I'm feeling ....
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More to follow....
Unofficial Christian Diaryland Webring!
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2004-02-09 - 12.20pm previous entry next entry Thanks April, Meg, Nicola and Siobhan for your lovely guestbook messages! :) I changed my poll at last! Thanks to everyone who voted in the last one - it seems that the majority had a good Christmas, and they were closely followed by people who had an "okay" Christmas, so that is nice to hear! :) My new poll is all lovey-dovey, since that's how I am at the moment! I want to know what love is to you. I realise I probably haven't covered many of the possible answers, but feel free to let me know in my guestbook what your answer would be! And also please do vote more than once - love to me is more than one of the things on my list. But you can't vote more than once in one day, unfortunately - tsk, stupid Bravenet! My first vote would be God, because I never found any sort of love like the love that God has shown me, and I doubt I ever will. Also he the absolute source of all love, in my opinion :) Well we had a lovely date! We went to see Love Actually which was really sweet. It's funny seeing the comment about the arrival gates at Heathrow Airport being a good place to see that there is love all around (for those of you who've seen the movie), because I have always thought the same thing. In my late teens I used to get a bus to Heathrow Airport on a "bad day", depression-wise, and watch planes land and just people-watch, both in the departure area (to see people escaping like I wanted to) and the arrival gate, because there really is so much love in the air there. I used to get moved to tears watching people reunite and hug and cry and laugh and see little tiny children clinging tightly round the neck of the newly arrived person who they obviously loved to pieces. That bit in the movie is so true! Ohhh I have loads more to tell you about dates and all that, but since the last paragraph I had a lovely phonecall and now I am crying, so I HAVE to tell you about that first. You know how I was feeling angry about church? I haven't been since November because I have been not wanting to face my friends who are expecting their first baby. We talked to them last spring and told them we were planning to try for a baby, and they didn't seem too impressed with the general idea for themselves, although they did indicate that they considered children as part of their future. They are the same age as us, but have been married for 10 years!!!!!! Anyway, so I didn't go to church or small group, because they are our small group leaders too. Then I started to get crabby about the fact that nobody has even called to see if I still exist, that kind of thing. Well I have been praying about it, and guess what just happened? Oh I am crying soooo much. David phoned - he is a good friend from church, one I can truly call my brother, who is a few years younger than me. He phoned to ask if I was okay - just what I'd been needing to hear. He has got engaged!!! He asked me if I was okay, and I said, "Yeah, I'm... okay." To which he replied, "Do you mean, "Yeah I'm okay" or "No, not really but it's the polite answer"?!" So I said the latter. He said was there anything he could do. I said he could pray. He asked if there was anything specific he could pray into. I feel safe with David, I don't feel like there's a reason to be squeamish or private with him. So I told him, that Neil and I have been trying for a baby for 9 months and I have been avoiding church because Gordon and Katie are expecting and I am finding it sooo hard to deal with because of how badly I want to be in that situation myself. He was so nice and understanding. He said he couldn't possibly know how it felt but he could understand my point of view. He said everyone misses me and Neil. I said I had begun to wonder about that. He said several people have asked him where I was and if I was okay. That made me feel better. Anyway he wanted to pray for me right then and there, over the phone. He prayed God's blessing on us to have a baby, and that we would find comfort and everything we need. He prayed for a while, and when he finished I started praying, which I don't normally do - I usually just let someone pray FOR me over the phone, but this time I just knew I had to pray, to say aloud some things to God, and it was a good thing to have someone praying with me at the time, even just to spiritually witness my prayer before God. I prayed that God would help me be bold and to go back to church. I prayed that he would help me take the difficult step of actually seeking out Gordon and Katie and congratulating them. I prayed that he would fill me with joy for their pregnancy. I don't remember praying anything for myself, in terms of "give us a baby Lord!" or anything. That's probably a first, and it shows me how self-centred I have become over this issue. That needs to change. Then when I had prayed, David told me I was very special, and much more so to God. He wanted to make sure I knew it. He said I am his sister which he has never done before. Wow, God has really blessed me with a wonderful church family. I can't think why I keep on getting annoyed at them! David said some really wise stuff. He said to come back to church where people could pray for me and support me and love me, which is how God would love us to be. He said we are family. He said it's easy to stop going and to get bad feelings about things, because that's how Satan works. He likes to isolate Christians so that they have no-one to encourage them in their faith, and so that it's easier for them to start to believe lies and then they have no-one to help them see that they are doing so. Anyway, I told him he couldn't know how much it meant to me to get his call. I am going back to church next Sunday. He is glad because he has missed me and also he is doing a presentation on a charity that supplies wheelchairs in the 3rd World - he went to Ghana with them last year to do just that. So I can't wait to see how it went! :) THEN I got off the phone and felt like a million dollars. I got up to get something to eat and got about one pace away from the computer, and suddenly there I was picking up the phone and calling Gordon and Katie. I was really shaky because it was a hard hard thing to do. Gordon answered and he was working so we could only chat briefly. I told him I was sorry that I hadn't been in touch to congratulate them yet on their little one on the way. He made appreciative noises. The next bit was so hard to get out, it felt like I was speaking round a huuuuge blockage in my throat, I could hardly form the words. I told him I have been avoiding church and small group because I couldn't bear that they were pregnant and we weren't. I suddenly felt so awful when I said it, and I told him it was so awful of me and I felt so bad, and I was so sorry. I told him I was so desperate for a child of my own that I found it too hard to see them. He was so understanding and nice. He said he really understood what it was like to be desperate for a child because they had lost a baby last year. I had no idea. I really had no idea. I told him how sorry I was and then said how wonderful it was that they were expecting again. He agreed. I said I am coming back to church and I told him how David had just phoned and prayed with me, and how much of a difference it had made. He told me he appreciated my words and the phone call so much, and he praised me for acting on what God was doing, by phoning him. He is such a nice guy. Anyway then I said bye and felt wonderful, but the second I put the phone down I started sobbing uncontrollably and just went to my knees on the floor for the longest time. It was instinctive, I can't explain it. Straight away I started to cry and sob, and lift my hands to God and pour out how heartbrokenly sorry I was to have gone against him for all these months like this. Finding out that Gordon and Katie lost a baby last year made me feel worse, but it wasn't that - it was that I realised that I have truly been sinning against GOD, not so much anyone else. I can't believe I didn't see that before. Suddenly it was crystal clear, and I'll tell you, the pain and heaviness in my heart was unbearable. I felt crushed because of how I grieved the God I love so much with all of my heart. I know I love him that much because of how much it hurt to know I had gone against him like that. Wow, it was a really revealing moment for me, painfully so. I cried and sobbed and said how sorry I was over and over and asked God to forgive me. I asked him over and over too, but I know that was unnecessary because he forgives in an instant. I just felt so heartbroken that I kept saying it till I felt better. Also I think part of the emotional release was to do with the relief of getting that difficult thing out in the open. I told God I do NOT want this bitterness any longer, it's got to stop. I need to be right with God and right with my family in Christ much more than I need to have a baby. I am so grateful that God prompted David to phone me today. He is so faithful to answer my prayers! I have been praying for a breakthrough with this because I know things haven't been right. Wow. So phew, now I am tearstained but feeling wonderful and happy, and THRILLED about going back to church next Sunday! I can't wait to see Gordon and Katie and talk to them more personally about how things are going for them. I am scared that I will cry because that's what seemed to happen when I phoned Gordon, but I need to get over that fear too. God is soooo great. Do you see why I love him? He's awesome :) Anyway! Back to the date! It was fun :) I loved getting dressed up and looking pretty. Neil said I did anyway. There were LOOOADS of people in town - I haven't been out on a Saturday night in many years (seriously!) so I forgot just how busy it can be. The cinema was packed, even with a movie that's about to finish after a couple of months! When we came out of the cinema after 11pm, it was POURING with rain, I mean, pouring, and the car was a 15 minute walk away! We didn't have umbrellas or anything. So Neil was such a gentleman, he ran for the car while I waited under a shelter for him to drive by and pick me up. That was the only slightly sucky part of the evening, because two guys crossed over the road and walked past me, and one of them was leering at me, you know like when they look from your feet up to your face and make this vile smile that they probably think is alluring. Yuck. Now I remember why I haven't been out on a Saturday night for many years! I wonder what people think of me when they see me? I hate the idea of men thinking whatever thoughts they have behind those leering looks and vile smiles. It feels invasive and somewhat unnerving. When we arrived at the cinema earlier in the evening, Neil dropped me off to buy the tickets and he went to park the car. I bought the tickets and stood around near the listing board, waiting for him to arrive. People were flooding off the escalator thick and fast, in my direction, so I was sort of standing on tiptoe and craning my neck to see if he was there all the time. I was all dressed up and had two tickets in my hand. I suddenly realised what I must look like, and got a silent chuckle out of the thought that people must think I am waiting for a boyfriend or maybe I have been stood up. Nobody would think I am actually waiting for my husband of 4 and a half years who is parking the car :) I LOVE being married. It's the coolest thing! I know I am in love because time did that slow-mo thing when he eventually did appear rising up the escalator amongst all those people. Seeing him striding towards me with his lovely smile and looking gorgeous in his new jacket (WAY more gorgeous than any other male in the entire building, I might add!), I just melted, sort of. Time went slowly enough for me to really take it in that this magnificant mature man walking towards me, standing out so wonderfully from all the other people, was my husband. Not my "oh-I'm-so-lucky-for-the-evening" date, or even my boyfriend, but my HUSBAND!!! I get light-headed at the thought still, that I am somebody's wife!! I am married! Me! And look who is my husband. Sometimes I look and I absolutely can't believe my eyes, like when he strode toward me from the escalator while I felt like a slightly childish teenager, and I realised for the hundredth time that he is mine and I am his, permanently binding, for always. W-O-W. It blew me away. Well we had such a nice time that we went out again yesterday! We went shopping in town for plates, very married of us! We haven't got enough dinner plates because since we got married a few have been broken (not in the heat of arguments, incase you were wondering!!), so we need more. But there aren't any more like the ones we have. The rest of our set have some cracks on the glaze and little chips, because they were quite cheap since we were just starting out. My grandparents gave us a really really generous amount of money for Christmas, and we saw a SERIOUSLY lovely dinner set in town yesterday. It's so expensive though - it's Denby!! I really like Denby, my grandparents have a set from the late 1960's, and it's beautiful and still lasting well without chips or cracks. So we are considering buying a Denby set because of how it will set us up till we have grandchildren probably. But the quality means a good set of 8 dinner plates and bowls and dessert plates and serving dish, etc, will costs hundreds of pounds. Hunnndreds. But G&G really did give us enough to cover it, they were so generous, I don't know why. They said because they were giving that kind of amount to Bennie and Sarah to help with their house move. We were going to save ours but we have some decent savings getting going now, and we think we might buy this dinner set with it instead. I think my grandparents will be pleased to know we spent it on that. Soooo that was fun, picking out a dinner set! It was so much like when we went round making our wedding list! In fact I think that's the last time we ever did anything like this. We haven't bought it yet, still thinking about it. But I think we'll go for it :) How exciting! Anyway after looking all over town for dinner sets, we went to the cinema AGAIN! And we saw Freaky Friday, which was reeeally good! I loved it. We had a big box of popcorn which I haven't done in ages :) And now I need to eat something. My husband is so lovely. God is so great. Wow I am blessed! |
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