obligations and what-not

Righty-ho everyone.

I'm back! As you can see from the title, I am fulfilling an obligation. I am, infact, behind schedule, if time has ticked at all since a certain oral contract which you may or may not have read about recently. Or not that recently.

I am grateful to the previous post, as it gives me a point to start at.

Chinese classes. Favorite subject, naturally. I don't think I would have chosen that particular strategy for teaching and learning languages. It focuses more on learning phrases than words by themselves. But I am no expert on chinese. yet. ;) I do appreciate the large amount of practise we get. That is a bonus.

Making friends. Had a novel experience a week or two ago. We were at a Praise and Worship gathering of a few residences, and a girl randomly turned to me and said that she feels she should tell me that I will make friends this year. That had been on my mind for a while, actually. I mean, it's one thing to meet people. It's quite another to meet the kind of people you can be lifelong friends with. I was really pleased that Elohim would use someone to speak to me.

Getting my degree. So far so good. :)

Soo... mission accomplished, blog post wriiten.

Today I became excited about teaching. I imagined what I could accomplish by really making an effort and looking further ahead. Seeing my pupils as people who are going somewhere, and seeing my role in getting them there. It's cool. Now, I don't see myself as a revolutionary teacher or whatever, but I saw that this can be a really cool profession.

I have heard from several sources that the beginning of first year is tough, and also that being a student is the best part of your life. So far I haven't really experieced the former. Only during Mad2, and that's because of sleep deprivation and overcrowding and overbusiness. It doesn't count. But otherwise I'm a very happy first year. Hmm, i wonder who to ascribe that to? i hope you can guess.

semi finals en grande

Learn Chinese. Why would I want to do that? I don't like China. I don't like Atheism or Buddhism. I don't like over-crowded cities. I don't like Communism. I don't even like Chinese. (No, actually I do like Chinese, just not its comparative difficulty. Or then again maybe I do like the idea of learning something difficult).

Find a church. I am not a regular church goer. I find listening to sermons boring and, unless they are scholarly and make fresh, valid points, a bit pointless. But I want to make Christian friends and find a bit of Christian 'community'. Also, I think student churches will be a bit different from those I've known so far. Will probably be more like youth. :)

Get a quarter of a degree.

Make friends. The chances of me meeting no-one at university are so small I'm not even going to consider it.

These are my goals. Year one.

Semi-finals

My time at home is running out.

It seems to me that I am leaving home at exactly the right time. I can stay at home for another couple of days, but that's it.  It seems to me that My Life at Home has in fact not been interrupted, but is coming to its timely end. And that's good. A while back I was feeling worried and apprehensive about the whole pending aloneness issue, but at the same time I knew I'd rather go than stay. I just can't bear staying home another year. I have to, I want to, get out. It's time for a change.

I'm not running away from anything, though I am happy to get away from some things.

Friends who say they like you so much and yet practically ignore you when their special friend is around. Friends who make it hard for you to believe what they say, but you have yet to prove they're lying.
Family issues, arguments that come around again and again. Trying to get involved, to help sort it out, is so greatly discouraged its not even worth it. The argument just turns on you.

I don't imagine things will be better at University. I know it won't.
I know it will be hard.

I hope it will be fun.

And I'm looking forward to it.

Thank Elohim.

wash the rubble from your mind

In the lives of those that follow there is going to come a time
When rhythm starts to stumble and singsong swallows rhyme
When imaginations crumble, false foundations turn to dust
Towers fall to piles of stones and girders into rust
Til you let the blood of Yeshua wash the rubble from your mind
And your eyes again can see the one you almost left behind
When theology's in tatters and reason is absurd
Still your soul in silence and listen for His word
So many turns, so many ways, so many voices cry
Standing at the crossroads watching time go flashing by
Indecision paralyzes, it's the fear of choosing wrong
But waiting is a step itself, and your wondering too long
So again you search the scripture, and again you ask your friends
But last of all the One who knows the beginning from the end
In the clamor and confusion and the blindness of your choice
Still your soul in silence, and listen for His voice
Rome is full of ruins, Babylon is gone
The temple's just a memory that some still dwell upon
But deep within a place that sword and veil had once denied
A tree of life is growing, living waters flow beside
Far beyond all human reason and words upon a page
His glory lightens all who fret their hour upon this stage
To know Him is our freedom, to hear Him is release
To fix your heart and soul on Him is rest and perfect peace

one of the last

Ah, so I thought it pleasing to inscribe another of these ill-written testimonies to life before I am released.

Soonish, My Life At Home will be interrupted for the next episode: My Life At University.

I have mixed feelings about this. Naturally, the current episode must draw to a close sometime, as eighteen years is a fair length of time to play a daily show, daily. I am not at all sorry to call it a day and move on. The alarming prospect of spending one more year in my current fashion would induce a shallow state of depression, which is only being held at bay by the thought that I will not.

I want adventure. University is not the adventure I was looking for. Staying at home being the alternative however, I gladly take the plunge.

There are many unforeseen advantages to heading out to campus, as opposed, say, to China. For one, my granny is overjoyed. Important to keep your friends and relations at ease, I'd say. Naturally it would be more fun and make for more interesting conversation if I had gone to the East. Would have ruffled many feathers. I wouldn't have needed to say "Thank you, I also hope I have a splendid time." It appears I am obliged, by now, to enjoy myself as a student and all that.

Yes yes, I don't sound grateful. I am grateful. Not many people have the opportunity...etc. It's one of the best universities in the...etc.You think I do not know that? I do. I worried about it, but now I am over the fact that children are going hungry while I, the rich brat am going off to enjoy myself and get an education. I am very sorry that there are hungry children but my giving up university is not going to feed them. If it did I would feel... way more guilty. So lay off, I am grateful.

Another advantage to going to university, particularly the one I am going to, is that I know a lot of people there. This is not the case with China. That's probably why people go to the East to find themselves. If they went to a nearby town someone else would. Find them, that is.

At present I know where I am, and if not I'd rather be found before I go off to the land of the Squints. Wouldn't be of much use if I went there lost.

I try not to imagine what being there will be like. This way I can't be very surprised or disillusioned. I imagine it will be rough on me, that way I won't be disappointed by it's non-smoothness. Also, I expect that many of my preconceptions and prejudices (that I do not know I have) will be brought to light and challenged. I hope the way I think will only change in a good way.

I hope this year will be enjoyable.

I'll have to do something about me, in that case.

Pray

I once saw a list of titles, and at first I thought it was the words to a hymn... You could really compose a hymn from hymn titles... Would that be a superhymn?

I walked past a laptop screen and glanced at the playlist, and this one title stood out so much I don't remember any of the others.

What If His People Prayed?

It chilled me to the bone. (Okay that's an exaggeration). I was really touched and compelled by it. I was reminded, as if by a blast of cold air, that we really need to pray.

I'm a selfish prayer. I pray about my faults and needs and wants. I pray briefly, unless I'm upset. I do pray for others. But not a lot. I guess I feel that there's not much to say. I am more acquainted with my own problems than with theirs. "Help me with this this and this please, help so and so with that, and thos people with that. Thank you."

Of course I don't really pray that disrespectfully, but you get the idea. Now, I don't want to confess feeling guilty just after a post about unneccesary guilt... and I don't feel guilty about the way I pray.

I just feel that I have underestimated prayer and that I can pray better. Not longer because 'do not pray like the nations for they make long prayers, and your Father knows what you need before you ask Him' and 'they make long prayers and devour widows' houses'

Maybe more.
More thankful.
For more people, for the persecuted church, for my friends who are struggling, for Israel.

I think I am too tired to pray right now... Tomorrow I'll be too busy... or not!

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. :)