those moments....

Compared to recent months, I've had a lot of 'those moments' over the last couple of weeks. Moments of pure joy; moments when I feel excitement for the future and a real desire to open a new chapter; moments when I know God is using me and blessing me...and in those moments, food and weight just don't matter any more... It's such a brilliant realization when I've just had one - like a second of surprise...'wow, I feel free'. There have been hard moments too - panics, fears, tears and anxiety, but 'those moments' give me motivation to keep pushing towards full recovery, and remind me why I'm doing this when I have those days when I just want to throw in the proverbial towel and go back to the ED.

 Because, in 'those moments', eating disordered thoughts and behaviours take a back seat to the beauty of life, and the excitement for the future, and the enormity of who my God is...

Last Saturday night (12th May), I was unexpectedly off work, and Maddy, Matty and I (in the midst of varnishing her floor for her new room) decided to go on a spontaneous bike ride. We grabbed a rucksack, batteries for the ipod speakers and three bottles of pear cider and set out on our goal of chasing the sunset to the canal....

it was one of those moments.I was so, so happy. With two of my favourite people, knowing that we were going to London to learn and grow and just enjoying the Spring evening, music and beauty around us...

Sadly, the sunset beat us there, but luckily we didn't mind. It was such a fun night.

and while I was worried about the calories in the cider, I felt freer than I have for a long time, and like there was actually space in my mind to take in the joy and the freedom that I am entitled to. It was amazing.

Then on Monday, we as team IMPACT! (me, John, Maddy and Matty) headed down to London at 3am for the HTB Leadership Conference. Maddy and I initially weren't going to go because it was so expensive, until a last minute ridiculously cheap deal came along...and I somehow managed to wangle it off work. Definitely a God thing.

I was so challenged by the conference - it was a bit of a teaching overload at times, but so so inspiring and the worship and fellowship was incredible. I learned lots and lots, but the main thing I felt that God was saying to me was that I need to aim less for perfection, but more for authenticity. This is relevant in every area of my life, but particularly in my youth work - I feel like I need to more vulnerable in terms of the youth which is scary, but important. In my supervision the other day I spoke to John about it (and we had our first conversation relating to my eating disorder, which has kind of been the 'elephant in the room' in previous supervisions!) and I'm going to try to slowly find more of a balance...I know I need to be more honest about my struggles in my leadership - in order to be an authentic example, it's SO important to break the culture of the 'stained glass masquerade'...it's so scary, but I know God's got it covered and I'm looking to Him for guidance with how to go about this...

^ we've been blessed by amazing times with our youth and children the past couple of weeks...the things I've been learning have made me re-realize how huge the investment we need to be making in the younger ones - they're going to keep going, and we need to equip the next generations...a huge responsibility, but one we don't have to handle on our own. Oh, God is ridiculously good.

I'm going to go and finish my lunch now because, whether I'm hungry or not, and however little I want to eat it today, it's the way to create more of 'those moments' for myself in the next days and weeks... I'll leave with a quote that meant a lot to me at the conference

"Humility isn't about denying our strengths - it's recognizing and being honest about our weaknesses..."

Faithful?

I've been avoiding blogging because, although I've been having some amazing times over the summer so far (MCYC camp, New Wine, WASC, general spending time with friends etc...), things have been really hard.

(some pictures from Seniors 1 2011)




Although I'm actually doing really well with food at the moment, and had an amazing healing experience at camp which meant I'm no longer numb and can feel my emotions again, lots of things are crumbling at the moment. I don't want to post a 'depressing blog post', and I'm generally a very positive person...but I think it's important to recognise that sometimes it's okay (necessary in fact) to be realistic about difficult situations...

(me in my Gems uniform at New Wine)

Without going into too much detail on a public blog, my Grandma is now in the hospice and likely to only have days left; other family members (including my mum, who was in hospital after reacting badly to her chemo) are seriously ill; I feel like I have no idea where my life is going; my heart pretty much got broken at camp by a really close guy friend who screwed me over for a girl he barely knows etc etc....
It really just seems like my whole life's crumbling apart...I know that's being overdramatic but it feels that way at the moment and it's only healthy to acknowledge that...

The most important thing at the moment is that I deal with all of this by clinging to God - the solid, loving, unfailing foundation that He is - and no other unhealthy coping mechanisms...this was what I kept remembering last night on a 'getting over Matt' night out - alcohol is not going to make me feel better! Which is why I'm glad Maddy and I were home by 1:30am and eating hash browns in her front room...



The song getting me through at the minute is 'Faithful' by Chris Tomlin...the bridge is pretty amazing <3

You are there in every season of my soul
You are there, You're the anchor that will hold
You are there, in the valley of the shadows
You are faithful, God

'To do' lists

According to my schedule, I should currently be: writing up my church notes; revising all my subjects; wrapping presents; working on my extended project dissertation; tidying my room and probably several hundred other things I've been neglecting lately...



I broke up from college on Friday, which turned out to be a really hard day: I got my first university rejection. East Anglia told me I wasn't good enough to get to their interview stage, basically.



I was understandably upset - I think the concept of not being good enough was what hurt me most, but after my parents took the news well I began to feel better about it, and now I've accepted that I probably didn't want to do PBL (problem based learning) anyway (and I'm not just saying that!), and God's way is always better than mine - being rejected doesn't mean that I'm a failure, or any of the things it's sometimes tempting to think - it means God has other plans <3

Manchester Christmas markets with Active Church, followed by Wagamama's noodle bar and a film at Maddy's on Monday and the WASC Christmas Party yesterday have made this holiday a beautiful one so far :)



But why am I blogging when I made a strict schedule of revision and breaks? Sometimes, I need to learn that I can't plan out everything and stop being such a control freak. I need to let it be, and 'go with the flow'. I need to start trusting in God more.

John 10:10 says "I came that they may have life, and life in all its fullness". This quote sums that up for me. This is my challenge!
"I want a life that sizzles and pops and makes me laugh out loud. I want to eat cold tangerines and sing out loud in the car with the windows open and wear pink shoes and stay up all night laughing and paint my walls the exact color of the sky right now. I want to sleep hard on clean white sheets and throw parties and eat ripe tomatoes and read books so good they make me jump up and down, and I want my everyday to make God belly laugh, glad that he gave life to someone who loves the gift." - Shauna Neiquist. <3

2011 is going to be a hard year in lots of ways, but a beautiful one too - I'm sure of that :)

Ebb and flow...

Wow, I can hardly believe it's already almost mid-December! The last couple of months have flown by at quite a scary rate!
Yesterday, the government passed the proposal to get rid of the cap on tuition fees, meaning that my gap year will cause my fees to double (or more!) and, to be honest, I feel betrayed by the decision after Nick Clegg promised to keep the fees 'low', but what can you do?! Still no university interviews, and at this point I doubt I'll get any before Christmas but I can deal with that. I know it doesn't mean it's all over so I'm working to stay positive... To be honest, it takes a lot of emotional strength when it feels like literally everyone else has offers, and medicine applicants almost all have interviews but it just takes patience, and I know that His grace is sufficient for my weaknesses and impatience.


Today was my secret santa lunch with my group of friends at college, so we all made packed lunches full of our randomly selected friend's favourite foods, added some cute gifts and decorated them. It was so lovely - lots of laughter and really got us all in the Christmas mood!


This was my beautifully decorated lunchbox from my (very creative!) friend, Jenna:



Tomorrow is the YP2 conference, then my lovely friend Charis is sleeping over before IMPACT! on Sunday - so I've got a very busy weekend ahead, but in a good way :)

I really do love life at the moment, however imperfect things might seem at the time <3

Latest Ramblings!

I haven't posted for a while, I know, and I feel quite guilty about it! I've been really busy with modular AS exams (biology, chemistry and psychology) and am waiting for the results! Biology and psychology went okay, but chemistry was actually horrific! There's nothing I can do now, though, except wait and see, but chemistry is really important for medicine, which I am hoping to do at university, so I'm pretty worried!

To bring this up to date - I had a lovely Christmas, followed by REAL SNOW! In Warrington! :D We all became little children again and buried each other, went sledging etc. I spent some good times with my lovely Hayley in the snow, as well as doing some revision for my modulars (which were the week after). It was just a lovely time of excitement, and freedom from normal daily routine (as the whole of England practically fell apart with the snow :D) Families were building snowmen together, when they'd usually be separated by work and school, and children were pulling along younger siblings on sledges instead of sitting in front of the TV - it was pretty magical, and a taste of what life should really be like!

She's a baaaabe :)


I also recently visited my best friend from where I used to live, Hannah :) It's always exciting when we see each other because it's only 3 or 4 times a year, but for a whole weekend and we get on so, so well - even better than when we were little kids, and do lovely things like shopping, cinema, swimming etc. This time, we went to see Avatar 3D which was amazing, had a big fat McDonalds and spent far too much money on clothes - it was great!
We're also really looking forward to going to Turkey together again (with our families) which we booked pretty much as soon as we got back from Turkey this October :D It's really exciting because a week is the longest we get to spend together now we're 153 miles apart (yes, I google mapped it!)!

This half term, I've been helping out at a children's church holiday club in a nearby village with Mission Academy (a course I'm doing with Warrington Youth For Christ) and it's been amazing! I love working with children, especially the littlest ones, so was thrilled to have the opportunity to work with reception aged children (4-5 year olds) in the mornings, then help with workshops in the afternoons. My beautiful Becky and I planned an awesome game for the kids involving custard and spaghetti hoops mixed together in large quantities, laminated paper memory verses (which we cut up into smaller pieces and put in the mixtures) and a team race for the children to find all the pieces, put the memory verse together and read it out :)



I've also visited my lovely Maddy's caravan for a day - we did a nice walk and marvelled at the changing weather - it was beautiful sun, the kind I've not seen for months and months, then snow in the space of an hour! :D

I'd better go now because I have an english essay to write before I go back to college tomorrow (in the posh new building!) but I promise I'll try to be a bit better with this in future :)

Looking at this post makes me realise how truly blessed I am! I have some amazing friends (many of which aren't in this post), awesome opportunities and a whole life ahead of me - it's so exciting to think of all the things I might do in the future!

I doubt anyone even reads this, but if you do, I hope you're happy and healthy (and please leave a comment :D)
xxxx

Catching Up

After re-reading my last blog and noticing my comments about the chemistry test, I am surprised to say that I got 25/30 on that test, which was an A*! I think I need to have a little more faith in myself hehe!

Anyway, today was pretty normal. I was away at a funeral yesterday and Monday, so all day I kept thinking it was a Monday and going to Monday's lessons which was annoying, and slightly embarrasing when I walked into a year 10 history class 3rd lesson instead of music where I was supposed to be! I got a few funny looks :S

First lesson was english, which I always like because I get to sit next to RB :). However, this particular english lesson we were given loads of homework on top of what we already had (14 paragraph-length questions for tomorrow!). Also, I have extra to do because I missed some analysis of the book yesterday and have to complete my character pages. I should really be doing all this english homework now but it is so cold at my writing desk that I can't bear to move away from the computer and radiator! Maths was next and passed without much amusement, but I liked the volume of prisms stuff we were doing because it's a lovely repetitive formula :).

When I finally got to music (see second paragraph!), we did some past questions on AOS4 (Area of Study 4) and I got full marks on the second question we did (a several-part question). I was well happy coz Sir was pleased with me and gave me a 'Rose' from the tin in his desk :). However, Sir suddenly announced that our composition briefs have to be in by tomorrow and I was panicking because I haven't even thought about it yet. Luckily he said I could do it for next week instead seeing as I needed to record my first composition before I could do anything else....
In biology, I had to do the test I missed yesterday which went ok - I know I dropped a few marks but I don't think I've done too badly (touch wood!). Darn! - we got some biology homework for tomorrow too so I'd better do that in a minute! :S

Last lesson was chemistry and CR and I had some fun laughing at quotes, both Sir's and our own. We were doing displacement reactions which aren't too hard so it was a good lesson, really. I'm off to do homework now, but will leave you with a few quotes:

*Sir: In the name of all that is holy....do NOT mix up the pipettes and solution bottles!

*Lalu: "Is that oxidised because it won or because it lost?" - bless her! :))

*CR: "You know, I''m not sure I really know how to do ionic equations"
*Me: "Arghhhh! My shoee!"


Life is good :). Thing's obviously aren't perfect (or anywhere near!) but, right now, I'm pretty content with my life :)

My Life

I have decided to start a blog to remember myself as I get older - so I never look back as an adult and say "I thought I knew everything when I was 15, but I was just a stupid kid".

I don't know everything, but I'm not stupid. I'm a little naive, but I know I am, and part of naivity is not realizing it

Some points about me:

• I am a Christian


• I am 15 years old


• I was born on the 25th June 1993


• I am left-handed

I love to sing and I like every food I've ever tried. I love Irish accents and my heaven is looking after babies and young children (not in a weird way). Harmonising and olives are two of my loves, along with God and my family and friends.

"We worry about what a child will become tomorrow, but we forget that he is already someone today" - Stacia Tauscher