Christmas holiday update...

The clock just struck 12. Christmas day is over. I feel it´s time to write an update on my Christmas holiday so far. In case you´re curious. It´s consisted of:

• being in snowy Sandefjord & seeing the wonderful Miles family again
• driving my beloved Billy (a golden golf from 83 which houses many warm memories and which to my horror is being put to death in six days) 
• snow-clearing. I swear my arm-muscles have grown
• having a huge house to myself, and so fearlessly playing piano and singing LOUDLY at 1 am
• hosting girls night, which as always includes at least two things; chocolate and boy-talk
• singing christmas songs and dancing around the christmas tree with the whole church (no joke. It´s custom here)
• feeling elegant in high heels
• eating loads of unhealthy food, mentally preparing myself for a 3 month snack/desert-fast starting 1st of Jan
• relishing in the knowledge that I have no work or school until the 12th of January

Hope your Christmas was a good one! May the year 2010 bring with it a turning of many more hearts towards Christ who came to reconcile us with God.  :)

list-lover

I´ve always loved neat. Keeping neat notes. Making lists. Organizing thoughts on paper. Organizing life on paper.


So it isn´t that surprising that at age eleven I had a list of what to do every morning:
7:00 - wake up
7:02 - wash face
7:06 - get dressed
7:14 - brush hair
7:17 - eat breakfast
7:31 - brush teeth
7:34 - pack bag
7:40 - leave for school
...I´m not kidding it was that detailed. And I kept schedule.


I am a perfectionist, not only when it comes to time-keeping. So much so that I got sick of myself at one stage and enjoyed learning to be spontaneous and messy and careless about timekeeping.
...Tried anyway.


Cause the other day I made another morning list ;)


-Praise God
-Short yoga routine
-Give the day to God
-Shower & get dressed
-Eat breakfast
-Bible and "ask God" time


See I´ve been struggling with sleep lately, and one of my friends was like "you need routine that makes you relax". And so I thought: I should make spending time with God routine, cause I´ve noticed that the times I do, the day is so much better. Things are put in perspective, I´m calmer, and more aware of his presence.


So if you´re a list-lover like me - I recommend a morning list which includes God :)

life un-photoshopped

I was having a coffee with my good friend IK yesterday, and we started talking about blogs. She was saying how it´s so easy to create a superficial, perfect-life-appearance on the net... Bloggers tend to photoshop their lives. We all want to look as good as possible.

So, as a protest, my blog this time is gonna be honest about the not so perfectness of my life at the moment!

Last night I read a chapter in Joni Eareckson Tada´s 31 days toward intimacy with God. It was about looking people in the eyes. She writes about an experience from her childhood when she stole her mum´s diary, and later at the dinner table couldn´t look her mum in the eyes cause of guilt. "Looking one another straight in the eyes has always been a test of truthfulness", she concludes, and goes on to quote God:

"If my people, who are called by my name,

will humble themselves and pray

and seek my face

and turn from their wicked ways,

then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin

and will heal their land."

I´ve noticed that in my own life. It´s hard to focus on God, "seek his face", when I´m struggling with my own pride in some way or another...

Without being too revealing, I can say that these days I´ve been struggling with letting go of something and giving it to God. It´s like I don´t trust him; that if I give him this I´ll lose out. But I know that´s just stupid, he´s proven to me so many times that he knows what´s best for me and he does lead me to what´s best when I just let him.

Why is it such a struggle to surrender my will to his?!

Ellen Miles at the moment reminds me of the Israelites when God led them out of their slavery in Egypt. He sent all those plagues so that Pharao would send them off, and parted the sea, led them by a cloud in the day and by a fire in the night, fed them in the desert by sending food like rain... I mean, I´d be convinced by less. Yet they turned against him, complained, doubted....
It´s easy to point the finger.
And then realise I´m just like them.

So yeah, that´s my struggle at the moment. Just so you know. I´m not perfect, none of us are.
God is, and I´m trying to believe that by trusting him with my life.
Wondering if I´ll ever get there.
But I choose to trust that he´ll finish the good work he´s started in me. (Fil 1:6)
And though I´m faithless at times, he is faithful always. He´ll stick to his word. (2.Tim 2:13)

Have a blessed advent!