Survival

Hello South America! And to all other visitors! Please continue to make yourselves at home!

I survived that week. And then came another one. I had my 31st birthday, a 170/180ish mile drive (and back again 2 days later), a difficult situation, Hebrew homework and another sermon (for Remembrance Sunday!). I survived that one too. Yet, not me (as someone might once have said) but Christ in me.

The blog is a strange creature - on the one hand (to me) it's about journalling, exploring - recording feelings and reactions to events; therefore you record these events, to some degree. On the other hand, it's a public forum - ok so not as many people may read my blog as Nick Robinson's for example, but they could. So I feel discretion is the better part of valour regarding the 'difficult situation' mentioned above.

I really want to write about it, but it's not mine to write about. It has stunned and saddened me, it has made me (as usual) want to try to help fix it, while I recognise that I probably can't, given that I'm not God and not omnicompetent. (Fortunately. One of my lecturers has recently pointed out that much of evangelical prayer consists of apologising for not being God!) I just pray that all parties concerned will indeed survive, that long-term positive(s) will come from the apparently negative, and that I can say and do the right things at the right times (and refrain from the wrong ones) to provide what support I can.

Survival has to do with future as well as past. The second (shorter!) 'half' of term has begun, and with it the majority of the work (at least for a last-minuter like myself. Sensible folk will be well on their way through most of the assignments and exam preparation. I am not.) All I can do is 'Trust in the Lord with all [my] heart, and .. not rely on [my] own understanding [, a]cknowledge him in all [my] ways, and he will make [my] paths straight.' (Proverbs 3: 5-6) Easier said than done.