In a moment of downheartedness

You want to know the beautiful thing about christian fellowship? It is this.

You're thousands of kilometres away from home, from everything you've known and loved, you are no longer surrounded by christians who will help you in your journey, keep you accountable, pop over for a cuppa and just chat, you are suddenly with people who have so many different beliefs and walks of life and you try the best you can to keep up with daily readings, even when you hit the very dry moments of ' the descendants of ..... were.....,.....,......,....' and so forth, and you try to listen to the sermons from home, but after a while, it becomes harder to keep up, and easier to become lazy with everything regarding your faith. and you start to feel guilty for missing a reading, or discouraged.

And then out of the blue, a friend of your parents, who lives all the way over in Glasgow, who you have met only once (because lets face it, you don't remember the people you met as a baby) sends you DVD'S on 'The amazing features of Grace' signing off with ' You are in my prayers every day' - and suddenly you feel reinvigorated, encouraged to knock through the negative barrier that you built in your head because someone out there has remembered you, and know's when a bit of encouragment is necessary, and you see God working in your life yet again.

So, I think I'll write one of my favourite passages. I used this in my final art project, because during Dad's sickness, it seemed very applicable, and it's truth has not become any less important over the last year.

'Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. You see at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possible dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us'

Romans 5: 1-8

So, to those who think its odd that I would write on this, it is not odd. Perhaps it is normal to have these quite large moments of doubt, but the small acknowledgments of God's awesomeness are incredibly encouraging.

Thats all for now folks.