Cry Out

One of my favourite things in the bible is where it says in Luke 19:40:

"I tell you," he replied, "if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out."

I love it because it displays God's power and how majestic and worthy he is of our praise.

When we don't praise God or we forget or we choose not to do so, all of creation and nature bows down before him and worships him instead.

When Jesus was talking to Peter in the New Testament about Peter not paying his taxes, Jesus told Peter to get his (and Jesus) tax from the mouth of the very first fish he caught.

Jesus only uses us when we're willing and obedient. The fish with the coin probably had no idea that it would bring praise to Jesus in the form of a coin but when Peter was getting bitter about paying taxes, it gave Peter the money for his tax nonetheless.

Nature and creation are so hung up about praising God and recognise his majesty and worth so much that they do what God asks of them at the drop of a hat, they don't think about it or how it benefits them, they just do it.

When we don't obey God or we don't listen for his voice, we miss out on the bigger plan he has for us. God is not gonna sit around and just twiddle his thumbs waiting for us to come to our senses but rather he's going to use what is available to him, he will use an obedient person before he uses someone whose 'mind isn't quite made up'.

Don't miss an opportunity to praise God because if we don't praise him, nature will! I don't know about you but I'd rather get first dibs at praising God over nature! I don't want God to have to use someone else because i haven't been willing to do what he wants me to do.

There's a song (i'm all into lyrics right now - thanks alot Neysha!) that describes this so well. Get your hands on it if you can! It's called 'My Offering' by Nichole Nordeman (I'm SO into her!). She is like, the queen of lyrics, she writes soooooo well and uses the BEST word imagery!!!!

MY OFFERING
If You made me like the grass that is green
Growing tall and covering the hills above me
Maybe I would pray for sunshine and a little rain
To fall now and then to make me lovely
I could be a place where sheep could graze
Or barefoot feet could play
And I would grow and grow and hope You'd bend down low
To hear me sing my offering

Open up the heavens, open up the sky
All of Your creation wants to testify
I have a song, so let the earth sing along'
Cause I just want to praise You

If You made me to be a cloud in the sky
Found the perfect place way up high where I could hover
Maybe I would pray for skies that were blue
Or a sunset or two to show Your colors
Or maybe I might be
A mountain strong and steep
But I would try and stand as tall as I can
And I would sing my offering

And the sun every morning cannot wait to shine
And the stars every evening are all standing by to light the sky
Give the rocks and the stones voices of their own
If we forget to sing praises to our King

Tink xoxo

The Home of a Heart

Over this next week i am housesitting for a couple i've only just met. Their house is just smashing!!! i can't believe they asked me but i'm awfully grateful, they are the greatest of people!!!

Then, two weeks after that, I'll be housesitting for a couple who live in London who used to go to my church. They have a nice house too.

So hey, guess what...i've been thinking about packing up all my stuff and selling everything i own ('cept a suitcase of essentials like clothes etc) and housesitting instead of living back at home. The rent/board is free and i can save money and then do it all over the planet!!!! How exciting!!!!

A big part of my lifes dream is to live in America - live 'the American Dream'.

Today the phrase 'Home is Where the Heart is' has been pervading my thoughts - who the heck knows why?! - and i stopped and had a think about it.

HOW TRUE!!!!!!

It doesn't matter where your physical home is, your real true home is anywhere that your heart longs to be. So i thought more about it and my heart would be totally into housesitting and even though i wouldn't have one set place that i lived (the thought of being sort of like a vagabond thrills me!) my home is where i'm most happiest, which kind of makes sense when i think about how much my heart just longs to be in heaven because THAT'S where my heart considers 'home'.

So anyway, there've been a few songs i've had on repeat lately and one of them is 'Homesick' by Mercy Me.

The song talks about a loved one that passed away but i love listening to it when i'm feeling lonely or 'homesick' for Jesus because the concept of being 'homesick' on earth is EXACTLY how i feel somtimes.

Home is where my heart is and my heart longs to be with Jesus somewhere up in those magnificent clouds!

I've copied and pasted the words that stood out the most to me (the whole song is here)but if you get a chance to get your hands on it, make sure you have a listen to the whole song!

"...Help me Lord cause I don't understand your ways
The reason why I wonder if I'll ever know
But, even if you showed me, the hurt would be the same
Cause I'm still here so far away from home

I close my eyes and I see your face
If home's where my heart is then I'm out of place
Lord, won't you give me strength to make it through somehow
I've never been more homesick than now..."

Tink xoxo

Death and Dying

PREAMBLE
I want to start by saying that this blog may be a bit disturbing to some but i also want to assure anyone who reads this that there is no cause for alarm. I am not suicidal nor am i emo(tional). The subject of this blog, as i hope it will become quite clear and obvious, is just something that i seem to be transfixed by and something that has been plaguing my thoughts so much of late, i need to type it up, basically just get it out of my brain if possible.

I just can't stress enough how important it is not to see me as depressed or suicidal or whatever, coz i am far from that. It's just that my brain thinks in incomprehendable tangents, and normal people don't think about some stuff i do, what can i say, i'm just not normal....*sighs*....

So...

I think my obsession with death started after i'd been to my Granddad's funeral, until then, i'd never really thought about death much at all, never had to, never needed to!

I noticed it most when i was about 16. I'd walk home from school everyday and walk past the cemetary and always gaze in if i might see a ghost or a grave digger or something out of the ordinary i guess, something i don't see everyday.

I never saw any of that but it still made me curious. Come to think of it, i remember as kids in primary school we'd take a packed lunch, some iced water and our bikes with Dad to the cemetary. Now, my dad's not a morbid man but i guess we enjoyed the adventure of trekking there and he enjoyed the history of all the headstones, even i liked to see what year people had died and what time period they lived in. I was always lost for words even as a kid to see the graves of children, they just weren't very long and looked unusual in a grave yard where most graves were roughly the same length.

When i was in year 12, i studied photography, a truly great subject. I'd decided to photograph something from the cemetary which i walked past everyday. When one of my friends who i'd occasionally walk home with discovered that's where i was doing my project, i think he was a little bit weirded out with my death obsession. He said he noticed how i'd always look into the graveyard. At the time, i really didn't have an explanation for it other than it made me curious.

Then there was the time when my curiosity got the better of me and i undertook a mortuary science course at TAFE (college, not uni), bout all the things that got the rusted cogs turning. 'Death and Dying', the title of this blog, being a module that we covered in the bereavement and counselling semester. 'Maybe' i thought, 'maybe my curiosity and obsession with death is part of my career! Maybe i'm supposed to eat, sleep and breath death?!' But that didn't last long, thank goodness....after the course i realised i could never work in a morgue, just the thought/sight of one sent chills down my spine. It's not the death in itself or even the cadavers, but my nerves. I think i'd have a heart attack. I know you'd get used to it etc but late shifts and reflexes/natural gases etc.....no thanks.

I guess in the last ten years i've done extensive thinking about death and how it all ties in with what i believe as well and that could be part of my obsession with it. I mean the life that God offers me at the other end is so unbelievably mind-blowing compared anything on earth, not to mention that i'll be spending it with my creator, God, face to face - oh wow, words do not even BEGIN to paint a picture of my excitement and ecstacy.

When i start thinking like that, i get so bored of earth and restless and just wish it was over already. I know there's alot to be done but my attention span is short - there's a carrot hanging over the head of the freakin' homar for crying out loud?!

When i was on the train the other day death suddenly hit me! (i'm not a figment of your imagination, i didn't die!) This will sound stupid but i realised, there's only so many years of our life and then we die. Then we get acquainted with the unknown - so much mystery, so much anticipation. What will it be like, am i really going to heaven where my hearts desire is or will God send me to hell - eternity, what the heck is that going to be like...am i wishing my life away here for something i don't really want? After it hit me i realised how short our life really is, pretty soon we're going to enter into the next stage of life - eternity. Something dreadful washed over me, what if i'm happy being on earth? What if i'm happy just plodding along and being.....ordinary? What if i don't want anything about that to change at all??? What if i don't want to die and experience the next stage, what if i'm happy right here, right now? Heck, i sure as hell don't want to grow old - i'll be that much closer to the grim reaper and i've seen what he does with my sims!!!!

Lately i've been thinking about all the stuff i'm leaving behind. Will people laugh? Will they cry? Will they shrug their shoulders and say, 'didn't know her', what exactly will people's reactions be? And then i thought (as i do often) about my funeral what it would be like, would there be traitors there and what would the songs i would choose be and who would play what role etc. I suppose it's a habit i picked up from Mortuary. We all should be planning our funeral, we should be investing in coffins so that the heartache for our loved ones isn't a financial one.

I don't know, it got to a point on the train where i felt sad and got a headache from thinking too much about it - it consumed the whole trip home for goodness sake, so i closed my eyes and just sat in acknowledgment of God's presence.

I have no idea what the purpose of this blog truly was other than to just verbalise the thought of death that always, in a way, haunts me. Like i already said, it's unknown and i think that's what intrigues me the most about - no-one knows about it until they're dead.

The mystery of it and the unanswered questions create this overwhelming sense of anticipation and curiosity within me and i am forever searching for what happens next when i already know the answer!

Tink xoxo

The Boxed Up Bible

I'm finding it really difficult to get away from blogging about Schoolies and while this blog isn't about Schoolies it indirectly relates to an issue I seemed to come up against alot.

Lately I've been having great trouble with sharing the gospel. Not trouble about actually doing it, but trouble with presenting it without getting slammed for it.

At Schoolies we seem to come up against a catch 22 sort of situation. Now i haven't read the book but from what i know it's when you're in between a rock and a hard place. Our aim at schoolies is to share the good news about Jesus with them but at the same time, when i'm in a room with some schoolies, i almost feel as though we're not in there to share the good news about Jesus. It's CONFUSING!!!

We're allowed to share our faith and beliefs with them BUT only if they ask the questions and we don't volunteer the information in the first place.

Sometimes i just get so frustrated with how silenced we are about what we believe. I also get frustrated that Christians get slaughtered about their faith and are made to be quiet while other faiths are being encouraged to speak up about theirs - why can't we all just have equal right in expressing what we believe?

One example comes to mind when i was in TAFE (college, not uni). We were specifically told that no-one was to bag someone out for their beliefs which was all good and well until people started slagging off Christianity, which i might add was the ONLY religion anyone had coarse words to say about it. People were defending other religions left, right and centre but when i tried to defend my own religion, i got a verbal beating for it!

I know Christianity is NOT an easy religion to follow, in fact, it's probably the hardest one there is because we're actually fighting beings in a LIVING realm not a non-existant or dead realm. I'm just so sick and tired of this new age where i'm being forced to shut up about my faith.

I won't do it.

I've been doing some reading and researching and planning etc for the junior bible study i help run which'll be kicking off again in February for another mighty year. In one of the resources i read it had a paragraph kind of related to this sort of thing. The title of the paragraph is what caught my attention:

"The Gospel Will Cause Offence
The gospel must be either accepted or
rejected; there is no neutral ground. Young people who reject the gospel will probably leave simply because the gospel is being declared. We should not encourage such people to stay in the group but we should not be surprised if they leave.

Care should be taken when modifying the program to suit such people. We should examine ourselves when people leave and look for faults in ourselves and in our programs. But if we water down
our programs to hold people who have already decided to reject Christ, they will probably leave anyhow and we will have done little to build the lives of the others in the group. The goal of holding usually leads us to back off from the radical demands of the gospel.

Jesus did not try to hold people. There were many, like the rich young ruler, who found out about Jesus and went away. Jesus simply let them go. Evangelism polarises people. If we declare Christ, people will leave because of Christ. This does not mean that we should not organise events to attract young people. There is
still all the difference in the world to contacting and holding."

Incite by Ross Farley & Steven Forward

Tear Australia & Scripture Union

So long as we declare God's message and the truth of the gospel, God will do the rest. God is a faithful,loving and just God and all he asks us to do, is be
willing!

So long as our earthly laws line up with our eternally laws, i have no doubt in my mind that God will not let a single thing go wrong. It may appear wrong to us and our mere mortal thinking but if both things here on earth and in heaven (on earth as
it is in heaven is what Jesus taught us in the Lord's prayer) are aligned the path is made clear for God to do his most fullest work. Jesus himself obeyed and respected his authorities and in the end was killed by them but ultimately God's plan for mankind was achieved. Had it have happened any other way, we'd still be
sacrificing animals for our sins!

I don't know where this has gotten to, but simply put, just declare the word of God. Don't hinder it, don't fake it, don't exaggerate it - just tell it like it is, keep it real!

Tink
xoxo

Taking A Stand

On Sunday night I watched a movie called 'Veronica Guerrin'. It's a true story about an Irish journalist who decides to fight, through her newspaper articles, a drug epidemic that was happening in Ireland where children where being led into drug use. In a an attempt to do her own investigations for her articles, she tries to put the ringleader of it behind bars. Unfortunately she gets caught up in it all and after being shot in the leg and beat to a pulp and emotionally threatened, the drug ring puts an end to her life and she dies.

It's a movie that looked dodgey and one that i had no particular interest in watching (i'm not into English/Irish/Scotish/Welsh Television/film) but due to the lack of entertainment and my boredom i sat down and watched it. I'm glad i did. It was a sad story but one of determination and passion, a burning passion. This lady, Veronica Guerrin felt so strongly about the drug situation in Ireland that she was willing to lay down her life for it. Throughout the movie, and particularly once her family had been threatened, they urged her to stop getting involved but she refused to let them get away with it or 'win' as she referred to it. She fought them to the end to see justice come about.

Some interesting facts:
Within ONE year after her death, the crime rate had dropped by 15%

BUT

Within 6 years 150 something journalists had died pursuing the same justice Veronica Guerrin had fought for!

Part of me felt so sad for this woman and the aftermath she had left with her family. But another part of me was so inspired by her story! Why aren't there more people like Veronica Guerrin? Have we become such a lazy, selfish and greedy society that the only people we care about are ourselves? I think that's EXACTLY what's happened to our society and our world! People care more about politics and what's in it for them so much that if they're not scared off by what might happen to them, they're PUT OFF by how little might be in it for them.

What's wrong with us? THAT'S what made me sad! We've lost the loyalty for eachother! We don't care enough about eachother, giving of ourselves would cost us too much. But when WE, ourselves get into trouble we expect other people to bail us out! Yea that works?!

After all these thoughts flooded my mind, i heard God speak very clearly to me. I felt him press against my heart in a way that made me want to gasp for air even though the oxygen was quite steadily passing in and out of my lungs.

"What are you fighting for?"

I've signed up for a Social Justice Conference that's happening in March which the Salvo's are holding. It's a Conference i've known about for ages now just not one I had any desire to go to, not even one i'd been praying about. But when i felt God say that to me, some things started sinking in. I'd been asked to help out with it but without even praying, i'd said 'ok!'. Maybe God had decided it was something i should go to even before i agreed to it. Who knows?! All i knew was that i had to go! God placed that desire in my heart to go whereas before, i had NO desire.

Here's a plug:


"I'LL FIGHT" SOCIAL JUSTICE CONFERENCE

Territorial Conference sponsored by The Greater West Division

30-31 March 2007 at Sydney Congress Hall140 Elizabeth Street, Sydney.

Cost: $40 per person

website: www.illfight.com.au

Register on line or ring 96357400 for more information and posters/flyers

Registrations open now

There are a lot of things in my life at the moment, particularly in the last 6 months or so that make me question the authenticity of God's voice. I find it difficult to say that God told me this or God told me that because if it wasn't God speaking to me and it was just some 'gut feeling' then I degrade God by saying it was him when it wasn't.

Even though the desire to fight social injustices was so strong, i still questioned whether it was God. Yesterday i promoted the Conference fairly strongly and, although it shouldn't have, some things people said to me about it took me by surprise and a little offguard. But i guess it all fits. When you follow God's leading and you be obedient to his voice and what he asks you to do, the enemy isn't gonna sit by and go, 'oh isn't that nice?!' he will do all sorts of things to bring you down and make sure that you're not running after God.

When i realised that and i remembered how strong i felt that it was God's voice, i really started to believe that this was something i didn't make up, not a gut feeling but something more and so dressing myself in God's armour, i'm putting it into God's hands and praying for the strength to fight for stuff that's not right.

Stand for something or you'll fall for anything!

Tink xoxo

Cops Aren't THAT Tops

This is just a quick random blog about policemen.

I DON'T LIKE THEM.

This blog SHOULD end here but it's not going to.

I was reminded today from looking at someone's photos that cops have a smidgeon of 'niceness' on their bones.

Following on from my Schoolies blogs, at my first ever Schoolies we came across some police people and tried to befriend them. We were actually asking for directions and to our shock and horror, they were really nasty to us. They basically snobbed us off, ignored us and told us to leave them alone and that is not short of a lie!!!

When i looked through these pictures today i came to a conclusion about policemen.

Queensland police are horrible, they care for no other person than themselves. NSW policemen are warmer and more friendly. This by no account means that i like policemen, because i don't. They are ruthless people who have no feelings and even if they ARE doing their job, some days the odd law infringement seems a lot worse than terrorism. It makes me annoyed!

But, let's end on a good note. I like NSW cops more than QLD cops because at least they don't mind a friendly chat and if you ask for directions they don't bite your head off.

That's the end.

Tink xoxo