first chapter and read this:
"If God were good, He would wish to make his creatures perfectly happy and if God were almighty he would be able to do as he wished. But the creatures are not happy. Therefore God lacks either goodness or power or both"
I was almost thrown into the back of my chair. It is almost exactly what I had written in my journal just before. Tom, upon my subsequent reading of it to him, then asked me what the problem with the statement was. My first reaction was to say that God isn't powerless or lacking in goodness. But then realised that it is the start of the sentence where the enemy would seek to trick us: that God wishes his creatures to be happy. I'm sure it's good if we do feel happy. But I don't necessarily agree that that's God's aim. Or at least not our idea of happiness. One to chew on. It did instantly break some of the bubble I have been living in about what my rights are and what God wanted. It's so scarily easy to believe lies when they are told to you enough by a whispering subconscious and lying enemy. It gave me courage to go and keep reading, whilst starting to trust again in a God who wants the 'best' for us...