Discover_

I wanted to start this post with an excerpt from Eve's Daughters by Lynn Austin, but the copyright won't let me. I could write and ask permission, I suppose, but between the time, money, and hassle, I won't. While I can't use the actual quote though, I can give you a rough idea of what it said. A grandmother is talking to her granddaughter as she prepares to move into a retirement home. While they are packing, the granddaughter finds a piece of coal and is, naturally, somewhat confused. When she asks her grandmother about it, the grandmother replies that it isn't a piece of coal, it's a diamond-in-the-making, and that G-d will use pressure and stress to turn it into something beautiful.

Do you know what the diamond making process is?

First, plant matter dies, and if buried quickly enough it fossilizes. The layers of fossil get buried under the earth, and with the right amount of pressure and humidity, it turns into coal. If the pressure is high enough and maintained long enough, eventually the coal begins to turn into a diamond. I don't know how many years it takes, and I'm not sure how I would find out, but I do know it takes quite a long time. I'm willing to bet on a minimum of a hundred years, though it is just a guess. Think about that.

First, some kind of death is required. Then, after the plant is buried, it sits alone in the dark for years, with the weight of the world on its shoulders crushing the life out of it. And for no immediate purpose. It turns into coal! Why would anyone want to be coal? The characteristics of coal, as so eloquently put by Brandon, are 'dark, hard, lumpy, not much fun to play with, but fun to burn.'

Does that sound familiar? Don't give up, it's only a little longer until you're finished. You're already more than halfway through. After it becomes coal, yet more stress is applied. Yes, I know, you don't exactly need MORE stress and you're tired of sitting alone in the dark. Why not just dig yourself out? You can't do that, because if you do, you'll never be finished. If a piece of coal is taken out of the ground before the process is finished, it will always be just a piece of coal, fit for nothing except burning. But if you are patient and endure all the stress and pressure and trials, you will become a diamond.

Some interesting facts about diamonds, I learnt this when I was ten years old and I went on a school trip to the local Bluestone works where they cut up bluestone into paving stones. A diamond is the hardest mineral on earth. A blade made of diamonds can cut stone and not go blunt, in fact, the only thing that can cut diamond is diamond. The stuff is virtually indestructible.

A diamond goes through a long hard process. It dies, it is buried, it sits alone in the dark under intense, extreme pressure or many years, only to turn into coal.Then it undergoes even more dark lonely years, even greater pressure, but a miracle is happening!When it finally emerges, the diamond is a diamond. It is beautiful. It is valuable. It is indestructible.

Wouldn't you rather be a diamond than a lump of coal? Don't give up. Be patient. Life may seem dark or lonely now, but a miracle is taking place, and it's worth the wait.

Okay, Leo told me what I needed to know, and now I'll have a crack at Part Two. Thanks heaps, Leo :)

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On the contrary, they, just like us, tend to forget their author. They forget that there is more going on than what they can see and hear, and just like us, they can't see the end of the story. They don't know why certain things have to happen, because it doesn't make sense till much later, and sometimes the characters themselves never find out why things happened. Sometimes the whys can only be seen from outside the story.

And that's hard to deal with. It's hard wondering why G-d lets things happen. In our limited sense of justice, bad things shouldn't happen to good people. Bad things for bad people, good things for good people. You take out what you put in. It sounds fair, and is in fact a Biblical perspective. Except that we forget that this life is not all there is. Sometimes, bad things will happen to good people. And most of the time we never find out why.

Our struggles are real. Our fears and pain are real. Don't get me wrong on that, but we do need to understand that there is more going on than we can see. There is a story being written, and you are the main character. It's very rare that you will come across a good story that doesn't have some pain, some turmoil in its pages. I have never seen such a book.

In your life, there will be hard times, there will be difficult decisions, there will be pain and loss. But there will also be love and redemption and joy beyond any of our imaginations. Everybody knows that the hero always wins, and light always beats darkness, and I believe that's ultimately true of our lives. Never give up, never give in. Never lose your faith in the author who loves you and who knows your whole story better than you do. Never stop loving, never stop hoping, and never break the Circle.

And remember, there is more than you can see.

Love you all.

I've been working on this for a week and it's still not finished. I'm waiting on some scholarly help and some fresh inspiration to finish it off ;)

Storybook World

So I had an interesting conversation with my brother the other night, involving Dekker of course, but this time it was interesting enough to warrant a post about it. I happened to say that I'd like to live in a storybook world. Not so much because life would be better there, but there's just this inbuilt desire in me to go talk to Anne Shirley or Thomas Hunter. Just because.

And then my brain just went *whoosh* and into hyper mode and now I'm writing a lesson from it.

So. I know Brandon still disagrees with me on this, we haven't got it all hammered out yet, but here's how I'm seeing things right now. We are characters in a story, and G-d is our author. Some of the characters know him, some know about him, and others either don't have a clue or refuse to believe in him. But it doesn't really matter, whether a character believes in it's author or not, every story does have an author.

In the Thrillogy, for example, Thomas died. Not once, but five times. It pretty much looked like the end. I mean, you can't really get more ended than 'dead' can you? And yet.. the author had it all planned out, all under his control. Nothing happened unless the author said it could, and when he said it could happen, it happened for a reason.

In the book The Novelist by Angela Hunt, the main character, Casey, is a writer. As part of a writing course she's teaching, she agrees to write something different from her usual genre as an example to her students. As any of you who are writers know happens, the world of her novel takes on a life of it's own. In this world, the characters are aware of Casey, but they do not understand her, they can't see her or comprehend her. They know she exists and they know her rules, but only because she gave them that knowledge. The characters in Casey's world are real, they love, they hope, they cry, they bleed, and they make decisions for themselves. And they can die. Their fears are real, their struggles are genuine. Just because they live in a storybook world with an author who loves them directing the plot doesn't mean their lives are easy.

To be continued...

So I've had three big thoughts in my brain for a week or so, and now I lost 'em all. Great.

Is greed the state of wanting more than what you have, of wanting what you can't have, or of wanting something and being determined to get it at any cost? Interesting thought. I'm not entirely sure, myself.

I saw a church sign the other day that caught my attention. I still don't know what I think of it. It said: Jesus- his life changed death, his death changed life. What do you think?

I still can't remember the other one.

Uhm.

Oh yeah. Protective parents. Try not to think of them as babying you, so much as them loving you enough to try to keep them safe. There was more, but I forget it.

This is a stupid post. But, this is how my disjointed brain works. Now you know.

Also, I really am adekkted. I've been having Circle dreams >_<

Short post cos I'm already way overtime on ye olde internet.

First, Samara's doing pretty well. Still researching stuff. Still waiting for her to come home. I've had a cold the last few days and haven't been able to visit. Getting better, should be able to visit by tomorrow.

I finished the Circle trilogy. Awesome books, but my tear ducts are broken, I'm sure. I didn't cry once, but I should have several times. Weird.

And now my rant. I'm really angry at Dad. TWO YEARS ago, he said he would get me the Abeka curriculum instead of this retarded Switched-On Schoolhouse thing I have now. Two years. I have learned almost nothing in that time, formal edumacation wise. I've learned heaps from all my friends and all the research I've done and all the writing on Disciples of Elyon and MyPraize (I would put a thing in there about how you should join them, but I think all my readers are already members lol), but noo, he wants me to do the formal work. Never mind that it drives me crazy. Never mind that I actually can't do the schoolwork because the only computer that works won't run the idiotic program. Never mind that the work makes no sense and is highly illogical. And that it often marks me wrong when I know I'm right, my paren'ts know I'm right, and the flippin calculator knows I'm right. I really hate that program. They only use it because it's easier. If they give me that, they don't have to mark my work, assign projects or essays, or do anything. Just me and the computer.

Did I mention I hate that program?

Also, my best subject was always Bible, but I don't like their version of it. There's absolutely no room for discussion or disagreement or questions or anything. You just feed it's own words back to it, in the correct order. NEVER learn theology or Bible study from a computer. Never T_T

Dad did say a few months ago that talking and debating online was enough. Not anymore. Reduced net time until I catch up on my school. Which I can't do because my laptop still doesn't work.

I like being homeschooled, but sometimes I think it would be easier to just go to a normal school. At least they wouldn't change their minds as often.

This is a bit of an awkward post, really. I always thought that Brandon was my only reader, and that only because I harrassed him each time till he told me what he thought. And now I've been told that I'm wrong and at least one other person (who I look up to and respect very much) is an at least semi-regular reader, and maybe quite a few other people as well. So now I've gone all shy. Which is, of course, utterly ridiculous, because I wanted these people to read my blog and have kind of hoped they would. That's kind of the point in a blog. So yeah. Hi :)

Now this is almost as bad as my video lol.

Anyway. I don't remember what I last posted, because I'm not actually writing this on blogspot, I'm writing it on the notepad of my computer to fill in time while I wait for Dad to bring the internet home from his visit with Mum. So I'll assume I've said nothing about home life since Samara was born and edit out any reduntant information later.

We have a house now, not exactly in Brisbane but not far away either. We're still in the process of unpacking and sorting, so the house is in a bit of a shambles right now. MUm was re-admitted to hospital with some kind of complication, I forget what, but she's been discharged now and is staying st Ronald McDonald House again. Samara has been diagnosed with Down Syndrome, but we're looking into diets and treatments to help her deal with the symptoms and so far it looks like she won't be affected very badly. The hospital are talking about starting Parent Craft (whatever that is o_O) at the end of next week, which means unless she starts regressing she'll be home within a fortnight and we'll finally be able to hold her! The hospital has a policy that only parents and grandparents are allowed to hold the Special Care babies. Very annoying, especially when you consider that I'm old enough to be her mother and have more experience than most of the mothers in there. But, that's the policy. One month, nine days and I've never held her and only touched her when the nurses aren't looking.

In the meantime, we've all been keeping busy with not enough unpacking and too much internet (if there is such a thing :P), and the occasional fight. We might get to go to the opening of the new Koorong bookstore tomorrow and I can't wait! Koorong is the largest Australian Christian bookstore chain, and I love it there. Cheapest books around and a lot of decent music too. Even better, I'll get to go shopping while we're there as a late birthday present! AND Koorong is selling tickets for the Casting Crowns concert in Brisbane this January. I hope I can go.Haven't been to a concert in years.

I think that's Dad's car in the drive, so I'm out.

Love y'all ^_^