20...

I must apologise for not writing as much recently, it is the end of term and essays, exams, and the sun are becoming very prominent in my life for now.


I was just on facebook procrastinating and found a quote on a friend's status:
'When you have no helpers, see all your helpers in God. When you have many helpers, see God in all your helpers. When you have nothing but God, see all in God; when you have everything, see God in everything. Under all conditions, stay thy heart only on the Lord.' -Charles H. Spurgeon


I just thought it was really beautiful, and rather relevant for this time of year; when things are busy and focus is on so much that God can get pushed out of the picture. 


I realise that I haven't said anything about New Word Alive since returning, and this is a fail 
indeed. 


New Word Alive was really helpful for me. I found it both encouraging and challenging.


I am going to share a couple of things from that week... 


1. God is all. 
One thing that has stuck with me the most is that God doesn't need us, that we aren't important. Now, don't get me wrong, He wants us and to Him we are incredibly important and precious. But for His plan to work, we aren't the responsible ones. 
We have our roles, but we aren't needed: 

It isn't our faith... it's God's faithfulness.

2. To love God, we must understand His love for us.
In life people may let us down. Friends, family and loved ones can make us feel unloved. But we still love them. This love for them, however, can be from our own will (even if only for a short while). We can choose to love them anyway.
With God, a being that we can't always see and feel, it can be really hard to love Him. I know that sounds terrible, but it's true... at least for me. But I know that the only way I can love Him is through His love for me.  
Just think about that for a moment... 

The only way I can love Him, is through His love for me...

While that can sound like a 'cop-out', handing all responsibility over to God, it is amazing in itself! and guess what... God already has that responsibility, not in a burdensome way, but because He is Love! 

When we find it hard to love God, just think about His love for us... remind yourself of the Gospel and all its greatness!

It is so freeing to realise that everything is on God!

This doesn't mean that we are to be lazy... God's love should spur us into action and love for others. 

Tapping into the source of Love can only lead to a constant flow of love!

It is so beautiful to think of God and His love for us! :) 

And what a beautiful thing to reflect on in the first steps of my year as 20! :) 

The Joy that overflows with His Love!   

Ladybirds and Daisy's :)

 I was meant to be studying... I got a little distracted for a while...

Spring is here :)

 

A beautiful friend of mine asked me to place more pictures on here, so I thought that as spring has arrived I would do so.

It's been beautiful in Aberystwyth recently, a definite change of season. And the beauty of it can be seen everywhere and it shines off everyone!

Everyone is so happy :) I love that when spring arrives, it seems to bring a spring in people's steps. People have been flocking to the beach and everyone is so happy :)

 

And nothing can take away from how beautiful the sunsets are...

 

How God has blessed me so!

    Just a little thought to leave you with:

'For God is not a God of confusion but of peace'

(1 Corinthians 14 vs 33)

8 weeks and counting...

If the exam timetable doesn't change, in 8 weeks time I will have finished my second year!

I can't believe how fast this year has gone and I know that next will go by just as fast if not faster!

Soon I will no longer be a student (and will hopefully have a degree).

I don't want to enter the real world yet... I may do a Masters! That'll give me an extra year to avoid the world.

One benefit of finishing in 8 weeks is that I get a 4 and a half month summer! Woohoo! I'll be spending most of May/early June on the beach and enjoying myself...

Until I get kicked out of my house...

Then what to do...

So I've been trying to find a placement of some sorts since November, however I still have had no success. I'm currently waiting to hear back from Care about an Internship, which I would love. Though I'm not getting my hopes up. I'm also waiting for the application to open for a Stop the Traffik Internship, which I would also love.

I really want to make good use of this summer. To go into anything related to International Politics can be really though, and so many people have a substantial amount of experience - something I lack - so this summer will have to be put to good use!

Marseilles in Pictures

So, as I'm procrastinating, I thought I'd put up some photos from Marseilles.

Let me know what you think :)

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.

Enchantè

Well today we awoke at 10, got ready for the day, had chocolate brioche for breakfast, then went to get a boat!

After walking around a very varied fish market we booked ourselves a boat trip to the island of Frioul and waited for it by enjoying a crèpe in a near-by French cafè. The boat trip out was fun, it was nice to see Marseille from the sea! Laura felt a bit sea sick, but apart from that all was well :)

On arriving on the island we realised it was not what we expected, but that wasn't an issue. We explored the island. It was full of old forts and was silent! It was very strange but interesting all the same. We sat and had lunch with our legs hanging off a cliffy bit in a cove. Some scuba divers came along in their boat, I decided they were pirates and narrated all their movements. As we were leaving we realised they were actually fishing for octopus/squid and were attaching them to a sort of belt around their waists. It was fascinating to watch. We then continued to explore the rocky island and chat about fears and God's strength and deep things like that. The views from the island were very pretty, and the sea was so clear! It really was beautiful!

Afterwards we went to a cafe and had sorbet and a drink while waiting for the boat back to Marseille.

The boat trip back was a little more 'interesting'. We learned that the island was attacked by the Dutch, the English, the Spanish and the Americans. We also, however, learnt a group of French men's capacity of English. It was at that moment that we wish we had guys on holiday with us. So when we arrived back to Marseille we rushed off the boat, ensuring they weren't following us, and went to the tourist information to find out what time restaurants typically open for dinner.

After exploring Marseille for a little longer we went back to our hotel to relax and get ready for the evening, we had intended to do some work but time just flew by!!

So, showered and dressed, we went back out for our evening meal. We walked around for a while looking at French menus, attempting to understand them, then chose a restaurant that was red with a pink sign (Laura strongly dislikes the combination of red and pink). The waiter was very nice and translated for us, though we felt increasingly bad, and the food was delicious! I attempted some French, and did well if I say so myself, while Laura, who is much better at French than me, shied away and spoke English! For pudding Laura had a lemon sorbet with vodka and we could tell that this was the case by the time we left.

On our way back we found a 'site'; palais du justice. It was very pretty and had some beautiful fountains but as I contemplated dipping my fingers in the water I saw a very large rat run past. It was time to move on.

On being back we have got into our pajamas, played some games and edited the videos from today and, now, written this blog.

It is time for some reading then bed.

Today has been really good fun and we're both tired from it. It is weird to think that we're going back to England tomorrow, it feels like we've only just got here. I think we're definitely going to go away together again!

So, bonnuit! Au revoir!