Man… my heart is foolish. Every now and again I get a little melancholy – a little self-pitying, a bit quieter, more reserved. And usually I’ll dwell in it – thinking of me, losing myself in the feeling, sitting in it.

But I caught myself. I said ‘God – You’re amazing. You are good. You are worthy of everything. I will find joy in You!’

Why that response?

Last week a guy called Andrew Wilson spoke to us during a training week about fighting for joy. And his talk blew me off my feet – in the words of a friend, “I’m going to completely wallpaper my bedroom with this!” What was the gist?

It was this:

God has made it so that what we ought to do and what brings us greatest pleasure in life are one and the same.

John Piper would put it this way:

God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.

And the bells went off in my head, light bulbs, everything – because I realised this: walking with God is supposed to be joyful. Not tiresomely dutiful. Or hopelessly demanding. Or endlessly exacting. Or wearily burdensome. Not what I’d been experiencing for years.

It means freedom. It means running from sin not because I should, but because I know in the end sin brings misery, and God has joy in store for the righteous. Why would I want misery!? It means the guilt is gone when I don’t do my ‘quiet time’. It means in the morning I get up and open my Bible not to tick a box and breathe a sigh of relief that I’ve started the day ‘right’ (!), but to pursue God and through that, joy. So now why wouldn’t I spend time with God?!

I’m not saying that we only follow after God because it makes us happy. Don’t misquote me – Andrew Wilson didn’t say that. But ultimately loving God, blessing God and doing His will bring us joy, because we’re doing what we were made to do.

This might sound simple to you. You’re saying, “duh! How did you not already have that figured out?” Well, that’s fine. This is the area God needed to work on me in. And I’m glad He’s slowly showing me what pursuing joy in Him means.

That’s all. Awesome sauce.

And so, as hard as it was, I decided to finish studying at the end of my graphics course – for now – and plunge myself into something better.

I’m still delaying the money-making though – salaries are soo over-rated.

So… What are you doing then?

I’m still living in London, but I’m doing something that’s called ‘FP’, or ‘Impact’ (or any combination of the two). It’s a year-long training program run by New Frontiers, where I intern with a New Frontiers church (eg. my church) and get a week of Bible teaching every month in the mix. It’s awesome.

What does that entail?

So my Bible training consists of a whole load of teaching by guest speakers… NT and OT history, the doctrine of creation/Holy Spirit/God/scripture/Christ…. etc. I haven’t memorised all of them. Additionally,there are assignments to complete every month.

On the other side of things, my internship at Revelation Church encompasses two roles – ‘design/media/creative’ person and ‘kids outreach’ person. The first one is pretty self-explanatory – it involves lots of pretty things on computers – but the second less so. In short: our church is surrounded by estates full of kids who don’t know Jesus, and every week we run an awesome kidswork/Sunday school all about Jesus. Basically, my job is to get the former to the latter. With a little help from my friends.

Anything else I should know?

Yes – I’m moving! For the last two years my parents have graciously up-sized their abode in London to make space for me, and I am eternally grateful. However, it now feels time to move out again and let them downsize, so a couple church friends and I are searching for a place…

But not just any place! Nope, we’re looking for somewhere on a particular estate that a group from church have been visiting every week to do youth outreach. To potentially have a bigger impact there, three of us have decided that moving onto the estate will help us massively in developing relationships with those who live there – all for the Kingdom.

That’s all for now!

I hope it all made sense – you can always get in touch if you need to know more.

When Claudia’s mother first saw her, the reaction was beautiful – there were definitely some tears fighting to come out!

If Claudia and Stuart were to be known for anything, it has to be praying and singing – both sing in a choir, and both love Jesus. An awesome combination.

This was neither the first nor the last time that Stuart sent a cheeky look my way!

After the ceremony we headed out to do some family portraits before having ‘Kaffee und Kuchen’ with all the guests. All that to come soon in part two!

We headed up to Primrose Hill and scouted out a few places and got shooting. Here’s a look at some of the fun we had up there.

Now, the thing about Stuart is that he’s got amazing teeth – and he’s not afraid to show them off! I got some of the best smiles I’ve ever seen from the man, and you could tell he was pleased as punch to have Claudia. By the end of the evening, he had begun to perfect a ‘Blue Steel’-esque look though, and proved to be its master by the wedding…

Awesome couple that they are, Claudia and Stuart were up for a bit of experimentation – even pulling off some amazing lifts (good back work, Stuart!).

Thanks for being such great, patient people – and being so willing to laugh at all the crazy things I was suggesting – and going ahead with them anyway!

Coming soon – the wedding.

However, forgiving and most-chilled-out person that she is, Debra rearranged the planned-to-the-second timetable to allow extra time for me to search high and low in Bristol’s town centre for another one. You amaze me, sis!

Anyway, the Saturday arrived and I got up bright and early and met Debra and the rest of her amazing bridal party for a few hours of prep and then a longer time of photographing fun. Woohoo! So here’s some of the shots from that day:

It was very much a family affair – Debra’s brother was there to help out, and he definitely pulled his weight! When it came to making sure the dress would stay up on a branch, he was more than happy to climb the tree and hold it steady. Legend.

Absolutely loved working with Debra and all the bridesmaids – who were absolutely fine with making crazy faces. The bonus was that they were also really good at it!

Have to say, the detail on the dress was stunning – hey, the whole dress was stunning! – and Debra pulled it off like no other woman could!

Thanks for having me along and letting me shoot your wedding morning – can’t wait to see how the rest of life turns out for you and Lloyd!

Here’s a fly-by roundup for the past year:

I graduated…again
Yep, another degree. I have my BA and now an FdA under my belt; with £20,000 in debt to show for it (admittedly only from the BA). Loved the FdA course, loved the people on it, loved the unashamed artiness of my college. I now get to officially be another out-of-work graphic designer.

Photography
It’s definitely picking up – I got my first ‘proper’ job photographing a wedding here in London, and it was so, so fun. Nerve-wracking at times, but ultimately an awesome experience. I’ll be posting up photos from that (and others) some time soon.

Music
I absolutely love the site noisetrade, it’s fantastic for finding new music. It’s mostly folk, and there’s often a lot of trawling you have to do to find something that you absolutely *must* have on your iPod, but you can’t complain when it’s free. Recently I stumbled across Foxes Have Foxholes, and can’t stop listening to them. Here’s one of their tunes, Whistle Blower:

The Future
I’m not entirely sure what the future holds. I might be doing an internship with New Frontiers at my church, or getting a job. It’s still a bit up in the air – which doesn’t sit well with me, really. I like to know what’s happening – when, where and what I need to wear for it. But I kind of have to let go of that for now.

Well, that’s the gist of it; shortened and sweet. More to come.

I had one of those recently. Most times I would probably think nothing of it; I’d quickly forget being a hypocrite in favour of being ‘right’.

Fortunately, God’s totally gracious and chose to project ‘conviction rays’ – (that’s a literal translation of the original Greek, for any doubters out there – 2nd book of Jude, verse 5, I believe…) – and He unblocked my ears even as the words were coming out of my mouth to really hear what I was saying.

What I was saying wasn’t wrong – in fact, it was a passionate, Jesus-focused view point. The problem was that in that moment my heart was in it, but take a step back, have a look at my life and anyone could be forgiven for laughing in my face. Hypocrite – a tough description, but at that time 100% accurate.

It’s a good thing to realise when you’re a complete ignoramus. Pride is the root of most (if not all) sin, so a little humbling is God’s mercy over us – praise Him for every time he reveals those prideful places in you! – so I’ll take all those moments over winning an argument any day. Should probably pray for more of these revelations, but they aren’t easy to receive.

Anyway. Just a glimpse at my thoughts right now. I’ll talk more in detail about what the conviction was actually about another time, I think.

About a month ago my bike, which had been slowly fading since July – with bits breaking or malfunctioning or falling off – finally gave up the ghost. In the following month I spent £50 traveling with my Oyster, which should say a lot to any out-of-towners who don’t think London is *that* expensive. This was me traveling no more than 4 miles, three days a week.

Anyway! God totally pulled a blessing out and I got a free bike last week – AWESOME – which I used a couple times before things started going badly.

London saw some snow on Thursday, but I decided to cycle to my friend’s house as it was nearby. Things were a bit shaky at first but I stuck to the middle of the road and it was all fine.I then took my usual route up a side road but soon discovered it was covered in ice. The lack of purchase meant my bike preferred a horizontal position and slid out from under me. As the breaks were pretty poor and the wheels no longer on the ground, I used my elbow to stop myself. And so I got this:

When it goes all yellow and crazy, it’ll be epic.

That was Friday. On Saturday I started to cycle to work and, due to the afore-mentioned poor breaks, I wasn’t able to stop suddenly. Fortunately, the back of a taxi helped and – even more fortunately – there was no damage, the driver was nice, and I wasn’t at all hurt. I wasn’t going very fast, to be honest. UN-fortunately, that was it for the new old bike, whose frame buckled on impact (likely what saved the taxi’s bumper) and so I am back to being bike-less.

‘Tis the season l walk. Lots.

Well, Christmas has officially kicked-off with a major house-clean and Christmas ‘decos’ (my mom’s name for decorations) being fetched down from the nether-reaches of the attic. And once Elina, the sister, arrives from Sheffield (unless snow prevents her!) we’ll make a secret trip to Hyde Park and cut down a Christmas tree…. ooooooor we might just buy one. Who knows.

With Christmas comes Christmassy-type gatherings, I think four days in a row staying up past 12 to party the night evening away was just about enough for me. I’m not the clubber type, or the party type. I like to sit around and take pictures – as I always say, ‘it beats talking to people.’ That’s the introvert in me.

Had a visit from the Gregorys, that was fun. *holler* I miss you guys! *holler* And probably had my longest phone call in a year with Miss Chrissy, that was fun too. I never knew there was so much to talk about.

In other news, I’M GETTING MARRIED! Just kidding. No, really. I just wanted to see if that shocked anyone – I set up your webcam so I could watch you…. *creepy eyes* And yeah, actually, I’m not. Still kicking it back with the single life, baby, and enjoying myself. So the title of this blog is a lie

Over and out.

Heroes of the Faith: Dietrich Bonhoeffer by Michael Van Dyke

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Loved this book, lots of great insights into the thinking and theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer – the flip side of this was that there was less ‘story’ to this book than a biography would suggest. I felt van Dyke should have tried to research more thoroughly the life of Dietrich, it feels as though he limited himself somewhat to the letters, books and sermons that Bonhoeffer wrote.

I recommend reading this – it’s easy to get through in 2 or 3 days, and there’s some great insights into how the ‘Christianity’ of Germany resulted in a church so intertwined with the Nazi regime and its ideology.