Skydiving

A couple of weekends ago i went to a place called AirKix, indoor skydiving, a huge wind tunnel where you fall into the wind and you fly. It was Awesome, really awesome. The awesomeness wasn't so much the flying though, although that was a lot of fun (although slightly terrifying!) It was how clear my mind felt whilst i was doing it, i've had this feeling before, where one moment you have all of the worries of the world on your mind and then you can only possibly think of this one thing you are doing and its like thats all your brain has room for. It really puts your priorities into perspective. It happened when dad was having the heart attack and i was doing CPR, I didn't panic like everybody else, i knew what i had to do and thats all i could focus on at that moment in time, the rest of the world narrowed into this sort of tunnel vision almost. It happens everytime i have an important exam (not quite so useful in a driving exam where you need to be aware of all of your surroundings!) the adrenaline is pumping and your mind is perfectly clear, only bringing to the forfront the information you actually need at that point in time, if somebody had asked me what the capital of Australia was during that moment i wouldn't have been able to answer you. Although being able to see the bigger picture is important sometimes so you can do the right thing at the right time, sometimes you just don't need to know it, you don't need to worry about things you can't change right now and its much more useful to you to focus on the things that you are doing right now. I guess things are like that with God, we don't know the bigger picture, he doesn't give us that insight because it would be just too overwhelming for us to cope with, we get the here and now to focus on.

How did you get here?

Last week JD said hi, we spoke about Liam and he asked if i ever felt like one conversation could push someone over the edge into atheism forever. I feel like this with every conversation i have, i truly believe most people around me are one push from the eternal void of atheism, never to return. God trusts us not to make that push though otherwise we wouldn't be having the conversation, He has prepared us for this situation in every step we have taken up until this point. I started wondering how He had affected things and was actually quite shocked at how much He had prepared me for where i am today. Hilary and I used to play this game 'if ..... hadnt happened who would i be now?' where one person names an event in the others life and you have to figure out what the wave of difference would have been as a result of this, this post is pretty much me playing this game with God.

I am a second child, (yes God was planning stuff before i was even born) as such from the moment i was born i looked up to my older sister and wanted to copy what she did, as i got older i wanted to prove myself and beat what she could do. Amy started gooing to Sunday School when she was around nine, I dont know why she started going, my parents didnt take her, maybe one of her friends invited her along. She kept going every week until she moved to university. The rest of us were jealous and wanted to go to, eventally our parents caved in and let us all go, i hated it and soon started begging my parents to let me stay at home. On Sunday mornings we had to go to church parade with the brownies, we sat in a dank dark thousand year old church in out little brownie uniforms and marched a flag up the aisle, sang hymns which mostly we just said 'blah blah' to and tried to stay awake so Brown Owl didnt give us a sharp poke in the ribs, our dad would pick us up from church and take us to Sunday school, my class was a combination of two school year groups, i was the youngest of the five kids in my class, everyone elses parents were part of the Salvation Army Corps, i really didnt feel like i fit in, i didnt know any of the things that these kids had been brought up doing, i'd never had to find a passage in the Bible before, i didnt know that it wasnt really appropriate to wear my mums 'Brown Ale' apron when we did our easter play, i gave up, they were, and are, nice people, but it wasnt designed to let outsiders in. God had opened my eyes to the concept of church but made me realise this wasnt really how it should be done. I had been told God existed, so i believed it, i had no reason to question it, my parents didnt tell me otherwise.

From this brief period onwards i had no connection to the church, i'd left Sunday school, brownies and Guides and so had Sundays free. In secondary school God introduced me to a girl names Susy, she is a Christian, the only Christian in our class, we thought she was wierd but she ended up taken me on as a friend, Susy has influenced the type of Christian i have become and taught me some lessons along the way.

When we were 14 we had to choose which GSCEs we would study for, its actually quite a life directing point when you think about it, choosing your direction of study at such a young age, i chose the subjects i was interested in and Sociology (because Amy had studied it). Sociology was oversubscirbed. They gave me Religious studies instead. I was crushed, i was horrible at RS. When i started the course the next year though we had a young enthusiastic teacher called Miss Gill, we started studying philosophy and she made it interesting, i was hooked, i aced the GSCE and started the A level course in the subject, we started learning about Plato and Aquinas and i started debating against my classmates (if you dont know me well enough, i am quite a shy person, last century i was a million times more so, i wouldnt say boo to a goose let alone argue with someone about philosophy) and strangely my views werent always against God. I started wondering about philosophy and praying, i didnt think it would make any difference but it wouldnt cost me anything. Studying about philosophical ideas, from all perspectives and about all the different religions really drew me closer to God, i really dont think i would have accepted Him if i hadnt, because i simply dont make that sort of decision if i dont know enough about it and dont know all the information available. Many people think teaching children about all religions as well as the scientific theories is wrong and Christian children should go to Christian schools were they are only taught the 'Truths' but i strongly disagree, why segregate the few Christian children away from those in need of saving, maybe it will strengthen their ideas, whilst making them ignorant of the rest of the world, but whose salvation has it cost?

The later God directions you are probably familar with so i will be quick, if Dad hadnt have died i would have been content with England, i wouldnt have studied abroad, i wouldnt have met Jon and i wouldnt have started going to Church again, i wouldnt be saved and i would be encouraging Liam towards atheism when we discuss God, which is quite often, he is very curious. I only had one moment where i felt the Sunday school confusion when i went to Church this time round, one of the first times i met Kami she asked, in the middle of prayer if i remember rightly, "were you brought up in the church?" Now i sort of understand the question now but i really wasnt sure what she meant at the time or what was the 'correct' answer. What does being brought up in the church mean? I nodded because i figured id been to church a few times when i was eight and she seemed disappointed, i later found out she wasnt brought up in the church, i went away thinking ' .... was i brought up in the church?' My parents have never believed in God and never came to church or imposed any kind of belief system on us but somehow i did end up there. So Kami, i think to better answer your question -

i wasnt brought up in the church but i was brought up in God, my Father made sure of that