An observation

An observation: It is strange how something so good, can actually be kinda hard to adjust to. It's four months since i've had a seizure, which is incredible and i am truly so happy about it. However, all i've known for the last 4/5 years is a hermit-type existance (particularly the last 2 years) in which i've been having frequent fits and generally been pretty tired (i don't mean that in a negative way - i have been blessed with much goodness these last years too), but to try and adjust back to a normal life is actually quite strange. It's actually quite a shock and in many ways i don't really know how to do it. I don't know how to live like a normal person. I haven't a clue how to even start to think about normal things, like getting a job or what to do next. I am excited and i am eager to start doing more again. I want to be able to work or do some training or something. I'm looking forward to being able to socialise more again and i am exceptionally grateful for this grace God has shown me. But when you haven't done something for so long, it can be kinda daunting and so if i'm completely honest i feel kinda lost. Don't get me wrong, i really and truly am so pleased to be seizure-free and i praise God for that. And i do trust that God has got the next stages planned out for me. I know too that he's not going to heal me and then just leave me aimlessly wandering, so I'm quite sure that he knows what's next  - but i think i just need to learn to relax and trust Him and listen to what He's saying more. 

Exceeding great and precious promises

"If i were dealing with a man's promise, i should carefully consider the ability and the character of the man who had covenanted with me. So with the promise of God; my eye must not be so much fixed upon the greatness of the mercy - that may stagger me; as upon the greatness of the Promiser - that will cheer me. My soul, it is God, even thy God, God that cannot lie, who speaks to thee. This word of His which thou art now considering is as true as His own existance. He is a God unchangeable. He has not altered the things which has gone out of His mouth, nor called back one single consolatory sentence. Nor doth He lack any power; it is the God that made the heavens and the earth who has spoken thus. Nor can He fail in wisdom as to the time when He will bestow the favours, for He knoweth when it is best to give and when better to withold. Therefore, seeing that it is the word of a God so true, so immutable, so powerful, so wise, i will and must believe the promise." - Spurgeon

The sky is falling

I seem to have become overly interested in street art recently and can't seem to stop myself researching new artists. I just discovered the work of Joe Iurato and really like his style. He's entitled his most recent exhibition :01 and says the reason for this is because "A single second is the most powerful measurement of time. It can symbolize the last fleeting moment before an end, or the clear mark of a new beginning. It might stand for both, as a once dire situation finds its way to fate and a chance to start over. It’s then that :01 becomes the most significant moment in a person’s life. It’s the blessing born of hardship. Honesty, destiny and happiness sometimes find their way easiest after dirt is kicked in our faces. This work is my :01"  He is trying to raise funds through his art for a charity called Wine for Water, which seeks to improve access to water in some of the poorest areas of the World, such as Ethiopia. I thought he was worth a mention anyway.

Simplicity

I very much like the simplicity and composition of this photo by Cordellia.

Chris Stain

I just came across the work of stencil graffiti artist Chris Stain. I really love his pictures and the general themes he works with. He seems to do quite a bit of street art, but i think he also produces quite alot of his images in other formats too. In fact, the last two pictures i've included very much remind me of some photos by Martha Cooper, one of my favourite photographers - so much so that i reckon he must have based them on her prints.

More or less

"This is the true bride, the one who says to Christ:

I do not want what is Thine, I want Thee, Thyself.

Thou art not more dear to me when i am doing well,

nor less dear when i am doing poorly."

- Martin Luther - 

Stencil Boy

I like this photo by Ross Orr

No longer our own

"When we have fully renounced making something out of ourselves - be it a saint or a converted sinner or a church man or woman, a righteous or an unrighteous person, a sick or a healthy person - when we have renounced all that, we fall completely into God's arms and into what i call this-worldliness, namely, living in an abundance of tasks, questions, successes and failures, experiences and helplessness. We then take seriously no longer our own suffering, but the suffering of God in the world. We watch with Christ in Gethsemane....... How can we get carried away with successes or failures if in the life of this world we emphatically suffer the sufferings of God?" - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Every storm

Every storm is subject to the authority of God. How glad i am to remember that. 

Portrait of a generation

I recently came across the work of a French Photographer, known as JR. He produces large scale black and white portraits of people living in a specific community and then plasters them across the walls of various cities and towns. He's done several major projects in places such as Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Brazil and Paris. I think he aims to take photos of people who would never otherwise be seen or heard and by putting up posters of them he gives the simple message that "they exist" and shouldn't be forgotten - for example one of his projects looks at the violence suffered by women in Kenya, Sudan, Sierra-Leone, Liberia and Rio de Janeiro.  I find it interesting anyway and think his artwork is pretty powerful. It makes me wonder how much art can be used to effectively look at social issues and raise genuine concern in others. I'm constantly debating how much photography and art can actually be used for good and my viewpoint changes daily. Looking at the work of JR does make me appreciate how powerful a photo can be though and reminds me how much i love people and life itself. I guess what's matters though isn't whether you can look at a picture and say it's a good "photo", but whether you can look at it and appreciate the subject - what it actually captures, the life underneath it all, the person and the One who made that person - and whether you let that stir you into action somehow.

He has said

“'He hath said' - Hebrews 13.5 ... the source of all WISDOM and the fountain of all comfort, let it dwell in you richly as 'a well of water, springing up unto ever-lasting life.'” - Spurgeon

Butterfly Girl

- Butterfly Girl, by Napix -

In speech with You

"Master, they say that when I seem
To be in speech with you,
Since you make no replies, it’s all a dream,
-One talker aping two.

They are half right, but not as they
Imagine; rather, I
Seek in myself the things I meant to say,
And lo! the wells are dry.

The, seeing me empty you forsake
The Listener’s role, and through
My dead lips breathe and into utterance wake
The thoughts I never knew.

And thus you neither need reply
Nor can; thus, while we seem
Two talking, thou art One forever, and I
No dreamer, but thy dream."

- C.S.Lewis -

Joy.

I believe that God has healed me from my epilepsy. It is a miracle and i am incredibly grateful and rejoice in what He has done. It has been a slightly strange healing process if i'm honest, and i've been pretty sick coming off my medication, but nonetheless i still believe i've been healed and praise God for that. 

But at the very same time i do feel like i want to be careful that i don't speak or act or think in a way which suggests my deepest joy is in the fact that i've been healed - rather than simply in God, for who He is, whether i'm well or sick. The thing is, although i am truly amazed and happy that God would be so merciful as to release me from the last 4/5 years of seizures - and although i want to tell everyone what God has done and how grateful i am - i know too that there are things which matter much more than being healed right now... it matters more that we actually know and love and trust in Jesus for eternity... it is more important to have joy in the beauty of His character and His greatness - to have joy in the fact that He has forgiven my sin and that I will be with Him forever - because however much God may have released me from this illness right now, i know that whilst on Earth we are always going to suffer to some degree or other, so we can't base our joy simply on circumstantial things - the deepest, truest joy is found in being satisfied in God alone.

Hope in Him

"Though He slay me, yet will i hope in Him." - Job 13:15

If you can, you may.

I've been re-reading "Hinds' Feet on High Places" by Hannah Hurnard. It's a good book, with a thousand relevant things in it. The following is an extract from a conversation between Much-Afraid and the Shepherd:

"'You know that i DO love You, Shepherd, as much as my cold little heart is capable. You know that i love You and that i long to trust You as much as i love You, that i long both to love and trust You still more.'

'Would you be willing to trust Me,' He asked, 'even if everything in the wide world seemed to say that I was deceiving you - indeed, that I had deceived you all along?'

She looked at Him in perplexed amazement. 'Why, yes,' she said, 'I'm sure i would, because one thing I KNOW to be true, it is impossible that You should tell a lie. It is impossible that You should deceive me. I know that I am often very frightened at the things which You ask me to do,' she added shamefacedly and apologetically, 'but i could never doubt You in that way. It's myself i am afraid of, never of You, and though everyone in the world should tell me that You had deceived me, I should know it was impossible. O Shepherd,' she implored, 'don't tell me that You think i really doubt You, even when i am most afraid and cowardly and despicably weak. You know - you KNOW i trust You......

He said nothing for a little, only looked down very tenderly, almost pitifully at the figure now crouching at His feet. Then, after a time, He said very quietly, 'Much-Afraid, supposing i really did deceive you? What then?'

It was her turn to be quite silent, trying to grasp this impossible thing He was suggesting and to think what her answer would be. What then? Would it be that she could never trust, never love Him again? Would she have to be alive in a world where there was no Shepherd, only a mirage and a broken lovely dream? To know that she had been deceived by One she was certain could not deceive? To lose Him?

Suddenly she burst into a passion of weeping, then after a little while looked straight up into His face and said, 'My Lord - if you can deceive me, You may. It can make no difference. I MUST love You as long as i continue to exist. I cannot live without loving You.'"

I remember that when i first read this passage, about 7 years ago, i couldn't quite grasp how Much-Afraid could agree that the Shepherd could deceive her if He wished - in all my logic i concluded that it would make the Shepherd someone He wasn't, for i agreed that it is impossible for Him to lie, so was unsure whether i would be able to permit Him to deceive me....... BUT now i understand. And now i agree. Though everything in me believes that He can't lie - and if something turns out different to how i expect then i think it will most likely be that I heard wrong, rather than that He lied - But still i can agree with what she says now - if it is possible for Him to deceive me, He may, i still trust He knows best and there is still nothing else on earth which compares to loving Him.

Painting the Sky

"Who paints the skies into glorious day, 

Only the splendor of Jesus,

Who breathes His life into fists of clay, 

Only the splendor of Jesus,

Who shapes the valleys and brings the rain, 

Only the splendor of Jesus,

Who makes the desert to live again, 

Only the splendor of Jesus,

Teach every nation His marvellous ways, 

Each generation shall sing His praise...

He is wonderful, He is glorious, 

Clothed in Righteousness, full of tenderness, 

Come and worship Him, He is the Prince of Life,

He will cleanse our hearts, in His river of fire.

Who hears the cry of the barren one, 

Only the mercy of Jesus,

Who breaks the curse of the heart of stone, 

Only the mercy of Jesus,

Who storms the prison and sets men free, 

Only the mercy of Jesus

Purchasing souls for eternity, 

Only the mercy of Jesus"

-Stuart Townend-

Death is not dying

A couple of months ago I listened to a talk by Rachel Barkey, a lady dying of terminal cancer. I just found out that she passed away yesterday. I recommend the talk, it glorifies God and is encouraging, you can watch it on her site 'Death is not Dying.'

Coton Manor

We went to Coton Manor today to see the beautiful meadows and gardens that they have there - it was nice to get out of the house and enjoy the Summer. I took so many photos - none of which came out particularly well, but i turned a few into Polaroids tonight (using poladroid.net) so they look a little better than they originally did.