Lazy

I have just had a gentle kick up the proverbial by Tootsie Farklepants, isn't that a great name, because I haven't blogged for a while. Tootsie's blog is Vintage Thirty, a great blog that you just know is going to be great because the header is "unattended children will be given an espresso and a free puppy" - funny eh?

But enough of the waffle as I am simply trying to avoid the subject of my utter laziness and inability to post! My laziness has two parts to it, firstly that I have stopped reading anything even vaguely Christian and secondly that I am too lazy to come up with a blog post.

The first bit I am reluctant to talk about because it seems quite clear that I have turned my face away from God at the moment and there is simply no reason for me to have done so, except that I obviously expected everything to come easy and for there to be no struggle in getting to understand what my faith means to me. Yes, I can hear you all saying "Duh!?", but the point is that it IS hard work and I must persevere, but when I have several channels to surf the telly with or a laptop to play with or a pile of to be read books, my chats with God (in whatever form) come bottom of the pile.

And do you know what? I feel far less satisfied with it all, simply writing this post is making me think again and wondering just what it is that I am trying to achieve by not reading or pondering on God's word. There is a glimmer of light though - a leaflet dropped through my letterbox the other day - an Alpha study is going to be starting up in my village as from the 24th September, and this will give me a lot more help and thought, not to mention likeminded people that actually live near me that I can talk to and discuss things with - I will let you all know how I get on with that.

(By the way, if you'd like to know how the canal holiday went, just pop over to my other blog and take a look here and here!)

Oops!

Just to let you all know that I am indeed fine (thanks for all the enquiries as to where I am and whether I am ok!), I am just being a very bad blogger at the moment.

Inspiration is proving very elusive and as I am away on a lovely canal boat holiday next week I am going to wait until I get back before I start trying again. Of course, the hope is that some quiet time on the canals with my family will provide me with lots of good bloggy thoughts!

Rest assured, however, that I am reading your blogs and commenting on some of them too.

All I can say is watch this space, I will indeed return to a rather more normal pace of blogging sooner or later!!

Friendship

What is one thing that you absolutely love about friendships? Why? On the other side, what is one thing that you find absolutely difficult when it comes to friendships? Why?

That is this week's question from Internet Cafe Devotions and here is my answer!

Friendships are what make the world go round! Where we would we be without our friends? Anyway, there are two things that I love about friendships, the first is that you can talk about anything and everything and assuming that we are talking about true deep friendship, then you truly can talk about anything under the moon and your friend will listen (as will you) and not judge, but engage in conversation and draw out what you really feel and help you come to terms with what it is that you're having trouble with.

The second thing I love about friendship is more to do with the fact that I don't see my closest friends very often, but when we do get together, the time apart falls away and it's as though we met just last week instead of last year. We fall into our usual conversation patterns and chatter away, we remember family names and happening and rush to catch up with each other!

The one thing that I do find difficult about friendships is how to get to that level of closeness so that you can do what I've already mentioned. I don't make close friends easily and find it difficult to get beyond the acquaintance stage. Probably because I am quite reserved and while I can be quite chatty in general conversation, getting past that into the deeper conversation takes more effort than I realise.

Plus there is the difficulty in that I tend to meet people professionally rather than socially, or at least in the last two years as I have worked more hours than I would normally. This year, however, I intend to drag myself a little further out of my shell and perhaps make a few friends in this area that are not related to work!

As iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend

Proverbs 27:17

Tagged for six random facts!

Edie from Rich Gifts has tagged me!! I have also been tagged with the same meme by Alice from Hello, my name is Alice and as they have both tagged me for different blogs, I am going to do the meme twice, once on this blog and once on my Life and Times of Me blog, so you should consider yourself very lucky to get twelve quirky/random facts about me (if I can even think up twelve!!)

Edie says that I have post the rules....

1) Link to the person who tagged you.
2) Post the rules on your blog.
3) Write 6 random things about yourself.
4) Tag 6 people at the end of your post and link to them.
5) Let each person know they have been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
6) Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

Right....six things....

I am never without something to read, I get twitchy if I don't have at least one book to read and yet I sometimes cannot find anything worth buying when I visit the local bookshops - too much choice I think!

I don't like checking the tyre pressure on the wheels of my car, I don't know why but I am always worried that I will get it wrong, so I have to make myself do it.

I lived in Denmark for three months on a University exchange visit, I lived in university accommodation and fell in love with Copenhagen and think that I could quite happily live there. (But then I find that I think the same about Vancouver which I visited about ten years ago, and Australia which I visited four months ago)

I love short pajamas, one can never have too many sets of pajamas (I bought another set yesterday - gray with short shorts and little flower patterns all over!)

The rooms upstairs in my house always look as though a personal shopper has gone crazy - I hang clothes from overdoor hooks to dry and never manage to put them away - every door (apart from the bathroom door) has clothes hanging from them!! I really really must put them away.

I get most of my Bible quotes from the internet, from fellow bloggers and sites like the Bible Gateway - I really must actually read the Bible!

And now I tag six others....

Meditations and Confessions of a Homemaker
Flickers of a Faithful Firefly
Journeying Forward
Drink Offering
Lily of the Valley
The Fruits of the Spirit

They are all bloggers who have recently commented on my blog!

Book Titles

This weeks question from Internet Cafe Devotions is "what would be a title of a book about your life?"

This seems rather similar to that "your life in six words" meme that I came across a few weeks ago and I played that one on my Life and Times of Me blog and said "books, books, books, here, there, everywhere" which I thought was rather reflective of my voracious reading hobby and my career as a librarian!

I think that this question requires a bit more subtlety though; do I go for a film type title - "Samantha: the book" (like Garfield: the movie!) which seems silly, do I do go for something highbrow like....um, er, I can't actually think of anything highbrow as I am definitely not a highbrow kinda person!

Once, someone told me that my name means listener and thinking on it now, I think that this would be a great title for a book "Samantha means listener" as this could be applied in so many ways.

I am deaf, which you may think makes a mockery of the chosen book title, but actually I think that emphasises the title as although I am deaf, I strive to listen; to listen to the conversations around me, to listen to my cat meow at me, to listen to the music in my car, to listen sounds that are normal to you but unusual to me - sounds your brain has heard, absorbed, recognised and ignored are sounds that make me listen and want to know what they are.

Sometimes my whole being is focused on listening to what you have to say as it requires more than just my ears, I have to watch your mouth and body movements, I have shut out everything else in order to concentrate on you, sometimes I even have to position myself so that I am in the right place for understanding.

And I think that this is a good way to demonstrate listening to and understanding God as we need to listen to Him with more than our ears, we need to put ourselves in the right position for listening, and we need to concentrate on Him alone if we are hear anything.

Why spend money on what is not bread

and labour on what does not satisfy?

Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,

and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.

Isaiah 55:2

Thanks

It's Thursday, so it must be Thankful Thursday!

• Thank you for the fan at my feet that is keeping me cool (it's not even that hot outside, so I should probably check my temperature when I get home tonight!)



• Thank you for the lovely weekend that I had with my parents last weekend



• Thank you for two laptops that arrived from the IT dept for my lending laptop project - I have learnt patience in this matter, I will learn the skill of even more patience as I await the other six!



• Thank you for subtitles as I can understand the news that is playing on the wall at work (with the sound off - I bet I get more than other people do - ha ha!)



• Thank you for the friendship of Edie as she helps me try to understand the Bible a little better!



• and finally, Thank you Lord for keeping me out of trouble on the motorway last week

Dissatisfaction?

Sometimes I am rather taken aback at the ways in which I am led to think about my life. I read a post today at I'm ramblin' again and it could have been written for me, right down to the little postcard that was found on postsecret

Admittedly I don't think about running away from home every day, but I am 33, I do have my own house and I do have a great job and yet I still sometimes think that if I did this or that then my life would be better.

What Justin says at I'm Ramblin' Again is that this is quite normal, we all look at the greener grass or imagine that our lives would be better if only it were different. However, Justin makes a very important point in that no matter what we did to make our lives different WE would still be the same and it is our general dissatisfaction with everything that means that even if everything were as perfect as we believe they should be, we still wouldn't be happy because we are still carrying around our baggage regarding how we feel about ourselves.

Until we I get to the bottom of my dissatisfaction and allow myself to find happiness in the life that I am living then I am always going to see that greener grass and yearn for it. So, instead of looking at the outward trappings of success I need to focus on my inner happiness and draw out my faith and my joy in the simple things and learn to be happy instead of saying to myself that if I had a bigger house I'd be happier, if I moved to Australia (or Canada or America or wherever the fancy takes me!) I'd be the social bubbly person that I always wanted to be, if I did this or that then I'd be happier.

But, I know deep down inside that no matter what I did I would still be the same person - vaguely unhappy but not entirely certain why, and I know that I need to work on this and I do believe that I am taking baby steps towards understanding myself and where I should be in my life.