Impulses

Today has been a day of impulses. It started when I couldn’t sleep last night, so I bought a polaroid camera on e-bay for £2. I always wanted a polaroid. It seemed like a good deal.

Then I changed my blog. I like it here. It’s nice.

Then I went to church this evening (I went this morning too, don’t worry) and randomly said to someone ‘I think I know you from somewhere’ (what a floozy). It turns out that unless I met him at my med school open day six long years ago, it’s unlikely that we’ve met before, but I swear he looked familiar. Anyway, well done to this guy and the guy sitting next to him for being not in the least bit freaked out by a strange girl randomly introducing herself and for being very friendly.

Church today was awesome. Both times. The talks were both on Psalm 42 and 43, and, in a nutshell, were about how God can sometimes feel far away and it’s ok for us to feel like that. Wow, that was a really small nutshell. Anyway, I like to keep things simple.

It got me thinking. I’ve spent a lot of the last few days feeling cross about various things – namely my lack of freedom living in my parents’ house again (although mainly sans parents, so it’s not so bad), missing having my own place, missing my uni friends, missing my social life in general – I’ve been feeling quite sorry for myself. It seems like by choosing to work in the city that I love, I’ve moved away from the life I spent six years building, and now I have to start over, and I admit I was sulking a bit about this. It sounds childish, I am fully aware of that!

It has felt to me for a long time like God’s far away, and because I am so hopeless at remembering to talk to him and spend time with him, I sometimes feel like he’s given up on me. I would give up on me if I were him, I’m pretty rubbish.

But something that was said today struck home – two things in fact. Firstly, when life sucks and God feels far away, the psalmist makes a conscious choice not to give up on it all. Head over heart. I often get the impression that Christians think that faith should come from the heart alone, but sometimes it’s a head thing – hearts make mistakes, they confuse things, they bruise easily, they doubt things. But making a decision to trust God whatever and sticking to it is a head thing, and can bridge the gap between the times when God is close and life is a breeze.

The other thing was slightly less profound – a quote from Adrian Plass which is so simple but so good: “God is nice and he likes me.”

Because he is, and he does. Even when I don’t like me (which is quite often), and even when I feel like lots of people don’t like me, and I lose all my confidence, God likes me, loves me even, and he matters more than anyone.

So I feel good this evening as I’m writing this on my shiny new blog. I feel peaceful. Which is wonderful, given what this week holds. Long may the peace continue!