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It's Christmas time...

The title would suggest i am either going to spring into 'do they know it's Christmas' or i am at least just stating the time of year it is right now...

Either way Christmas is but 9 ish days away and my fake Christmas is just two days away, but this doesn't stop me thinking of other things...

At work we have a nativity on Sunday morning, which is always good to see the littles doing something cute- and we have a good habit of making sure we dont just repeat the year before of 'traditional' nativity scene setting which is great for all those involved and watching.

I am leading and doing the talky bit of the service and i guess this a kind of sneak preview of at least what i am thinking about saying.

But really i want to talk and am thinking about avoidance.

Christmas is a massive time of busyness, the time of year when you have to be with people when you want to be alone and when loneliness is at its most depressing...

 

The shopping

The food

The memories

The TV

The traditions

 

Christmas is action packed... but i wonder if we thing or reflect what is is all about, yes hopefully most people know at least it is in memory of the birth of Jesus... does this mean anything more?

For Christians and myself included it is a celebrated time to mark God's love, choosing to come into a world, to live in perfection to then lead to the events of Easter.

Americans have thanks giving day... and i cant help think that Christmas needs to learn from this. Christmas is a time to take stock and listen to what it means to be in relationship with God who created a whole plot line working out the best possible way to make it possible for that relationship to be rebuilt. And then from that listening to take action, to be truly thankful.

I am not sure what this looks like, and i know i like to personally wallow in my self pity, or selfness at times, but i guess i am asking what does it mean to be truly thankful and how do you show it?

In my head i remind myself of Grace, the undeserving gift, where there is nothing we can do to make up for the love given to us but to accept it... this is hard when you want control, when you want to feel you have earn it.

When we feel we have done enough to make ourselves worth loving, when really we are loved more than we know or than we are worth in human terms...

I am not sure quite where i am going now...

So i will stop...

Happy Christmas to all who read this and may 2009  be a year to remember for all its reasons

x

Listening to- Human by the Killers (and myself wishing i had ross noble tickets for may 14th :P )

Praying for- guidance with friends

'just'...

This is only going to be a short one...

But i an getting more and more annoyed at the limitations i place in my prayers... by a short and simple word...

just

x

LISTENING TO: Arguments by RID 

PRAYING FOR: the young people i am working with

Addition...

I have thought further about the friend zone thing...

The friend zone is normally something for guys. Whenever i have seen it in a film or TV or in the net it is normally a status given to men from women who just don't see them as 'anything more' than friends.

So then how does a guy become just a friend and thing more? For what a girl expects, wants, desires or chooses to seek in a guy is probably based of what they have fed their heart from the world around them. As children we are all probably given countless images of the fairytale.

So then how does a guy, the normal everyday, climb up to the disney image?

Is this wrong? For women to seek their own prince? Or for guys to settle with who they are and just ask to be accepted?

Im not sure what point i am trying to make, but i think the friend zone is probably there as the puzzle pieces just dont fit for whatever reason... and i guess what happens next depends on how much you want to fight your corner: disney VS want ?

When did i get so cynical?

I have been thinking a lot about love lately... 

Well don't we all? I think love is the centre of our lives, everything is or needs to be connected to love...

The Christian faith is all about love, the bible speaks of God being love. The act of love from Jesus in his sacrifice for our recreated relationship with God. So many times the Christian faith has been misunderstood or misused to create and things that aren't of God, aren't of love. for this i pray we can continue to learn from these mistakes with God's help. 

Now i have spoken to some length about being single on here, for that i do not make an apology. Singleness is or should be just as valued a status as being married. And i continually strive to be happy with my single-ness, this is were i am at and i should be able to be happy with the situation and opportunities that are being created all around me all the time.

But i have wondered if my singleness is a long(er) term thing. The bible talks of our desires being made and fulfilled by God, and i one day desire to do the whole settle down and marriage thing... so i wait for God to sort that out.

So like most single people who wonder if 'love' or 'the one' is out there i have the radar of love on and guys become a top trump card of categories to see at what status do they have in my life. Friends or more?!

I understand this probably makes me sound like a complete fool and desperate, but i don't think i am. i think this male scanning process is something natural- we all want to be loved and part of that is finding someone to share that love with.

Lately my friends have been asking me the classic question of 'would i go out with someone who was not a Christian'. this isnt the place for me to start giving the rights and wrongs of Christian dating- indeed its a mine field of blurry vision in gray matter.

Im not going to go into that today... but i have questioned the friends to more situation. The idea that friends can become more than just friends to me does not fit with my dream of the knight in shining armor... but then does that really matter?

One friend is a romantic at heart, and i love her for it... but i do struggle with her ideal of from friendship more can happen. I ask myself where does the passion come from, where does the realisation that there is love more than just friends there? I understand the concept- but dont understand the process, how can a puddle grow into an ocean?!

Another friend of mine was stating its over for her and a guy as it has been too long as friends for it to really be anything more.

Is there a danger of 'the friends zone'? Or do you really marry your best friend?

Maybe i am clouded by 'desire' to be whisked off my feet by my prince?

Now i make these statements carefully, i am not saying to any guy who is already in my life that nothing could/would happen... but i do think i while my dreams of 'mr right' are created as they are it would be difficult to buck the trend of my heart- only God can change that one maybe?

I don't have the answers and in someways i won't, but then there is fun is working it out. and i do believe god will place someone in my life who is completely right for me... and till then i will wait (and try to be happy about it! lol)

x

LISTENING TO- The Tears by RID

PRAYING FOR- my mum and dad