Sunshine and sleep

A week and a half after Marseilles and I need a holiday again!

After handing in two essays on Monday, I'm not happy that I have yet another two essays to write before the end of next week. It has completely worn me out! Though I don't think the essays are all to blame. The SUN!

The sun has been absolutely wonderful over the last week, really bright and warm... BUT when it comes to being woken up at 6.30/7.00 every day, it's not so great. I do love my window and my amazing sea view, but I really wish the sun would wait till 7.30/8.00 to wake me up! I'm looking forward to the clocks changing in two weeks time so this will be the case. I just want to be able to sleep! I try to be in bed around 12 every night (tonight I've been in bed since 9.30!) so I can get a good nights sleep, but I just don't want to be woken up before my alarm. It's nice every now and then, but not every day, and definitely not during essay period!

So, rant about the sun over, essays... So I've written an essay on conflict in Africa, which was actually really enjoyable to write, and an essay on on-line news sources, which wasn't so enjoyable, but now I'm writing an essay on the Rwandan genocide, and an essay on human trafficking. Makes for a pretty fun week, not! Though I do find it interesting, and maybe if I was getting proper sleep I wouldn't be so wound up.

However, on a more positive note, I had a pretty good weekend. Saturday night was Tom's birthday 'do'; 12 of us went to Pier Brasserie for a meal and then some of us went back to Tom's to play Scattegories and Jungle Speed. It was quite weird for me as it was the first time I've ever been the girlfriend for someone's birthday, so things like cake came down to me. I was actually really nervous. There was no way I was going to bake a cake as that would have made me so much more nervous, what if it went wrong and no one liked it?!, so a Cadbury Flake cake it was. Can't go wrong with chocolate!

Sunday was also a really good day. I spent the day with God. I came back from church, put some worship music on then did some painting while singing. I then did a bit of reading and listened to a talk while sat in my window watching everyone on the beach and the promenade. It was a beautiful day. I'm still working through Faith Like a Child and what I read on Sunday was really great. At church we were told to offer a gift that we have to God and ask him to use it. I had absolutely no idea what to write, and after a while I settled with empathy. One of the chapters I later read was on exactly that. It started off with a little story:

'I'm fond of the story about the young girl who took a while returning form the candy store. Her worried mother met her at the door and inquired, "Sweetheart, what took you so long?"
   The girl replied, "I saw a little girl crying because her doll baby was broken."
   The mother said, " That was nice of you to stop to help her fix it."
   "No, mommy," said the girl. " I stopped to cry with her".'

After reading this, I sat and wept. It was just beautiful, and I could totally understand. Several months ago Tom and I were watching Spooks, in the episode we were watching one of the main characters, Danny, died. The episode, and the one before, had been on torture. After this episode I sat and wept for about 2 hours! I was heartbroken at the torture. Just to explain, it wasn't solely because of Spooks, I was also doing a module on terrorism at the time and we had been looking at torture. I was gutted at the fact people torture and are tortured all around the world. This is a personality trait that I have and it is why I am doing my course, I cannot sit back and just let this pass by. Today I've been looking at human trafficking and the statistics are terrible! We cannot let things like this go on around us, especially as Christians!

Anyway, aside from the terrible state this world is in, I found Sunday really encouraging. God really spoke to me about the way He sees me. Galatians 3 vs 16 says 'Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, "and to offsprings", referring to many, but referring to one, "and to your offspring", who is Christ'. Galatians 3 vs 29 says 'And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise'. These two verses are saying that when God looks at me (and you if you are in Christ) he sees Christ! He does not see me and my sin, but He sees Christ and His righteousness. Another real encouragement was found in Galatians 4 vs 6, it says 'And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba! Father!"'. This means that when I am feeling distant and cold, the Spirit of Christ is still in me crying "Abba! Father!" ("Daddy, Father" - really intimate!). This is so encouraging, as I know that, even if I feel distant, God is called, by the Spirit, to look at me, and when He does He is filled with such love and joy because He sees His Son!

I just need to keep reminding myself of this fact, it is so easy to forget when living day-to-day.