Thoughts From My Head

I still have no job. I had a pretty low moment last week after four local recruitment agencies turned me away on account of my lack of experience in office work which is apparently all they offer. But these things take time, people say, and I guess whatever needs to happen will happen when it's meant to.

Uni starts in less than three weeks! I have one textbook so far. I wrote my name in the front.

It's raining here.

I have moved into the newly decorated room of the house, and it is just divine. I'm in a brand new bed with swish squidgy carpet and whimsical wallpaper. I'm so spoiled.

I'm trying to get Centrelink to give me some money for studying, but it's never that simple, is it?

My computer is having issues. If you're a Mac user you'll know how important it is for the Finder application to work. Yeah, mine isn't responding. We'll see if a restart helps after this.

I have good friends. I have quite a number of wonderful friends who I can easily talk to all day about anything and everything. And I have lodged myself (pun intended) into the lives of such fantastic people here in London - not just my housies but everyone at my church.

Speaking of church, I've started reading Romans and I'm using a book called Search the Scriptures for an accompanying study. I didn't feel I was in the right place to go to the Sharing Jesus course that's being held at my church, but it's about time I got stuck into what God is about instead of farting around with my issues. I'm sick of fighting and moping and I just wanna come back. I'm reading Pilgrim's Progress which I'm thoroughly enjoying - I recommend it! But I don't think I would have understood it much earlier in my life. It requires a way of thinking that I probably wasn't open to as a legalistic and narrow-minded teenager. I think anyone could still benefit from it, though.

I think about next year quite often, but I never think beyond that. I think I'd like to move back to Armidale, but I can't really envisage anything further. I still want to go to South America some day to see a culture that's so different to rural New South Wales and my pocket of north west London, and I want to visit lots of other places besides, so I hope I won't do anything to prevent that opportunity. At the same time I don't want to get bored or restless or too comfortable when I'm back home. I say "when" intentionally, because despite what some of you may have said before I left, my heart has not been whisked away by an Englishman and though it makes me so, so sad to think I'll have to leave one day, it was only ever a two-year visa.

It does make me sad, though. I will miss catching the tube - I love the bit where everyone alights from the train together and walks towards the ticket barriers, I will miss the look of the houses and the ever-green grass, I will miss all the different accents. But most of all my friends who are almost a surrogate family. I love them.

Standing on the tip of the rabbit's fur, while doing not very much

Is anybody really that shocked to realise I've failed miserably at my one and only New Year's Resolution? Hey, it's alright. I only make goals with a short term benefit in mind so when my momentum fizzles out it usually means I've done enough.

I don't have a job yet. I'm going mad with boredom (but hanging around middle class British people makes me feel like I'm mad already by comparison). I guess I don't want to start anything else or commit to anything until I've got an income and a bit more of a routine (at the moment it's: eat, sleep, doddle around, repeat), but it would probably help to fill some time if I have another month or so. But by then...

I'm enrolled in the University of New England to study a Bachelor of Education (Primary) off-campus starting February 24th. All I need is to sort out my textbooks and I'm set to go! It's very exciting.

In the last few days I've picked up Housito's bass guitar and taught m'self some riiiiffffs. That's been fun. I listen to a lot of music all day which is nice. My week is full of Saturdays, and so I look forward to the weekend not because it's a time to relax, but because it's a time to get out and see people and do stuff. Having said that, I often leave my washing till Real Saturday anyway. Oh well.
I do make myself somewhat useful during the week. The post office folk must think I run a shop on eBay for how often I'm in there. I'm an unofficial PA, and I love it because it makes me feel helpful.

Where am I at with life thoughts? I wish I knew. I get myself into knots over my questions and I've been trying to figure it all out thinking that if I did that I'd be able to have faith again, but I guess that makes me God, doesn't it. I'm a principled and proud person, so I could never push all my issues aside and "be Christian" again just to be at peace. It wouldn't be true peace, and it would be for the wrong reasons. At the moment I don't love God because I find it hard to believe that he is good, and I couldn't pretend to love him until I got stuff sorted. I don't know if that makes sense in words.
But as I go along and put together my minipiphanies (mini epiphanies), things become better. I realise that that's giving myself credit for understanding the world - oh clever me - so maybe it's God revealing stuff to me and allowing me to learn things. An example would be, for instance, that if God isn't real then love and evil are arbitrary and what does it matter if I'm doing something with selfish or false motivation. So I may as well hope that God is real, and is good. And the other day I thought to myself "if God isn't loving, where does love come from?" Our pastor talked about being a slave last Sunday, and I wondered what my master is at the moment. Broadly speaking it's my sinful nature, but more specifically, is one of them philosophy? Yes, that sounds pretentious, but perhaps the devil has me wrapped up in obsessing over how to make sense of God and the world so as to blind me from the simple message of the gospel (well maybe not simple, but sufficient). Even as I write this I feel detached from it all. For ages I blamed it on the meds (not long till I'm finished! hanging out for a normal metabolism again..!), but it's people like my dad who bring me down to the earth again and basically say - in kinder words - "you don't want to accept that you need God." I guess that's why I'm trying to understand everything on my own. How many times have I contradicted myself? My entire life is a contradiction I guess. One could say "at least you're honest" - but it has been too long. Is it God holding out on me, or is it me hesitating because of my pride? Does it matter? I don't want to live like this forever.

That's all I'm going to write for now.

What happens when I don't have a post plan

I know, that last post was disappointingly short. Oh, the irony.
Perhaps I will dwell on the weather, or my latest TV interests. Whinge about the fact that it is only snowing on the ad breaks, and for the happy families of Tesco customers. Britain loves Christmas! So unashamedly! Maybe it's just my family, but I always thought everyone felt that carols, Santa, trees, and fake snow were hateful things that could only be (barely) tolerated in December. OK that's an exaggeration. But maybe it's because it's home to the white Christmas (is it?). And Charles Dickens. Anyway, I'm with the right people in order to do the proper English thing. Even carol singing! Perhaps I should buy a white hand muff.

Needless to say, it's cold here. Not bitterly. And I like my coat. But the afternoons! They are four hours long. Then it's dark. That's right, close the curtains and turn on the lights. After you've seen the squirrel climb up the house to chill in the loft. Squirrels have this speedy but graceful way of swimming along the ground. Kind of like a mermaid would, but with more bounce and a bushier tail. I still haven't seen a badger or a hedgehog. But I have seen foxes.

And Facebook has taken over a bit, as I knew it would. But if it means I can keep up with even a few of my much loved friends back home, then I don't care.

I am so happy here. I feel like I've been back much longer than a week. I don't love the job hunting process, but it's just one of those things.
This might not come as much of a surprise, though it is a shame. Since my big update I haven't come very far with God. I haven't had one quiet time or done anything out of the ordinary except sing. But I just keep asking God to help me. I know I need to just knuckle down and get into it, instead of sit around waiting for a big enormous indescribable feeling or a shiny cloud to show me what I need to know (which is what I've been doing for years). But the devil still has so much power over my thoughts. "You're just wanting to be Christian again for security. You still don't believe in God, but you want to because your favourite people do." And now I can't bring any other lies to mind, is that him shutting them off so I can't fight them? Or is it true, am I fake? Is God real?

I've had this thing lately where I want to get myself sorted and work through my whole life and deal with all the issues I've got by writing everything down, and so become a well-rounded all-figured-out person, with no baggage and no complexes... HELLO! Is that not the dumbest thing you've ever read? As if I could do that. As if I could recall all the crap one experiences and resolve it on my own and get on with life with no regrets or burdens. It's a nice thought, that I could be totally weightless in order to help others and give infinitely, and make the perfect friend and maybe even wife one day...

...All my Christian friends be like: "Um, Jess? Have you forgotten everything you learnt in church? Jesus does that FOR us! Bit by bit, of course, and we won't be perfect until we reach heaven, but you know that you ought to just lay it all before him and he'll sort it!"

Oh yeah. Man, God must be mighty patient.

THE BIG UPDATE

There is SO MUCH emotion in me that as I begin to write my brain probably looks like a thousand miniature Van de Graaf generators being shaken around in an upturned bowl of jelly. There is no way I could cover everything that has happened in the last few months and my reactions to it all. If you want a nice, neat summary... go away. But seriously, unless you know me well and care about my life, you're probably wasting your time reading this. Enjoy!

Where to start?

OK, so my last few posts have been quite mysterious and most likely a bit frustrating. I really am sorry! Boy, I have wished that I could just have a good old rant, but it's the world wide web. People's lives can't be strung up all over it like reeds on a submerged shopping trolley. Not nice.
Well, a week and a half ago I gave notice the family I'm with. It was indeed the hardest decision I've ever made in my life, and it tore me up and stressed me out for a long time. I'm still not fully at peace but I hope I will be soon. I feel sad, and guilty, and scared, and I feel like a failure and the worst human being to ever make a promise, but I believe it is for the best, and it was the right decision.
This is the really cool part: my church family. I cannot use mere words to tell you how grateful I am for the love they have. You see, I wasn't ready to come back to Australia for good. It was the only other option, really, that I had to go with if I were to decide to leave this position, since I didn't particularly want to go to another family. One day I was expressing these very thoughts to a lovely couple at my church... and then whatdya know, a week later I've claimed their spare room. I'm not there yet but I will be when I get back from Aus! I don't know how I can express just how thankful I am for their incredible kindness - imagine, some girl from the other side of the world walking in the church doors, and five months later you're opening up your house to her. I am completely astounded by their willingness to help me! They're fantastic people, and I am really, really looking forward to getting to know them even better. Praise God! He answered our prayers in a way that I couldn't have dreamt of. So then I will need to find another job. I think I want to do something quite different this time. Anything will do, really. I've got savings for now so I'm OK, but if things don't go well I might come home after all. Call me crazy, but I never did have a year-by-year plan for my life anyway.

I've noticed that all too often I write a sentence (or question), and then I put a comma and a conjunction and write another clause. Maybe I should just go with my natural rhythm and try not to edit them out too much, but is it annoying? Have you noticed it, or have you blissfully read on up until this point and thought "oh gee what is she talking about?" Maybe it's the linguist in me, but I am a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to writing. A lot of the time I'm all too proud, and I'm coming to accept that have ridiculously high expectations of myself.

(OK Jess you really overdid it there. No one is going to think that was clever. Now you're having to point out the irony. Totally killed it. Way to go all Monty Python in a not-very-funny post.)

I don't know how many times I've edited this post (and you left in that paragraph about grammar?!), but even now I'm hesitant to publish. It's so hard to be honest and careful at the same time. You know me - my heart could be my sleeve. But some things just happen and we have to deal with it as best we can and move on without making a scene. Right now I'm such a muddle of guilt, regret, frustration, fear, sadness, gratitude and joy... and there's nothing I can do but keep- (DON'T even think it. I'm not British enough for that tiresome cliché.)

The other big news requires some back story. This is scary for me to write. I'm just going to have to be very succinct, I'm afraid. But feel free to ask me anything if you want to! I hope this isn't inappropriate sharing, and I hope no one is hurt by it's up-until-recent concealment. Um, really, if we're not that close you won't want to read this.

Basically, I've been struggling as a Christian for years. I've had depression since I was twelve, but after I finished school for a long time it was quite constant. When doubts about faith and God and stuff first sprang into my mind (at the end of 2010) I found it really hard to fight them off as well as fighting off the lies and pain that are drip-fed by the black dog (depression). As one got worse so did the other, and though I tried to work it out I never seemed to have it right. It was like things were falling out of my life and God was sitting back watching as I sunk further away from joy and love. Eventually I lost faith in him, and had to stop doing "Christian" things. Leaving the youth group team at the end of last year crushed me, but I was already so burnt out (for the second time) and angry I knew I had no choice. I stopped singing, taking communion, praying, everything. I could no longer call myself a believer. I hated God.

But I felt as though everyone (except those I was truly honest with) still saw me as a solid servant of Jesus. I would have been so sad to leave church and let so many people down, I already felt bad enough. So I came to England, hoping that I would find God over here and sort myself out... but there is no quick-fix solution. A month ago I thought I had come to the point where I would never be able to turn back and that was really scary. For the last couple of years I have lived with my family as the most important thing in my life, but not sharing their love for God and knowing I would be alone when they die, well, it's awful. But I could also feel my heart softening and my thinking starting to be less tainted by bitterness. How could it not soften, with the amazing goodness I've been shown just recently? Church here has been the highlight of my week - spending time with a shining community of believers. I love St Marks, of course, but because of my struggles I found it so, so, so hard. I used to cry after most services as I walked to my car. Many times beforehand as well. DON'T WORRY! There's good news a-comin'.

A few Sundays ago, we sang In Christ Alone at the morning service. And in a tiny voice I croaked along. I actually sang. In church. I hadn't done that for a whole year. I started praying (actually praying!!) that God would help me in my unbelief. And then last Thursday morning, as I was getting dressed, I decided that I wanted to believe in God again. I want to believe fully that he is good, and loving, and involved, and cares, and that the cross was enough to pay for the sins of the world. And this morning at church the first song was In Christ Alone. I sang it. I didn't belt it out but I sang it. I'm still praying that God will help my unbelief, because there is a lot of mess to get through, but I'm back. I'm hid in Christ. Hopefully!

How are you feeling, a bit drenched in heart-puss? (I just made up that term.) Yeah, well, I did tell ya. And, though it should be quite obvious: I'm going to be a tired, emotionally drained, jet lagged, overwhelmed, happy-beyond-words, guilt stricken, t dropping, untanned, crazy as always version of myself, so be warned! Oh man, I can't wait!!