Home again!

Success, my kebab recipe worked and now I will share with you the recipe. First I will give you the recipe for English kebab, and second I will give you the recipe for my Home kebab.

English Kebab:

Ingredients;
500g Beef Frying Steak
500g Lamb Mince
1Tps Black Pepper (ground)
1 cup Onion (Processed to liquid (about 100ml))
1 egg
1Tbls Salt
1 Medium Sized Tomato

Prepare a marinade of onion juice, olive oil, salt and pepper, and soak meat (both the steak and the lamb mince, I find it helps to do the mince first and lay the steak on top of the mince) in the marinade overnight. Mix the lamb mince with the egg. Thread a piece of the steak onto a skewer, follow this with a 'burger' of the mince, and follow again with another piece of steak etc, etc(it may help to make each piece of steak about 4in by 2in and fold them in half skewering them twice). Lay the kebab in a deep oven tray with a little oil in the bottom (to be honest it is best to actually make the thing in the tray in the first place because it falls apart a lot). Slice the tomato in half and place the two halfs on top of the now horizontal kebab. Cover the dish with tin foil and place in a preheated oven at about 200'C. After about 45 minutes of cooking, slice the meat, in strands, from the skewer and put under a grill for about 15-20 minutes. Serve in a pitta bread with 'M&S Burger Mayonaisse', sorry for the advertising.

Home Kebab:

Ingredients;
500g Thin Pork Loin Steak
500g Pork Mince
1Tps Black Pepper (ground)
1 cup Onion (Processed to liquid (about 100ml))
1 egg
1Tbls Salt
1 Medium Sized Tomato

Prepare a marinade of onion juice, olive oil, salt and pepper, and soak meat (both the steak and the pork mince, I find it helps to do the mince first and lay the steak on top of the mince) in the marinade overnight. Mix the pork mince with the egg. Thread a piece of the steak onto a skewer, followed by a 'burger' of the mince, and follow again with another piece of steak etc, etc(it may help to make each piece of steak about 4in by 2in and fold them in half skewering them twice). Lay the kebab in a deep oven tray with a little oil in the bottom (to be honest it is best to actually make the thing in the tray in the first place because it falls apart a lot). Slice the tomato in half and place the two halfs on top of the now horizontal kebab. Cover the dish with tin foil and place in a preheated oven at about 200'C. After about 45 minutes of cooking, slice the meat, in strands, from the skewer and put under a grill for about 15-20 minutes. Serve in a pitta bread with 'M&S Burger Mayonaisse', again I apologise for the advertising, M&S is the only place I could find the damn stuff.

Thanks for reading, God bless you all,
NL

Kebabs like Home

When I lived in another country for a while me and my wife used to eat doner kebab quite often, however when we moved back to England we discovered that the doner we were eating in the previous country was made differently and tasted so much better than the english stuff. I was of course quite disappointed, however I hatched a plan to attempt to make kebab like the ones from the other country, I found a recipe for kebabs, changed to meat, and today I will find out if it is a success as currently broiling in our oven is the prototype. I hope that I got it right because I tried to make kebab before but it just tasted like english kebab, so it was a half success, it tasted like it was supposed to but not how I wanted it. If this kebab is a success I will upload the recipe to make it in the future and you can try it for yourselves.

Thanks for reading, God Bless you all,
NL

Farms Flourish Unless They Die

I believe a few months back I was talking to you about my love of gardening. Well since I have moved down here I have been unable to continue with that particular hobby, however I recently discovered a game on a well known networking site which allows me to make a farm, and make things grow and reap the profits. I must admit it is a great game especially as it is growing themed. Though I am quickly outdoing most of my 'neighbours' in the game I feel a great enjoyment from making something happen and from making things grow, even if they are just a group of pixels and well placed programming language. Talking about programming language, it is a language that only a few people in the world understand, it is complex and hard to distinguish different segments from each other if you aren't one of the people who can comprehend the ins and outs of it. Sometimes talking to God is a bit like programming language, we see all these people around us knowing what God wants them to do, getting on with their 'bit' and having great success in following the Lord, and then we look at our lives and we can't see the 'message inside the text', we can't see what God wants of us. We have pages and pages of information that we can't even start to comprehend and we end up feeling lost and lonely, all I can tell you in these situations is to rely on the thing that has brought you this far, Faith. Faith in the Lord is all you need to continue, because in the end it doesn't matter whether we know what he wants of us, he will lead us there no matter what.

Thanks for reading, God Bless,
NL signing off.

Apologies and Regrets

First of all I would like to apologise to any readers out there who have missed my writings. I would like to state that the reason for this is that me and my wife have been moving over the last few weeks and I have been unable to write anything till now. I still have no job, however my wife has been working hard for about a month and a half now, everything seems to be going well and God has been leading us all the way. I must admit now that I have been having doubts with God considering a job for me, it is hard sometimes seeing those who aren't christians having better success than me, seeing them get things they want and me being left behind. I must admit that I have been a bit jealous but still I believe the reason I have not yet got a job is that there is the 'right' job for me out there and it just a matter of finding it. I feel confident most of the time that God is leading me somewhere but still I have the occasional doubt.

Thanks for reading,
NL

Once A Year

Yesterday was the anniversary of mine and my wifes wedding. It was fantastic and God allowed everything to run smoothly and perfectly. We both had so much fun and really enjoyed being with each other. We did 2 main things, firstly we went to see the new Transformers film, and secondly we went out for a meal. It was a really nice special time and God really made everything come together. I am glad that we got such a great time for our first anniversary, and I am glad I have my wife.

Thanks for reading, God Bless you all,
NL

Sunk In The Pool

Last sunday I was baptised through full immersion. I would have to admit that this experience has had an effect on my life. I also must admit that due to my baptism I am more sure that God, Jesus and unfortuneately the Devil all exist. It seems that I am being challenged constantly to live up to God's expectations and being tempted constantly by the Devil. I don't think however that the Devil realises that my statement of faith was complete and he has already lost. On the bright side me and my wife have finally got a car sorted, God was very helpful with that, and we have sorted out an apartment too. We looked for apartments twice and the first time we saw 2 we liked, however we prayed to God that he would open our eyes, help us decide, and if the apartments we found were wrong, that he would take them away from our opportunity. By the time we decided we needed to be moving, both apartments were gone. We found our actual apartment after looking at 3 different ones and it was the third.

Thanks for reading, God Bless you all,
NL

Driving Away The Memories

Yesterday I took my Theory Test. Somehow through strict determination and relying a lot on God I managed to pass it. A lot of people were praying for me, and though I started off the day feeling quite nervous by the time I got to the test centre I felt fine. To be honest the whole thing was a bit unreal as when I arrived an hour early the people there just said 'Ok, we will put you in with this lot.' So I didn't really even have time to get nervous again. The test was actually easy however I know I wouldn't have done as well as I did had I not learn't the book, and the hardest part was the hazard perception, which though I did quite well on I did not do as well as the actual multiple choice part. I felt all the way through God really blessed me and helped me do the best I could.

And now for a joke: A group of scientists call out to God and say 'God we don't need you anymore, we can even make our own man.' God looks impressed and replies 'Ok, go ahead and show me,' one of the scientists picks up a handfull of soil and God says 'No, you use your own materials.'

Thanks for reading, God Bless you all,
NL

Everyone Sins

To my fellow sinners, e.g. everyone else, I am writing this to say basically only one thing. Everyone sins, it is a fact so accept it, and also accept that God has forgiven you if you ask him to. Sin happens so all you can do is apologise. You can of course try to avoid sin, try to be a better person but when you fail and do something wrong, don't regret it and feel sorry for yourself, shout up to the Lord with praise and ask his forgiveness. Be strong if you sin and don't let the Devil get you down because that is how he gets in, he tempts you into something and then makes you feel bad about it, and then when you feel bad he attacks you with all his strength. Instead of feeling like a failure, fall back to God and feel like a success for relying on him in your time of need.

Thanks for reading, God Bless you all,
NL

The Road To Enlightenment

This is just a quick message concerning a new learning method given me by God. The idea behind it is to learn with a similar experience bar to a lot of RPG games. These pictures show the 'experience bar' for me trying to learn for my Theory Test. As you can see it says 'Lv: 10' at the top, this is a designation of how many chapters I have completed, so currently I have done 10. Also along the bar there are lines, these are a way of spliting each chapter, or whatever is being learnt, into easy chunks, in this case 1 line equals 10 questions.

Driving Rain

Firstly you will all be happy to discover me and my wife have finished our arguement, it was very much due to spiritual attack, my wife was having problems seeing the good in her life and she was doubting her faith a bit, however after praying and waiting the arguement was resolved and we were able to talk about things properly. Anyway today I had my 3rd driving lesson, I am finding it very challenging and unfortunately it was raining a bit today. However my teacher is a real encourager and shes really kind even when I make a mistake which is helping me to feel a lot more confident. I feel God is really helping me in this because he is helping me to keep the calm centred head I need to have to be able to drive, he is really holding me up even though I am nervous.

Thanks for reading, God Bless you all,
NL

To Much To See

Well God is doing a lot in my and my wife's lives and to be quite honest it is quite hard and stressful to keep up. My wife now has a job but currently I am writing while we are in the middle of an arguement about where we are going to live because we don't actually know. Unfortunately I am on the side of just relaxing and trusting God, that he will provide, and my wife is just going a little crazy with unwanted anticipation of what is yet to come. I still have no job and this is being forcefully pointed out by my wife, but that is ok I know she still adores me anyway. I understand that the stress is getting to her, it is getting to me to but I am a little better at keeping up appearances and just ignoring this little niggling feeling inside. It is funny really, she has always been the worrier and I have always been the laid back one, I am not saying that either of these traits are a bad thing but perhaps maybe sometimes I am a bit overly laid back and she is a bit to worried about stuff. Well by God's will everything will get sorted in time, I will get a job, we will find a place to live, and we will manage to get moved out before we both start working.

Thanks for reading, God Bless you all,
NL

A Choice Of Two Choices

Today I am writing from my brothers place. This week me and my wife have been looking at apartments to live in, we got it down to two choices before I had a meeting with the Youth Worker at my brothers local church. The meeting was a discussion into a possible internship that may or may not happen in the not so distance future. With this internship would come a house for us to have, but we don't know what is happening so we don't know what to decide. Basically all we can do is trust in God that we are making the correct choice and follow it through. Luckily we don't have to decide just yet as with the market like it is the two places we are choosing between have been around for about 2-6 months. We are currently waiting for my wife's new job to get back to her with a start date, at which point we will be able to make a decision as to which route we are going to pursue and indeed which place we are going to live in. At the moment all I can do is hope and pray that we are doing the correct thing and ask for God's complete guidance.

Thanks for reading, God Bless you all,
NL

Evangelise To All

Within the last few months God has been giving me the idea to pursue evangelism in online gaming, it suits me well because I feel extremely confident online. Today while I was at church the speaker said 'we must find more up to date methods of evangelising to people.' For those of you who don't know evangelising is just spreading the word of God to the citizens of the earth. I felt that this idea of gaming evangelism is not only perfect for me but also fit with 'new methods' so I figure that this is God's confirmation that I should return to a world I left and speak about the Saviour I love to those in that game. That is pretty much it for now.

Thanks for reading, God Bless you all,
NL

Peace And Tranquillity

The day before yesterday I went to see a man who claimed to have a powerful healing ministry. I have to admit by the time I left I was pretty convinced. He prayed for me twice that evening, the first time I sort of swayed backwards and forwards and the second time I was, as my mum calls it, flat out. I must make the point now that the person in question, Davey Falcus, did not push me, I just sort of fell over. I had always believed myself to be someone who didn't fall over but this experience has obviously changed my opinion somewhat, whenever in previous years I have experienced the Holy Spirit I have I either stayed standing or already been sitting down. Anyway yesterday Davey was going to be doing a healing service, and something was holding me back from going. I felt tired and hungry and just basically down, however my wife convinced me to go. It was quite a good thing she did because I got a lot from the service. I believe that the reason I didn't want to go was because the devil didn't want me to go. In the end as I went I got healed for something that has been effecting me for about 2 years, I felt more peaceful and calmer in myself. I believe that God has healed me of this as well as healing my back which has been painful for about a year and now seems to be good again. I feel I should mention that all glory of healing goes to God and Davey constantly reminded everyone there that it was by God's power that all were healed. Well anyway I think that is it for now.

Thanks for reading, God Bless you all,
NL

Panic At The Disco

So I am panicking somewhat, I have no idea what God has planned for me and it is getting closer and closer to me and my wife moving. Currently we have no place to live, I have no job, and I have no clue. I am also lacking interviews which would be handy right now. On a not so dark side I have just received an application today for a job near where my wife will be working which would be rather handing, as well as an email from a job I didn't get to say that they would like to tell me my weak points with my interview technique. I can feel that God is most definitely testing me greatly at the moment and I am unsure as to whether I will succeed with him or fail by myself. The only thing that is giving me much hope at the moment is the thing my brother said I mentioned in my previous post.

Thanks for reading, God Bless,
NL

Dreaming Daze

This morning I had an extremely uncomfortable dream. I woke up about half an hour earlier than I was supposed to and got up because of it. The dream was rather unpleasant to say the least. Anyway I am starting to believe that the reason I was to apply for the course was firstly a test of faith and secondly to help me find another job that I only discovered while attending an interview for a position that was to go with the course. Though I would have prefered to have had it a bit easier my brother pointed out the other day 'God helps us, he doesn't spoon feed us.' God puts us on the right track, he guides us but he doesn't allow everything to be to easy for there to be a stimulating challenge. Sometimes it is hard to see what God has planned for us and in the end only he can know what he wants for us, but he does give clues occasionally. I feel confident that even if it turns out that this second job isn't the one planned for me there is something out there for me. I am sure there is a job or a course with my name on it, it just may not be so obvious at the moment.

Thanks for reading, God Bless,
NL

Searching For Rocks To Stand On

The job I thought God had for me I failed to get, however he may have opened up an opportunity to get a job at my brothers church. Also as a quick update my wife finally has a job and we are going to be moving soon. I should probably apologise now for not keeping you updated on what has been going we have been going up and down the country for the last few months so I haven't been near a computer much. I went to the zoo today with my wife, mother, and one of my brothers, I have never been so it was quite exciting for me.

Thanks for reading, God Bless.
NL

Listen To The Words I Speak

Yesterday I discovered that listening to God is as important to speaking to him, I realised that it is rather rude to speak to someone without letting them respond. So basically all Christians need to pray then wait and listen. I tried doing this today but I didn't hear anything, aparently it takes practice, but I did have a great sense of peace. So even though I didn't get what I wanted from the experience it helped me in another way. Tomorrow I have an exam which is basically my only chance to get into a University course, my grades at school are not good enough to get me in on their own but if I can pass this assessment and interview then I will be getting into a course I really feel God is pulling me towards. This course is fitting with the job I mentioned ago so I would be moving southwards. To my Christian readers I ask you to pray for me, to any non-Christian readers I ask you to pray for me, or at least think about me tomorrow.

Thanks for reading, God Bless,
NL

Though I Know You Don't Believe

The other day I found out my wife's sister has an exam on the 30th so today I sent her an email saying that I would pray for her that day, though she is unsure what she believes the responce I got was very positive from my point of view. All she said was 'Oh thank you! So sweet' but the fact that she didn't reject the idea felt very important to me, my wife is often worried that her family won't find God and won't see his love so any step towards success means a lot. I am glad that she felt my prayer would be useful to her, even though she perhaps doesn't believe.

Thanks for reading,
NL

Forgiveness

No matter how much we as humans give into our desires and commit sins God still chooses to forgive us. Why? Because he just does. God chooses to forgive our sins no matter how many times we sin, no matter how many sins we commit no matter how many times we do something we can't even forgive ourselves for God still forgives us. He loves us and wants us to be happy and so when we sin he forgives us. The only difference between us as chrisitians and the rest of people is we try to avoid sinning, I will admit that this is still very hard but we try and we can ask God to help us with this. To be honest we are no better than other people because we all sin even if we try not to, I myself often sin, I try so hard and ask God's help but quite often I fall into the same patterns of things like not respecting my mother and telling lies. To be fair God chooses to forgive us because he just wants to, he has no reason to, there is nothing that forces him to but he just does. I think we should all try to take example of this, even the non christians, and try and forgive people when they upset us and hurt us, when they do something they shouldn't and when they do things that offend us, just relax, keep chilled, and forgive them (even if they don't say sorry).

Thanks for reading, God Bless you all.
NL

From Russia With Love

So me and my wife went into town yesterday, which was great we didn't HAVE to do anything and we were just chilling out so it was loads of fun. I was a lot more relaxed while doing some clothes shopping than normal because we didn't have to rush around and do everything in a short while. So basically we went clothes shopping, went to a cafe, and saw a movie so we had a pretty fantastic day, and God provided all we needed for it to be truely wonderful. Today however I am spending most of it cooking, because today I am making a donner kebab, in theory, and I will publish the recipe on here at a later date as I know there isn't really a good one out there (believe me I spent a long time looking). So that is all for now.

Thanks for reading,
NL

Women Are From Venus

So often I find I have difficulties with my wife because she will say one thing and do another, I don't really understand what goes through her mind, what I mean is currently I am writing this while being confused because the other day she was complaining about not spending quality time together and always sitting in front of the computer, well I just asked if she wanted to do some Sudokus together and she was to busy with her computer. As far as I am concerned God put women on the Earth to constantly challenge men and to keep them entertained, and then he made men the way they are to challenge the women equally. We are quite naturally very different but to be quite honest God seems to be messing with us a bit, oh well he is probably just trying to help us grow as people.

Thanks for reading,
NL

The Road Is Paved

First and foremost I think I should mention I have reached a new level with the back garden by building a path that leads somewhere, it leads to the new bench by the way. I still feel so whole and spiritual when I am working on the garden, the place is filled with God, I remember a quote from a film I once watched which went something like 'Manual work sure does keep the heart humble.' So I have made a path, increased the size of the vegetable patch and cleared the dead rubbish that I dumped on the lawn, the situation is looking more promising, more like a garden rather than a wild land. Well anyway secondly I will tell you about today, I went into town today to have my first day with 'MBW', it is supposed to be some wierd course thing that will help us get jobs faster but as far as I can tell if it isn't the job God has planned for me it is no use applying. Well the first day was very much just filling in lots of forms and signing my name over and over again, my hand is hurting now after all of that, but by God's will I shall be out of there soon.

Blue Skies

Well I have to say that today and yesterday we have been very blessed with some rather nice weather, it has practically all day both days been blue skies and God has given us the time to do everything we have needed to do. My brother came over for the weekend on Friday and went home on Monday and then on Tuesday my Cousin came to stay and is going home today. The last couple of days have been rather stressful, we are currently waiting for a contact from a company down south to see if my wife has got an interview, we are both hoping and praying that it is the correct course to go and God has given us few signs to the contrary. My wife actually had an interview for another job last week however she was contacted and told she hadn't got the job but to be honest I am not terribly upset because I had nothing in the way of a job round there and if it had been God's plan for us to be going there she would have got the job. I received an email today to say that I have an interview for a course I have applied for down in the south, and I was very unsure and scared about it, until I did my Bible study and was basically told not to worry, not to fear because God will carry my burdens, if I am supposed to go to the interview then I will be able to, if I am not supposed to go something will happen to prevent it, this is how I see it. So I no longer have fears concerning this particular situation but I would still feel more confident in the knowledge that my wife had an interview with the company nearby to this course, I suppose we will find out in good time, it may infact turn out that we don't receive confirmation until tomorrow.

Thanks for reading,
NL

The Mysteries In Her Mind

Arguements, the fact is every couple has them, some survive them while others don't. I am writing this while my wife is furious with me for something I have already apologised for. I am writing this while she is doing her utmost to avoid me even though she loves me. To be quite honest I don't know why she is still angry with me, I have apologised I realised I told her to do something rather than ask her which obviously isn't good and I understand the reason she is hurting, but I think there is more to it than just upsetness I think she really wants to talk to someone but there doesn't seem to be anyone she wants to talk to. The fact is at the moment I feel this disagreement was neatly placed to stop us from going to church by the evil one, but what can we do, we have already missed half the service, so we can't actually go to the service. Well anyway I guess there has to be something inside her telling her that she can't forgive me because I am not sorry, possibly the same reason for the arguement in the first place. There are a couple of good things though, she just admitted to me she is talking to someone about the disagreement, someone who could really understand pain and suffering so that is good, and thank God for that.

Thanks for reading,
NL

To See Those You Know

Today me and my wife were supposed to have meetings with the jobcentre today at town, however not all went to plan. We have to bike/walk to our nearest bus stop about 1.5 miles and when we had done the hilly, uneven, back lane trip we were waiting for the bus when the jobcentre phoned us to tell us that our meetings had been cancelled as our advisor had a broken arm. In retrospect I can see that finding out then must have been God fueled as it allowed us to decide to go and see our niece and her mother, even though they live only 5 miles away from them we don't get round to see them a lot because we don't own a car. Now I can see God was definitely in it as we wouldn't have thought to go over today unless as we were we were part of the way there. I helped my niece's mother to clean up the apartment while my wife looked after the baby. It was a lot of fun to see them and I am glad that we didn't find out our meetings had been cancelled today. God really can use the worst circumstances to make something very special happen, he has the power to change anything for the best way, for his way. To be honest I felt that we were drawn to help my niece's mother because she has been very stressed about her apartment being messy but she doesn't like to clean it on her own and my brother is often working very harsh ours to provide for them all. It was nice to be able to do something good for her as my other brother is going to come up and stay here for the weekend and he was planning to stay there for a night. I really feel God was trying to accomodate everyone in this situation, me because I like seeing my family members, my niece's mother because she got some help cleaning up and looking after the baby, and my other brother because he hopefully should be able to stay there for a night.

Thanks for reading,
NL

Walking The Streets Of Calvary

Today I had to go into town to do a Literacy and Numeracy test to see if I had the basic skills required to be employed, it turned out I did as I got full marks... Oh well so the first test I took last we was rubbish and a lie. God helped me quite a lot today, when I was going for the test he helped me feel chilled out and relaxed so I was able to concentrate on the test. Also I forgot to collect money for travel expenses from the people I was with but he managed to balance it out quite well in another way which was nice. I met some interesting people today including a group of Christians telling everyone 'REPENT, FOR YOU SHALL BURN IN HELL OTHERWISE' I told them what I thought of this, that it was far to negative to actually help anyone become a Christian and the guy I was talking to actually agreed with me and said he thought perhaps next time he might bring some of the positives into his talk. Another person I met tried everything she could to convince me to help old people in Kenya who are dying because they don't have enough money for health and food care even though they work a full amount of hours. She even offered me a job when I said I couldn't pay for it, which was interesting. She tried every angle and she had some good points but in the end I don't have enough money or time to devote to it, in the end it wasn't my cup of tea. So that was my 'simple' day.

Thanks for reading,
NL

To Walk Forward Sometimes We Must Look Back

I have to stop and consider what experiences I have had through the years, some have been hard and painful, others have been very easy and enjoyable. Sometimes it is good to see what progress you have made from a point, to see your life transpire and in my case see my faith grow. There have been a lot of situations that have helped me grow as a Chrisitian some you would probably wonder why others you would probably understand. One of the most pivotal moments in my life that has helped me develope my beliefs was that my dad died when I was younger. I was old enough to understand what had happened and to miss him but it didn't crush my faith in God because I had to believe in something to keep me going, it was possibly one of the hardest points in my life. Since then a lot of other things have happened, when I was a bit older I started going to a Christian Youth Camp, and older still I met my wife in a complicated way that must have been surrounded by God. Another experience that has caused me a lot of problems is the fact that I and my wife haven't been able to find jobs, this has made lots of tension between the two of us and we have had many arguements, but in the end I can see that maybe the reason we can't find jobs is because God is testing us and waiting for the perfect jobs for us. Sometimes life throws all sorts of challenges our way, sometimes it is hard to keep going and we think we will fail but God is always there for us if we ask him, he is always around to rely on and he always has the power to help us, even if he helps us in a way we don't want him to. I have often forgotten my Lord because I can't see through the darkness, I forget that if I am in the darkness he can be a candle for me and can allow me to see the end of the pain. Just remember one thing sometimes things happen that shock us and we don't know what to do but in the end they might help us become stronger people.

Thanks for reading,
NL

It's a Sin

I am a sinner, I know it. I spend my life battling against temptation and keeping God's will but it is often so hard to keep up with this especially when Satan is breathing down your neck whispering in your ear. I spend a lot of time trying to resist temptations and avoid sinning but so often I fail and fall short of God's law. So often I find myself doing something that is against all I stand for and I can't bear it, it kills me inside to know that I can't keep up with God's laws and his will. The only solution and the only thing that stops me going crazy as a Christian is the knowledge that God will always love me no matter what mistakes I make and that I can always turn to him when I know I have let him down to apologise. The one thing I know is that the more powerful faith you have in God the harder it is to continue, Lucifer is always attempting to corrupt those who love God the most, and those who feel him closest. Recently I have felt full of God but then I find myself sinning again and know I have failed again. But all who read this should know, no matter how much we do sin it doesn't effect how much God loves us and how willing he is to forgive us if we want his forgiveness, afterall in essence God is love.

Thanks for reading,
NL

Watching Things Unseen

Firstly I will tell you on Tuesday I went to my bible study group with my wife. While we were there we told everyone how we met, how we had always felt it was God's work at hand as there were to many 'coincidences' for it to merely be fate, this is probably a story I will tell later. However for now I will talk about the fact that during the evening we were talking about how my wife came to God and came to faith. The story goes she met me and we went to a certain church everytime she came to visit, each time there was the same speaker, after hearing him long enough the questions that were in my wife's head started to get answered. This person is one of the most spirit filled speakers I have heard in my life and I feel great powers from above coming from him. Anyway we went to a local town the next day as you have read to go to sign on, while we were there, though it was traumatic, God was at work again as we saw the speaker in town, we have seen him outside of this old church only twice, this being one of the times. We talked to him shortly and asked him to come and talk at our local Chapel, to which he agreed on the terms of it being an evening, this actually works quite well as the Youth services are in the evening. Anyway I felt that this was another 'coincidence' that couldn't be a 'coincidence' and I just wanted to share my worship and praise of God in this with you.

Thanks for reading,
NL

The Jobcentre Chronicles

Today was my day to sign on at the Jobcentre, I hate this process it is and probably always will be my idea of hell. While I was there I prayed to God that he would give me the strength to be there and to face the people who don't really care who you are or what you want. I hate the time I spend there being told I am not good enough, being told I should be trying harder, but I guess it doesn't matter because no matter how hard I have tried in the past I feel as though I should just give up. Nobody really wants to employ me, probably just because I lack experience, of course if I can't get a job I can't get any experience so why bother? The only thing that is keeping me going is my faith in God and my faith that he will provide something for me before I lose myself to the depressing in and out motion of the jobcentre hell. Today I was given a 'test' to do to say whether I am eligible for a job, I failed the part that was claimed to be 'easy' and passed the 'hard' parts, it doesn't matter anyway I failed the test so I have to take another longer one next week. The whole thing sickens me, parts of me wish that I could just vomit on the bureaucracy of it. The government is so good at making so many rules that don't make sense it doesn't realise that there isn't any point in it. I hate this stupid problematic shithole of a system but I still have to put up with it and hope that God will save me from this hell of mine.

Thanks for reading,
NL

The Realm of Abandonment

When 2 people in a relationship have an arguement between normality and complete rage there is a place which is normally the reason the disagreement starts, this is what I would like to now call 'The Realm of Abandonment'. At this time one of the partners is hurt and the other person misunderstands the situation and either ignores the first partners feelings, or doesn't take care of hurt person's feelings properly. In other words the person who has been hurt in the first place feels abandoned and unwanted, in this case the person will start to feel resentful of their partner for not being there for them and start to feel even more hurt and angry towards them. The only way to sort the problem is to allow the person who's feelings have been hurt to express them fully while the other person listens with understanding. If however the hurt person tries to express his/her feelings and their partner doesn't listen with understanding and becomes overly defensive and doesn't accept they may have done something wrong, then the first person will become even more angry and an arguement will start. The best way to finish an arguement like this is to give the person some space to write out their feelings in a letter and then read them out to their partner while their partner listens intently. To write such a letter you should split it into 5 sections, Anger, Sadness, Fear, Regret, Love, while writing try to keep all of the sections about the same length. By doing this the person who is upset should feel a lot better, sometimes even just by writing the letter.

Thanks for reading,
NL

Breaking the Habit

Today (technically Monday but I mean Sunday) I was allowed to take a break from my lent fasting so I spent a large proportion of the day just playing games, I did of course go to Church in the morning and me and my wife watched a film called 'bolt' but apart from that I spent the rest of the time in front of the computer. The really funny thing was I didn't really feel like playing games and I didn't really know 'what' to play, honestly I was at a sort of lose end. All the games I have I didn't want to play so I really spent most of my time on a game website. Oh well I guess it was kind of fun, however I did miss out on doing some more gardening as it kept raining on and off and I am really starting to love doing it because it gives me a sort of spiritual humility I don't really find doing anything else, I suppose that is because while doing gardening you are working with something pure, something God has put there and hasn't been broken by humanity. There is something about nature that really speaks to me, I find that being outside I can really apprieciate things that have been created by God. By being outside you can get a real feel for things in there naturalist forms. I love it.

Thanks for reading,
NL

Passing Times and Passing Seasons

As all who read will probably know by now, I have recently taken up gardening. At the moment I am in the process of cleaning up the back garden and the yard. The yard is a lot less messy than it used to be and there is a relative amount of order going on. The garden is a little harder to sort out, so far I have made the path useable and cut away a large amount of brambles from the end of the garden, the work I do on the garden helps centre me and makes me feel spiritually sound. However we have recently been struck by a lot of bad weather forcing me away from my labour, which is why I was so happy when I cut open an apple today and found a large cluster of seeds, I was even more joyous when after asking my wife if she would like to help me plant them she said yes. Though the seeds currently have a humble beginning being in small pots I hope to one day be able to look at them as trees and say me, my wife, and God did that. I am hoping that tomorrow is nice and clear so I can get back to my work on the bramble, I have plans to cut more of it down and then cut the branches into smaller sections, bind them together and use them as fuel for our fires. Well I think that is all for now.

Thanks for reading,
NL

Southern Hopes

I am currently looking at a job in the south, it will require that I do three years on a BA to come out with a Degree in Youthwork, it would then at my request continue onto a permenant job in the area. There is only one catch I have to be accepted into the university to get the job and I am a little worried about applying for the course because it is so far south, but I have to have hope in God that this is the right thing to do, I believe it is but I don't know all of God's plan for me. My wife has also applied for a job in the same area but we don't know if that will come to anything, we can only hope for the best and pray to God that we are headed in the right direction. If we were to get the jobs it would be really great because my brother lives in the same area and I really miss him, to be honest I don't really tell him enough that I love him. Well I trust in God, and this feels right, I just hope it isn't my own human thoughts getting in the way.

Children, Children, Everywhere...

I am currently helping out at a Youth Group on Mondays and I have just started volunteering at an After School Club, which I will be doing most Tuesdays. The reason for this is because I am a Youth Worker, at least I will be, I am finally sure that this is God's path for me and I am only humbled by the fact that even when I was a child or a baby he knew what he had in mind for me. I have been floating around the Youthwork scene for years and people have always been telling me that I am good with children, however in my own stubborness I have been rejecting everything everyone has said. Now however I have finally realised that perhaps the reason people have been telling me this is because that is what God has in mind for me, maybe just maybe this is his plan and I haven't been listening to it, I haven't been listening to him. I have just been like a child covering my ears and screaming at the top of my voice 'NO NO NO'. I am sure this probably isn't the plan God has for me forever but I feel comfortable in the knowledge this is more than likely it what he has planned for me now. I am glad I have finally fallen down before God and let him truely speak to me, I am glad he has broken me only to start rebuilding me, and I am glad that I can finally listen to something that has been told me for years.

Thanks for reading, God Bless You All,
NL

Seeing the Sites and Taking a Breather

So today as we so often do me and my wife went for a walk, we took the longest route we could to enable us to walk as many steps as possible because a person is supposed to walk around 10,000 steps a day, so far we have got an average of around 9,000 so we still need to do a bit more, hopefully this new walk we are trying will fulfill the requirement. When I was out walking I realised how awesome it was to have my wife and I have always laid the reason that I have her down to God, basically we are actually from 2 different countries and we met on an online game, the thing that was really amazing were the amount of 'coincidences' there were in our meeting, there were to many and they were to organised for them to be coincidences, I have always felt that God intervened to meet us up. In the end I moved to her country and lived with her for a while before we moved back to England, and we got married. God really pulled us together, and because of this my wife's faith has grown so much, when I met her I can only describe her as an Agnostic, however now she is a very strong christian, she truely loves God, as I love God, and because of that our spiritual and physical relationship with each other is powerful. We do have arguements I will admit but it is nothing compared to the sense of wholeness we get from each other and from God. We are both truely blessed.

Thanks for reading,
NL

Christ's Day of Rest

So it is sunday and of course the christian day of rest. This is based on the fact that Jesus rose from the dead on a sunday rather than that it is the 7th day of the week. Saturday is actually the 7th day but a lot of people don't realise because the christian sabbath in a sunday.

Well anyway this morning I went to church and I realised how good it felt to be praising God. I felt truely happy. The sermon was about the feeding of the 5,000 and it really spoke to me about Jesus and the way he works. In the story he asks Philip where they will get the bread and Philip gives the answer of how to get the bread, I never realised that so often as christians we answer the wrong questions. Sometimes we need to look at our lives to realise waht God is really asking of us and the best way to follow HIS path.

Also on a side note it came out a revelation that by forcing my wife to move to England I actually did her a favour because since she has been here she has been able to grow in her faith to God, rather than when she was in her country she couldn't.

Thanks for reading,
NL

My Sunshine and Me

The person I love more than anything in the world is my wife (by that I mean God is everywhere not just in the world) and today I spent with her. We did a lot of fun stuff and really had some 'together time' playing games and doing our own bit of God's work. We are both helping to lead youth groups at the moment and today we did a bit of work for the one my wife helps out with, it was great, we got to spend time together and we were doing something for God. I really love my wife, she means the world to me. Unfortunately I know that sometimes I am not the husband she deserves and at times like that it is really good that we aren't alone and that God is with us both in our lives and in our marriage. I often pray when me and my wife have an arguement that we can resolve the arguement easily and it helps a lot. Yesterday we had a disagreement about something and my wife sat working at her computer sourly ignoring me and I went out of the room prayed to God and when I returned she was very open to everything I said and the arguement was sorted out easily. I love my wife, and I love my Lord. The fact is there is no such thing as a perfect man or woman (besides Jesus) and we will often have our disappointments and disagreements with the other sex, the problem nowerdays is that everyone gives up to easily, they don't try, also a lot of people don't know God and can't turn to him to help out when there is a problem. The biggest problem in a relationship is men often find it hard to listen to women and women have a hard time expressing themselves without accidently seeming to blame the man for the problem (if a man feels blamed he shuts off).

I love my wife, and I love spending quality time with her it is really great, luckily though I am prepared that there will be arguements and I am able to ask God to help out.

Thanks for reading.
NL

The Music of The Awake

So I thought I would just make a short post about good Christian Music that you can get. A lot of this stuff I actually stole from my wife, I will also include a address to a site to download the scriptures to music.

Ok so here it is:
Hillsong
Hillsong United
Barlow Girl
Vineyard
Deeper - 2 hours of deep worship for prayer and intercession
WOW hits 2008
WOW hits 2009
http://www.scripturesongs.com/

Enjoy,
Thanks for reading.

40 days and 40 nights.

So lent is coming up, and I know it will probably be the worst one for me so far in my life because I am giving up Computer games, this is probably my biggest vice and I am worried I won't be able to complete my time. The only real advantage to giving this up is that I will have more time to reflect on things, and more time to spend with God. I will probably be able to do a lot more than I normally do and I am already planning to try and work my way through my Theory test book so I can start working towards my driving licence. I will also probably finish reading 'Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus.' To be honest with you all the real reason I started my blog was part of a preparation for this time a head where I will have very little to do as most of my time is taken up with playing games normally.

Thanks for reading.

The Sanctity of Hard Work

I am going to tell you that I am a christian, this will probably effect what my posts are going to be about. Today I did some garden work, I used to be really interested in gardening however I fell out of doing it for a long time. Today when I was working I was really apprieciating how good it was to be outside doing something and it made me feel humble before God, when you are outside you can apprieciate God's world and all the nature there is. I am honestly somewhat gifted for a 19 year old because at the moment I live in the middle of the countryside and the landscape around is beautiful unfortuneately unless you take the time to look around you don't see it, a person can walk around and not see anything for years and then one day stop and look around and truely LOOK at it.

Anyway I have to finish here, thanks for reading.

In the Beginning

In the beginning there was man and he found woman and they got married. So that brings you up to date. I have never really kept a blog before so I don't really know what to write but as time goes by I am sure I will think of something.