The diary of a broken man.

Sounds melodramatic, probably is melodramatic.  But it's also how I feel right now.  Over the last week  I've had so much to deal with, I think it has reached the point where I really cannot cope with it any more.  Work was broken into in the small hours on Monday morning.  The window was smashed through and most of the display stock was taken.  So I was called out and on site from about 3:30am.  SO no sleep then.  Also the house purchase has simply gone from disaster to disaster.  Firstly the place was undervalued and I had to sort that out - That nearly sent me over the edge.  Trying to sort financials with Dad is never an easy thing to do, he always tries to overcomplicate things and we usually end up coming to a disagreement.  Anyway, that was sorted eventually, and I put in a challenge on the given value, just in case it could gain back any ground.  Then there was the break in at work.

So I wasn't really sleeping well before the break in, didn't get any sleep the night of the breaking and haven't really been able to sleep since.  So, today when I popped into the bank to see if there had been any response from the valuer, I get hit with the next load of shit, flying fresh from the fan...

HSBC, my old bank that I am in the process of leaving, have put in a credit check on me for a mortgage quotation and an in-principle decision - without my knowledge or authorisation.  That has screwed up my credit score so that the bank are no longer able to approve me for the mortgage that I need.  SO the shit hits the fan once again.  I have spent the day trying to get HSBC to sort out their mess, but the truth is that I fear the damage has already been done, top the extent that any repair will not be complete in time for the mortgage application to be processed, and it may not restore all of the damage that has been done.  I fully intend to take HSBC to court for breach of the data protection act but right now that will not aid this cause, so that can wait.

It looks like the only way out of this may be for Dad to go 'guarantor' on the mortgage application, and that might just get it through.  Problem is that he is in his 60's - the mortgage is for 35 years, there's no way that they will accept him as being able to cover the whole period (or at least, that's how it seems to me anyway).

So here I am, I think I about to need to find somewhere else to live, at about 2 weeks notice.  I really don't see that as being do-able so it could well be a case of putting everything into storage (and I can't take any time off work to do that) and then dossing down in a b&b until I can get somewhere sorted out.

Jesus this is such a mess.  I actually feel mentally outside of myself at the moment.  I cannot remember things that happened a few hours ago in some cases.  I know they happened but cannot recall any detail.  I don't feel like I'm me right now, I feel like I'm someone on the outside, watching me and my life.

The Bible tells with confidence in many places that the Lord will not place more burden on a man than he can carry - well, Lord - this is getting pretty close.  I cannot carry this for much longer,  PLEASE let something actually go in my favour for once in this matter.  This is quite literally my world right now.  I am committed to making it happen - I need your help in making it so.

I am truly thankful for those around me who are trying their best to get these obstacles from the Devil out of my path, but I REALLY need your hand to clear the way right now, and maybe just to give me a little strength back.

Lord, have mercy.
Lord, I need your help.
In Jesus Name

Amen.

WWJD?

Seriously though, what would Jesus do?

We (Christians) use this question as a point to spark positive thought in line with out beliefs and as a way of deciding to avoid what is wrong and sinful.  But do we ever really stop and think what Jesus would really do?

I men, lets take a real hot potato right now - the position of Women Priests within the Church.  Now - I want to make my position clear right from the start, I am all in favour of women priests - provided it is Gods will (and there's no reason why it wouldn't be).  BUT, those who are against cite passages from the Bible as their evidence for their view.  So what if that is the case for real?  There are some pretty obvious examples of women not being chosen in the Bible.  That is mostly because of the social climate at the time I suspect.  The thing is though, would Jesus move with the times and accept this in a modern climate?  Or are the rules set down then still a requirement today?

And what about other areas that are contentious?  Homosexuality for example.  We seek to embrace and treat our neighbours as ourselves, we accept and minister to others in Jesus name, in the belief that He would welcome all those who turn to him.  But what if we are wrong?  What would Jesus do?  Would he embrace and now decide something that was once a sin, is now acceptable?  In that case, where does it leave other instances of God's law, such as not having sex without marriage?  All this is the word of the Lord, I cannot imagine that it is 'negotiable'.

So where does that leave me (and every other Christian?)  I want to love my life by Gods rules to the best of my ability, I am not one to discriminate against people, and I don't accept people that do - but in both a literal interpretation and a historical interpretation of Christianity, these things are quite prominent.

It's so easy to 'update' theological beliefs to fit with the modern acceptances of society, but are we simply trying to turn a blind eye to a modern day Sodom and Gomorrah or are we justified?

When my time comes and I am called home, will I stand judgement to be told "You did not follow my rules, you followed your own interpretation of them."?  Would I be told "You discriminated against others when you should have followed the spirit of my will"?

Jesus accepted all who came to him, but they had to repent of their sins and take up their cross.  Is our sin loosening the rules to match our society when we should be using the rules to build our society?  Or   is our sin refusing to adapt the rules in the spirit of God's love, when we could engage a much wider range of society?

So it isn't easy, we Just don't know what Jesus would do.  We know what he did and what he taught them.  We know both the word of the Law but also the spirit in which it was written and it seems to me that sometimes they can give different interpretations.  The truth is that no-one knows.  And it is so easy to use the claim of WWJD to justify what we want to do, not what God would have us do.

I want to do God's will and I don't want to discriminate against people.  I am sure God would not want that either - Jesus taught we should love our neighbours as ourselves, but what if there is a line between loving our neighbour, who may fall into one or more of the areas that I have mentioned, and allowing them to become part of the Church.

I cannot honestly believe that God would turn away anyone who came to him through Jesus, but it is so easy to side step the challenge to sin and seek acceptance without change.

Its just so difficult to not have second thoughts about where the line is between that which can be interpreted and adapted and that which is set in stone.

A prayer for H and her family

I'm not going to spend very long on here right now, I just want to take the time to offer up a prayer for a dear friend of mine and her family who are going through a tough time right now.  Bereavement is never an easy thing to cope with, least of all when it is a close family member.  Today was the funeral.  I know how it feels to loose a close family member all too well.  I have lost more of mine than there are left living.  It's such a devastating experience.  I can imagine a bit about how they are feeling and I wish I could carry the burden for them.

     Lord, I hold before you H and her family.
     Please provide to them the comfort and strength to deal with what is upon them
     Grant that they might find strength in each other and those around them.
     Help them find the strength of faith to come to you in their time of need.
     Please grant them safe passage through this dark time and lead them to a brighter day.
     This I ask in Jesus name.

AMEN

"Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted" - Matthew 5:4 (NIV)

The Rood, The Sad & The Fugly

It's been a while since I wrote on here.  I've been meaning to for a couple of days but it hasn't come to anything until now.  I don't know that much has changed really.  Some days are good, some days are not good - weight loss wise, I haven't made any progress over the last week.  Next weigh in is this Sunday.  I don't think that I will have made any further progress either.  I need to revisit my motivation and get back in control of it all.

Frankly my head is a bit of a mess overall.  There's a really difficult area thats on my mind.  I have to be careful what I say on here - after all, plausible deniability is not just something that governments practice, I do too!  All I can say is that my heart is somewhere that I don;t think it should be.  It wants something that cannot happen.  Yet I keep thinking about reasons why it might, what it would be like if this and if that...  Its probably no bad thing in itself because it is definitely a move forward and away from a toxic relationship in the past that has had a hold on me for far too long.  You think that you are over something but you aren't.  You think that you have found someone that you might be interested in, yet you find yourself comparing them to the one person that you have left behind and told yourself that you were over, only to find that you weren't really.  So that's that... It can never happen and I need to get my mind off it and move on up.

Dad is due back from his travels soon, about 3 weeks or so I think.  With the marvel that is international pay phones, I don't really feel like he's been gone.  There's been the odd occasion that I'd have probably picked up the phone to him when I've had a bad day but on the whole it doesn't feel like anything much has changed.

I guess the main thing is that I need to regroup and revisit my motivations right now.  The felling that nothing much has changed is probably symptomatic of life as a whole.  I don't really know what I;d want to change, other than my ability to loose weight.  I can dream and have unrealistic ideals. - To be fair, I think I have those anyway.  I guess what I really want, what I really feel like I am missing is a partner.  The ideal of getting married and starting a family is a long way down the road, but it would be nice to be on that road and making progress.  But its a long process...

Loosing weight = more confidence and being more attractive to members of the opposite sex = being able to be strong enough to make the first move and go for what I want.

Or so it seems.

I just need the motivation to loose weight.

Lord, I am trying, I have got further than I think I have before but I seem to be weakening again.  Please help me to find the motivation and the strength to make progress...

In Jesus Name,  Amen.

Reflection

Well, I've fasted, and cleared my head as best as I could do.  It got pretty hard towards the end - I ended up feeling very light headed and had a headache too.  Not that I haven't fasted for a long while and I went longer than I initially planned to.  I went 48hrs in then end.  It wasn't initially intentional  but after I fell asleep at the end of day one and then woke up into day two, it seemed right ti continue.

So what did I hear? Indeed, did I hear anything?  That said, was I asking the right questions and was I asking hard enough?  The one thing that does seem to have made a bit of headway was a question that G put on her Facebook profile, about risking everything to travel to Mars one way, leaving everything else behind.  In that sort of situation I have to say that I would.  I'd leave everything in order to pursue  a means of getting away.  Suddenly this gets me thinking, this isnt really an answer to the questions that I have been asking, but it is an answer.  I hadn't really taken the time to conclude that I would actually be prepared to up ends and leave things.

Maybe a realisation then its not such  a  bad thing and that I should be ready to go with the flow on a change of direction.

I don't feel like this is the answer that I was hoping for - but who am I to decide what the right answer is?  One thing it has made me thin about is some kind of longer term fast.  Having done a bit of reading about fasting and how it was done in the time of Jesus, one theme keeps cropping up - that of fasting during daylight hours.  It seems logical, one could fast for a much longer period of time on such a method of fasting.  As we're only just past the autumn equinox, there's a fair balance between daylight and dark still.  If I was to do this, over what period of time? How?  If I was going to do this I would want to be able to go to church and pray - not necessarily in services but just to be able to go and sit quietly and meditate on the thoughts and questions that I have.

Many thoughts, and I'm out of time here as my break at work is over and i have to go back to the day job again.

16 Hours in

I began at midnight and on the whole I feel pretty good.  Its something to focus on and focus my thoughts around.  I think Ive been tested a bit this morning though, things going wrong, not in a big way but many little things.

I don't feel too hungry but I am aware of it.  Im supposed to be on lunch break right now and it does feel a little strange not eating but at the same time, the unfamiliarity of it makes me conscious of it and able to focus my thoughts around it.  Im pretty confident on making it to midnight without breaking.

Answers? , now that's another matter entirely.  Maybe I will have some kind of spontaneous realisation in one of the areas that I am focussing on.  Most probably I won't and I'll have to look and listen for any answers when they come.

I was working on some lyrics last night as well, sounding like a preacher as an MC.  I think it might work quite well if I can produce it right.

I'll check back in later on...

Insert witty title here

Feeling a bit tired at the moment.  Not helped by being up late last night working on a remix.  Work was pretty uninspiring today, nothing really bad but nothing to get excited about either.

I'm thinking of doing a fast.  It's popped in and out of my mind for a few days now.  Its something that I used to do periodically if I wanted to focus a prayer on one area or another.  A sort of self sacrifice for a short period of time.  I think I will do it.  Maybe aim for 24 hours from midnight tonight.

O know that tomorrow will be a busy day so it will be difficult, I'm bound to be really hungry by the end of it, but maybe that is the point.  Becuase I have not done it for a while, if it was an easy option it would hardly be a sacrifice would it?

Its going to be a difficult thing to try and hide from people, and I need to find some kind of focus point for everything.

“And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you." (Mathew 6 : 16-18)

What I really need to do is try and focus all my thoughts into some kind of distilled prayer that makes some sense, rather than the rambling mess that I have at the moment.  I guess really its a lot of questions, not that I am expecting to get direct answers.  I don't think I want to put the questions here in public, although if you read the last couple of entries, you might get an idea about one of them.

I remember a phrase often shouted by the MCs when I was in my raving days - "Peace, Love and Unity, Inside the arena - the place to be!"  somehow that seems kind of fitting now in its own way.

Christ is risen

It's Easter Sunday and we celebrate Christ's rising from the grave and all that the Resurrection means for us. I don't feel too much different as a physical person, but as a spiritual person I feel stronger. Just as Christ appear to his followers when He rose, I feel like, in spirit, he has shown himself to me once again.

I felt drawn back to my old church in Basingstoke to celebrate today, I don;t know why. It's not like I've been part of the congregation there for a number of years. But it was the church where I was confirmed. Somehow it seemed right, as with the Easter service containing the Profession Of Faith and sprinkling of Holy Water, it seemed that it was a good place to re affirm what I believe.

Easter Sunday has long been a day with meaning for me as when Gemma and I were traveling a few years ago, I am 100% sure that, as we attended a service in a church we had never been to before, I was briefly in contact with the spirit of my mother, who had died a couple of years before. I think that maybe Easter Sunday has a certain power about it. Like maybe the heavens are just a little closer that day, or maybe Christ walks just that little bit closer to us on this day.

All I know is that prayers said in faith on Easter Sunday seem to have more resonance and more effect for me personally an it is a day that I feel drawn to celebrate.

Father, I thank you for

Jesus rising form the dead,

For everything that means for Christians all over the world,

And for those who have yet to discover Christ.

When I pray, may my prayers be true and

May I ask only for that which is your will.

Please share with others who have a weakness of faith,

Or those yet to come to you,

The joy of the Resurrection and the comfort that comes

From knowing that we are truly loved and truly saved.

In Jesus Name

Amen

Happy Easter