Heck yeah!

How happy every child of grace,
Who knows his sins forgiven!
'This earth,' he cries, 'is not my place,
I seek my place in Heaven -
A country far from mortal sight,
Which yet by faith I see,
The land of rest, the saints' delight,
The heaven prepared for me.'

O what a blessed hope is ours!
While here on earth we stay,
We more than taste the heavenly powers,
And antedate that day.
We feel the resurrection near,
Our life in Christ concealed,
And with His glorious presence here
Our earthen vessels filled.

O would He more of heaven bestow,
And let the vessels break,
And let our ransomed spirits go
To grasp the God we seek;
In rapturous awe on Him to gaze,
Who bought the sight for me;
And shout and wonder at His grace
Through all eternity!


I'll be honest, the word 'heck' could/should be replaced with another four letter word.

Working Unpaid overtime is like having sex with Pandas

Link

Times like this I wish I was in america

Seriously, their TV is so entertaining!







England on the other hand, we have stuff like this:

click!

Go England!

About last night (or 'A few things about me you might not know')

When I start falling asleep I tend to 'hear' music, not songs that I know I might add and not full songs at that. It's almost like when you're in the shower and you can hear music being played somewhere, you know you recognise it, but can't hear it enough to make it out completely.

I sometimes hear snippets of dialogue.

I go cross eyed (this happens mostly when I'm trying to stay awake in a meeting of some sort (I counter this by looking around the room to keep my eyes on their toes...so to speak.)

Anyway, with the whole music and dialogue thing in mind, I started trying to get into the habit of making a record of it somehow. You never know, it might come in handy some day when trying to save the world. (Now that would be cool.) So, on my phone there are random notes and obscure recordings of me (in a semi concious state) trying to recreate what I just heard whilst...in a semi concious state.

Last night, I was reading my book and heard the odd sound of music and took that as a cue to get some sleep. Many thoughts decided to take up space in my head so I decided to put on some real music to chill me out and send me off to sleep.

as the song started I dreamt and I'll try and describe what I saw.
It was like bluely/purple sand flowing diagonally downwards and it had ripples that seemed to be the notes from the opening guitar riff.


The sand looked so smooth in how it flowed it almost looked like liquid. It grew darker and then the ripples seemed to become more wavy until it they were now horizontal waves, these waves then became the outline of a torso, hip and leg. This half outline became a full silhouette of a beautiful woman. I couldn't see what she looked like (being a silhouette and all) but I couldn't take my eyes off her. I began to forget the music and where it had started. Then I said to myself

"When we worship we make something of beauty, we must not get distracted by what we have made, but let us be distracted by what causes us to worship."

I awoke, wrote it down and went back to sleep. It was easier this time, no music necessary.

Photoshop

I was just browsing YouTube and came across some very good photoshop instructional videos by a character called 'Donnie Hoyle'. Donnie "is the worst kind of loser. He’s the equivalent of an angry son borne of Michael Scott and Comic Book Guy using Photoshop as a means of figuratively rectifying the problems he can’t address in real life." Check him out. Oh yeah, contains some naughty language.

Anyway, so after watching a bunch of his videos I came across a video on the use of photoshop in magazines and the effect it has on people's perceptions. It was quite interesting so I thought I would share.




and the follow up is quite good too.



What do you think on the use of photoshop? Is it lying? Should it be made clear like health warnings on cigarettes?

Looking forward

2008 has been interesting for me, full of firsts and new experiences; heres a quick rundown:

I walked out of my job
I got signed off work with stress
I was out of work more than I was in it
I started and finished a list of people I needed to get in contact with and apologise to.
I led worship at church (didn't blog about that)
I over came my fear of heights
I read aloud some of my attempts at poetry to friends
I went to momentum
I fasted and was blown away by the experience
I plastered a wall
I briefly met up with my dad
I became an uncle
I grew closer to my family and extended family
I looked in the mirror and felt fat
I dressed as an Elf
I saw Mel and Joshua
I started training with the Samaritans
I felt very 'up' in my relationship with God
I didn't have a relationship with God
I realised I want to be more consistent. I've felt 2008 was a time in which I have wondered and been beckoned back numerous time. I've been challenged and shaped, broken and buzzing

Oh wait, that reminds me! I got high. No really I did. Took some herbal high Hallucinogens, smoked some weed and then talked rubbish for a good few hours. I have a video that I'll probably upload sometime to show you how REALLY pointless it is. In the shower the next day I was like "ok God, I've got the whole 'what if' thing out of my system, thanks for letting me get though it without anything bad happening" then I went to work and realised I couldn't construct a sentence for toffee (which is unhelpful when working in a call center).

anyway, alot of stuff happened in 2008, I really haven't lived a year like it.
So what of 2009? Where to from here?

Well. I feel, in all of my wonderings, God's patience and then more wonderings, the stuff that has been delt with this year has been in preparation for the next part of life. I don't really know what the future holds, but here's what I want to do.

I want to get fitter, mostly based on the fact getting out of breath just running up to my bedroom is lame, but also my friend pointing out 1 Corinthians ch 6 v 19-20 "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body."

I want get and keep a job I feel I can actually do and feel secure in.

I want to be consistant with this whole faith thing, to have a relationship I can say is about two way communication not wondering, patience and more wondering. I think I've been quite childish about it all really for too long. Time to grow up, take on board what has been learned and move with it.

I would like to pursue this worship leading itch and see where that goes.

In all of this though, God keep me sincer, keep me humble. Actually scrap all that before, God give me eyes to see and ears to hear what you're doing, help me want to go with what you're doing in 2009.

Oh wait, one resolution I do want to do, I want to live out my surname.
It sounds corny, but let my life motto be "Brave in battle, Brave in life".

Oh yes!