welcome to

Weekend

Wedding yesterday was beautiful. Two people whom God has brought together in union. The message was given by Mike Reeves - I'd never heard the gospel shared through Ephesians 5; and I'd never heard Ephesians 5 shared this way! His message basically had two points:

1. Marriage is the beginning and the end of life. In the beginning of humanity, God created man and woman to be as one. And at the end of humanity, we will be one with Christ as in marriage, which is the representation of the relationship between Christ and the church.

2. (This was particularly personal to me.) Just as we cannot do anything to earn God's love, which is given to us by grace, so we should not feel that we need to do anything to earn our husband's love. So many women often feel that they could be better wives/fiancees/girlfriends etc. But if marriage is truly a representation of the relationship between Christ and the church, then love given within that union is unconditional.

I wore my white suit with a burgundy ribbon around my waist to the church wedding, and changed into my black Joseph party skirt with said ribbon round waist again for the wedding dinner. This ribbon has been the cheapest and best investment ever, dressing up everything from suits to party skirts to hats. My taffeta skirt has also been well-flogged this party season!

I squeezed in afternoon tea with Ky at Fortnum&Mason's too! Phew! But my white YSL lizard skins were hurting my feet so much that I just had to go into Gap in Piccadally circus to get a pair of ballet pumps. Love ballet pumps. Yay! That night, K and I snuck out in the middle of the dancing for some food that night, as well as a good getting-to-know-each-other conversation. Giant Dutch pancakes... mm...

Think a cold is coming on.

Lunch with colleagues today was, well, stressful. I made a roast and my famous trifle. Cooking was actually fun, but over lunch, almost all the conversation was centred on work/thesis/research assistantships/scholarships. At the end of it, you could almost feel everyone's heart on the floor. Ky was so stressed that she decided to go back to the office! I would have too, if I hadn't arranged on Fri to meet two students for a coffee.

Sometimes, I think God really has a good plan.

On the entire journey to church, I really really did not want to meet any students. I was thinking about my work the whole time, worrying about it. When I got there, the afternoon study hadn't finished, so I hung around and got talking to T from Japan. Then I shared the four spiritual laws with her. Then I shared about surrendering with her, which I wouldn't have been able to if it hadn't been such a personal and recent experience. Then I offered to pray with her. Then I talked to K and M, whom I had arranged to meet. Then we went out to Starbucks with Ash and R to talk some more. Then I invited them back to church for the evening service, and they came. Before you knew it, I hadn't thought about my work for 3 hours! And I got to worship God, on a Sunday.

So you see, God really has a good plan.

After church, A and I decided to skip the late night seminar and catch up over dinner instead. We went to our old haunt, talked about our respective weeks, shared a little, played a game of chinese chess, ate a lot of sushi. It felt good.

Time to go to bed. Am re-tuning psyche to extra-focused mode for the next one week before I'm off!

23.1.06 00:56