Soap for Jesus

This past weekend, I attended a Youth Conference (along with one of my UK besties, Stephanie, and my twin, Joseph) at Bethel Free Baptist Church in Birmingham. What I was expecting ran something along the lines of: 1) Listen to preaching and be fed 2) Sit awkwardly on the sidelines and fail miserably at interacting 3) Spend the weekend watching and listening What actually happened was totally different. God moved this weekend. I watched young people recommit their lives to the Lord. I recommitted my life to the Lord. I gave Him the burden of my broken heart and prayed for release. It's still broken, but He's got the burden of it now and the joy is...unspeakable. I watched my Stephie change from a girl who is shy and self-controlled, though happy, start singing in public - something she would never do even if I begged, though she'd do anything else. I watched as she stepped out on the streets to witness - which she was scared sick of. I watched her cry, and go to ...

There's just something I want to close up today's mass of posts (particularly on Facebook, though also attempted on Google Plus and a few on Twitter) with, before I go to my corner chair with my fluffy blanket and Sherlock Holmes DVD. I truly hope that today has shown, not just from me, but from the others who have been (and on the other side of the pond, still are) participating in our Singles' Valentine, where our hearts and love truly lie. Being single is not something to be morose and sad about. It's a joy to be able to focus heart, life and mind in, around and on Christ. Even if we feel the sting of rejection, or not being wanted, we know there IS Someone Who wants us, Who made us, Who rejoices in us, and Who loves us completely. Today is our day to celebrate loving and living for Him. He has loved us unconditionally. His love drove Him to die for us, to bear all our sins, and to conquer death by rising from the grave. But that wasn't the end of it. No. Fo...

Standing in the cold, hands in my pockets with cars splashing past, I gaze up at the inky blue sky. No stars are out, for it's heavy with clouds. Kinda hard to believe that the shortest day has come and gone. Soon, though, the difference will start to show. Six long months of waiting, and light will come again. Light will always come again...until the Light of the World comes to outshine it forever. It's a night like any other. The X51 is late. It's always late recently, and my skin is a grey-purply-white shade when it arrives at the bus stop, 20 minutes after me. I'm in jeans and a jumper, like I would be any other dress down day before Christmas. "Days of Elijah" is on repeat and I'm having a hard time not singing aloud. Thoughts are busy romping in my head though. Cause this is the last night I shall ever travel home on the X51 from work. I glance up the street as I board the bus. Emotions are mixed as I prepare not only to change my travel, but...

A day. It's an incredible short space of time. I paused for three seconds just and listened to the clock tick them. Three seconds of my life. Gone. Isn't it so short a span of time? Faith. Hope. Trust. Three things that God is trying to teach me and I am struggling with so greatly. Stop and read those words individually for a moment and think about what each of them means. We tend to bind the three of them together so easily. Think about the end of 1 Corinthians 13 - faith, hope, love, abide these three - but the greatest of these is love. Do you stop to separate the meanings of them out? I fail to, very often. But faith; hope; trust. Bound together by love. Love is the greatest of all. Notice, when one of them fails, the others weaken. Interesting. The last two weeks have been a haze of pain for me. I go through a couple of days (on a usual cycle) where I rotate through riding on faith, hope and prayer and preaching it, to allowing things to smash through th...

Imagine - I don't care whether you're the imagining type or not, close your eyes and imagine here :D - imagine you're on the edge of a dark forest, looking out across a field of fresh snow. The sun is about to rise, and as the first few glints bounce off the ground, you see that the snow is completely white, pure, unbroken. It looks. Totally. Stunning. Purity does. :) There's no way home except to cross that field. But as you look down at your feet, you realise that there's a mess of gunk and black stuff and mud and slime covering your wellies, from walking through the forest. But you're a snow lover and you really don't want to spoil that snow. Cautiously, you step to a nearby stream of crystal clear, flowing water and one at a time, take each boot off and wash it. Cause after all, you've only got two choices. To trail the gunk of the forest into the pure clean unmarked snow, or to walk out with fresh clean steps. It's called a New Year,...

*chuckles* I'm lying here in a half numb, half blank, half calm (three halves, yes, I know :P) frame of mind. Kristin just asked me how I was, and I answered, I'm thinking God is weirdly good. Cause He is. My mom's in need of prayer, a lot of it, especially as the first court date with my father on the 15th nears. I'm lying here in emotional and physical pain. And apparently I "don't have any major stress in my life", a comment I'm currently finding hard to forgive. *smiles, thinking* I messed up again recently. I do that frequently. And I've been convinced God's going to punish me, as usual. If He has, He's done it in the sweetest way. I might have lost most of the things I love, but God's shown me His love, His people, and Mom and Mr C are the most important things in life. I might be in despair and lost in the darkness, but there's always someone out there who's more lost than me cause they haven't go...

I woke up this morning not feeling very good. Well, I usually feel physically great after a lie in, but not mentally, especially when waking at 1pm. About half an hour later, Mom was just about to go out. "Sian! There's a parcel down here for you." I let out a shriek and bolted downstairs, as I was expecting one...although I had no idea what was in it. (I love surprise parcels, sometimes. :D) "It can't be the one you think it is...it's from Preston!" Mom said. I blinked, knowing the Hodgson girls hadn't sent me anything! Surprised, I tried to detangle the brown tape from the parcel, but it clung tightly to the lighter brown paper. The parcel was long, brown and slender - not like I was expecting. Though I didn't know WHAT I was expecting. :D Finally ripping the tape off, I managed to start unrolling it, and eventually reached the bubble wrapping. Now, if you're anything like me, bubble wrapping is half of the present. ;) I s...

Dear guys, blokes, men and gentlemen, This is particularly addressed at you, although it's also a general announcement, because I want you to know where I stand, why I'm off limits and why my Facebook status reads, "It's complicated." Simply because a lot of guys seem to read, "It's complicated" on any girl's status not as a chance to help them out (not me in this case) but as a chance to get a foot in the door. I also want to explain what love means to me - something far beyond mere emotion or fluff, or something that can wither and die. If you've read my blog long enough, you'll know what love is to me. Eternal, unconditional, priceless. True love is God - the heart of God to man. And true love is a gift from God, planted in someone's heart, to never be given up on and thrown away. If God has given you love, then it's nothing to sacrifice lightly. I didn't start this way. When I first fell in love, it was a deliberat...

Today's praise and thankfulness list! Tomorrow is Friday! We get to dress down, so I can wear a t-shirt and denim. :D I'm going out with Mom almost every Saturday to places all over Britain. This Saturday we're going to a castle and the beach in Wales! God put good friends in my life. :) Friends who mentor me, encourage me and try to heal my insecurity without shunning me because of it. My new fantasy novel, which I'm intensely intrigued by (it was started by a dream as I had a nap on my desk at work). I've just applied to a singing concert in Solihull, thanks to my sister's Auntie Chris who knows all the right places to go. :D I just have to pay and show up! I have my 425 Squadron hoodie and my 196 Squadron t-shirt. *happy* I'm getting better at dancing with Mr. Invisible. ;) Work is going well at the moment and my bosses are happy with me. :) Dreams of going for flight attendant, depending on how things work out. Plans seem to be m...

It doesn't matter in the end. Whether friendship or love is reciprocated. Both are based on God's love to man - a model of it. We are to love unconditionally. It took a lot for me to let go. Still does. I'm still letting go. Constantly. And fighting it. But walking away from the bus, I couldn't help but smile. I've wondered so often about my friend (the only one I really have in this area in Britain) as our relationship has really gone up and down. From stuff he says sometimes, I wonder if he even counts me as a friend at all. In the end, it doesn't matter. It's hard when we extend our friendship, or give our love, and don't have it returned. Indeed, most times the reaction is to hurt, retreat and close down on the pain until it's faded or gone. The world teaches that if you get hurt repeatedly, in the end, love and friendship dies. So it does. Unless you're loving with Christ's love. When He fills you with His love to love out, when ...

It's beautiful. The cross. It's symbolic. It's pain and it's agony and it's separation from God and reunion with God. It's suffering and dying and it's healing and life. Pain comes to all of us. Sometimes in the worst ways. Like when God asks us to sacrifice the nearest and dearest thing or person we love. "God, I surrendered!" "Then let go." "But You might not bring them back!" "I know. Trust Me." Tears. Pain. Agony. Surrender. Peace. Beauty. Beautiful tears and joyful sobbing in the torment. Because He is God and He is the master of the paradox and He can make it so. I looked up at my colleague Charlotte. Both of us had delayed lunch breaks, due to the length of the survey we were on, before lunch was called. We were talking about my trip to the USA, and then ended up on our differing beliefs. Oh! It started with my ink writing on my arm and wrist: "Espérance - Hope", "Love end...

Not in chronological order. ;) _ On deciding to work on BfD, I found the second book and took it to work with me yesterday. I was chatting with Navpreet (my adopted daughter) about it casually during lunch break, and she asked to look at it. When she started to read it, she got so caught up she lost track of where she was. One - WHOOPS. Two - YAY! _ For the last two days, I've worn my OYAN t-shirt to work. It's amusing walking down the street and watching people read it. So were my colleagues at work - and liked it. (Yes, Mr. S., I'm attempting to infiltrate the whole of Britain with OYAN. Slowly. :P) This morning, carrying four heavy bags and hurrying towards work, I passed a guy who read it out loud as I walked past him. "My villain can beat up your villain?" And started laughing. I grinned. "Yep! And no arguing about it!" That was funny. _ After almost two years of waiting (cause I even got my close friends' names out of h...

They say that there is a silver lining to every cloud. An added unique tint to every note of a song of pain. And sooner or later, in every darkness, the shadow reduces just enough to see a faint outline, or a glimmer. God. Is. Totally. Amazing. In case you didn't catch that before. GOD IS SO AMAZING!! This is a testimony blog post, so if you don't likey, you has permission to click the big red X. :D I'm typing this freshly awake from my lengthy sleep, which was induced by five hours of mowing and strimming the gardens yesterday (which look amazing, according to Mom! :D) moving heavy pots around and hauling three fence panels upright (while the neighbour man watched me. Nice guy.) It's kinda funny, cause the last time I cut the grass (Uncle Peter has done it since then, except no one did it in the winter months) was the night before I flew out to Kansas. I looked up at the planes flying over in the twilight and the stars beginning to twinkle, thinking, tomorr...

He lay where Lord Weston had struck him to the ground, his eyes brimful of sadness as he gazed at the place where dust was settling - dust, which was all that remained of his liege lord. Outside, the battle raged on. Each of those who had been at the heart of the search for the Holy Grail met their doom at the hands of the overwhelming, vengeance-seeking Vikings. Each of those last knights of Camelot. Tainted as they were, still fighting vainly for a dream that eluded their grasp. For only one who was pure of heart could possess the Grail. As he lay there, the vision passed before him of the dead bodies of his comrades, including that of the girl he loved. Of the Vikings picking over the field of conflict before leaving to return from whence they came. One Viking, the new leader, gathered his people together. "Triumphant warriors, the shadow of Camelot has been lifted. You have bled, you have lost brothers, but every remnent of Camelot has this day met doom, and will not...

Tweet earlier: I stink of alcohol. And blood. Not mine. Will explain later. Please pray for my new friend Noel. Thanks. :) Walking home from the X51, I was heading to the 404 when I approached these three dark-skinned kids (you know the type, baseball caps, etc) around this older white man on the floor. At first I thought they were beating him up, but one was offering his hand and another attempting to help him stand, which didn't quite make sense. On asking what was going on, they said that they'd seen him collapse and were just trying to help him back up again. Two community support officers (kinda like police backup but without much power) came up to us then, and they told me (I'm going to tell it you all in one bunch so you don't have to try and piece it together like I did) basically, that he'd been drinking (Noel claims he hasn't drunk all day, he's just on a hangover) and that he'd walked into a window earlier uptown, and that he'd been...

Sometimes I keep getting glimpses of how great God is. Particularly when I imagine this great world as a ball spinning on the tip of His finger. Or when I imagine a single breath from Him and all of this being created. He could've THOUGHT it into existence. Instead, He chose to speak an entire sentence. I was just hunting down one of the proverbs for another blog post, something I read in Mom's Bible as I ate breakfast, and it struck me. The intimate complications of PROVERBS. One book we struggle to understand. One book inspired by God, from the complexity of a human mind. One human. How many of us are there? Look at the blades of grass on a misty morning. Hazes dimming the sharp dark outlines of the trees, creating a golden blur for a morning sky. Blades of grass everywhere, coated from top to bottom with jewels of sparkling water. Tiny little blobs. Beautiful. Simple. ALMOST EVERY BLADE. In ONE tiny street. In one tiny town. In one tiny county. In one tiny country. In one ti...

So. I wrote this random little skit today in between calls. (Yes, I was dialling! Just scribbling at the points when the phone was ringing.) This is taken from the perspective of a snobbish receptionist (ie, briskly efficient that disposes of researchers as wastes of precious time) and an interviewer driven mad/crazy by no surveys, non-stop calling and rude refusals. R: Receptionist I: Interviewer M: Manager (Interviewer stops banging head off the desk, assumes a calm air, picks up the phone and dials.) R: (pleasantly) Hello, this is Denise Arrington-Smith, secretary to Lord Harry Poncenby of the Willoughy Estates Learning and Support School. Can I help you? I: Hello! My name is Emily Willis and I'm calling on behalf of the Sunday Times. Can I speak to Lord Poncenby please? R: (suspiciously) Oh, I'm sorry...what did you say your name was again? I: (politely cheerful) Emily Willis. R: And your company name? I: I'm calling on behalf on the Sunday Times. R: Is that where you...

So the Americans are celebrating the Superbowl and most of my friends are away watching it. Fine! I'm sitting in my favourite armchair, with a plate of cheese, pickled onions and a glass of sparkling apple juice. Chatting to the few friends who haven't left and watching Beauty and the Beast. Kind of. I'm going to blog two posts, work on S4C, upload a couple of songs to my MP3, write emails to a couple of my friends, TRY and update Facebook and TRY and sort out more emails. And also write my prayer notebook. :) Yes, it's midnight. Yes, I'm trying to forget it's work tomorrow. :D Yes, I'm job hunting for a second night job. Hmm. My sister said that watching the first song and scene of Beauty and the Beast reminded her of me. I prefer the second version of the song. That says what I feel! Though I love Human Again!

While chatting with someone tonight, I was once again brought face to face with a remnant of my past. Those come in many ways. A scent. A laugh. A sudden repeated line. A shared memory. An image. A word. A name. An action. Good memories. And bad memories. I'm not going to be ambiguous for once...and I'm going to talk pretty freely. So those of you that hate that in me, go for a nice long ramble onto someone else's blog. ;) There, warning over. Tonight's was a flash back from my past. Someone that's been banned from talking to me because of my past as a cutter. I completely understand why that parent has done what they have done. I also would not have done what that parent has done - and don't judge my youth or my lack of actual parenthood (begging my four adoptive children to forgive me at this point! :)) in response. My mother instinct will want to shelter and protect my children from harm - and I will. But I will not hide from them that there are bad, sad thin...

Pain at the physical, mental and emotional stages are almost at the highest point that I'm aware of on their gauges. Spiritual level has closed down so much I'm aware of nothing but unvoiced, mere thoughts of prayers and now and then, the presence of God here. It's not lack of sleep and this isn't a stage of exhaustion. Apparently I look half dead - laboured movement, laboured talking, etc. I forced myself to sing at the second song this morning at church; never had to force myself to sing but once before in my life. Singing is my love. The entirety of everything that's bringing this down forced me to one point this morning. I opened my eyes and saw neither one of the addictions I normally run to, but the cross of Christ. At the foot of that cross I am clinging and aware that God's Hands are beneath and upholding me to take the weight. My body is collapsing and my mind is blanking down but if one were to draw a picture of what life currently looks at, there woul...