Before JustLove's launch I was so anxious. I had to give a speech about Personal Stream, I needed to I wasn't very sure where the Church was (and I did initially end up going to a Catholic church instead of St Andrews Street Baptist Church) and I had lots on my mind.
At the Launch, after all was over, food was set up, the talk was filmed, I'd said my bit, I had some time to talk to the people who had come. My last conversation was with Stephen. I asked him how he was doing, and his eyes crinkled into a smile and he told me, 'I've just been realising more and more how good God is, how kind God is.'
Such simple words, like the feeling I got in Pua, and I realised how much I wanted that. His face just radiated joy, when he talked about how he was finally beginning to understand how, despite the fact that many things like worship and church and leading prayer mornings were good, they were rubbish, completely and utterly, compared to the fullness of knowing Jesus Christ. He told me that he's heard God telling him quite clearly to let go of some commitments he had, such as leading his college's christian group, because it had become about himself and his pride. Instead, he spent 2 hours and 24 minutes a day with God, alone, reading his bible and praying.
This term has been a lot more intense that the last. On top of the weekly essay we did last term, we have more reading, translation work, more practical criticism work and dissertation work too. Because medieval literature is something I feel unfamiliar with (it really is a whole different world) I feel compelled to go to as many lectures as I feel are relevant, which means sometimes 3 a day, and then Just Love meetings, thursday prayer meetings, bible study writing, dissertation supervisions, essay supervisions, making sure I have food, Just Lunch, runs, theatre performances, social events, church and Focus bible studies....
Quite a large amount of my time is taken up doing 'corporate' christian things (church/para church) and because I also want to claim my life in other things I enjoy doing/feel responsible for (bad thing?human thing?) I find myself with little or no time each day to sit at Jesus feet alone and spend time with Him. Yesterday I tried to pray, and it reminded me of what happened when I arranged to have lunch with someone I don't know very well and I ended up using the wall decoration as a conversation starter.
I suppose I'm trying so hard this term, to keep afloat and to manage and to achieve. But something in me is telling me to let go of some things. Alex dropped out of one of her theatre performances yesterday, and used the spare rehearsal time to go to an art session in the coach house, where she made a painting of Virginia Woolf in blue.
What do I actually really want?
- I want to have time to read my bible without the niggling thought of what I need to do next in my mind.
- I want to be able to greet Jesus like a close friend in prayer.
- I want to continue with JustLove, because I feel God there, I have community there, and my heart is constantly challenged to love and care and give more. It isn't always easy, and after yesterday's talk on sexual abuse I had very heavy boots, but it is something I am invested in and something I know has real meaning.
- I want more time to do a bloody good job on my dissertation, which is about mental illness in modernist literature and I really want it to be well-researched and written sensitively.
- I want to continue running regularly, because I feel so much joy and freedom (and also tiredness and good sorts of aches) when I do. A couple of days ago I discovered a adventure course/playground with rope swings and leap frog poles and balance beams that I really want to go to. On one run I saw the most gorgeous double rainbow.
- I want to have time to do spontaneous, miscellaneous things. One of my resolutions for this term was to be more spontaneous, but that's hard when you are constantly wrapped up in other things.
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