update

There were some good things that happened this week as well.

I met a third-year Physicist who likes politics. Had a nice politics chat with him. Alhough I am quite ignorant on the subject. It was about Israel and Iran.

A guy I sort of like came to sit by me at supper. And he offered to lend me his phone and I had a deepish conversation with him about a bible passage. If he ever reads my blog he would/might recognise himself.

Amidst my freaked-out-ness about all my assigments and stuff I get a double Shabbat. This is debateably a good thing. Wait, this IS a good thing. Elohim decreed it, right?

I got to discuss the Shabbat-thing with my lecturer without making an appointment.

I didn't get soaked by the rain.

I didn't get run over by a car.

Bible-study was fun. We played games. I managed to get there in time.

Elohim answers prayer. That seems rather random but that's one of the things I learnt this week. "If you ask whatever in My Name it shall be granted". And Elohim answers questions out the Bible. Powerfully. 

Funny how my 'what I bad week I had' email is soooo long compared to my 'I guess I should be thankful' one. If I actually thought about it I might get more for this one.

My holiday was amazingly good. I expected it to be too. That should be a whole othe post, but I'm tired now.

Guilt

Guilt makes up such a great part of our lives. I don't know about men, but women tend to worry about what they do.

Yesterday I was sitting in the company of some mothers, some with little children, and I noticed how guilty some of them feel. Okay, maybe it was just two of them. One felt guilty because she doesn't give her children enough opportunity to paint pictures. The other because she fed her child when he was tired and then he got sick.

We feel guilty so easily. We feel guilty about say,  things we don't do, that we might feel just as guilty about doing. If mother one did let her kids paint pictures a lot, she might feel guilty about 'indulging' them. Mother Two might possibly have felt guilty if she didn't feed her child because she might have felt she was just avoiding a difficult task. And children have to eat!

I feel a bit guilty about going to study at a great university. I don't know how I would have felt had I not gone. Maybe guilty that I am not using my opportunity, that I am not being a good steward of my opportunity. Maybe guilty that I am taking a low-skill job from someone who never had the chance to study.
When I think about this I still feel bad about my decision. I don't know who to listen to. I don't know whether to listen to my guilt-ridden concsience or the mature believers around me who tell me to 'walk and not stand' and not to be silly, and that I should take the chance to get an Education, because not many people do.

But this post is not about me. It's about guilt.

How biblical is guilt anyway? Guilt about sin, yes. But guilt about painting pictures and going to study?

Can anyone out there give me an answer?

I'll go pray about it.

I am so tired about feeling guilty about decisions and second-guessing myself.

I even have second thoughts about this post. Why, I don't know. I didn't lie. I'm not plagiarising.

I don't want to delete this post and not publish it. Aghhh, this is so paralyzing.

Edit: I prayed about it. Now I can post it. :)

blogness

The reason I don't blog much, is not that I don't think much. I do. I have lots of things mulling around in my head. However there's not much of all that that I want to say.

Some of the things I think are downright heretic. It would be nice to get rid of them, but this is not the place. I can't voice my heretic thoughts where someone might hear them, because it might very well be wrong to say.

Other things are just too personal. I appreciate honest blogging because it causes me to see that I am not alone in being imperfect. But I'm not doing that. Call it insecurity if you like.

So that's why I don't blog a lot.

There are some things I think that I might want to say on this blog, but I'd rather say it to a person who can reply, instead of leaving it out there in thin air for people to smirk at. I'm not accusing anyone of smirking. It's just a word that fits.

Rambling Bedlam

Yeah, I know I don't write much. Actually that should be yes, I know... since I'm not an American. But, thank goodness every country isn't an isolated system. And spelling is just a convention...

I can't really say I don't have inspiration. I regularly think, and thinking can lend itself to writing. The past week and a day, I wrote in excess of 35 pages (not typed, by hand). All of that was 'inspired' by an imminent exam. I had to practise.

But blogging is different. You have no standard to aspire to, aside from that of honesty and perhaps human interest. You don't positively have to write anything. There is no obligation.

But that's not the main reason I don't blog much. I think the reason I don't blog much is because I can't imagine that my thoughts are very interesting, or because I don't have many profound thoughts, or simply because when I do think about stuff intensively, I really don't want to share it with the world wide web.

Sharing my fears and weaknesses, my hopes and dreams, the things that are important to me in such a public place is daunting. It is somewhat less daunting perhaps knowing that I'll probably never meet the people somewhere off in Alaska or Malaysia who read my blog, because to them I'm just a name and a picture. But there are people, friends, who do read my blog from time to time. Although it is a lot of fun to offload pressures and revelations, why do it on the net when I would hardly tell it to someone face to face?

Maybe that's the whole point though. Maybe my 'victories' will encourage the faith of another, maybe it will actually reach someone, which it won't do if I internalise it.

I suppose I can write about silly stuff. That's fun. But it's so insincere. To write about the dog in a Coke-ad when your thinking of things out-of-this-world. There's just no point in it.

I hope I haven't bored whoever is reading this stiff. But there is a point in this rambling. I kind of sort my thoughts out while I write. I think about it.

Reading about other people's personal struggles and victories has really helped me. It helps me to see that i don't have to be perfectly sorted out all the time. That it is in fact normal to be confused sometimes. When I think of the people who have helped me by doing this, I think of two things/blog/sites/people. I didn't start this out as a promotion, but here it is. Although I very often disagree with this blog, the writer has a very open way of talking, and has in fact unknowingly helped me to see that one needn't be completely sorted out to be of use to Elohim. (Well he said that pretty much, but I don't think I was his target audience). Particularly the Berge post came at the right time, I think. The other site is that of an organisation/family that I consider joining for a year. The people at their base and on their team videos are very real. I suppose sincere is a better word. Anyway, if anyone should encourage me to be more open in writing, it should be them. They really made me see that the point of their journey is to be changed, that the participants aren't all model Christians without problems. I find that very encouraging.

Perfect isn't good enough

I think I know why I was unhappy before. I tried to do everything, at least everything pertaining to Elohim, exactly right. Which I found to be impossible.

After I decided to put my life and salvation in His hands, this changed. I think now, that keeping the spirit of a law means keeping the idea. Means being willing to obey Him in that area of your life also. It doesn't matter if you don't know exactly how to do it. It just matters that you want to do it.

Ever since then, I don't really worry about things. I realise that I'm becoming quite lazy (a side effect of relaxing about everything perhaps), and it bothers me a little and I'll pray about it, but I'm not anxious about it.

It 's a great state to be in. it really is. You should try it. :)