Me

I must say I am shocked shocked shocked at how bloody (am I allowed to say that?) bonkers my English has gone. I say things like 'D'ye 'ave?' and 'Let 'im 'ave a go'. I can't credit it. I mean to myself I think very pristinely. But I shy away from a posh accent (after a posh couple of Unis I think and a not-so-posh one inbetween) and I go end in this extreme. I am a bit confused, with all my accents. I think I switched originally from one end of the spectrum to another and now I am trying to find middle-ground. Actually I'd rather not.

I came here however to journal my prayer time again. So often, far too often, I find my focus moving from God to me. Just count the number of first personal pronouns on this page, for example. God wants me to do this DPhil - and I can't quite imagine what I am to do afterwards. Would I stay on? How unlikely is it that I would get a job in this country... Would I go back? How would that balance out the practicalities? And I think God has changed me - I was always rather different I guess and I lived in my little pocket in India and believed the world was a bubble. I still want the world to conform to my bubble-rules. But I keep reminding myself I don't have to conform, and it's the world's loss if it doesn't... What I have to do is keep getting fresh (;D) and honest with God, I guess.

So here I am... DPhilling with everything in me even though I often don't have a clue where I am going and sometimes it looks like there's no way ahead. When I say things like God makes a way where there's no way - I actually mean it? I don't think a lot of people get it. I mean hey, we all want someone to look at us and go 'Wow'. I think, however, that our reaction would be 'Wow' if we actually saw everyone for who they really are. And sometimes I don't even know if I am doing well, or I am headed in the right direction. I don't know if the time I put in today, tomorrow, the next week would actually be viewed as useful in my supervisors' eyes. I just end up putting it in anyway because I don't have a clear picture what to do and saying to God, not in so many words 'There, God, I commit it to you'. There are times when the picture flashes before me with clarity - I pray for more of those times.

I am also torn between two societies. In one, I must pretend to be together and have it all under control and know exactly what I am doing. In the other, they pretend I don't have it under control, and I might not make sense if I tried. In both, there are glimmers of light shining through - when two people stop pretending and discuss how they don't know what they're doing together, or two people stop pretending and discuss how it's okay to be different, seek more, not say you might have your pretty moments but to notice them all the same.

Perhaps it is because I am growing older and I feel sometimes the need to plant my feet in one place and collect a little family of friends around me and say I belong. Perhaps also it is because I've lost the freshness of before... But I know I can get it back, if I remember. I will.

And perhaps also it is because I have this deep desire to know God and fall in love with him for the whatever-eth time, and yet I feel so submerged in all these little details of my life.

On another note, I think if I did not have to think of so many things at once, I might loosen up a bit. I should loosen up anyway. Let my skirt fly around, and my hair not be perfect... I've got leggings and curls anyway. It has been a long time waiting for me to do the things people would do if they had a job that paid them - and my logic does not bear with my wanting those things... Why should I want them? I've always been happy without. When I think about it that way, my shoulder blades relax and my knees draw up and I'm pushed into a chuckle. Why do I care? But there is a habit of thinking that can catch on... Like thinking sin must be normal, natural... thinking desires for unnatural things by God's word must be natural by human standards. No no no. The human was made for God, not God for the human.

It is true our perceptions of God are often formed by who we are. But that's because we go about it backwards - it's the easiest for us. But are our perceptions of us formed by who he is?