Overdoing It

Do you ever think sometimes you push yourself a little past your own limits?

I do it all the time, and I cant seem to figure out how to make myself stop.

This week has been a huge week - universities here are about to start back, which means it's Orientation Week at many campuses. For a few days, the uni takes on the carnival type atmosphere as students explore all the clubs they could join. It's an awesome time for evangelism, because everyone is really open to talking about what they believe.

But when you take an already exhausted girl, put her in the sun for two days, and then feed her junk food... you get one very sick human being. After 4 days of being a whirlwind activity, I leaped at the chance to go out for dinner with a close friend as a way to chill out. However, I made a mistake... Instead of actually thinking, "can my body handle this?", I just plunged headlong into it, and filled myself with more junk food. Predictably, my body didn't like it, and what should have been a fun night out to catch up ended with me being sick into a garbage bin outside the shopping centre. Tres elegante, n'est pas? I am very thankful for my friend for how well he looked after me, particularly when I didn't deserve it at all.

But my misadventure should be a powerful lesson to me. Not only did I end up miserable for embarrassing myself so badly in front of my friend, but I was too sick to go back to help with the outreach the next day... my last opportunity to help with O-Week mission ever, as this is my final year at uni. I need to learn to slow down, and do what I can handle. Don't push yourself beyond your limits, for your own sake or to please others. It isn't the road to happiness.

Waiting for the World to Fall

I feel like I am trapped in a period of waiting - the calm before the storm. There is so much about to happen in my life, and there's only so much I can do to prepare for it. I am waiting for:

• my best friend to come home for overseas. I miss her incredibly, and if it wasn't ridiculously expensive, I would be on the phone right now telling her that. There is a lot going on at the moment, and it will be strange not to have her there beside me.
• university classes to resume. We are all get used to patterns and rules and working within them. I have had a whole summer of freedom, and soon I will be back to the routine of classes. Part of me is glad to be returning to the familiar comfort of routine, knowing what each day will hold, while another part mourns losing the chance to do what I like, whenever I like.
• campus ministry to start up. I am planning to be very involved in the Christian movement at my campus this year and I can't wait to see how God draws new students in and uses the students currently involved to spread the gospel on campus.
• my graduation. I know this is a long way off, but I am very much aware that this is my last year of tertiary studies. I'm not sure what direction God has planned for me once I graduate, but I am excited to find out.

Waiting is such a strange feeling. It's mixture of nervousness and excitement and sometimes a touch of fear. But waiting can be difficult. A couple of weeks ago, my friends and I had a five hour wait at the airport for our flight home. But we got so caught up in distracting ourselves from the long wait, we almost missed our flight, even though we'd been sitting in the airport for 5 hours!

Waiting is hard, but there's also a purpose in it. It might be that more preparation is needed or you're just not ready. But there is a season for everything, and that includes waiting.

Sadness in the Air

It feels at the moments like there is sadness drifting through the air like mist, clouding vision and choking life and laughter.

Many people have lost their lives to fires that are ravaging parts of my country. Hundreds of properties have been destroyed. There is a great public sadness, some of which is personal to me as the homes of friends and family are threatened.

There is also more private sadness. My closest friend has lost a loved one, and I cannot help but mourn as she mourns. As with my sister, I cannot see her cry without crying myself. And her sadness is understandable, for her relative lived far away, and it has been a long time between visits, and now it seems too late.

Here on Earth, we suffer. We suffer because this world is out of kilter - it has sin. And because it has sin, it has death. But in the very heart of it all, there is hope. Hope that rolled away the stone on the third day and defeated death once and for all time.