Tuesday, February 22, 2011

I am different

You may think that my dreams and hopes and love are all the things of fairy tales, but I assure you, they are things of God and I could not have them without him.

You may think that my life is perfect and nothing bad has ever happened, but I assure you, my life is in this world and it effects me the same as you.

You may think that I am blind and do not know your pain, but I assure you, I have seen pain with my own eyes and felt it in my bones, but my God is a healer and he has brought me through.

You may think that I have it all together, but I assure you, God is holding me together.

I am not a fairy tale. I am not perfect. I am not innocent. I am real just as you are... But I am different.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

My Social Networking Policies

I feel as if I was bought up in the age of Social Networking.

At age 9 I was introduced to chat rooms, before anyone really knew the dangers of them. I had multiple neopets, I role played in a Harry Potter chat room when I was 14, and then continued on to Bebo (big mistake), Open Diary, Live Journal, Myspace, Wordpress and finally Face Book, Twitter and Blogspot.

Trends have come and gone as they will continue to do and I have learnt a few things for myself. You can choose to read them, use them, or ignore them, its entirely up to you - just like you have the choice to open this blog page or not. Thats the beauty of social networking - it's up to you.

Because its "up to you" I get very very annoyed when people manage to break those boundaries. For example, my home page is spammed with complaints or insults or Farmville. This simply will not do.

1) I like my profile pages to look pretty and like me. If you post rubbish on my wall, or insult me, or comment rude things, I will immediately delete it and I feel no remorse for this action. I especially despise spam comments on any forum that are repeated everywhere, or applications. Often I right click these (on FB) and immediately select the option of "block all applications called "da da da". This generally gets rid of them for good. You will find my profile pages are filled with my friends, people I know, and nice things. Because that's the way I want it.

2) I only accept people who a) I know. b) I like. and c) I would like to hear what you have to say.

3) I have no remorse in "blocking people" (that is to say, filtering their comments or blocking the persons feed. This does not include deleting them, so they still think we're friends.) You will be blocked if you a) Spam.  or b) complain about everything and everyone with no desire to get help.

4) I have only deleted a few people from my friends over the years. You may have been deleted because a) I have not talked to you in 5 years and I don't even know what country you are in. b) Continuously insult me and offer no other form of friendship to make up for it.

At the end of the day, our social networking sites are for us. This is why i will never join Formspring - it offers nothing for me, only an opportunity for others to dig into my life, or anonymously insult me. No thanks - I think we all have better things to do with our time than that.

Happy social networking! I hope it encourages you, builds you up, and ads something positive to your life. If it doesn't, you should do something about it! :)

x

Post Script - Although my bylaws sound tough, the truth is Everything gets deleted that i don't want there, only a handful of people have been blocked (and you probably wont be reading this if you are one of those people anyway) and only a few have been deleted. I am not a perfect social networker - I know for a fact I have been blocked from a number of peoples pages and deleted from at least 2. I am absolutely fine with that. I would rather people did that than got annoyed with me and never spoke to me in real life (consequently, the 2 that have deleted me (that I know about) I see regularly on a weekly basis and still speak to me!)

Saturday, February 12, 2011

90 Minutes in Heaven - Book Review


90 Minutes in Heaven is an account written by Don Piper of his first-hand experience of dying instantly in a head on collision with a truck on a bridge. The paramedics pronounced him dead immediately as they arrived on the scene, covered his car up and began rescuing the other victims of the accident.

Don was dead for 90 minutes and then miraculously as someone prayed for him, he woke.

Interested yet? I was too... Don describes what happened as he saw the truck sliding towards him, and then instantly he was in heaven. I wont spoil the details for you, the first few chapters are worth a read if you are interested in the after life, but I had my reservations for the rest of the book.

After Dons sad return to Earth he uses the rest of the book (14 chapters) (only 3 are spent on his Heavenly time) to describe his horrible pain in healing, his depression, his doubts, slow recovery, struggles, and eventual ministry that I'm sure has afforded him a nice pay cheque.

The book actually upset me after a while, I grew weary of hearing about his infections, his trauma and anger at God. In fact, after a while I threw down the book and protested to myself that it was nothing more than his "pity party". After a week I picked it back up again and bravely continued on. I'm glad I did, because my favourite part came right at the very end. Pg 194 "Since my return to earth, I've been acutely aware that all of us are on a pilgrimage. At the end of this life, wherever we go - heaven or hell - life will be more real than this one we're now living. I never though of that before my accident, of course. Heaven was a concept, something I believed in, but I didn't think about it often."

To be honest, I know very little about the after life. The bible states (somewhere) that there is a glorious afterlife that Jesus has prepared for us, and honestly, that's enough information for me. Im satisfied (and excited) with that. I have no idea if Don's account is biblical at all, I even have a sneaking suspicion its not - Don talks of the glorious wonders of Heaven, but maybe only mentions God once, and instead focuses on all of the wonderful people around Him. Pardon me if i'm wrong, but I thought Heaven was all about God - not others. Isn't that why we aren't married in heaven?? I will be doing further reading into this.

If you are interested in a baptist pastors experiential account of heaven and his recovery and subsequent ministry, this book is for you. Otherwise, I wouldn't waste your money on it.

"90 Minutes in Heaven" By Don Piper with Cecil Murphey. 1996. www.revellbooks.com

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Art Auction

Tent Peg Missions, who you might remember from this post, are holding an art auction to raise money for their Home Of Hope orphanage.

Home of Hope is in Uganda and is a loving home for 16 children who have been abandoned by their parents, made orphans due to war, and suffer immensely due to their disabilities.

I completely believe in this project, and think that Tent Peg are doing a wonderful thing in caring for these 16 children.

Please come to their Art Auction on Feb 14th, see the art for sale here and pre order tickets ($10) - let me know and I can hook you up with a ticket seller :)

Thanks for supporting such a worthwhile mission.




(some of my favourite pieces for sale, view them all on their facebook page here)
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