Oiflashari's Weblog

Jamie

oiflashari — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 09:17:04 +0000

There she goes!
There goes a good companion,
a true friend,
a kindred spirit.
We have laughed till our sides split,
over trousers trapped in doors
and lame half baked jokes.
We have laughed in the face of adversity,
when the only strength we had was laughter.
Our joined up joy lfited us high above
the individual storms that we faced, together.
We’ve bellowed out tears from the depth os despair,
we’ve handed each other tissues time and time again.
We’ve worn the ache of our heart on our sleeve,
trusting, hoping to find a safe person to share with.
The worst of me,
the best of me,
she has seen both,
and still she loves me.
She has covered my weakness with her love
and lavished her encouragement over my strengths.
One doesn’t come accross these kind of friends very often;
a chance collision of compatibility,
a divinely orchestrated appointment ‘for such a time as this’.
Whatever the reason we met,
I am glad of it and the richer for it.
I am proud to be fighting the good fight of faith alongside Jamie,
I am proud to call her my sister!

The Good News and the Bad News

oiflashari — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 09:15:20 +0000

I’ll share the Good News first, it could soften the blow!

God so loved the world that He gave His One and Only Son, Jesus, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.

God sent is Son Jesus into the world not to judge the world but to save the world.

There is no judgement against anyone who believes in Jesus.

Anyone who believes in God’s Son had eternal life.

Now for the bad news;

If people don’t believe in Him they will perish and not have eternal life.

Anyone who does not believe in Him has already been judged for not believing in God’s one and only Son.

Anyone who doesn’t obey the Son will never experience eternal life but will remain under God’s anger and judgement!

So is it too late? No! It’s never too late with God, just turn around and believe in Him! Every day that you live is a new opportunity to turn your life around and be all that you could be, with God your Creator!

But ‘just believing’ is hard right? We certainly make it hard, it has been a long journey for me, but the most worthwhile investment of my life! I went from not believing, to wanting to believeing, to trying to believe and finally came to a place where I realized that I needed and wanted everything I read in the Bbile to be real to me, so I had to surrender my own way of tinking and take the risk of trust and ‘just believe’!

Hard? Yes!

Counter-cultural? Yes?

Is life better after ‘just believing’? Definately! And I’m still on that adventurous journey!

In My Father’s Footsteps

oiflashari — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 16:31:21 +0000

My father and I love to hike, so we’ve been out all week enjoying local snowy walks. As we were walking the other day I realized that I am always following my dad, sometimes I follow his direction but take a different route to the destination, sometimes I need to be so close behind him that I’m literally standing in his footprints. I also noticed that even if I follow his exact position, my shoes leave a different imprint in the snow. If you haven’t already guessed, this raised some parallels for me with regards to my relationship with my heavenly Father.

God created us all as unique individuals with specific gifts, talents, abilities and likes, so even if we follow Him as best we know how, the print we’ll be leaving will be uniquely ours. Our trail should always be following Jesus Christ Because He is the Way, we want to be on the Way ourselves and we want to lead others along the Way, but the way we all choose to do that is wonderfully and magnificently different and unique!

There is only One Way and He is Jesus, and I want us all to be free within our relationship with God to be our truest selves and to enjoy expressing ourselves as creatively as He created us to be!

life after mercy

oiflashari — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 15:56:51 +0000

There’s a lot I need to share about my Mercy journey! It began in the days between Christmas and New Year 2009 and ended November 9th 2011! I applied, went through intake, went through the program and graduated in 10 1/2 months! What a journey!!! The best thing about it? I’m free! For the 1st time since I can remember I am free from depression, self-harm, eating-disorders and destructive living! Those whom the Son sets free are free indeed!

So what does it look like for me to be living free? Pretty ordinary really! It just means I can get on with my life and relationships on a day to day basis and enjoy being alive! I’m enjoying my freedom by doing all the things I’ve always wanted to do but never could; hanging out with friends, making new friends, enjoying God, enjoying food, enjoying people, dreaming realistic dreams that can actually come true!

And all this is because God and His mature people loved me enough, while I was still a mess, to give me a chance that I didn’t deserve! I am eternally grateful and am determined to live my life in a way that shares that same love with others.

Principles

oiflashari — Thu, 27 May 2010 16:50:29 +0000

We had a guy named Laurence Singlehurst come speak with us in York this week. He was the director of YWAM England for a long while and he pioneered Cell UK! These are some of the core principles for life that he communicated to us;

God is good!

God is who He says He is!

I am who God says I am (identity)!

I can do what God has told me I can do!

He also discussed the beauty of value based discipleship/living in place of rule based discipleship/living. In this postmodern world these are some key values that I desire to own and see manifest in my life;

1. A high value of God.

2. A high value of others!

3. A high value of ourselves!

4. A high view of sacrificial love (to choose to love when it’s hard, inconvenient, risky and costly to us)!

Simple yet profound. These things, if applied to life authentically, will transofrm our lives and yeild much juicy fruit!

the Cross is Christ’s business

oiflashari — Sat, 08 May 2010 11:59:03 +0000

During one of our recent lecture weeks we had a ministry night where we talked about something that had been on our minds recently. I brought up the fact that I find it hard to reveive. I find it hard to receive love, gifts, praise, etc. I am a lot better than I used to be, but hey, we’re all growing gradually.

I shocked myself by realising that I couldn’t let go of Christ’s death! I didn’t want Him to die! I hated the thought that He had to die! I wanted to be the one who had to die, not Him. Why should He have to die and not me?

As you may be able to tell by reading this, I was proud. Too proud to receive the best, awesomest gift in history! I had to let it go! I had to let Jesus make the decision, I had to let Him choose to die for me and watch Him die for me. I just had to receive HIs gift of death and life! Until I could accept HIs death there was no way I could accept His resurrection!

I publicly proclaimed that I was sorry for being proud and that I accepted His gift. It will be an interesting time of seeing this come to fruit in my life!

a bit of earth

oiflashari — Sat, 08 May 2010 11:14:42 +0000

All of last year (2009) I wanted an allotment, but I wasn’t sure I was up to it! When I came back from Argentina I was determined to give it a go! I registered for an allotment but didn’t hold my breath, I’d heard that you could be waiting for up to two years! Over the Christmas holidays I watched ‘The Secret Garden’ and one scene struck me; the niece of the depressed mansion owner goes into his room one night to beg him not to send her away to a boarding school and she asks him for a ‘bit of earth’. All she wants is her very own bit of earth. This bit of earth brings her so much joy and heals many of the people who live in the mansion and restores relationships.

I also watched a movie called ‘Grow Your Own’, it’s based on allotment life and the realtionships there! Social Services place a few immigrants there and many of the characters have a range of issues, big and small, but it’s fascinating to observe the healing that is brought through nature and community.

An allotment represents the gift of work and the beauty of natural creativity. I’t jolly hard work but there’s something restorative about being out of doors and being in tune with the seasons and weather!

from ‘skipping’ to foraging

oiflashari — Sat, 08 May 2010 11:02:21 +0000

During my time here in York I came accross the concept of ‘skipping’ for food. Many food stores throw away food that is perfectly good to eat, it’s such a waste! I hate the waste but I discovered that skipping is illegal! Shame! We don’t currently have the resources to be able to ask stores for the food so that we can distribute it to those who need it but I hope to do that in 2011, when we have a building we can use as a base!

But whatI have come accross is ‘edible york’ and ‘abundance york’. They are an urban harvest movement. On Wednesday we will be going out in the local area to forage for food and also note on a map the trees that will bear fruit in the autumn. We want to make people aware of the bountiful apple harvest that will take place in the autumn, we don’t want to see fruit being abandoned and left to rot on the ground, we want to see it distributed to the homeless and poor in the city, we want to see the fruit turned into pies and cider! I am very exited about this whole concept!

a day in the life of YWAM York (local outreach week)

oiflashari — Sat, 08 May 2010 10:53:22 +0000

These days/weeks differ for each individual. The DTS trainees will tend to do the same, the DTS staff will take it in turns to join the trainees for different outreaches and the YWAM York staff will concentrate on the areas that they are called to. Two or three times a year we all get together to work on a bigger local project such as decorating someone’s house or doing someone’s garden.

7.30 Breakfast, quiet time, chores

9.00 Staff/team meeting

10.30 Go do a Besom project (www.thebesominyork.co.uk) OR work from home (I currently have a lot of reading I need to do for Mercy Ministries and I’m planing the 2011 DTS)

3.00 Administration/communication work on computer

7.00 Dinner – either host a guest or go to DTS house

Evening: cell group/Besom van run/outreach/movie/games

a day in the life of YWAM York (lecture week)

oiflashari — Sat, 08 May 2010 10:39:46 +0000

Every day is different at YWAM York but we try to keep as much continuity as possible, here’s a taster of the kind of day we would experience on a lecture week day. Because we are a small team we have lots of time to spend with the speakers. The teaching we receive during the lectures is only part of the teaching. We learn so much by just spending time with the speaker asking intentional questions and listening to their wisdom. Over the years we have some key speakers who we build up a level of relationship with, they become a ‘family’ friend! The speakers also live with us during the weeks when they teach so we get to share life with them, in these times you get to know them as human beings, hear their life stories and see that the way they live matches up to what thwey teach.

Breakfast, quiet time etc 7.30

Worship and coffee 8.45

Lectures (at local Quaker house) 9.15 – 12.30

Lunch together 12.30

Time with speaker as a group 1-3

One on one’s with speaker and/or chores 3-6

Dinner together 7

Evening: Ministry night/time with speaker/outreach