Hugs

I could do with a big, huge, I-am-never-going-to-let-go-even-if-you-fear-awkwardness kind of hug. There are hugs and there are hugs. Awkward side hugs, hugs with only one person kissing, the full, frontal-grab hug, the macho back-pat hug, the back-rub, the hey-look-our-noses-fit-into-our-shoulders hug... hugs at different angles... When you know someone is coming over to hug you, you switch into alert either welcomingly or with a mental uh-oh (you know what's coming: contaaaaaaact!) and bend over with gently bent arms to be ready. At this point, you and the other huger have both completed similar preparatory manoeuvres and are at a 135 from the feet. This is the bum-sticking-out hug. There's the you-can-cry-if-you-want-to-I'm-holding-you hug.

That's the kind I want today.

Father, forgive... again

Father, forgive us for those times when we don't know that you are at work. For those times when it is easier to be superficial than to be real. Forgive us when it's easier to be less passionate - easier to push it under the covers. Easier not to wear our hearts on our sleeves.

After spending all our time thinking about you... or worse still, not thinking about you for one moment of one day... when I am with people, I am the epitome of unfaithfulness. I do not want to look committed. I don't want my first meeting to look like I am unavailable. I will pander. I'd rather not be set aside, ostracised. I'd rather be flirted with 'harmlessly' than lose friendship with the world.

Father, forgive me.

There was a guy and I thought it miiight lead to something. But it's over - which is what I prayed for. That if this wasn't good and right and perfect, then he needed to stop writing to me. It happened. Now if I can just stop analysing...

Actually, I'm doing quite well not-analysing. And I am so grateful to God for keeping me for His purposes.

Memo to me

Well, it's time to confess my acts of infidelity. I have another blog.

Not that that means that I have been regularly blogging there... What's happened since then? A broken hand, a trip home, a long-drawn bureaucratic procedure-thingummajig at Uni, and a move. Another impending move soon - in a week, no less. But those are mundane details.

I bought a new camera :) I have no answers. I have more trust, I believe... although that's hard to quantify and never enough.

I came here to say how amazing it is to be in love with God. How love makes you smile and cry through your smiling and makes you hurt and laugh without reason. How you can have a moment when you're rushing on the way to work - and nobody else knows why you're acting silly... and you act even sillier and happier for that.

And if you could hear me say this, you would hear the glands at work: His timing is never anything less than perfect.

I feel awful. And as if there is no way out. All the dreams I borrowed over two years have gone... maybe. I've got to think maybe because otherwise it's just too hard.

Where is this heading? And will God redeem? I've broken faith with the people that love me, and it feels like I have failed.

What now.

Confession

I've made more than a few mistakes. It seems it just took a year to completely change who I am... But God redeems. I love that passage of Scripture in Job 19, 25 onwards.

I don't know if the road to redemption is success as I see it. It may be. (If it is, then I have three months to rewrite a year). It may not. But I just know that I need to obey God. In some of my most private disobediences no one would consider... And whatever it takes, I must do it.

Living together

You know those times when you're just sorta living together with the person you love? I'm not getting biblical and talking about a relationship outside marriage or anything like it. I'm talking relationship and emotion.

You love God and you have made this decision to live with him for the rest of your life. And you've done it for most of your life, maybe. But suddenly you find yourself going through a few days when you're just living together.

Let me explain. Imagine a relationship - any relationship. You smile at each other, you have breakfast together, you nod to each other to check who's got the keys, you're close enough that a grunt will do to make yourself understood for the little chores you need to get done. Who washes the dishes, excusing yourself to check the oven, knowing when he or she's finished and timing it perfectly to clear his or her glass or plate away.

Admirable really.

But remember reading together before breakfast? Laughing without a joke because you love each other and it seems like a good way to show it? Talking?

Sometimes it's like that with God - and it's actually never his fault. Jesus is pretty brilliant at this stuff. He chose to love us before the world began, and he is pretty good at showing it. This might be stating the obvious - but if the world everyday is not enough, or the little special notes which only you understand because you've prayed about it... if all of that is not enough, look at the cross.

No, God has no problem showing his love. I, on the other hand... I take so much and I give so little. Don't get me wrong... I have this lazy notion that if he wants something, he can always take it. He knows that. But is that enough? I know I would freak if suddenly he wasn't obvious about his love. Yet... How many times can one girl hurt him in a relationship?

No, don't answer that.