And so it begins… Today I started two weeks of teaching placement… my first of 10 that I will complete across the next two years… I am not really sure how I am feeling about it all yet, I think it’s a mixture of apprehension and excitement as well as a healthy dose of feeling like I don’t know much.
I am sure it will be full on especially as I am going on camp next week… but who knows… I guess we will find out… I let you know soon.
1 You have searched me, Lord,
and you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
4 Before a word is on my tongue
you, Lord, know it completely.
5 You hem me in behind and before,
and you lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.
7 Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
17 How precious to me are your thoughts,God!
How vast is the sum of them!
18 Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand —
when I awake, I am still with you.
19 If only you, God, would slay the wicked!
Away from me, you who are bloodthirsty!
20 They speak of you with evil intent;
your adversaries misuse your name.
21 Do I not hate those who hate you, Lord,
and abhor those who are in rebellion against you?
22 I have nothing but hatred for them;
I count them my enemies.
23 Search me, God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24 See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.
Wow, I am really behind… my crazy busy life has taken over and once again my blog has been neglected… but I am back… perhaps just to come up for some air before I disappear again, but hopefully not.
So because I promised to do this weekly, three weeks ago and I have done nothing, I thought I would do a catch me up with a ‘forever grateful Friday’… all part of fixing my attitude and keeping my eyes focused on the blessings I have, rather than the hurdles I have to jump. Oh and just FYI they probably won’t all be this detailed:
1. Friends and Focus
On Easter Saturday Dave and I got to spend some time with the youth leadership team from church, planning, brainstorming and goal setting for our church’s youth and young adult ministry. It was really nice to be able to share our past trials and victories together, but even more importantly to imagine what could be, and to start the ball rolling towards these. Oh and even though my brain hurt by the end it was a fantastic day with an even more fantastic group of people.
2. Surprise Family Encounters
On Easter Sunday, Dave and I headed to Leongatha salvos for morning church and we got there we bumped into my grandparents, my aunt and uncle and their kids, which while in hindsight it perhaps isn’t surprising as I knew they were down at Inverloch, it was still a pleasant surprise, and there is just something really special about celebrating days like Easter Sunday with family. We also got to have an impromptu chinese lunch which was delicious.
3. Birthday goodness.
What’s not to love about your birthday (apart from the getting older bit)… nothing… that what. In true Emma style I did a million things for my birthday, a movie and dinner with Dave, breakfast with mum and Jake, dinner with Dad and Jake and a dinner with friends. An awesome Zumba gift, an impromptu cake and a delicious cake from carousel with the biscuit bits… best husband ever. Oh and a kindle that is coming… I am thankful already.
4. For more than a house
On my birthday I said goodbye to my old family holiday house, the one that holds many memories and have helped Inverloch become so special to me and most who know me. I was sad to say goodbye as I tend to get attached to things a little too often. I will miss the love hearts Pa used to mow into the backyard for gran, I will miss the awkward stairwell, I will miss the uncomfortable, yet practical fold out bed. I will miss the stories that each room tells, like the spare room with the patched up door for a duplow box assault and eski made bedside table in my parents room. It will be strange not to look down the street and see who else is in Inverloch when we walk past, but I am thankful for the house and for the experiences I have shared with it. I am also thankful that there is still Dad’s place down there so that I can still enjoy the beach and free accommodation… oh and the beach.
So April has been pretty choccas… but I am super thankful.
So instead of trying to do justice to today with my own words I have decided to borrow some lyrics from some of my favourite songs instead, enjoy…
Sunday night at church we were asked the question what does Easter mean to you… for someone that calls themselves a Christian you would think that this was an easy enough question, but it’s actually been playing on my mind all week… what does Easter really mean to me? And I think unfortunately Easter for me has become a tradition rather than a revelation.
Easter is the best part of my whole life story, the part that means I am not eternally stuffed, but instead I have eternal life because of Jesus’ sacrifice, yet more often then not I forget about the true meaning of Easter and get more excited about the chocolate and depending when Easter falls, my birthday. I take the story and the event completely for granted.
It makes me quite sad that this is the case, but I think that I am not alone, and I think that the reality is because I live in a good country, where I want for very little and life is pretty good, I have become comfortable, comfortable with what I have, what I can do, and where my life is heading, my faith in God is a choice yes, but one that I find I can separate from my life if I want to, which is terrible.
The reality of the Easter story is uncomfortable, it says that I caused this, my sin killed him, but he did it because he still loves me. The Easter story also highlights my laziness in telling others about God, because if I let the Easter story in all it’s fullness invade my life, the reality of life and death, heaven and hell is more real then ever before and it hurts, so its easier just to take the chocolate and run.
The other question that has been going around and around is why isn’t Easter as big as Christmas? And in all honesty I think all of the above is part of the reason, the Christmas story is lovely, wholesome and heart-warming (on the outside at least, if you don’t think too closely about the reality of giving birth in a stable, or travelling pregnant on a donkey). But it is all wrapped up nicely with a beautiful baby, some kings, presents and a super duper star and then this is linked to a jolly fat man who brings us lots and lots of gifts. Easter doesn’t have that, sure there is a fluffy bunny, some baby birds and a ton of chocolate but it is tied together with a man, an innocent man dying brutally on a cross because we stuffed it… it’s not really your feel good story of the year, on the surface anyway.
The reality is though, it’s the most beautiful love story ever told, a man lays down his life so that I can live, so that you can live… so that we don’t have to pay the price for what we have done. But it’s a story that forces us out of the comfortable spot that we live in… it challenges us, but instead it should give us hope…
Anyway, I guess what I really wanted to get at is this Easter I am praying that God will make me uncomfortably with my apathy towards the story, with my reluctance to share and that I will be moved once again by the amazing sacrifice and gift that I have been given and that I will share it.
I want to look past the traditions, the hot cross buns and the eggs, but into my daily walk with and what the eternal consequences of it actually are… I hope you want this for your Easter too.
The Most Curious George 