Jet Lag!

So we're home from the round the world tour and suffering quite badly from jet lag. It seems to have hit both johnny and I quite hard as we are waking up in the middle of the night and having to fall asleep in the middle of the day but it is all worth it as the trip was amazing!! We can't quite believe it is all over and things are back to normal so fast.

Everyone keeps asking me what the highlight of our trip was and I have a lot of trouble deciding! The general experience of the whole thing-seeing and discovering different cultures, laughing and sharing with our friends, eating interesting and lovely food was amazing and I can't choose one particular thing or place.

The first stop in Hong Kong was definitely one of the highlights for me as it was just so different. The size of it, the amount of people, the food and the smells!!

my favourite thing there was definitely the symphony

of lights show at night-spectacular!

Next was Sydney. My strongest memory from here is how cold it was!! we knew it was goning to be their winter but it was properly freezing!! Despite that, I really enjoyed eating out down at the harbour side as the food was great and we had some great nights together. My highlight on this part was definitely feeding kangaroos and getting to stroke them! they were so soft!!

On to Auckland where it was still pretty cold but not as bad! I think all of us really enjoyed our time in Rotorura, where we had a smelly but enjoyable mud bath together, rolled down a hill in a big inflatable ball (brilliant!!) and spent some time with our tour guide Amy, Bec's friend, who was lovely!

The only word I can use to describe Fiji is paradise

. It was beautiful. Warm and sunny, with amazing

snorkelling, cocktails, and spa treatments!! I loved it!

Finally we stopped in LA where we had dinner with my great aunt who was delighted to see us and where we spent all our savings for the trip, shopping!! I was particularly shocked by Johnny who seemed in his element and shopped til he dropped!!

All in all, an amazing time of fun, discovery, relaxation (sometimes), and great times with great friends!

One year on...

So we've been married for 1 whole year! I can't believe it! it has absolutely flown in but I've loved every minute of it! 24th June 2006 was really and truly the best day of our lives-we would so love to do it again! but the past year has been wonderful-I am very strongly pro-marriage! I recommend it highly!! Waking up beside the person you love everyday, saying goodnight to them eveynight and living life side by side is wonderful! Johnny and I often note how blessed we are to have found each other so young and we feel very strongly that it was completely a God thing. I was a young and impresssionable 5th year at Banbridge Academy and Johnny was a very popular womanising u6th year when he asked me out on my first ever night at the 'belhole!' We are still shocked at the fact I said yes and that he asked!! but we can see God's hand in it all as only 4 weeks after that, Johnny came with me to an SU evanglesim night and re-dedicated his life to God. It was meant to be!!

The year has been the best and I so look forward to the next however many years together as we do the seemingly impossible thing of growing closer to each other, learning more about each other and also the not so impossible growing closer to and learning more about God together.

Colossains 3

This is a pic of our friends Jamie and Kate. I have known Jamie my whole life-literally since I was born when we were kinda forced to be friends as our mothers were friends! Kate and I were talking last week about friends and how some are borne out of situation ( I wouldn't still be great friends with Jamie now if there wasn't a bond there or we didn't get on well-which we do!), and some are borne out of just 'clicking' with people. I have to say that a lot of my close friends were put into my life by God for a purpose and I am very thankful for that and for them.

Anyway, Jamie and Kate are getting married on 25th July this year and I am reading at their wedding-which I am delighted to be doing! They have asked me to read from Colossians 3 v12-17. This is some of favourite bits of scripture-I have actuall y spoken on it before at the base when I was discovering if i was a gifted speaker or not!!here it is:

'Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.'

I love the use of the expression 'clothe yourselves', as if you put on these wonderful gifts from God evryday to protect yourself from the harms of the world like clothes protect your body. I long to be someone who is compassionate, kind, humble, gentle and patient all the time, everyday but it is impossible for us as humans. It is not impossible for us however, to strive everyday to try and be these things. I continue to try!

My favourite bit is at the end-'...whatever you do, do it in the name of the Lord Jesus...' I thnk this will be my moto for life-a pretty good one, don't you think?

Talent

There are a lot of very talented people in this world and it is one of the things I admire most in people-their talent. it seems that many people can make a lot of money from their talent (many who aren't talented make a lot of money too!) and I wonder why everyone is not similarly talented in a particular field? For instance, at school, I was good at most things but never outstanding at any one particular thing, and I always wanted to be. I always wished my mum had sent me to dance classes or gymnastics from I was very little and then I'd be amazing at it, but if she'd done that, I'd have missed out on the amazing childhood I had. And still I find that I am good at most things, but have nothing now that I'm particular talented at. I will become a teacher when I graduate in July, and I enjoy it and am reasonably good at it but I'm not amazing-I'm never gonna win teacher of the year!!I suppose it is possible that people like me have a more subtle talent, not maybe a talent like being an accomplished writer, actor, singer, sports player but a gifting of the spirit? and it is then up to me to nurture that gift I've been blessed with by firstly discovering what it might be and then developing it and trying to figure out why I was blessed with it. I have tried to discover mine and will continue to do so, although sometimes it can be difficult to talk about what you think your good at, or ask others, without them thinking your fishing for compliments!!

The perfect body?

I have been thinking about this a lot recently. does it even exist? is it in the eye of the beholder? what was God's vision of the perfect body? I don't want to sound like a teen girls magazine writer but the media does dictate to us about how we should feel about our bodies. I don't know anyone who is completely happy with their body type-I'm certainly not! (marriage is wonderful but i'm using it as the reason why i'm the heaviest I've ever been-apparently it's because I am 'content'!) I accept the shape I am and that's ok but I do wonder about Adam and Eve and what their body shape would have been as the perfect body, and when they had children what their body shapes would have been. There are hundreds of different body types in the world that have nothing to do with how much fat people have, it's just their shape-are they all perfect?or is the strive to be thinner so obsessive for some because it is in fact the perfect body shape?I hope not!!I know that people should be happy about their body shape and this should be promoted especially amongst children but what about the well used discussion on our bodies being temples? should we be careful about what we put in and on them?I think we should look after our bodies to allow ourselves to be fully effective vessels. How can we achieve our potential if we don't have the energy to do stuff or if we're always sick cos we don't eat the right stuff? that does not mean I'm good at looking after my body-sadly I abuse it everyday! but I have just been wondering on what God sees as the perfect body. At whom does he look at on the outside (if he even does) and think 'that's perfection'?

Living the Dream

So this summer I am heading away with Johnny, Steve & Bec on our crash tour around the globe! It is now less than 8 weeks, so we are saving like mad, doing car boot sales and the boys have even being laying paving to raise extra cash to help fund the 'living the dream world tour.'

We fly from Belfast to London, London to Hong Kong, Hong Kong to Sydney, Sydney to Auckland, Auckland to Fiji, Fiji to Los Angeles and then home again. It's gonna be crazy, all those flights and stops in just over three weeks.

Most of all I am excited about visiting Devenport, a small quaint village which has the world's largest ice cream.