in the blink of an eye

It’s been a busy day of cleaning the house and getting ready for the return of the parents from holidays! Making sure the washing and ironing is up-to-date, the kitchen is tidy, the bathroom is clean and the dishes are done! In the process of washing the dishes, I was separating two glasses which had gotten stuck one inside the other, I managed to break one of them and cut my right thumb and my left index finger…but alas I live to tell the tale! Thumb has a tigger plaster on it and finger is survivng with no coverage!

Sometimes life seems hard, hard in the sense that I go about doing meaningless tasks ask myself why I really bother doing them?! I mean who really needs to separate 2 glasses when the danger of breaking them was perfectly predictable…yet here we are…a but thumb and index finger later! (Note to self…leave glasses that are stuck together…stuck together! )Ok so I have to say now that I am very thankful to never have had the experience of losing a loved one so I can’t really talk about life being hard in that sense, but I do have my share of struggles with other things when life just seems to be too much! High expectations from other people and sometimes I feel like running away and living my life completely for myself!

Selfish?!

But then we must realise that our struggles on earth won’t last forever! Compared to eternity, life on earth happens in the blink of an eye! And I am to live my life only for God!

I’ve just this minute finished reading God on Mute by Pete Grieg…a really inspiring and thought provoking read about unanswered prayer and throughout the book Pete talks about the struggles on earth but how God reminds him that our struggles and pain are all part of our growth in faith and how yes our bodies may grow old and are dying everyday but how exciting to think that every single day we live on earth God is renewing our spirit! Eugene Petterson puts it like this

“So we’re not giving up. How could we! Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where God is making new life, not a day goes by without his unfolding grace. These hard times are small potatoes compared to the coming good times, the lavish celebration prepared for us. There’s far more here than meets the eye. The things we see now are here today, gone tomorrow. But the things we can’t see now will last forever.” (2 Cor 4:16-18)

I don’t know about you, but this excites the ‘small potatoes’ out of me!! Don’t get me wrong, when life sucks all I want to do at times is curl up in a ball and wait for the crap to pass and ignore God…but let’s face it, God generally doesn’t let me give up!

But, that crap is here today and gone tomorrow! God’s grace is here today AND here tomorrow! and God helps me through the crap.

And he is preparing a place in Heaven for me!

dogs, cats…hens…goats AND a pig!

I don’t know how I end up looking after animals such as the ones in the title of this entry…but this weekend…I am!! ok so dogs and cats…no problem…goats are ok because they just wander about aimlessly in the field eating grass…the pig…EUGH…but just throw some pig feed into sty thingy and its all good…but hens?! I just don’t understand them!! So I have to admit that when I arrived at the house last night very tired after a busy night at Holiday Bible Club, I very quickly skimmed the animal instructions I’d been left and there was no mention of the hens and it was dark so completely forgot about them until this morning! You know when you think you’re still dreaming because you are seeing things?! Like when you open the curtains and look out and the patio is swarming with flippin hens!…then you realise that you were actually woken by a real life rooster!…WELL…that happened to me this morning! I could hear in the background the cock-a-doodle-dooo of a rooster, I thought I was dreaming then I got up, opened the curtains and saw hens dandering around the patio and then i thought CRAAAP…I was meant to put the little door down on the chicken coop…OOOPS!! aww well!! and the funny thing is…I don’t no how many hens there’s supposed to be so I don’t no if any of them have like…run away…do hens runaway?!?! who knows?!

but apart from the animal antics, today has been great! on the go since 6:45am but a totally productive day…drove from ballymena to hillsborough, helped my uncle and his family load up the removal van and several cars with the contents of their house and move 40miles down the road!!great craic, great memories and agreat opportunity to spend time with my extended family and friends!

then…last night of holiday bible club…to be honest, i was so tired it was all a bit of a blur, but the kids enjoyed themselves! Its amazing how God uses his people to plant seeds in the hearts of the kids that came and as Christians we must pray that God helps those seeds to grow in whatever ways he chooses!

a thoroughly enjoyable day! finished off with some one tree hill!!

northern ireland weather…

The day i need the sun to shine because i’m looking after 2 kids and its cold and dull and looks like its gonna rain! typical eh!?

I love sitting thinking about how God blesses me in small ways, like for example, I have no money and precious little petrol in my car and I get a message from my friend, who i was meant to go pick up in an hours time, saying that she can get a lift to my house to help me entertain these 2 children. Call me crazy but I look at that as a gift from God because he knows my financial situation and it’s in those small ways that we need to believe that God cares for our needs and for us in general! and this then makes me forget about my pennyless-ness and just makes me want to praise him for his faithfulness!