1 more sleep till roots...1 more sleep till roots...ee..iii..addio..1 more sleep till roots!!!! to be sung to wateva tune fits.

The last few days at work have been very very boring..normally I like being a bit bored as it means that my brain can rest for a bit hehe whenever Scot tells me that he's bored I tell him to make the most of it as when he's older with too much to do he will wish he had nowt to do and love being bored...thats my theory anyway. Anyway I really didn't enjoy being bored at work as the weather has been so lovely outside and I was getting excited about roots and time was just dragging...I'm waffling sorry.

After the conversation I had at work the other day about hell and limbo I decided that I needed to be a bit more equipped to deal with these type of questions so did a bit of research on the net.
Muslims actually do believe in eternal damnation but only for those who aren't muslims...I think my friend at work who said that a loving God wouldn't punish anyone in hell is just like a lot of other people and can't get his head round the fact that going to hell is forever....I'm not sure if I will tell him though.

Just remember another conversation I had with Alan my lovely friend from work yesterday. It was his stepdads sisters funeral on Monday and she had a humanist funeral. He said it was lovely even without the hymns etc. The fella that was leading the service asked people to close their eyes and say whatever prayers come into their head?????? I don't really understand what humanists believe or who they believe in if anything, or whether they believe in nature and stuff..more research needed I think!

Scot is mithering to be fed...who does he think I am? His mum?

A miracluous healing!!

The lad who had the flu yesterday made a miraculous recovery overnight and was healed..no sign of a sniffle or anything today I told him I would be contacting the Sunday papers or one of those magazines that pay you loads of money for those daft true stories, the more far fectched the better hehe.

We have some really lovely customers that come into McDs, probably 50% of them are regulars and as I work the breakfast shift its dead easy to actually have conversations and get to know about them and their family, and they get to know all about me too as I love talking about me hehe actually I am forever trying to think of subtle ways to get Jesus into the conversation or talk about church its surprising how often the opportunity comes up just to plant a little seed for future use...the thought is always in my head when I'm chatting to someone to invite them to church one of these days I will be brave enough to just flipping tell em all to come and if they don't well I'll just ban em hehehe just kidding!!!

One of the muslim fellas at work asked me what the area between heaven and hell was today, I told him I thought it was called limbo, to be honest I wasn't actually sure but he said it was and Ewelina who is polish and a catholic also said it was. I said that I didn't believe that there was any place between heaven and hell its either one place or the other. Ewelina disagreed. one of the other girls said she didn't believe in anything at all so I just said wouldn't you like to have some hope?? How can you be happy with the thought that there is nothing? By this time everyone on the shift had joined in the conversation and I was thinking nice one but then Ahmed said that the Koran says that you spend some time in hell or limbo (not sure which he said) to be punished for your sins and then go to paradise, he said that muslims don't believe that anyone will spend eternity in hell. I never knew that. I said that me as a christian and with the knowledge that I have didn't believe this as the Bible teaches that you make a choice, you either accept Jesus and go to heaven or you reject him and then its endless punishment in hell which didn't go down very well with any of the staff. Ahmed said that there is no way that a loving God would do that to people. I just said that I can only tell him and anyone else what I believe to be the truth and that God loves us enough to give us a choice...everyone has a choice. I never had any problem accepting that, to me its black or white, you either follow Jesus or you don't, there are no inbetweens. What I said didn't go down too well and I began to feel out of my depth so just said 'come on there is work to be done' what a coward eh?
Thank you Lord for the opportunities I have every day to witness for you, Lord I pray for the right words to be in my mouth. Amen.

Work today was ok in spite of it starting off quite badly...received a text off one of the staff members last night to say he wouldn't be in as he had been swimming and caught the flu!!! have you ever heard such rubbish? Its amazing how people suddenly end up with the ability to diagnose themselves innit...I wonder why doctors spend so much time studying when they could just chat to a few hypocondriacs for symptoms, think how much money the NHS could save! anyway enough wittering...Listened to my new CD on my ipod this morning while getting set up for the day at work, its ace and reminds me of Hollybush as there are 4 songs on it that we only ever sing at Hollybush yayayayay come on July.

Sharon at work who we call the "Tinker" cos she is Irish told me about her Easter... she went to mass and said the the priest had told the whole congregation that they are all going to heaven... I just smiled and said thats nice and asked her was she ready for heaven and she said she didn't want to go yet... I said that I couldn't wait to meet Jesus and it was going to be very exciting to which she looked at me like I was weird but I can cope with that. Stacey my boss then told me that she isn't religious at all and doesn't really think much about Jesus but says to her little sister who is 9 that 'Jesus is watching' every time she does something wrong.. its amazing how much Jesus drops into the conversation at work with no effort.

sniff..sniff I can smell something burning better go as my meatballs might be on fire haha

I meant to post about this on Friday and forgot so here goes... I work at McDs which as most people know employs lots of young people. There is this one girl who I will call Lisa who is 16 and has a bad 'tude' as its called at work. A few weeks ago she didn't turn in for one of my shifts and then didn't turn in for the next shift, so I left a message on her answer machine at home and said that she had better call me in the next few hours or she would have no job as she was still on her probationary period. Anyway an hour later I am serving on till as we were short staffed and in she comes with a large rough looking woman and I thought 'here we go I'm gonna get knocked out lol anyway Lisa asks to talk to me and I have to tell her that I can't as I am busy serving the customers that she should be serving, the big woman is just hanging around giving me the evil eye..I was just waiting for a belt off either one of them. Anyway she left the store and I found out that on the next shift she worked she was threating to knock me out and so was her dad so she had received a final written warning..its mad innit. I have struggled since then to actually be civil when she is working on my shifts, I have to be because Im the manager and need to be professional but its hard grrrr.. anyway on Friday she was working on booth 1 on the drive thru and one of the other staff came and told me that she is sobbing and in a mess..I go to her and tell her to get a drink and go and sit in the office and wait for me. The problem I have is that I just don't like the girl, so how am I supposed to be compassionate to someone I just don't like, my head was in bits. I was praying in my head for Jesus to sort me out and give me some compassion but nothing happened. I go in the office and she is distraught so I say ' Are you alright mate' she clearly wasn't..she told me that too much is wrong in her life and nothing can be sorted but couldn't tell me what and then sits there and sobs for ages while I am just sat there trying very hard to show some love and care. I wanted to tell her that there is nothing that can't be sorted out and I wanted to tell her that maybe I could help sort things out with her but didn't because that would mean getting involved personally and its hard work, most of all I wanted to give her a hug but couldn't bring myself too....feel so bad now :o(.
Is it a cop out to say that we don't have to like people but can still love them through Christ or should I be asking Jesus to help me to like certain people as well as love them? I dunno...

Managed to get up a whole half hour early yesterday woohoooo so had time to spend reading and chatting to God. Was very challenged by the notes I use alongside my Bible, they have a respond section at the end and it had this in it 'Holy Spirit, show me where I have sought to be equipped when I need to be changed'.. it left me stunned yesterday morning as I have been praying for God to equip me each day. I do need to pray to be equipped but I also need to pray to be changed, I had never thought about that I guess I just try to change myself and not ask God to help me.

Went to Wesley Owen today with Elaine and bought a book that I already have but had let Elaine have it cos she loved it so much. Its called The shock of your life and is about 3 young people that die and what happens to each of them when they meet Jesus..its an awesome book!!! One of the characters in the book called Becky dies and is face to face with Jesus , He has a book on his lap and the angels around Jesus also have books with her name on...Jesus puts the books on the floor and sets fire to them, they burn very quickly and leave nothing but black marks and smoke. Becky looks at Jesus and sees that He is looking intently at the blackened earth as though expecting to find something. To cut a long story short Becky is welcomed into the kingdom. As an angel leads her away she asks if she can watch the next girl be judged. A young girl approaches Jesus and the same thing happens with the books etc only this time instead of the black earth there is a beautiful crown, the girl bends down and gets the crown and places it at Jesus' feet. Jesus picks it up and places it on the girls head and everywhere the angels and other people are pointing and cheering and going wild...the crown was her reward for witnessing to everyone she knew on earth...awesome stuff eh the book tells it better than me.

I will write my thoughts on this in a bit as Dr Who is nearly on promised Scot that I would watch it with him.

WORK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! GRRRRRRRRRR it does my flipping head in sometimes...:o) won't waffle too much about it but every now and again my job sends me over the edge, I was teetering on the brink of a breakdown today and nearly resigned lol....its a good job I can keep control of my mouth or I would be signing on in the morning.

Had a staff opinion meeting at work this afternoon and I was allowed to give my twopennyworth for a while but got asked to leave as it got to the interesting part where they talk about the managers individually...I am dying to know what they said about me...they better have been nice cos I have my spies hehe just kidding.

Spoke to my boss after the meeting and told her that some lovely things were said about her, I didn't say that to her to creep I just think that people need to be encouraged and its better to tell her about the positive stuff as there are plenty of people there that love dishing the dirt...she asked what comments I had made and I was completely honest and she said said she wouldn't expect anything less from a Sally army girl lol...mad innit but it just makes me realise the responsibility I have as a Christian and as a member of the Salvation Army to keep Jesus at the front of all I do at work and to keep (or try to keep) my eyes fixed on him all the time...As I have posted in an earlier post I don't ever want to be a hindrance to anyone elses salvation!

(just realised that I have waffled about work :o)
7 DAYS TILL ROOTS!!!!!!!!!! YAHOOOOOOO

Had another good day at work again today thank you Jesus for that! I really am going to try to get up at least 10 minutes earlier than I do so I have time to chat to God before I set off for work. Ian who is one of our special needs employees came into work in a bit of a state today as someone had jumped out of the bushes on Victoria Park and threatened him with a knife on his way into work... made sure he had phone the police and gave him a drink and told him to wait in the staff room....probably should have been a bit more compassionate but since I was the only manager in and trying to do my own job and the job of about 4 other clampits it was a bit difficult. Anyway the police came and interviewed Ian but said there wasn't anything they could do as it was perfectly legal for someone to have in their posession a blade as long as it wasn't over 3" long...have you ever heard such claptrap????? Had a very productive day anyway and managed to make a load of phone calls and get workmen in fixing leaks, hammering stuff back where it belongs and persuading them to condemn things so we can have new haha..Gerri the recruitment officer came in and I was chatting to her and she said that I was the most unlikely person to be a christian...apparently someone at another McDs that she goes into is a really good Christian, I am puzzled and not sure if its because I am a bit rowdy and loud or maybe its something else, I dunno but it has got me thinking. I don't want to ever put anyone off Jesus by the things I say and the way I behave at work so Jesus I ask you to forgive me if I am guilty. The thing is that when I try to be a quiet well behaved person people ask me whats wrong...can't win eh.

Need to go and have summat to eat now before my body goes into panic mode and rifles the cupboards for anything it can find!!!

Work was excellent today which might be due to the fact that we did have really experienced staff on with the exception of a couple of half wits haha...we ran labour at 9% which is probably slave labour really but nobody was stressed although the place did look like a bomb had just gone off! I managed to stay clear of all negativity and idle chat today thanks to Jesus..walked to work on my own this morning listening to my ipod and chatting to Jesus about the day ahead....I do this every morning but I am easily defeated and don't rely on Jesus enough not to get bogged down with all the crap of wor...today I just pushed any bad stuff away and worshipped while I worked if thats the right thing to say. I had a few opportunities to share about my weekend with my boss, just said that I had been to church a lot and had a great time..felt like I should and could of said more.

Credo!!!

Went to Credo last night which is a divisional event held every 2 months at Sale. I was riled from start to finish... It felt like the entire service was hosted like a game show with us being told when to sit down, what to say, when to clap etc we were even told to give ourselves a clap after singing the 1st song....not a chance. Credo is meant to be for Jesus as is everything we do so I clapped but it was for Jesus and Elaine made it known (to anyone within earshot of us anyway lol) that she was clapping for Jesus!!!

Halfway through the service the officer from Sale interviewed Gary Bishop who runs the eden project in Openshaw. I had loads of thoughts about what was said in the interview.. a few of them not good thoughts so I'll keep them to myself. He talked about how he was bought up a rich kid down south and that God had called him to the Eden project and to live on a council estate among the needy families...I agree that you have to do what God tells you but I would just like to add that this doesn't make Gary Bishop some kind of superhero that has flown into a deprived area to sort out, thats the impression I always seem to get from stuff thats written..even the officer from Sale said that he felt awed to be interviewing Gary (might not have used those words but summat like that). My own church is in what you would probably call a needy area, needy because there are tonnes of people around that need Jesus in their lives...I work in a McDonald's that has had the most armed robberies in the country..We have had armed robbers attack the store armed with machetes at 4:30pm last December while the store was full of school kids and parents...I have seen the post office over the road attacked in broad daylight numberous times..a young man murdered by a gang of youths last Easter..my friends brother battered and shot and murdered in my street..a young girl overdose on drugs in McDonald's toilet...a polish friend from work battered and robbed on his way home from work....I haven't said all that to show off that I live in a bad area but more to say that the devil is at work and to show just how much the people in my area need Jesus in their lives...it would be great if we had a team of people that could come in and work some 'magic' but it doesn't work like that...what we need is local people that Jesus has worked miracles in, that know the area and know the people to show them how fantastic life is with Jesus...we need commited people who love Jesus more than anything and are full of grace to lead that church and teach them....we need people that will love people into their church regardless of their past...whether they are addicts, homeless, jobless, gay, different religions whatever...we need people who are on fire for Jesus and are willing to put themselves last, be a fool for Christ and do whatever else is needed to witness for him... I guess I am telling myself this because I don't always do that. Funny thing is I know a place where this is happening, I know a place where Jesus has transformed lives of people with drug addictions, a place where Jesus has healed people of cancer, and that place is my church SWINTON OUTREACH CENTRE. I won't say anymore cos I have waffled enough for now.

He is risen!!!!!

Was up at the crack of dawn as usual this morning to walk Scot to work, he was hoping that he might be given a day off since it was easter, I told him in his dreams lol. At 7am we had a service on the town hall steps with Churches together which is always really great..played my guitar really badly..more practise is needed so I can play some of those fiddly chords.

Church this morning was just ace. I met Jane on the way into church, Jane is one of the customers that comes into McDs and who has been to carol services in the past, she came to church for a few weeks after christmas and then just stopped. She comes into work nearly every day for breakfast and I have every opportunity to mither her for Jesus but I haven't been doing. I don't know how I got round to thinking that I shouldn't have to keep mithering because she has been there when Ian has preached the word and it was up to her to decide whether to come or not...anyway today I decided that I was wrong about that and how dare I think that I shouldn't keep on mithering people..some people need to be mithered!!! Jesus mithered me for years, who am I to think its not up to me? Anyway this morning it was packed at church, there were 12 kids and about 45 adults which is just fantastic. Everything was to celebrate Jesus this morning, to celebrate the fact that He died and rose again just for me! that he sacrificed his life just for me! Its ace to be able to sit at the front and watch people worshipping Jesus. Watching Trevor laughing in his wheelchair is lovely. Watching Christine dancing with the flags is lovely. Watching the kids messing at the back is lovely...how much more lovely must it be for Jesus to know that its all for Him...Lord I pray that all that we are doing at Swinton is for you and you alone, I pray that you are at the centre of all our singing, all our prayers, all the outreach stuff that we do. may it be for your glory Lord. Amen. I can't explain how good it was this morning, its always good at our church but this morning really was awesome!!!! JESUS WAS IN DA HOUSE BIG TIME!!

(I tend to waffle sometimes when I'm writing/typing wateva so some of the above will be kind of random...apologies but thats just me)

My Jesus, My Saviour

Been having some thoughts this week about how real Jesus is to me. Last Sunday Ian gave us something to read through the week to lead up to Easter, as usual I read the lot in one go lol. As I said it got me thinking about how real He is to me, it also set a few doubts going round in my head which annoyed me a lot... I prayed all morning at work on Wednesday for Jesus to reveal Himself to me, I'm not sure if that seems weird but I did. After that I thought back to how I actually ended up going to church the 1st time and then what happened in the weeks up to me giving my life to Christ and then thought about all thats happened since..I know with all my heart that Jesus is Alive and He is my Saviour, If I was the only person in the world then Jesus would still have sacrificed His life to save me!!! its flipping amazing and makes my heart flip. I have a massive responsibility to be a shining light for Jesus at work most of the time I do a pretty bad job at it, each morning I wake up and pray for Jesus to guard my mouth, my mind, my ears..everything..unfortunately by the time its opening time at work I have let Him down so much that its hard to get back on track the rest of the day..anyway I said all that just so that I could say that I'm asking God to empower me every day and I'm not going to give up...so sling it hairy legs!!!!!!!! If anyone does get to read this then I'll probably come across as a nutter but hey who cares.

Manchester Passion

Finally managed to wrestle the computer off Scot for a bit and start this blog...been thinking about it for ages but not actually sure what I'm going to write. I'll start with Good Friday...had a really moving meditation at church in the morning..Christine lost the meditation sheets so we were hunting round for them in a panic. Couldn't find them anywhere (I reckon hairy legs hid them) so had to print them off again with minutes to spare. After the service at church it was down to the precinct with Churches Together for an open air service...about 120 turned up to give the shoppers a glimpse of the real meaning of Good Friday....quite a few shoppers stopped to listen and a few took the service sheets...I pray that peoples hearts were touched by Jesus.
In the evening I went to Manchester with Elaine and Monica to watch the 'Manchester Passion'
town was absolutely jam packed..after a lot of walking up and down Deansgate and Cross Street and lots of bickering and getting riled (that was just me haha) we settled in Albert Square..couldn't hear much of the talking but heard all the songs..it was so good, I love all the 'Madchester music'...the best bit tho was when Darren Morfitt who portrayed Jesus (see photo) suddenly appeared at the clock tower right at the top of Manchester Town Hall singing 'I am the resurrection' by the stone roses...everyone just cheered for ages, it was like it really was Jesus. If he had come back at that moment, I would have been ready for him!!!!