Be Careful What You Pray For...

I want to get back into blogging regularly again. Looking back on my posts from earlier this year, I think it was really good to get my thoughts on God and stuff written down like this. Now that I'm back at university and attending my church again, with student communities starting again soon, I'm hoping I'll have plenty of things to write about! But today I'm gonna write about some things I experienced near the end of summer.

There's a saying that goes like "be careful what you pray for, because you might get it". It's an odd one, and one you might not fully appreciate until what it's talking about happens to you. And it happened to me in the last week of summer. I'll recount that now.

So as my blog has been recounting a bit, 2013 has been a 'year of fear' for me. Not in that I have had a fearful year, but that this is the year God has been pushing me gently towards getting over my fears. It started with FOMO, which I documented quite thoroughly with this blog. And I got there, in a lot of ways I am over my fear of missing out, and that makes me so happy! I've come so far from even the start of the year. And I think if I hadn't have gotten over that fear, this could have been a very difficult summer for me, due to some circumstances regarding friends, but thankfully, FOMO did not keep me from having a good summer. I enjoyed myself regardless of what I was missing out on, and that's amazing! I also started to get over my fear of a certain person (who shall not be named for their own sake), having truly feared them for years and years and years. When even being in the same room as this person was once so uncomfortable, even painful, for me, I can now quite comfortably sit and chat and even have a laugh with them. Painful memories are being replaced by good ones, which is fantastic. I'm not sure anyone could comprehend what a massive step forward that is for me. God is good!

With those two fears, both once major strongholds in my life, becoming a thing of the past, I started wondering what God wanted me to face next. Something kept bringing me back to 'failure'. It seemed to be what I feared most at that point. I thought to myself 'maybe I should ask God to help me get over my fear of failure', but something kept holding me back. Guess what that something was... yep! It was fear. I thought to myself, for these other fears, it's always got worse before it got better. Right before I started to get over the fears, I would find myself very bitter against the things, or really the people, who brought on the fear. And for that while, the fear was heightened. And so I was scared about what would happen when I asked God to help me get over this fear. But, I knew I had to do it. And so I prayed, my heart beating fast, 'God, help me get over my fear of failure. I don't what's going to happen now, and I'm scared, but I trust you.'

That was when everything fell apart. 

The morning after I prayed that, I got a phone call from my boss. He didn't want to keep me on anymore, despite me thinking I was going to have the job until at least December. That was upsetting, to say the least. It was the perfect job for me, but I failed it. I was almost brushing it off as coincidence until I got a letter in the post a few days later; a letter that told me I'd been kicked out of my university because of problems with an essay resit (leaving out the complicated details of why this happened, because they're not that important, all you need to know is that this was a total surprise to me). 

What. 

Just like that, all I knew seemed to crash around me. A few days earlier everything was fine, I had a job that was perfect for me and I was getting ready to head back to Edinburgh to begin my third year of studies. Then all of a sudden and out no where I was unemployed and degree-less. I have never felt like such a failure as I did that day. I cried out to God constantly, 'Did I ask for this?! Is this your answer?! I want to face my fear of failure but not this way!! I hate this, God!! Please fix this!!' I begged forgiveness for my failure, I just wanted to be able to go back to university, I couldn't fail like this, I couldn't fail my parents and my friends like this, not after everything. 

I spent a week living in constant terror of what was going to happen, my gut aching and heart pounding, trying desperately to contact my university to sort out what went wrong and see if they would let me back in. In the middle of that week, I had to move back to Scotland, not knowing if I'd be returning home again shortly or staying on. Though my friends were amazing (looking at you especially Michelle and Patrick) and did their best to keep my mind off it, any time I started thinking about the uncertainty of my future I verged on crying. It was a rough week. I certainly felt the failure I had been feeling. 

I'll cut to the chase, many phone calls and e-mails later, after my case being seemingly passed from person to person to person, about a week after I got the letter I found out they were letting me back in. Praise God for his goodness and mercy! And now what? I'd be lying if I said this has helped me get over my fear of failure. It gets worse before it gets better right? I'm pretty sure I'm even more scared of failure now. But I don't subscribe to coincidence, God had to let me feel that utter failure for some reason, and I'm hoping I find out that reason soon. From experience, I pretty sure it's going to help me. Just right now, I'm still living on the edge a wee bit, and I definitely need to pray more about this to work it out. And I've certainly learnt a few extra lessons along the way anyway! I'm not there yet, but I know I'll be able to face this fear soon. There's a reason for everything, God is up to something, and though I don't understand it yet, I will some day. I'll just say it again - Be careful what you pray for, you might just get it, but not in the way you expect.

Back in Edinburgh

Woah, this has been a pretty long post, thank you for reading this far! It's not like me to blog about something I'm still struggling to understand, I usually like to write it all out once I have my eureka moment and discover what God has been teaching me. Not today I guess. I think I just wanted to write it all out, get it off my chest a bit. And now I've done that. I think it's time to return to prayer about my fear of failure, and see what God's up to. For now, I'm just going to be grateful that I'm here in this beautiful city, studying what I love once again. There's definitely a reminder here that God gives and he takes away, and I'm very grateful for what he has given right now. Even if that's all I'm to learn from this whole crisis, that's a pretty darn good lesson to walk away with. Thank you God!

Hope everyone has a great year, let's get stuck in.

Jo x

Living on a Prayer

Well, as of about 24 hours ago I am back in Northern Ireland for my summer holiday. Second year of university is over. We're half way there! And now I've got 'Living on a Prayer' by Bon Jovi stuck in my head. Anyway... looking back on the year, it's been pretty crazy! I payed bills for the first time in my life, that was very scary and grown up and I didn't like it at all! I made a few films with university, one of which I'm pretty proud of and you can watch and read about here. I took lots of photographs too, and wrote a good few essays. It's been a big learning curve in university, I've discovered what I'm good at and what I'm not good at, which has been a very interesting experience. I did lots of fun stuff like go to the zoo, visit people in England, take a surprise trip home, host a messy flat party, go to other messy flat parties and lots more stuff! Hmmm... what else did I do? Oh yeah, I started going to Central, a church in the centre of Edinburgh, and there I got convinced to sign up for Potential, only the best fellowship I've ever had... like ever!! 

Now any one who knows me well knows that I am a very sentimental/mushy person. And if you didn't know that, well, you're about to find out. You've been warned. 

When I first signed up for Potential, I have to admit I was skeptical. It was an all girls Bible study, and yes, the Bible is great, but all girls? That's a bit risky, eh? We all know what girl groups can be like, there's all the potential for cliques to emerge, for cat fights to break out etc etc. It seemed only natural! Like many I imagine, I personally have not had a good history of being in groups of girls. I'll not bore you with all the details but I have pretty much always found myself on the outside of groups of girls, never quite sure where I stood, feeling pretty left out. So when I signed up for Potential I assumed it would be much of the same story. To use the phrase made famous by Thorin Oakenshield in The Hobbit: I have never been so wrong!

As soon as I turned up on the first week I knew that I was going to get along really well with these girls, but still for the first few weeks I waited for the cliques to emerge, for groups to start making friends around me, but to my delight, it never happened. Very quickly we became a giant close-knit group of friends, who were constantly encouraging and building each other up. We studied the Bible together, prayed for each other, and had an awful lot of laughs at the same time! I was welcomed into this group with open arms, and always felt so loved whenever I walked into that kitchen every Tuesday night. And I wasn't the only one! Any of the other girls I talked to about their experience of it agreed that they loved this fellowship. One thing I loved about it was that girls who only turned up once or twice were treated no differently from girls who had been every week. That's brilliant. Turns out not all girl groups have to involve a negative experience, in fact, they they can be quite the opposite!

I'm very grateful for Potential and all the girls there right now. Through all that support and community,  I believe I have grown a lot this year, in both confidence, maturity, and my faith. I've begun to face a lot of my fears, some I didn't even realise I had before, some that have been really dragging me down for years and years. But all that is starting to get better! Without them I don't think I would have had the courage or determination to get up in front of 400ish people and tell my testimony and get baptised. I feel I have a lot better of an understanding of what God wants me to do with my life, and I'm slowly beginning to sort myself out, to start changing for the better, so that I may do that. 

To the Potential girls reading this right now, I guess I just wanted you to know how grateful I am for you. You guys are are amazing, God is doing awesome things through you all! You all have become very important to me. Keep being those wonderful ladies you are. I love you and miss you! Thank you for a great year and I'm excited for starting a new one with you all as my friends!! Now trust me, I could write pages and pages more on how great you all are and how much you make me laugh and how you've helped me etc etc but there's only so much cheesy stuff I can write in one post before I just turn into a massive block of mozzarella or something. So I'll leave it here. But yeah, I love you guys. Thank you.

“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven." - Matthew 5:13

NO FOMO Part 2

Hey, there! It's been a while. I guess I haven't had that much to say, but tonight I want to talk about FOMO again. This post will make a lot more sense if you read my older post from about a month ago on FOMO. If you haven't read it, go read it already. Click here to do that.

I mentioned in that post that something I really struggled with was FOMO. I wrote that entry the day after we discussed it in Potential, and at that time I still just thought it was something that I struggled with a bit, but that was okay and it was just the way I was, . However, in the following days and weeks it occurred to me that this isn't just a little thing that I struggle with... this is everything I struggle with. My fear of missing out was making me paranoid, and scared and just not okay. For example, I would get so upset if I wasn't invited to something, or if I was invited to something that I really really didn't want to go to, I would go, not out of politeness, but of fear. I was constantly thinking of other places I could be, constantly missing the friends that I wasn't with, hardly ever content in the now. I often wondered why I wasn't joyful like I used to be or could be. This is what it was. My fear of missing out was controlling my whole life, dragging me down into a spiral of anxiety.

In this past month I have been working hard on combatting my fear of missing out. Just recognising that I have it and how much of an issue it is was a big step in helping. Every time I start thinking in a way that is affected by FOMO, I immediately recognise what I'm doing and am usually able to talk myself out of it. I have noticed a change, there have been a couple of times in just the last week or so where I would have felt anxiety flare up because of not feeling part of something, but I just shrugged, thought 'No FOMO' to myself, and carried on. I know that doesn't seem like that much of a big deal, but I'm not sure I can truly explain how much this means to me. This sort of stuff never used to fail to upset me, but within the past month or so I am getting over it. I have grown. I think it's maturing me as well, I've been able to look at certain situations with a more neutral and calm eye, rather than focusing on how it affects me. I really can feel a change within me, and that's awesome. I still have it, I still struggle with it. Just a couple of weeks ago, I found out I wouldn't be able to attend something that meant quite a lot to me, and my heart literally sped up with fear. I was terrified! So yeah, I still have a long way to go. So pray for me, pray that I will be able to maintain this new ability to start combating my fears. And join me in praying for everyone who really struggles with this, which I assume is a lot of people. We don't have to be full of fear.

Be still, my soul: the Lord is on thy side.

Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain.

Leave to thy God to order and provide;

In every change, He faithful will remain.

Be still, my soul: thy best, thy heavenly Friend

Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.

NO FOMO

The fear of missing out (F.O.M.O. if you will), we all have it, some of us more than others. Those who know me well know that this is something I do struggle with a lot, especially back home in Northern Ireland. It affects me a lot, and it's something I have to deal with a lot, but those are all stories for another time. We discussed this issue last night at Potential and it hit home with me a lot. Today when I found myself facing the fear of missing out, I said to myself "No FOMO" to remind myself not to be bothered by that stuff. I am writing this post around dinner time, and already I have counted at least five or six times I have thought it to myself today. Six times in one day? That can't be right! But nope, it's quite convicting to realise just how much I think about this stuff, how much it affects me. And I know I'm not the only one. Chances are you who are reading this also struggle with this as much as I do. So let's sort it out together.

Being excluded is hard, but we can find comfort. When we feel unloved, or unappreciated it can seem pretty hopeless, but let's not forget that we are loved! We are loved immensely, immeasurably! By who? By God, the creator of all things, who made us and sent his Son to die for us. That's pretty cool. Makes me wonder why I care and stress so much about who else loves me. And God gets it! He understands that we feel lonely or excluded, and he wants to help us! He loves us so much and he wants us to know that. He was human once too, and he experienced all of it. He watched as his friends deserted him and denied him, and I can bet that all that hurt him a lot. So you are not alone. You are loved. And he understands. Still not convinced? Let's Bible it up in here!! (Shout out to Claudia and Naomi for picking out these great verses)

"Hear the word of the Lord,  you who tremble at his word: “Your own people who hate you, and exclude you because of my name, have said, ‘Let the Lord be glorified, that we may see your joy!' Yet they will be put to shame." - Isaiah 66:5

Are you excluded because of your faith? Fear not, God is watching over you. All these things are for his purpose and for his glory.  

"Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you." - 1 Peter 5: 7

"The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.” - Deuteronomy 31: 8 

These are just some great comforting verses for when we are discouraged and feel alone. You are never alone, he will always be there.

"Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me." - Psalm 27:10

"Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you. See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me." - Isaiah 49:15-16 

 This is the awesome stuff. If we can think of people in our life that should be the ones to always be there for us, to always love us, it would be our parents, right? And for most of us, they do love us dearly and do look out for us. But parents mess up, they're human. And that can hurt because we expect them to be the most supportive of everyone we know. But God is the ultimate parent, a great Father. He never ever gives up on us, or leaves us. That's awesome!! When others fail, God prevails. (I made a rhyme tehe)

"Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends." - John 15:13 

Have I mentioned that Jesus loved us so much that he DIED for us? KABOOM ULTIMATE LOVE.

"But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body." - Philippians 3:20-21

If you still feel sad, still feel discouraged, remember that this earth is not our home. We have an eternal life ahead of us that is perfect, we will never be excluded in heaven. It is our home.

I hope those verses bring comfort to you. I personally am going to strive to remember them in my times of loneliness. But, as much as it's good to build people up and encourage them, that's not all I want to say tonight. This is not a one way street. Those of us who feel excluded are not guiltless ourselves, I'm sure many of us have excluded other people as well, purposefully or not. I know I have. I was reading an article about how the church treats homosexuality the other day... I can almost hear you saying "woah, Jo, is this blog post suddenly going to get into an intense theological debate now?!" but don't worry, it's not. Anyway the writer of the article spoke about how he saw the church excluding members of the gay community, and he believed it was wrong. He quoted this verse, spoken by Jesus to the Pharisees.

"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to." - Matthew 23:13

It is clear that Jesus has strong views about excluding people, especially in church situations. He's pretty angry as he says these things, that's hard to deny!  I'm not going to get into the whole debate about homosexuality here (if you want to read the article, click here, I'd recommend it); I just want to discuss the verse in an overall sense, I'm just using that article as a bit of modern context. We can be so guilty of excluding people for various reasons, perhaps their upbringing, their nationality, their sexuality etc, maybe they just annoy us a bit! When we do that, we shut the door in their faces. We all have experienced it, we know how hard it is. So we must strive not to provoke those feelings in others, else we be hypocrites. That's a pretty convicting thought. What if we all tried to be more inclusive, to be inviting? Would that not be a great reflection of Jesus' love? This is something we all need to work on, and it can be scary, but it is important. We could bring so many more people to God if they saw what welcoming people we were, without boundaries and borders. It's a challenge anyway. 

Now there's a lot more to FOMO than just exclusion, but that's the part I mainly wanted to talk about tonight. It's a long enough post without the rest of it, I don't want to bore you all and I'm not even sure if what I have written makes much sense haha! There's probably still a whole lot more I could write even on this subject but I'll leave the rest up to you, seek out God's comfort and wisdom. In summation, remember you are loved, and remember to love. It's the most important commandment for a reason.

God bless, peace out, and no FOMO.

Jo x