Blog Yellek

Whilst I was lying awake last night thinking things over, unable to sleep I came up with another analogy. When birds are growing up they have a pretty good life. Meals get delivered on schedule, the nest is safe and warm and parents are always around. I feel like someone has just come and booted me out of the nest. I have 2 options, I can either get used to the feeling of the wind rushing around me on the way down or start flapping and figure out how to fly.

Have you ever had a Fight Club moment ? If you’ve seen the movie (and it’s not for everyone I might add, there is some pretty strong stuff in this movie) you’ll know what I mean. One of those jaw dropping realizations that the world as you had perceived it bears little relationship to the way things are. Tonight I had one of those moments. Thankyou (you know who you are). If you think this post is a little short on detail it is, but of course I’m remembering the first rule of fight club.

On the weekend something happened to me which caused me to be seriously cranky and upset. Looking at the circumstances there was no really good reason for the level of reaction that I was feeling but there it was in all its sinful ugliness. When that happens I tend to withdraw and want to run away because I can hear in my head the perfectly reasonable defence of the person I happen to be upset with at the time would use were I to let my reaction drive me to a confrontation. Of course sitting up in the balcony at church to try and be away from people turned out to not be one of my better moves because half of Thirty Something were up there including pastor Mark who came to check up on something.
The struggle in one of those situations is to do what you know is right even though you do not feel like it, you would rather wallow in the hurt real or imagined. I think I probably managed about 4 out of 10 last night where 10 would be not wallowing at all. When I am in this sort of mood someone coming up to me and telling me to look at it objectively compared to how bad someone else has had it and get over it doesn’t usually go down to well.
Anyway this morning I went out to pray about the situation after having calmed down a bit and realised that this was not an isolated incident. It always annoys me a little bit whan this happens because it means that I really don’t have any justification for feeling hard done by, not that I really did in the first place. I could put my finger on at least 2 or 3 other situations where I have reacted in a similar fashion to the same sort of stimuli. The problem seems to occur when I feel like I have been kept out of the loop on something. On further reflection it’s probably some sort of insecurity/seeking approval thing. When that happens my reaction can be off the chart compared to what seems to be justified.

God help me to trust in your security and grace so that I can extend grace and love to others no matter what!

Found the following site with a huge number of free online personality tests http://www.davideck.com/cgi-bin/tests/tests.cgi?action=personality.

Well I finally feel like I’ve really joined the ranks of Adelaide dwellers because now I too can say “I’ve been to Victor Harbour”. Yesterday Princess CB, Archie Girl, Sharlock and myself piled into my car for what I am led to believe is an Adelaide tradition, the day trip to Victor. As I was a Victor neophyte I was pretty laid back about plans for the day and thought I’d just go with the flow. I figured that whatever we ended up doing it would be a quality day because all of the people that were in the car are good friends and the conversations were bound to be entertaining. I like to drive and they all like to be driven so that worked out really well too.
So off we went, arriving there just in time for lunch at the pub followed by a walk over and around Granite Island, carefully avoiding the leftovers from the horses drawing the tram across the bridge for the other tourists, we thought it was more fun to walk. As we were climbing up the stairs behind the kiosk we looked and saw what we though were whales or some sort of sea life out to sea. As we climbed higher we realized that they were rocks being covered and uncovered by the waves but not before we had convinced a number of other people that they were whales by staring intently and commenting. We walked on around the island and even saw some Little Penguins huddling in their burrows until nightfall.
After Granite Island we got into the car and drove up to “The Bluff” (Rosetta Head) but as it was raining by then we though we would just sit in the car, look at the view and talk which suited our mood just fine. We managed to sit in the car at 3 different parking areas and thoroughly enjoyed every minute.
After that it was getting dark so we decided to head home. Trying to avoid the traffic we ended up on the wrong road going to Cape Jervis and had to backtrack till we found the right one through Yankalilla. About half way back I started vaguing out as I had been concentrating on the narrow twisty road and so we stopped for coke and chocolate. After that we went back to Sharlock and Archie Girl’s place for Pizza where Archie Girl looked after Princess CB’s feet which had been rubbed raw by her shoes whilst walking. The girls added looking after feet to the list of things that a future husband had to have. We then watched The Princess Bride which Princess CB hadn’t seen and we went home. All in all a totally chilled out day with 3 other quality people and many laughs and great conversations.
Some things I learned:

• “This car is not being driven by a committee”

• Sharlock and Archie Girl mark hard when it comes to scoring out of 10
• Victor Harbour is more the idea of the place rather than the place itself, there didn’t seem to be that much there but somehow that didn’t matter.
• Quality time spent with quality people is amongst the most fulfilling things on this Earth. It doesn’t matter what you do, it’s the fellowship that matters.
  

I was reading Dr Fun this morning and it reminded me of one very important fact: I have no idea what a peep is. I assumed it was some obscure American cultural experience so I decided to do a little research (aint Google grand!) and came up with the following page on Peep Research. I thought that the description of Peep Solubility Testing was particularly funny.

Well a little late but here’s this week’s Friday Fives:

1. What do you do for a living?

I help maintain a large software system with thousands of users

2. What do you like most about your job?

The fact that my skills and experience are actually useful to people.

3. What do you like least about your job?

Doing software testing. It’s boring and repetetive and I sometimes wonder if anyone is ever going to look at the test results anyway.

4. When you have a bad day at work it’s usually because _____…

I have an argument or a confrontation with someone or I feel that someone is bad mouthing me behind my back.

5. What other career(s) are you interested in?

I’ve often wondered what it would be like to be a musician.

I’d like to welcome archiegirl to the company of bloggers.

I was talking with a friend yesterday about a particular issue that I’m going through at the moment and he made a really wise comment. He told me not to worry about the gap but to deal with where God has you now. As I’ve been thinking about this over the last day or so I have realized how much of my thought life revolves around the gap. Let me explain.

The gap is the difference between expectations and reality. The gap is the difference between what other people think you should be doing and what you are doing. The gap is between what you think you should have done and what you actually did. The gap is between what you think should have happened and what actually happened. The gap is between what you think someone else should have done and what they did. The gap is between where you hoped that you’d be by now and where you actually are. The gap is between what you think you can achieve and what you actually could if you tried.

All of these things are manifestations of the gap with subtle differences. Take other people’s expectations for example. There is a situation in my life where I know that I’m not measuring up to someone else’s expectations, there is a gap there. I feel bad that I’m not filling that gap but what I need to do is look at the lessons that God is teaching me step by step and not let the size of the gap overwhelm me, all the time wanting to fill the gap but not letting it overwhelm me. Take the gap between what you think you should have done and what you actually did. I know that this Easter weekend was my time to get some stuff done that I have totally failed to get done. Instead I let the guilt at the little gap between my responsibility and my actions drive me into escapism which made the gap bigger which led to more escapism and so on.

All of these things are subtly different but they have the same cure, Jesus. Jesus accepts us for who we are (He made us after all) so we don’t need to let other people’s expectations of who we should be rule our lives (remembering that sometimes Jesus uses other people to let us know what He wants us to know). Jesus died on the cross to forgive us so that the guilt we feel at doing the wrong thing can be dealt with and we can be free of it. Jesus gives us acceptance and grace and love so that we don’t have to be harder on ourselves than necessary. Jesus assures us that there is a plan for our lives and assures us that whatever our circumstances He is in control. Jesus gives us the grace to love and forgive others so that when they let us down we can still love them. Jesus gives us the confidence to know that what we can achieve with Him is so much more than we could achieve alone.

Jesus help me to dwell on you and not on the gap.

Let me welcome Sharlock to the company of bloggers. Two interesting posts up already and I’m sure more to come.