Truth and trust

 I never knew how much God would move when I took my hands off the wheel. I don’t drive the car. Not that I ever did. Being still is one the best things I’ve ever done. It’s one of the most trying. To turn off the brain takes work. I started being present in the everyday. Not in the fantasy. As to quote someone quite famous “I’m doing something” in being silent to a still, small voice. 

I listened to a sermon Sunday that got me wondering when I stopped following this knowledge so simple yet revolutionary.”Faith is just an idea until we take a risk and act on it”. This one statement has shifted something so fundamental in me. When did I get so scared?  When did I let the world define my value?  When did I start to doubt the I AM that is God. 

God is using people to minister to me. I’m learning not to get defensive to constructive criticism. If its being given freely. It’s because success is seen where failure is my default. Let people speak into you. I’m getting daily and weekly pep talks from whomever is placed in the path. 

I was reminded of something so foundational. I’ve been given a gift. I need to share it. I need to be brave. I need to show the world and the disabled community what is possible. What is attainable. Worthy of love. Worthy of hope. Worthy of help. We all need help. If you don’t now, be grateful. I’m independent to a point, but wholly dependent on the Grace of God. 

Could I touch the robe?  Be healed because of my faith as the pastored said?  Yes. I don’t believe that is my lot. Romans 12:12 is where my heart is. “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.”  I haven’t done any of this. I’ve demanded God grant me three wishes like a genie. My prayer life looks like a to-do list. Joyful. I don’t know what that is. Patient in affliction. That is laughable, if it were funny. I’m patient in nothing. Waiting more than two minutes to check out in a department store makes me want to drop potential purchases in random places, and run for the exits. I wish I were joking. I’m not. I was so proud of myself for using self-checkout in Wal-Mart yesterday, and not getting deterred when the item wouldn’t scan. 

If you’re going to say you understand me, or to give myself grace, I appreciate your great love and grace for me. I also know I need tough love. I need what I don’t want. I won’t grow if as my great friend Rowena told me:  “Pretty lies might be nice, but they get you nowhere”. I have somewhere to go. I don’t know where exactly. When much is given, much is required. Maybe you can quote the verse in its entirety, but I hope the picture is getting clearer. 

I’m on a mission to display what God can do with broken people. People the world doesn’t consider to hold much value. Do I think I change the world. No. I know who I’m not. Millions don’t chant my name or know me by my first name alone. And, that is okay. More than okay. I love you all because you love me regardless of my ability to give you anything in return. 

Love yourself and one another. 



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Quiztime

 

In this quiz, I am going to reveal ten celebrities which of course excludes all bloggers. What you have to do is to guess the age of each celebrity. To help I have provided three alternatives.

⦿

1.  Jennifer Lopez
(a) 45  (b) 50  (c)  55

2. John Kerry
(a) 75  (b) 80 (c) 83

3. Ringo Star
(a) 84 (c) 85 (d) 86

4. Celine Dion
(a) 52 (b) 56 (c) 60

5. Taylor Swift
(a) 32 (b) 34 (c) 36

6. Princess Anne
(a) 70 (b) 72 (c) 74

7. Cristiano Ronaldo
(a) 35 (b) 37  (c) 39

8. Peppa Pig
Years since first TV appearance
(a) 20  (b) 22 (c) 24

9. Anthony Albanese (Current PM of Australia)
(a)61  (b) 66  (c) 70

10) Eric Clapton
(a) 76 (b) 79 (c) 81

⦿

Answers in comments. 
How did you do?


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Self-Checkouts

Self-checkouts? I will come right out and say it - I am not a big fan of them.

Like others, I  strongly suspect that self-checkouts were brought in to cut staff costs. If customers are scanning, bagging and paying for their items then supermarket staff don't have to do that.

The only time I feel happy about self-checkouts is when I  have no more than a handful of items to process. This allows  me to  avoid joining queues at the manned checkouts. In contrast, the worst time to use a self-checkout is when you have a full trolley of items and the manned checkouts are all closed.

It can take ages. Often I cannot easily locate the barcodes and the machines with their sensitive scales frequently react belligerently with "Unexpected item in bagging area" announcements etc or flashing red lights to alert supervisors.

I much prefer to load my trolley items onto the conveyor belt and then let somebody else do the scanning work.

It seems that self-checkouts are associated with higher levels of theft. Some of that may be accidental or unintentional but most of it is certainly deliberate. It is as if being given responsibility for processing your own shopping tempts a minority of people to bag items they have not paid for.

When self-checkouts were being introduced, I do not remember any shop or supermarket asking me what I thought of them. If I had been asked, I would have said - Yes, okay for a few items and the customer is in a rush but do not let them take over. There should always be manned checkouts available.

What is your opinion of self-checkouts? Love them or loathe them or somewhere in between?



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Questions

 What are you reading?

What are you eating?

What are you baking?



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Donovan

Do you remember Donovan? He is seventy eight years old now and lives in County Cork, Ireland - not far from Dave Northsider - our esteemed blogging colleague. Donovan's full name is Donovan Phillips Leitch and he was born in Glasgow, Scotland though both of his grandmothers were Irish.

I must confess that when Donovan broke into the British folk-pop scene in the mid-sixties I was drawn to his music. It was pure, simple and unprocessed, driven principally by the lyrics. His output owed things variously to the hippy movement, to Bob Dylan and to anti-war artists. I saw him in concert three or four times and many years later saw him here in Sheffield. However, it didn't seem as those he had advanced.

I even learnt to play several of his songs on my guitar, including the following one which many would argue is his best and best-known song - typical of him in his heyday. Please listen...


In the East Yorkshire village where I grew up, my best friend during my teens was a lad called Paul Budd. We were almost exactly the same age. Paul was a pretty good footballer and in the summer of 1969 he joined a trip to Lemgo in West Germany where he played a few games. I don't think he had ever been abroad before.

When he returned, he kindly gave me a vinyl single he had bought in Lemgo. It was by Donovan and on the A side there was "Atlantis" with the following song on the B side. It's "To Susan on the West Coast Waiting". It imagines an American G.I. in the jungles of Vietnam writing home to his sweetheart from what was such a foolish and futile war. The song is far less well-known than "Catch The Wind"...

This is Donovan today:-


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Lord

 Lord

Take my fear

Use it

Mold it

If it 

Must stay

If not

Let me

Trust

That the 

Journey

You have

Me on

Is one

Just for

My soul

To rejoice



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Worldly colors

 As Cuban

As a cigar

Ukrainian

And Romanian

Loved the Olympics

Because I got

To cheer 

For my ancestral heritage

Yet be grateful

That I bleed

Red, white

And blue

Henry Louis Gates

I love finding 

My roots

And treasuring 

The person

They shape

As I look

At my reflection

And tell 

The Master

How much

Of a privilege

It is 

To be His

He doesn’t like

That my soul

Has been split

Between perfection

And mediocrity

Do not seek

To copy

Humanity

All imperfect

Flawed beings

Needing saving

From ourselves

Love me well

Until I’m able

To do it

With consistency 



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