Soap for Jesus

My highest blog post views tend to be when the title contains the words love, marriage or something pertaining to it. I'm guessing that's because a) it's the most important subject in human life - being loved - and b) due to the fairly young/marital age range of my readers. Interesting note one. I came home from work today panicking somewhat inside due to being overdrawn again at the bank, wondering - again - why God hasn't yet met my financial needs. Then I turn around to see a new brown top with my floppy brown hat. I had to laugh. It was like He'd slipped a finger under my chin, looked into my eyes and said with a smile, "Sian, I'm looking after your material needs. Trust Me with the rest!" Truly, I can trust Him to supply all my needs when I need, though not necessarily my wants - or my needs when I want. So I may as well keep working and singing and leave Him with my worries too. Interesting note two. I have always, to some degree...

One woman. She loves one man. Two men in love and pursuing her hand in marriage. One man refuses to pursue until the man she loves disappears. The other is encouraged to pursue and does so, causing much pain. Both attempt to outdo the other in declaring themselves the most in love. One that he has right of longevity, the other that he has more need - and who he's supported by. Both continually put down the other, citing all the reasons why they could not POSSIBLY be in love as much as themselves. One even tried to make the woman pick between them as to who she would go to when the man she loved finally left. I've been in love. I am in love. And I know that no love deserves being put down, mocked or undermined. Something neither of those guys learned. Apart from lust. Which is falsely classed as love. And a selfish love. A love that demands proves only one thing. That you love only yourself. It is a selfish love that cannot let go for the best of another. True love let...

Lying in bed wasn't the way I dreamed of celebrating. By the way, Happy St George's Day and Happy Day of the Silence! I hate lying in bed and as soon as I've caught a little more healing sleep I'll meander around the house and find something more proactive to do. Of course, still giving my shoulder a chance to heal. Drinking water and rubbing cream in and taking Erythromycin and stuff. In Bedford at Wrest Park Gardens on Saturday, wearing my new burnt orange dress at the St George's Day pageant, I got sunburned. At 12 C. The burn made me look like a tomato initially, but I still went bowling Saturday night. By Sunday afternoon, my nose was starting to ooze stuff. And yesterday, my shoulder and nose were covered in yellow crusty stuff. The pain was making my head swim and I was a little disorientated, so popped into the doctors on the way home from work. The doctors said my burn is infected and was a little concerned about it entering my bloodstream, so I'...

I am naturally a strong woman. So are all the women in our family, in usually most areas bar one. Currently, I'm looking more and more towards living my life as a single woman (which is really not up for discussion as all I usually get is jeers and you-can't-do-its), but as this post has been in my head for some time, I figured I'd write it anyway. Women all have some kind of guy-requirement list that they look for in a man, particularly in a man they'd like to marry. Part of the "qualifiers" I look for in a guy are not just that he is a Christian, growing actively in God and seeking to put Him first in everything, not just that he is tender-hearted but wise, not just that he is thrifty but not stingy, but that he is stronger than me. Believe me, that's very hard. *grin* I've only met two guys in my life that are. My Achilles heel makes it so there has to be a guy who is stronger than me in my life. Most girls hate me when I say it, but to some degree,...

For the third time, this year, God willing, I hope to set foot on American soil. A place where my kinsmen emigrated, my ancestors fought, and my friends live. Each time has been a miracle - the kindness shown me by friends who both gave and anonymously sent money and my boss Lisa who invented jobs to pay me so I could go in 2011, and by American friends who took me in and also paid for me as I went across the States. The gracious miracle when my wages were higher than expected last year, 2012, figuring just enough money to go to both Ireland and America and cover our rent while I was gone. Now I'd like to share with you the miracle of 2013. :) God. Is. Amazing. And He provides. Like, when you don't expect Him to. This year's trip to OYAN was a lot weirder than expected... My colleague Jess Phelps (we are starting to interact a lot outside of work - she and Stephen are my two best friends at work) and I started kidding around about me taking her with me to Ame...

Sooo! A week ago since Easter Sunday 2013. The one and only. :P I had the Thursday off and the company closed the call centre from Friday to Bank Holiday Monday, giving me a full five days off. It felt like my brain came back to life. :P Seriously, call centre work is both mentally consuming and emotionally draining. So these five days were a blessed recooperation time, enough to be making plans for the future again. :D I've been looking into colleges in the USA, as Mom's (and with it, mine in a way) future seems to be stabilising in spite of the problems with the divorce. Doesn't look too likely due to expense, but yah... I'd love to study English some more, in spite of my O Level qualification already, and also maybe psychology and counselling courses. And I still want to study sign language. The careers I'm thinking of pursuing - and this may sound a lot, but! I didn't have ANY idea before. Hehe - are music, counselling, gardening, law, air hostess. Quite a...

The impending cataclysm still is in my heart and mind. The call of God in that short space of time and the unclear vision of the future to some of us. The separation of many of us and the intense struggles that so many of God's young people are facing today - pasts created by their own mistakes and influenced by outside forces not of their doing, undergoing the after-effects of so many of these. The young Christians of today are facing more problems than I've ever heard of any young Christian generation undergoing. We are not a united body - many of our worst battles are fought and faced alone with long-distance prayer. I don't believe in end-time revival but I DO believe that God is doing a work amongst the young people of this generation and that is why there are more vicious Spiritual battles than we've seen in a long while. Satan is trying to divide and pull us away, and we are pleading to become more like Christ. Tell me THAT won't induce a battle! So...

You know those points in life where things just hit you? It came to me as I was washing up in the kitchen, snuggled in my fluffy grey dressing gown, the electric light off and the warm glow of the sunset fading in through the window, Michael Card's Celtic music playing in the background. I'm 21. And finally life seems to be coming, in a way. So many plans and hopes and dreams buzzing through my head, so much that is likely to and so easily can be smashed. "I'm fine on my own," I said aloud, laughed, looked up and sighed. These moments where I'm the only one in the house and can talk out loud on everything with God - cause He already knows it - and know the intimate closeness of Him in my spirit. "No, I'm not. But I'm okay with that. You're here, and You'll be with me until the time is right." Marriages are sprouting up all around me as my friends begin to pair off, and the middle-aged-21 crisis struck me. Not so much because...