France

Day one 25th June – ROAD TRIP… music, ‘Coffee Break Spanish’ and banter.
Had a a weird start, where the day before leaving for France with mates Chris and Jim, Jim calls to say he is not coming due to a great opportunity at work L Chris then checks his flights and finds he has not actually booked them due a Ryan air error and no more flights are available. I then check my Ferry to see if Chris can come with me and find all Ferries have been cancelled. !!!!! is this a sign we shouldn’t go?? No… we booked the euro tunnel and set of Wednesday afternoon, good trip good hotel, Chris tried to scare me by hiding in the cupboard, did a little.
750 miles later got to the Band B. Only got flashed by one speed camera :-/ The place is as Fresh and familiar as when we visited last year… SURFS UP !!!!
Very motivated about learning Spanish right now and have embarked on reading a children’s school book to help me, I get to colour in and everything.

My friends and family were so amazing to me before I left. So many kind, encouraging words, I don’t think the whole leaving thing has hit me yet, it will I am sure.. parents bought me an awesome Sat Nav and sis bought me an Ipod..so cool.

Well we also brought the rain with us, clouds when we arrived and a massive thunder storm. Lets hope for better things.

Thought of the day.

Read some of a Joyce Mayer book, Battlefield of the mind. I find it hard to see why some Christians have to super spiritualise things? This book in particular outlines how ‘our enemy the Devil’ seeks to infiltrate our minds and cause us to have thoughts that could damage us. She illustrates this by using an example of a woman who nags her husband, her comments are that due to experiences in her childhood Satan has bombarded her with thoughts about how bad men are, this is why she behaves this way.

I did not dispute and actually agree that there are spiritual forces at work and indeed our battle at times is not against people, but unseen things but I find it hard to ignore the immense depth of psychological complexity that God created in us. By this I mean that he made us human, this means that we become conditioned by experiences both at an early age but also by repetitive cycles in later life. To say the devil pursues each one of us in order to damage our minds is a little extreme. And in fact in my understanding this is theologically incorrect. I understand that Satan himself is not omnipresent (everywhere at once) and although he probably has his minions, it is probably not as Joyce says ‘Satan has been brainwashing Mary for years”. I think it is more like spiritual forces are a contributory factor to our struggles and our triumphs. Not to be taken lightly , but not to be a preoccupation that can take life from us.

Language is a powerful thing and I wish us Christians were more careful how we used it.
Hasta Pronto