That time of term

Howdy hodilly folks!

Well this is it - today I had my final lecture in Portsmouth for two years... scary! I remember the day my parents abandoned me at Langstone like it was yesterday...WHERE has the time gone? So yeh, next week is gonna be tough going but I know that God's in charge and in Him there is rest :) Have just made a nice little revision timetable for the next 7 days which looks fully evil so I wont post it up here... For those not in the know I have my two main French and Spanish exams and 4 essays due next week...Oh what fun!

Did my french oral exam yesterday - not so good but we wont go there!! Just couldn't handle the pressure! Its funny cos my Spanish oral went sooooo much better and I can barely understand the language! Funny old life hey?!

I'm in a bit of a complaining mood... so thats what Im gonna do - PORTSMOUTH UNIVERSITY LANGUAGE LECTURERS ARE THE MOST DISORGANISED EVERRRRRR!! Ok, so you know Im away next year in France and Spain, studying in 2 universities...thats about all you know right?... well SAME HERE!!!!!! We had a meeting about our Spanish placement today and the general gist was like ''yeh, so u fly out a couple weeks before term...go to a hostel...then find somewhere permenant to live...go along to the uni...attempt to find a course co-ordinator and get them to enrole you on what courses you wanna do'' - YEH HELPFUL... :-S I would like to be somewhat more organised than that to be honest... but its not possible...Kinda scary but then again God's got it sorted right...! I guess I just need to really realise that God is in control and he is watching over all and guiding me so there's nothing to fear :)

To end, my wonderful chum Ceryn sent me this verse the other day and I thought It'd be a good'un to share! - Lamentations 3 v 22-23, reads:

Because of the Lord's great love
we are not consumed,
for His compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
Great is your faithfulness.

How cooooool is that!!! Reeeally think about what that means!! We are not weighed down/consumed/crushed by anything, allllll because of God's love! His compassions are new everrrrrrry morning (and boy don't we all need that!) Great is His faithfulness! Awesome!

Just feeling inspired to share some song lyrics :) They are by a band called Casting Crowns - sorry if you are someone who always hears me talk about them/hears them blasting from my room, but I just love them! This particular song that I am posting is just so powerful and I hope that it encourages all those who may stumble across this blog. So often we think we can only praise God if ''we feel like it'' - but thats just not true! And this song is a brilliant reminder of that! Whatever you are going through, God doesn't change, He's always looking after you and deserves our praise! Enjoy and God bless! :D xx

"Praise You In This Storm"

I was sure by now

That You would have reached down

And wiped our tears away

Stepped in and saved the day

But once again, I say "Amen", and it's still raining

As the thunder rolls

I barely hear Your whisper through the rain

"I'm with you"

And as Your mercy falls

I raise my hands and praise the God who gives

And takes away

I'll praise You in this storm

And I will lift my hands

For You are who You are

No matter where I am

Every tear I've cried

You hold in Your hand

You never left my side

And though my heart is torn

I will praise You in this storm

I remember when

I stumbled in the wind

You heard my cry

You raised me up again

My strength is almost gone

How can I carry on

If I can't find You

As the thunder rolls

I barely hear You whisper through the rain

"I'm with you"

And as Your mercy falls

I raise my hands and praise the God who gives

And takes away

I lift my eyes unto the hills

Where does my help come from?

My help comes from the Lord

The Maker of Heaven and Earth

Do u still check me?!

So - does anyone ever read this blog?? (Except Hannah!) I have been pretty busy these last few months and so this has just been somewhat forgotten about - but if you still check this (wow you must be patient!) then do drop a petit comment - then i'll decide if its worth spilling my life out over the interent once more! Hehe xxx

Ahhh Sundays...!!

Ah yes, I knew there was something I loved about Portsmouth - Sundays! Especially Sundays that are like the Sundays in my first year which went something like this : Church, students being invited to someone's house after church for lunch or to some kind of pub, followed by some sort of afternoon activity like random games or a nice walk, followed by church again in the evening!

This type of Sunday was one of the things I loved most last year! At the time it was nice because it meant I could escape from Langstone for a whole day, spend time getting to know new friends and of course having a whole day away from work (which is what God gave us Sundays for in the first place!!) These Sundays kept me going last year, when I was missing home or stressed or lonely, they were days where I was able to be with my Christian brothers and sisters, and probably became my most looked forward to day of the week!

Now, this year I no longer need to escape from Langstone and those ''new friends'' have become people I love a whole lot and spend a good amount of time with but I realised today how much I still adore these Sundays just the same! The families at Eastney Church just amaze me with their kindness and generosity - especially as a lot more students come now than when I first started going! So I guess what Im trying to say with all this babbling is that I had a lovely day!

For this evenings service we had a guest speaker in who works for 'Open doors', which is an organisation that helps persecuted Christians all around the world. I have heard and read many things about Christian persecution but every time I hear more, something new will strike me. Today, the main things I took from the service is just how extraordinary the faith of a persecuted Christian is. We heard examples of Christians that have asked for people not to pray that their persecution would stop, but rather that they would never deny Jesus... Wow! How often do we have silly little problems that we go to God with and ask to be set free from? Not that thats wrong of course, I mean, God wants us to share our feelings and problems with Him, but it sort of puts things into perspective when people are daily being imprisoned, beaten or even killed for their faith in God.... and we worry about being laughed at for example....makes ya think hey?

Second thing I took from the service - how much we take the bible for granted. This point was hardly really touched upon but something (cant think of the exact sentence) that was said got me thinking. There are people going out and risking their lives, or certainly risking prison, to take Bibles to countries where they're not allowed and the people that recieve them treasure it with all they have. Most of them will read as much as they can, as often as they can, and here we are, in the Western world, most Christians owning more than one bible and how often do we read it? At church? Maybe a few times a week? Maybe when we ''feel like it''? Or maybe we do our 'once a day' like we feel we should. BUT my question is, how much do we really treasure God's word? And I mean really treasure it. Do we even completely realise what it is that we hold in our hands, or keep by our beds, or on our bookshelf? That book, contains every thing that we truely need to know about God and about being a Christian here on earth - EVERY THING!! Yes there are other things that we're not always clear about, or that we wish we knew, but right now, on earth, they're unimportant. God has given us all we need to know within the bible and I for one pray that I will treasure it and read it more and more whilst I have the freedom to. Who knows when that freedom wont exist anymore. And so how about you? Will you pray too that our so often complacent attitudes regarding the bible will be broken down and we'll treat it as the treasure that it is? And will you pray for persecuted Christians everywhere, and that the faith of the 'free' as it were, would be even a fraction of what theirs is? **Praise God** for our freedom but let's not take it for granted.
xxx

Love a bit of procrastination

Procrastinating. Yep thats what I'm doing right now!! What I really should be doing is my Career Management assignment thingy that is due on Friday but other things are just more.... fun!!

I am happy that it is Saturday! Yesterday was rubbish...bad.... Until evening. Evening was good! Went out for pizza and cinema with lots of lovely friends! I love friends ya know, they make me smile lots (as i have rambled on about many a time!)

D'ya know what... I have absolutely nothing of interest to write about right now... [it could be argued that I never do tho to be fair!! ;-) hehe] So... I should stop wasting language and be quiet!

Byeeeeeee xxx Sorry, Im a freakin' weirdo!!!!

Oh yeah... i should probably blog....

Oh dear... I've not posted for a long old while...! Ooopsy!

Hmmm... where do I start? Christmas has come and gone, new year has come and gone... so that means 2007! New year, fresh start, positive outlook, expectant that I will see God doing yet more great things and generally feeling good :-)

Can't really write about all thats been going on since I last blogged cos that would just take up endless pages and quite frankly bore you all to death! But its generally been lots of hanging out with various beautiful friends and having a laugh, family christmasses and even *some uni work* SHOCK HORROR :-O

Something that deserves a mention - purely for comic value, was mine and India's trip to Taunton to visit Becca for the day! Went to Burger King and Becca turned round and knocked India's tray flying everywhere - I don't think it can effectively be explained but it was just so funny... India kinda stood there for a couple of seconds without moving...looking completely shocked... O my days it really was funny! As you've probably realised the pic above shows the consequence.... HA

Went out for a meal with my girlies and once again had to say goodbye to my wonderfully great chum Hanzy... Shes off to Austria again you see... till May - SUCKS. No doubt I shall have to go and visit, else what on earth will I do??!! ;-)

Right, im TOTALLY babbling now.... so i will stop now! At least I've updated! Finally, yay!

Nice couple of days :-)

Night-time beach walks, big cake eating, lasagne making, work doing, God-talking, thinking, music listening - Just a few of the things I've been doing these last couple of days!

Good days they have been! (with one or two exceptions). Yesterday I met the Langstone hall group crew after their bible study and we went for a nice little walk on the beach (well... harboury/beachy thing by langstone!). Was really nice to spend time with those guys - they're all ace! Love 'em!

Today was nice, I got up and did a spot of work (a reeeeally tiny spot!) then went out with the girls from church and Cora (Loooovely lady from church) for much cake eating/tea drinking! We went to this amazing little cafe thingy which just has the hugest, gooeyest, most excellent cakes in the world.EVER. Was very nice, especially as it was just before my french lesson. Nice! Though the french lesson wasn't so good. I spent 35 mins sat in a room listening to half the class having a debate with our teacher about how rubbish they think the French lessons are this year etc etc and basically being quite unnecessarily rude. I came out of that lesson feeling quite sorry for the teacher and annoyed at how rude everyone was being... it was almost like being back at school...

Made lasagne for my house girlies today... pretty yummy if i do say so myself. No-one has died yet anyway so thats surely a good sign!

I was thinking today how much I enjoy my walks to and from uni. Sounds weird, but its the time when I do most of my good old indepth thinking! I love it when its chilly but with blue skies and sun and I can just casually walk along, thinking, praying, and just enjoying being in my mind. Its nice! These days I have so much going on that I rarely get those moments where I can be alone and think so its nice to be able to do it when Im toddling along outside in the wind, seeing whats going on in the world! Well.. in Portsmouth anyways!

Thats all for now dudes! xx