I am tired. I feel like I'm being pulled in so many different directions. One part of me wants to stop and scream. Another part of me wants to crawl up under a blanket and hide. So I let go of it all and fall, let myself fall into His hands.
So maybe I will go to Wales over New Years after all. I am making my escape.
All Love
December 30, 2010
December 25, 2010
Compassion
To those who tell me not to do these things, please read Isiah 58 and Matthew 25:31-46.
It is Christmas time, and England has turned into a cold frosty land of mulled wine and mince pies. Christmas Eve I spent with Julia and her family, eating Swedish meatballs and sausages and drinking Jaeger. It was a great night, and it ended at Mr Wolf''s in town. On my way home I walked past a Big Issue seller, and he wished me a happy Christmas. I asked him if he had had a good day, and he told me it had been a pretty rubbish day for him, and he explained how he had missed out on a bed at the shelter and how his bags had got lost. Now he was trying to sell The Big Issue on an empty street so he could get money for a b&b. As it was a cold night I told him he could come and stay on my sofa if he wanted to. So it came to be that we walked the road up to my flat together. His name was Alen, and he told me about his life, a story that made me crumble inside and almost brought tears to my eyes. It was a story of abuse, suicides, overdoses and loneliness. Yet I was amazed at his goodness and how he refused to let his circumstances break him down. He said he had met me before, down the bearpit a few months ago. The bearpit is one of my favourite places in Bristol, full of homeless, druggies, buskers and street preachers. My flatmates, Rachel and Sus, had left to spend Christmas with family, so noone else was home. Had they been I probably wouldn't have invited Alen, as I'm quite sure they'd be too worried about having a male stranger picked up from the street sleeping in the flat. We got home, made some tea and I made the sofa up for him, let him have a shower and gave him some clothes to sleep in so that I could wash his own ones. Allthough I was never afraid of him, I said a prayer at bedtime for protection and peace. As the morning came, he got himself dressed and I told him he could keep the trousers as his shorts might be too cold later on. So he did. We said good bye and Merry Christmas and he headed out to try and get his situation sorted. It might have been a drop in the ocean, but however insignificant it might seem, had I been him, it would have mattered. And so I feel peace.
Today is Christmas Day and I am truly blessed.
All Love
It is Christmas time, and England has turned into a cold frosty land of mulled wine and mince pies. Christmas Eve I spent with Julia and her family, eating Swedish meatballs and sausages and drinking Jaeger. It was a great night, and it ended at Mr Wolf''s in town. On my way home I walked past a Big Issue seller, and he wished me a happy Christmas. I asked him if he had had a good day, and he told me it had been a pretty rubbish day for him, and he explained how he had missed out on a bed at the shelter and how his bags had got lost. Now he was trying to sell The Big Issue on an empty street so he could get money for a b&b. As it was a cold night I told him he could come and stay on my sofa if he wanted to. So it came to be that we walked the road up to my flat together. His name was Alen, and he told me about his life, a story that made me crumble inside and almost brought tears to my eyes. It was a story of abuse, suicides, overdoses and loneliness. Yet I was amazed at his goodness and how he refused to let his circumstances break him down. He said he had met me before, down the bearpit a few months ago. The bearpit is one of my favourite places in Bristol, full of homeless, druggies, buskers and street preachers. My flatmates, Rachel and Sus, had left to spend Christmas with family, so noone else was home. Had they been I probably wouldn't have invited Alen, as I'm quite sure they'd be too worried about having a male stranger picked up from the street sleeping in the flat. We got home, made some tea and I made the sofa up for him, let him have a shower and gave him some clothes to sleep in so that I could wash his own ones. Allthough I was never afraid of him, I said a prayer at bedtime for protection and peace. As the morning came, he got himself dressed and I told him he could keep the trousers as his shorts might be too cold later on. So he did. We said good bye and Merry Christmas and he headed out to try and get his situation sorted. It might have been a drop in the ocean, but however insignificant it might seem, had I been him, it would have mattered. And so I feel peace.
Today is Christmas Day and I am truly blessed.
All Love
December 16, 2010
Sweden and Winter
Christmas time. I am back in Sweden for 10 days seeing family and friends. It's been snowy and cold most of the time and I've realised I really need proper winter shoes. When I arrived the plane had to land closer to Stockholm as the weather didn't allow the plane to land in Gothenburg. After 5 hours on a bus I arrived at the right airport, and around 4 am I stepped through the door to our house, noticing with delight that the temperature inside was 23 degrees. The bed was waiting for me and the duvet seemed more like a sheet than a duvet compared to the one I got in Bristol, but I was never cold. I have played in the snow, met up with old friends, walked the frozen lake, eaten saffron buns, been fed by my grandma, been to my brother's Christmas concert, and tomorrow will be more catching up and celebrating my sister's 28th birthday. Time has passed way too quick as always, and I have only one more day here. Though I will miss it, there's a niceness about going home to England. Because, however hard it can be to admit it, I do miss my mates!
All Love
All Love
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